Traffic in Souls: A Novel of Crime and Its Cure

"If you don't want your wife to know about this, get in quickly," commanded Sawyer sharply.

Trubus began to expostulate, but his thick lips quivered with emotion.

"Down to the station house, quick!" ordered the captain to the chauffeur. "No speed limit."

"I'll have you discharged from the force for this, you scoundrel!" Trubus finally found words to say. "Where is your warrant for my arrest? What is your charge?"

Sawyer did not answer.

As they reached a subway station he called out to the driver:

"Stop a minute. Now, Burke, you had better go uptown and get the witness; hurry right down, for I want to end this matter to-night."

Bobbie dismounted, while Trubus stormed in vain. As the car sped onward he saw the president of the Purity League indulging in language quite alien to the Scriptural quotations which were his usual stock in discourse. Captain Sawyer was puffing a cigar and watching the throng on the sidewalks as though he were stone deaf.

Burke hurried to the Barton home. There he found a scene of joy which beggared description. Lorna had recovered and was strong enough to run to greet him.

"Oh, Mr. Burke, can you ever forgive me for my silliness and ugly words?" she began, as Mary caught the officer's hand with a welcome clasp.

"There, there, Miss Lorna, I've nothing to forgive. I'm so happy that you have come out safe and sound from the dangers of these men," answered Burke. "We have trapped the gang, even up to Trubus, and, if you are strong enough to go down to the station, we will have him sent with the rest of his crew to the Tombs to await trial."

Old Barton reached for Burke's hand.

"My boy, you have been more than a friend to me on this terrible yet wonderful day. You could have done no more if you had been my own son."

The excitement and his own tense nerves drove Bobbie to a speech which he had been pondering and hesitating to make for several weeks. He blurted it out now, intensely surprised at his own temerity.

"Your own son, Mr. Barton… Oh, how I wish I were… And I hope that I may be some day, if you and some one else are willing … some day when I have saved enough to provide the right sort of a home."

He hesitated, and Lorna stepped back. Mary held out her hands, and her eyes glowed with that glorious dilation which only comes once in a life-time to one woman's glance for only one man's answering look.

She held out her hands as she approached him.

"Oh, Bob … as though you had to ask!" was all she said, as the strong arms caught her in their first embrace. Her face was wet with tears as Bob drew back from their first kiss.

John Barton was wiping his eyes as Burke looked at him in happy bewilderment at this curious turn to his fortune.

"My boy, Bob," began the old man softly, "would you take the responsibility of a wife, earning no more money than a policeman can?"

Bob nodded. "I'd do it and give up everything in the world to make her happy if it were enough to satisfy her," he asserted.

Barton lifted up a letter which had been lying on the table beside him. He smiled as he read from it:

"DEAR MR. BARTON:

"The patents have gone through in great shape and they are so basic that no one can fight you on them. The Gresham Company has offered me, as your attorney, fifty thousand dollars as an advance royalty, and a contract for your salary as superintendent for their manufacture. We can get even more. It may interest you to know that your friend on the police force won't have to worry about a raise in salary. I have been working on his case with a lawyer in Decatur, Illinois. His uncle is willing to make a payment of twenty-four thousand dollars to prevent being prosecuted for misappropriation of funds on that estate. I will see you…"

Barton dropped the letter to his lap.

"Now, how does that news strike you?"

"I can't believe it real," gasped Burke, rubbing his forehead. "But I am more glad for you than for myself. You will have an immense fortune, won't you?"

Smiling into the faces of the two radiant girls, Old Barton drew Lorna to his side and, reaching forward, tugged at the hand of Mary.

"In my two dear girls, safe and happy, I have a greater wealth for my old age than the National City Bank could pay me, Burke. Lorna has told me of her experience and her escape when all escape seemed hopeless. She has learned that the sensual pleasures of one side of New York's glittering life are dross and death. In the books and silly plays she has read and seen it was pictured as being all song and jollity. Now she knows how sordid and bitter is the draught which can only end, like all poison, in one thing. God bless you, my boy, and you, my girls!"

Bobbie shook the old man's hand, and then remembered the unpleasant duty still before him.

"We must get down town as soon as possible," syd he. "Come, won't you go with us, Mary?"

The two girls put on their hats and together they traveled to the distant police station as rapidly as possible. It was a bitter ordeal for Lorna, whose strength was nearly exhausted. The welts on her shoulders from Shepard's whip brought the tears to her eyes. As they reached the station house the girl became faint. The matron and Mary had to chafe her hands and apply other homely remedies to keep her up for the task of identifying the woman who had been captured.

"Now, Burke," began Sawyer, "I have been saving Trubus for a surprise. He has been locked up in my private office, and still doesn't know exactly how we have caught him. I've broken the letter of the rules by forbidding him to telephone anyone until you came. I guess it is important enough, in view of our discovery, for me to have done this – he can call up his lawyer as soon as we have confronted him with Clemm and this young girl. Bring me the phonograph records."

They went into his private office, where White was guarding Trubus.

"How much longer am I to be subject to these Russian police methods?" demanded Trubus, with an oath.

"Quiet, now, Mr. Purity League," said Sawyer, "we are going to have ladies present. You will soon be allowed to talk all you want. But I warn you in advance that everything you say will be used as evidence against you."

"Against me – me, the leading charity worker of our city!" snorted Trubus, but he watched the door uneasily.

"Bring in the young ladies, Burke," directed Captain Sawyer.

Bobbie returned with Mary and Lorna. Trubus started perceptibly as he observed the new telephone girl whom his wife had induced him to employ that day.

Sawyer nodded again to Burke.

"Now the go-between." He turned to Mary. "Do you know this man, Miss Barton?"

The name had a strangely familiar sound to Trubus. He wondered uneasily.

"He is William Trubus, president of the Purity League. I worked for him to-day."

"Do you recognize this man?" was queried, as Clemm shuffled forward, with the assistance of Burke's sturdy push.

"This is the one who was embracing the other telephone girl. But he did not stay there long. I never saw him before that, to my recollection."

"What do you know about this man, Officer 4434?" asked the captain. Clemm fumbled with his handcuffs, looking down in a sheepish way to avoid the malevolent looks of Trubus.

"He is known as John Clemm, although we have found a police record of him under a dozen different aliases. He formerly ran a gambling house, and at different times has been involved in bunco game and wire-tapping tricks. He is one of the cleverest crooks in New York. In the present case he has been the go-between for this man Trubus, who, posing as a reformer to cover his activities, has kept in touch with the work of the Vice Trust, managed by Clemm. They had a dictagraph and a mechanical pencil register which connected Trubus's office with Clemm's."

"It's a lie!" shouted Trubus, furiously. "Some of these degraded criminals are drawing my famous and honored name into this case to protect themselves. It is a police scheme for notoriety."

"You'll get the notoriety," retorted Sawyer. "There is a young man who is taking notes for the biggest paper in New York. He has verified every detail. They'll have extras on the streets in fifteen minutes, for this is the biggest story in years. You are cornered at last, Trubus. Send in the rest of those people arrested in that house owned by Trubus." The woman was brought in with the others of the gang who had been apprehended in the old house.

"Now, Mr. Trubus, this woman rented from you and paid a very high rental. The man Shepard was killed in resisting arrest. We have rounded up Baxter, Craig, Madame Blanche and a dozen others of your employees. Have you anything to say?"

Trubus whirled around and would have struck Clemm had not White intervened.

"You squealer! You've betrayed me!"

"No, I didn't!" cried Clemm, shrinking back. "I swear I didn't!"

Sawyer reached for the phonograph records and held them up with a laconic smile.

"There's no use in accusing anyone else, Trubus. You're your own worst enemy, for these records, with your own dictagraph as the chief assistant prosecutor, have trapped you."

Trubus raised his hands in terror and his iron nerve gave way completely.

"Oh, my God!" he cried. "What will my wife and daughter think?"

"You should have figured that out when you started all this," retorted Sawyer. "Take them into the cells, and we'll have them arraigned at Night Court. Make out the full reports now, men."

The prisoners were led out.

Trubus turned and begged with Sawyer for a little time.

"Let me tell my wife," he pleaded. "I don't want any one else to do it."

"You stay just where you are, until I am through with you. You're getting war methods now, Trubus – after waging war from ambush for all this time. Burke, you had better have the young ladies taken home. Go up with them. Use the automobile outside. You can have the evening off as soon as we get through the arraignment at court."

It took an hour before the first charges could be brought to the Magistrate, through whose hands all cases must first be carried. The sisters decided to stay and end their first ordeal with what testimony was desired. This was sufficient for the starting of the wheels of justice. Trubus had called up his lawyer, who was on hand with the usual objections and instructions. But he was held over until the day court, without bail.

"Only let me go home, and break the news to my wife and daughter," begged the subdued man. "Oh, I beg that one privilege."

The judge looked at Captain Sawyer, who nodded.

"I will send a couple of men up with him, your honor. I understand his wife is a very estimable lady. It will be a bitter blow to her."

"All right. You will have to go in the custody of the police. But I will not release you on bail."

Bobbie and the girls had already sped on their way to the happy Barton home. Trubus, under the watchful eyes of two policemen and with his lawyer, lost no time in returning to his mansion.

As he rang the bell the butler hurried to the door in a frightened manner.

"It can't be true, sir, wot the pypers say, can it?" he gasped. But Trubus forced his way past, followed by the attorney and his two guards.

In the beautiful drawing-room he saw two maids leaning over the Oriental couch. They were trying to quiet his daughter.

"Why, Sylvia, my child," he cried.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed the girl, forcing herself free from the restraining hands of the servants. She laughed shrilly as she staggered toward her father. Her eyes were wide and staring with the light of madness. "Here's father! Dear father!"

Trubus paled, but caught her in his arms.

"My poor dear," he began.

"Oh, look, father, what it says in the papers. We missed you – ha, ha! – and the newsboys sold us this on the street. Look, father, there's your picture. He, he! And Ralph bought it and brought it to me."

She staggered and sank half-drooping in his arms. Her head rolled back and her eyes stared wildly at the ceiling. Her mad laughter rang out shrilly, piercing the ears of her miserable father. The two policemen and the lawyer watched the uncanny scene.

"Ha, ha! Ralph read it, and he's gone. He wouldn't marry me now, he said, – ha, ha! Father! Who cares? Oh, it's so funny!" She broke from her father's hold and ran into the big dining room, pursued by the sobbing maids.

"She's gone crazy as a loon," whispered one of the policemen to the other.

"Where is my wife?" timidly asked Trubus, as he supported himself with one hand on a table near the door. The frightened butler, with choleric red face, pointed upward.

Trubus drew himself up and started for the broad stairway.

Just then a revolver shot smote the ears of the excited men. It came from above.

"Great God!" uttered Trubus, clasping his hand to his heart. He ran for the stairs, followed by the two patrolmen, while the lawyer sank weakly into a chair and buried his face in his hands. He guessed only too well what had happened.

The policemen were slower than the panic-stricken Trubus.

They found him in his magnificent boudoir, kneeling and sobbing by the side of his dead wife; a revolver had fallen to the floor from her limp hand. It was still smoking. The exquisite lace coverlet was even now drinking up the red stains, and the bluecoats stopped at the doorway, dropping their heads as they instinctively doffed their caps.

Gruff Roundsman Murphy crossed himself, while White wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He remembered a verse from the old days when he went to Sunday-school in the Jersey town where he was born.

"'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord."

The blossoms of late May were tinting the greensward beneath the trees of Central Park as Bobbie Burke and Mary strolled along one of the winding paths. They had just walked up the Avenue from their last shopping expedition.

"I hated to bid the boys at the station house good-bye this afternoon, Mary. Yet after to-night we'll be away from New York for a wonderful month in the country. And then no more police duty, is there?"

"No, Bob. You and father will be the busiest partners in New York and you will have to report for duty at our new little apartment every evening before six. I'm so glad that you can leave all those dangers, and gladder still because of my own selfish gratifications. After to-night."

"Well, I'm scared of to-night more than I was of that police parade on May Day, with all that fuss about the medal. Here I've got to face a minister, and you know that's not as easy as it seems."

They reached the new home which the advance royalties for old Barton's days of realization had made possible. It was a handsome apartment on Central Park West, and the weeks of preparation had turned it into a wonderful bower for this night of nights.

"Look, Mary," cried Lorna, as they came in. "Here are two more presents. One must weigh a ton and the other is in this funny old bandbox."

They opened the big bundle first; it was a silver service of elaborate, ornate design. It had cost hundreds of dollars.

On a long paper Bobbie saw the names of a hundred men, all familiar and memory-stirring. The list was headed with the simple dedication in the full, round hand which Burke recognized as that of Captain Sawyer:

"To the Prince of all the Rookies and his Princess, from his brother cops. God bless you, Bobbie Burke, and Mrs. Bobbie."

Ex-officer 4434 Burke blinked and hugged his happy fiancée delightedly.

"What's in that old bandbox, Bob?" asked Lorna. "It's marked 'Glass – Handle with care.' I wonder how it ever held together. Some country fellow left it at the door this afternoon, but wouldn't come in."

They opened it, and Mary gasped.

"Why, look at the flowers!"

The box seemed full of old-fashioned country blossoms, as Mary dipped her hand into it. Then she deftly reached to the bottom of the big bandbox and lifted its contents. Wrapped in a sheathing of oiled tissue paper was a monstrous cake, layer on layer, like a Chinese pagoda. It was covered with that rustic triumph of multi-colored icing which only grandmothers seem able to compound in these degenerate days of machine-made pastry of the city bakeries.

A wedding ring of yellow icing was molded in the center, while on either side were red candy hearts, joined by whirly sugar streamers of pink and blue.

A card pinned in the center said:

"From Henrietta and Joe."

"That's all we needed," said Mary with a sob in her happy voice, "to make our wedding supper end right. Wasn't it, Officer 4434?"

THE END