He called a second number, which he got instantly, and he spoke in his natural voice, though his words to any other ears save those at the end of the wire, might have been enigmatic:—
“I wish to report a full crop,” he said. “Immediate delivery is requested.”
With that he hung up and stepped out of the closet, wiping away the moisture begotten by the stifling air of the cubicle. The full-bodied little man, that Fifth Avenue and Broadway knew best as an amiable, unflurried smile, was now set and grim of face, excited with suspense and calculations. All had thus far gone well with his plan. Immediately before him was the next vital development, swiftly approaching its culmination. If all went there, too, as planned—why, he would be safe—no man could touch him—and once emerged from the desperate methods into which his present danger had forced him, he would be more careful in the future.
Resuming his amiable smile, Peter Loveman rejoined his companions in the dining-room.
CHAPTER XXIX
CLIFFORD WAITS ON GUARD
For a minute or more, after he had seen Loveman go up the high stoop of Le Bain’s dark-windowed house, Clifford had stood with Uncle George in the shadow across the deserted street and had thought rapidly. He knew the character of that silent, respectable-fronted residence; he had heard rumors, vague, to be sure, of certain happenings that had taken place within; and he had heard rumors—again only rumors—of happenings in which unwitnessed and unrestrained pleasure was not the dominant purpose of the organizer of the party. He was certain that some vital phase of Loveman’s shrewd scheming was being, or was to be, enacted within: Le Bain’s reticent and expensive house was not taken for ordinary pleasures or commonplace enterprises.
He had to get inside, somehow; he had to know what was happening there. Without making the test, he knew Le Bain would have upon those two front doors, stoop and basement, locks of a character that it would be wasted time to try to pick or force quietly. Of course he might get police aid, and, ignoring such a mere detail as law, might break down a door—but that would give the alarm to whoever might be within and would spoil everything. And then he might ring the bell, and before the person who answered could slam the door upon him, he could drive his way through—but this again would give alarm and would ruin everything. The very essence of the plan forming in his mind was to try to keep himself in the unseen background, to discover just what Loveman and his associates had under way, to let them carry their plan through to its completion, and then, when he had the goods on them, to act swiftly. That is, if he could. There was no other way.
With Uncle George he reëntered the waiting taxi-cab and hurried toward Le Minuit. On Broadway he met two of Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly’s plain-clothes men who were willingly impressed into his service.
At the blazing entrance to Le Minuit Uncle George halted. “I guess I’ll not go up with you, son,” he said. “I’ll do more good if I don’t openly mess in police affairs. But I’ll hang about.”
Clifford nodded. With the two plain-clothes men he mounted the wide bright stairway that led to the Midnight Café.