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Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard · English · Gutenberg #35818 · 580,914 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Doors of the Night

Author: Frank L. Packard


        
Release date: April 10, 2011 [eBook #35818]
                Most recently updated: December 11, 2023

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOORS OF THE NIGHT ***




                           DOORS OF THE NIGHT

                          BY FRANK L. PACKARD

                               AUTHOR OF
            “Pawned,” “The Night Operator,” “The Adventures
                of Jimmie Dale,” “The Wire Devils,” etc.

                           A. L. BURT COMPANY
                         Publishers — New York

         Published by arrangement with George H. Doran Company
                          Printed in U. S. A.

                            COPYRIGHT, 1922,
                       BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




CONTENTS


    I—ACROSS THE THRESHOLD
    II—THE CRIME
    III—INTO THE UNDERWORLD
    IV—ALIAS THE RAT
    V—THE SECOND-HAND DEALER
    VI—A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
    VII—WHISPERING SHADOWS
    VIII—A LEASH IS SLIPPED
    IX—BEHIND THE DOOR
    X—THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE
    XI—THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY’S
    XII—A CLUE
    XIII—THE CIPHER MESSAGE
    XIV—THE ROBBERY
    XV—THE ALIBI
    XVI—TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER
    XVII—THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH
    XVIII—MIRRORED YEARS
    XIX—A HOLE IN THE WALL
    XX—THE CAT’S-PAW
    XXI—WITHOUT MERCY
    XXII—THE FIGHT
    XXIII—THE RENDEZVOUS
    XXIV—AGAINST TIME
    XXV—THE OLD WAREHOUSE
    XXVI—THE LAST PORTAL

                           DOORS OF THE NIGHT




I—ACROSS THE THRESHOLD


Billy Kane paused for an instant in the doorway of the room before him,
as his dark, steady eyes travelled over the appointments in a sort of
measured approval such as a connoisseur who knew his art might bestow
upon a canvas in which he found no flaw. The apartment was quite in
keeping with everything else that pertained to the palatial residence in
that upper Fifth Avenue section of New York. The indirect lighting fell
soft and mellow upon the priceless Oriental rug, the massive desk of
dark, carved wood, the wide, inviting leather-upholstered chairs, the
heavy portières that filled the window spaces and hung before the doors,
the bookshelves that lined the walls almost ceiling high and that were
of the same dark, polished wood as the desk and chairs. There was luxury
here, and wealth; but it was luxury without ostentation, and wealth that
typified only good taste and refinement.

He closed the door behind him, and began to pace slowly up and down the
room. And now he frowned a little. He had dined alone with his employer
as usual, for Mrs. Ellsworth being an invalid was rarely in evidence,
and David Ellsworth usually so genial an old gentleman, had not been
entirely himself. From the pocket of his dinner jacket Billy Kane took
out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette, and lighted it. Mr.
Ellsworth had lingered in the dining room, and had said that he would
come presently to the library—that there was a little matter he wished
to attend to. There was nothing strange in that, for they often worked
together here in this room in the evenings, and yet Billy Kane’s puzzled
frown deepened. There was something certainly amiss with the old
multi-millionaire tonight, and that anything should disturb the old
philanthropist’s tranquillity, except when his sympathies had been
aroused and the man’s heart, that was softer than a woman’s, had been
touched by some pathetic appeal, was decidedly strange.

Billy Kane continued his pacing up and down the room in long, athletic
strides, the great, broad shoulders squared back as his hands were
thrust into the pockets of his jacket. It was far more than a feeling of
respect or mere liking that he held for his employer, for there had come
esteem for the old gentleman’s sterling qualities, and with the esteem a
sincere affection, and out of it all, very curiously, a sort of
fathering, or protecting interest for this man of millions.

The frown passed away, and Billy Kane smiled a little whimsically at the
somewhat quaint conceit. Fathering! Nevertheless, it was true! There was
scarcely an hour of the day that some appeal for charity, ranging from a
few cents to many thousands of dollars, was not made upon David
Ellsworth—too many of them spurious, and it was his, Billy Kane’s,
self-appointed task to stand between his employer and these fraudulent
attempts. All the world, at least all the world within reach, seemed to
be thoroughly conversant with the old gentleman’s ask-no-questions
liberality—and to lose no opportunity in taking advantage of that
knowledge! For instance, though here he was forced to the belief that it
was genuinely worthy, there was the case of the deformed beggar, one
Antonio Laverto, who, during the last week, had taken up his station on
the corner a block away from the house. The beggar had already secured
the old gentleman’s attention, and also a dollar or two every time David
Ellsworth passed; in return for which David Ellsworth had become
possessed of a very pitiful life history, and also possessed of a desire
to set the man squarely on his feet again.

Billy Kane paused abruptly in his stride, as his eyes rested on the
portières that hung before one of the two doorways at the lower end of
the room. Behind that door, which was one of wood matching the other
doors of the room, was a door of solid steel, and behind the steel door
was one of the strongest vaults in the city of New York, and in the
vault, besides the magnificent collection of rubies that nestled in
their plush-lined trays, a collection that, while but a hobby, had yet
made their owner even more famous and widely known than had his
millions, were thousands of dollars—_the money kept there for the sole
purpose of being given away_! Eccentricity? Well, perhaps—but if so, it
was a very fine eccentricity, the eccentricity of one of God’s own
noblemen.

One of God’s own noblemen! Yes, he had good reason to call David
Ellsworth that! Billy Kane’s strong face softened. As a boy is
acquainted with his father’s companions, he had been acquainted with
David Ellsworth for many years, it was true; but he had never known the
other for his real worth until the last three months, during which time
he had been the retired magnate’s confidential secretary. His father had
been an old friend of David Ellsworth; and a little more than three
months ago his father had died, just as he, Billy Kane, had graduated
from Harvard. His father’s estate, supposedly large, had turned out to
amount to comparatively nothing; the net residue of the estate, which
had just been wound up, being represented by the sum now at his credit
in the bank, a matter of something less than five thousand dollars.
Apart from that, there was nothing. His mother had been dead many years;
and, with no ties to hamper him, he had been casting around for some
opening where he could utilize his university degree in arts to the best
advantage, when he had received the offer from David Ellsworth to act as
the latter’s confidential secretary. He had accepted at once, and since
then he had led a rather singular existence.

Billy Kane tamped out his cigarette on the edge of an ash receiver, and
stood leaning with his back against the desk, facing the hall door. Yes,
it was a very singular existence! His new home was veritably a palace,
with servants at every beck and call. His work was not onerous; and his
salary was over-generous. He, in turn, had a private secretary, or at
least a most capable stenographer, who, having been long in David
Ellsworth’s employ, took care of the daily routine; and it was mostly
routine as far as business went, for the millionaire had long since
retired from any active participation in the various interests through
which he had acquired his fortune. But the work, that is the bulk of it,
had now taken on quite a different angle, due to his, Billy Kane’s own
initiative, than had been thought of when he had accepted the position.
He had not been there a week before he had realized that the old
philanthropist was being victimized right and left by fraudulent appeals
for money. It had been sufficient simply to excite David Ellsworth’s
sympathy in order to open the ever-ready purse. David Ellsworth had
inquired no further. He, Billy Kane, but not without protest from the
old gentleman, to whom the loss of the money was nothing, but to whom
the uncovering of some pitiful fraud was a cause of genuine distress,
had instituted a new régime, and had undertaken to investigate every
case on its merits.

The whimsical smile came back to his lips. Born and brought up in the
city, he had imagined that he knew his New York; but the last three
months had opened his eyes to a new world around him—the world of the
Bad Lands, with its own language, its own customs and its own haunts. He
knew his New York a great deal better now! Those three months had
brought him into intimate touch with the dens and dives, and many of the
habitués of the underworld, since it was amongst those surroundings that
his investigations had mainly led him. He had even been in the heart of
that sordid world no later than that afternoon.

Behind his back, Billy Kane’s fingers were drumming a meditative tattoo
upon the desk. His train of thought had brought him back to the crippled
Italian beggar, Antonio Laverto. The man was a pitiful looking object
enough—one of those mendicants commonly designated in the vernacular as
a “flopper.” His legs were twisted under him in contorted angles at the
knees, and his means of locomotion consisted in lifting himself up on
the palms of his hands and swaying himself painfully along a foot or so
at a time. Laverto’s story, told in halting and broken English, was
equally pitiful. The man had been a photographer, an artist he had
called himself, and he had come to America a few years before from some
little town in Italy, lured by the high prices that he had heard the
rich New World would pay him for his work. But within a few days of
landing he had met with an accident in a tenement fire that had crippled
and maimed him for life. He had been practically destitute, his sole
possessions being the camera and a few of the cherished photographs he
had brought with him. The camera had gone to pay for his support during
convalescence; and subsequently, reduced to beggary, most of his
pictures had gone the same way.

That, in substance, was the Italian’s story. Billy Kane shook his head
impatiently. The man bothered him. He had been frankly skeptical and
wholly suspicious at first; but investigation had only confirmed the
man’s story. Certainly, an Italian by that name, newly arrived in the
country, had been badly hurt and crippled in a tenement fire a few years
ago, and had been treated in one of the city hospitals. That much, at
least, he had discovered! Also, no more than a few hours ago, he had
gone to Laverto’s home and found the man existing in a small, miserable
room on the East Side, and surrounded by every evidence of squalor and
abject poverty; and the man, he was obliged to confess, had got his
sympathy too. There were two exquisite little photographs, landscapes,
real gems of art, wrapped up in fold after fold of newspaper. Laverto
had shown them to him, and had told his story again, begging him to buy
one of the pictures—and when he had produced the money the cripple had
drawn his treasures back, and had clutched them to his breast, and had
cried over them, and finally had refused to sell at all.

Billy Kane’s fingers continued to drum on the desk. David Ellsworth
would undoubtedly want to know about Laverto to-night—and the man
bothered him. He had no grounds for further suspicion, fairness
compelled him to the admission that the man’s story seemed true; and
yet, based on nothing more tangible than intuition, there still lingered
a doubt about the whole matter in his mind.

Billy Kane straightened up from the desk. Jackson, one of the footmen,
had opened the door from the hall, and David Ellsworth, an immaculate
little gray-haired old gentleman, in evening clothes, stepped into the
library.

The footman closed the door silently.

David Ellsworth wore glasses. He took them off, polished them with
nervous energy while his blue eyes swept around the room, fixed on Billy
Kane’s face, and swept around the room again. He cleared his throat once
or twice before he spoke.

“I’ve kept you waiting, Billy,” he said abruptly. “You must have noticed
that I had finished dinner at the same time as yourself; but I have been
very much disturbed and perplexed all day, and I have been trying to
solve a problem before saying anything to you.”

“I hope there’s nothing seriously wrong, sir,” Billy Kane answered
quickly. “May I ask what——”

“Yes,” said David Ellsworth, a sort of curious reluctance in his voice.
He took a letter from his pocket, and handed it to Billy Kane. “It’s
this.”

Billy Kane opened the letter—and, staring at the type-written words on
the sheet in his hand, suddenly an angry red tinged his cheeks and
mounted to his temples. His eyes mechanically travelled over the lines
again:

    Like father like son may be an old adage, but like a good many
    old adages its face value is not always to be relied upon. It
    might pay you to keep an eye on your confidential secretary—and
    on the contents of your vault.

                                                           A Friend.

Billy Kane laid the letter down upon the desk without a word—but his
lips were tight.

“You understand, Billy,” said the old millionaire eagerly, “that the
only reason why I did not show this to you immediately when I received
it this morning was because I wanted, if possible, to formulate a
definite conclusion as to the motive that prompted the writing of the
contemptible thing. You understand, my boy, don’t you? I could talk to
you then about it without hurting you. As for the actual letter itself,
there is, of course, but one answer, and that is—this!”

David Ellsworth reached out for the letter—but Billy Kane had already
picked it up.

“You were going to tear it up, sir,” he said deliberately. “I’d rather
you wouldn’t. There may be a chance some day of showing this to the cur
who wrote it—and I wouldn’t like to lose that chance.”

“Then keep it, by all means!” agreed David Ellsworth. He nodded his head
in vigorous assent, as Billy Kane restored the letter to its envelope,
and placed the letter in the pocket of his dinner jacket. “So much for
that! But what do you make of it, Billy?”

“It’s object is obvious enough,” Billy Kane replied savagely. “Somebody
appears to have it in for me.”

David Ellsworth was polishing his glasses again.

“You’ve told me that I was the most guileless man you ever knew, Billy,”
he said, shaking his head slowly; “and perhaps I am, and then again
perhaps I’m not—and perhaps it isn’t always because I’m guileless that I
close my eyes to many things. But I guess, after all, that I can peer as
far through a stone wall as the next man. I’ve had to do some pretty
stiff peering in the days gone by to get the few millions together that
I’ve got now. I mention this, Billy, so that you may not confuse my
idiosyncrasies with—well, whatever you like to call it. Those dollars,
my boy, didn’t just drop into my hands—they were _thought_ there. And so
you think that letter means someone has it in for you? Think a little
deeper, Billy.”

“I don’t quite follow you,” said Billy Kane, in a puzzled way.

“And yet it is quite simple—although I’ve spent a day over it!” returned
the old millionaire, with a wry smile. “I have known you from a child.
Nothing has ever occurred to shake my confidence in you. The person who
wrote that letter was obviously acquainted with my past friendship for
your father and my long knowledge of yourself, and, with nothing to back
it up, he would be a madman indeed who would expect a scurrilous missive
such as that to have any weight with me. Am I right—or wrong, Billy?”

“Well; yes, sir—I suppose you’re right,” Billy Kane answered.

“I am sure I am,” declared the old gentleman decisively. “Quite sure of
it! But suppose, Billy, that to-morrow, or at any time _subsequent_ to
my having received that letter, something _did_ occur here—what then?”

The old millionaire’s face was grave. Billy Kane leaned sharply forward.

“What do you mean?” he questioned in a startled tone.

“Sit down there at the desk, Billy, and I’ll tell you,” said David
Ellsworth; and then, as Billy Kane obeyed, he stepped swiftly across the
room, opened the hall door, looked out, closed the door softly again,
and from there walked to one of the two doors at the lower end of the
room, opened this, looked into the room beyond, and closed it again.

Billy Kane watched the other in frank amazement. The door that David
Ellsworth had just opened was the door of the “office”—the room that
during working hours, which were from ten to five, was occupied by the
stenographer. True, the room opened on the back hallway and had a
separate entrance from the courtyard in the rear, an entrance always
used by the stenographer, but it was always locked by Peters, the
butler, at night, and he, Billy Kane, had the only other key.

David Ellsworth returned, and halted before Billy Kane’s chair.

“No, I am not in my second childhood, Billy,” he said quietly. “That
letter was certainly not written without a purpose; and yet from every
angle that I have been able to view it, except one, it would have been
exactly that—without purpose. I believe it is the first step in a
carefully laid plan that will divert, or fix, suspicion upon you.”

Billy Kane shook his head in perplexity.

“A plan?” he repeated. “I don’t understand.”

David Ellsworth’s only reply was to jerk his head significantly toward
the other of the two doors at the end of the room.

Mechanically Billy Kane followed the direction of the gesture with his
eyes; and then he was on his feet, his face suddenly grim and set.

“My God!” he murmured under his breath. “You mean——”

“Yes,” said David Ellsworth evenly. “Why not? I couldn’t tell you myself
exactly how much those stones in there are worth, but they are ranked as
one of the most valuable single collections of rubies in existence, and
certainly the figures would run somewhere between two and three hundred
thousand dollars. Besides, there’s always a little cash there—you know
better than I do precisely how much at the present moment.”

“Fourteen thousand five hundred odd,” Billy Kane answered automatically.

“Quite so!” nodded the old millionaire. “Well, it’s worth it, isn’t it,
Billy? I’ve never been afraid of any ordinary cracksman’s attempt
against that vault; but, if I am right now, this wouldn’t be any
ordinary attempt. I believe we are dealing with—_brains_. I believe,
further, that instead of you and I being the only ones who know the
combinations, as we have imagined, they are known to someone else.
Suppose, then, that the vault is found empty some morning? I immediately
recall to mind that letter. I remember that you are the only one to whom
I have confided the combinations. And suppose that some additional clue
pointing to you is left on the scene of the robbery? It would look
pretty black for you, Billy, would it not? Naturally the stolen stones
and money would not be found in your possession; but the plain, logical
supposition would be that, not being a fool, and believing that you were
above suspicion, you had secreted the proceeds of the robbery, and were
pursuing what you considered the safest course—that is, to brazen it out
and indignantly proclaim your innocence. The object of all this, of
course, being immunity for the real authors of the crime, for if you
were accused and convicted it is obvious that the police would look no
further and consider the case closed.”

Billy Kane did not reply for a moment. He had been startled at first,
but now he was conscious rather of a slight sense of inward amusement.
The old millionaire’s deductions were, of course, plausible and
possible; but, also, they appeared to be a little labored, a little
far-fetched, a little visionary. Apart from being based on a premise
that entailed somewhat elaborate preparations, there was one very weak
point in the old gentleman’s argument. The combinations being known only
to the two of them, David Ellsworth had failed to explain how, or where
the combinations had been obtained by a third party; and Billy Kane was
even more than ever confirmed in his mind that there was a very much
simpler, and a very much more creditable motive for that letter—spite.
Through his efforts there was more than one none too reputable a
character who otherwise would have partaken liberally of the old
philanthropist’s bounty; and that was probably the secret of the letter.
That the day’s cogitations of David Ellsworth had resulted in the
discovery of a mare’s nest was the way it struck Billy Kane now; but if
the old gentleman found satisfaction in his deductions, he, Billy Kane,
was of no mind to dispute them. There was nothing to be gained by it,
and on occasions he had known even David Ellsworth to grow stubborn and
most unpleasantly irascible.

“You may be right, sir,” Billy Kane said deliberately.

David Ellsworth’s two hands fell on Billy Kane’s shoulders, and pressed
him back into his chair again.

“So you think I may be right, do you?” There was a twinkle in the blue
eyes. “Tut, tut! You can’t fool the old man, Billy, my boy! What you
really think is that I’ve got a brain storm. But”—his voice grew
suddenly grave and agitated—“I _know_ I’m right, Billy—I _feel_ it. I’m
as sure now, as though it had already happened. But we’ll beat them, my
boy! Take your pen, and a blank card—there are some in the top drawer
there. Being forewarned, all that’s necessary is to change the
combinations. And I guess that will be an answer to their letter that
they didn’t expect!”

David Ellsworth was already across the room. Billy Kane took a small
blank card from the drawer of the desk, picked up a pen, and, without
comment, turned in his chair to watch the other. After all, little as he
shared the old millionaire’s alarm, the changing of the vault’s
combination was a precaution well worth while under any circumstances.
If it even became a habit, so much the better!

The portières were swung back now, the innocent looking door that
matched the others in the room was opened, and the nickel-plated knobs
and dials of the massive steel inner door glistened in the light. Came a
faint musical tinkle, as the dial whirred under David Ellsworth’s
fingers; then, presently, a soft metallic thud, as the old millionaire
swung the handle over and the bolts shot back. The heavy door moved
slightly inward, there was the click of an electric-light switch, the
vault was flooded with light, and from where he sat Billy Kane could see
into the interior. It was as large as a small sized room, and built of
the finest steel throughout. Steel shelves piled with document cases
lined the vault, and at the far end was a huge safe of the most modern
and perfected design. Billy Kane smiled a little to himself. In one
thing, at least, that David Ellsworth had said, the old millionaire had
indubitably been justified. The vault was as impregnable as human
ingenuity and skill could make it, and there was very little indeed to
be feared from any ordinary attempt upon it.

A few minutes passed while David Ellsworth worked with the key used for
changing the combination and with the mechanism on the inner side of the
door, and then he began to call out a series of numbers. Billy Kane
jotted them down on the card.

“We’ll test it now—call them back,” said David Ellsworth; and then, as
Billy Kane obeyed: “All right, Billy. Now we’ll do the same thing with
the safe.”

He moved down to the end of the vault, spent a moment or two over the
safe’s dial; and, as this door in turn was swung open, Billy Kane caught
a glimpse of the tiers of plush-lined trays that held the famous ruby
collection, and of the score of packages of banknotes that lay neatly
piled in the compartments inside the safe.

Again David Ellsworth called out a series of numbers, and as before
tested the new combination; and then, from beside the open door of the
safe, he spoke abruptly:

“Before I lock up again, Billy, what about our friend Laverto? You went
down there this afternoon, I believe?”

“Yes,” Billy Kane answered—and frowned. “But there’s no hurry about it,
is there? I’m bound to confess that his story seems to be straight
enough, and that I can’t find anything wrong, but——”

David Ellsworth chuckled suddenly, as he reached inside the safe and
took out a package of banknotes.

“You’ve been laughing at me up your sleeve for fussing around with those
combinations, my boy—I know you have. But you’re the old woman of the
two, Billy. If you couldn’t find anything wrong, I guess everything is
all right. If it isn’t”—he chuckled again, as he closed and locked the
safe—“it would do my heart good to see someone put something over on
you!”

The light in the vault went out. The vault door was closed and locked,
the outer door shut, the portières drawn back into place, and David
Ellsworth, coming back across the room, dropped the package of banknotes
on the desk.

“Take ’em to him, Billy,” he smiled; “and take ’em to him now. He’ll
have twelve hours more joy out of life than if you waited until
to-morrow morning.” He picked up the card upon which Billy Kane had
written the combinations, and placed it in his pocket. “You’ve got a
better memory than I have, Billy,” he observed, “and I guess you’ve got
this down pat now; but I’m afraid I’ll have to study the memo over a few
times before I take a chance on destroying it.”

Billy Kane was paying little attention to the other’s words; he was
riffling the banknotes through his fingers—they were of all
denominations, from hundred-dollar bills down to fives. It was, in fact,
a package of loose bills that he remembered having counted that morning.

“Do you happen to know how much there is here, Mr. Ellsworth?” he
inquired abruptly.

“Not precisely”—David Ellsworth peered over the rims of his glasses at
the package—“but I should say around a couple of thousand dollars.
I—er—promised him that, if he turned out to be deserving, and I’d——”

“There are two thousand dollars here exactly,” said Billy Kane a little
curtly. “What I understood that you promised him was that you would
start him up in life again, but it doesn’t require two thousand dollars
to start a man of his type going as a photographer.”

“H’m! Don’t you think so, Billy?” David Ellsworth’s blue eyes were
twinkling, and he was drawling his words. “Well, let’s see! Now, first
of all, judging from the photographic landscape he showed me, the man’s
a real artist, and he ought to have the best of tools to work with. A
good lens is a rather expensive commodity. I’m not much up on
photographic apparatus, but I’ll bet you could pay as high as a thousand
dollars for one outfit. And then there’s all the paraphernalia, and a
little place to furnish, and a little something to keep things going
until returns come in. Two thousand dollars—shucks, my boy! Indeed as a
matter of fact, now that you call my attention to it and I come to think
it over, Billy, I’m not sure that two thousand dollars is——”

And then Billy Kane laughed, and picked up the money, and went to the
door.

“All right, sir, I’ll go—at once,” he said, laughing again.




II—THE CRIME


Upstairs in his room Billy Kane changed from his dinner clothes into a
dark tweed suit, a very less noticeable attire for that neighborhood
where Antonio Laverto had his miserable home, and choosing a slouch hat,
left the house. A bus took him down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square,
and from there, crossing over Broadway, he continued on down the Bowery.

It was still early; and it was as though the night world here had not
yet awakened from its day’s slumber. The “gape wagons” had not yet begun
to bring their slumming parties to rub shoulders with the flotsam and
jetsam of the underworld, and to shudder in pharisaical horror at
“planted” fakes; true, the ubiquitous gasoline lamps glowed in useless
yellow spots against the entirely adequate street lighting in front of
many shops of all descriptions, and the pavements were alive with men,
women and children of every conceivable nationality and station in life,
but—Billy Kane smiled a little grimly, for he had learned a great deal,
a very great deal in the last three months, about this section of his
city—it was still early, and it was not yet the Bowery of the night.

Some half dozen blocks along, Billy Kane turned into a cross street and
headed deeper into the East Side.

And now Billy Kane’s forehead drew together in puckered furrows, as he
approached the lodging of Antonio Laverto, the cripple. In the inside
pocket of his vest were two thousand dollars in cash, for the outlay of
which, in spite of the old millionaire’s attitude in reference to it,
he, Billy Kane, held himself morally responsible. The frown deepened. It
was strange, very strange! He had logically convinced himself that
Laverto’s was a worthy case—but the intuition that something was wrong
would not down, and the nearer he approached the miserable and squalid
dwelling in which the Italian lived, the stronger that intuition grew.

And then Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders. He could at least put the
case to one more test, and if Laverto came through that all right that
was the end of it, and the man got the money. Laverto would certainly
not anticipate another visit this evening, so soon after the one of the
afternoon; and if he could come unawares upon the man, and observe the
other unawares perhaps, the chances were decidedly in favor of Laverto
being caught napping if he were sailing under false colors.

Billy Kane, reaching his destination, paused in front of a tumble-down
and dilapidated frame house, and glanced around him. The little side
street here was dirty and ill-lighted, but populous enough. Small shops,
many of them basement shops with cavernous, cellar-like entrances
opening from the sidewalk, lined both sides of the street; for the rest,
it was simply a matter of two rows of flanking, dingy tenements and old
houses—save for the usual saloon, whose window lights were bright enough
on the corner ahead.

The house door was wide open, and Billy Kane, pulling his slouch hat
down over his eyes, stepped into the dark unlighted interior. The place
was a hive of poverty, a miserable lodging house of the cheapest class;
and the air was close, almost fetid, and redolent with the smell of
garlic. How many humans eked out an existence here Billy Kane did not
know; but, though he knew them to be woefully many, for he had seen a
great number of them on his visit here that afternoon, the only evidence
of occupancy now was the occasional petulant cry of a child from
somewhere in the darkness, and a constant murmuring hum of voices from
behind closed doors.

Antonio Laverto’s room was the second one on the right of the passage.
Billy Kane moved quietly forward to the door, and stood there in the
blackness for a moment listening. There was no sound from within; nor
was there any light seeping through the keyhole or the door panels,
which later, he remembered, were badly cracked. Satisfied that the
cripple, unless he were asleep, was not inside, Billy Kane tried the
door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it silently, and stepped into the
room.

He lighted a match, held it above his head, and glanced around him. It
was a pitiful abode, pitiful enough to excite anyone’s sympathy—as it
had his own that afternoon. There was a cot in one corner with a thin,
torn blanket for covering, a rickety chair, and an old deal table on
which stood a cracked pitcher and wash basin, and the remains of a small
loaf of bread.

The match went out, and Billy Kane retreated to the door, and from the
door, to the street again. It was pretty bad in there, and evidently
just as genuinely on the ragged edge of existence as it had been that
afternoon—but still the persistent doubt in his mind would not down. It
was a sort of dog in the manger feeling, and he did not like it, and it
irritated him—but it clung tenaciously.

He lighted a cigarette, and, frowning, flipped the match stub away from
him. In any case, he had to find the man before he went home, whether it
resulted in his paying over the two thousand dollars or not. His eye
caught the lighted window of the saloon, and he started abruptly forward
in that direction. If there was anything at all in his suspicions, the
saloon was the most likely place in the neighborhood where they would be
verified; but in any event, the barkeeper, who probably knew everyone in
the locality better than anyone else, could possibly supply at least a
suggestion as to where the Italian spent his evenings and might be
found.

Billy Kane chose the side entrance to the saloon—it would probably
afford him a preliminary inspection of the place without being observed
himself—and entered. He found himself in a passageway that was meagerly
lighted by a gas jet, and that turned sharply at right angles a few
steps ahead. He reached the turn in the passage, and halted suddenly, as
a voice, curiously muffled, reached him. The passage here ahead of him,
some four or five yards in length, was lighted by another gas jet, and
terminated in swinging doors leading to the barroom; but halfway down
its length, in a little recess, most thoughtfully situated for the
privacy and convenience of the saloon’s perhaps none too reputable
clientele, was a telephone booth.

Billy Kane drew back, and protected from view by the angle of the
passage while he could still see the telephone booth himself quite
plainly, stood motionless. The booth, like a good many others, was by no
means sound-proof, and the voice, though muffled seemed strangely
familiar to him. Billy Kane’s brows drew together sharply. Through the
glass panel of the upper portion of the booth he could see the figure of
a man of about his own height, and he could see, as the man stood a
little sideways with his lips to the transmitter, the man’s profile.

And then Billy Kane, with a grim smile, reached suddenly up to the gas
jet over his head and turned it out. This left him in darkness and made
no appreciable diminution in the lighting of the passage leading to the
barroom. The man who stood upright in the booth at full height, and who
was speaking most excellent English, was Antonio Laverto, the maimed and
broken cripple whose pitiful and heart-rending story had been so
laboriously told in the few halting and hardly understandable words at
his command!

And now, Billy Kane, listening, could make out snatches of what the man
was saying.

“... That’s none of your business, and I guess the less you know about
it the better for yourself.... What?... Yes, Marco’s—the second-hand
clothes dealer.... What?... Yes, sure—by the lane.... The back door’s
got a broken lock—it’s never been fixed since he moved in two weeks ago.
All you got to do is walk in. It’s a cinch.... Sure, that’s right—that’s
all you got to do. Marco don’t keep open in the evening and besides he’s
away, you don’t need to worry about that.... Eh?... No, there won’t be
no come-back.... You pull the break the way I tell you, and you get a
hundred dollars in the morning.... What?... All right then, but don’t
make any mistake. You got to be out of there before a quarter of eleven!
Get me? Before a quarter of eleven—that’s all I care, and that’s give
you all the time you want.... Eh?... Yes—sure.... Good-night.”

The grim smile was still on Billy Kane’s lips, as he crouched back
against the wall. The door of the telephone booth opened, and Laverto
stuck his head out furtively. The little black eyes, staring out of the
thin, swarthy face, glanced up and down the passageway, and then the
head seemed to shrink into the shoulders, the body to collapse, and,
with legs twisted and dragging under him, there came the _flop-flop_ of
the palms of the man’s hands on the bare wooden flooring, as he started
along the passageway.

But Billy Kane was already at the side door of the saloon—and an instant
later he had swung around the street corner, and was heading briskly
back in the direction of the Bowery. He laughed shortly, as his hand
automatically crept into his inside pocket. The two thousand dollars
were still there—and they would stay there! His intuition, after all,
had not been at fault. The man was a vicious and damnable fraud, and, as
a logical corollary to that fact, was moreover a dangerous and clever
criminal. What was this “break” that was to be “pulled” at Marco’s
before a quarter of eleven?

Quite mechanically Billy Kane looked at his watch. He and David
Ellsworth had dined early, and it was even now barely eight o’clock.
Billy Kane’s face hardened, as he walked along, reached the Bowery, and,
by the same route he had come, gained Washington Square, and swung onto
a Fifth Avenue bus. Why Marco’s? There was surely nothing worth while
there! Marco’s was little more than a rag shop. He happened to know
Marco, because on the corner next to the tumble-down place that, as
Laverto had said, Marco had rented a week or so ago, there was a small
notion shop kept by an old Irish widow by the name of Clancy, where,
more than once on his visits to the East Side, he had dropped in to buy
a paper or a package of cigarettes. Why Marco’s? It puzzled him. The old
white-bearded, stoop-shouldered dealer did not seem to have much that
was worth stealing!

The bus jolted on up the Avenue. Billy Kane shifted his position
uneasily on the somewhat uncomfortably hard seat on the top of the bus.
His first impulse had been to confront Laverto on the spot, but quick on
the heels of that impulse had come a better plan. With rope enough the
man would hang himself. If there was anything in this Marco affair, a
robbery as was indicated, Marco would obviously report it to the police
as soon as it was discovered, and he, Billy Kane, being in possession of
the evidence that would convict its author, would then be in a position
to put an end, for a good many years at least, to Laverto’s criminal
career; and besides this, there was David Ellsworth—he did not want to
wound or hurt the other’s finer sensibilities, but that David Ellsworth
should see Laverto for himself in the latter’s true colors was
essential, for it would and must make the old philanthropist in the
future less the victim of that over-generous and spontaneous sympathy
which was so easily excited by those who preyed upon him.

The thought of David Ellsworth brought back again the thought of David
Ellsworth’s anonymous letter. Billy Kane lighted a cigarette, and smoked
it savagely. It was someone of the same breed as Antonio Laverto, and
for the same reason that Laverto would soon have for revenge, who had
written that letter. He was quite sure of that in his own mind. What
else, indeed, could it be? Not David Ellsworth’s explanation! That was
entirely too chimerical! One by one he reviewed the cases where he had
uncovered fraudulent attempts upon the old millionaire’s charity during
the past three months; but, while more than one was concerned with
characters vicious, dissolute and criminal enough, not one seemed to
dovetail into the niche in which he sought to fit it.

A second cigarette followed the first, and his mind was still busy with
his problem, as he pressed the button at the side of his seat, clambered
down the circular iron ladder at the rear of the bus, stepped to the
sidewalk as the bus drew up to the curb, and stood waiting for the bus
to pass on—David Ellsworth’s residence was on the first corner down the
cross street on the other side of the Avenue. The bus creaked
protestingly into motion, and Billy Kane, in the act of stepping from
the curb to cross the Avenue, paused suddenly, instead, as a voice spoke
behind him.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Kane, sir, may I speak to you for a moment?”

Billy Kane turned around abruptly. He stared at the other in surprise.
It was Jackson, the footman.

“Why yes, of course. But what on earth are you doing out here, Jackson?”
he demanded a little sharply.

“I was waiting for you, sir,” the man answered hurriedly. “I knew you’d
gone out, Mr. Kane; and I knew I couldn’t miss you here, sir, when you
came back, as you always come by the Avenue, sir. And, begging your
pardon again, sir, would you mind if we didn’t stand here? You wouldn’t
take offense, sir, if we went in by the garage driveway where we could
be alone for a minute, sir?”

Billy Kane eyed the man critically. Jackson, immaculate in his livery,
appeared to be quite himself; but Jackson at times had been known to
possess a greater fondness for a bottle than was good for him.

“What is it, Jackson?” he demanded still more sharply. “Did Mr.
Ellsworth send you here?”

“No, sir; he didn’t,” the man answered nervously. “But, if you please,
Mr. Kane, sir, that is, if you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather wait until——”

“Very well, Jackson!” Billy Kane interrupted curtly. “I suppose you have
a reason for your rather strange request. Come along, then, and I’ll
listen to what you have to say.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the man earnestly.

They crossed the Avenue, passed down the cross street, turned the
corner, and a moment later, entering by the garage driveway, gained the
courtyard in the rear of the house. It was dark here, there were no
lights showing from the back of the house itself or from the garage; and
here, close to the private entrance to the “office” and library, Billy
Kane halted.

“Well, Jackson, what’s it all about?” he inquired brusquely.

“If you please, Mr. Kane, sir”—the man’s voice had taken on a curious,
quavering note—“don’t speak so loud. We—you—you might be heard, sir,
from the servants’ entrance over there. I—Mr. Kane, sir—Mr. Ellsworth
has been murdered, and the money, sir, and the rubies are gone.”

Billy Kane was conscious only that he had reached out and grasped the
footman’s arm. They were very black, the shadows of the house, and it
was dark about him, but strange quick little red flashes seemed to dance
and dart and shoot before his eyes; and in his brain the man’s words
kept repeating themselves over and over in an insistent sort of way, and
the words seemed meaningless except that they were pregnant with an
overwhelming and numbing horror.

“For God’s sake, sir, let go my arm—you’re breaking it!” moaned the
footman in a whisper.

The man’s voice seemed to clear Billy Kane’s brain. David
Ellsworth—murdered! The horror was still there, but now there came a
fury beyond control, and a bitter grief that racked him to the soul.
David Ellsworth, his second father, the gentlest man and the kindest he
had ever known—_murdered_! His hand dropped to his side, and, turning,
he sprang up the few steps to the entrance just in front of him. He
whipped out his key, opened the door, and stepped forward into the
passageway. At his right was the door to the stenographer’s room, and
beyond, opening from that room, was the door to the library. He felt for
the door handle, for there was no light in the passage, and, finding it,
opened the door—and stood there rigid and motionless like a man turned
to stone. Across the blackness of the intervening room the library door
was partially open, and sprawled upon the floor lay the figure of a
white-haired man, only the hair was blotched with a great crimson
stain—and it was David Ellsworth. And something came choking into Billy
Kane’s throat, and a blinding mist before his eyes shut out the sight.

“In Heaven’s name, don’t go in there, sir!” Jackson was beside him
again, whispering in his ear, and pulling the door softly shut. “Don’t,
sir—don’t go—they’ll get you!”

“Get—_me_! What do you mean?” Billy Kane whirled on the man.

“For the love of God, sir,” pleaded Jackson, “don’t speak so loud! I’m
risking my neck for you, as it is, sir. There’s a couple of
plain-clothesmen waiting up in your room, sir, hiding there, and there’s
another two hiding in the front hall.”

“Are you mad, Jackson!” Billy Kane’s voice was low enough now in its
blank amazement.

“I’m telling you the truth, sir,” Jackson whispered tensely. “They’ve
got you dead to rights, sir. There ain’t a chance, except to run for
it—and that’s what I’d do, sir, if I were you, Mr. Kane. I didn’t mean
you to enter the house at all, but you acted so quick I couldn’t stop
you.”

Billy Kane’s two hands fell in an iron grip on the other’s shoulders,
and in the darkness he bent his head forward to stare into the man’s
face and eyes.

“You mean, Jackson,” he said hoarsely, “that _you_ believe I did that?”

The man wriggled himself free from Billy Kane’s grip.

“It’s not for me to say sir,” he answered uneasily. “I—I can only tell
you what they say.”

“Tell me, then!” Billy Kane’s voice, low as it was, was deadly in its
even, monotonous tone.

“Yes, sir,” said Jackson. “Keep your ear close to my lips, sir If anyone
hears us, it’s all up. They found him, Mr. Ellsworth, sir, lying there
dead in the library with his head split open, about half an hour after
you went out, sir. You were with him in the library after dinner alone,
sir; and no one was with him after that, and—don’t grip me again like
that, sir, or I can’t go on. You don’t know your own strength, sir, Mr.
Kane.”

“Go on, Jackson!” breathed Billy Kane. “I’m sorry! Go on!”

“Yes, sir; thank you, sir. It was Peters, the butler, sir, who found the
body, and he sent for the police. Mrs. Ellsworth doesn’t know anything
about it yet, sir. They’re afraid to tell her, she’s so delicate and
sick, sir. It was about half an hour after you went out, sir, as I said,
that Peters went to see Mr. Ellsworth about something, and found him
there like you just saw, sir. And then the police came, sir, and they
figured that you did it before you went out, and that you went out to
dispose of the money and jewels, sir, in some safe place, and maybe also
as a sort of alibi like, so that they’d think it was done while you were
away, sir, and that when you returned, if you did return, sir, you would
profess horror and surprise, sir.”

“Are you mad, Jackson!” Billy Kane said again.

“No, sir—you’ll see, sir—they’ve got you dead to rights. Both the vault
and safe doors were open, and the money and rubies gone, and on the
floor of the vault, way in by the wall under the lower shelf, like it
had fluttered in there without you noticing it, sir, was a card with the
combinations on it, and it was in your handwriting, Mr. Kane, sir. And
in Mr. Ellsworth’s hand, clutched there tight, sir, was a little piece
of black silk cord, and on the floor, under the table, sir, where it
must have rolled without you knowing it, sir, was a black button.”

“I don’t understand,” said Billy Kane, a little numbly now. There had
been something grotesquely absurd, something in the nature of a ghastly,
hideous and ill-timed joke, something that was literally the phantasm of
a diseased brain in the murmur of this man’s voice whispering out of the
darkness; but there was creeping upon him now a prescience as of some
deadly and remorseless thing that was closing down, around and upon him
with inexorable and crushing force. “I don’t understand,” he said again.

“Yes, sir.” Jackson’s low, guarded voice went on. “It’s not for me to
say, sir. You’ll remember, Mr. Kane, that you were wearing a dinner
jacket, and that before going out you went up to your room and changed.
I suppose it was excitement, sir, and you never noticed it, and it’s not
to be wondered at under the circumstances, sir. The button had been
pulled off the jacket, sir, and had taken the black silk loop with it.
And the button had rolled under the library-table, Mr. Kane, sir, and
the loop was clutched in Mr. Ellsworth’s hand.”

Billy Kane said no word. There was a strange whirling in his brain. Some
insidious and abhorrent thing was obsessing his consciousness, but in
some way it was not fully born yet, nor concrete, nor tangible. He
raised his hand and brushed it across his eyes.

“But that’s not all, Mr. Kane, sir.” The whispering voice was coming out
of the darkness again, and it seemed curiously fraught with
implacability, as though, not content with its unendurable torture, it
must torment the more. “They found a letter in the pocket of your dinner
jacket, Mr. Kane. It was a letter addressed to Mr. Ellsworth, which the
police figure you must have intercepted so that he wouldn’t see it, you
being the one who opens the mail, sir. It was a letter warning him to
look out for you, sir.”

And now it had come like a flash, the clearing of Billy Kane’s brain,
and now it was brutally clear, clear beyond any possibility of
misunderstanding; and, as a man walking in a fog that had suddenly
lifted, he found himself reeling, in the full consciousness of its
horror, on the brink of a yawning chasm.

“My God!” he cried heavily. “This is damnable! I——”

“Keep quiet, sir!” implored Jackson frantically. “They’ll hear you! If
you care anything about a chance for your life, don’t make a sound. The
police figured that you would do one of three things, sir. They figured
that after you had hidden the loot somewhere, you would walk back here
as though nothing had happened, and pretend innocence, not knowing about
that button and the cord, sir; and so there’s a couple of them waiting
for you in the front hall, sir. Or they thought that you might discover
you had lost the card with the combinations written on it and remember
the letter in your dinner-jacket pocket, sir, and try to get back
unobserved, just as you’ve come in now, sir, and hoping that the murder
hadn’t been discovered in the meantime, try to recover the card and the
letter before you played any other game; and they meant to let you, sir,
only, as I told you, there’s a couple more hiding up in your room, and
you couldn’t step into the library without the fellows in front seeing
you. Or they thought you might just simply make a break for it, make
your getaway, sir, and never come back at all; and so there’s an alarm
out, and your description, sir, in every precinct in the city, and all
the railway stations are being watched. But that’s your only chance,
sir, to run for it.”

It was silent here in the great house, ominously, strangely silent; and
the silence grew heavy, and grew _loud_ with great palpitating throbs
that hammered at the ear drums—and then, in the distance, from the other
side of the door in the long passage leading to the front of the house,
faint but nevertheless distinct, there came the sound of an approaching
footstep.

“There’s someone coming!” whispered Jackson wildly. “Run for it,
sir—while you’ve got the chance!”

Billy Kane’s lips were thinned into a hard, straight line. Run for it!
He had never run from anything in all his life! And now his brain was
working in a sort of lightning debate, battling it out—logic that bade
him go, against that finer sense that bids a brave man drop where he
stands rather than turn his back.

Still nearer came that footstep.

“Run!” prompted Jackson again. “In another minute it will be too late!”

Billy Kane’s hands were clenched until the nails bit into the flesh.
David Ellsworth had been right. That letter was but part of a deliberate
plot; and the plot had been framed with hellish ingenuity, not only to
secure the fortune in the vault, but, safeguarding its authors, to fix
irrevocably the guilt upon someone else, upon _him_, Billy Kane. Not a
loophole for escape had been left, every detail had been worked out with
a devil’s craft; the evidence was damning, incontrovertible, and if, in
spite of all, there might still have lingered a doubt in any jury’s
mind, he, Billy Kane, by an ironic trick of fate had——

“Run, I tell you!” came Jackson’s voice again. “Run, or—” And then
Jackson’s voice lost its deference, and his whisper was like the snarl
of a savage beast—the door along the passage was opening. “You damn
fool! I gave you your chance, and you wouldn’t take it—now take this!”

Billy Kane reeled suddenly back from the impact, as the man sprang
viciously upon him—and for a moment again his brain groped blindly in
confusion, even as he fought.

Jackson was yelling wildly at the top of his voice.

“Help! Here he is! Quick! Help! I’ve caught him!”




III—INTO THE UNDERWORLD


It had been dark before the opening of the door had thrown a dim glow
along the rear of the passage, and Jackson, in his onslaught, had missed
what was evidently intended for a throathold, and his hands, slipping
down, had caught at and bunched the shoulders of Billy Kane’s coat. But
now Billy Kane was in action. His arms, straightened, shot back behind
him—and the coat alone was in Jackson’s hands.

With an oath, the man dropped the coat to the floor, and wrenched a
revolver from his pocket. But there was light enough to see now—to see
the murder in the other’s eyes—and to see something there as well that
brought a surging fury whipping through Billy Kane’s veins.

“You devil! I understand it now!” he gritted, as he snatched and gripped
at the other’s wrist.

Jackson was twisting, squirming, fighting like a maniac.

“Help!” he shrieked. “Help! Here he is!”

Cries and shouts answered the man. There came the sound of racing feet.
Then a blinding flash—a wild scream. And Jackson, the revolver going off
in his hands as they struggled, sagged limply, and, with the revolver
clattering against the wall, slid to the floor—and Billy Kane, with a
bound, was through the back door, and leaping down the steps to the
courtyard.

There was no question in his mind now as to whether he should run for
it, or not. Jackson was one of the murderers ... there must ... be
others.... Jackson could hardly have staged it all alone ... but to
remain there and be caught was but to play into their hands! His brain
was working in flashes swift beyond any measure of time. If there could
still have remained a lingering doubt favorable to him in any jury’s
mind, fate had played him an ironic trick that would dispel any such
doubt instantly. _He had two thousand dollars of the money from that
vault in his vest pocket at that moment!_ And to be caught there, having
presumably gained entrance stealthily by the rear door, would condemn
him out of hand. To run, too, was to condemn him, that was their hell’s
snare that they had laid for him ... but there was a chance this way! A
rage that was merciless was upon him now. There was a chance this way
... one chance ... the only chance, not alone of saving his own life and
clearing his own name, but of bringing to justice the inhuman fiends who
had taken David Ellsworth’s life ... there was a chance ... one chance
... this way ... that someone would pay ... if he, Billy Kane, lived,
that someone _would_ pay!

There came a short, curt shout from behind him, an imperative order to
halt. He had gained the courtyard now, and was running along the garage
driveway, heading for the street. He glanced back over his shoulder. In
the darkness he could just make out a number of shadowy forms rushing
down the steps.

The order came again. Then the tongue-flame of a revolver split through
the black. And as though a red hot iron had been laid suddenly across
his left shoulder, Billy Kane gritted his teeth together in pain—and
stumbled—and recovered himself—and plunged out through the driveway
gates to the street.

Halfway down the block, he remembered, was an alleyway; and, running
like a deer now, Billy Kane again glanced behind him. Forms, a great
many of them, though perhaps his fancy exaggerated the number, were
pouring out into the street in pursuit. The men servants had evidently
joined forces with the detectives; and yelling hoarsely, a pack of human
hounds in cry, with the blood-scent in their nostrils, were some
twenty-five to thirty yards behind.

How curiously warm his shoulder was! He clapped his right hand upon it,
and drew his hand away, red and dripping wet. He began to feel strangely
giddy. The shots were coming now in a fusillade—but they missed him. He
was even gaining a little, and if it were not for that queer giddiness,
that sense of nausea that seemed to be creeping steadily upon him, he
could have outdistanced them all, and laughed at them—except that the
entire district would soon be aroused, and speed and lightness of foot
would therefore ultimately avail him little.

He laughed out harshly in grim, mirthless facetiousness. Logically then,
it made small difference whether he had been hit, or not! It was his
head, and not his feet, that must be depended upon to save him! If he
could only get out of the immediate neighborhood ... yes, that was it
... and his head must find the way ... only, and he was not very logical
after all, his head seemed possessed with that sick, swimming, impotent
sensation.

He reeled again. Then his teeth clamped hard, and the sheer nerve of the
man asserted itself, and fought back the purely physical weakness. There
was a way, at least a chance, perhaps a desperate chance, but still a
chance—if the alleyway, that was just ahead now, was dark enough, and
if——

A yell, chorused wildly, went up from behind him, and a bullet struck
the pavement with an angry _spat_, as Billy Kane swerved into the
alleyway. And again he laughed, gasping out the laugh in a sort of
desperate relief. Yes, the alleyway was black enough, he could not
distinguish an object twenty yards ahead; and that other “if,” something
that would furnish temporary sanctuary, was here, too, at his right—and
five yards in from the street, he sprang for the top of a board fence,
flung himself over, dropped down on the other side, and lay motionless
upon the ground.

It was a matter of seconds—no more. The pursuers swept into the
alleyway, and tearing down its length, shouting as they went, rushed by
that spot, so _innocently close_ to the street, where their quarry lay.

And now Billy Kane was on his feet again, and cautiously, silently,
raised himself to the top of the fence once more. He had counted on just
this exactly, it was simply what was naturally to be expected, and he
knew no elation on that score. The chance, the one chance he had, still
lay ahead of him, and was still to be taken—and to be taken without an
instant’s loss of time before the neighborhood became aroused to the
extent of pouring curiously out-of-doors. Across the intervening street
the alleyway extended in the opposite direction, and if he could gain
the other side, double on his tracks, he would, for the time being at
least, be safe.

The sound of the pursuit came from well down the alleyway now, and the
pursuers were lost to sight in the blackness. He swung himself over the
fence, dropped without a sound into the alleyway, and keeping close
against the fence, crept forward to the edge of the street.

And then Billy Kane’s lips moved in a silent prayer of fervent
thankfulness for that quiet and sedate neighborhood that had not
instantly responded to the disturbance. It had seemed hours, of course,
since that shot had been fired at him in the courtyard of David
Ellsworth’s home, but in reality he knew that it could scarcely have
been much more than a minute ago. The street, to all appearances, was
deserted; and Billy Kane, quick now, running again, darted out from the
lane; and, mindful that if he crossed the street in a direct line, he
would be in the light, and that any one of those in the alleyway behind
who might chance to look back would see him, made a slight detour, and a
moment later gained the alleyway again where it continued on from the
opposite side of the street.

He ran on now breathlessly. It had been raining hard that morning, and
the ground under foot was soft and slippery. He reeled once, and
fell—and rose splattered with grime and mud. He laughed again, but his
laugh was desperate now. It had been bad enough before—coatless, and
with a blood-soaked shirt—but his appearance must be disreputable beyond
description now, so disreputable that he would attract instant suspicion
the moment he were seen by anyone, and this quite apart even from the
fact that before very long the net spread for the “murderer” of David
Ellsworth would widen, and every man and woman abroad in that great city
to-night would automatically become allies of the police in apprehending
him.

He stopped. He was at the end of the alleyway, and it did not seem to
extend again on the other side of the next street. But he must go
on—somehow. He brushed his hand across his eyes. His shoulder pained
him, and those dizzy flashes kept recurring, though perhaps not now with
such great frequency. He must go on—somehow. That was essential. He must
put as great an immediate distance between himself and the Ellsworth
mansion as possible; later, if by some means he could get there, if luck
broke for him just a little, his chances would be better, thanks to
those three months of intimacy with the underworld, if he could get
somewhere into the maze of the East Side.

He peered out into the street, waited for some pedestrians who were near
at hand to pass further on, and then, moving quickly forward, crouched
down in the shadows made by the flight of front door steps of the
nearest house.

If he only had a coat! He could walk boldly then along the street
without the blood showing on his white shirt, and it would cover up
enough of the mud so that no one would pay any particular attention to
him. If he only had a coat! He had two thousand dollars in his vest
pocket—but it was not worth a coat. Anybody would sell him a coat for
two thousand dollars, but—— His hands went to his eyes, and then pressed
against his throbbing temples. Yes, certainly, his brain was verging on
delirium! Why should he think of Marco’s? Yes, yes, he remembered now!
Somebody was going to break into Marco’s to-night ... and Marco was a
second-hand clothing dealer ... and the back door had its lock broken
... and the way was open. He could steal too ... a coat ... at Marco’s
... and that was the only way he could get a coat ... to steal it ... he
dared not make any attempt to buy one ... and he must have a coat.

His brain cleared again, and he smiled a little ironically at himself.
But the thought of Marco’s now stuck persistently. It was possible, of
course—if he could get to Marco’s! But Marco’s was a long way off.
Marco’s was a long way downtown on the East Side. He shook his head,
smiling ironically again. Yes, he would very much like to be there now!
That was where he wanted to be—in the East Side, instead of here!

Billy Kane peered up and down the street again, and again moved
stealthily forward. He repeated these tactics over and over, sometimes
covering only a few yards at a time, sometimes making as much as half a
block, and sometimes even more when a friendly lane or alleyway offered
him the opportunity. And at the expiration of half an hour he had
covered a distance that surprised even himself, for, though still
uptown, he had succeeded in getting entirely away from the more wealthy
neighborhood.

Another ten minutes passed, and hidden again in the shadows of a porch,
he was staring now with feverish eagerness at a great, covered motor
truck, a furniture van, that was drawn up in front of what appeared to
be a truck-man’s office across the street. The driver had gone into the
office, but there was the street to cross—and two men were coming
leisurely in his direction along the sidewalk. He clenched his hands
fiercely at his sides. Here was the chance flaunting him in the face and
tantalizing him, the chance that was a far greater chance even than he
had dared hope for, and he was powerless to avail himself of it unless
those two men passed by before the driver came out again. He could read
the name and address in the huge letters on the side of the van. It
belonged down on the East Side. This was probably only a small uptown
branch office, and the odds were a hundred to one that the van would be
going home now. And if the driver took a direct route he was bound to
use a cross street that would intersect that lane in the rear of
Marco’s, and intersect it within at least a few blocks of the
second-hand dealer’s shop. Billy Kane’s hands clenched tighter, and his
face was strained and drawn, as from his hiding place he alternately
watched the van and the two men. Those few blocks through a lane would
be nothing! God, if he could only reach Marco’s—and a coat! A coat! It
seemed an absurd thing to be of such moment—a coat! But it meant life or
death. A coat would cover his blood-stained shirt, and he would be able
to move with freedom enough to give him at least a fighting chance,
and——

The two men had passed by; there was no one else in sight. He waited
another moment until they were still further away—and then, in a flash,
Billy Kane was across the road, and had swung himself over the
tail-board into the van. It seemed like some vast cavernous place here
inside, for the van was empty, save for what appeared to be, as nearly
as he could make out in the gloom, some large pieces of crated furniture
piled at the front end just behind the driver’s seat. Billy Kane’s eyes
swept the interior anxiously—and the drawn, strained look in Billy
Kane’s face relaxed. By lying flat on the floor of the van the driver
would hardly be likely to notice him in any case; but, to make assurance
doubly sure, some bits of sacking, evidently used to wrap around and
protect furniture from being scratched and marred, were strewn about on
the floor. Billy Kane pulled off his slouch hat, that had been jammed
down over his eyes, drew a piece of the sacking over him, and lay still.

And then presently he heard the driver come out from the office. The man
climbed to his seat. The van jolted forward. Billy Kane’s hand, under
the sacking, felt tentatively over his shoulder. It was paining him
brutally, and was burning and hot, but it seemed to have stopped
bleeding, and the sense of nausea and giddiness had passed away. It was
a flesh wound only, probably; or, at least, the bullet had not fractured
any bone, for he could move both shoulder and arm readily.

And now, safe for the moment, Billy Kane’s mind was back on the events
of the evening; and for a time grief for the man he loved had its sway;
and then came fury, pitiless and remorseless, and a cry in his soul for
vengeance; and then a quiet, measured analysis of every detail, an
analysis that was deadly in its cold, unnatural calm. Jackson’s acts in
that back passageway, Jackson’s possession of a revolver, and Jackson’s
words at the end stamped the footman irrevocably as being one of the men
in the murder plot. And with Jackson’s guilt established as a premise,
the rest unravelled itself step by step, clearly, logically,
irrefutably.

David Ellsworth’s deductions had proved themselves in ghastly truth. The
letter had been written as the initiatory step toward incriminating him,
Billy Kane, in the robbery that was to follow; and this demanded, even
as he had argued before, that the vault and safe combinations should be
known to a third party. Who knew them? The answer came now quickly and
emphatically enough—someone within the house—Jackson. He remembered now,
though he had paid no attention to it before, that Jackson had been in
the library on several occasions when he, Billy Kane, was opening the
vault. It had probably taken the man a month or two, perhaps more,
watching both David Ellsworth and himself at every opportunity and with
infinite patience, to pick up little by little, possibly but a single
number or turn at a time, the combinations—but he had undoubtedly
accomplished it finally.

The original plan had certainly not contemplated the murder of David
Ellsworth, for the letter was primarily intended to make the old
millionaire one of the first to accuse him, Billy Kane, of the
crime—there having been left on the scene of the crime, of course, in
that case, as David Ellsworth had also reasoned, some further damning
evidence of his, Billy Kane’s, supposed guilt. But the changing of the
combinations had completely upset that original plan. Who was it, then,
who knew that the combinations _had_ been changed? Again the question
answered itself almost automatically. It must have been someone in the
house at the time, and someone who was both listening and
watching—Jackson. True, David Ellsworth had looked out into the hall,
and had opened the door and looked into the unlighted stenographer’s
room, but he had done it only cursorily, and Jackson all the time might
well have been hiding in that room—in fact, must have been hiding there.

The rest was self-evident. Without the combinations they were helpless,
but the new combinations were on a card in David Ellsworth’s pocket. It
had been necessary, then, only to add _murder_ to the theft, employing
as accessories the card, the letter, the button and the black silk loop,
in order to seize the opportunity of the moment; for, the card bearing
the combinations once destroyed or out of reach, the months of work that
had been put in to secure the old combinations would have to be repeated
to obtain the new—and with very little likelihood of success, since
Jackson would know that David Ellsworth’s suspicions were thoroughly
aroused.

The van rolled rapidly downtown. Billy Kane, peering out from under the
sacking, kept watch on the streets through which he passed. But his mind
was still busy with its problem.

Jackson’s act in accosting him on the corner, and afterwards luring him
by suggestion to the rear of the house, had puzzled him at first, but
that, too, was clear enough now. There was a grain of truth in what the
man had said about giving him a chance, though Jackson would care little
enough whether he ultimately got away, or not. Jackson’s idea, or
perhaps the idea of a keener brain behind Jackson, was to prevent him,
Billy Kane, from entering the house at all, and so, by inducing him to
run for it, to corroborate the evidence of guilt against him, in which
case, being a self-elected fugitive, he would be doubly condemned if
eventually caught. On the other hand, if he refused to listen and
insisted on entering the house, as they were afraid he might do, they
meant to see to it that his entrance was made by apparent stealth, and
here again he but added the final touch to the evidence against him, and
discredited himself beyond any hope or possibility of recovery. Jackson
had taken no personal risk or chance in doing this, as far as the police
were concerned; and it was evident now that Jackson had meant to _kill_
him there in that back passageway should he, Billy Kane, persist in
refusing to run. The case and all investigation would have ended
automatically if he, Billy Kane were killed under such circumstances. It
was all simplicity itself! Jackson had only to call for help, as he had
done when the issue was forced by that approaching footstep, pretend
that he had discovered him, Billy Kane, creeping into the house, and had
rushed upon him—that he, Billy Kane, had drawn the revolver, but that in
the struggle had been shot himself. With the evidence as it stood, with
his, Billy Kane’s guilt so apparently obvious, Jackson would not only
have been believed, but would have been rewarded and lauded as a hero.

Still the van rolled on—mostly through deserted streets, for the traffic
was light at that time of night. Perhaps another twenty minutes passed.
Then Billy Kane began to edge toward the rear end of the truck. He was
in the East Side now, and approaching the neighborhood of Marco’s
second-hand clothing store.

Was Jackson dead? Billy Kane shook his head. He did not know. A grim
smile twisted his lips. He hoped not—not from any sympathy for the man,
for the man’s punishment in that case had been almost too merciful a
retribution, but because in Jackson was embodied the clue that would
lead, if he, Billy Kane, escaped, to that day of reckoning that, cost
what it might, he meant should come.

The van was in a narrow and ill-lighted street now. Marco’s was still
two streets further downtown, but in the block ahead was the lane that,
running north and south, passed the rear of Marco’s place.

Billy Kane sat suddenly upright on the tail-board of the van, the piece
of sacking thrown now around his shoulders. If the driver happened to
look around and see him, the supposition would be that he had hopped on
to steal a ride; and if the driver ordered him off it mattered very
little, since, in another yard or so anyhow, the van, as far as he was
concerned, would have lost its usefulness. He leaned out, and glanced
ahead of him up the street. There were a few people about, but not many,
and none in the immediate vicinity of the lane that was now just at
hand; but even if he were seen for an instant as he left the van, he
would not be running any very great risk for he would be out of sight
again before any particular attention could be riveted upon him; and,
besides, in that miserable and sordid quarter a man might do many things
out of the ordinary, for instance, dive suddenly into a lane and
disappear, without exciting even passing curiosity or notice.

He jerked his slouch hat over his eyes, flung off the sacking, dropped
to the ground, and slipped across the sidewalk into the lane. And now he
was running again. He reached the next intersecting street, and was
forced to draw back under cover to wait for an opportunity to cross
unnoticed. And then the chance came, and he continued on down the lane
on the opposite side of the street again.

Marco’s was the second store in from the next corner on the street that
paralleled the lane, and halfway down he stopped running and began to
move forward cautiously. It was very black in here, and he wished now
that he had looked at his watch when he had had the opportunity; but it
must be somewhere around ten o’clock. It was two hours, then, since he
had overheard that telephone conversation in which Laverto had said that
all he cared was that the man to whom he was telephoning should be away
from Marco’s before a quarter of eleven.

Billy Kane was crouched now in the darkness against the back door of the
second-hand shop. The chances were that whoever Laverto had been
telephoning to had already been here and gone. Certainly two hours would
have given any one ample time, and as Laverto had said that Marco did
not keep open in the evening there would have been no cause for delay on
that score.

He placed his ear to the panel of the door, and listened. There was no
sound, and he tried the door. It stuck a little in spite of its broken
lock, and gave with a slight squeak. Billy Kane drew in his breath
sharply, and listened again. There was still no sound. He closed the
door behind him, and crept forward, feeling his way with his hands along
the wall in the pitch blackness. The flooring was old, and once it
creaked under his foot, causing his lips to tighten rigidly, and his
face to set in a hard, dogged way. He had no matches—they, in the
match-safe that he usually carried in the ticket-pocket of his coat,
were gone with the coat. A coat! All sense of absurdity in the length to
which he was going to obtain so common-place an article as a coat had
vanished. It was the one, final, ultimate, essential thing that he must
and would have if he was to know a single chance for life. Without it he
might as well throw up the sponge at once, but if his luck still held he
would get one now. Marco’s stock of clothing would naturally be in the
shop in front, and——

His hand dove suddenly forward into space, and he halted for an instant.
He had come to an open doorway on his right. He felt around him in all
directions. The passage seemed to end a foot or so ahead, and to lead
nowhere but into what was probably the back room here at his side. The
entrance, then, to the shop proper would be through the back room.

Again he moved forward, crossed the threshold, and again halted. It was
dark, intensely dark, and he could see nothing; and it was still and
silent, and there was no sound. But suddenly he found himself standing
in a tense, strained attitude, his head thrown a little forward, his
eyes striving to pierce the darkness. He could hear nothing, see
nothing—but the sense of _presence_ was strong upon him.

A minute passed, the seconds dragging out interminably—and he did not
move. And then it seemed that close to him he caught a faint stirring
sound. But he was not sure. It might have been his imagination. The
silence, so heavy and prolonged, had taken on strange little noises of
its own. Billy Kane’s lips thinned. He was bare-handed, wounded and
unarmed, but he had a stake that he would fight for with a beast’s
ferocity. And that stake was a coat! If there was anyone here, if it was
more than his excited and wrought-up fancy playing tricks upon him, it
was certain at least that it was not the police, for the police would
have no incentive to play at cat-and-mouse, and therefore it was
probably the man, not yet through with his work, to whom Laverto had
telephoned; it was probably a _fellow_ thief, fellow since he, Billy
Kane, had also come to steal—a coat. Well, he would at least end the
suspense! He turned in the direction from which he thought the sound,
imaginary or real, had come, took a step forward—and stood still, hands
clenched at his sides, as he blinked, through the ray of a flashlight
that was suddenly thrown full in his face, at the round, ugly muzzle of
a revolver that held a steady bead upon him on a level with his eyes.

A voice came through the silence in a savage, guttural snarl:

“Throw up yer mitts, youse——” The words ended in an amazed and startled
oath. The revolver muzzle sagged downward, as though the hand that held
it had become suddenly powerless. “Well, fer Gawd’s sake, if it ain’t de
Rat!” gasped the voice in a hoarse whisper. “When did youse get back? I
thought youse was hobnobbin’ wid some of de swells youse used to know,
an’ was givin’ Noo Yoik de icy paw until next month!”




IV—ALIAS THE RAT


Billy Kane’s face was impassive. The keen, alert brain was working with
desperate speed. There had come in a flash with the other’s words a
vista, not quite clear, nor distinct, but a vista that seemed to promise
the way and the chance, not only of immediate escape from this place
here, but perhaps more than that—assistance, help, perhaps even refuge
and temporary sanctuary from the police who, before morning, would be
scouring every quarter of New York in an effort to capture him. This
man, a thief, a criminal, one of the underworld himself, had obviously
mistaken him, Billy Kane, for another of his own ilk—for one known as
the Rat. His appearance, disreputable, blood-stained and mud-covered,
had undoubtedly been a very large factor in bringing about the man’s
mistake, it was true; but that did not in any way apply to his, Billy
Kane’s, _face_, and his face had been, and was still, full in the
pitiless glare of the flashlight. Therefore he must to a very remarkable
extent resemble this so-called Rat. And, moreover, this Rat must be a
figure of some consequence in the underworld; for, even through the
man’s hoarse and amazed tones, Billy Kane’s quick ear had caught a note
of almost cringing deference. And then Billy Kane’s under jaw crept out
a little, and his eyes narrowed. Well, for the moment, at least, he
would play the part—because he must.

“Who in hell are you?” he demanded gruffly. “I can’t see you behind that
light.”

“I’m Whitie Jack,” the other answered mechanically.

“Whitie Jack, eh?” snapped Billy Kane. “Well, then”—his hand shot out,
and pushed the flashlight roughly away—“take your cursed lamp out of my
eyes? What are you playing at?”

“Sure!” mumbled the man. “Sure—it’s all right! Only youse gave me de
jumps sneakin’ in here. Bundy Morgan—de Rat! Wot’s de idea?”

Nothing perhaps would confirm the man more in his mistake than an
allusion to the common enemy—the police. Billy Kane dropped into the
vernacular. But the man’s reference to “de swells youse used to know”
had given him his cue. The Rat at one time had probably known quite a
different station in life, and the Rat’s speech therefore, even in the
vernacular, would hardly be ungrammatical.

“A coat,” said Billy Kane tersely. “The bulls have got my costume
spotted.”

“Swipe me!” Whitie Jack drew in his breath in a low whistle. “De
bulls—eh? So dat’s de lay! Well, youse wait a minute, an’ I’ll get youse
one. Youse look as though youse had blamed near cashed in! Youse have
spilled a lot of red out of dat shoulder, eh?”

“It’s pretty bad,” answered Billy Kane laconically.

“Sure!” said Whitie Jack again; and then, eagerly, the deference back in
his voice: “Well, youse wait a minute, Bundy, an’ I’ll get youse de best
coat de old geezer’s got—though dat’s not sayin’ much, for dere’s
nothin’ here but a bunch of rags.”

The man was gone. Billy Kane leaned back against the wall. His hand
swept across his eyes. It seemed as though for hours he had been living
through some horrible and ghastly nightmare from which he could not
awake. He was Billy Kane, whom the world, in the morning, would proclaim
the murderer of David Ellsworth; but he was also now Billy Kane, alias
Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat! Again his hand swept across his eyes. And
the Rat—who was the Rat? And what——

Whitie Jack was back.

“Here!” said Whitie Jack. “Here youse are!” He handed Billy Kane a coat,
and his flashlight fell again on Billy Kane’s shoulder. “Say, dat’s
bad!” he jerked out; and then, irrelevantly, “Say, wouldn’t it sting
youse—youse showin’ up here! When did youse blow into town, Bundy?”

“To-night,” said Billy Kane.

“Well, youse didn’t take long in startin’ something!” said Whitie Jack
admiringly. He helped Billy Kane on with the coat. “Was it a big one,
Bundy?”

“No,” said Billy Kane. “Only a fight, but someone got _hurt_ in the
fight—get me, Whitie? And the bulls are out for fair.”

Whitie Jack drew in his breath in a low, comprehensive whistle again.

“Sing Sing, an’ de juice route—eh?” he muttered. “Did dey spot who youse
were?”

“No,” said Billy Kane.

“Aw, well den, wot de hell!” observed Whitie Jack, with a sudden grin.
“Dat’s easy! Youse have got a coat now, an’ we’ll beat it over for yer
dump, an’ dat’s de end of it! You have got to get dat shoulder fixed,
an’ I’m some guy wid de bandage stuff—believe me!”

Billy Kane did not answer for a moment. Well, why not? He had accepted
the absent Rat’s personality, why not the absent Rat’s hospitality? It
would afford him shelter for the moment, and he was living, feeling,
groping his way now only from moment to moment. Also, and what was of
even more urgent importance, he must somehow and in some way get his
wound dressed.

The flashlight in Whitie Jack’s hand was sweeping in a circle around the
room—in a sort of precautionary leave-taking survey of the place, as it
were. The room was evidently the proprietor’s office; but from what
Billy Kane could see of it, it was bare and uninviting enough. He caught
a glimpse of a rough table and a couple of chairs, and then the
flashlight went out. But he was still staring, through the darkness now,
toward the far end of the room—and it seemed that he could still see
just as vividly as though the light still played upon the spot. There
was an old safe there, a large and cumbrous thing, long out of date, and
the door sagged on its hinges where it had been blown open, and the
floor around it was littered with the books and papers it had evidently
contained.

“That’s a bum job you made, Whitie!” commented Billy Kane sarcastically.
“You’re an artist, you are! What did you expect to get out of a piker
hang-out like this?”

“Aw, forget it!” returned Whitie Jack. “It ain’t so bum! I’d like to see
youse crack a box in here wid soup, an’ not wake de whole town up. Dat’s
wot I get mine for—a century note—see? Dere wasn’t nothin’ in de safe!
Not a nickel! It’s a stall—savvy? But, come on, Bundy, we’ll beat it out
of here, an’ get youse fixed up.”

A stall! What did Whitie Jack mean? Whitie Jack, at Antonio Laverto’s
instigation, had blown open the safe, knowing beforehand that there was
nothing in it! What was Laverto’s game? Billy Kane mechanically made his
way out along the passage, the flashlight winking in Whitie Jack’s hand
behind him. What was the game? Laverto was no fool, and there seemed an
ominous something back of it all, but he dared not press Whitie Jack, or
appear too inquisitive. His own position now was precarious enough as it
was, and needed all his wits to see him through. For instance, they were
going now to the Rat’s quarters, to what was supposedly _his_, Billy
Kane’s, quarters—and he had not the faintest idea where, or in what
direction, those quarters might be! Billy Kane smiled grimly in the
darkness. But Whitie Jack evidently knew. Therefore Whitie Jack, without
knowing it, must be made to act as _guide_!

They were outside now. Whitie Jack had closed the door. Billy Kane
raised his hand to his head, smiled grimly again to himself in the
darkness, and stumbled heavily against his companion.

“Wot’s wrong?” whispered Whitie Jack anxiously. “Here, buck up, Bundy!”

“I guess I’m bad—worse than I thought I was—my head’s going round,”
mumbled Billy Kane. “You’ll have to help me, Whitie.”

“Sure, I will!” returned Whitie Jack encouragingly. He slipped his arm
through Billy Kane’s. “Youse just buck up, Bundy! An’ don’t youse be
afraid to throw yer weight on me. ’Taint far, an’ we’ll make it all
right.”

Billy Kane, his object accomplished, leaned not lightly on Whitie Jack.
Occasionally, as he walked along, he staggered and lurched, playing up
his rôle—but only when the street in his immediate neighborhood was
clear, and he ran no risk of attracting attention to himself and his
companion!

It was not far, a few blocks; and then Whitie Jack, still unsuspectingly
acting as guide, was helping Billy Kane down the half dozen steps of one
of those cellar-like entrances to the basement of a low building in the
middle of a block.

The building seemed to be a store of some kind, but it was closed, the
dingy front window dark, and in the none too well lighted street Billy
Kane could not make out exactly what it was. At the bottom of the steps
they halted—before a locked door—and for an instant again that grim,
desperate smile twisted Billy Kane’s lips. And then he laughed shortly,
as his free hand fumbled in the pockets of the stolen coat.

“Kick it in, Whitie!” he growled. “I haven’t got the key. I lost my
coat.”

“Nothin’ doin’!” said Whitie Jack complacently. “I got de goods, ain’t
I? Wot d’youse think!”

From his pocket Whitie Jack produced a bunch of what were evidently
skeleton keys; and, trying first one and then another, finally opened
the door. His flashlight played through into the interior, and indicated
a chair that stood before a table.

“Youse go over dere an’ sit down, an’ get yer coat an’ shirt off, an’
leave de rest to me,” he directed.

Billy Kane, lurching again, stumbled into the chair, as Whitie Jack,
closing and locking the door, located an incandescent that hung from the
ceiling, and switched on the light.

“Say, where do youse keep yer stuff?” demanded Whitie Jack. “A shirt’ll
do—anything to tear up an’ make a bandage wid, see?”

Billy Kane did not answer. He did not know! Instead, he let his head sag
limply forward, and fall on his crossed arms upon the table.

“Aw, buck up, Bundy!” pleaded Whitie Jack anxiously. “Youse’ll be all
right in a minute. Dat’s de boy! Buck up! It’s all right! Leave it to
me! I’ll find something!”

Still Billy Kane did not answer. His face hidden in his arms, he was
making a surreptitious, but none the less critical, survey of his
surroundings. It was a large room, evidently comprising the entire
basement of the building; and the single incandescent that it boasted
seemed only to enhance, with its meager light, the sort of forbidding
sordidness, as it were, that pervaded the place. There were no windows.
The walls had been boarded in with cheap lumber that had warped and
bulged in spots, and the walls had been painted once—but so long ago
that they had lost any distinctive color, and had faded into a murky,
streaky yellow. The room was dirty and ill-kempt. A few old pieces of
carpet were strewn about the floor, and for decoration prints from
various magazines and Sunday supplements were tacked here and there
around the walls. There was a bed in one corner; a wardrobe made by
hanging a piece of old cretonne diagonally across another corner; a sink
at one side of the room; and, at the far end, a bureau, whose
looking-glass seemed to be abnormally large. Billy Kane studied the
looking-glass for a moment curiously. It seemed to reflect back some
object that he could not quite identify, something that glittered a
little in the light. And then Billy Kane smiled a sort of grim
appreciation. Whitie Jack had left his keys hanging in the lock of the
door—the mirror held in faithful focus the only entrance to the place
that the Rat’s lair apparently possessed!

And now the reflection of the door in the mirror was blotted out, and
the figure of Whitie Jack took its place. The man had crossed the room
from an apparently abortive search behind the cretonne hanging, and was
rummaging now in the drawers of the bureau. And then, with a grunt of
satisfaction, and with what looked like a shirt and some underclothing
flung over his arm, Whitie Jack made his way to the sink, filled a basin
with water, and returned to the table.

Billy Kane raised his head heavily—and with well-simulated painful
effort aided in the removal of his coat, vest and shirt.

“Dat’s de stuff, Bundy!” said Whitie Jack approvingly.

It was a flesh wound, angry and nasty enough in appearance when the
clotted blood was washed away, but still only a flesh wound. Whitie Jack
surveyed it judicially.

“’Tain’t so worse, Bundy!” he announced reassuringly. “Youse’ll be all
to de good in a day or so.” He began to rip and tear the underclothing
into strips. “Youse’ll need de shirt to wear, an’ dis stuff’ll do for de
bandages,” he explained. “See?”

“Yes,” said Billy Kane.

The man dressed the wound with amazing deftness, stepped back to observe
his own work admiringly, and then, picking up the folded shirt, shook it
out, and began to unbutton it.

“Now den, Bundy,” he said, “get dis on, an’——” He stopped. From where it
had been hidden in the folds of the shirt, a little black object dropped
to the floor. Whitie Jack stooped, picked it up, glanced at it, and
tossed it on the table. “An’ dat ain’t so dusty a place to hide it,
neither!” grinned Whitie Jack. “Now den, up wid yer arms, an’ on wid de
shirt.”

Billy Kane made no comment. The object Whitie Jack had picked up was a
black mask. He raised his arms, and with deliberate difficulty struggled
into the shirt.

“How d’youse feel now?” inquired Whitie Jack.

“Better,” said Billy Kane. “You’re an artist with the swab rags,
Whitie.”

“Sure!” said Whitie Jack. “Well, I guess dat’s all. Youse go to bed now,
an’ keep quiet. I’ll tip de fleet off dat youse are back on de job.”

Billy Kane shook his head sharply.

“I don’t want anybody butting in around here to-night!” he said roughly.

“No, sure, youse don’t!” agreed Whitie Jack, with an oath for emphasis.
“Don’t youse worry, I’ll wise ’em up to dat. Dere won’t be nobody around
here till youse says so—youse know dat, don’t youse? I ain’t never heard
of any guy huntin’ trouble wid de Rat yet—an’ I guess dat ain’t no con
steer!”

Billy Kane was standing up now. It seemed strange, almost incredibly
strange that this man, one who evidently knew the so-called Rat
intimately and well, had accepted him, Billy Kane, without the slightest
suspicion that there could exist any question regarding his identity. He
had been watching and on his guard all the time that Whitie Jack had
been dressing his wound, but though Whitie Jack had seen him under the
full glare of a flashlight, and again in this lighted room here, their
heads close together as the other had bent over him, Whitie Jack was
obviously possessed of no doubts that he, Billy Kane, was anyone other
than the Rat! Well, it might be strange, but at least it was undeniably
true; so true that now that vista, which he had glimpsed with Whitie
Jack’s first words of mistaken recognition, was spreading out again
before him, but more concretely now, opening a staggering possibility;
so true that he dared not jeopardize anything by appearing too
inquisitive about Marco’s, for instance—much as Marco’s was still in his
mind! Marco’s! No, he was not through with Marco’s, for more reasons
than one. There was some queer deviltry that Laverto was hatching
there—at a quarter to eleven—and he meant to see it through. But, after
all, even if he broached the subject again to Whitie Jack, who was
patently only a tool in the affair, what more could Whitie Jack tell
him, except the name of the man who had hired him to blow open an old
safe whose contents were worthless—and that man’s name he, Billy Kane,
already knew. No, he was not through with Marco’s! But he would gain
nothing, save perhaps to excite suspicion, by speaking of it again to
Whitie Jack.

“Youse get to bed, an’ get some sleep!” prompted Whitie Jack. “Youse can
leave de mob to me.”

“Thanks, Whitie,” said Billy Kane. He moved across the room, and flung
himself down on the bed. “I’m not going to forget this. You’ve handed me
the glad paw to-night—and I’m not going to forget it.”

“Aw, dat’s all right!” said Whitie Jack earnestly. “I knows youse ain’t!
An’, say, youse can take it from me on de level dat I’d rather have had
dis chance dan have a thousand long green bucks in me mitt dis minute.
Say, I knows it, don’t I, dat de Rat never forgets; an’ I knows dere’s
about a million guys around here dat would give deir eye teeth for de
chance dat came my way to-night!”

It was strange again—but the servility in the man’s tones that was
coupled with elation was genuine beyond doubt. The Rat was
unquestionably a character of prominence and power in the sordid realm
wherein he appeared, by some at least, by this Whitie Jack for example,
to be held in awe. That being so, it was obviously the Rat’s prerogative
to command—Whitie Jack.

“All right, Whitie—that goes!” said Billy Kane tersely. “And now, beat
it! But before you go leave me your gun. I got cleaned out when I lost
my coat, and if anything comes of that little game of mine to-night I
might need your iron. Yes, and leave those keys, too—I’ve no other way
to lock the door.”

“Sure!” said Whitie Jack promptly. He took his revolver from his pocket,
laid it on the table, and walked to the door. “Are youse sure dere’s
nothin’ else youse wants, Bundy?”

“No, that’s all,” said Billy Kane.

“Well den, so long, Bundy!” said Whitie Jack. “I’ll see youse in de
mornin’!”

“So long, Whitie!” said Billy Kane.




V—THE SECOND-HAND DEALER


The door closed behind Whitie Jack, the man’s footsteps echoed back as
he climbed to the street, echoed faintly again from the pavement, and
then died away.

Billy Kane got up from the bed, went to the door, locked it, and then
walked down the length of the room—and standing in front of the mirror
stared into the glass in a grimly impersonal way. It was himself—Billy
Kane. His face was in no whit changed, except perhaps that there was a
slight pallor there due to loss of blood, and that the lines were
sharper and harder, as though he were, as indeed he was, under a tense
and heavy strain; but, with his collarless shirt, his trousers covered
with mud and dirt, his whole appearance had taken on an aspect that was
at once sinister and forbidding.

He laughed shortly, and turning abruptly from the mirror, crossed the
room again, and pushed aside the cretonne hanging. There were some
clothes on the wall pegs here. He gathered them up, and took them nearer
to the light for an inspection. They were old, somewhat greasy, and
wholly disreputable. He laughed shortly again, as he changed into them.
As the Rat, he might venture out, though he would do well to take care
not to be recognized, since Whitie Jack would have spread the report
that he was wounded and in bed; but he could at least go out without
inviting instant pursuit as the “murderer” of David Ellsworth. He was
safe now for the moment, safe until morning anyhow—and he could even use
those hours, if he would, in an attempt to put as many miles as possible
between himself and New York! His hands clenched, and into the pallor of
his face the red came burning hot. But he wasn’t going to do that! That
“staggering possibility” was clear before his mind’s eye now. He wasn’t
going to do that; he was going, instead—to play the Rat—to play the
cards that fate, if one believed in fate, had thrust into his hands—to
take the chance, the one chance, _if the Rat did not come back too
soon_, of clearing his own name, and of bringing to justice the
hell-hounds, who had struck down that gentle gray-haired man who had
been his friend. His hands clenched harder, until, as they had done once
before that night, the nails bit into the palms. He, Billy Kane—the
murderer of his father’s friend, the murderer of the man who had trusted
him and loved him! It was getting him now with all its brutal and
remorseless force! Broadcast over the country, by morning his name would
have become the synonym of all that was vile and hideous, and Billy Kane
would be known as one of the most revolting characters in the annals of
crime—a foul and filthy thing who typified the dregs and lees of human
degradation—a thing from whom the friends of old would turn in horror
and in shame, and——

Slowly his hands unclenched. The surge of fury that had been almost
ungovernable passed, and he knew again that cold, unnatural, deadly
calm. If he lived, the guilty man, or men, would pay! If he were taking
a chance now, a desperate chance, he was taking a chance that no _man_
could do otherwise than take. It was the chance to live—for one might
better otherwise be dead! A chance! He had picked up Whitie Jack’s
revolver, and was twisting it in his fingers, and now he thrust it
suddenly into his pocket. A chance! He was taking no chance, indeed,
save with the stake that was already flung upon the table—his life. It
was the one way! As the Rat, doubtless well known to the authorities, he
could move under the very noses of the police at will without suspicion
arising that he was Billy Kane; and as the Rat, if Whitie Jack was to be
relied upon as a criterion, he would have the run of the underworld, and
in the underworld were many secrets, and amongst those secrets was
perhaps the one he sought—the clue to Jackson’s associates in the murder
of David Ellsworth. He was not blinded to the difficulties of this
picking up of the thread of another man’s life; nor blinded to what was
perhaps the greatest difficulty of all, the necessity of being able to
recognize those with whom he _should be_ acquainted, but even that was
not insurmountable. He could see a way, he believed, to accomplish even
that.

But all this was for to-morrow—and the to-morrows after that! To-night
he was going out again—to Marco’s. That was why he had changed his
clothes just now. A graver thing, the thought of merging his identity
with the Rat’s, had impinged, obtruded itself, as it were, upon his
mind. But he had not forgotten Marco’s.

He picked up his discarded vest, transferred the package of banknotes
and his watch to the pockets of the one he now wore, and as he did so,
he looked at the time. Laverto had said a quarter to eleven. It was
almost that now. Billy Kane’s eyes strayed over the table, and fell upon
the black mask. The mask, too, went into his pocket. It might prove a
most valuable discovery, that mask—under certain circumstances even the
_Rat’s_ identity was not lightly to be disclosed.

He collected the muddy garments he had taken off, and tucked them under
the mattress on the bed. It was not likely that anyone would come here,
much less attempt to enter, in his absence; but he was fully aware that
now, and from now on, his life depended upon his caution in every
detail. He extinguished the light, put on his hat, walked to the door,
unlocked it—and stood for a moment hesitant. Was he a fool to take this
added risk, when already his own back was against the wall, when already
he was in desperate case himself? He shook his head in a sort of
exasperated remonstrance with himself for even his momentary hesitation,
then opening the door, he locked it behind him, and crept cautiously up
the stairs to the street.

Whitie Jack had been only a tool used for the stage-setting of some
deviltry that was to follow—at a quarter of eleven. That was obvious.
He, Billy Kane, had intended that the police should be informed and
should deal with Laverto, and that he in person should give evidence
against Laverto; but he could no longer inform the police, no longer
give evidence. He was wanted now himself for _murder_, and so upon him
fell the moral obligation to prevent or render abortive, if he could, a
crime that he knew was pending. And besides—his face hardened suddenly,
as he moved swiftly along, evading the direct rays of the street lights,
and keeping in the shadows—he had a personal account to settle with
Antonio Laverto. If it had not been for the man’s damnable imposition
having succeeded to the extent that it had, he, Billy Kane, would not
have left the Ellsworth house to-night, and David Ellsworth would not
now——

Billy Kane’s hand, in his pocket, tightened over the butt of Whitie
Jack’s revolver. Unconsciously he quickened his stride.

Always hugging the shadows, his hat drawn far down over his face, giving
the passers-by he met as wide a berth as possible, Billy Kane covered
the short distance that separated the Rat’s den from Marco’s. He slipped
into the lane unobserved, and for the second time that night crouched
against the door with the broken lock. But now, mindful of the door’s
tendency to squeak, he pushed it open cautiously an inch at a time. And
then, with the door slightly open, he stood motionless, a puzzled and
amazed expression on his face. Just exactly what he had expected to find
here, he was not prepared to say—but certainly not this! A faint light
came through from the door of the back room into the hallway, and from
the room there came a woman’s voice that mingled a sort of pitiful
defiance with a sob.

“It’s not true! I tell you it’s not true! The boy never did it!”

“So!” It was a man’s voice now, caustic and unrelenting. “Well, where is
he now, then?”

“I don’t know,” the woman replied. “I haven’t seen him since supper. But
that’s got nothing to do with it. That doesn’t prove anything.”

“So!” It was the man again. “Well, maybe not! But I am not to be fooled!
I am a poor man. I cannot afford to lose my money. So, it has nothing to
do with it, eh? You say that because you are his mother, eh? But did he
tell you at supper that I had discharged him this afternoon? Eh? Answer
me that!”

“N-no.” The answer seemed to come reluctantly.

Billy Kane pushed the outer door a little wider open and slipped
through. Keeping close to the wall, he edged forward until he could see
into the back room through its open door. A frown came and knitted his
brows in hard furrows. He was frankly puzzled now. The woman, a tall,
powerful, muscular woman of middle age, but curiously frail now in
obvious fear and emotion, was Mrs. Clancy, who kept the little notion
shop next door on the corner; and the other, bent-shouldered, in long,
greasy black coat, with long, untrimmed and dirty white beard, whose
eyes were distorted behind the heavy lenses of his steel-bowed
spectacles, was Marco, the proprietor of the second-hand store. Marco
was apparently in a state of equal distress and excitement. He
alternatively wrung his hands together and gesticulated furiously.

“Eight hundred dollars!” he cried out wildly. “Do you hear, you, the
mother of that brat? Eight hundred dollars! All I have on earth! And it
is gone! Stolen by that cursed young prison bird of yours! So he did not
tell you, eh, that I discharged him this afternoon because I was sure he
was making little stealings from me all the time? But you are not
surprised, eh? Maybe he has stolen from you, too, eh?”

The woman did not answer. She seemed to shiver suddenly, and then sank
down heavily in the chair before the table, near which she had been
standing.

Marco paced up and down the room, back and forth, from the table to
where the floor was littered with the erstwhile contents of the rifled
safe.

Billy Kane’s puzzled frown grew deeper. Evidently there _had_ been money
in the safe, but in some way Laverto had got it before he had set Whitie
Jack at work upon a stall, and it was obvious that Laverto had
maneuvered to plant the crime on the shoulders of this woman’s son. But
what then had been Laverto’s object in bringing Whitie Jack into it at
all? It did not somehow seem to fit, or dovetail, or appear logical,
or—— And then, with a sudden start, Billy Kane leaned tensely forward,
his eyes fixed narrowly on Marco. Yes, it _did_ dovetail! He had it
now—all of it—all of the damnable, unscrupulous ingenuity of the plot
that had been hatched in Laverto’s cunning brain. The frown was hidden
now by the mask which Billy Kane slipped quickly over his face, but his
lips just showing beneath the edge of the mask were tight and hard.

“I was a fool—a fool!” Marco cried out sharply. “A fool, ever to have
taken him in here as my clerk! I might have known! He has already been
in jail!”

“It was only the reform school.” Mrs. Clancy was wringing her hands
piteously. “He is only a boy—only seventeen now. And he did not mean any
harm even then—and—and since then he has been a good boy.”

“Has he?” Marco flung out a clenched fist and shook it in the air. “He
has—eh? Well, then, where did he get this? Answer me that! Where did he
get this?” Marco’s closed hand opened, and he threw what looked to Billy
Kane like a little brooch, a miniature in a cheap setting, upon the
table. “That’s you, ain’t it? That’s his mother’s picture, ain’t it? Do
you think I do not recognize it? That’s you twenty years ago—eh? Did you
_give_ it to him—eh? Answer me that—did you _give_ it to him?”

The woman had risen from her chair, and was swaying upon her feet.

“Did you think I did not have reason to be pretty sure when I asked if
he had not stolen from you, too?” Marco, apparently beside himself with
rage, was gesticulating furiously again. “And you said I had no proof of
_this_—eh?” He shook his fist in the direction of the safe. “Well, I
found that brooch there on the floor where he must have dropped it out
of his pocket when he blew my safe open, and he didn’t know he’d dropped
it in the dark, and then some of the papers he pulled out covered it.
That’s where I found it—under the papers! That’s proof enough, ain’t it?
I guess with his record it will satisfy the police—no matter what his
mother thinks!”

A great sob came from the woman. The tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“My boy!” she faltered. “It’s true—I—I am afraid it’s true. Oh, my
boy—my boy—my fatherless boy!” She thrust out her hands in a sudden
imploring gesture toward the other. “Listen! I will tell you all I know.
I will show you that I am honest with you, and you will have mercy on
us. To-night, after supper, I found that the little chamois bag in which
I keep the few little things I have like that brooch, and the money I
take in from the store during the day, was gone. Yes, I was afraid then.
I was afraid. But he is all I have, and——”

“And my eight hundred dollars, that he came over here and stole
afterwards, was all _I_ had!” screamed Marco. “You tell me only what a
blind man could see for himself! Did I not put two and two together
myself? He has run away now—eh—with all he could get? That he stole from
you does not give me back my money. But the police will find him! Ha,
ha! The police will find him, and when they do they will remember the
reform school and he will get ten years—yes, yes, ten years—for this!”

“Listen!” Mrs. Clancy’s voice choked. She brushed the tears from her
cheeks with a trembling hand. “If—if I give you back the money, will you
let him go?”

“Ha!” Marco stood stock still, staring at her. “What is that you say?
You will give me back the money? You! Are you trying to make a fool of
me?”

“No, no!” she cried. “I’ve got that much—it is my savings—it is in the
bank. Listen! Oh, for God’s sake, be merciful! Give him a chance! You’ll
get your money back, you won’t lose anything, and—and you would the
other way, because—because before they caught him he would perhaps have
spent a lot of it.”

“That is true!” said Marco, in a milder tone; and then, a hint of
suspicion in his voice: “What bank is it in? The bank down the street?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“That is my bank, too,” said Marco. He stared at the woman for a moment
speculatively, then his eyes circled the room, and he stared at the
broken safe. “Will you pay for my safe?” he demanded abruptly.

“Yes,” she agreed eagerly.

“Fifty dollars,” said Marco. “It would be fifty dollars.”

“Yes—oh, thank God!” She was crying again.

“So!” Marco shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I will do it.” He walked back
toward the safe, picked up a check book from amongst the debris on the
floor, tore out a blank check, dropped the book on the floor again, and
returned to the table. He pushed the slip of paper toward Mrs. Clancy,
and pulled out a fountain pen from his pocket. “So! Well, make out a
check for eight hundred and fifty dollars.” He shrugged his shoulders
again.

It was slow work. Mrs. Clancy’s hand trembled, and she stopped at
intervals to wipe her eyes. Billy Kane edged closer to the door. It was
probably all she had, the savings of years from the little shop, but the
fear and strain was gone from her face, and her lips were quivering in a
smile, as she signed her name at last, and handed the check to Marco.

But now Billy Kane’s revolver was in his hand—and suddenly, as Marco
held the check close to his eyes to peer at it through his thick lenses,
Billy Kane stepped forward across the threshold. And then Billy Kane
spoke.

“Drop that, Marco!” he said quietly.

There was a cry of terror from the woman, as she whirled around,
white-faced, clutching at her breast; it was echoed by a frightened gasp
from Marco, and as though the slip of paper in his fingers had suddenly
turned to white hot iron, he snatched his hands back in a sort of
grotesque jerk, and the check fluttered to the table.

Billy Kane stepped toward the man.

“You’ve made a mistake, Marco, haven’t you?” he inquired coolly.
“Instead of this woman’s son being the robber, are you sure it
isn’t—yourself?”

The man shrank back.

“What do you mean—myself?” he stammered hoarsely. And then, recovering a
little of his self-control: “Who are you? And what are you butting in
here for? What’s your game to say I did that?” He jerked his hand toward
the safe. “You can’t bluff old Marco, whatever you’re up to! I was in
Morgenfeldt’s café all evening until half past ten, and I can prove it;
and ten minutes after that I was pulling her”—he jerked his hand toward
Mrs. Clancy now—“out of her shop next door to show her what I had found
here. She’ll tell you so, too! I couldn’t have come all the way from
Morgenfeldt’s, and done all that, and blown that safe open in ten
minutes, could I?”

Billy Kane’s smile was unpleasant.

“Don’t be in such a hurry to produce your alibi, Marco,” he said evenly.
“It sounds suspicious—and it also accounts for a good deal. I think
we’ll take a look through your pockets, Marco—not for the eight
hundred”—Billy Kane’s smile had grown still more uninviting—“but on the
chance that we may find something else. Put your hands up!”

The man hesitated.

Billy Kane’s revolver muzzle came to a level with the other’s eyes.

“Put them up!” he ordered curtly; and, as the man obeyed now, he felt
deftly over the other’s clothing, located a revolver, whipped it out,
and laid it on the table behind him. A moment later, also from the man’s
pocket, he took a chamois bag, which, too, he placed upon the table.

Mrs. Clancy, with a startled cry, snatched at it.

“Mary, Mother of Mercy, what does this mean!” she gasped out. “It’s—it’s
my bag!”

“It means that our friend Marco here is a very versatile rogue,” said
Billy Kane grimly. “You may put your hands down now, Marco, and”—he was
clipping off his words—“you won’t need that beard, or those glasses any
more! Take them off!”

The man had gone a sudden grayish white. Mechanically he obeyed—and
cowered back, his eyes in terror fixed on Billy Kane’s mask. _It was
Antonio Laverto._

With a scream of rage, Mrs. Clancy rushed at the man.

“You—you devil!” she shrilled. “You made me believe my boy was a
thief—God forgive me for it! And—ah, let me at him! I’m only a woman,
but——”

Billy Kane had stepped between them.

“Wait!” he said. “There’s a better way, Mrs. Clancy.” He swung on the
Italian. “If it hadn’t been for your voice, Laverto—you see, I know
you—you might have got away with it. I didn’t recognize you at first.
You’re clever, damnably clever, I’ll give you credit for that, if it’s
any satisfaction to you. You must be a busy man! Are there any more
rôles in your repertoire? Well, no matter! The Italian crippled beggar,
and Marco the second-hand clothing dealer are enough for now—and enough
to put you where you belong!” His voice rasped suddenly. “You blotch on
God’s earth!” he said between his teeth. “You knew Mrs. Clancy had a
little money, and you knew that her son had a reform school record
against him. And so, about two weeks ago, you rented this place next to
hers that was then vacant, and you stocked it with a few old clothes,
and you hired her son to act as clerk; and you hired him, not with an
idea of doing any business, but as a necessary part of your plan to
incriminate him in his mother’s eyes, and also to enable you, without
arousing suspicion by appearing to neglect business here, to attend to
other irons equally as despicable that you had in the fire at the same
time—playing the flopper, for instance, up on Fifth Avenue. The whole
outlay probably cost you but a few dollars—and in return you meant to
get all of this woman’s life savings. I say all, because you probably
found out how much she had, and if she had had much more than eight
hundred dollars you would have set your fake loss higher. And to-night
in some way—the details do not matter at this moment—you stole from her
that chamois bag, both to impress her with the belief that the boy had
stolen from her too, and also to secure spurious evidence to prove that
he had been guilty of what you claimed had happened here.”

Billy Kane paused. His eyes had travelled to the wrecked safe—and sharp
and quick had come the thought of Whitie Jack. He smiled grimly. He did
not want Whitie Jack to appear in this. He owed Whitie Jack a good deal
to-night—and the “Rat” never forgot! His eyes came back to Marco. The
man was circling his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“You’re going up for this, Marco,” Billy Kane said in level tones. “But
I’ll give you a friendly tip—for reasons of my own. Maybe you didn’t
pull this safe-cracking game yourself, maybe your alibi stands on that
count; but, if it does, you got some tool to pull it off for you just
for that reason, and possibly also because you didn’t know how to handle
the ‘soup’ yourself—and if it’s one of the boys it won’t help your case
any to snitch on him, for you’re caught open and shut in this anyhow,
and maybe, Laverto, some of his friends might remember it when you _got
out_ again! You get the idea, don’t you? Yes, I see you do! Well, then,
there’s just one thing more. If this little game of yours had broken
right for you, Mrs. Clancy’s son—to make it appear that he had run
away—would have had to disappear for several days, until you could have
pulled up stakes here without exciting suspicion, and have pretended to
move away. Therefore, where is he now—Laverto?”

There were beads of sweat on the man’s forehead. His lips moved
mumblingly.

“_Where?_” Billy Kane’s revolver edged viciously forward. “I didn’t hear
you!”

“Wong Yen’s,” the man whispered.

Billy Kane’s jaws snapped together. He had heard of Wong Yen’s! It was
one of the most infamous Chinese underground dives in the Bad Lands.

“Doped?” He bit off the word.

“Yes,” the man whispered again.

Billy Kane turned to Mrs. Clancy.

“He’s yours now, Mrs. Clancy. You know the story, and you know where to
send them for your boy. I guess I can leave him to you. They say the
female of the species is more deadly than the male! There’s his
revolver. Do you think you could march him out of the front door, and
hand him over to the first officer you see?”

There was a bitter, hard look on Mrs. Clancy’s face. Big and brawny, she
towered over the cringing figure of the Italian—and the Italian shrank
still farther away from her, as she snatched up the weapon.

“I can!” she said, and her short laugh was not a pleasant one. “And I
can shoot if I have to, and, faith, there’d be joy in the doin’ of it;
but you”—her voice broke suddenly—“I don’t know who you are, and I owe
you——”

Billy Kane was backing toward the rear door.

“You’ll pay it all, and more, Mrs. Clancy, when you hand him over to the
police,” he said quickly—and, stepping out into the passageway, he ran
down its length, whipping the mask from his face as he went; and in
another instant, from the lane, had gained the cross street.




VI—A MIDNIGHT VISITOR


Keeping in the shadows and avoiding the passers-by as on his way to
Marco’s, Billy Kane hurried even more now on his return to the Rat’s. In
a moment or so, when Mrs. Clancy reached the front street with her
prisoner, there was likely to be an uproar, and he wanted to be housed
and under cover if possible before that broke loose. Mrs. Clancy’s story
could hardly omit reference to the man in the mask, and the police, to
say nothing of the on-lookers, might evince a most unpleasant degree of
practical curiosity—and he, Billy Kane, was in no condition, either
mental, or, above all, physical, to play hare to the hounds of the law
again that night. He was conscious now, as he made his way swiftly
along, that his shoulder was paining him intensely again, and that,
though through nerve force, his feet moved quickly enough under him, his
knees were wobbly and weak.

He turned a corner, and still another—and drew a deep breath of relief.
He was out of range of the second-hand shop now, and the Rat’s den was
just ahead up the street, and there was no one in sight.

Billy Kane swept his hand heavily across his eyes. It was strange! There
was not far from being a very close analogy between himself and Mrs.
Clancy’s son to-night. Mrs. Clancy’s son had been selected as the victim
of a “plant” much like himself—only there had been no murder, and the
“plant” had failed. It was curious, very curious, that the two should
have been so much alike, and that though he had been able to save the
other, he himself was being searched for at that moment in every corner
of New York, and that the human drag-net was spread for him, and that
the wires all over the country were hot with his description, and that
into every newspaper office in every state was pouring the story that
would make of him an abominable and an abandoned thing!

His head was singing. He stumbled a little, as he made his way down the
stairs, and fumbled with Whitie Jack’s key in the lock of the Rat’s
door. Well, if the Rat, who was away, did not return too soon, and if—he
shook his head, as he opened the door, and stepped inside, and locked it
behind him—no, he was too tired, and too near the breaking point to
think any more. He had a chance to rest now until morning. Whitie Jack
had said that no one would dare disturb the Rat, and that was enough—he
did not want to think any more—until morning.

He groped his way forward to the electric light, reached up to turn it
on—and, with his arm poised in mid-air, stood suddenly tense and rigid.
He listened. It came again—as though some one were knocking cautiously
on the wall—and it seemed to come from the far end of the room near the
bureau.

Billy Kane’s hand shot into his pocket and closed on his revolver; and,
quick and silent in every movement now, he tiptoed across the room in
the darkness, slipped in behind the cretonne hanging and waited, peering
through a corner of the hanging.

And now it was absolutely silent again. Perhaps a half minute passed,
and then, grotesquely, as though it came through the wall itself, the
white ray of a flashlight streamed into the room, and circled it slowly
and deliberately. And then a form moved forward—a woman’s form—and
crossed the room to the table. There was a slight sound as of the
rustling of paper, and, with the ray now flooding the top of the table,
Billy Kane could see that she was writing; but her back was turned, and
he could not see her face. For a moment more she stood there bending
over the table, and then, turning, she retreated again to the rear of
the room.

The flashlight now was full on the rear wall—but there was no opening
there. Billy Kane leaned tensely forward, watching through the corner of
the hanging. This den of the Rat’s that he, or fate for him, had
appropriated, promised much more than appeared on the surface! It was
obvious that there was another entrance than that from the street, and
to obtain its secret now was a matter upon which his life, sooner or
later, might very easily depend.

She was stooping now slightly, and her hand in the glare of the
flashlight was moving in a slow, tentative way up and down one of the
wall boards—and then her hand for an instant remained motionless. Billy
Kane drew in his breath softly. It was ingenious, clever, cunning—and a
craftsman’s work. A small door swung open into the room—a most curious
door! Its top was of an absurd zigzag shape—due to the fact that it
followed the natural joints of the wall boards. And the whole, three
boards in width, in no part therefore, to casual or even critical
examination, would show any signs of an opening, since it opened only
where boards joined one another, and since everywhere in the room all
the wall boards were more or less warped and ill-fitting!

The light was suddenly shaded, obliterated almost, as she passed through
the opening—and then was blotted out. The door had closed without a
sound. She was gone.

Billy Kane did not move. His eyes, as though fascinated, as though
fearful that he might lose it, were fixed through the darkness on the
particular spot on the wall where this strange midnight visitor had run
her hand up and down. A minute, two, three, passed. Wherever that
opening led to, she must be far enough away now to make it safe for him
to act. But he dared not turn on the electric light. It might throw a
glimmer to the street. He was none too sure of either the sill or panels
of that front door! Whitie Jack had passed the word around of the Rat’s
return—was this woman one to whom that word had come? In any case, she
had thought the room empty, the Rat away, and therefore he could not run
the risk of exposing the fact that he had been _hidden_ there—he knew
too little—and perhaps already too much!

He stepped silently over to the wall now. If he only had a match! But he
had lost his match-safe with his coat—no, there were matches here, a box
of them—his fingers had been mechanically searching his pockets—he had
forgotten—it was not even the coat Whitie Jack had given him at the
second-hand shop, it was the Rat’s coat now he was wearing!

He struck a match, located the board, pressed his hand up and down its
length, and felt something give slightly. The door began to swing open.
He blew out the match instantly, and, crouched there, listened. He could
hear nothing. He lighted another match, and this time held it above his
head. A short, tunnel-like passage through the ground, strongly braced
and stayed, and trending gently upward, confronted him.

He stepped forward into the opening, and, bending head and shoulders,
for the roof was scarcely four feet in height, followed the passage for
some five or six yards to where it ended abruptly in a blank wall of
earth, but where, above his head, a third match disclosed a trap-door.
Again Billy Kane listened, and then cautiously raised the door. It was
pitch black now. He drew himself up, and once more listened. There was
no sound. He lighted another match—the stub of the one before being
carefully consigned to his pocket—and nodded his head in understanding.
The passage had led him into a shed, evidently little used, for it was
littered and stored with odds and ends that, judging from the
accumulated dust and dirt, had been untouched for a long time; and the
shed itself—yes, he was right—he had pushed the back door open a
little—the shed gave directly on a lane.

Billy Kane closed the shed door; and, noting with grim appreciation that
the trap-door, as he closed it above his head, was an ingenious
arrangement of the floor planking similar to the construction of the
door within the Rat’s quarters, and was moreover, as an added
precaution, surrounded by an apparently careless stowage of the shed’s
litter, he made his way back along the passage again. The room door he
examined as he passed through. It was manipulated from the _inside_ of
the passage by an ordinary and frankly obvious spring lock. He closed
it, and stood for a moment staring at it speculatively. There seemed no
way of locking it here in the room, of protecting himself from an
intrusion through the night that might not be either as instructive or
as harmless as this first one had been. There might be a way, and there
probably was a way of fastening it, the Rat would surely have seen to
that, but he, Billy Kane, was too far gone, too weak, too tired, too
nearly all in to hunt or search for it now—and there _was_ a way of
obviating the possibility of the door being opened without first
arousing him and putting him on his guard. He went to the table, picked
up a chair, and, carrying it back, tilted it against the door in the
wall.

And now he swayed a little, and his hand sought his eyes. He was
conscious again of his aching shoulder, and that his head was swimming
dizzily—but he seemed to have forgotten something—yes, he remembered
now—that paper—that paper on which she had written something. He laughed
in a strained, almost delirious way. He must be worse than he imagined,
if he had, even for an instant, forgotten that! Or was it just simply
the reaction coming now?

He stumbled toward the table, and, feeling with his hand, secured the
paper—but there was no chair here now, and he stumbled across the room,
and sat down on the edge of the bed. He lighted another match, held it
close to the paper, and read the pencilled lines.

    So you are back, are you?
    Well, so am I! _Remember!_

The match burned down to his fingers, and he dropped it on the floor.
What did it mean? Who was she? He shook his head. And then, with a
queer, twisted smile, he folded the paper, thrust it into his
pocket—and, stretching himself out fully dressed upon the bed, lay there
staring into the darkness.




VII—WHISPERING SHADOWS


It was the next evening—in the Rat’s den. Through half closed eyes, as
he lay stretched out on the bed, Billy Kane watched Whitie Jack across
the room. The man was tilted back in his chair, his legs were sprawled
across the table, and from his cigarette, which dangled from one corner
of his lower lip, a thread of blue smoke spiraled lazily upward. Whitie
Jack was not smoking; the cigarette simply hung forgotten on the man’s
lip. For the moment Whitie Jack with bated interest was poring over the
evening paper.

And then Whitie Jack looked up suddenly, and spoke—out of the unoccupied
corner of his mouth.

“Say, dat secretary guy dat croaked de old geezer last night was a
sweet, downy bird—nit! But believe me, he made some haul—_some_ haul!”

Billy Kane made no reply. Whitie Jack resumed his absorbing perusal of
the newspaper. Billy Kane’s eyes closed completely—but not in sleep. It
had been a day that, viewed in retrospect, made the brain whirl. It had
been a wild untrammelled phantasmagoria. That was it—phantasmagoria.
There was no other word. The day was expressed in shadows, moving
shadows, shadows that came and went, many of them, shadows that were
paradoxically real and concrete, and shadows that were the reflection of
things felt and sensed, but unseen. And these latter, the shadows of the
mind, were weird, uncanny things like denizens out of some black world
apart—ghoulish things. And the shadows that were real and concrete, that
spoke and whispered, seemed to take it for granted that he was and
always had been in their evil confidence, and so their words were not
rounded out, and there was only the hint of dark and hideous things in
which he was supposed to have his part. It had been a day of mutterings,
of whisperings, of skulking things that had fled the sunlight. The brain
and mind was in riot from it. It was evening now; it had been the
strangest day through which any man had ever lived.

He had held court that morning and through the day, here in the Rat’s
lair—a sort of grim, unholy court to which grim, unholy courtiers had
flocked to pay him homage. And these courtiers had been admitted to the
presence one by one, their names announced by Whitie Jack, who had
acted—quite innocently, quite free from any thought of connivance—as the
master of ceremonies. Billy Kane’s lips twisted in a mirthless smile. It
had been very simple, that part of it; much more simple than he had
dared to hope it would be. Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat, was supposed to
know all those who composed the élite of the underworld intimately and
well—but Billy Kane upon whom fate had thrust for the moment the
personality and entity of Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat, knew none of
them. And yet it had been simple—so simple that, against the peril, the
certain death that would follow fast on the heels of even a misplaced
word or an unguarded look, it had been even grotesquely absurd in its
simplicity. Through the dens and dives of the Bad Lands, spread by
Whitie Jack when he had gone away the night before, the whisper had
passed that the Rat had returned; and so, throughout the day, stealthy
footsteps had descended from the street to the basement door here, and
in response to the knock Whitie Jack had opened the door a cautious
inch, peering out; and then he, Billy Kane, from the bed, his voice
querulous for the occasion, had demanded who it was, and Whitie Jack had
answered—and the unsuspected introduction thus performed, he had bidden
Whitie Jack admit the visitor.

There had been many like that—very many. And he had learned many things.
His hands clenched suddenly at his sides. The rôle he played promised
well! Innuendoes, words toying with the fringe of things, had made it
only too glaringly clear that the Rat was enmeshed in devilishness that
ran the gamut of every crime in the decalogue. And for the moment he was
the Rat! There was some hell’s syndicate, whose scope and power he could
only dimly plumb though he was satisfied that its branches were rooted
in every nook and corner of the underworld. And of this syndicate he was
now, by proxy, a member; and he was not only a member, but he was one of
those magnates of crime who composed its inner council, its unhallowed
directorate.

He twisted a little on the bed—more in mental than in physical unrest.
His wounded shoulder was still far from healed of course, but it gave
him very little discomfort, and in no way interfered with his freedom of
action—but it had been the safer way, this accentuating of his hurt,
this pretended state of semi-helplessness. It had brought those he must
know _here_ to him; it had brought about those unsuspected introductions
without which, had he first left this lair of the Rat’s and attempted,
trusting to luck, to pick up the threads of the Rat’s life, would
inevitably have plunged him in his blind groping to certain destruction.
Also it had brought him a quite thorough understanding of Whitie
Jack—the man’s deference that had been almost cringing at their first
meeting, and then the man’s subsequent eagerness to serve.

Whitie Jack was one of the lesser breed that looked up to the heights
the Rat had attained with both awe and unbounded admiration. The man had
come like a dog to heel, but like a faithful dog. Whitie Jack was living
in a sort of reflected glory—he would be the envy of the proletariat of
the Bad Lands—he was associating now, was even on terms of certain
intimacy, with one of those in high places in that inglorious
commonwealth of crime to which, both by birth and inclination, he owed
allegiance. It opened a new prospect to Whitie Jack, one that was full
of dazzling possibilities—and it had made of the man an invaluable ally.
Whitie Jack had been at once valet, nurse, surgeon and attendant all
through the day. He had returned at daylight that morning, dressed the
wound, and thereafter had not left the place except to go out and buy
certain necessities, such as food—and a pocket flashlight, which Billy
Kane, mindful of his previous night’s experience in the underground
passage to the shed and lane, had ranked amongst those necessities as
the first on the list.

Billy Kane shifted his position restlessly on the bed again. His mind
was in a turmoil of feverish activity. It seemed as though a thousand
divergent thoughts fought with each other to obtain undivided attention
and recognition each for itself, and the battle went on incessantly. Who
was the woman who had crept in here in the darkness through that secret
door last night? What did it mean, that message she had written and left
on the table? “So you are back, are you? Well, so am I! _Remember!_”
There was something malignant, something ominous in that
word—“remember.” Remember what? Why? What sinister thing was it that lay
between her and the Rat—that he, Billy Kane, must now accept and stand
sponsor for—since he was now the Rat!

The Rat! The Rat! The Rat! His brain was off again at another tangent.
In Heaven’s name, who was the Rat? Where was the Rat at this moment?
When would the Rat return? Guarded questions all through the day helped
him little. The Rat’s absence had been accepted, that was all—none
seemed to know, or have any interest in the cause of it. One ray of
reassurance only had filtered through the murk. The Rat’s return in his,
Billy Kane’s, person, had seemingly been premature, the Rat had
seemingly not been expected; and he could argue from that, and with fair
logic, that he might for a little while at least be left undisturbed in
his possession of the Rat’s personality, and the Rat’s belongings—as far
as the Rat was concerned. The Rat! Those innuendoes, those whispers,
those shadows, that strange woman’s stranger message were back again,
seething and boiling in his brain. Naked ugliness! What mess of iniquity
was the Rat not mixed up in! And what mess of iniquity might not he,
Billy Kane, accepted without question as the Rat now, with the Rat’s
face and features, with the Rat’s satanic partnerships, be forced to
wallow in to save his life, and, more than life, to——

The paper rustled in Whitie Jack’s hand.

“Some haul!” Whitie Jack rolled the words on his tongue like some sweet
morsel. “S’help me! Five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of rubies! Dat
guy Kane is some slick gazabo! Say, d’youse get it, Bundy? Five hundred
thousand—an’ a bunch of de green stuff, too!” He licked his lips. “Some
haul!”

The paper had exaggerated. David Ellsworth’s rubies at the outside would
not exceed three hundred thousand dollars in value. Billy Kane found
himself curiously and querulously irritated at the inaccuracy. He opened
his eyes, nodded unconcernedly at Whitie Jack—and closed his eyes again.
His mind was suddenly alert and concentrated. In a few minutes now some
of those who composed that inner council of crime would be here. He had
arranged that this morning—with Red Vallon. Red Vallon was the biggest
gangster in New York. Whitie Jack had dropped that information in an
enthusiastic eulogy of Red Vallon. And Vallon had bent over the bed that
morning and whispered of a meeting to-night at the usual time and place.
But he, Billy Kane, was not ready for that yet. He knew too little, it
was too great a risk; and he knew too much—to escape alive, if a chance
word or act betrayed him. But there had come a thought, swift, in a
blinding flash, a staggering thing, a gambler’s stake, and he had
whispered back what was apparently the obvious reply—that he was too
badly hurt to go. And then: “One or two of you slip in here on your way
over,” he had said quickly. “Get me? I’ve got something!” And Red Vallon
had agreed—and with Red Vallon would come Karlin. Karlin! The name had
somehow seemed familiar; but though Whitie Jack had subsequently
furnished a partial clew by referring to Karlin as one of the high-brow
lawyers of the city, he could not definitely place the man.

Billy Kane turned on his side, with his face away from Whitie Jack. Red
Vallon and Karlin would be here in a few moments—and he must make no
mistake now. What he meant to do was an impudent thing—impudent with a
Titanic impudence. He meant to pit the underworld in a fight on the side
of justice against the police. He meant to use the craft, the cunning
and the stealth of the Bad Lands to establish his innocence. He too had
read the papers—the morning and the evening papers—and the headlines had
shrieked out at him the infamy of which he was accused. His name was a
by-word now from one end of the country to the other. A viper and a
degraded wretch, a thing inhuman and apart, the papers had called him.

He had read them all to the last word. Murderer of his benefactor! A
thief—an assassin thief, who had fled for his life with those blood-red
rubies! A bead of sweat came out on his forehead, and he raised his hand
and brushed it away. Yes, he had fled—to fight—to take the only chance
he had of bringing to justice the hell-hounds who had struck down his
old friend, the only chance he had of clearing his own name.

Well, he would fight! It was beginning now, that fight. But he was
between two fires that threatened him at any instant with destruction.
The police, not only in New York, but from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
would search ceaselessly for him, and if he were caught it was death.
Fate, that had made him the double of a character that ironically seemed
to measure up to everything the papers had said about himself, had
thrown in that way a temporary mantle of protection over him, but let
that mantle slip but ever so slightly and he would better a thousand
times hand himself over to the law and have done with it—the end would
be more merciful!

But fate, too, had given him a weapon with which to fight; and,
two-edged though it was, with a chance always that it might turn upon
himself, he meant to use it now—and that weapon was the underworld. He
did not know yet, he was not sure yet just how high he stood in that
unsavory command, but he had discounted rather than overrated his power,
and he believed he had power enough for his purpose—those whispers and
those shadows had seemed to assure him of that. The Rat seemed to be the
driving strategical force in this crime syndicate that appeared to
permeate the Bad Lands with its influence, and move and sway the
underworld at its own imperious pleasure—and for the moment he was the
Rat!

There was Jackson—and Jackson was dead. His mind had flown off at
another apparently irrelevant tangent. But it was not irrelevant. The
papers had said that Jackson, the footman, had died that morning after
lingering in a semi-conscious state through the night. Jackson was the
single clue in his possession. Jackson, he knew, was one of the
murderers, but Jackson was the _only_ man he knew who was concerned in
that devil’s work last night—and Jackson was dead. And now he, Billy
Kane, was “wanted” on a double charge of murder—for the murder of
Jackson, who had probably himself struck old David Ellsworth down, as
well as for the murderer of the old millionaire! Yet Jackson, even if
dead, must still have left some clue behind him, if only that clue could
be found. Who was Jackson? The man had already been in service at David
Ellsworth’s before he, Billy Kane, had gone there as the old
philanthropist’s secretary, and he had naturally had neither motive nor
interest then in any of the footman’s personal concerns. But those facts
were vital now. Who was Jackson? Where had the man come from? Who were——

Footsteps were descending from the street. There was a low knock, twice
repeated on the door. Whitie Jack was on his feet, and looking
inquiringly toward the bed.

“Watch yourself!” said Billy Kane gruffly. “I’m not entertaining
to-night, except——”

“Sure—I know!” said Whitie Jack. He crossed the room, and, opening the
door a crack, peered out. “Red and Karlin,” he informed Billy Kane in a
whisper.




VIII—A LEASH IS SLIPPED


Billy Kane lighted a cigarette. Red Vallon he already knew—Karlin he
was _supposed_ to know. “Let them in,” instructed Billy Kane.

He raised himself on his elbow.

“Hello, Karlin!” he greeted, as the two men stepped into the room.
“Red’s told you I was laid up—eh? Glad to see you! Shake!”

His eyes, half closed, fixed on the other in scrutiny, as the man
advanced toward the bed. Karlin was immaculately dressed—in sharp
contrast to the untidy and careless attire of the stocky, brutal-faced
gangster who followed close at his heels. The man was tall, slimly
built, and, save that the black eyes were too close together and too
small, had a pleasant and attractive face. It was a mask perhaps! The
smile was too engaging; and it was rather curious how small the ears
were, and how tightly they hugged the skull. He toyed with a little
black Vandyke beard, as he shook hands.

“Same to you, Bundy!” The voice was soft, silky, persuasive. “Glad
you’re back, too!” He made an almost imperceptible movement with his
head toward Whitie Jack, who still remained near the door.

Red Vallon was more blunt.

“What about _him_, Bundy?” he growled, and jerked a thumb in Whitie
Jack’s direction. “We got to mosey along as soon as we can. Savvy?”

“Sure!” said Billy Kane. “Whitie, you take a holiday for the night. Come
back in the morning. Beat it!”

The cigarette hanging on Whitie Jack’s lip drooped in sudden dejection;
but if he swallowed hard to choke back what was evidently a very
grievous disappointment, he made no demur.

“All right, Bundy, if youse says so,” he blurted out, and went from the
room, closing the door behind him.

The man’s footfalls mounting the cellar-like stairs to the street died
away, and for a moment there was no sound except for a faint, irregular
_tapping_ from the floor above.

“What’s that?” demanded Karlin sharply.

Billy Kane blew a ring of smoke ceilingward, and lazily watched it
dissolve into air. Whitie Jack, through judicious prodding, had served
him well that day.

“Old Ignace—keeps the cobbler’s shop above—half blind, and has to work
overtime—wife’s nearly seventy, and deaf.” Billy Kane was explaining
almost wearily. “What do you think I hang onto this hole for?”

“Sure!” grunted Red Vallon corroboratingly. “But Karlin’s never been
here before.” He pushed a chair with the toe of his boot across the
floor toward Karlin, and appropriated one beside the table for himself.
“Well, spill it, Bundy!” he invited. “We got to hurry! It’s too bad
you’re laid up an’ can’t sit in on the showdown, but Merxler’s plum’s
got ripe, an’ we got to pick it to-night. Savvy?”

Billy Kane duplicated the first smoke ring. Merxler! He had identified
Karlin now! Karlin and Merxler! That was where he had heard Karlin’s
name—in connection with Merxler—and it must, necessarily then be the
same Merxler. Was young Merxler, whom he had heard of and had even met
through David Ellsworth, more then than simply the notorious spendthrift
that he was credited with being? Karlin, it was obvious, was leading a
double life. Was Merxler another of the inner circle, another from the
higher ranks of society—and the greater criminal therefor!

“Piker stuff!” commented Billy Kane complacently.

Karlin leaned forward with a jerk in his chair.

“Piker stuff!” he ejaculated, and the little black eyes contracted and
fixed on Billy Kane in a puzzled glitter. “Piker stuff!” he echoed
challengingly.

Billy Kane nodded indifferently. He was skating on thin ice, on
perilously thin ice. Whatever the “Merxler plum” might be, it was
obviously far from the definition he had given it, and having apparently
displayed an intimacy with the affair, an intimacy that he was evidently
supposed to possess, it was decidedly best left alone!

“That’s what I said,” he drawled deliberately. “Piker stuff—compared
with what I’ve got. I told you I had something, Red—didn’t I?”

Red Vallon hitched sideways in his chair, his head thrust forward.

“Go to it, Bundy! Spill it!” He circled his lips with his tongue. “If
you say so, that goes! What’s the lay?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars—a half million—cold”—Billy Kane had
lowered his voice.

He did not look at either of the men, but he was watching them both
intently—his eyes were on the mirror, the mirror of the bureau at the
far end of the room, that bore testimony to the cunning of his unwitting
host. The mirror held the door and the upper part of the room in focus;
and, lying there on the bed, he had the profiles of the two men in
distinct outline. Karlin was fingering his Vandyke in a sort of hesitant
incredulity. Vallon’s face had suddenly blotched red with rapacious
excitement.

“Gawd!” Red Vallon spluttered out. “D’ye mean that, Bundy?”

“Sure, I mean it!” Billy Kane answered a little curtly. “What do you
think I told you to come here for? Sure, I mean it! It’s all there—right
on the table, hitting you between the eyes.”

Red Vallon jerked himself around; and, as though he had taken the words
literally, stared with a frown of bewilderment at the only thing in view
upon the table—the newspaper that Whitie Jack had dropped there when he
had answered the summons at the door.

Billy Kane laughed quietly.

“Get it, Red?” he inquired. “Five hundred thousand dollars—better than
diamonds—blood-red rubies—red with blood, the paper says. Can’t you
read?”

Karlin had forgotten his beard. His hands clenched on his knees.

“You mean the Ellsworth murder—the robbery?” He was whispering hoarsely.

“You win!” said Billy Kane.

“My God!” whispered Karlin. “Do you know where that stuff is?”

Billy Kane’s eyes had returned to the mirror, and now suddenly they
shifted a little to the wall at the side of the bureau. Something cold
and forbidding seemed to grip at him, numbing for an instant mental and
physical action—and then left him in a state of grim, unnatural
calmness. Was it imagination? He could have sworn that the wall _moved_
slightly. He swung over on his left side, as though to face Karlin and
Red Vallon more directly before he answered them—but his hand, slipping
into his coat pocket, closed over his revolver. It _might_ be
imagination, but the possibility remained that someone was on the other
side of that secret door, and, having pushed the door almost
imperceptibly open, was listening there. If that were so, he must get
rid of Red Vallon and Karlin before any dénouement came if possible, get
rid of them without an instant’s loss of time; but equally vital was the
necessity of setting in motion, and equally without loss of time, the
machinery of the underworld upon which now he was practically staking
his all.

“Pull your chair over here, closer to the bed, Red—and you, too,
Karlin,” he said coolly. “We aren’t likely to be heard from the street,
but that’s no reason for shouting. No; I don’t know where they are, I
haven’t got the rubies in my pocket—but I know how to get them there.
What?”

Red Vallon’s face was working in a sort of anticipatory and avaricious
ugliness; Karlin’s expression was scarcely less rapacious.

“Go on, Bundy!” Karlin said under his breath. “What do you know about
it?”

“What you could have read for yourself in the paper,” Billy Kane
answered tersely. “And it looks like a cinch. It’s just a case of
beating the police to it, and it sizes up as though we had the jump on
them.” He was speaking almost mechanically. His mind was on that section
of the wall that _might_ have moved; and through half-closed eyes, but
as though deep in thought and as though concentrated on what he was
saying, he was watching it narrowly. It had not moved a second time, of
that he was sure; perhaps it had not moved at all, it might be only
nerves on his part, nerves high strung, taut to the breaking point, but
his fingers were still rigid around the stock of his revolver, and, in
the pocket, the weapon, resting on his hip as he lay sideways, held a
bead on the panels of the secret door.

“I don’t quite get you,” muttered Karlin, with a frown.

Red Vallon swore roughly, intolerant in his eagerness.

“Aw, give him a chance!” he said impatiently. “If he says so, that’s
good enough for me. Bundy never pulled a steer in his life, an’ if he
says this is a cinch—that goes! Give him a chance!”

“It’s like this,” said Billy Kane. “It’s a thousand to one shot that
this secretary chap who croaked the old millionaire and got away with
the goods is still in New Work. Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. After
pulling the murder, according to the papers, he beat it out of the house
with the loot, and evidently hid the stuff somewhere. Then he came back
to the house again, and the footman, Jackson, grabbed him. But there was
a good half hour between the time the police found out about the murder
and before this guy Kane came back to the house. Get me? And during that
time the police got busy and shot flycops around all the stations and
ferries. It’s a cinch, the way I look at it, that after he crawled into
that lane and they lost him there, that he’s been crawling ever since
somewhere around New York. He never left the city—he never had a
chance.”

Red Vallon whistled low and complacently under his breath; Karlin,
fingering his Vandyke again, nodded sharply now in approval.

“Besides,” added Billy Kane, “he had sort of queered his own game. He’d
hidden the loot somewhere, and he couldn’t make a direct get-away then.
He had to get hold of the goods again before he went. All right! What I
want to know is who’s got the better chance of grabbing him—us or the
police? He isn’t one of us. He’s working on his own. Well, all right! If
we nip him, and he’s satisfied with a little rake-off, and is willing to
cough up the rest, that’ll be treating him fair. If he isn’t strong on
coughing up, we’ll find another way of making him come across that he
won’t like so well, and we’ll get the half million, and he’ll get——”
Billy Kane completed his sentence with a significant shrug of his
shoulder.

An oath, the more callous and brutal for the soft purring way in which
it fell from his lips, came from Red Vallon.

“What do you want done, Bundy?” Karlin was terse and to the point. “It
looks good to me, if you can pull it off.”

“It’s the biggest haul we’ll ever get our mitts on if we live a hundred
years!” Billy Kane’s eyes shifted for an instant from the wall to fix
themselves impressively on the two men. “I’ve been lying here all day
thinking it out. What do I want done? Well, I’ll tell you! I want every
string and every wire we’ve got pulled. Savvy? We’ve got to beat the
police to it. We’ve got to get Kane—_first_. I want all the boys that
the bulls think they’ve got sewed up as stool pigeons to stool-pigeon
the police and get all the inside dope. And then that fellow Jackson,
the footman, looks like a bet we can’t throw down. He’s dead—but he
looks like a good bet. He lived all through the night, but the papers
don’t say anything about the story he told. Perhaps he knew something
that will help, perhaps he didn’t; but he doesn’t go into the discard
yet. Find out who he was and all about him, and get next to his family
if he’s got one. If he told any story to the police, any of the family
that were clustering around the bedside will be wise to it. Get the
idea?”

“Birdie Rose is the boy for that!” Red Vallon’s bullet head was thrust
forward in vicious earnestness, his red-rimmed black eyes were
glittering with a feverish light.

“Let Birdie go to it, then!” said Billy Kane.

“Birdie was slated for the Merxler affair to-night.” Karlin spoke a
little dubiously.

“Shift him!” snapped Billy Kane curtly. “Red’s right! Birdie’s the boy
for this job.”

“All right!” agreed Karlin, and shrugged his shoulders. He turned to Red
Vallon. “Put Bull McCann in Birdie’s place, then. See that he gets to
Jerry’s back room before ten.”

“I’ll fix it!” grunted Red Vallon. “What’s next, Bundy? This goes—all
the boys’ll fall for it.”

“There’s only one thing more—until something begins to crack open.”
Billy Kane’s lips had tightened, his eyelids had drooped still lower. It
was only a bare fraction of an inch at most—if at all—but it seemed that
door had moved again. His words were coming barely above a whisper now.
“There’s only one way he can get anything out of those rubies, and
that’s through a ‘fence.’ They’re no good to him unless he can cash in.
He’ll try to get rid of some of them as soon as he can. How soon depends
on how well he knows his way about. But he’s probably slick enough to
have got a line on a blind uncle or two. All right! The police, of
course, have passed the word down the line, but here’s where we put one
over on the police. There’s some of the joints they don’t know—we know
them all. Kane might get away from the police there—but he can’t get
away from _us_ on that deal. I want every ‘fence’ in New York tipped off
that he’s to stall on the job the minute he gets his lamps on a ruby
that’s being shoved his way, and that instead of opening up to the
police he’s to wise us up on the hop. That’s all for a starter—and now
go to it!”

Red Vallon drew in his breath noisily, as though he were sucking at some
luscious and juicy fruit.

“Some head, Bundy!” he applauded with undisguised admiration, as he
pushed away his chair and stood up. “Sure, we’ll go to it! Karlin’s
running the Merxler game to-night; but I’ll start this other thing
bumping along on the high gear. What about the reports? Who’ll the boys
make ’em to? You? Here?”

It was a moment before Billy Kane answered. It was the one thing he must
have, the one thing upon which he was staking everything—an intimate
knowledge of the result of every move made in this game that he had
initiated, and, beyond that again, it was vital that he, and no one else
should control each successive move. But Whitie Jack was gone for the
night. In one way he deplored that fact, in another way he was relieved.
If it was only imagination, if there was no one crouching there now on
the other side of that secret door, Whitie Jack’s presence would not
matter, but otherwise—his mind leaped to that other point—if Whitie Jack
was not here to perform those very necessary introductions, and Red
Vallon’s messengers came, messengers that he would be supposed to know
but would not be able to recognize, it would spell almost certain
disaster, and——

“There isn’t anything likely to break to-night, Red,” he said
deliberately. “If there does you look after it; or if it’s anything very
important you come here yourself. I want to get a night’s sleep if I
can, I’m feeling pretty rocky. But I ought to be on my feet to-morrow,
and in the morning you can swing the whole business over to me, and I’ll
run it.”

“Attaboy!” said Red Vallon heartily. “See you in the morning, then.”

Karlin too had risen from his chair.

“Good-night, Bundy!” he said—and grinned. “I pay you the compliment of
being the trickiest crook unhung!”




IX—BEHIND THE DOOR


The door closed behind the two men. Billy Kane lay motionless, save
that, as they climbed to the street and their footsteps echoed back from
the stairs, his hand, gripping his revolver, stole silently from his
pocket. There was a grim whiteness around his set lips. His ears
strained to catch the slightest sound from within the room, and strained
to catch the last echo of those retreating footfalls. He dared not make
a move until they were well away—out of earshot, say, of a revolver
report. If it were fancy, if the movement of that door were only his
imagination unhealthily stimulated, and unhealthily preying upon his
nerves, he would at least put an end to it in short order now! The steps
rang faintly back from the pavement, still more faintly, and were lost.
And then Billy Kane spoke—a cold deadly monotony in his voice:

“Those boards are thin! Come out into the room with your hands up before
I count three, or I’ll put a bullet through. One—two——”

There was a laugh, undisguised in its mockery, but low and musical. The
door, bizarre and grotesque in its zigzag projections, due to its
ingenious adherence to the natural joints in the wall boards, swung open
wide, and a woman stood in the room.

“I was only waiting for your friends to go, Bundy,” she said coolly.

The revolver sagged a little in Billy Kane’s hand. He could not see her
face very well, the single incandescent dangling from the ceiling was
miserably inadequate, but dark eyes flashed at him out of an oval face,
and the chin thrown up gave a glimpse of the contour of a full throat,
ivory white—and all this was merged in the background of a slender
figure clothed and cloaked in some dark material, unrelieved by a single
vistage of color.

She spoke again.

“I don’t think you are quite as badly hurt as you pretend, Bundy,” she
said, with a sort of icy composure. “You were out last night when I came
here, and if you could prowl around the streets, I think perhaps you
could manage now to get from the bed over to the door there and back
again without doing yourself any serious injury. The door has been
unlocked since Red Vallon went out, and it might be safer—locked.”

Billy Kane did not answer her. He got up, crossed to the door, locked
it, and, returning, sat down on the edge of the bed. She had not moved
from her position near the far end of the room. He became conscious that
he was still holding his revolver in his hand, and he thrust the weapon
quietly now into his pocket. A grim smile came and hovered on his lips.
This complication, another of the ramifications of his stolen identity,
he did not understand at all—except that it promised him no good. She
was the author of last night’s note—she had just said as much—and the
wording of that note was not reassuring as to her attitude toward him,
nor was the mockery in her laugh, nor was the self-contained, almost
contemptuous note of command with which she had just spoken. Who was
she? What was she to the Rat, that she knew the secret of that
underground tunnel, and the secret of that door?

He jerked his hand toward the chair Red Vallon had vacated.

“Sit down, won’t you?” There was a tingle of irony in his voice. His
invitation was at least safe ground.

She came forward toward the table, a subtle, supple grace in her
movements. Subconsciously he noted that she made no sound as she crossed
the room. She was like a cat—but a very beautiful cat. He could see her
face better now. The eyes were hard and unfriendly, but they were great,
brown, steady eyes of unfathomable depths.

She leaned against the table.

“I prefer to stand.” There was a challenge in her tones. “What I have to
say will not take long.”

Billy Kane waited. The initiative was with her. He meant it to remain
so. Her small white hand, ungloved, clenched suddenly at her side until
its knuckles stood out like little chalky knobs.

“You look sleeker about the face, clearer about the eyes—you beast!”
There was a studied deliberation in her voice that gave the words the
sting of a curling whip lash. “Perhaps you’ve been——”

“You were listening there at the door?” suggested Billy Kane
imperturbably, as he reached into his pocket for a cigarette.

There was a mocking little lift to her shoulders.

“Of course! That is what I came for. I followed Red Vallon here. I
supposed that you would meet at the old place, now that you are back;
but since you are an invalid——” Again the shoulders lifted.

“I am afraid it hardly paid you for the trouble—to listen,” Billy Kane
murmured caustically. “I’m sorry! I rather fancied I saw the door move,
and you see, my illness has affected my voice, and at times I can
scarcely speak above a whisper, otherwise you might have overheard——”

“I overheard enough!” She took a sudden step toward him. Her eyes were
flashing now; there was a flush, angry red, mounting from the white
throat, suffusing her cheeks. She raised her clenched hands. “You will
die with insolence and bravado on your lips, I believe!” she cried out
passionately. “How I _hate_ you! But I’ve got you—like _that_”—she flung
out an arm toward him, and the small clenched hand opened and then
closed again, slowly, as though in its grip it were remorselessly
crushing and exterminating some abhorrent thing. And then her hand was
raised again, and was brushed across her eyes, and a little quiver ran
through her form, and she spoke more calmly. “I overheard enough. I
thought this Merxler affair would be worked to-night, and I came to tell
you that you are to stop it. I came to tell you to—_remember_! I
promise, before God, that if there is murder done to-night you will be
in the hands of the police within an hour. And it’s not very far from
the Tombs to the death chair in Sing Sing—Bundy Morgan.”

Billy Kane’s eyes were hidden by drooped lids. His eyes were studying
with curious abstraction the pattern of the faded, greasy, threadbare
strip of carpet on the floor beside the bed. Murder! The word had come
with a shock that for a moment unnerved him. He had not associated
anything that Red Vallon or Karlin had said with murder. They had spoken
so lightly, referred to it in so humdrum a way. Murder! There was
something ghastly in that lightness now. A tightness came to his lips, a
horror was creeping into his soul. He was only on the verge of things,
of hidden and abominable things, here in this shadow land, this night
land of skulking shapes, this sordid realm of the underworld. He pulled
himself together. He was the Rat—he had a part to play. He was conscious
that those brown, fearless eyes were fixed on him contemptuously.

“What have I to do with it?” he muttered sullenly.

“Do with it! _You!_” Her voice rose, as though suddenly out of control.
“You dare ask that! You, with your devil’s brains—you, who planned it
all before you went away!”

The cigarette that he had lighted had gone out. He sucked at it,
circling it around his lips. He was fencing now with unbuttoned foils.

“Well, you’ve said it!” There was a snarl creeping into his voice. “I’ve
been away. I don’t know what they’ve done since I’ve been away.”

“You know about the will, and the sealed envelope in Merxler’s safe, and
you know the combination to the safe,” she said levelly. “And that’s all
you need to know to stop this from going any further.”

He laughed out shortly.

“And suppose I don’t know the combination! You don’t think I can carry a
thing like that in my head forever, do you?”

“No,” she said. She smiled curiously, and one hand slipped into the
bodice of her dress. “I don’t think you ever did memorize that
combination. But perhaps you will recognize it again—the original in
your own handwriting.” She held up a crumpled piece of paper before him,
then tossed it on the table.

“Where did you get that?” he demanded roughly.

Her shoulders lifted mockingly again.

“There are other secrets in this room besides that door and the tunnel
to the shed, aren’t there—Bundy?”

He eyed her now for a long minute, biting openly at his lip, his face
twisted in a well-simulated ugly scowl.

“So, I’m to queer this game, am I?” he snarled suddenly. “And if I’m
caught—as a snitch—they’ll tear me to pieces!”

She leaned a little forward from the table, a tense, lithe thing, and
her voice came low with passion:

“We’re wasting time—and you’ve none to lose. We’ve gone over this ground
before, haven’t we? It’s the one chance you have—to save yourself. Some
day you won’t be able to save yourself. Some day the reckoning will
come; but you will always have the _hope_ that it won’t, and that you
will always succeed in staving it off each time as you have in the past.
But until that day does come the only chance you have for life is to pit
your wits against the fiends like yourself that are around you. For what
you have done there is no atonement—only punishment. I mean you to live
in suspense, but even while that suspense lasts you will pull apart and
unravel your devil’s work as fast as you knit it together. You have a
chance that way! When the end comes and they get you, you know how the
underworld will pay—but there is the chance—that is what holds you—and
with the alternative—the police—there is no chance.”

She was breathing hard. She leaned back against the table, her hands
gripped tightly at its edge.

For a moment there was silence in the room. Billy Kane’s mind was
groping blindly now, as in some utter darkness. In some way, for there
was no question of the genuineness of her self-assurance, her very
presence here in seemingly placing herself in the Rat’s power proved
that she held the Rat, and the Rat’s life and liberty in the hollow of
her hand, at her beck and call. How? What was the secret of the power
she possessed over him? He lighted a match nonchalantly, and, as he
applied the flame to the half-burned cigarette he lifted his eyes to her
through the blue haze of smoke that he blew negligently in her
direction.

“Sometimes,” he said in a low, menacing tone, “people, even women, who
grow troublesome, have been known in this neighborhood—to disappear.”

She laughed sharply.

“You have no time to waste in foolish words!” she warned him curtly.
“You know the consequences of my—disappearance. You are at liberty to
take those consequences any time you choose. But you do not like them,
do you—Bundy?” She moved suddenly across the room, back to the secret
door through which she had entered. “I am going now,” she said steadily.
“If there is murder to-night, or if any part of that plan goes
through—_remember!_”




X—THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE


Billy Kane made no effort to stop her, as she closed the door silently
behind her. She was gone. The minutes passed, and he still sat there on
the side of the bed, his eyes mechanically fixed on the spot, an
innocent blank wall now, where she had disappeared. His face, hard and
set at first, grew harder. What was he to do? There seemed to yawn
before him, to have opened at his feet an abyss, bottomless, pitiless,
and he tottered on the brink of it, and unseen hands reached up and
snatched at him to drag him from the narrow ledge that was all that was
left to him of safety. What was he to do? To go on? Every hour that he
clung to this role of the Rat held a surer promise, not only of
desperate peril to himself, but a promise that he would find himself
launched in a sea of crime, of shuddering things, of murder, of blood,
of sordid viciousness, of hate. In God’s name, who was this Rat, who in
this hole here with its secret opening and its gnawed tunnel to the
daylight made the pseudonym so apt!

He clenched his hands suddenly, and rising to his feet began to pace the
room. He began to see now what, strangely enough, though it should have
been plainly obvious all through that day, he had not seen until she,
this unknown, mysterious woman, had, herself unconscious of it, made him
see. Her power over the Rat to which he was subject in his assumed
character, did not, in the final analysis, whatever the source of that
power might be, materially affect the situation. It was not her threat
that was the driving force that must actuate him. There was another and
a far greater force which he could neither ignore nor escape. He saw
that now. If the foreknowledge of proposed crime came to him, he was as
guilty, if he stood idly by, as those who became the actual perpetrators
of that crime. To-night, if there was to be murder done, and it was
within his power to prevent that murder, or even if it were only within
his power to attempt to prevent that murder—and he did nothing—he was a
murderer himself. And so to-night he had no choice. He must act. It did
not seem to him that there had been any question in his mind about this
in a specific way at all from the moment she had spoken of murder. But
afterwards—if he went on—the crimes that Red Vallon and Karlin and their
confederates would plot, and that he would know of—what then?

He halted by the table, and laughed in a short, harsh way, and in the
dark eyes there burned a sudden fire. Was there really any question
about that, either? Had there ever been! He asked only one thing in life
now, and to that everything else was subordinate—to feel his hands upon
the throat of the man who had murdered David Ellsworth, and who had
fastened that guilt upon him—Billy Kane—to wring from that man a
confession that would clear his name. Nothing else mattered. He could
run for it, discard this rôle of the Rat, and perhaps effect his escape,
but he would thereby throw away almost every hope of bringing the guilty
man to justice. The other way was to fight. Well, he would fight! It
would be a good fight! And, as the Rat, he would not have to fight
alone! If he accepted the chances as they stood, he must accept the risk
involved in foiling the plots and crimes of those who thought him their
confederate; but against this, the first step already inaugurated, he
had the craft and cunning of the underworld at his back in the one
purpose that meant anything to him now. It would be a good fight! If he
failed, he might as well go out this way as any other—better this way,
for then at least some of the projected deviltry would never know
fruition. He drew in his breath sharply as in a sort of strange relief.
It was settled now, once for all! He would go on—as the Rat—to the end.
And to-night he would see this Merxler plot through to the end.

Billy Kane picked up the crumpled piece of paper she had dropped on the
table, studied it for an instant, then placed it in his pocket. It
contained the scrawled figures of a safe’s combination, nothing more.
And now, glancing at his watch and finding that it was already a little
after eight o’clock, Billy Kane worked quickly. The mask that had served
him the night before was already in his pocket, as was his revolver. To
these he added the electric flashlight that Whitie Jack had procured for
him that morning, and, from where they dangled in the lock of the door,
Whitie Jack’s bunch of skeleton keys. He extinguished the light; then
passing out through the secret door, which he closed carefully behind
him, he made his way quickly through the little underground passage,
gained the shed through the trap-door, emerged on the lane, and from
there, cautiously, he reached the street.

He walked rapidly now, but keeping always in the shadows, shunning the
direct rays of the street lamps. He cared nothing for the police; his
danger did not lie in that direction. Seen anywhere in the city by
either police or plain-clothes man he would be recognized, not as Billy
Kane, but as the Rat—and the authorities, he was fairly well satisfied,
had no particular or immediate interest in the Rat. His danger lay
to-night in an unlucky recognition by some prowler of the underworld,
the report of which might reach the ears of Red Vallon and his crowd.
Supposed to be confined to bed, pleading physical inability to take his
place at that unhallowed council board of which he was accepted as a
member, it would be very awkward to explain his presence on the street
within half an hour after Red Vallon and Karlin had left his room!
To-morrow, the day after, it would be a different matter, he could go
and come then as he pleased, but to-night it multiplied his difficulties
and his dangers a thousandfold. And yet, after all, that was the most
simple of the problems that confronted him—with luck, he could see his
way out of that. But for the rest, he was almost like a blind man
groping his way along in what was already near to an inextricable maze.
He knew something of Merxler both by sight and hearsay, he knew where
Merxler lived, that there was a will in the safe which he must secure,
that he possessed the combination of the safe, and that afterwards there
was “the back door of Jerry’s before ten,” which referred undoubtedly to
the notorious gambling hell of that name, and that in these fragments,
once pieced together, there was murder—that was all he knew. And there
was something grim, and horribly ironic, and mocking, and something
forbidding, and ominous and premonitory in the fact that he was supposed
to know _all_!

The street for the moment in his immediate vicinity was deserted, and
just well enough within the radius of a street lamp to enable him to
see, he drew the package of money from his vest pocket that the old
millionaire had confided to his keeping the night before. He selected
several bills of the smaller denominations, placed them in his trousers’
pocket, and returned the package to the inside pocket of his vest. Thank
God for the money! He had enough in the bank twice over to replace this
two thousand that now belonged to the Ellsworth estate, but he could not
get it! He was a fugitive from the law! But this should see him
through—by the time two thousand was exhausted he must either have won
or lost. He smiled a little bitterly. Win or lose, the estate at least
would get its two thousand back! If he won, he would pay it back
himself; if he lost—well, his money in the bank had probably already
been attached!

And now he retreated to the shadows of the buildings again as he went
along. His surreptitious excursion from the Rat’s den last night had, to
one who knew the East Side as intimately as he knew it, supplied him
with a mental map, as it were, of the neighborhood in which the Rat had
chosen to reside. A block further on was The Purple Scarf, a so-called
Bohemian restaurant and dance hall, as lurid as its name, that for the
moment was the craze with the slummers and those of New York’s upper
strata who aped all things Bohemian—and from early evening until early
morning a line of taxis waited to snatch their share of the spoils from
the free-handed and, quite often, hilarious clientele. It was a taxi
that he wanted—without attracting any unnecessary attention to himself—a
taxi that he could not stand on a crowded thoroughfare and hail—and
there was, as usual, a line of them there now in front of the
restaurant.

He reached the corner, drew his hat far down over his eyes, stepped out
into the street, and approached the last taxi in the line from the side
away from the curb. The chauffeur was nodding in his seat. Billy Kane
touched the man on the arm.

“I want to go up to the Nineties—Broadway—probably several places after
that,” said Billy Kane pleasantly.

The chauffeur yawned, and shook his head.

“I’m waitin’ for a party in there.” He jerked his hand toward the
restaurant. “I got a fare.”

“I know you have,” said Billy Kane coolly. “You’ve got me.” He extended
a ten-dollar bill. “There’s another one just like this, perhaps more
than one, coming later—on top of the fare.”

The chauffeur grinned, pocketed the banknote, and, leaning out, opened
the door. His grin broadened.

“What did you say the address was?” he inquired.

“The one I gave you will do for the present,” Billy Kane answered
quietly. “I’ll let you know where to stop. Get up there as fast as you
can. I’m paying for speed to-night. Get the idea?”

“Leave it to me!” said the chauffeur. “Hop in!”

Billy Kane settled back in the seat. The car swung out of the line, shot
forward, and took the first corner on little better than two wheels.
Billy Kane smiled grimly. Between here and that purposely vague address
in the Nineties which he had given, the chauffeur could very obviously
be depended upon to do his part! In the meanwhile, and for the first
time, he, Billy Kane, had an opportunity to study those scattered pieces
of the puzzle in detail.

He lighted a cigarette. That there should be a will in Merxler’s safe at
all had a nasty look—unless it were Merxler’s own will, which was
altogether too highly improbable a supposition to be entertained
seriously. And besides, in that case, what was Karlin’s, and Red
Vallon’s, and the underworld’s interest in the matter? He shook his head
decisively. The existence of a will did not tend to place young Merxler
in an enviable light.

Merxler’s uncle, a man by the name of Theodore Rodgers, who had died
some few months before, had been quite an intimate friend of David
Ellsworth—that was where his, Billy Kane’s, personal knowledge of
Merxler came from. He had met Rodgers several times at the old
millionaire’s home; and once he had met the nephew there as well. The
two did not get on very well together. Young Merxler was a notorious
“high-roller.” Left a large fortune by his father two years ago, he had
squandered it to the last copper. Theodore Rodgers, his uncle, had time
and again, both privately and publicly, stated that he would have
nothing more to do with the boy. That was the gist of it. It had
occasioned some surprise then that, when Rodgers had died, it was found
that he had taken no steps to keep his money, what he had of it, some
sixty or seventy thousand dollars, out of the young spendthrift’s hands.
But no will had been found. Rodgers was a bachelor; young Clayton
Merxler was a dead sister’s only son—and Merxler had inherited as next
of kin, and had promptly moved his family—he was married—into his late
uncle’s residence.

Billy Kane finished his cigarette, and finished still another, as the
taxi made its way uptown. There had never been anything criminal, so far
as was known, about young Merxler, nothing wrong up to now, except that
he had gone the pace, and that, perhaps more than anything else, he had
been a foolish and unbalanced boy and had lost his head; but now there
were two very unpleasant facts that loomed up insistently. First, it was
common knowledge that at the time of his uncle’s death young Merxler was
having an exceedingly hard time of it to make both ends meet. And,
second, was the fact that Karlin was in this too. Knowing Karlin now for
what Karlin really was, it looked ugly enough for young Merxler. Karlin,
accepted in the upper circles in which he moved, as a respected citizen
and an excellent attorney, had always been trusted as a friend and the
legal adviser of both young Merxler’s father and uncle—which placed him
now in a position where he could be a very useful, if not indispensable
confederate in assisting Merxler to enter without obstacle into the
possession of his uncle’s estate.

The minutes passed. Billy Kane, within a few blocks of his destination,
noted the cross streets carefully now, as he shook his head again. The
pieces did not fit so perfectly after all. Suppose that Rodgers _had_
left a will disinheriting his nephew, and suppose that young Merxler had
found that will and that it was in Merxler’s safe now, and that Karlin
was a party to it—why hadn’t the will been _destroyed_? That would seem
the obvious and safe thing to have done! And if Merxler and Karlin and
Red Vallon were all hand in glove in the affair, where was the incentive
for murder that she had spoken of? Whose murder? There was a snarl in
the thing. He was conscious that he had not untangled it at all to his
satisfaction.

He tapped suddenly on the glass front, signalling the chauffeur; and, as
the taxi drew up at the curb, he stepped quickly to the sidewalk.

“Wait for me here,” he directed, and started at a brisk pace up the
block.

He turned at the first corner, heading east along the cross street. It
was purely a residential neighborhood here. There was no other
pedestrian in sight for the moment. Merxler’s house was one of a row
halfway up the block. Billy Kane’s pace became a nonchalant stroll. He
passed the row of houses slowly, though apparently indifferent to their
existence, and then, retracing his steps quite as negligently, slipped
suddenly into the shadows of a flight of high front steps, and the next
instant was crouched against the basement door.

A skeleton key from Whitie Jack’s comprehensive assortment crept into
the lock. It proved abortive. Billy Kane, as he made a second attempt
with another key, was subconsciously rehearsing certain details in his
mind. There was a light in the vestibule or front hallway above him, but
the windows on that floor were dark. Above that again the windows were
lighted, and it was a fair presumption that the family proper were all
upstairs. There was probably a maid, but as there was no sign of life
here in the basement it might well be her evening out.

Again Billy Kane selected another key, still another—and then the door
opened silently under his hand. He stepped inside, closed the door
noiselessly behind him, and stood listening. There was no sound and no
light. It was pitch black. He could not have seen his hand before his
eyes. And then his flashlight winked through the black, went out, winked
inquisitively again, and he moved forward. The stairs were just at his
right, and made a right-angled turn halfway up. He gained the stairs and
began to mount them, testing each separate tread cautiously before the
next step was attempted. Stairs before now had been known to creak out
discordantly! Billy Kane smiled in a grim, mirthless way. He was
becoming an adept at this burglarious trade where silence was so prime a
factor. Since last night he——

_What was that?_

He felt his muscles, as though without volition of his, strain suddenly
and grow rigid. He was halfway up the stairs now, and he drew back into
the angle made by the turn, his body hugged tight against the wall. What
was that! He thought he had heard a sound as of someone moving in the
hall above, but it was gone now and there was only a stillness in the
house, a stillness that, as he listened, became exaggerated until it
seemed to possess noises of its own that began to throb, and pound, and
palpitate, and make his eardrums ring, and—_no!_—there it was again—a
light, quick step—and, unmistakably now, upon the topmost stair.

It was inky black. He could not see. He pressed still closer, flattening
himself against the wall. The step was very light, scarcely audible; a
woman’s step probably, and probably the maid’s. Billy Kane held his
breath. If he were found here, discovered, caught, the Rat would——He did
not care to dwell upon the consequences.

Something, a shapeless thing, a deeper, shadowy blackness passed by him.
It seemed to escape contact with him by the barest fraction of an inch.
He heard the sound of breathing—then a step along the passageway
below—and the basement door closed quietly. There was silence again,
save for that din infernal that beat at his eardrums. He lifted his hand
to his forehead—it was moist as he brought it away again.

A moment more, and he was grimly composed again. It was the maid
probably. That seemed the natural conclusion. Who else would have gone
out by the basement door? Well, if that were so, he was left now with
almost unrestricted freedom of action; the family being all upstairs, he
might reasonably expect to have the first floor quite to himself without
very great fear of interruption.

He crept on up the stairs, and reached the main hallway. Here the dim
light in the vestibule sifting down the length of the hall metamorphosed
the blackness into a murky gloom. He listened again. A murmur of voices
came intermittently from above. There was no other sound.

There was a door at his right. He opened it silently, and stepped
through into the room beyond. He closed the door, and the flashlight
winked out again. He was in luck now! This, at the first venture, was
the room he was looking for. The round, white ray of the flashlight,
cutting a filmy path through the darkness, fell upon the nickel dial of
a small safe that stood against the opposite wall. He crossed to the
safe, knelt before it, and took the crumpled piece of paper that bore
the combination from his pocket. Thereafter for a moment, as his fingers
moved swiftly, the silence was broken by the faint, musical whirling of
the dial—and then a low, metallic thud, as he shot the lever over—and
the safe door swung open.

The ray from the flashlight flooded the interior of the safe. It was a
small safe, but even so it was evidently more than large enough for its
requirements. On the floor of the safe was a package of securities, held
together by broad elastic bands, but the pigeon-holes were but sparsely
filled, some being entirely empty. A few minutes’ examination disposed
of the pigeon-holes—and the skeleton keys came into service again on a
little locked drawer. The drawer contained a single envelope, sealed. He
slit the envelope open. It contained two folded sheets of paper. He
examined only one of them, and that only to the extent of glancing at
the first few words: “I, Theodore Rodgers, being of sane mind and——”

Billy Kane’s face darkened, as he thrust the envelope into his pocket
and locked the drawer. It was true then! His lips pursed grimly, as his
eyes fell upon the package of securities again. He took up the package
and riffled it tentatively through his fingers. Theodore Rodgers had
perhaps been a little eccentric—if eccentricity was defined by a
divergence from the general habits and customs of others! He had made no
secret that he kept his securities in his own safe, preferring that
method to depositing them in a safe-deposit vault, and claiming that, as
the securities were made out in his name and were therefore valueless to
anyone else, they offered no temptation for robbery. Young Merxler had
evidently followed in his uncle’s footsteps in this particular! But
Theodore Rodgers had been credited with being worth in the neighborhood
of seventy thousand dollars! Billy Kane’s lips pursed tighter, as he
replaced the package of bonds and stock certificates in the safe, and
closed and locked the safe door. At a generous estimate there remained
no more than twelve or fifteen thousand dollars. Young Merxler, in the
brief period following his uncle’s death, had evidently done well!

Billy Kane retreated from the room, descended the stairs, and let
himself out through the basement door—and five minutes later, in his
taxi, was being whirled downtown again. “The back room at Jerry’s before
ten.” He had directed the chauffeur to drive to a side street just off
the Bowery near Chatham Square—that was close to Jerry’s. He had looked
at his watch, as he had entered the taxi. It was just nine o’clock. He
had therefore plenty of time now. He took the envelope from his pocket
and extracted the two folded sheets. There was not light enough to read
by, but that was quite easily rectified. He had his flashlight.

He bent well down toward the floor of the cab so as not to attract the
chauffeur’s attention, read both of the papers, read them again—and a
look of stunned surprise and bewilderment settled on his face. One was a
will, evidently drawn and written by Rodgers himself, and duly
witnessed, bequeathing practically everything to charity, and specifying
four or five different organizations as the beneficiaries. It appointed
Karlin, who was referred to as a “trusted and lifelong friend,” the sole
executor; and, “as a mark of personal esteem,” and as a “slight
compensation” for the administration of the estate, left Karlin a legacy
of two thousand five hundred dollars. The other paper was a letter
signed by young Merxler. Billy Kane read this again for the third time:

    “If I die before Karlin does, this is a joke on Karlin; if
    Karlin dies before I do the will and this letter go into the
    fire. Damn him—I hate him! He’s a smooth oily-tongued hypocrite!
    It was Karlin more than anybody else who backed my uncle up in
    the idea of cutting me off. Well, I guess this is where I get
    even! If there’s two thousand five hundred dollars left when I
    get through, I hope Karlin will enjoy it—but there won’t be! I
    just wanted him to know how thoughtful my uncle was, and it was
    worth the risk of keeping the cursed will for the sake of the
    jolt it will give Karlin’s miserly, snivelling soul. If there’s
    anything Karlin loves, it’s money. If Karlin’s got any God at
    all, it’s money. He worships that, all right!”

Here the letter veered abruptly into direct address:

    “It’ll break your heart, Karlin, won’t it, to think I spent two
    thousand five hundred dollars of _your_ money! That’s the joke,
    Karlin! It’s rich, isn’t it? And I just want to tell you, too,
    that you had the will in your own hands once—and overlooked the
    bet! That’s where you slipped up, Karlin. It was the day my
    uncle died, and we were going over the papers together. It was
    in a plain, unsealed envelope—and didn’t look like anything. You
    tossed it on a heap of other stuff to be looked into later—all
    you could think of was counting stocks and bonds, getting your
    fingers into money—that you didn’t know was yours—some of it,
    anyway! I was looking for something else—and found it. I only
    had to read about two words and see that it was in my uncle’s
    handwriting, and—well, since you’re the executor, you’ll find it
    enclosed herewith!

                                                   Clayton Merxler.”

Billy Kane refolded the papers, returned them to the envelope, restored
the envelope and flashlight to his pockets, and leaned back in his seat.
The taxi lurched and swayed along at a pace that gave small deference or
heed to speed laws. Billy Kane stared out of the window.

The letter was viciously facetious, callous and unscrupulous. The boy
was a self-confessed and blatantly unrepentant thief. In that at least
his first supposition had evidently been justified, and it was quite
clear now why Merxler had not destroyed the will—but otherwise the whole
affair had now assumed an entirely different aspect. Instead of Karlin
being in league with Merxler, Karlin, unknown to Merxler, it now
appeared, was aware of the existence of the will—and Karlin, if _she_
had not exaggerated, meant murder. And, since no one else was involved,
meant Merxler’s murder.

Billy Kane’s face hardened in perplexity. But why? What could Karlin
hope to gain thereby? Certainly it was not on account of the little
legacy of two thousand five hundred dollars—Karlin had only to expose
the fact that the will existed to obtain that. And that applied equally
to the executorship. And what good could the executorship do Karlin?
With the stocks and bonds there open to inspection and their value
known, Karlin’s executorship could afford no opportunity for crooked
work—he could simply turn the securities into cash, turn the cash over
to the various charities, and the cash must correspond with the
valuation of the estate’s schedule of assets. Why, then—murder? Personal
enmity? No; Red Vallon and the underworld were interested in this, and
the enmity that had caused Merxler to preserve the will, an enmity that
no doubt was fully returned by Karlin, had nothing to do with Red Vallon
and the rest.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by. The taxi reached the lower section
of the city. Billy Kane still stared from the window, his face still
hard in perplexity. Murder! No, he did not understand. But there was
still the “back room at Jerry’s”—where he was going now! Did the answer
lie there? Jerry’s, safely entrenched in one of the most abandoned
neighborhoods of the city, was a gambling hell that yet boasted a
certain exclusiveness—and its patrons quite made good the boast. It was
an open secret that men whose names ranked high in the city’s commercial
and professional world went there for their fling. Jerry, it was said,
was an ex-croupier from Monte Carlo, and had brought the spirit of Monte
Carlo with him. He, Billy Kane, had heard of the place often enough—the
entertainment was lavish, the play unlimited. Did the answer lie
there—in the back room at Jerry’s? He shrugged his shoulders
philosophically now, and a grim little smile came and flickered across
his lips. Well, if there were any means by which an uninvited guest
could gain access to that back room, he would know within a very few
minutes now!




XI—THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY’S


The taxi drew up to the curb. Billy Kane’s hat was far over his eyes as
he stepped out. He stood an instant debating with himself, then handed
the chauffeur another bill. What might happen at Jerry’s he did not
know—he was going it blind again. But as a means of retreat, a taxi
waiting around the corner would at least add to his chances, if
necessity arose. And a chauffeur well paid was a guarantee of fidelity
than which there was none better.

“You’ve struck a gold mine to-night,” he said coolly. “I may be gone
half an hour, or I may be gone an hour—wait for me.”

“You bet your life, I’ll wait!” said the chauffeur fervently. “I——”

Billy Kane was hurrying down the street. He turned the first corner, and
headed along the intersecting street, that was dark, narrow and
deserted. He passed another cross street, and thereafter counted the
houses as he went along. Here tenements and the old-fashioned dwellings
of New York’s early days incongruously rubbed shoulders with one
another. Jerry’s, he found, was the fifth house from the cross street.
There was no mistaking Jerry’s. It was one of the old private dwellings,
and it had been pointed out to him more than once. He returned to the
cross street, turned down it, slipped into the lane that passed in the
rear of the houses he had just inspected from the front, and, guardedly
now, making his way silently along, he again counted the buildings that
here in the darkness loomed up like black, uncouth shapes against the
sky line. He stopped in the rear of the fifth house. Here and there a
thread of light showed from a window, but it was a stealthy light, a
light that played truant through the interstices of closed shutters, or
seeped perhaps through the folds of curtains hanging inadvertently awry.
It was abnormally dark, and in the darkness there seemed to lurk a
somber secrecy, like a pall, cloaking evil things.

Billy Kane swung himself up and over a high fence, and dropped
noiselessly to the ground on the other side. He found himself in a yard
that, even in the darkness, he could make out was strangely restricted
in area. A few feet in front of him was the wall of the building itself.
He crept forward, skirting along this wall. There was no window, but
opening almost on a level with the ground were shuttered French doors.
He continued on, rounded the angle of the building, and suddenly stooped
down in a crouching posture. There was a window here just above his
head, and from it came a meager gleam of light. His eyes grown
accustomed to the darkness, he could distinguish his surroundings a
little more clearly now. The yard here, a narrow strip of it paralleling
the side fence, seemed to run back quite a distance, taking up a jut in
the building. They had puzzled him, those shuttered French doors where
logically he had expected to find an ordinary back door and porch, but
it was obvious now that the “back room at Jerry’s” was an addition that
had been built onto the house, extending almost to the fence in the
rear.

The window beneath which he crouched was shoulder high. He straightened
up. The light came through slightly parted, heavy portières. He felt the
blood quicken suddenly in his veins. He could see in quite well. There
were two men in the room—Karlin, and another man whom he did not
recognize. The room was luxuriously, if somewhat garishly furnished. A
green baize card table, with several unopened packs of cards upon it,
stood in the center; there was a blue-and-gold Chinese rug with a huge
dragon pattern upon the floor; and at one side a large buffet groaned
under a load of wine and whisky bottles, bowls of fruit, and
refreshments of various descriptions. The two men were talking
earnestly. Karlin pulled out his watch, and scowled.

Billy Kane’s lips tightened. He could see, but he could not hear. He
took his penknife from his pocket, and slipped the blade under the
window sill. If he had luck, if the window was not locked, he—ah!—his
breath came in a soft, long-drawn intake—the window gave slightly under
a cautious pressure. An inch was all that was necessary, half an inch
even. The window went up by infinitesimal fractions of that inch.

Billy Kane returned the penknife to his pocket. He could hear them now.
Karlin was speaking; and the other man, it appeared now, was the
proprietor of the place, Jerry, the ex-croupier of Monte Carlo.

“What’s the matter with you, Jerry—getting nervous waiting?” said Karlin
curtly. “Well, forget it! This is the Rat’s plan—and that ought to be
good enough, what? Nothing is going wrong, nothing can go wrong.
Certainly, the police will close you up for a month, but that’s all
there is to it, so far as you are concerned. They have nothing on you.
That’s the inside of the whole thing—that the killing is done in an
unpremeditated, drunken brawl over cards—that it just happened—just an
untimely end without any other strings to it! There’s no reason why you
should lose your nerve—your story is straight. Young Merxler came here
often. He gives a little party here to-night. Neither you nor your
doorkeeper knows a damned one of his guests. He vouched for them, and
that’s all you know. You heard a row in here, then a revolver shot, and
when you got here the table was upset, wine, cards and glasses all over
the place, the boys beating it out through the French doors there, and
young Merxler dead on the floor. You just notify the police. Your loss
through being closed for a month makes it a cinch your story’s
straight—you don’t have to tell the police that your share of the split
is the best bet you ever made in your life! Let _me_ do the worrying!
I’m the one who’s taking the risk. I’m the one who’s been showing a
seamy side to Merxler in confidence lately. I’m the one who’s invited
him to the party that the police will be told _he_ was giving. You can
leave it to me that nothing goes wrong. I’ve got my own skin staked on
this. There won’t be any mistake made—dead men can’t talk. The only
thing I’m bothering about is what is keeping Bull McCann. He might——”

Billy Kane drew suddenly back from the window, and crouched down again
against the wall of the building. Someone, unless he were c

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