Gangsters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
For a moment after Danglar had gone, Rhoda Gray stood motionless; and
then, the necessity for instant action upon her, she moved quickly
toward the doorway herself. There was only one thing she could do, just
one; but she must be sure first that Danglar was well started on his
way. She reached the doorway, looked out--and suddenly caught her breath
in a low, quick inhalation, In the semi-darkness she could just make out
Danglar's form, perhaps twenty-five yards away now, heading along the
lane toward the street; but behind Danglar, at a well-guarded distance
in the rear, hugging the shadows of the fence, she saw the form of
another man. Her brows knitted in a perplexed and anxious frown. The
second man was undoubtedly following Danglar. That was evident. But why?
Who was it? What did it mean?
She retreated back into the shed, and commenced hastily to disrobe and
dress again in her own clothes, which she had flung down upon the
floor. In the last analysis, did it matter who it was that was following
Danglar--even if it were one of the police? For, supposing that the man
who was shadowing Danglar was a plain-clothes man, and suppose he even
followed Danglar and the rest of the gang to the old iron plant, and
suppose that with the necessary assistance he rounded them all up, and
in that sense effected the Adventurer's rescue, it scarcely meant a
better fate for the Adventurer! It simply meant that the Adventurer, as
one of the gang, and against whom every one of the rest would testify as
the sole means left to them of wreaking their vengeance upon one who had
tricked and outwitted them again and again for his own ends, would stand
his trial with the others, and with the others go behind prison bars for
a long term of years.
She hurried now, completing the last touches that transformed her from
Gypsy Nan into the veiled figure of the White Moll, stepped out into
the lane, and walking rapidly, reached the street and headed, not in the
direction of Harlem, but deeper over into the East Side. Even as Danglar
had been speaking she had realized that, for the Adventurer's own sake,
and irrespective of what any premature disclosure of her own identity
to the authorities might mean to her, she could not call upon the police
for aid. There was only one way, just one--to go herself, to reach the
Adventurer herself before Danglar returned there and had an opportunity
of putting his worse than murderous intentions into effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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