Chapter XIV: Drew Lane Steps Into Something

That same night Drew Lane “stepped into something,” something that was quite unexpected and—well, you’ll see.

During the day he had conducted his raids on the city’s two “kidnaping centers.” They had turned out as he had prophesied they might—quite tame affairs. Most of the gentlemen, expecting a call, had stepped out. The raids yielded three guns, sixteen pocket knives and no information of importance regarding the mysterious disappearance of the Red Rover. Indeed the protestations of innocence, the ready offer of assistance which he received on every hand led him to believe that this was a job pulled off by some one quite outside the well-ordered circle of kidnaping gentlemen.

“Honest, Lane, we don’t know a thing!” one smooth-spoken gentleman assured him. “We don’t want the Red Rover snatched. Why should we? Our money is up on him, a lot of it. We want him to come through with a touchdown, a whole flock of ’em. Tell you what—” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Your pay isn’t too big. Know where you can pick up a piece of change? I do. You just step out and bring the Red Rover back. The boys here will make up a purse for you. Just you say: ‘The Red Rover plays,’ and you’ll hear the clink of gold.”

“Do men gamble on football?” Drew had opened his eyes wide.

“Do they? Why, say! They—”

But something—a wink, a thrust in the side, a dark look, something—silenced the talkative one. He said no more. He had said enough, however, to put Drew in a thoughtful mood.

His collecting of pocket knives was received on the whole as a huge joke. It was suggested that he go out on a sand lot and take up a jack-knife collection from the boys playing ball.

Drew felt a bit silly about it himself and, since he had no notion what purpose it was intended to serve, he was tempted to chuck it. In the end he carried it through. So sixteen pocket knives all duly labeled reposed in the drawer of his desk.

All of which has nothing whatever to do with the thing he “stepped into” after darkness had fallen.

He had gone into a place for a belated dinner. This place, he knew, had a bad reputation. That was why he wished to eat there. A born detective, Drew was always looking for things, and sometimes he found them.

Having ordered baked flank steak, French fried potatoes, pie, and black coffee, he sat back in his chair to stare dreamily about him. He was truly hungry. “Flank steak all filled with dressing! Um!” he whispered. Little did he dream that the meal would never be eaten.

Just before him eight men were grouped around a double table. Their meal over, they sat drinking amber liquid from tall glasses.

“Might be soda water,” Drew mused. The men were far more interesting than their drink. They were a strange lot. Three of them, dark complexioned gentlemen with short black moustaches, looked exactly alike. They were dressed alike and often all spoke at the same time. They laughed together in a sort of symphonic chorus. To the right of these was a large man with a huge red nose who roared when he laughed. A smaller and younger man, who might well have been his son, sat beside him. Across from these were two others who did not fall under Drew’s gaze.

The man at the end caught and held Drew’s attention. A small man, he said never a word, but all the time sat poised as if for a spring.

“Looks like a jack-in-the-box,” Drew told himself.

This little man’s eyes were roving from one to another of his companions. Once, these eyes, swinging in a wide circle, took Drew in. Cold steel-gray eyes that glittered, they sent a chill coursing down his spine. He felt in his pocket. Yes, the safety on his automatic was snapped off.

It was then that Drew’s keen mind registered an important fact. This little man with the fiery eyes was branded, or so it seemed; there was a double scar on the right side of his forehead. Together these scars, one red, the other purple, formed a Maltese Cross.

“Know him anywhere,” Drew told himself. “And yet, those scars might be faked, little touches of colored wax. It’s been done.”

Drew was expecting something to happen. The room was like a country place before a thunderstorm. One expects the roar of it long before the first peal comes rolling in.

When the thing did happen Drew was ready. It was nothing much at that, you might say. The little man half rose in his chair. As he did so something heavy slipped from his pocket and fell to the floor with a crash. It was a blue-barreled automatic.

Without so much as glancing about, the little man reached down to pick it up.

A look of pained surprise overspread his face as he realized the gun was not on the floor.

Then, as if a thought had struck him all of a heap, he whirled about to fix his fiery eyes on Drew Lane and to remark in a tone as smooth and hard as glass:

“You got that.”

“Sure did.” Sliding back his chair, Drew stood up, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, then with a trick he had learned by long practice, threw out the lapel of his coat to display his star pinned underneath.

He said never another word—just stood there smiling a little. What more was to be said? The man had carried concealed weapons. This he had no right to do. As an officer Drew was doing his duty.

The little man’s face went red all over, like an angry sunset. His eyes swept the circle of his companions and, as if attached to strings held in his hand, they arose—the three all alike, the big man, his son and the other two.

Drew Lane was young. But he was no novice. He knew what it meant. He was prepared.

“Gentlemen,” he spoke in an even tone, “you can take me. You are eight to one. But I’ll get two of you first.” His eyes fell a trifle.

There was not a man in the group but read his meaning. In his pockets were two automatics. Time and again he had won the police prize for straight shooting from the hips. One false move and a member of the little man’s gang would get a bullet in his heart or his brain. Drew was good for exactly two of them.

It was a tense moment. Perhaps the glittering eyes of that little man had never wavered. Perhaps they would not have wavered now. Who could say? No one. For at that instant the lights went out, and on the instant, save for the feeble light of one small window, the place was dark.

A deep silence fell upon the room. Without realizing it, Drew began counting under his breath: “One, two, three, four, five, six.” Perhaps he was counting the seconds before things began to happen. Keeping a tight grip with either hand on the things of blue steel in his pockets, he waited, silent, breathless.

He had just become conscious of a clock that ticked loudly in a corner, when a low gasp caught his attention.

Without knowing why, he fixed his eyes upon the one small window. Other eyes were fixed upon that narrow window. How many pairs of eyes? Who could say? It was dark.

Something was moving by the window. Not a person—no, surely not that! A skull perhaps, an ugly skull with hollow eye sockets from which a pale light gleamed. A sigh passed over the room like the low moan of the sea at night.

And then something stranger happened. The skull disappeared and a ghost with bones bleached white and a long, flowing sheet went racing away across an empty space beside the building. Again the long sigh swept across the room.

And then the lights went on. These lights disclosed eight gentlemen standing just as they had stood before, staring rather stupidly at one another—the three alike, the big man and his son, the little one with glittering eyes and the other two. Drew Lane had vanished.

For a full minute by the clock on the wall they stood there staring at one another. Then the big man said in a loud voice:

“The Galloping Ghost!” After which he let forth a roar of laughter that suggested a crazy baboon roaring in the night.

Ten minutes later the place was raided by the police. There was no one there.

One fact about this affair seems important. Drew Lane retained possession of the automatic that had fallen on the floor. This automatic was the key to a situation. What situation? This, for a while, was to remain a mystery.