The Miracle Man. Frank L. Packard
again with the rage that burned within him.
Pale Face Harry, with pointed forefinger, gingerly and facetiously laid the coins out in a row on the table.
"And you the king of Floppers!" he murmured softly. "It's a wonder you didn't let the Salvation Army get the rest away from you on the way along!"
Helena laughed—but the Flopper didn't. He stepped close to Pale Face Harry, and shoved his face within an inch of the other's.
"You close yer jaw," he snarled, "or I'll make yer map look like wot's goin' ter happen ter dat cross-eyed snitch of a guy dat did me—him an' de harness bull, when I—" The Flopper stopped abruptly, and edged away from Pale Face Harry. "Hullo, Doc," he said meekly. "I didn't hear youse comin' in."
A man, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, immaculate in well-tailored tweeds, reliant in poise, leaned nonchalantly against the door—inside the room. He was young, not more than twenty-eight, with clean-shaven, pleasant, open face—a handsome face, marred only to the close observer by the wrinkles beginning to pucker around his eyes, and a slight, scarcely discernible puffiness in his skin—"Doc" Madison, gentleman crook and high-class, polished con-man, who had lifted his profession to an art, was still too young to be indelibly stamped with the hall-marks of dissipation.
His gray eyes travelled from one to another, lingered an instant on Helena, and came back to the Flopper.
"What's the trouble?" he demanded quietly.
It was Pale Face Harry who answered him.
"The Flopper's got it in for a couple of ginks that handed him one—a bull and a chauffeur on a gape-wagon," he grinned, punctuating his words with a cough. "The Flopper's got an idea the corpse-preserver's business is dull, and he's going to help 'em out with two orders and pay for the flowers himself."
Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little grimly.
"Forget it, Flopper!" he said crisply. "I've something better for you to do. You fade away, disappear and lay low from this minute. I don't care what you do when you're resurrected, but from now on the three of you are dead and buried, and the police go into mourning for at least six months."
"What you got for us, Doc?—something nice?"—Helena pushed Pale Face Harry and the Flopper unceremoniously out of her line of vision as she spoke.
"Yes—the drinks. Cleggy's bringing them," Madison laughed—and opened the door, as the tinkle of glass and a shuffling footstep sounded without.
A man, big, hulking, thick-set and slouching, with shifty, cunning little black eyes and the face of a bruiser, his nose bent over and almost flattened down on one cheek, entered the room, carrying four glasses on a tin tray. He set down the tray, and, as he lifted the glasses from it and placed them on the table, he leered around at the little group.
"Gee!" he said, sucking in his breath. "De Doc, an' Helena, an' Pale Face, an' de Flopper! Gee, dis looks like de real t'ing—dis looks like biz."
"It does—fifty-cents' worth—ten for yourself," said Doc Madison suavely, flipping the coin into the tray. "Now, clear out!"
"Say"—Cleggy put his forefinger significantly to the side of his nose—"say, can't youse let a sport in on—"
"Clear out!" Doc Madison broke in quite as suavely as before—but there was a sudden glint of steel in the gray eyes as they held the bruiser's, and Cleggy, hastily picking up the tray, scuffled from the room.
Madison watched the door close, then he began to pace slowly up and down the room.
"Pull the chairs up to the table so we can take things comfortably," he directed.
"There ain't but two," grinned Pale Face Harry.
"Oh, well, never mind," said Madison.
"Slew the couch around and pull that up—Helena and I will sit on the head of it."
Still pacing up and down the length of the room, his hands in his pockets, Doc Madison watched the others as they carried out his directions; and then, suddenly, as he neared the door, his hand shot out, wrenched the door open, and, quick as a panther in its spring, he was in the hall without.
There was a yell, a scuffle, the rip and crash of rending bannisters, an instant's silence, then a heavy thud—and then Cleggy's voice from somewhere below in a choice and fervent flow of profanity.
Doc Madison re-entered the room, closed the door, dispassionately arranged a disordered cuff, brushed a few particles of dust from his sleeves and shoulder, and, this done, started toward the table—and stopped.
Helena had swung herself to the table edge, and, glass in hand, dangling her neatly shod little feet, was smoking a cigarette, her brown hair with a glint of amber in it, her dark eyes veiled now by their heavy lashes; on the other side of the table Pale Face Harry coughed, as, with sleeve rolled back, he was intent on the hypodermic needle he was pushing into his arm; while the Flopper, his eyes with a dog-like admiration in them fixed on Madison, stood facing the door, a grotesque, unpleasant figure, unkempt, unshaven, furtive-faced, his rags hanging disreputably about him, his trousers with their frayed edges, now that he stood upright, reaching far above his boot tops and flagrantly exposing his wretched substitutes for socks.
Doc Madison reached thoughtfully into his pocket, brought out a silver cigarette case, and carefully selected a cigarette from amongst its fellows.
"Yes; Cleggy was right," he said softly, tapping the end of the cigarette on his thumb nail. "You're the real thing—the real, real thing."
—II—
A NEW CULT
Doc Madison swung Helena lightly down from the table to the head of the couch, sat down beside her, one arm circling her waist, and motioned the Flopper to a chair—then he leaned forward and watched Pale Face Harry critically, as the latter carefully replaced the shining little hypodermic in its case.
"Harry," said he abruptly, jerking his free hand toward the hypodermic, "could you give up that dope-needle?"
"Sure, I could—if I wanted to!" asserted Pale Face Harry defiantly.
"That's good," said Madison cheerfully. "Because you'll have to."
"Eh?"—Pale Face Harry stared at Doc Madison in amazement.
"Because you'll have to—by and by," said Madison coolly. "And how about that cough—can you quit coughing?"
"When I'm dead—which won't be long," sniffed Pale Face Harry. "D'ye think I cough because I like it? How'm I going to quit coughing?"
"I don't know," admitted Doc Madison, frowning seriously. "I only know you'll have to."
Pale Face Harry, with jaw dropped, accentuating the gaunt leanness of his hollow-cheeked, emaciated face, gazed at Doc Madison with a curious mingling of incredulity and affront—and coughed.
"Say," he inquired grimly, "what's the answer?"
Doc Madison took his arm from Helena's waist, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, spread it out on the table—and his manner changed suddenly—enthusiasm was in his eyes, his voice, his face.
"I've steered you three through a few deals," said he impressively, "that have sized up big enough to keep you out of the raw vaudeville turn you, Harry, and you, Flopper, are so fond of, and that would have put Helena here on easy street, if you hadn't blown in all you got about ten minutes after you got your hands on it—but I've got one here that sizes up so big you wouldn't be able to spend the money fast enough to close out your bank account if you did your damnedest! Get that? It's the greatest cinch that ever came down from the gateway of heaven—and that's where it came from—heaven. It couldn't have come from anywhere