Gangsters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
She tried the door that led into the secondhand shop from the hall,
found it unlocked, and with a little gasp of relief slipped through, and
closed it gently behind her. She did not dare risk the front entrance.
Pinkie Bonn and the Pug were not far enough away yet, and she did not
dare wait until they were. Too bulky to take the risk of attempting
to conceal it about his person while with Pinkie Bonn, the Pug, it was
obvious, would come back alone for that package, and it was equally
obvious that he would not be long in doing so. There was old Luertz's
return that he would have to anticipate. It would not take wits nearly
so sharp as those possessed by the Pug to find an excuse for separating
promptly from Pinkie Bonn!
Rhoda Gray groped her way down the shop, groped her way to a back door,
unbolted it, working by the sense of touch, and let herself out into a
back yard. Five minutes later she was blocks away, and hurrying rapidly
back toward the deserted shed in the lane behind Gypsy Nan's garret.
Her lips formed into a tight little curve as she went along. There was
still work to do to-night--if this package really contained the stolen
legacy of gems left by Angel Jack. She had first of all to reach a place
where she could examine the package with safety; then a place to hide it
where it would be secure; and then--Danglar!
She gained the lane, stole along it, and disappeared into the shed
through the broken door that hung, partially open, on sagging hinges.
Here she sought a corner, and crouched down so that her body would
smother any reflection from her flashlight. And now, eagerly,
feverishly, she began to undo the package; and then, a moment later, she
gazed, stupefied and amazed, at what lay before her. Precious stones,
scores of them, nestled on a bed of cotton; they were of all colors and
of all sizes--but each one of them seemed to pulsate and throb, and from
some wondrous, glorious depth of its own to fling back from the white
ray upon it a thousand rays in return, as though into it had been
breathed a living and immortal fire.
And Rhoda Gray, crouched there, stared--until suddenly she grew afraid,
and suddenly with a shudder she wrapped the package up again. These were
the stones for whose fabulous worth the woman whose personality she,
Rhoda Gray, had usurped, had murdered a man; these were the stones which
were indirectly the instrumentality--since but for them Gypsy Nan would
never have existed--that made her, Rhoda Gray, to-night, now, at this
very moment, a hunted thing, homeless, friendless, fighting for her very
life against police and underworld alike!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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