INSIDE THE DOVE-COTE.
"Here we are!" cried Kennedy.
The sudden flood of light dazzled Shagarach's eyes. Glittering chandeliers threw prismatic reflections upon the twenty or thirty occupants of the room, many of them in full evening dress, like his escort, and several adding the sparkle of diamonds to the iridescence of mirrors and cut glass around them. Across one corner stretched an arc-shaped bar, from which two colored waiters served liquors to the patrons, while others at intervals disappeared behind curtains and reappeared balancing platters of light delicious viands for the men who chatted at the tables. These were octagon-topped and covered with plush. The carpeted floor yielded like turf to the feet. The conversation ran low. The servants whispered their requests and answers. It was an atmosphere of stealth and suppression.
The getting there had been a story in two brief chapters. This palace of fortune owed its name to its location on the uppermost floor of one of those tall, slender structures, like dominoes set on end, which illustrate the reaching upward for space in our cities when horizontal expansion becomes no longer possible. It fronted on a blind passageway in the heart of the hotel district. Its proprietor was a jovial man-about-town, rather prone than averse to the society of police captains. On the ground floor a commercial agency conducted its business quietly. Tailors rented the second and third flights, but the fourth story was always unoccupied and never advertised for hire. Applicants covetous of its advantages were frightened away by the rental asked. It was at the head of the stairs leading from this landing up that Kennedy had pressed the three white bell buttons in the massive door.
The door immediately swung open, and the pair found themselves in front of a second door, similar to the first except that the opaque panels were replaced by glass. Through these the stairs could be seen beyond. Kennedy repeated his signal, this time, however, reversing the order and beginning with the lowest knob. A slide opened at the head of the stairs, and the two men were the object of scrutiny for awhile. Shagarach's sponsor was evidently persona grata to the sentinel, for the second door now swung in and they were free to mount the stairs.
"Sure it's true-blue, Kennedy?" said the sentinel, when they passed him.
"Sure," answered the manikin, but his smirk was forced. "Wine, Sambo."
Kennedy began breaking the ice in this manner for his companion.
"Not a life-long votary of the fickle goddess, I should judge," remarked a man introduced as Mr. Faught.
"This is my initiation into her mysterious rites," answered Shagarach, sweeping the room for Harry Arnold.