The Brass Bowl by Louis Joseph Vance

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But it was all inexplicable. Eventually Maitland shook his head, to
signify that he gave it up. There was but one thing to do,--to put it out
of mind. He would read a bit, compose himself, go to bed.

Preliminary to doing so, he would take steps to insure the flat against
further burglarizing, for that night, at least. The draught moving through
the hall stirred the portière and reminded him that the window in the
trunk-room was still open, an invitation to any enterprising sneak-thief
or second-story man. So Maitland went to close and make it fast.

As he shut down the window-sash and clamped the catch he trod on something
soft and yielding. Wondering, he stooped and picked it up, and carried it
back to the light. It proved to be the girl's hand-bag.

"Now," admitted Maitland in a tone of absolute candor, "I am damned. How
the dickens did this thing get there, anyway? What was she doing in my
trunk-closet?"

Was it possible that she had followed Anisty out of the flat by that
route? A very much mystified young man sat himself down again in front of
his desk, and turned the bag over and over in his hands, keenly
scrutinizing every inch of it, and whistling softly.

That year the fashion in purses was for capacious receptacles of grained
leather, nearly square in shape, and furnished with a chain handle. This
which Maitland held was conspicuously of the mode,--neither too large,
nor too small, constructed of fine soft leather of a gun-metal shade, with
a framework and chain of gun-metal itself. It was new and seemed
well-filled, weighing a trifle heavy in the hand. One face was adorned
with a monogram of cut gun-metal, the initials "S" and "G" and "L"
interlaced. But beyond this the bag was irritatingly non-committal.

Undoubtedly, if one were to go to the length of unsnapping the little,
frail clasp, one would acquire information; by such facile means would
much light be shed upon the darkness. But Maitland put a decided negative
to the suggestion.

No. He would give her the benefit of the doubt. He would wait, he would
school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,--and
explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,--and get an
explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his
wish to pry into her secrets, even if--even if....

It was something to be smoked over.... Strange how it affected him to
have in his hands something that she had owned and touched!

Opening a drawer of the desk, Maitland produced an aged pipe. A brazen
jar, companion piece to the ash receiver, held his tobacco. He filled the
pipe from the jar, with thoughtful deliberation. And scraped a match
beneath his chair and ignited the tobacco and puffed in contemplative
contentment, deriving solace from each mouthful of grateful, evanescent
incense. Meanwhile he held the charred match between thumb and forefinger.

Becoming conscious of this fact, he smiled in deprecation of his
absent-minded mood, looked for the ash-receiver, discovered it in place,
inverted beneath the book; and frowned, remembering. Then, with an
impatient gesture,--impatient of his own infirmity of mind: for he simply
could not forget the girl,--he dropped the match, swept the book aside,
lifted the bowl....

After a moment of incredulous awe, the young man rose, with eyes a-light
and a jubilant song in the heart of him. Now he knew, now understood, now
believed, and now was justified of his faith!

After which depression came, with the consciousness that she was gone, for
ever removed beyond his reach and influence, and that by her own wilful
act. It was her intelligible wish that they should never meet again, for,
having accomplished her errand, she had flown from the possibility of his
thanks.

It was so clear, now! He perceived it all, plainly. Somehow (though it was
hard to surmise how) she had found out that Anisty had stolen the jewels;
somehow (and one wondered at what risk) she had contrived to take them
from him and bring them back to their owner. And Anisty had followed.

Poor little woman! What had she not suffered, what perils had she not
braved, to prove that there was honor even in thieves! It could have been
at no inconsiderable danger,--a danger not incommensurate with that of
robbing a tigress of her whelps,--that she had managed to filch his loot
from that pertinacious and vindictive soul, Anisty!

But she had accomplished it; and all for him!

If only he could find her, _now!_

There was a clue to his hand in that bag, of course, but by this act she
had for ever removed from him the right to investigate _that_.

If he could only find that cabby.

Perhaps if he tried at the Madison Square rank, immediately....

Besides, it was clearly his duty not to remain in the flat alone with the
jewels another night. There was but one attainable place of safety for
them; and that the safe of a reputable hotel. He would return to the
Bartholdi at once, merely pausing on his way to inquire of the cabmen if
they could send their brother-nighthawk to him.

Maitland shook himself into his topcoat, jammed hat upon head, dropped the
jewels into one pocket, the cigarette case into another, and--on
impulse--Anisty's revolver, with its two unexploded cartridges, into a
third; and pressed the call button for O'Hagan, not waiting, however, for
that worthy to climb the stairs, but meeting him in the entry hall.

"I'm going back to the Bartholdi, O'Hagan, for the night. You may bring me
my letters and any messages in the morning. I should like you to sleep in
the flat to-night and answer any telephone calls."

"Yiss, Misther Maitland, sor."

"Have the police gone, O'Hagan?"

"There's a whole bottle full yet, sor."

"You've not been drinking, I trust?"

The Irishman shuffled. "Shure, sor, an' wud that be hosphitible?"

Laughing, Maitland bade him good night and left the house, turning west to
gain Fifth Avenue, walking slowly because he was a little tired, and
enjoying the rather unusual experience of being abroad at that hour
without company. The sky seemed cleaner than ordinarily, the city quieter
than ever he had known it, and in the air was a sweet smell, reminiscent
of the country-side ... reminding one unhappily of the previous night when
one had gone whistling to one's destiny along a perfumed country road....

"Good 'eavings, Mister Maitland, sir! It carn't be you!"

Maitland looked up, bewildered for the instant. The voice that hailed him
out of the sky was not unfamiliar....

A cab that he had waited on the corner to let pass, was reined back
suddenly. The driver leaned down from the box and in a thunderstruck tone
advertised his stupefaction.

"It aren't in nature, sir--if yer'll pardon my mentionin' it. But 'ere I
leaves you not ten minutes ago at the St. Luke Building and finds yer
'ere, when you 'aven't 'ad time--"

Maitland woke up. "What's that?" he questioned sharply. "You left me where
ten minutes--?"

"St. Luke Buildin', corner Broadway an'--."

"I know it," excited, "but--"

"--'avin' took yer there with the young lady--"

"Young lady!"

"--that comes outer the 'ouse with yer, sir--"

"The devil!" Maitland hesitated no longer: his foot was on the step as he
spoke. "Drive me there at once, and drive for all you're worth!" he cried.
"If there's an ounce of speed in that plug of yours and you don't get it
out--"

"Never fear, sir! We'll make it in five minutes!"

"It'll be worth your while."

"Right-O!"

Maitland dropped into his seat, dumbfounded. "Good Lord!" he whispered;
and then savagely: "In the power of that infamous scoundrel------!" And
felt of the revolver in his pocket.

The cab had been headed north; the St. Luke rears its massive bulk south
of Twenty-third Street. The driver expertly swung his vehicle almost on
dead center. Simultaneously it careened with the impact of a heavy bulk
landing upon the step and falling in a heap on the deck.

"My worrd, what's that?" came from aloft. Maitland was altogether too
startled to speak.

The heap sat up, resolving itself into the semblance of a man; who spoke
in decisive tones:

"If yeh're goin' there, I'm goin' with yeh, 'r yeh don't go--see?"

"The sleuth!" gasped Maitland, astounded.

"Ah, cut that, can't yeh?" Hickey got on all fours, found his cigar, stuck
it in his mouth, and fell into place at Maitland's side.

"Hickey, I mean. But how--"

"If yeh're Maitland, 'nd Anisty's at the St. Luke Buildin', tell that fool
up there to drive!"

Maitland had no need to lift the trap; the cabby had already done that.

"All right," the young man called. "It's Detective Hickey. Drive on!"

The lash leaped out over the roof--_cr-rack!_--and the horse, presumably
convinced that no speed other than a dead-run would ever again be demanded
of it, tore frantically down the Avenue, the hansom rocking like a
topsail-schooner in a heavy gale.

Maitland and the detective were battered against the side and back of the
vehicle and slammed against one another with painful regularity. Under
such circumstances speech was difficult; yet they managed to exchange a
few sentences.

"Yeh gottuh gun?"

"Anisty's--two good cartridges."

"Jus' as well I'm along, I guess."

And again: "How'd yeh s'pose Anisty got this cab?"

"I don't know--must've been in the house--I told cabby to wait--Anisty
seems to have walked out right on your heels."

"Hell!" And a moment later: "What's this about a woman in the case?"

Maitland took swift thought on her behalf.

"Too long to go into now," he parried the query. "You help me catch this
scoundrel Anisty and I'll put in a good word for you with the deputy
commissioner."

"Ah, yeh help _me_ nab him," grunted the detective, "'nd I won't need
no good word with nobody."

The hansom swung into Broadway, going like a whirlwind; and picked up an
uniformed officer in front of the Flatiron Building, who, shouting and
using his locust stridently, sprinted after them. A block further down
another fell into line; and he it was who panted at the step an instant
after the cab had lurched to a stop before the entrance to the St. Luke
Building.

Hickey had rolled out before the policeman had a chance to bluster.

"'Lo, Bergen," he greeted the man. "Yeh know me--I'm Hickey, Central
Office. Yeh're jus' in time. Anisty's in this buildin'--'r was ten minutes
ago. We want all the help we c'n get."

By way of reply the officer stooped and drummed a loud alarm on the
sidewalk with his night-stick.

"Say," he panted, rising, "you're a wonder, Hickey--if you get him."

"Uh-huh," grunted the detective with a sidelong glance at Maitland. "C'm
'long."

The lobby of the building was quite deserted as they entered, the
night-watchman invisible, the night elevator on its way to the roof--as
was discovered by consultation of the indicator dial above the gate.
Hickey punched the night call bell savagely.

"Me 'nd him," he said, jerking the free thumb at Maitland, "'ll go up
and hunt him out. Begin at th' top floor an' work down. That's th' way,
huh? 'Nd," to the policeman, "yeh stay here an' hold up anybody 't tries
tuh leave th' buildin'. There ain't no other entrance, I s'pose, what?"

"Basement door an' ash lift's round th' corner," responded the officer.
"But that had ought tuh be locked, night."

"Well, 'f anybody else comes along yeh put him there, anyway, for luck....
What 'n hell's th' matter with this elevator?"

The detective settled a pudgy index-finger on the push button and elicited
a far, thin, shrill peal from the annunciator above. But the indicator
arrow remained as motionless as the car at the top of the shaft. Another
summons gained no response, in likewise, and a third was also disregarded.

Hickey stepped back, face black as a storm-cloud, summed up his opinion of
the management of the building in one soul-blistering phrase, produced his
bandana and used it vigorously, uttered a libel on the ancestry of the
night-watchman and the likes of him, and turned to give profane welcome to
the policeman who had noticed the cab at Twenty-third Street and who now
panted in, blown and perspiring.

Much to his disgust he found himself assigned to stand guard over the
basement exits, and waddled forth again into the street.

Meanwhile the first officer to arrive upon the scene was taking his turn
at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of
his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged
defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard
of belated wayfarers,--messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers,
and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable
grooves,--who were drifting in at the entrance to line the lobby walls
with blank, curious faces. Forerunners of that mysterious rabble which is
apparently precipitated out of the very air by any extraordinary happening
in city streets, if allowed to remain they would in five minutes have
waxed in numbers to the proportions of an unmanageable mob; and the
policeman, knowing this, set about dispersing them with perhaps greater
discretion than consideration. They wavered and fell back, grumbling
discontentedly; and Maitland, his anxiety temporarily distracted by the
noise they made, looked round to find his erstwhile cabby at his elbow. Of
whom the sight was inspiration. Ever thoughtful, never unmindful of her
whose influence held him in this coil, he laid an arresting hand on the
man's sleeve.

"You've got your cab--?"

"Yessir, right houtside."

"Drive round the corner, away from the crowd, and wait for me. If she--the
young lady--comes without me, drive her anywhere she tells you and come to
my rooms to-morrow morning for your pay."

"Thankee, sir."

Maitland turned back, to find the situation round the elevator shaft _in
status quo_. Nothing had happened, save that Hickey's rage and vexation
had increased mightily.

"But why don't you go up after him?"

"How 'n blazes can I?" exploded the detective. "He's got th' night car. 'F
I takes the stairs, he comes down by th' shaft, 'nd how'm I tuh trust this
here mutt?" He indicated his associate but humbler custodian of the peace
with a disgusted gesture.

"Perhaps one of the other cars will run--" Maitland suggested.

"Ah, they're all dead ones," Hickey disagreed with disdain as the young
man moved down the row of gates, trying one after another. "Yeh're only
wastin'--"

He broke off with a snort as Maitland, somewhat to his own surprise
managing to move the gate of the third shaft from the night elevator,
stepped into the darkened car and groped for the controller. Presently his
fingers encountered it, and he moved it cautiously to one side. A vicious
blue spark leaped hissing from the controller-box and the cage bounded up
a dozen feet, and was only restrained from its ambition to soar skywards
by an instantaneous release of the lever.

By discreet manipulation Maitland worked the car down to the street floor
again, and Hickey with a grunt that might be interpreted as an apology for
his incredulity, jumped in.

"Let 'er rip!" he cried exultantly. "Fan them folks out intuh th' street,
Bergen, 'nd watch ow-ut!"

Maitland was pressing the lever slowly wide of its catch, and the lighted
lobby dropped out of sight while the detective was still shouting
admonitions to the police below. Gradually gaining in momentum the car
began to shoot smoothly up into the blackness, safety chains clanking
beneath the floor. Hickey fumbled for the electric light switch but,
finding it, immediately shut the glare off again and left the car in
darkness.

"Safer," he explained, sententious. "Anisty'll shoot, 'nd they says he
shoots straight."

Floor after floor in ghostly strata slipped silently down before their
eyes. Half-way to the top, approximately, Hickey's voice rang sharply in
the volunteer operator's ear.

"Stop 'er! Hold 'er steady. T'other's comin' down."

Maitland obeyed, managing the car with greater ease and less jerkily as he
began to understand the principle of the lever. The cage paused in the
black shaft, and he looked upward.

Down the third shaft over, the other cage was dropping like a plummet, a
block of golden light walled in by black filigree-work and bisected
vertically by the black line of the guide-rail.

"Stop that there car!"

Hickey's stentorian command had no effect; the block of light continued to
fall with unabated speed.

The detective wasted no more breath. As the other car swept past, Maitland
was shocked by a report and flash beside him. Hickey was using his
revolver.

The detonation was answered by a cry, a scream of pain, from the lighted
cage. It paused on the instant, like a bird stricken a-wing, some four
floors below, but at once resumed its downward swoop.

"Down, down! After 'em!" Hickey bellowed. "I dropped one, by God! T'other
can't--"

"How many in the car?" interrupted Maitland, opening the lever with a firm
and careful hand. "Only two, same's us, I hit th' feller what was runnin'
it--"

"Steady!" cautioned Maitland, decreasing the speed, as the car approached
the lower floor.

The other had beaten them down; but its arrival at the street level was
greeted by a short chorus of mad yells, a brief fusillade of shots--
perhaps five in all--and the clang of the gate. Then, like a ball
rebounding, the cage swung upwards again, hurtling at full speed.

Evidently Anisty had been received in force which he had not bargained
for.

Maitland instinctively reversed the lever and sent his own car upward
again, slowly, waiting for the other to overtake it. Peering down through
the iron lattice-work he could indistinctly observe the growing cube of
light, with a dark shape lying huddled in one corner of the floor. A
second figure, rapidly taking shape as Anisty's, stood by the controller,
braced against the side of the car, one hand on the lever, the other
poising a shining thing, the flesh-colored oval of his face turned upwards
in a supposititious attempt to discern the location of the dark car.

Hickey, by firing prematurely, lent him adventitious aid. The criminal
replied with spirit, aiming at the flash, his bullet spattering against
the back wall of the shaft. Hickey's next bullet rang with a bell-like
note against the metal-work, Anisty's presumably went wide--though
Maitland could have sworn he felt the cold kiss of its breath upon his
cheek. And the lighted cage rocketed past and up.

Maitland needed no admonition to pursue; his blood was up, his heart
singing with the lust of the man-hunt. Yet Anisty was rapidly leaving
them, his car soaring at an appalling pace. Towards the top he evidently
made some attempt to slow up, but either he was ignorant of the management
of the lever, or else the thing had got beyond control. The cage rammed
the buffers with a crash that echoed through the sounding halls like a
peal of thunder-claps; it was instantaneously plunged into darkness. There
followed a splintering and rending sound, and Maitland, heart in mouth,
could make out dimly a dark, falling shadow in the further shaft. Yet ere
it had descended a score of feet the safety-clutch acted and, with a third
tremendous jar, shaking the building, the car halted.

Hickey and Maitland were then some five floors below. "Stop 'er at
Nineteen," ordered the detective. There was a lilt of exultancy in his
voice. "We got him now, all right, all right. He'll try to get down by--
There!" Overhead the crash of a gate forced open was followed by a scurry
of footsteps over the tiling. "Stop 'er and we'll head him off. So now--
_eee_asy!"

Maitland shut off the power as the car reached the nineteenth floor.
Hickey opened the gate and jumped out. "Shut that," he commanded sharply
as Maitland followed him, "in case he gets past us."

He paused a moment in thought, heavy head on bull-neck drooping forward as
he stared toward the rear of the building. He was fearless and
resourceful, for all his many deficiencies. Maitland found time, quaintly
enough, to regard him with detached curiosity, a rare animal, illustrating
all that was best and worst in his order. Endowed with unexceptionable
courage, his address in emergencies seemed altogether admirable.

"Yeh guard them stairs," he decided suddenly. "I'll run through this hall,
'nd see what's doing. Don't hesitate to shoot if he tries to jump yeh."
And was gone, clumping briskly down the corridor to the rear.

Maitland, yielding the initiative to the other's superior generalship,
stood sentinel, revolver in hand, until the detective returned, overheated
and sweating, from his tour, to report "nothin' doin'," with
characteristic brevity. He had the same report to make on both the
twentieth and twenty-first floors, where the same procedure was observed;
but as the latter was reached unexpected and very welcome reinforcements
were gained by the arrival of a third car, containing three patrolmen and
one roundsman. Yet numbers created delay; Hickey was seized and compelled
to pant explanations, to his supreme disgust.

And, suddenly impatient beyond endurance, Maitland left them and alone
sprang up the stairs.

That this was simple foolhardiness may be granted without dispute. But it
must be borne in mind that he was very young and ardent, very greatly
perturbed on behalf of an actor in the tragedy in whom the police, to
their then knowledge, had no interest whatsoever. And if in the heat of
chase he had for an instant forgotten her, now he remembered; and at once
the capture of Anisty was relegated to the status of a matter of secondary
importance. The real matter at stake was the safety of the girl whom
Anisty, by exercise of an infernal ingenuity that passed Maitland's
comprehension, had managed to spirit into this place of death and darkness
and whispering halls. Where she might be, in what degree of suffering and
danger,--these were the considerations that sent him in search of her
without a thought of personal peril, but with a sick heart and overwhelmed
with a stifling sense of anxiety.

More active than the paunch-burdened detective, he had sprinted down and
back through the hallway of the twenty-second floor, without discovering
anything, ere the police contingent had reached an agreement and the
stairhead.

There remained two more floors, two final flights. A little hopelessly he
swung up the first. And as he did so the blackness above him was riven
by a tongue of fire, and a bullet, singing past his head, flattened itself
with a vicious spat against the marble dado of the walls. Instinctively he
pulled up, finger closing upon the trigger of his revolver; flash and
report followed the motion, and a panel of ribbed glass in a door overhead
was splintered and fell in clashing fragments, all but drowning the sound
of feet in flight upon the upper staircase.

A clamor of caution, warning, encouragement, and advice broke out from the
police below. But Maitland hardly heard. Already he was again in pursuit,
taking the steps two at a leap. With a hand upon the newel-post he swung
round on the twenty-third floor, and hurled himself toward the foot of the
last flight. A crash like a rifle-shot rang out above, and for a second he
fancied that Anisty had fired again and with a heavier weapon. But
immediately he realized that the noise had been only the slamming of the
door at the head of the stairs,--the door whose glazed panel loomed above
him, shedding a diffused light to guide his footsteps, its opalescent
surface lettered with the name of

HENRY M. BANNERMAN
_Attorney & Counselor-at-Law_

the door of the office whose threshold he had so often crossed to meet a
friend and adviser. It was with a shock that he comprehended this, a
thrill of wonder. He had all but forgotten that Bannerman owned an office
in the building, in the rush, the urge of this wild adventure. Strange
that Anisty should have chosen it for the scene of his last stand,--
strange, and strangely fatal for the criminal! For Maitland knew that from
this eyrie there was no means of escape, other than by the stairs.

Well and good! Then they had the man, and--

The thought was flashing in his mind, illumining the darkness of his
despair with the hope that he would be able to force a word as to the
girl's whereabouts from the burglar ere the police arrived; Maitland's
foot was on the upper step, when a scream of mortal terror--_her_
voice!--broke from within. Half maddened, he threw himself bodily against
the door, twisting the knob with frantic fingers that slipped upon its
immovable polished surface.

The bolt had been shot, he was barred out, and, with only the width of a
man's hand between them, the girl was in deathly peril and terror.

A sob that was at the same time an oath rose to his lips. Baffled,
helpless, he fell back, tears of rage starting to his eyes, her accents
ringing in his ears as terribly pitiful as the cry of a lost and wandering
soul.

"God!" he mumbled incoherently, and in desperation sent the pistol-butt
crashing against the glass. It was tough, stout, stubborn; the first blow
scarcely flawed it. As he redoubled his efforts to shatter it, Hickey's
hand shot over his shoulder to aid him.... And with startling abruptness
the barrier seemed to dissolve before their eyes, the glass falling inward
with a shrill clatter.

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