VI
Outside the Moonshine Ralston found the usual congestion of cabs, landaus, and wagons. He had delayed to exchange a few reminiscences with old Vincent, and it was fully ten minutes before he could find his cabby in the tangle of vehicles. As he stepped into the street, to save the time requisite for the man to draw to the curb, an omnibus was vainly trying to force its way through the side street. It had paused for an instant in front of the stage entrance, and Ralston had caught a glimpse of Ellen's face inside.
A momentary impulse had seized him to stop the coach and tell her of the hopelessness of the task upon which she had sent him, but in the instant of his uncertainty the way had cleared and they had driven on. He had climbed into his own hansom, little the wiser for his experience at the Moonshine.
The sidewalks were jammed with the usual after-theater crowd hurrying either to get home as quickly as possible or to secure seats in restaurants which pandered less to the taste of the gourmet than to those of the roué. For a solid mile on either side of Broadway stretched house after house of entertainment, any one of which could harbor a hundred Steadmans, and for a quarter of a mile on either hand lay twenty streets, lined with places of a character vastly more likely to do so. He followed the crowd slowly northward, wondering why so few of them walked in the opposite direction. Whenever he came to a well-known hostelry he went in and eagerly scanned the tables, but, although he recognized many he knew and who knew him, he found naught of Steadman.
Having visited five "chophouses," a "rathskeller," two "hofbraus," and several more pretentious places, he abandoned the idea of trying to stumble upon his man, and returned to his original belief that only by following some sort of a clew could he succeed. Somewhere in the hot clasp of the city lay the miserable youth he had promised to find. For a moment he regretted the answer which he had just sent to Ellen's apartment—the four words that had pledged him to a fool's errand, the absurdity of which was now apparent. Then came a realizing sense of the importance to Ellen of his mission, and a grim determination to find this man wherever he might be.
He had now reached Forty-second Street, and the crowd divided into two streams, one moving eastward and the other northward, a part of the latter to plunge beneath the Times Building into the subway, and the remainder to add to the already existing congestion in front of the Hotel Astor, Rector's, Shanley's, and the New York Theater. Longacre Square boiled with life—a life garish, tawdry, sensual and vulgar, unlike that of any other city or generation.
The restaurants could seat no more, and a bejeweled, scented throng stood in the doorways and struggled for the vacant tables. The night hawks lining the curb peered eagerly at every passer-by to note signs of intoxication or indecision. Tiny newsboys thrust their bundles of papers against dress waistcoats and felt for loose watches, ready to dart into the throng at the first move of suspicion on the part of their victims. Clerks with their best girls pointed out these and made witticisms upon them, hoping thus to divert attention from the attractions of the restaurants, for whose splendors they intended later to substitute the more substantial, if more economical, pleasures of the dairy lunch. Automobiles, in which sat supercilious foreign chauffeurs, blocked the entrances of the pleasure palaces. Streams of country folk poured in and out of hotels which made a specialty of rural trade, promising to their patrons, in widely distributed circulars, easy access to everything "worth seeing." These came, were relieved of their money, and, after fervid correspondence on the hotel stationery, went home to poison the minds of their townfolk with descriptions of scenes which existed only in their imaginations.
For every person on Longacre Square after midnight who is there for an honest purpose, there are three who are there either to do that which they should not do or to see that which they should not see. It is the white light in which the New York moth plays before he plunges into the withering flame. It was here Steadman had begun, and like enough he was not far off.
The electric clock above the roof tops moved to a quarter before one as Ralston turned into Forty-sixth Street, and he looked both ways before springing from his hansom and dashing up the steps of the number to which he had been directed. After some time a mulatto maid opened the door and asked his business. Miss Davenport was out, she said. Ralston stretched the truth far enough to say that he was a friend. The girl had no idea where she could be found. Then Ralston also volunteered that he was a friend of Mr. Steadman's. Still the maid remained imperturbable. The sight of a bill, however, led to an immediate change of demeanor.