Bluffer's luck

CHAPTER I: UP AGAINST ITFog and rain, with the spluttering arclights shining like moons out of the drizzle and a mist; the rattle of wheels on cobbles, soughing of fog-horns down on San Francisco Bay; the far-off din of a cable car gong, and always the dismal patter of rain along the gutter. A girl stopped at the entrance of a cheap boarding house, where a single electric bulb partly illuminated the faded sign. Her faded old raincoat glistened in the light, and her cheap felt hat leaked drops of water as she glanced up at the sign. It was not because she was unfamiliar with that sign. Nan Whitlock had passed under it several times a day for a number of months, because it was her home. That is, it was the only home she had, and just now she was wondering how much longer she could call it home. After a short period of reflection she went inside, passed the dining-room door and started up the stairs. Beneath the raincoat was a small parcel, and she quickly slipped it farther out of sight as a step sounded on the stairs above her. It was Mrs. Emmett, the landlady, a short, chubby sort of woman, but with features prematurely hardened from forcing payments. Just now she narrowed her eyes and glanced upon Nan Whitlock as she partly blocked the stairs. “I was just at your room, Miss Whitlock,” she said. “Unless you and Miss Allan pay for that room before breakfast to-morrow, I’ve a new inhabitant for the same.” “Was—was Miss Allan there?” faltered Nan. “She was not. I’m tired of promises, and I just heard that Miss Allan’s show closes to-morrow night.” “Yes, I know that,” said Nan meekly. “Oh, ye do? And I suppose I was to be left holding the sack, as they say, eh? Well, I’m not. I’ve had her trunk put in storage to-day, and she’ll not get it until the rent is all paid.” “Oh, I’m sorry about that, Mrs. Emmett.” “She’ll be sorry, too, I’m thinking. Oh, I don’t mean to be cross about it, but business is business. If I have to, I’ll attach your wages, my dear. With a fly-by-night like Madge Allan, all I can do is take her trunk. You tell her, will ye? And, of course, that means both of ye get out, unless the money is paid. Her with her fine clothes and fur coats, and a taxi at the door almost every night! And she can’t pay twenty dollars rent! Well, you two think it over, my dear. Unless I miss my guess, I’ll have a vacancy after breakfast.” She stepped aside and walked grandly down the stairs, while Nan hurried on to her room, where she lighted the gas jets, threw off her wet coat and sat down rather heavily. Nan was not pretty, but she had an oval face, wistful gray eyes, and a wealth of wavy auburn hair. Twenty-two her last birthday, and out of a job again. “Attach my wages,” she said, half aloud. “Fine chance. With it all in my pocket.” The steam in the radiators clanked furiously for a moment. Nan got to her feet, took a pair of old slippers from under the bed and removed her wet shoes. Then from a locked drawer in the dresser she took a gas plate, with a long hose, which she attached to one of the gas jets. From the parcel she had carried she produced hamburger steak. From another locked drawer she took a frying-pan, a small coffee-pot, and a box which contained bread, butter, eggs and coffee. On the wall was a printed warning that the management positively did not allow cooking in the rooms. Nan hung her wet hat over the top of it and proceeded with her cooking. The room was full of the savoury odours when Madge Allan came in. She slammed the door quickly behind her and grinned at Nan. Madge Allan was a different type than Nan Whitlock. Madge was a tall, willowy blonde, affecting much rouge, flashily dressed. Just now her face was streaked with rain, and her Hudson seal coat looked rather bedraggled. “Well, I dodged her,” she said triumphantly. “Stood out there in the rain until the noblest Roman of them all went to the kitchen to take a fall out of the cook for using too much shortening in the pie crust, and then I took them stairs four at a time. Hamburger and onions! My Gawd, honey, don’t you ever lose your appetite for dainties like that?” Nan shrugged her shoulders. “No dodging it now,” she said rather bitterly. “Lost my job to-day. Cutting down the force, they said. They’ll pay a dividend on what they’ll save on my salary, I suppose.” “Aw, gee, that’s tough!” Madge flapped her hands dismally against her wet coat. “Canned in the winter, like a—a—what do they can in the winter, Nan? Pshaw, that’s too bad. And my show closes to-morrow night.” She came over closer to Nan and put a hand on her shoulder affectionately. “Don’t you worry, kid, I like you a lot, because you never ask questions. One of these days I’m going to fall into some money, and when I do, we’ll—well, you wait. Oh, it won’t be long. Nope, I don’t crave hamburger. Jack Pollock is taking me out to the Cliff House for dinner to-night if I can get out of here without giving up my coat to the landlady.” “She’s taken your trunk, Madge.” “My trunk!” Madge whirled around and looked at the corner of the room, where her trunk had been. Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed with anger. “She told me about it on the stairs,” said Nan slowly. “I haven’t even a trunk for her to take; so she’ll probably put me in jail.” Madge shook her head quickly. “No, she won’t. I’ll make Jack give me enough to pay up the rent. He’s a good scout, and he’s got plenty. Anyway, he can advance me that much and he’s gambler enough to take a chance.” “Advance you that much?” queried Nan. “Are you going to work for Jack Pollock, Madge?” “Not the way you think. I’d be a poor stick in his gambling house. No, it’s just a private deal, kid. Well, I’ve got to meet Jack right away, and as long as Mrs. Julius Cæsar has the trunk, I won’t mind if she does meet me now. But it might not be so good for her. Now, don’t worry, kid. This is just one evening, and to-morrow is another day. Forget the job and enjoy the hamburger. Lock the door behind me, because if that old battle-axe ever gets a whiff of that aroma, she’ll send for the fire department.” Nan laughed and locked the door behind her. She was fond of the breezy Madge, and Madge was fond of her. They had met several months before, when both of them were looking for a rooming house. Nan was an orphan, raised by an aunt in Portland, Oregon, who died leaving nothing but debts, but luckily she had lived long enough to give Nan a good home and to educate her. Nan had tried clerking, but the wages were too small, and her last venture had been as a stenographer in a broker’s office. Now this position had vanished, and all the money she owned was in her pocket-book, and that hardly sufficient to square up her room rent. As she ate her home-cooked meal she wondered what Madge had meant about falling into money. In discussing their affairs, Madge had said that she didn’t have a relative who wasn’t poorer than the proverbial church mouse. Nan did not care for the sleek Jack Pollock, a gambler, although he had always seemed decent enough. She washed her dishes and put everything away neatly. There was still an aroma of cooked foods when the landlady knocked softly on the door. “I have a letter here for Madge Allan,” she said, when Nan cautiously opened the door a few inches. “She said something about getting money from home, and this letter might just be the one she’ll be looking for.” The last was rather sarcastic as she handed the letter to Nan, sniffing at the hamburger-tainted atmosphere. “That’s queer,” she said. “I’d almost swear that ain’t no odour from my kitchen.” “I really can’t smell anything,” said Nan. “Then you’ve got a fine cold, young lady. Somebody in this house has been cooking hamburger and onions.” “Don’t you think that is rather astonishing?” “Astonishing! If I find out who it is I’ll astonish them. I run a boarding house, I’d have you know.” “Yes, I know you do, Mrs. Emmett. Good evening.” Nan closed the door and tossed the letter to the table, listening to Mrs. Emmett going down the creaking stairs. Nan was tired of Mrs. Emmett, tired of the eternal grind of trying to make enough money to keep body and soul together. But to-morrow she must go in search of another position, and possibly in search of another place to live, unless Madge was fortunate enough to raise the price of their delinquent rent. Nan had little to move. One valise carried her worldly goods. It was about eleven o’clock that night, and Nan was fast asleep when Mrs. Emmett knocked loudly on the door. “There’s a telephone call, Miss Whitlock! The man said it was very important.” Nan crawled out of bed and wrapped herself in one of Madge’s dressing robes, wondering what man could have any important conversation with her at eleven o’clock. She pattered down the stairs to the telephone, while Mrs. Emmett stood within earshot. “This is Miss Whitlock,” said Nan sleepily. “Emergency Hospital, Miss Whitlock,” said a heavy, masculine voice. “You are Madge Allan’s room-mate?” “Yes,” said Nan weakly. “Do you know where Miss Allan’s relatives live?” “Why—no,” faltered Nan. “What is the matter?” “I’m very sorry,” said the man slowly. “Miss Allan was killed an hour ago in an accident. A Mr. Pollock was badly injured, but was able to give us your name. He said⸺” “You say she was killed?” “Instantly. We would like to get in touch with some of her relatives. Mr. Pollock didn’t know⸺” Nan sagged away from the telephone, sick at heart. “Who got killed?” interrupted Mrs. Emmett. Nan braced up and turned back to the telephone. “Why, I—I don’t know where any of them live,” she said wearily. “Somewhere in the East, I think. She spoke of a cousin somewhere in Arizona, but I don’t remember the place.” “I see. Well, thanks, just the same, Miss Whitlock.” The receiver clicked back into place and Nan turned from the phone. “Miss Allan was killed in a wreck, Mrs. Emmett,” said Nan. “She is at the Emergency Hospital.” “Well, can ye imagine that now? And her all alive and well a few hours ago. And me threatenin’ to turn her out in the morning. Dear, dear!” Mrs. Emmett walked away, shaking her head. Near the telephone was an old rocking-chair, and Nan sank down in it weakly. The one person in the whole world who had been a real friend to her had been snuffed out like a candle in the wind. Nan didn’t know what to do. She knew there was no use of her going to the hospital, at least, not that night. It was draughty there in the hall, so she stumbled back up the stairs, and sat down in her room, her knees weak from the shock. The rain whipped dismally against the windows, coming in from the bay, where the fog-horns bellowed unceasingly. She had propped Madge’s letter against a book on the table, and now she picked it up. It was postmarked Lobo Wells, Arizona. Perhaps this letter would give a clue to Madge’s relatives, she mused. With no thought of anything but a desire to help in the matter, she opened the envelope and drew out the enclosure. It was a typewritten letter, and pinned to it was a cheque for one hundred dollars, made out to Madge Singer. Nan looked it over curiously. It was drawn on the Bank of Lobo Wells, and signed with an inky scrawl, which she finally deciphered. The letter read: “My dear Miss Singer,—Your uncle, Jim Singer, has passed away, and his last will and testament, executed by me, shows you to be his sole heir. Am enclosing certified cheque for one hundred dollars for your expenses, as I expect you to come here at once. “As I understand it, you have never known your uncle personally, and have never been in Lobo Wells. Come direct here, go to the hotel and get in communication with me at once. “Very truly yours, “Amos A. Baggs, “Attorney at Law.” Nan stared at the letter, trying to understand what it meant. Finally she realised that possibly Madge had taken the name of Allan as a theatrical nom de plume, and that her family name was Singer. Perhaps, thought Nan, this inheritance was the money Madge had spoken of “falling into soon.” Madge had mentioned some relative in Arizona, and Nan thought she had mentioned a cousin; but it might have been an uncle. Nan fingered the hundred-dollar cheque. It was more money than she had possessed in over a year. It was certified. Any one signing Madge Singer’s name to it could draw the money. And Madge Singer was dead. Nan shut her hand tightly over the cheque. “There is no Madge Singer,” she told herself. “Only Lobo Wells, Arizona, knows that there ever was a Madge Singer. Why not cash the cheque?” Nan was not a crook, but adversity caused her to grasp at straws. She needed clothes. This cheque would solve that problem. It would pay her room rent, give her a chance. She stared at the rain-washed window and at the four walls of the shabby room. Madge Allan’s rather hard, mocking laughter seemed still to echo from those walls. She had often laughed at Nan and told her to go ahead and gamble with life. “Bluff them, kid,” she had often advised. “You don’t need to be bad to bluff. Life is a gamble and a fight; but the fight is a lot easier if you bluff the gamblers. Take all you can get.” That was Madge Allan’s philosophy of life, take a chance. “Madge would do it,” Nan told herself as she hugged the old robe around her white throat to keep out the chill. She read the letter again, a tight feeling in her throat. “⸺have never been in Lobo Wells—have never known your uncle personally.” She dropped the letter in her lap. Who would know? Nobody in Lobo Wells. Something was telling her to take a chance. It hammered in her ears above the moaning of the fog-horns. Take a chance, take a chance, take a chance. It was like the clicking of car wheels on a railroad track. Ahead of her was the hard, dreary round of job-seeking, the pitifully few dollars in her pocket, no place to call home. She carefully folded up the letter and cheque, put them in her purse. She felt weak and foolish over it all. Her face was white in the cheap mirror over the dresser. “If they throw you in jail you won’t have to pay rent,” she told herself. “They don’t have landladies in jails—not to make collections. Anyway, I wouldn’t be stealing from live people. Her uncle is dead and Madge is dead. A dead woman’s shoes!” Nan crept back into bed after turning off the gas jet. She forgot that on the morrow she would be minus a bed. The horrors of job-hunting were also forgotten. She was wondering whether a medium-sized, red-headed girl could substitute for a tall, willowy blonde in Arizona.