第85章 The Steel Door(3)

"Pretty tough for the fellows who are condemned to ride around in that van for four mortal hours, though," he said as he hurried into his evening clothes, "but they won't be riding all the time.

The driver will make frequent stops."

I was so busy that I paid little attention to him until he had nearly completed his toilet.I gave a gasp.

"Why, whatever are you doing?" I exclaimed as I glanced into his room.

There stood Kennedy arrayed in all the glory of a sharp-pointed moustache and a goatee.He had put on evening clothes of decidedly Parisian cut, clothes which he had used abroad and had brought back with him, but which I had never known him to wear since he came back.On a chair reposed a chimney-pot hat that would have been pronounced faultless on the "continong," but was unknown, except among impresarios, on Broadway.

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders--he even had the shrug.

"Figure to yourself, monsieur," he said."Ze great Kennedy, ze detectif Americain--to put it tersely in our own vernacular, wouldn't it be a fool thing for me to appear at the Vesper Club where I should surely be recognised by someone if I went in my ordinary clothes and features? Un faux pas, at the start?

Jamais!"

There was nothing to do but agree, and I was glad that I had been discreetly reticent about my companion in talking with the friend who was to gain us entrance to the Avernus beyond the steel door.

We met my friend at the Riviera and dined sumptuously.

Fortunately he seemed decidedly impressed with my friend Monsieur Kay--I could do no better on the spur of the moment than take Kennedy's initial, which seemed to serve.We progressed amicably from oysters and soup down to coffee, cigars, and liqueurs, and Isucceeded in swallowing Kennedy's tales of Monte Carlo and Ostend and Ascot without even a smile.He must have heard them somewhere, and treasured them up for just such an occasion, but he told them in a manner that was verisimilitude itself, using perfect English with just the trace of an accent at the right places.

At last it was time to saunter around to the Vesper Club without seeming to be too indecently early.The theatres were not yet out, but my friend said play was just beginning at the club and would soon be in full swing.

I had a keen sense of wickedness as we mounted the steps in the yellow flare of the flaming arc-light on the Broadway corner not far below us.A heavy, grated door swung open at the practised signal of my friend, and an obsequious negro servant stood bowing and pronouncing his name in the sombre mahogany portal beyond, with its green marble pillars and handsome decorations.A short parley followed, after which we entered, my friend having apparently satisfied someone that we were all right.

We did not stop to examine the first floor, which doubtless was innocent enough, but turned quickly up a flight of steps.At the foot of the broad staircase Kennedy paused to examine some rich carvings, and I felt him nudge me.I turned.It was an enclosed staircase, with walls that looked to be of re-enforced concrete.

Swung back on hinges concealed like those of a modern burglar-proof safe was the famous steel door.

We did not wish to appear to be too interested, yet a certain amount of curiosity was only proper.

My friend paused on the steps, turned, and came back.

"You're perfectly safe," he smiled, tapping the door with his cane with a sort of affectionate respect."It would take the police ages to get past that barrier, which would be swung shut and bolted the moment the lookout gave the alarm.But there has never been any trouble.The police know that it is so far, no farther.Besides," he added with a wink to me, "you know, Senator Danfield wouldn't like this pretty little door even scratched.

Come up, I think I hear DeLong's voice up-stairs.You've heard of him, monsieur? It's said his luck has changed I'm anxious to find out."Quickly he led the way up the handsome staircase and into a large, lofty, richly furnished room.Everywhere there were thick, heavy carpets on the floors, into which your feet sank with an air of satisfying luxury.

The room into which we entered was indeed absolutely windowless.

It was a room built within the original room of the old house.

Thus the windows overlooking the street from the second floor in reality bore no relation to it.For light it depended on a complete oval of lights overhead so arranged as to be themselves invisible, but shining through richly stained glass and conveying the illusion of a slightly clouded noonday.The absence of windows was made up for, as I learned later, by a ventilating device so perfect that, although everyone was smoking, a most fastidious person could scarcely have been offended by the odour of tobacco.

Of course I did not notice all this at first.What I did notice, however, was a faro-layout and a hazard-board, but as no one was playing at either, my eye quickly travelled to a roulette-table which stretched along the middle of the room.Some ten or a dozen men in evening clothes were gathered watching with intent faces the spinning wheel.There was no money on the table, nothing but piles of chips of various denominations.Another thing that surprised me as I looked was that the tense look on the faces of the players was anything but the feverish, haggard gaze I had expected.In fact, they were sleek, well-fed, typical prosperous New-Yorkers rather inclined to the noticeable in dress and carrying their avoirdupois as if life was an easy game with them.

Most of them evidently belonged to the financial and society classes.There were no tragedies; the tragedies were elsewhere--in their offices, homes, in the courts, anywhere, but not here at the club.Here all was life, light, and laughter.