Chapter XII: In Four Rounds

In stony silence Doctor Latham watched the bold move. As Cole opened the door, a diffident look came into his face. He toyed awkwardly with the pistol, looked dubiously at the barrel, finally put the weapon back in his pocket. “It seems you win this round,” he muttered.

The room which Cole had entered was dark. His hand fumbled along the wall till he found a knob. At his pressure a light appeared, and it revealed a man sprawled out in a chair. Except that the coat had been removed he was fully dressed, and it seemed to Cole that he was sound asleep.

He recognized the sallow face of the hunchback, having caught a brief glimpse of it just as the elevator started. It was not a pleasant face. The twisted lips looked as though the teeth had been bared in a snarl just before the man fell asleep. Cole thought he might be a thug or professional gunman. He looked away and saw Latham in the doorway.

“You’re a cool one,” murmured the physician, a trace of admiration in his tone. “Didn’t you know I was ready to shoot you?”

“You didn’t,” was the laconic answer.

Latham came closer. He was once more suave and genial. Cole fancied his astute brain was at work on a scheme of some sort. “Have you seen enough to repay you for the risk you took?” he inquired. “Is this the man you are looking for?”

Cole nodded. “He’s the one who murdered Reeves. Tough-looking customer! What have you done to him, doctor?”

The Machiavellian smile came back. “He was in a bad way. I had to give him a hypodermic. That’s why his crime, if he committed one, doesn’t seem to weigh very heavily on his conscience. What are your intentions in regard to my patient, Mr. Stone?”

Cole stepped closer to the recumbent man. The fellow looked indeed as though he were deep in drug-induced sleep. Cole raised the arm nearest him and turned back the shirt sleeve. A little below the elbow there was a small puncture. He dropped the limp arm and turned away. His head was full of perplexities and contradictions. A little while ago certain phases of the mystery had seemed to dovetail to perfection, but now things were taking an incongruous turn. He felt the physician was inwardly laughing at his bewilderment.

“Well, Mr. Stone?” he inquired softly.

Cole was in a quandary, but he tried hard not to show it. For the present the wily doctor had several strategical advantages, and evidently he knew how to use them. It would not be easy to take the unconscious man away. Even if it could be done, Cole would not know where to take him. On the other hand, it would not do to let him get away, as he undoubtedly would as soon as he recovered from the effects of the drug.

“This man is my patient,” continued the doctor, “and I strongly advise against disturbing him for the present. I believe a physician’s advice is usually heeded in such cases.”

“Your patient seemed to be in excellent health a little while ago,” observed Cole.

“Really, you must permit me to be the judge as to his physical condition.”

Cole eyed him levelly. “You are a very clever man, Doctor Latham. I believe you deliberately drugged this so-called patient of yours so that he couldn’t be removed. It was a fairly ingenious stroke.”

Latham gave him a curious glance. “That’s a very odd way of looking at the situation,” he remarked thoughtfully. “I wonder if you aren’t a bit disingenuous. However, it doesn’t matter. This seems to be my round.”

His faintly gloating tone nettled Cole. As far as he could see he was outmaneuvered on every point. Hopeless as the situation seemed to be, he was determined not to leave the house a defeated man. He rekindled his cigar, then gazed with mild reproach at the glowing tip. A cigar never gave him the mental stimulus that he derived from his musty old pipe at home. Besides, the doctor’s slyly amused glances were disconcerting. Cole’s thoughts would not travel in a straight line, and he grew more uncomfortable as he noticed that his helplessness was beginning to impress the doctor as queer.

He turned, placed the half-smoked cigar on a tray, and glanced through the open door leading into the office. The nickel trimmings of a telephone gleamed under the electric drop light over the desk. The sight of the instrument seemed to give Cole an idea. Deliberately he walked into the other room and picked up the directory.

“May I ask what you intend doing?” inquired the physician, following him.

“I know a doctor who lives not far from here,” said Cole absently, while he hastily turned the pages of the book. “I’m going to call him in for a consultation over your patient. If the fellow is in a bad way, two doctors are better than one. If there’s nothing wrong with him, I want to know it. Ah!” his index finger halted in the center of a page. “Plaza 28826.”

A faint mutter of dismay escaped the doctor. He stood at Cole’s back, while the detective put the receiver to his ear.

“A consultation is quite unnecessary, I assure you,” declared Latham.

Cole grinned into the transmitter. He suspected Latham would agree to bring his “patient” back to consciousness rather than have another physician called in. A thousand slight murmurs sounded on the wire, and then came the operator’s brisk “Number, please.”

Cole spoke the number distinctly. He expected Latham would yield rather than suffer a blow to his professional reputation, but the physician’s cunning rendered the matter uncertain. And, even if his ruse succeeded, Cole would score only a temporary advantage. He was not yet sure what his next move was to be. While waiting for the connection he glanced over his shoulder. Latham, hands clasped at his back, was walking back and forth.

Suddenly Cole’s face went blank. A jarring noise sounded in his ears. In the next instant he knew he was holding a dead instrument in his hand. All sounds had abruptly ceased. He heard Latham’s triumphant chuckle as he hung up the receiver.

“It appears the third round is also mine,” murmured Latham, his bearded lips parting in a gratified smile. In his right hand he held a pair of steel nippers.

Cole gritted his teeth, but smiled complacently. “I would call it a draw,” he said. “Your act of cutting the wire was a confession, doctor; a confession that you are up to deviltry. I knew it all along, of course, but I’m glad you showed your hand so plainly. It’s an advantage to me to know that you have something to fear.”

“I hope you derive a lot of satisfaction from it,” declared Latham easily. “I fail to see how it is going to do you any practical good, though.”

Cole himself was not quite clear on that point. It was a moral advantage rather than a physical one. He gazed steadily at the physician, studying the triangular outlines of the black, neatly trimmed beard. It was a bit tantalizing to consider how many shifting expressions that glossy appendage might conceal. It acted as a mask, and he was permitted to see through it only when the bearded lips parted in a flash of teeth. Just now the face told him nothing. It merely gave him an impression of a man of unfathomable secrets and a deeply plotting mind. Cole felt at once baffled and fascinated.

“I am curious to know what you will try next,” said Latham after a long pause. “I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but I’m getting deucedly sleepy.” He yawned ostentatiously. “If you have nothing further to propose——” He looked significantly at the door.

Cole considered for a moment longer, then he selected the most comfortable chair in the room and sat down. With a languid air he stretched out his legs and leaned back. “I am worried about your patient,” he declared, with a sly wink at the room in the rear. “If you have no objection, I’ll hang around till he comes to. This is a very comfortable chair. Could I trouble you for another of those excellent cigars?”

The doctor stood in front of him, and Cole fancied there was a frown beneath the beard. “You are going too far,” said Latham severely. “Suppose I should throw you out?”

“That would be very rude, doctor. Besides, it couldn’t be done.”

Latham came a step closer. Slowly his crafty eyes moved up and down Cole’s figure. Evidently he concluded that the languid appearance of the man in the chair was deceptive.

“I might summon help,” he suggested.

“You might, but I hardly think you will. Being a prudent man, you realize it wouldn’t do to stir up things. It’s far preferable, from your point of view, to confine this interview to ourselves. What about another of those cigars, doctor?”

Latham did not move. His eyelids narrowed a trifle as he continued to gaze at Cole. “You puzzle me,” he declared. “You come here representing yourself to be a detective, but your conduct is very peculiar. You say the hunchback in the other room is a murderer, but you have made no move toward arresting him.”

“I am naturally lazy,” confessed Cole blandly, “and it would be too much of an exertion to carry the fellow out of here on my back.”

“Have you a warrant for his arrest?”

“None is needed,” said Cole easily, though he perceived that the conversation was taking a dangerous turn. “It is enough that I have reasonable cause for believing that the man has committed a felony.”

His tone faltered slightly on the word “reasonable.” In his imagination he could picture the faces of the police officials, if he should undertake to tell them what had happened.

Latham continued his piercing scrutiny for a few moments longer. “You looked to me like an impostor,” he declared. “I’ll wager you haven’t even so much as a pair of handcuffs on your person.”

Cole jerked himself up straight in the chair. His twinkling eyes bespoke an inspiration. From his pocket he drew a small pair of steel links. “Small, but substantial,” he said musingly. “A friend gave them to me once. I have so little use for them that I wouldn’t carry them around except for the fact that they are so light and take so little space in the pocket. Once, in an unexpected pinch, they proved handy, and I have been carrying them ever since.”

He got up and briskly walked into the room in the rear. A muffled exclamation escaped the doctor, as Cole fastened one of the links around the hunchback’s wrist. Then, with surprising ease, he lifted the man out of the chair and carried him to an operating table in a corner of the room.

“What are you doing?” inquired Latham sharply, too amazed at Cole’s conduct to be able to interfere.

A short laugh was Cole’s only answer. He stretched the unconscious man out on the operating table.

“Are you crazy?” spluttered the doctor. “What——” He stopped short as he saw Cole’s intention, but now it was too late to act. Cole had placed the limp figure in such a way that the arm, from which the steel links dangled, was hanging down along the side of the table. In a twinkling he had fastened the other link around one of the iron legs. The unconscious man was now securely chained to the table.

Cole turned and regarded the physician with a good-humored expression. “My round, and it’s as good as a knock-out,” he observed.

Latham stared dumfoundedly. He saw what had happened, but he appeared at a loss to grasp the meaning of it. “What do you hope to gain by such tomfoolery?” he demanded.

“A lot,” said Cole softly. “Your patient can’t get away unless he takes the table with him, and that would attract attention. A fleeing murderer is under quite a handicap when he is chained to an operating table. I notice it is all iron and strongly built. The legs are soldered to the top, so it won’t be easy to take it apart. A skilled craftsman could do it, but I believe you have a strong aversion against calling in outsiders.”

The cold gleam in Latham’s eyes told that he understood. His gaze was fixed in a speculative way on the two steel links.

“They could be filed off,” admitted Cole, guessing his thoughts, “but it would take a long time to get through the chilled steel of which they are made. An expert might be able to unlock them, but there again you are hampered by your prejudice against outsiders. You can’t slip the link off the iron leg, for the braces down below prevent that. Barring accidents, I think my man will stay here till I’m ready to come and get him.”

Doctor Latham seemed a trifle dazed. He ran his fingers awkwardly through his beard while looking bewilderedly at Cole. “You are an astounding person,” he declared.

“You are another, doctor.” Cole smiled engagingly. “Sorry to have interrupted your night’s rest. Are you going to charge me for this visit? I believe it was ten dollars last time.”

“Go to blazes!” said Doctor Latham. He stood motionless beside the unconscious man, while Cole walked out of the room.