**** ROTATE **** **** ROTATE **** **** ROTATE **** **** ROTATE ****

Find this Story

Print, a form you can hold

Wireless download to your Amazon Kindle

Look for a summary or analysis of this Story.

Enjoy this? Share it!

PAGE 9

The Steel Door
by [?]

Meanwhile Kennedy and I paused on the way out to compare notes. My report of the behaviour of the compass only confirmed him in his opinion.

As we turned to the stairs we took in a full view of the room. A faro-layout was purchasing Senator Danfield a new touring-car every hour at the expense of the players. Another group was gathered about the hazard board, deriving evident excitement, though I am sure none could have given an intelligent account of the chances they were taking. Two roulette-tables were now going full blast, the larger crowd still about DeLong’s. Snatches of conversation came to us now and then, and I caught one sentence, “De Long’s in for over a hundred thousand now on the week’s play, I understand; poor boy–that about cleans him up.”

“The tragedy of it, Craig,” I whispered, but he did not hear.

With his hat tilted at a rakish angle and his opera-coat over his arm he sauntered over for a last look.

“Any luck yet?” he asked carelessly.

“The devil–no,” returned the boy.

“Do you know what my advice to you is, the advice of a man who has seen high play everywhere from Monte Carlo to Shanghai?”

“What?”

“Play until your luck changes if it takes until to-morrow.”

A supercilious smile crossed Senator Danfield’s fat face.

“I intend to,” and the haggard young face turned again to the table and forgot us.

“For Heaven’s sake, Kennedy,” I gasped as we went down the stairway, “what do you mean by giving him such advice–you?”

“Not so loud, Walter. He’d have done it anyhow, I suppose, but I want him to keep at it. This night means life or death to Percival DeLong and his mother, too. Come on, let’s get out of this.”

We passed the formidable steel door and gained the street, jostled by the late-comers who had left the after-theatre restaurants for a few moments of play at the famous club that so long had defied the police.

Almost gaily Kennedy swung along toward Broadway. At the corner he hesitated, glanced up and down, caught sight of the furniture-van in the middle of the next block. The driver was tugging at the harness of the horses, apparently fixing it. We walked along and stopped beside it.

“Drive around in front of the Vesper Club slowly,” said Kennedy as the driver at last looked up.

The van lumbered ahead, and we followed it casually. Around the corner it turned. We turned also. My heart was going like a sledgehammer as the critical moment approached. My head was in a whirl. What would that gay throng back of those darkened windows down the street think if they knew what was being prepared for them?

On, like the Trojan horse, the van lumbered. A man went into the Vesper Club, and I saw the negro at the door eye the oncoming van suspiciously. The door banged shut.

The next thing I knew, Kennedy had ripped off his disguise, had flung himself up behind the van, and had swung the doors open. A dozen men with ages and sledge-hammers swarmed out and up the steps of the club.

“Call the reserves, O’Connor,” cried Kennedy. “Watch the roof and the back yard.”

The driver of the van hastened to send in the call.

The sharp raps of the hammers and the axes sounded on the thick brass-bound oak of the outside door in quick succession. There was a scurry of feet inside, and we could hear a grating noise and a terrific jar as the inner, steel door shut.

“A raid! A raid on the Vesper Club!” shouted a belated passer-by. The crowd swarmed around from Broadway, as if it were noon instead of midnight.

Banging and ripping and tearing, the outer door was slowly forced. As it crashed in, the quick gongs of several police patrols sounded. The reserves had been called out at the proper moment, too late for them to “tip off” the club that there was going to be a raid, as frequently occurs.