When on the train I explained to Huerta my mishap he at first changed his demeanor, frowned and fidgeted and nettled me by his half suppressed acerbity. I think then I might have been saved, had his suspicious temper prolonged itself. But it was gone almost instantly, and his customary deceptive solicitude and optimistic confidence replaced it and my doubts vanished. It was also supposed by me that Angelica and Diaz would remain some time longer in San Francisco, and when I encountered them in east Fifty-eighth Street I was stupefied, though of course, by that time, I had no reason to feel any surprise over any development in my relations with these monsters.
In New York Huerta conducted me to an eastside boarding house. It is incredible how I permitted myself to follow him. Even while suspicion and distrust began to assail me I accompanied him into a common sort of house, apparently the resort of men only, and rather hard looking characters at that, and yet with these pregnant signs of coming mischief, I kept alongside of this inhuman brute, sat with him in a duskily lighted room at a shabby table, served by some slatternly woman waiters, under surroundings hopelessly sordid and dull. I was not myself, Mr. Link; the stamina of resistance was extirpated in me, and I was led like a child. The denouement followed quickly.
That very night or evening I went to my room or what I supposed was my room, only to discover it was a small bathroom, provided with a sleeping cot. I had preceded Huerta, who pointed to the door. As I opened it my surprise caused me to retreat, but Huerta pushed me in, and instantly he was joined by two other men from a room near at hand, and the door was locked. Of course, as by a flash of light, an unexpected danger was revealed. I saw that I was trapped.
There happened to be one chair in the place. Huerta, whose whole demeanor now altered, motioned toward it with a scowl and the other men stepped forward. Each of them carried a short leaden pipe. Mr. Link, I am not a timid man—what I have gone through shows that—but I was intimidated then. I glanced around me; there was not a window in the room; it was lighted by a smoking gas jet.
“Well,” I said, collecting my thoughts to meet the situation, “I guess you have me. What is it? What do you want?”
Huerta’s agreeable style was resumed. “Why just this, Mr. Erickson. You have got a sort of knowledge which is rather valuable, and we want to make an agreement with you; you might call it a sort of combine. You have got hold of some very interesting information. Let’s pool it and work it for our common benefit.”
“What information,” I asked and leaped to my feet, infuriated at the smiling, insulting visage that he wore as an answer to my question.
“Oh! Calm yourself. These gentlemen and myself are not icebergs, but perhaps we can hit as hard. The thing is simple enough. Sign this paper.”
He held out a folded sheet which I at once recognized as having been torn from a writing pad in the Pullman in which we had come to New York. It was an order on the safe deposit company in San Francisco to forward to him, Carlos Huerta, my pack, the satchel of gold and radium. Then followed his address, which was—east Fifty-eighth Street, the very house in which you found me, Mr. Link.
I threw the paper in his face. It was maladroit. His temper—and he had the passion of a fiend—broke loose and he struck me. I jumped at him, and hurled the chair straight at his head, but it was intercepted, and, in a trice, the three rushed at me and held me, kicking, squirming, and shouting, on the narrow bed. No help came; I was bound and was knocked almost senseless.