VI—THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY DRAWS ITS BLINDS

TERESA'S fingers twisted the key in the lock of the porch door that she had closed on Dave Henderson. There was a queer, tight little smile quivering on her lips.

“There was no other way,” she whispered to herself. “What could I do? What could I say?”

Behind her, and at one side of the passage, was a small panel door, long out of use now, a relic of those days when Nicolo Capriano's dwelling had been a house of mystery. She had hidden there to let Dave Henderson pass by; she closed it now, as she retraced her steps slowly to her father's room. And here, on the threshold, she paused for a moment; then reached in quietly to close the door, and retire again. Her father lay back on the bed, his eyes closed, and his hands, outstretched on the coverlet, were quiet, the long, slim fingers motionless. He was asleep. It was not uncommon. He often did that. Sleep came at the oddest times with the old man, even if it did not last long, and——

“Teresa—eh—what are you doing?” Nicolo Capriano's eyes half opened, and fixed on his daughter. “Eh—what are you doing?”

“I thought you were asleep, father,” she murmured. “Asleep! Bah! I have been asleep for fifteen years—is that not long enough? Fifteen years! Ha, ha! But I am awake now! Yes, yes, old Nicolo has had enough of dreams! He is awake now! Come here, Teresa. Come here, and sit by the bed. Has our clever young friend gone?”

“Yes, father,” she told him, as she took the chair at the bedside.

Nicolo Capriano jerked his head around on his pillows, and studied her face for a moment, though his black eyes, with their smoldering, introspective expression, seemed not at all concerned with her.

“And what do you think of him—eh—Teresa, my little one—what do you think of him?”

She drew back in her chair with a little start.

“Why—what do you mean, father?” she asked quickly.

“Bah!” There was a caustic chuckle in the old bomb king's voice. “We do not speak of love—I suppose! I do not expect you to have fallen in love just because you have seen a man for a few minutes—eh? Bah! I mean just what I say. I called him clever. You are a Capriano, and you are clever; you are the cleverest woman in San Francisco, but you do not get it from your mother—you are a Capriano. Well, then, am I right? He is clever—a very clever fellow?”

Her voice was suddenly dull.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good!” ejaculated Nicolo Capriano. “He was caught five years ago, but it was not his fault. He was double-crossed, or he would never have seen the inside of a penitentiary. So you agree, then, that he is clever? Well, then, he has courage, too—eh? He was modest about his fight at Vinetto's—eh? You heard it all from Vinetto himself when you went there this morning. Our young friend was modest—eh?”

Teresa's eyes widened slightly in a puzzled way. She nodded her head.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good!” said Nicolo Capriano—and the long, slim fingers began to twine themselves together, and to untwine, and to twine together again. “Well, then, my little one, with his cleverness and his courage, he should succeed—eh—in New York? Old Nicolo does not often make a mistake—eh? Our young friend will find his money again in New York—eh?”

She pushed back her chair impulsively, and stood up.

“I hope not,” she answered in a low voice.

“Eh?” Nicolo Capriano jerked himself sharply up on his pillows, and his eyes narrowed. “Eh—what is that you say? What do you mean—you hope not!”

“It is not his money now any more than it was before he stole it,” she said in a dead tone. “It is stolen money.”

“Well, and what of it?” demanded Nicolo Capriano. “Am I a fool that I do not know that?” Sudden irascibility showed in the old Italian's face and manner; a flush swept his cheeks under the white beard, the black eyes grew lusterless and hard—and he coughed. “Well, am I a fool?” he shouted.

She looked at him in quick apprehension.

“Father, be careful!” she admonished. “You must not excite yourself.”

“Bah!” He flung out his hand in a violent gesture. “Excite myself! Bah! Always it is—'do not excite yourself!' Can you find nothing else to say? Now, you will explain—eh?—you will explain! What is it about this stolen money that Nicolo Capriano's daughter does not like? You hear—I call you Nicolo Capriano's daughter!”

It was a moment before she answered.

“I do not like it—because it has made my soul sick to-night.” She turned her head away. “I hid behind the old panel when he went out. I do not like it; I hate it. I hate it with all my soul! I did not understand at first, not until your talk with him to-night, that there was any money involved. I thought it was just to help him get away from the police who were hounding him even after his sentence had been served, and also to protect him from that gang who tried to get him in Vinetto's place—and that we were doing it for Tony's sake. And then it all seemed to come upon me in a flash, as I went toward the door to let him out to-night—that there was the stolen money, and that I was helping him, and had been helping him in everything that was done here, to steal it again. I know what I should have done. It would have done no good, it would have been utterly useless; I realized that—but I would have been honest with myself. I should have protested there and then. But I shrank from the position I was in. I shrank from having him ask me what I had to do with honesty, I, who—and you have said it yourself but a moment ago—I, who was Nicolo Capriano's daughter; I, who, even if I protested on one score, had knowingly and voluntarily done my share in hoodwinking the police on another. He would have had the right to think me mad, to think me irresponsible—and worse. I shrank from having him laugh in my face. And so I let him go, because I must say that to him or nothing; for I could not be hypocrite enough to wish him a smiling good-by, to wish him good fortune and success—I couldn't—I tell you, I couldn't—and so—and so I stepped behind the panel, and let him pass.”

Nicolo Capriano's two hands were outthrust and clenched, his lips had widened until the red gums showed above his teeth, and he glared at his daughter.

“By God!” he whispered hoarsely, “it is well for you, you kept your mouth shut! Do you hear, you—you——-” A paroxysm of coughing seized him, and he fell back upon the pillows.

In an instant, Teresa was bending over him anxiously.

He pushed her away, and struggled upward again, and for a moment he shook his fists again at his daughter—and then his eyes were half veiled, and his hands opened, and he began to pat the girl's arm, and his voice held a soft, purring note.

“Listen! You are not a fool, my little one. I have not brought you up to be a fool—eh? Well, then, listen! We have a little money, but it is not much. And he will get that hundred thousand dollars. Do you understand? He is clever, and he has the courage. Do you think that I would have tricked the police for him, otherwise? Eh—do you think old Nicolo Capriano does not know what he is about?”

She stared at him, a sort of dawning dismay in her eyes.

“You mean,” she said, and the words seemed to come in a hard, forced way from her lips, “you mean that if he gets that money again, you are to have a share?”

“A share! Ha, ha!” The old Italian was rocking backward and forward in glee. “No, my little one, not a share—Nicolo Capriano does not deal in shares any more. All—my little one—all! One hundred thousand dollars—all! And my little black-eyes will have such gowns as——”

“Father!” It came in a startled, broken cry of amazed and bitter expostulation.

Nicolo Capriano stopped his rocking, and looked at her. A sudden glint of fury leaped from the smoldering eyes.

“Bah!” he said angrily. “Am I mistaken after all? Is it that you are your mother—and not a Capriano! Perhaps I should not have told you; but now you will make the best of it, and behave yourself, and not play the child—eh? Do you think I risked myself with the police for nothing! Yes—all! All—except that I must pay that leech Dago George something for looking after our young friend—con amore—con amore, Nicolo Capriano—eh?—since I signed the letter so.”

She stood an instant, straight and tense, but a little backward on her heels, as though she had recoiled from a blow that had been struck her—and then she bent swiftly forward, and caught both her father's wrists in her strong young grasp, and looked into his eyes for a long minute, as though to read deep into his soul.

“You signed that letter con amore!” Her voice was colorless. “You signed it—con amore—the code word of the old, horrible, miserable days when this house was a den of outlaws, the code word that marked out the victim who was to be watched and hounded down!”

The old bomb king wrenched himself still further up in bed. He shook his wrists free.

“What is it to you!” he screamed in a blaze of fury—and fell into a second, and more violent paroxysm of coughing—and now caught at his breast with his thin, blue-tipped fingers, and now in unbridled passion waved his arms about like disjointed flails. “Yes—I signed it that—con amore. And it is the old signal! Yes, yes! And Dago George will obey. And he will watch our young friend—watch—watch—watch! And in the end—bah!—in the end our young friend will supply Nicolo Capriano with that hundred thousand dollars. Ha! And in the end we will see that our young friend does not become troublesome. He is a pawn—a pawn!” Old Nicolo's face, between rage and coughing, had grown a mottled purple. “A pawn! And when a pawn has lost its usefulness—eh?—it is swept from the board—eh? Con amore! The old days again! The finger of Nicolo Capriano lifted—and the puppets jump! Con amore! I will see that Dago George knows what to do with a young man who brings him Nicolo Capriano's letter! Ha, ha! Yes, yes; I will take care of that!”

She had not moved, except to grow a little straighter in her poise, and except that her hands now were clenched at her sides.

“I cannot believe it!” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper. “I cannot believe it! I cannot believe that you would do this! It is monstrous, horrible!”

It seemed as though Nicolo Capriano could not get his breath, or at least one adequate enough to vent the access of fury that swept upon him. He choked, caught again at his breast, and hooked fingers ripped the nightdress loose from his throat.

“Out of the room!” he screamed at last. “Out of it! I will teach you a chit of a girl's place! Out of it!”

“No; I will not go out—not yet,” she said, and steadied her voice with an effort. “I will not go until you tell me that you will not do this thing. You can't do it, father—you can't—you can't!” Even the semblance of calmness was gone from her now, and, instead, there was a frantic, almost incoherent pleading in her tones. “He came—he came from Tony Lomazzi. Father, are you mad? Do you not understand? He came from Tony Lomazzi, I tell you!”

“And I tell you to get out of this room, and hold your tongue, you meddling little fool!” screamed Nicolo Capriano again. “Tony Lomazzi! He came from Tony Lomazzi, did he? Damn Tony Lomazzi—damn him—damn him! What do I owe Tony Lomazzi but the hell of hate in a man's soul that comes only in one way! You hear! It was the prison walls only that saved Lomazzi from my reach—from these fingers of mine that are strong, strong at the throat, and never let go! Do you think I was blind that I could not see, that I did not know—eh?—that I did not know what was between your mother and that accursed Lomazzi! But he died—eh?—he died like a rat gnawing, gnawing at walls that he could not bite through!”

Teresa's face had gone suddenly a deathly white, and the color seemed to have fled her lips and left them gray.

“It is a lie—a hideous lie!” she cried—and all the passion of her father's race was on the surface now. “It is a lie! And you know it is—you know it is! My mother loved you, always loved you, and only you—and you broke her heart—and killed her with the foul, horrible life of crime that seethed in this house! Oh, my God! Are you trying to make me hate you, hate you, my father! I have tried to be a good daughter to you since she died. She made me promise that I would, on that last night. I have tried to love you, and I have tried to understand why she should have loved you—but—but I do not know. It is true that Tony Lomazzi loved her, but, though he was one of you in your criminal work, his love was the love of a brave, honest man. It is true, perhaps, that it was for her, rather than for you, that it was because of his love, a great, strong, wonderful love, and to save her from horror and despair because she loved you, that he gave his life for you, that he went to prison in your stead, voluntarily, on his own confession, when he was less guilty than you, and when the police offered him his freedom if he would only turn evidence against you, the man they really wanted. But that is what he did, nevertheless. He kept you together.” She was leaning forward now, her eyes ablaze, burning. “That was his love! His love for my mother, and for me—yes, for me—for he loved me too, and I, though I, was only a little girl, I loved Tony Lomazzi. And he gave his life—and he died there in prison. And now—now—you mean to betray his trust—to betray his friend who believed in you because he believed in Tony, who trusted you and sent him here. And you tricked him, and tricked the police for your own ends! Well, you shall not do it! You shall not! Do you hear? You shall not!”

Nicolo Capriano's face was livid. A fury, greater than before, a fury that was unbalanced, like the fury of a maniac, seized upon him. He twisted his hands one around the other with swift insistence, his lips moved to form words—and he coughed instead, and a fleck of blood tinged the white beard.

“You dare!” he shrieked, catching for his breath. “You, a girl, dare talk to me like that, to me—Nicolo Capriano! I shall not—eh? You say that to me! I shall not! And who will stop me?”

“I will!” she said, through tight lips. “If you will not stop it yourself—then I will. No matter what it costs, no matter what it means—to you, or to me—I will!”

Nicolo Capriano laughed—and the room rang with the pealing laughter that was full of unhinged, crazy, shuddering mirth.

“Fool!” he cried. “You will stop it—eh? And how will you stop it? Will you tell the police? Ha, ha! Then you, too, would betray dear Tony's friend! You would tell the police what they want to know—that Dave Henderson can be found in New York, and that he has gone there to get the money back. Or perhaps you will write another letter—and tell Dago George to pay no attention to my orders? Ha, ha! And it is too bad that our young friend himself has gone, and left you no address so that you could intercept him!”

Teresa drew back a little, and into her eyes came trouble and dismay. And Nicolo Capriano's laugh rang out again—and was checked by a spasm of coughing—and rang out once more, ending in a sort of triumphant scream.

“Well, and what do you think now about stopping it—eh? Do you imagine that Nicolo Capriano sees no farther than his nose? Stop it! Bah! No one will stop it—and, least of all, you!”

She seemed to have overcome the dismay that had seized upon her, though her face had grown even whiter than before.

“It is true, what you say,” she said, in a low, strained voice. “But there is one way left, one way to find him, and warn him, and I will take that way.”

“Hah!” Nicolo Capriano glared at her. His voice dropped. “And what is that way, my little one?” he purred, through a fit of coughing. “Old Nicolo would like to know.”

“To go where Dave Henderson is going,” she answered. “To go where he can be found, to go to New York, to keep him from going to Dago George's, or, if I am too late for that, to warn him there before Dago George has had time to do him any harm, and——”

Her words ended in a startled cry. Nicolo Capriano's long, slim fingers, from the bed, had shot out, locked about her waist, and were wrenching at her in a mad-man's fury.

“You—you would do that!” the old Italian screamed. “By God! No! No! No! Do you hear? No!” His hands had crept upward, and, with all his weight upon her, he was literally pulling himself out of the bed. “No!” he screamed again. “No! Do you hear? No!”

“Father!” she cried out frantically. “Father, what are you doing? You will kill yourself!”

The black eyes of the old man were gleaming with an insane light, his face was working in horrible contortions.

“Hah!” He was out of the bed now, struggling wildly with her. “Hah! Kill myself, will I? I would kill you—you—before I would let you meddle with my plans! It is the old Nicolo again—Nicolo Capriano of the years when——”

The room seemed to swirl around her. The clutching fingers had relaxed. It was she now who struggled and grasped at the man's body and shoulders—to hold him up. He was very heavy, too heavy for her. He seemed to be carrying her downward with him—until he fell back half across the bed. And she leaned over him then, and stared at him for a long time through her hands that were tightly held to her face—and horror, a great, blinding horror came, and fear, a fear that robbed her of her senses came, and she staggered backward, and stumbled over the chair at the bedside, and clutched at it for support.

She did not speak. Nicolo Capriano had left his bed for the first time in three years—to die.

Her father was dead. That was the theme of the overwhelming horror, and the paralyzing fear that obsessed her brain. It beat upon her in remorseless waves—horror—fear. Time did not exist; reality had passed away. She was in some great, soundless void—soundless, except for that strange ringing in her ears. And she put her hands up to her ears to shut out the sound. But it persisted. It became clearer. It became a tangible thing. It was the doorbell.

Habit seemed to impel her. She went automatically to the hall, and, in a numbed sort of consciousness, went along the hall, and opened the door, and stared at a short, fat man, who stood there and chewed on the butt of a cigar that dangled from one corner of his mouth.

“My name's MacBain,” said Bookie Skarvan glibly. “And I want to see Nicolo Capriano. Very important. You're his daughter, aren't you?”

She did not answer him. Her brain floundered in that pit of blackness into which it had been plunged. She was scarcely aware of the man's presence, scarcely aware that she was standing here in the doorway.

“Say, you look scared, you do; but there's nothing to be scared about,” said Bookie Skarvan ingratiatingly. “I just want to see Nicolo Capriano for a few minutes. You go and tell him a reporter wants to see him about that bomb explosion, and 'll give him a write-up that'll be worth while.”

She drew back a little, forcing herself to shake her head.

“Aw, say, go on now, there's a good girl!” wheedled Bookie Skarvan. “The paper sent me here, and I've got to see him. There's nothing for you to look so white about. I'm only a reporter. I ain't going to hurt him—see?”

Teresa shivered. How cold the night was! This man here—what was it he had said? That he wanted to see Nicolo Capriano? Strange that words came with such curious difficulty to her tongue—as though, somehow, she had been dumb all her life, and was speaking now for the first time.

“Nicolo Capriano is dead,” she said—and closed the door in Bookie Skarvan's face.