According to Saney's view there was no criminal in the country, and very few of those who were worth while in the criminal world of the United States, who, at some time in their careers, had not passed through one of its many concealed exits. It might, in consequence, be supposed that Mallard's was a more than usually happy hunting-ground for the investigator of crime. But here again Saney must be quoted. Mallard's, he said, was a life study, and, even so, three score and ten years was no more than sufficient for a very elementary apprenticeship. Further, he considered that Mallard's was the cemetery of all reputations in criminal investigation.
Outwardly Mallard's was no different from the other houses which surrounded it. It was part of a block of buildings which had grown up and developed in the course of a century or more. Its floors were several, and its windows were set one over the other without any pretence other than sheer utility. Its main doorway always stood open, and gave on to a passage, narrow and dark, and usually deserted. The passage ran directly into the heart of the building where rose a short staircase exactly filling the breadth of the passage. At the top of the eight treads of this staircase was a landing of similar width, out of which turned two corridors at right angles. Beyond these the landing terminated in a downward stairway, exactly similar to the one by which it was approached. Beyond this, all description of this celebrated haunt of crime would be impossible, for the rest was a labyrinth of apparently useless passages and stairways, ascending and descending, the following of which was only to invite complete and utter confusion of mind. The legend ran that the cellars, many floors deep, undermined half a dozen adjacent streets, and, in the block in which the place stood, no one had ever been found who could say where the house began and where it ended.
As a refuge for its benighted guests there was always a bed, of sorts, a meal and drink—at a price. If the visitor were legitimate in his claims on its hospitality he would fare no worse than a lightened purse at the time of his departure. If he were other than he pretended then it would have been better for him to have shunned the darkened passage as he would a plague spot.
The owner of the place was never seen by the guests. It was administered, as far as could be judged, by a number of men who only intruded upon their clients when definite necessity arose. Then the intrusion was something cyclonic. On these occasions the police were never called in, and the nature of the disturbance, and the result of it, was never permitted to reach the outside. Mallard's was capable of hiding up anything. Its own crimes as well as the crimes of others.
On one of the many floors was a large sort of office and lounging-room. It had been extended, as necessity demanded, by the simple process of taking down partition walls. It was low-ceiled and dingy. Its walls were mostly panelled with dull, shabby graining over many coats of paint. The floor was bare and unscrubbed, and littered with frowsy-looking wooden cuspidors filled with cinders. There were many small tables scattered about, and the rest of the space seemed to be filled up with Windsor chairs, which jostled one another to an extent that made passage a matter of patient effort. At one end of the room was a long counter with an iron grid protecting those behind it. And, in this region there were several telephone boxes with unusually heavy and sound-proof doors.
For the rest it was peopled by the hard-faced, powerful-looking clerks behind the iron grid of the counter, and a gathering of men sitting about at the small tables, or lounging with their feet on the anthracite stove which stood out in the centre of the great apartment.
It was a mixed enough gathering. There were well-dressed men, and men who were obviously of the sea. There were the flashily dressed crooks, whose work was the haunt of sidewalk, and trains, and the surface cars. There were out and out toughs, careless of all appearance, and with their evil hall-marked on harsh faces and in their watchful eyes. Then there were others whom no one but the police of the city could have placed. There were Chinamen and Lascars. There were square-headed Germans, and the Dagos from Italy and other Latin countries. There were niggers, too, which was a tribute to the generosity of Mallard's hospitality.
Those at the tables were mostly drinking and gambling. Poker seemed to be the favoured pastime, but "shooting craps" was not without its devotees. There were one or two groups in close confabulation over their drinks. While round the stove was a scattering of loungers.
A dark good-looking man, with an ample brown beard, was amongst the latter. He was reclining with little more than his back resting on the seat of an armed Windsor chair. His feet, well shod, were thrust up on the stove in approved fashion. He was smoking a cheap cigar which retained its highly coloured band, and contemplating the brazen pages of an early edition of a leading evening paper.
A man beside him, an Englishman, to judge by the make of his clothes and his manner of speech, had a news sheet lying in his lap. But he was not reading. His fair face and blue eyes were turned with unfailing interest on the dull sides of the glowing stove. Occasionally he spoke to his bearded neighbour, who also seemed to be something of a companion.