XXVI

THE WHITE SLAVE

Carton had sprung to his feet at the direct charge and was facing Ogleby.

"Is that true--about the Montmartre?" he demanded.

Ogleby fairly sputtered. "She lies," he almost hissed.

"Just a moment," interrupted Dorgan. "What has that to do with Miss Blackwell, anyhow?"

Sybil Seymour did not pause.

"It is true," she reiterated. "This is what it has to do with Betty Blackwell. Listen. He is the man who led me on, who would have done the same to Betty Blackwell. I yielded, but she fought. They could not conquer her--neither by drugs nor drink, nor by clothes, nor a good time, nor force. I saw it all in the Montmartre and the beauty parlour--all."

"Lies--all lies," hissed Ogleby, beside himself with anger.

"No, no," cried Sybil. "I do not lie. Mr. Carton and this good woman, Miss Kendall, who is working for him, are the first people I have seen since you, Martin Ogleby, brought me to the Montmartre, who have ever given me a chance to become again what I was before you and your friends got me."

"Have a care, young woman," interrupted Dorgan, recovering himself as she proceeded. "There are laws and--"

"I don't care a rap about laws such as yours. As for gangs--that was what you were going to say--I'd snap my fingers in the face of Ike the Dropper himself if he were here. You could kill me, but I would tell the truth.

"Let me tell you my case," she continued, turning in appeal to the rest of us, "the case of a poor girl in a small city near New York, who liked a good time, liked pretty clothes, a ride in an automobile, theatres, excitement, bright lights, night life. I liked them. He knew that. He led me on, made me like him. And when I began to show the strain of the pace--we all show it more than the men--he cast me aside, like a squeezed-out lemon."

Sybil Seymour was talking rapidly, but she was not hysterical.

"Already you know Betty Blackwell's story--part of it," she hurried on.

"Miss Kendall has told me--how she was bribed to disappear. But beyond that--what?"

For a moment she paused. No one said a word. Here at last was the one person who held the key to the mystery.

"She did disappear. She kept her word. At last she had money, the one thing she had longed for. At last she was able to gratify those desires to play the fashionable lady which her family had always felt. What more natural, then, than while she must keep in hiding to make one visit to the beauty parlour to which so many society women went--Margot's? It was there that she went on the day that she disappeared."

We were hanging breathlessly now on the words of the girl as she untangled the sordid story.

"And then?" prompted Kennedy.

"Then came into play another arm of the System," she replied. "They tried to make sure that she would disappear. They tried the same arts on her that they had on me--this man and the gang about him. He played on her love of beauty and Madame Margot helped him. He used the Montmartre and the Futurist to fascinate her, but still she was not his. She let herself drift along, perhaps because she knew that her family was every bit the equal socially of his own. Madame Margot tried drugs; first the doped cigarette, then drugs that had to be forced on her. She kept her in that joint for days by force; and there where I went for relief day after day from my own bitter thoughts I saw her, in that h.e.l.l which Miss Kendall now by her evidence will close forever.

Still she would not yield.

"I saw it all. Maybe you will say I was jealous because I had lost him.

I was not. I hated him. You do not know how close hate can be to love in the heart of a woman. I could not help it. I had to write a letter that might save her.

"Miss Kendall has told me about the typewritten letters; how you, Professor Kennedy, traced them to the Montmartre. I wrote them, I admit, for these people. I wrote that stuff about drugs for Dr. Harris.

And I wrote the first letter of all to the District Attorney. I wrote it for myself and signed it as I am--G.o.d forgive me--'An Outcast.'"

The poor girl, overwrought by the strain of the confession that laid bare her very soul, sank back in her chair and cried, as Miss Kendall gently tried to soothe her.

Dorgan and Ogleby listened sullenly. Never in their lives had they dreamed of such a situation as this.

There was no air of triumph about Kennedy now over the confession, which with the aid of Miss Kendall, he had staged so effectively.

Rather it was a spirit of earnestness, of retribution, justice.

"You know all this?" he inquired gently of the girl.

"I saw it," she said simply, raising her bowed head.

Dorgan had been doing some quick thinking. He leaned over and whispered quickly to Ogleby.

"Why was she not discovered then when these detectives broke into the private house--an act which they themselves will have to answer for when the time comes?" demanded Ogleby.

It seemed as if the mere sound of his voice roused the girl.

"Because it was dangerous to keep her there any longer," she replied.

"I heard the talk about the hotel, the rumour that someone was using this new French detective scheme. I heard them blame the District Attorney--who was clever enough to have others working on the case whom you did not know. While you were watching his officers, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Kendall were gathering evidence almost under your very eyes.

"But you were panic-stricken. You and your agents wanted to remove the danger of discovery. Dr. Harris and Marie Margot had a plan which you grasped at eagerly. There was Ike the Dropper, that scoundrel who lives on women. Between them you would spirit her away. You were glad to have them do it, little realizing that, with every step, they had you involved deeper and worse. You forgot everything, all honour and manhood in your panic; you were ready to consent, to urge any course that would relieve you--and you have taken the course that involves you worse than any other."

"Who will believe a story like that?" demanded Ogleby. "What are you--according to your own confession? Am I to be charged with everything this gang, as you call it, does? You are their agent, perhaps working for this blackmailing crew. But I tell you, I will fight, I will not be blackened by--"

Sybil laughed, half hysterically.

"Blackened?" she repeated. "You who would put this thing all off on others who worked for you, who played on your vices and pa.s.sions, not because you were weak, but because you thought you were above the law!

"You did not care what became of that girl, so long as she was where she could not accuse you. You left her to that gang, to Ike, to Marie, to Harris." She paused a moment, and flashed a quick glance of scorn at him. "Do you want to know what has become of her, what you are responsible for?

"I will tell you. They had other ideas than just getting her out of the way of your selfish career. They are in this life for money. Betty Blackwell to them was a marketable article, a piece of merchandise in the terrible traffic which they carry on. If she had been yielding, like the rest of us, she might now be apparently free, yet held by a bondage as powerful and unescapable as if it were of iron, a life from which she could not escape. But she was not yielding. They would break her. Perhaps you have tried to ease your conscience, if you have any, by the thought that it is they, not you, who have her hidden away somewhere now. You cannot escape that way; it was you who made her, who made others of us, what we are."

"Let her rave, Ogleby," sneered Dorgan.

"Yes--raving, that's it," echoed Ogleby. But his expression belied him.

"There it is," she continued. "You have not even an opinion of your own. You repeat even the remarks of others. They have you in their power. You have put yourself there."

"All very pretty," remarked Dorgan with biting sarcasm. "All very cleverly thought out. So nice here! Wait until you have to tell that story in court. You know the first rule of equity? Do you go into court with clean hands? There is a day of reckoning coming to you, young woman, and to these other meddlers here--whether they are playing politics or meddling just because they are old-maidish busy-bodies."

She was facing the politician with burning cheeks.

"You," she scorned, "belong to an age that is pa.s.sing away. You cannot understand these people like Miss Kendall, like Mr. Carton, who cannot be bought and controlled like your other creatures. You do not know how the underworld can turn on the upperworld. You would not pull us up--you shoved us down deeper, in your greed. But if we go down, we shall drag you, too. What have we to lose? You and your creatures, like Martin Ogleby, have taken everything from us. We--"

"Come, Ogleby," interposed Dorgan, deliberately turning his back on her and slowly placing his hat on his half-bald head. "We are indebted to Professor Kennedy for a pleasant entertainment. When he has another show equally original we trust he will not forget the first-nighters who have enjoyed this farce."

Dorgan had reached the door and had his hand on the k.n.o.b. I had expected Kennedy to reply. But he said nothing. Instead his hand stole along the edge of the table beside which he was standing.

"Good-night," bowed Dorgan with mock solemnity. "Thank you for laying the cards on the table. We shall know how to play--"