Chapter X: Part 10

The light in Barloff’s room went out. Billy Kane smiled in satisfaction. With the kitchen in complete darkness now there was no chance of his being seen if Barloff came that way, and—no, it was the window! The sash creaked as the window was opened. There was a low thud as the man dropped to the ground, and then the sound of the other’s footsteps running across the yard toward the fence.

Billy Kane laughed a little, grimly under his breath, as he stepped instantly forward and entered the room old Barloff had just vacated. It was his turn now at the telephone! A hint to the police as to where the money was, and, with the Wop’s alibi thoroughly established, Barloff would be condemned by his own story. It would require only a moment to telephone, and then he would make his own get-away; also, it would be ten minutes at least before the police from the nearest station could answer Barloff’s call, but if, in the meanwhile, the Cadger and his pack arrived, they would not only get nothing, but would run a very excellent chance of being trapped by the police, and——.

Billy Kane with his hand groping out through the darkness for the telephone, stood suddenly tense and still; and then, as suddenly, actuated partly by some intuitive sense of danger, and partly because some indefinable sound of movement caught his ear, he swerved, throwing his body sharply to one side. There was a swish like the ugly sweep of some weapon cutting through the air from a ferocious, full-arm swing, a queer numbness from a glancing blow on the side of his head, a crash upon the desk, a metallic clatter on the floor—and then he lunged forward, and his hands, pawing out, touched and closed on a man’s form in front of him.

Billy Kane’s head was dizzy and swirling. He was conscious that arms which were like bands of steel were around him, and that his own arms, to keep from being torn apart and his hold on the other loosened, were straining until they hurt in their sockets. It seemed as though in the pitch blackness they were reeling around the room in the crazy, jerky, unbalanced dance of some mad orgy! A voice was snarling in his ear, snarling vicious oaths, snarling in a fury that seemed ungovernable, beyond all license, that seemed to have taken possession of the other, body and soul, and made the other’s strength demoniacal. That was it! It could not be anything else. That was what made the man so strong. The man was mad—a madman! He tried to think, as he gasped and panted for his breath. It wasn’t the Cadger, or French Marr, or the Pigeon, for then there would have been three of them. Who was it? His brain was sick and swimming, and refused its functions. He could not think very well. He must fight—that was all—fight!

It seemed to Billy Kane as though hours were passing. It seemed as though gradually, very gradually, his strength was oozing away, and that his hands were slipping from around the man’s back. He clenched his teeth together. He remembered suddenly that murderous swish through the air. It seemed to steady him, to bring to him, too, a sudden fury in place of that unnerving giddiness. He wanted to strike; to strike, as murderously as he had been struck, at this thing whose hot, tainted breath was on his cheek, at this thing that snarled like a beast as it struggled and fought. He wanted to strike, only the giddiness from the blow on his head was back again, and——.

The other had wrenched himself free. Billy Kane flung his weight forward to retain his hold, and with the impact both men reeled, tripped on the littered floor, lost their balance, and, locked together, crashed to the ground.

They rolled over once, and then the other’s snarl became a vicious laugh. The giddiness was coming in quick flashes over Billy Kane now, and he felt his hands wrenched and torn away from the other, and he felt the other’s body upon him now like some crushing, insupportable weight. He reached out in the darkness in a desperate, frantic effort to close again, to protect himself from the short-arm jabs that were raining into his face. His fingers touched the man’s bare, collarless throat, slipped on the throat—and suddenly held. There was a string, or a cord, or something around the man’s neck. It was very curious! But his fingers had hooked in between the cord and the flesh, and he clung there tenaciously. If he could only twist it, and twist it hard enough, he could choke the other! He wasn’t strong enough to do anything else—just twist at the cord—and choke the other—and——

There was a sound that seemed to come from the front of the house, like the opening of a door, and then voices—unmistakably voices. But the other had heard it too. The man was struggling now to get away, not to strike any more blows, just to wrench and tear himself loose from that cord that Billy Kane had twined around his hands and fingers. And then the cord gave with a sudden snap, the man sprang to his feet, and, without a sound, like a shadowy form just visible in the darkness, flung himself out through the window.

The cord was still twined around Billy Kane’s fingers as he lay, half-dazed, his head swimming weakly, flat on his back on the floor. He shook it free from his hand and raised himself up into a sitting posture, as he smiled in a queer, bitter way. There was a light in the front room now, and he was too exhausted to reach the window as his late antagonist had done, unless he stumbled and lurched there, and then he would be heard in the front room.

It was the end of the Rat, alias Bundy Morgan—and it was the end of Billy Kane. It was probably the Cadger and his crowd out there, but, at least, they would not take him alive. His hand dove into his pocket for his automatic and encountered the brandy flask that had already stood the Wop in such good stead. He snatched it from his pocket, and, his mask already awry on his face, carried the flask to his lips, and drank eagerly.

The stimulant whipped through his veins in a fiery tide. It cleared his brain. No, it wasn’t the Cadger out there—the Cadger and his crowd would be scared off for good now—there were two men—he could see them coming through the doorway—and he heard old Barloff’s voice.

He drank again greedily, shifting the flask to his left hand, while his right dove once more into his pocket, and this time secured his automatic. He drew his mask back over his face. The light over the desk went on, and, sitting there on the floor, Billy Kane blinked in the sudden glare at old Barloff and a police officer.

“Don’t move, please, either of you, except to put your hands up!” said Billy Kane in a low voice.

There was a startled exclamation from the officer, as his hands went up above his head; while a gray, blank look spread over the old miser’s face, as he, too, obeyed with equal celerity.

It was very curious! Billy Kane frowned in a puzzled way. It was very curious—not so much that he should be sitting there on the littered floor, with the side of his head trickling a warm flow of blood down under the neck of his shirt, and holding a brandy flask in one hand, and holding up two men at the point of his automatic with the other; it wasn’t so much that, it was an object on the floor near the desk that looked like a round piece of grained wood, about an inch in diameter and three feet in length.

He thrust the flask into his pocket, and, over his mask, rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. It wasn’t a vagary of his sick brain, was it? Well, he would know in a minute as soon as he lifted it and felt its weight. No, that wasn’t necessary, he remembered that _metallic_ clatter upon the floor. He knew what the thing was. It was the iron shaft of the crutch that he had seen two nights ago—a detachable shaft probably—the weapon that he was satisfied had already murdered David Ellsworth, and murdered Peters.

His mind was clear now and working in lightning flashes. His assailant had been the one man in the world upon whose throat he had prayed to get his fingers—the Man with the Crutch! Well, his fingers had been there, only he had been, at a disadvantage, weak and dizzy from the blow from that thing there, and—yes, this was curious too! He was watching the two men, his automatic covered them unswervingly; but out of the corner of his eye he could not help but see that red patch on the floor beside him, that looked like an ordinary flannel chest protector, and to which the cord that he had torn from his antagonist’s neck was still attached. He reached for it and thrust it into his pocket, as he rose slowly, and a little unsteadily, to his feet.

He eyed the two men now for a long calculating second. Yes, his brain was quite clear now—exhilaratingly clear. And the mental exhilaration seemed to bring in its train a new physical strength as well. In a flash he saw the way out now, and with it, too, the means of slipping Barloff’s self-knotted noose around the miserly old Russian’s throat. But he must work quickly. There was not an instant to spare. This officer could not have come in answer to Barloff’s telephone call, for he realized that, long as it had seemed, his fight here in the room could not have lasted in reality more than two or three minutes, and it had begun almost on the instant that Barloff had run from the house. There would not, therefore, have been time for the telephone call to have been answered, for the nearest police station was too far away, and besides, in that event, there would have been more than one officer. Barloff had probably encountered the policeman out on the street, and, carrying out his devilishly inspired plan, had poured his story into the officer’s ears, and rushed the other back to the house. But in that case, the men from the station would be on their way here now, and the leeway left him, Billy Kane, in which to act must, even now, be narrowed to the very perilous margin of but another four or five minutes—perhaps less!

“Move to the wall, face it, and keep your hands up!” ordered Billy Kane curtly.

The officer, with a chagrined scowl and a shrug of his shoulders, obeyed. Barloff, white and trembling, and thoroughly frightened, needed no urging.

“You’ve got the drop on me,” snarled the officer. “But don’t worry, my bucko, I know who you are! That mask ain’t doing you any good! There’s a free ride and board coming to you again!”

Billy Kane’s automatic was pressed into the small of the officer’s back. With his free hand he deftly relieved the other of a pair of handcuffs and a revolver.

“That’s all right!” said Billy Kane coolly. “Now, Barloff, stick your right hand out behind you!” He slipped one of the steel cuffs over the Russian’s wrist. “Now you, officer! No, your _right_ hand! I know it’s customary in making an arrest to leave your right hand free, but in the circumstances I am forced to inconvenience you a little in your movements.” He snapped the other cuff shut. “Thank you! You may both turn around now!” He stepped back, hurled the officer’s revolver out through the window, and picked up the weapon whose blow, luckily for him, he had partially evaded. He had in no way been mistaken. It was the iron shaft of the crutch, and it was ingeniously fashioned with a spring catch that obviously fitted into a socket in the now missing armpiece of the crutch. It served him now as a support. He leaned upon it, using it as a cane, as he swayed a little on his feet. “I can only spare a moment,” he said engagingly to the officer; “but possibly I can make that moment well worth your while. We’ll talk quickly, if you please. I imagine that you were on your beat out there on the street when Barloff here found you. Am I right?”

“Where else would I be?” said the officer gruffly.

“That’s what I wanted to make sure of,” returned Billy Kane pleasantly. “And that’s why I want to get through here in a hurry—before your reinforcements arrive. What story did this man tell you?”

“Say,” said the officer shortly, “you’ve got your nerve with you! But you can’t get away with it! I tell you, I know you! You might as well take that mask off. You’re the Wop.”

“You’re jumping at conclusions,” said Billy Kane calmly, “because Barloff here has told you the Wop had broken in and robbed him. Well, ask Barloff, then!” He turned on Barloff. “I’m not the Wop, am I, Barloff?”

The old man shook his head.

“No, you’re not.” Barloff swallowed hard; he was evidently floundering in a perplexed mental maze. “But my money’s gone, and the Wop was here. I saw him. I saw him. Maybe you’re a pal of his.”

“I am for to-night,” said Billy Kane quietly. “When did you see the Wop? What did you tell this officer here?”

“Oh, you are, are you!” Barloff seemed suddenly relieved. He shook his free fist at Billy Kane. “So you’re a pal of the Wop’s, are you! Well, I don’t know where you came from, but I saw the Wop just as plainly as I see you now.” He edged around and addressed the officer eagerly. “I was sitting at the desk there, officer, just as I told you, and that door was open, and there was a light in that front room. The Wop must have got the front door open without my hearing him. I saw him stealing across that room out there. I rushed to the door, and shut it, and called for help. He began to smash it in and I grabbed up the telephone and called the police, and then ran for the window, and got out by the lane to the street where I found you. He would have killed me. He swore he would when he went to prison.” His voice changed suddenly into a whining wail. “He’s got my money! Look at the floor—look at the safe! He’s got my money, and run with it when he heard us coming.” He began to claw frantically at the officer’s sleeve. “The Wop’s got it! Look, officer, this pal of his has been hurt! Look at the side of his head—that’s why he didn’t get away too—that’s why we found him here on the floor!”

“You talk as though you’d been frisked of a million!” Billy Kane was tauntingly sarcastic now. “How much did you have, anyway?”

“How much! How much!” howled Barloff. “Enough to ruin me! All this month’s rentals that I had just collected. Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!”

“Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!” Billy Kane mimicked the other admirably. “You don’t mean to say you’d keep three hundred and eighty-seven dollars in that crazy old safe that’s falling to pieces, do you?”

“Where else would I keep it?” Barloff was shaking his fist again. “Yes, I kept it there! And that’s where it was to-night—and it’s gone now—gone!”

“Is that all you had?” Billy Kane’s sneer was irritatingly contemptuous.

“All!” shrieked Barloff. “All—yes, it is all! But it is enough! I am a poor man, and the money was not mine, and I cannot replace it, and——”

He choked suddenly, and shrank back, dragging the officer with him a step. Billy Kane had moved abruptly to the morris chair, and had toppled it over on the floor.

“You pitiful liar! You haven’t seen the Wop in five years!” rasped Billy Kane, and the iron shaft in his hand crashed through the false bottom of the chair. A package of banknotes tumbled out on the floor, another, and yet another. A second blow dislodged the cash box, and a further rain of banknotes. “You thought the Wop was dead, and that you could make him stand for this, did you!” rasped Billy Kane again. “You yellow cur—so that you could steal those few miserable rentals yourself!”

“My God!” gasped the officer. Barloff was a grovelling thing at his side. He jerked the other toward him, and stared into the white, working features.

Billy Kane backed to the window, and there was an abrupt change in his voice as he addressed the officer.

“I’m going now,” he said softly. “I am not quite sure of the technical charge against your prisoner, but I imagine it is just plain theft—of three hundred and eighty-seven dollars. And it might be interesting, too, to know where so poor a man got that small fortune there on the floor! Perhaps Barloff will tell you! As for the Wop, he has never been near this place, and you will find him at the Reverend Mr. Claflin’s house, where he has been all evening. I think that’s all, officer, except”—Billy Kane had straddled the window sill—“except that I apologize to you for anything in the shape of lèse majesty of which I may have been guilty, but as I have certain personal reasons that justify me in not desiring to appear publicly in the matter, I am sure you will admit I had no other——”

Billy Kane did not finish his sentence. He dropped hurriedly to the ground, and ran, or, rather, half ran, half stumbled his way to the fence and lane. Someone was at the front door again—obviously the police detail from the station.

He made his way along the lane, and from that lane into another. He was still weak and progress was slow, and for half an hour he kept under cover. When he finally emerged into the open he was blocks away from Barloff’s house, and very much closer to a certain temporary sanctuary in the heart of the underworld!

Ten minutes later, behind locked doors, he was sitting at the dilapidated table under the single incandescent light, in the Rat’s den. Before him lay a small red flannel sack, that might have passed for an ordinary chest protector, and which he had cut open with his knife. He raised his hand, and passed it across his eyes. The Wop and Barloff were extraneous considerations now. There was something far more vital to think about, but his brain was refusing its functions again. He was very tired—very tired and weak. There was the Man with the Crutch, the man who, he knew now, had killed Peters and David Ellsworth, the man who had looted David Ellsworth’s vault of its money and its priceless rubies, the man for whose guilt he, Billy Kane, was held accountable, the man with whom he had fought to-night. In a numbed way, because his mind was in a sort of torpor, Billy Kane was dimly conscious that there was no more any mere coincidence in this repeated appearance of the Man with the Crutch. He knew now that Jackson, the footman, had only been an underling. It was curious, singular, sinister. Who was the man? What did it mean? The man wasn’t even lame, was he? He remembered the extraordinary agility the other had showed two nights ago—and why was the shaft of the crutch detachable?—and the man hadn’t fought like a crippled man to-night—and there had been no sign of the upper portion of the crutch, either!

Billy Kane’s head sank forward a little on his shoulders. He raised himself with a jerk, and stared at the red flannel sack in front of him. A score of magnificent rubies scintillated in fiery flashes under the light.

“They’re not all here,” mumbled Billy Kane, with a twisted smile. “They’re not all here—not yet.”

XXIII—THE RENDEZVOUS

It was night again in the underworld.

Billy Kane slipped suddenly into the dark shadows of a doorway. Fifty yards ahead of him, up the poorly lighted, narrow and miserable street, three men had paused on the sidewalk, and were engaged in what was apparently an animated discussion. Billy Kane’s eyes narrowed in a puzzled, perturbed, and yet grim way, as he watched them. He had followed them for an hour now—from a saloon, where he had found them, to a disreputable pool room, and from there again to a saloon, and now here.

He did not understand. It was one of those strange portals, so extraneous to the aim of clearing his name of the murder of David Ellsworth, and yet, too, so essentially a corollary of the Rat’s rôle that he played here in the underworld, at which he was knocking again. His lips curled in a queer smile. How long would it be before the end? And what would that end be? In his possession now, save for a portion of the rubies, perhaps half of them, was everything that the murderers of David Ellsworth had stolen from the old philanthropist’s vault on that night which seemed now to belong to some past age and incarnation. He knew now that the Man with the Crutch was the actual murderer—but there he faced a blank wall. He had even fought with the man in the blackness of old Barloff’s room last night, not knowing until too late who his assailant was, and the man had got away.

His hand at his side clenched. It could not endure very long—this impossible situation in which he found himself with that strange, unknown woman, who, believing him to be the Rat, held the threat of Sing Sing over his head. And there was the Rat himself whose name and personality and home, such as it was, he had usurped during the latter’s absence, an absence that might terminate at any moment. And there were the police who dragged the city and the country from end to end for Billy Kane. From anyone of these three sources, swift as a lightning stroke, without an instant’s warning, the end might come with that goal of life still unreached, and, greater than life, his honor, still unreclaimed. And it seemed to-night somehow that his chances were bitterly small, that somehow the odds seemed to be growing and accumulating against him. He was on another errand now, because he could not help himself. He was allowing precious moments that should have been devoted to the one chance he had, that of searching ceaselessly, pitilessly, remorselessly, for the Man with the Crutch, to be directed into other channels—because he could not help himself.

He stepped out from the shelter of the doorway, and started forward again along the street. The three men had turned from the sidewalk, and had disappeared inside a dingy, black and tumble-down tenement. Billy Kane’s lips tightened a little. It was a hard neighborhood, nestling just off the Bowery—as hard almost as the three characters themselves who had just vanished from sight. There were a few pedestrians here on the side street, a few figures that skulked along in the semi-darkness, rather than walked, but not many; and for the most part, though it was still early, not more than nine o’clock, the buildings that flanked the street were dark and unlighted.

Billy Kane jerked his slouch hat farther down over his eyes as he walked along. He did not understand. Two hours ago he had been sitting in the Rat’s den with Whitie Jack—who had ventured out of hiding again, safe now since the interest of the police in Peters’, the butler’s, murder had become definitely centered in the Man with the Crutch—and someone had knocked at the door. Whitie Jack had answered the knock, and had brought back the message that Bundy Morgan was wanted at the telephone in a little shop across the street. He, Billy Kane, in his rôle of the Rat, alias the said Bundy Morgan, had perforce answered, and, as he had picked up the receiver, he had instantly recognized the voice of the woman whom he knew by no other name than the one he himself had given her—the Woman in Black. He was subconsciously rehearsing the rather one-sided conversation now, as he moved along.

“Is that you, Bundy?” she had asked. “And do you know who is speaking?”

“Yes,” he had answered.

“Listen, then!” Her voice had been quiet, deliberate, and yet pregnant with a curiously sharp, imperative command. “Find Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe at once, and shadow them to-night. Do not let them out of your sight. And see that you do not fail! Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he had replied mechanically; “but——”

That was all. She had hung up the receiver at the other end of the line.

He had heard of Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe in the days when he had frequented the Bad Lands on old David Ellsworth’s philanthropic missions, for the very simple reason that they were notorious and outstanding criminal characters even in the heart and center of the worst crime and vice in the city. They were both lags, both men with prison records, and marked by the police. Also they were versatile. They had in turn been apaches, gangsters, box-workers, poke-getters and second-story sneaks; and they were credited with measuring human life purely as a commercial commodity—worth merely what they could get for it.

He had heard of Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe—who hadn’t?—but as to their lair, or where they were to be found, he had not had the slightest inkling. Whitie Jack, however, had solved that problem for him. He had sent Whitie Jack out to run them down, and Whitie had returned within an hour with the report that they were in a certain far from reputable saloon, and that they had been joined by the Cherub. He, Billy Kane, had never heard of the Cherub, but an adroit leading question or two had set Whitie Jack’s glib tongue in motion. The Cherub had proved a topic that had aroused an unbounded enthusiasm in Whitie Jack.

“Dey ain’t got nothin’ on de Cherub—none of ’em has,” Whitie Jack had asserted, switching his cigarette butt from one corner of his mouth to the other in order to permit of an admiring grin. “He’s de angel kid—he is! Youse’d think he spent his life handin’ around hymn books an’ leadin’ de singin’ down at de mission joints—only he don’t! If he got enough for it he’d pull a gun an’ blow yer bean off, an’ youse wouldn’t believe it was him even while he was doin’ it, he’d look dat innocent. Believe me, Bundy! He’s got ’em all skinned, an’ he ain’t got no limit except de sky. Mabbe some day de police’ll get wise, but dey ain’t fallen to de sweet little face of him wid his baby eyes yet. But, aw, say, wot’s de use! Youse know him as well as I do. Youse’d think dey’d just lifted him out of a dinky little cradle an’ soused him all over wid Florida water—dat’s de Cherub. But de guy dat knows him ducks his nut—dat’s all.”

Billy Kane shook his head in a sort of savage perplexity. He had dismissed Whitie Jack then, picked up Clarkie Munn, Gypsy Joe and the Cherub, and had followed them here. He had come abreast of the tenement in which they had disappeared now, and he looked quickly around him. There was no one on the street close enough to pay any particular attention to his movements; and there was no doorbell to ring, for in that locality the formality of entering a tenement, where humans hived instead of lived, and where at all hours the occupants came and went as a matter of course, consisted in pushing the door open without further ceremony. His hand slipped into the side pocket of his coat, and his fingers closed in a reassuring touch upon his automatic. For what particular reason he was to watch Gypsy Joe and Clarkie Munn he was as much as ever in the dark; but one thing was clear—there was only one way to keep in touch with his quarry.

He stepped from the sidewalk, and, with well-simulated unconcern, pushed the tenement door open, entered, closed the door softly behind him, and stood still, listening intently. The place was gloomy and dark, and heavy with a musty, unsavory odor of garlic and rank, stale tobacco; but ahead of him, along what seemed like a narrow passage flanking the stairs, a faint glow of light struggled out into the blackness, as though from a partially opened door, and from this direction a murmur of men’s voices reached him.

He moved stealthily forward for a few steps; and then halted abruptly, and pressed back against the wall. Yes, here were the men he sought. In so far as locating them in the tenement was concerned, he was in luck. The hallway had widened out beyond the staircase, and from where he now stood, through a half-opened door, a door that was in poverty-stricken and disreputable repair, whose panels, smashed and broken probably in some fracas of former days, were patched with strips of cardboard that in turn, hanging by a tack or two, gaped blatantly, he could make out Clarkie Munn’s dark, scowling, unshaven features, as the man sat sprawled out on a chair in the centre of the room; also, Clarkie Munn was swearing viciously:

“Well, where’s Shaky Liz—eh? Where’s Shaky Liz? Who’s right now about comin’ back here? Her tongue’s been hangin’ out fer a drink now fer two weeks, an’ she’s bust loose. Dat’s wot she’s done—yes, an’ probably queered de whole lay too! I told youse so! I told youse youse’d have to show me about Shaky Liz before I’d go de limit. See! I ain’t fer any juice chair up de river—not yet! Savvy?”

“Aw, shut up!” The words were clipped off; the voice was almost a boyish treble. “Can yer croakin’, Clarkie, youse give me a pain! Youse came back here because I said so—dat’s why! I had to steer clear of Shaky Liz while she put de stunt across, an’ we got to know now if de girl fell fer it all right.”

“Yes,” growled Clarkie Munn, “an’ Shaky Liz has gone an’ got drunk, an’ spilled de beans! I know her!”

“If she has,” purred the other, and there was something of finality made the more horrible by the boyish tones, “she gets hers—instead of de other, dat’s all. An’ anyway, youse have no kick comin’! Youse an’ Gypsy here, an’ me, an’ Shaky Liz has all got a century apiece to start wid. We can’t lose, can we?”

“Sure, we can!” complained Clarkie Munn. “We can lose de other two hundred dat’s comin’ when de job’s done, can’t we?”

Another voice spoke in a curiously meditative, raucous way:

“I never thought I’d be workin’ fer him. He handed me one once dat I ain’t fergot. But dere ain’t no one dares to touch him now—he’s too big. Youse’d get smeared off de map. He’s got de coin, but he’s no good anyway else, except dat he’s sharper’n hell. D’ye remember de roll he coughs up when he peels us dem century notes dat night? Say, I guess he packs dat along wid him all de time. Say, I wish we had him wid de girl to-night—I guess we’d get our two hundred apiece, all right, all right.”

Clarkie Munn sat suddenly bolt upright in his chair, staring across the room, obviously at the last speaker.

“I’d be wid youse, Gypsy!” he said eagerly. “Him an’ me don’t belong to de same lodge neither. We’re all right, we are, fer dirty work, dat’s where we stand; but where do we ever get a look-in when dere’s anything juicy goin’! But youse’d have to know he had de roll on him. Youse wouldn’t get anywhere unless youse did. I’d be wid youse, Gypsy. I wish something like dat’d break loose.” He swung around in his chair. “Eh, Cherub?”

“Youse give me a pain!” murmured the boyish voice.

“When youse gets a chance to get dat guy, youse’ll get a chance to hang yer hat in a bathroom suite in de swellest joint in town, an’ use a limousine fer a gape wagon, an’ wear white spats an’ yellow gloves in summer time. Can de wish stuff!”

Billy Kane, hugging close against the wall, moved silently farther on toward the rear of the hall until he was beyond the radius of light from the doorway of the room. The street door had opened, and a footstep, hesitant, scuffling, was out there somewhere behind him. The step came nearer, and now he could make out a woman’s form, that, either in reality or as an illusion due to the uncertain light, seemed to sway a little unsteadily as she walked. Opposite the door she stood still, and now in the fuller light Billy Kane could see her quite distinctly. Obviously, it was the woman they had referred to as Shaky Liz—an old, unkempt, hag-like creature, who blinked sore, red-rimmed eyes in apparent astonishment and consequent indecision at the partially open door and the light from within. And then she stepped forward into the room, and the next moment the door closed with a slam behind her, and with the slam her voice rose in a curious, gurgling cry that seemed to mingle terror and an unbridled fury.

In an instant, Billy Kane had retraced his steps, and was crouching against the closed door. He could see now even better than before. The gaping strip of cardboard that did duty for the smashed panel, dislodged still farther by the violent slam of the door, afforded him an almost unrestricted view of the interior. Clarkie Munn had not moved from his chair, and a little away from him, legs swinging from a dilapidated, rickety table, Gypsy Joe, black-visaged and swarthy, sucked indifferently at a cigarette; but over in the far corner of the room by the bed, the woman, her hat knocked to the floor, her tangled gray hair draggling about her eyes, was engaged in a violent struggle with a small boyish figure, who had her by the throat and was shaking her head savagely back and forth. Billy Kane drew in his breath. He remembered Whitie Jack’s description of the Cherub in action—and it was literally true. The blue eyes were bland and round and seemed to smile, the young face was the face of a guileless youth in repose, and yet the boy—he couldn’t be much more than a boy—was in a passion worthy of an incarnate fiend.

“Youse have been out hittin’ de can, have youse?” snarled the Cherub. “I’ll teach youse! Do youse think I’ve spent two weeks hangin’ around dis dirty hole of yers, an’ standin’ fer youse being me sick, disabled grandmother wid me supposed to be doin’ me best to keep bread in yer mouth, an’ playin’ poor, an’ having to listen to her tryin’ to get me jobs, an’ handin’ me de soft, goody-goody talk—d’ye think I’m standin’ fer dat just to have youse go out an’ kick de stuffin’ outer de whole lay! I’ll teach youse!”

“It’s a lie!” screamed Shaky Liz. She shook herself suddenly free, and with crooked fingers clawed like a wild cat at the Cherub’s face. “I didn’t crab no game! It’s a lie! I got it all fixed before I went out. I guess I got a right to a drink now, ain’t I?”

The Cherub warded off her attack with a vicious sweep of his fist.

“Yes!” he snarled again. “An’ suppose she’d seen youse! Or suppose she’d come back here by any chance an’ found de poor bedridden grandma gone out fer a drink—eh! Blast youse, couldn’t youse wait a few hours more? De whole outfit ’ud be glad if youse had drunk yerself to death den!”

Shaky Liz dashed the hair out of her eyes, and swept her hands in a half angry, half expostulating gesture toward the others.

“I didn’t queer no game!” she insisted truculently. “I guess I know wot I’m doin’; an’ youse ain’t comin’ in here to pull no rough-house business neither!”

“Aw, let her alone, an’ give her a chance to tell her story,” drawled Gypsy Joe from the table. “We ain’t got all night to stay here.”

“Sure!” said the Cherub softly, and smiled beneficently, as he sat down on the edge of the bed and calmly lighted a cigarette. “Go on, Liz, spill it!”

The old hag stared at him for a moment in silence, as she dug again at her dishevelled locks.

“Youse dirty little runt!” She found her voice at last, and in spite of her scowl there was a grudging note of admiration in her tones. “Youse are pretty slick, ain’t youse?”

“Sure!” admitted the Cherub imperturbably. “If I wasn’t, youse wouldn’t have a hundred dollars in yer kick now, an’ two hundred more comin’ to-morrow—if youse ain’t queered it fer yerself. Go on, give us de dope!”

Shaky Liz preened herself. She adjusted the threadbare bodice of her dress that seemed to bulge and sag uncomfortably, picked up her hat, and smirked at her audience.

“It’s all right!” She wagged her head secretively. “Youse don’t any of youse need to worry. When de Cherub pipes me off this afternoon dat de stunt is to be pulled to-night, I sends fer her as soon as he gets out of de way, an’ she comes on de run. She don’t suspect nothing, ’cause wid two weeks’ acquaintance she——”

“Can dat!” interrupted the Cherub politely. “We all knows dat fer two weeks youse an’ me has been gettin’ acquainted wid her, an’ feedin’ on her jellies, an’ dat I’m de errin’ child dat’s taken a shine to her an’ dat mabbe can be influenced fer good—if she tried hard enough. Wot did she say when she comes here dis evening?”

“Wot did she say?” repeated Shaky Liz, with a sudden and malicious grin. “Why, she falls fer it, of course! Wot d’ye expect? Me, I was lyin’ dere on de bed when she blows in. She asks me how I was, an’ I says I ain’t no worse dan usual, but dat it’s me young grandson dat’s troublin’ me, an’ how I ain’t got no one to tell it to except her, an’ how I dunno as I durst tell even her. An’ den she says I oughter know well enough dat I can trust her, an’ dat she won’t say nothin’, an’ den I gives her de spiel. I says I ain’t slept all de last night thinkin’ about it. I tells her it wouldn’t do no good me talkin’ to youse, ’cause I ain’t got any influence wid youse an’ she has, an’ besides dat I was afraid of Gypsy an’ Clarkie if dey got wise to me. An’ I tells her wot a good boy youse are, too, Cherub, an’ how though mabbe youse might be better it ain’t all yer fault ’cause youse’re easily led by bad company, but dat youse have stood by yer old grandmother. Savvy?”

“De one bright spot in me life,” said the Cherub sweetly, “is dat me own grandmother is dead, an’ don’t know de raw deal I’m handin’ her. She looked just like youse, too—not!”

Shaky Liz scowled.

“Youse close yer face!” she flung out. “I tells her dat me grandson has got pulled in by two of de toughest crooks in New York.” Shaky Liz’s scowl became a grin. “Dat’s youse, Clarkie, an’ youse, Gypsy. I tells her who youse are, an’ dat last night youse three was here, an’ dat youse all thought I was asleep, but dat I heard youse whisperin’ together, an’ dat Clarkie an’ Gypsy was persuadin’ me little boy to pull a trick down to Kegler’s dock on de East River, ’cause dey didn’t dare do it demselves on account of de police bein’ leery about dem ever since dey comes down from Sing Sing de last time. I tells her how I hears youse two crooks explainin’ dat Kegler’s got a bunch of coin in his safe to pay off some sand barges dat he had expected yesterday, but dat had got held up down de Sound, an’ dat instead of takin’ de money back to de bank he was lettin’ it rust in his box, knowin’ dat de barges’d be along de day after to-morrow, an’ dat youse had de combination of de safe, an’ de key to de front door, an’ dat dere wouldn’t be nobody around dere, an’ dat, anyway, nobody’d suspect me little lad, an’ dat he was to go down dere alone at ten o’clock to-night an’ make de haul, an’ den meet Clarkie an’ Gypsy uptown somewhere fer de split.”

Gypsy Joe, on the table, circled his lips approvingly with the tip of his tongue.

“Dat’s de stuff, Shaky!” he commended. “Don’t youse mind dese guys, dey ain’t neither of dem got anything on youse. I’m fer youse, old gal!”

Shaky Liz grinned complacently.

“Me, I was cryin’ good an’ hard by dis time,” she said, and grinned again, “an’ she had a face dat white youse’d think she was goin’ to pull de faint act. I says I ain’t slept all de last night tryin’ to think wot to do, an’ dat’s why I sent fer her. An’ she asks me if I’m sure de boy was goin’ to do it. An’ I says I am. An’ she asks me where he is, an’ I says I don’t know, an’ dat I don’t know where to find him; dat he went out just before I sent fer her, an’ dat he says he won’t be back till late to-night, an’ dat’s wot makes me sure he’s goin’ to do it. Sure, I was cryin’ good an’ hard den—savvy?

“An’ I says he’s a good boy, an’ if I tells de police dat’ll finish him; an’ I says I’m sick an’ can’t walk, an’ can’t go down dere myself, an’ dat she’s de only one I dares trust, an’ besides dat she’s got a lot of influence wid de boy, an’ dat I knows she can persuade him not to fall fer it, an’ den nobody’ll know anything about it. An’ she says: ‘Yes, of course—I’ll do anything. But where is he? Where can I find him?’ An’ I says dere ain’t only one place I knows, an’ dat’s down to Kegler’s, an’ dat he’ll be all alone dere, an’ dat if she gets dere before ten o’clock she’ll be in time to try an’ stop him. An’ she bends over me, an’ pats me hands, she does, an’ she says: ‘Don’t youse worry, Mrs. Cox,’ she says. ‘I’ll go.’ An’ I says: ‘An’ youse won’t tell nobody, nor take nobody down dere, so’s anybody’d know about me little lad’s disgrace?’ An’ she says: ‘No, I’ll go alone; an’ I’m sure I can promise youse it’ll be all right.’ An’ den she goes away. Dat’s all!” Shaky Liz was fumbling with the bodice of her dress again, and suddenly pulled out a black, square-faced bottle. “Dat’s all!” she announced with a cackle. “An’ I guess I gotta right to dis if I wants it—ain’t I?”

“Youse can bet yer life youse have!” agreed Gypsy Joe with fervent heartiness—and reached for the bottle.

In a flash the Cherub was up from the bed, and between them.

“Nix on dat, Gypsy!” he said sharply. “Shaky’s end is all right, I guess; but _we_ ain’t through yet. Nix on dat—get me!” He stepped closer to both Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe. “Now, den,” he said briskly, “since we’re satisfied wid Shaky, we’ll get down to tacks—eh? Everybody makes sure dey knows dere own play, an’ we don’t make no renigs. I goes down dere, an’ youse two are trailin’ out of sight behind, an’ she buttonholes me, an’ I gets her inside widout youse if I can, but anyway we gets her inside widout any noise, an’ de trap-door where dey shoots de sweepings from de warehouse into de water under de dock does de trick. If dere’s enough weight on her she’ll be dere forever. An’ dere’s one thing more. Nix on de easy-fingered stuff wid any safe business, or anything loose lying around dat looks like meat! Savvy? To-morrow morning de place looks like it did when dey left it to-night. De girl’s disappeared, dat’s all—an’ dere’s nothing to show dat Kegler’s dock had anything to do wid it. Get me? Dey’ll never find her, an’ dat’s wot’s wanted, an’ why we’re gettin’ two hundred apiece more.”

Gypsy Joe removed the cigarette from his mouth, watched the blue spiral of smoke from its tip curl upward for a moment, and pursed his lips in a ruminative pucker.

“I wonder wot de Rat had it in fer her fer as hard as dat?” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “She must have——”

The—_Rat!_ She—the _girl_ they were talking about! The room seemed suddenly to swirl before Billy Kane’s eyes, the figures inside to become but blurred, jerky objects—and then it was black around him. Automatically he was stepping backward with a catlike tread; automatically he was feeling his way along the black hallway. And then the cool evening air fanned his face, and he was in the street.

XXIV—AGAINST TIME

Billy Kane put his hand to his forehead, and brought it away wringing wet with great drops of sweat. It had come like a blow without warning upon him, staggering him for an instant with horror—and then his brain had cleared as if by magic. It was cruelly clear now.

The girl that they meant to murder was—the Woman in Black. He had had no thought of that while they talked in there, not until Gypsy Joe had mentioned the Rat. And then it had seemed as though the pieces of a puzzle had been suddenly fitted together as by some unseen hand, and bare to his brain, naked, an ugly picture stood out in hideous perspective. He knew too well that the Rat had an incentive for getting rid of her. And he knew why. And it was _she_ who had telephoned him, Billy Kane, to watch Gypsy Joe and Clarkie Munn to-night. Who else would know of anything afoot concerning those two except the “she” to whom Shaky Liz had told her damnable Judas story?

And he saw now why, and understood her instructions to him to watch Clarkie and Gypsy Joe. If she failed in her efforts through moral persuasion to prevent the Cherub from committing what she believed was to be a robbery, she still, through him, Billy Kane, could look for the recovery of the cash, and still keep the young hound, that she believed in and was trying to save, out of the hands of the police, and do it with a clear conscience since she would be in a position to return the proceeds of the theft. And then, too, perhaps, there had entered into her calculations the element of self-protection. She expected the Cherub to go alone, but if by any chance his pals went too, those pals were Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe—and he, Billy Kane, in that case, would be on their heels. And he understood, too, why she had not been more explicit over the telephone. She had not actually anticipated trouble, and she had respected her promise to the old hag to keep the Cherub’s name out of it.

He was running now, making across town in the direction of the East River. He did not know where Kegler’s dock or warehouse was, but Kegler was evidently a rather large dealer in sand, and any directory in the first drug store he passed would supply that information.

His mind worked on—curiously self-explanatory of his own actions. It had seemed pure impulse at the time that had prompted him to retreat so precipitately from the tenement; but he realized now that it was his brain subconsciously, but logically, at work. He, as the Rat, could not call in the police to raid that room where the inmates would denounce him as the author and instigator of the very crime for which he demanded their arrest; and to have gone into the room alone himself and have attempted to hold them up at the point of his pistol, while it might have been spectacular and dramatic, would have been little less than the act of a fool. It was not so easy for one man to hold up three others, to say nothing of a woman who was quite as abandoned, and certainly as full of trickery, and cunning, and resource as her male companions. There would have been, then, only one other alternative—to have gone in there coolly as the Rat, and call off the game that he was supposed to have started. But he had already learned that they had no love for the Rat, even though he was their employer in the present instance, and that secretly they were asking for nothing better than just such a favorable chance as that would be to “get” him, and to get, too, the large amount of cash that they credited him with having on his person.

His lips were tight, as he ran. He was conscious that he would not have hesitated to take the risk, to take any risk, if there had been no other way of saving her. But there was another way, a very much simpler, more common sense and natural a way; the way he was taking now. He had only to go to this Kegler’s dock where she would be waiting for the Cherub, and warn her. That was all. He had ample time if he hurried, since _they_ had not started yet.

Time! Yes, he had time enough. Cool, deliberate reason reassured on that point, but the thought brought him a little panic-struck catch of breath. It might have been better, perhaps, if he had gone to the Bowery, or perhaps over into Lower Broadway, in the hope, say, of getting a taxi that would have saved him many minutes. He shook his head, and called himself a fool for allowing his mind to wander to inconsequent things. There were not many taxis hunting fares on the Bowery, and who ever heard of an empty taxi on Lower Broadway at this hour of night! And, besides, it was not half past nine yet, and she was not to be there until ten. And yet—time! He flirted the moisture from his forehead again, as, reaching a small drug store on a corner, he turned, and entered, and asked for the directory.

He was out again in scarcely a minute. He had found Kegler’s in the directory without difficulty, but not without certain new misgivings. Kegler’s was much farther along the East River than, somehow, and entirely without reason, he had imagined it would be. He began to run again, and again that twinge of panic seized him. True, he had a start on the others; true, they had just as far to go as he had, but with the distance that he knew now there was to cover, and the limit that existed in the time in which to cover it, it became more than probable they would have arranged for some special means of conveyance, whereas he had none.

Billy Kane dropped suddenly from a run into a slow, even nonchalant walk. A short distance ahead of him, a small, and apparently, an old and second-hand car was coughing and chugging laboriously at the curb in front of the lighted window of a little grocery store. A few steps more, and he saw that the car was empty. Billy Kane’s lips broadened in a hard smile. It might be reprehensible to steal a car for a few hours; but, as between a car and a human life that he knew depended on him alone, he experienced no pangs of conscience. It was the way out!

He edged over to the curb as he approached the machine, and, close to the car now, glanced around. In through the store window he could see a man, back turned, evidently the car’s owner, leaning over the counter, talking to the proprietor of the store. Billy Kane, wary of attracting premature notice from the pedestrians here and there along the street, reached out calmly, opened the door without haste, and with a deliberate air of proprietorship slipped into the driver’s seat—but in the next instant he had thrown in the gears, and the machine shot from the curb like a mad animal stung to frenzy.