Chapter XIX: A Warning

Very softly Cole crept up the stairs. On the ground floor he stopped for a moment and listened. A heavy silence seemed to hover over the entire house. He stole up another flight of stairs and turned toward a door in front. The knob turned noiselessly in his hand, but the door was locked. He stooped and tried to peep through the keyhole, but he could see nothing.

A few moments passed; then a slight scratching sound, like that produced when a match is struck, was heard within. At the same time a faint glow was visible through the keyhole. It lasted for ten seconds or so, and then all was darkness again. It was evident now that the intermittent glow which Cole had seen from the sidewalk had been produced by some one striking a number of matches.

Suddenly he stood erect, listening. For a moment he thought he had heard a slight sound, coming from somewhere below, but apparently he had been mistaken. He had entered so quietly that it did not seem possible Doctor Latham’s sleep could have been disturbed by his movements. Again he fixed his attention on the door, for once more a scrrrrch came from the room. Through the keyhole, just before the fluttering light went out, he caught a glimpse of the hunchback.

Cole was puzzled. What could the hunchback be doing, and what did the frequent striking of matches mean? He waited, uncertain what to do, but strongly tempted to open the door with one of his skeleton keys. Moments passed, and he listened in vain for further repetitions of the scratching sounds. Instead, he heard what sounded like a half-suppressed chuckle. Evidently the hunchback had found something that pleased him. A faint tinkle came through the keyhole, followed by a louder sound, like that of a heavy object being dragged across the floor. Then silence.

Cole felt in his pockets for his bunch of keys, but he quickly withdrew his hand and cast a glance over his shoulders. This time he knew he was not mistaken. Some one was moving about on the floor below, but so softly that Cole’s keen ears detected only a faint suspicion of a sound. His eyes darted to left and right in search of a hiding place, but the best he could find was the corner back of the stairway railing. He pressed against the wall and crouched low.

Some one was coming up the stairs. He was determined to learn as much as he could before he made his presence known. The meager light from the little electric bulb in the ceiling revealed a sweep of bald cranium, by which he easily identified Doctor Latham. Perhaps he had been awakened by the hunchback’s movements, or perhaps Cole’s entrance had partly aroused him, and he had just now become fully awake.

The doctor swept past him without a glance in his direction and moved straight toward the room occupied by the hunchback. There he stopped, took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He pushed it open and stood in a listening attitude. Even from his remote position in the rear of the hall, he could hear a lusty snoring. It was strange, since he knew that the hunchback had been wide awake only a few minutes ago. Evidently the fellow was up to a ruse of some kind.

Suddenly Latham turned and walked quickly toward the rear. For a moment Cole thought he had been discovered, but the doctor took only half a dozen steps down the hall. Standing on the stairway railing he removed the electric bulb from its socket in the ceiling, then entered the hunchback’s room. The hall was now dark, and Cole thought it safe to come forward. He reached the door just as a light appeared within. Peeping through the crack between the door and the jamb he saw that the physician had attached the bulb to a wall fixture. Now he was standing beside the operating table to which the hunchback had been linked for the past twenty-four hours, leaning over the motionless figure lying on it.

He mumbled something beneath his breath, then gave the hunchback’s shoulder a vigorous shaking. The snoring stopped. The fellow sat up with difficulty and rubbed his eyes with his free hand.

“You needn’t pretend,” said Latham. He was arrayed in the same dressing gown in which Cole had seen him once before. “I know you haven’t been sleeping. Where did you find these matches?”

He pointed to a litter of charred stubs on the floor. The hunchback eyed him stolidly and shrugged his misshapen shoulders.

The doctor’s glance went to an old battered safe in a corner of the room. He stepped up to it and tried the lock.

“Thought you might be tempted to while away the time by investigating this old safe of mine,” he declared. “I removed the bulb on purpose, so you wouldn’t make much headway with it. Not that you would have found much if you had opened it, only a few papers.”

Again he gazed at the charred fragments scattered over the floor. Cole, looking through the narrow crack, saw a puzzled frown on his bearded face. The room was small, and the conglomeration of articles in it suggested it was used in part for storage purposes. The scattered match stubs perplexed Cole as much as they did the doctor.

“There might have been a box in one of the bureau drawers,” muttered the physician. “I suppose that’s where you found them. I don’t see, though, what pleasure you derive from burning up a lot of matches.”

Cole was watching the hunchback’s face. A look of sly satisfaction lurked in the sallow features. Once the fellow bent a squinting glance on some object across the floor, but all Cole could see at that particular point was a dilapidated trunk. His bewilderment grew. The scene between the physician and the hunchback was not exactly what he might have suspected. He sensed a hidden element in it. He was aware of a curious strain and tension in the air.

“I thought I heard you drag the table over the floor,” remarked the doctor. “You were not doing it just for exercise. What was your idea?”

Again a look of secret elation crossed the hunchback’s face. He jingled the steel links that held one of his hands to the table.

“Aw, can’t a guy move about a bit if he wants to?” he asked. “Sittin’ still in one place all the time gets on a feller’s nerve. I didn’t do no harm.”

The physician regarded him searchingly. Evidently he, too, had seen the furtive smirk in the hunchback’s face. He stepped briskly to the operating cot and shook the fellow’s arm.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he remarked. “You have been up to some kind of deviltry, my man. Now——”

The sentence ended in a gasp. In a twinkling the hunchback had wrenched his arm free of the doctor’s grasp. Cole was amazed at the swift play of his fingers. He could scarcely see what was happening, but a loop fell down over the physician’s head and was tightened around his throat with a quick jerk. He spluttered and choked, while the hunchback snickered gleefully.

“I got yuh now!” declared the little man, drawing the loop still tighter. The doctor wriggled and squirmed, but the constriction at his throat weakened his efforts. The whole scene seemed unreal to Cole. It took him several moments to realize that Latham was being garroted by the man who had found refuge in his house after murdering Malcolm Reeves.

He bounded forward, and a well-aimed blow sent the hunchback reeling back over the operating table. The garrote, made up of two shoe laces tied together, had bitten deep into the flesh around the doctor’s throat. His eyes bulged, and his gaping lips were bloodless. A hoarse rattle sounded in his throat, as he struggled for breath.

In a short time the noose was undone, and the physician sank into a chair. While he sucked air into his lungs in great gulps he looked queerly at Cole. The hunchback lay sullenly silent on the table.

“Your visit was very opportune this time,” murmured Latham, as soon as he began to breathe more easily. “Where did you come from?”

Cole signified with a shrug that the matter was of no importance. “What’s gotten into this protégé of yours?” he asked with a glance at the hunchback. “Did he go crazy all of a sudden?”

“Oh, no; he’s as sane this moment as he ever was or ever will be. I knew he would kill me if he got a chance, and so I did all I could to deprive him of the opportunity.”

There was doubt and bewilderment in Cole’s gaze. “But why should he kill you? I thought——”

“Yes, I think I know what you thought,” interrupted the doctor. “For a man of keen intellect you have a singular capacity for getting things twisted. I suppose, however, it isn’t to be wondered at under the circumstances. Wonder where the fellow got those shoe laces. I thought I had removed from his reach everything that might serve as an implement of murder.”

Cole stepped to the trunk at which the hunchback had been squinting from time to time. He lifted the lid, and the first thing he saw was a pair of old shoes from which the laces had been removed.

Latham looked at him in surprise. “That trunk was locked this morning,” he remarked.

“The lock is a very simple one,” Cole observed. “Even a man with only one arm could pick it without much trouble. With a supply of matches handy, the removal of the electric bulb didn’t give him much of a handicap. You seem to lead a very exciting life, doctor.”

The doctor smiled. He felt quite at ease again. He got up from the chair and strolled over to the table where the hunchback lay.

“You are really very simple,” he declared. “Didn’t you know that murdering me wouldn’t help you out of your predicament? Why, you would have starved to death if you had carried out your attempt.”

“Guess again.” The fellow leered insolently. “My pals woulda found me before long. To-night, maybe.”

“What’s your grudge against the doctor?” inquired Cole. “Why did you try to kill him?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” retorted the hunchback, wagging his head in the physician’s direction.

“Our friend doesn’t seem very communicative,” observed Latham. “I don’t think he will attempt any more mischief to-night. Suppose we go down and sample one of my cigars?”

Cole assented, but not until he had searched the hunchback and removed a handful of matches. He believed the doctor knew the motive behind the murderous attempt. There was a fog in his mind, for the scene he had just witnessed did not seem to harmonize with his previous observations.

“You are a cool one, doctor,” he remarked when they were down in the consultation room and the physician had passed his box of cigars.

“Life hardens one. I sometimes wish I hadn’t lost my emotional susceptibilities. They are the things that give color and tone to life. Life without thrills is a barren desert.”

Cole suddenly recalled his original errand. He bent forward and looked the doctor full in the eyes. “There is one question I want to ask. You may not be able or willing to answer it. Where is Miss Brownell?”

The question acted like an electric shock on the physician, upsetting his magnificent composure as nothing else could have done. A suspicion of pallor crept up beneath the black beard.

“What about her?” he demanded sharply. “Has anything happened to her?”

Cole smiled amusedly. “For a man who has lost his emotional susceptibilities you manage to work up quite a lot of feeling over a simple question. You know the lady I am referring to?”

“Why—er—slightly.”

Cole gave him a hard, searching glance. He felt the doctor had deliberately understated the truth. “Miss Brownell disappeared this evening,” he announced. “I came here in the hope of learning something of her whereabouts from you.”

“Why from me?” Latham was laboring under a tension that he tried hard to suppress.

“Several trails seem to point in your direction, doctor. Do you know what has become of Miss Brownell?”

Latham gripped the arms of his chair. “I swear I haven’t the faintest idea,” he declared, looking Cole straight in the eyes.

Cole believed him. There was something in the doctor’s tone and manner that carried conviction. He knew that for once the man was not shamming. His gaze cut deep into the physician’s bewildering personality, and he found not a trace of duplicity.

“What is Miss Brownell to you?” he asked bluntly. “Not in love with her, are you, doctor?”

The bearded lips parted in a faint smile. “I admire her immensely. Have known her for a long time. Was a friend of her father’s. A very charming young person indeed. But at my age one hesitates before he permits himself to fall in love. Besides, Miss Brownell is not likely to entertain any romantic notions in regard to me.”

Cole nodded thoughtfully. Despite the doctor’s light tone and airy gestures, the real Dickson Latham stood revealed before him.

“I understand, doctor,” he said meaningly. “I see how it is with you. As for Miss Brownell, she left a certain place, about an hour and a half ago, in pursuit of a colleague of yours, Doctor Ballinger.”

A queer little mutter slipped from Latham’s lips. He clenched his hands convulsively; his face underwent a startling transformation; a mingling of hate and fear showed in his dark, flashing eyes.

“That hound!” he mumbled under his breath, evidently not intending Cole to hear. With an inward wrench he steadied himself; in the next moment he seemed cool and composed. “In that case we must endeavor to find her,” he added aloud.

“More easily said than done, doctor. Have you any idea where Ballinger might have taken her; in the event that she should have fallen into his hands?”

“There is one place he would naturally take her to, but I don’t know the geographical location of it.”

“In plain words, the headquarters of a certain gang of alchemists and cutthroats?”

Latham nodded.

“You are mixed up with this gang, aren’t you, doctor?”

“I was.”

“And you performed an operation on Malcolm Reeves?” Cole watched him closely to observe the effect of his question.

“That is true,” said Latham in a queer tone. He smiled a sad, whimsical smile. “But you must have observed that truth sometimes covers a multitude of lies.”

Cole pondered this cryptical statement. “One more question. Why did the hunchback try to kill you?”

“Some men are willing to do anything for money. But this line of talk isn’t leading us anywhere. The thing of prime importance is to find Miss Brownell. From what little I know of the gang, to which you referred, I should say her life isn’t worth a plugged nickel if she has fallen into their hands.”

He spoke evenly, but Cole sensed an ache behind the words. “Do you know the leader of the organization?” was his next question.

“He was never referred to by name in my presence, and I never came in contact with him. In my dealings with the members I never got higher than Professor Carmody.”

Again, despite the contradictions and discrepancies that hemmed in the doctor’s statements, Cole was disposed to believe him. “There is no cause for alarm just at present,” he declared. “We don’t know that Miss Brownell is in trouble. She is a capable young woman and——”

“Ah, but you don’t know Ballinger,” interrupted Latham.

Cole reached for the telephone and called the number of The Unknown Seven. After a brief delay he was connected with Carlin.

“Where are you?” demanded the lawyer excitedly. “Been trying to get hold of you everywhere.”

“What has happened?” asked Cole evenly, though the lawyer’s agitation was contagious.

“Happened!” echoed Carlin. “Received an anonymous telephone message a while ago warning us that, unless we keep hands off, Miss Brownell will be dead inside twenty-four hours!”