a great many years ago, when tom byrnes was the able and efficient chief of the detective force of new york, a certain class of women, very much in evidence around the hotels and resorts, were known, from the peculiar manner of their work, as badger molls.
there was one in particular who had added a spectacular dance to her many other accomplishments and which helped her not a little in meeting the right kind of people.
to be a badger moll a woman had to have nerve, assurance, a fair amount of good looks, be able to read character and keep her wits about her at all times. there were occasions when she was up against it so good and strong that it didn’t seem as if there was one chance in a hundred for her to do her part of the trick, but in ninety times out of a hundred she landed the bundle of the victim.
that is to say, of course, with the aid of her confederate.
the old days of the moll have gone by, but the new days have come and they are here now. the new representative is of a higher class, of a superior education, is more adept, and, as a rule, gets more money.
it is worthy of note that during the past ten years only two big jobs have fallen through—that is, so far as is known—and these things usually become known when they are brought to the notice of the police.
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a handsomely gowned woman, with a bearing that would deceive almost anyone, comes down the line. she looks like my lady from fifth avenue, but if you will notice her eyes you will see in them the look of a huntress.
she is on the trail of men, and it is a rare thing for her to make a mistake. mistakes in her business, you know, sometimes spell sing sing, as a lady by the name of moore will tell you if you ever meet her and she should become confidential.
as she passes the hotels you will notice this particular woman hesitates in her stride, she goes into the low gear and she looks questioningly at the men who are standing about.
it is the glance of an expert, but it is cleverly veiled.
even though you and i know her and know what her business is, we are attracted by her to a certain extent, just as people are attracted by a magnificent tigress or leopard in the menagerie. they have fangs and claws, but they are hidden, and being concealed are forgotten for the time.
this is a human tigress, but she is not on the scent of blood, she’s trailing bank rolls.
there is, however, nothing unusual in that, when you come to think of it, because that is what four-fifths of the world is doing, and the other fifth is being chased and knows it.
the tigress throws in her high speed and passes on until she has reached the entrance to another hotel, and here the scent of prey comes strongly to her nostrils.
a fine-looking man of about fifty years is leaning carelessly against one of the marble columns. he has
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dined well, anyone can see that, and he is half way into his after-dinner cigar. he is in the ripe stage; the time to ask a favor, or to have a courtesy extended. he is at peace with himself and everybody else, and as the tigress passes by he gets a flash of those black eyes which tell him a story that while it is not new, is always interesting, especially under these circumstances, when he is a thousand miles from home.
there are few men, anyhow, who can stand temptation when they are strangers in a strange city. man is a companionable sort of a proposition and to be at his best must have society.
this one, who is perhaps the father of an interesting family, and who is above reproach in his native city, and who would become indignant at the thought of a street flirtation, involuntarily straightens himself up, and taking a firmer hold of his cigar, glances after the slowly retreating figure of the lady with the black eyes.
it’s a trim shape, by jove; and look at that ankle.
a peach.
“nothing common about her,” he soliloquizes. “just a nice girl, perhaps, who is a bit lonely, too.”
and then, at that particular moment, the “nice girl,” who has been sauntering very slowly, turns around and looking directly at him, smiles.
a woman’s smile.
cast off your lines, my boy, and on your way, for the magnetism of that smile has you lashed to the mast, but you don’t know it yet. what you have in your mind is that you’ll just take a little walk and have a little talk, just to fill in a few lonely hours, you know.
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so he leaves the mooring of his hotel and trails the trailer.
one short block he walks, and then just as he is about to come abreast of her she turns about and meets him with the same smile that has been doing duty for the past five years.
she knew he had reached that particular spot by that woman’s intuition, keyed up so fine as to be on feather edge all the time.
her little bow is modest—even coy. it is like the bow of a school girl who is afraid she is not doing quite the right thing, but who is just a trifle reckless, and is willing to take a chance or two just for a lark.
“how do you do?” she asks.
“great; how are you; fine night; where are you going?” he rattles off, trying to appear at ease, and be the real fellow.
“i was just taking a walk. you see, it was so quiet in the house, and i sat there all alone until i just thought i would die, so i came out to get a little fresh air and see if i couldn’t walk myself tired before bed time.”
that accounts for her being out, of course, and it is very nicely delivered, too; besides, it gives the man a chance to say something, and he is prompt to say it.
“all alone? you don’t mean to say that you live all alone?”
oh, no; she doesn’t live all alone all the time. but jack—that’s her husband, you know—he is on the road—commercial man, you see, the best and dearest fellow in all the world, and it’s such a horrid position he has, too, always traveling. he went away just a month ago on his western trip, to be gone two months,
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think of it; almost an age. he’s with the big dry goods house of wools & muslins, the biggest in new york. but next year jack is going to have an office position and then everything will be all right.
“after that,” she goes on, “jack and the baby and i will be quite happy.”
“the baby? have you a baby?”
“why, of course.”
“and you say you are lonely? i should think that the baby would——”
“yes, of course, so it would, but don’t you see, jack’s mother, who lives with us, went to visit some friends in the country—montclair, do you know where that is?—and she thought it would do the little fellow good and she took him along, and now i am so sorry i let him go.”
isn’t it too beautiful for anything, and isn’t she an artist of whom jack ought to be very proud?
“well, i am a little lonely myself,” says the business man from dayton, o., “and i think you and i ought to cheer one another up. what do you think about that proposition?”
“well, i don’t know. it’s very nice to have you talk to me, but i feel a little bit frightened about it all. you know i never spoke to a strange man on the street before like this, and i am sure that jack wouldn’t like it if——”
“yes, but jack isn’t here now. who knows what he is doing? you know these traveling men when they get away from home and home ties have been known to——”
“yes, but not my jack. you don’t know him. he would never do anything wrong, for he told me so.”
and now they have walked four blocks.
there is a hack driver and his wagon at the corner.
“cab, sir; have a cab?”
he’s on, and immediately takes the tip offered him.
“suppose we take a little drive through the park,” suggests the man.
“i don’t think it would be quite right. i would like to, but——oh, if we were only real well acquainted, i would like to, but you see——”
the end of it is that the cab drive is vetoed, and he begins to think as to how he can best entertain her in some other way. he takes a hasty sidelong glance at her, and his heart increases about ten beats to the minute. she’s all right, you bet. why, he wouldn’t mind staying in new york another week if——
“let’s go somewhere and have a nice bottle of wine,” he says.
“i hope you don’t mean to offend me, but you shouldn’t ask me anything like that. i think i am doing very wrong in even talking to you, but i can’t help it. there was something about you when i passed by that seemed to attract me. i have done something to-night that i have never been guilty of before, and never will be again. i don’t object to wine, because we have it in the house, but i didn’t think you would ask me to go to a common saloon with you—a place i have never been in in my life. but i suppose i deserve it for speaking to you the way i did, and for walking with you the way i am now.”
he protests, he apologizes, and he feels that he has made a great mistake. he is humiliated beyond expression. here is a nice little woman with a husband and a baby, who has permitted him to accost her on
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the street, probably because she felt that she needed some human companionship, and he has insulted her by asking her to go to a public place and drink a bottle of wine with him, just as if she were a woman of the streets. he feels that he cannot do enough to make amends to her.
“i don’t believe,” she says, sweetly, “that you intended to hurt my feelings for a moment. let you and i be simply good friends. we are both a little lonesome; let us spend a pleasant evening together, for it isn’t likely that we will ever meet again after to-night. we will act as if we were brother and sister; but if you would really like a bottle of wine i have a lot home that jack says is pretty good, and we can go there and be all by ourselves.”
but a moment later she repents and says it will not do at all, for suppose any of the neighbors should see them going in, what then?
he clutches at the idea like a drowning man clutches at a straw, for this is a wonderfully nice girl he has met in this accidental way, and he would like to become better acquainted.
so he begins to coax, and she laughingly refuses to listen. he pleads, argues and promises, and then he stops in a shop and blows himself to a five-pound box of candy for the baby—and her.
when he peels the bill off a roll that would choke an elephant she sizes it all up out of the tail of her eye, and makes a mental calculation as to how much is there.
she’s just a trifle more endearing to him after that, and it strikes him that she is getting a little reckless.
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“come on,” she says, quite gayly, and with an affectation of sportiness, “i will take you up to the house, but you must promise me on your word of honor that you won’t remember the street or the number and that you’ll never try to see me again. remember, this is just for one evening, and i don’t want you to think i am anything but what i seem.”
“i could never think that,” he says, quite soberly.
“what must you think of a girl who will permit a stranger to speak to her on the street?”
“i should think that in your case she would be very nice.”
she is laughing and chatting just like a girl out of school, and she has interested him so much that he hasn’t noticed that they were getting into quieter and darker streets, until she suddenly turns into a hallway which is just like a thousand other new york hallways, and announces:
“here we are at last; now don’t make any noise.”
up one flight, and she’s fumbling for a key, which she finds in a moment, and then the door is opened.
the lights are turned low, and for some reason or other she doesn’t turn them up, which he notes with a certain feeling of pleasure.
“now take off your hat and coat, and we will have that bottle of wine i told you about, for i am going to let you stay just one hour, after which i am going to try and forgive myself for having spoken to you.”
it is all very nice and charming, and the wine is very good—a bit better, in fact, than he had any idea it would be.
when the bottle and the glasses are empty he finds himself sitting beside her on a divan. his arm is
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about her waist and she is struggling to free herself. he leans over to kiss her, but she deftly turns her face away.
“you must not try to kiss me,” she whispers, but as she speaks she throws her arms about his neck.
it seems to the staid old business bulwark from the west as if he had been sitting there for hours, when suddenly the electric bell rings.
both jump to their feet.
“what is it?” he asks in a low voice.
“i don’t know; i can’t think,” she answers, holding her hand to her head. “perhaps it’s jack. my god, if it should be jack. he will kill you if he finds you here. i could never explain it. take your hat and coat quick. here, this way, the back door, and run, run as fast as you can. don’t stop, please, until you get to your hotel. go, go, at once.”
with hat and coat in hand he finds himself pushed out in a dark passageway. he gropes his way to the stairs.
a man is coming up, a man with a traveling case.
it’s jack, as sure as you live.
guiltily he walks down, steps hurriedly to the street door, passes out, and starts on a brisk trot up the street. at the first corner he turns, then he turns another block, then he turns again, with the instinct of a hunted hare. so he pursued his zig-zag course for many blocks, until he finally stops to ask directions.
“the gilt-edge hotel? certainly; four blocks over to the avenue then about twenty down.”
he walks the four blocks while he catches his breath, and then he gets aboard a car only to find he hasn’t a cent.
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worse; he hasn’t a watch, nor a scarf pin.
he must have lost them while he was running.
he gets off and stands on the corner to think it over.
eleven hundred dollars in good money gone; a watch worth $350 and a pin worth at least $150.
the faint odor of violets comes back to him, and then he comes to his senses.
stung.
* * * * *
“it took you a long while to ring that bell, billy, after i gave you the tip. don’t wait so long next time. you must be getting old, for you’re working very slow lately.”
“i didn’t hear the buzzer at first; i don’t think you pressed it hard enough. i’ll give it a look to-morrow and see. but i would never have sized that old guy up for eleven hundred.”
“you never can tell what they’ve got until you take it away from them.”
