Shirley rose, and once more applied that gridiron-trained boot of his:
this time to the lock of the door. Two doses resulted in a complete cure
for its obstinacy. As he rushed into the room, he saw a figure swing out
of the window on a dangling rope. He hesitated--the desire to chase
this intruder to the roof of the club struggled with his duty to the
unfortunate Jap, who lay on the floor, where he was being garroted by a
burly ruffian in a chauffeur's habiliments. He sprang toward his little
assistant, and made quick work of the big man.
As he threw the other, with one of his “silencer” twists of the neck
cords, the Jap sprang up. A demoniac anger twisted that usually smiling
countenance, and it took all of Shirley's strength, to wrest away the
automatic revolver from the maddened valet, to prevent swift revenge.
“Why, Chen. He's caught. Don't shoot him now!”
Chen, with a voluble stream of Nagasaki profanity, spluttered in rage,
and strove like a bantam rooster to get at his antagonist. The necessity
for quieting him to prevent bloodshed was fatal to the pursuit of the
other man, as Shirley realized bitterly. The servants were running to
the room by this time. The club steward opened the battered door, and
Shirley turned to explain.
“You have a brave little man, here, Cushman. Chen heard this burglar
in my room, and tried to capture him at the risk of his own life. He
deserves promotion and a raise in salary. Go downstairs and call the
police. We'll have this fellow locked up!”
The man glared at Shirley, and rubbed his throat which throbbed from the
vice-like grip of the jiu-jitsu. Chen still breathed hard and his almond
eyes rolled nervously. At last he was quiet again, although the slender
fingers twitched hungrily for a clawing of that dirty neck. Shirley
patted him on the back. Judgment had come to another of the gangsters,
and the criminologist was pleased at the diminution in the ranks of his
opponent.
An examination of his cabinet and dresser drawers showed that the
pillaging had barely begun when Chen popped out of his hiding-place.
It was no wonder that Warren had been so solicitous as to the speeding
time: intuition had once more intervened to interrupt these well-laid
schemes.
The little Jap could tell barely more of his adventure than that he had
opened the door when he heard men walking and talking in the room. Then
the struggle had ensued, with the result already described.
Now, indeed, was Shirley more puzzled than ever at Warren's sudden
departure. It had upset the plans of the conspirators: it was an
unwelcome surprise to their Chief. And furthermore it had interfered
with a little scheme of the criminologist by which he had expected to
craftily imprison his guest for the remainder of the night.
The room was put in order--not much was there to rearrange, for the
tussle had come so promptly. With a final look at his belongings,
Shirley left Chen in charge, not forgetting to slip to him another
reward for his courage.
Then he went downstairs and hurried over to the Hotel California to hold
a conference of war with Helene Marigold.
She was nervous, as she greeted him. Yet a subtle smile on her face
showed that she was not surprised by the visit. Shirley quickly outlined
the occurrences of the dinner hour. When he asked her opinion, for he
had learned to place a growing trust in her quick grasp of things, she
walked silently to her typewriter.
“Here, sir, is a little note which may amuse you.”
She handed him a piece of paper. It read:
“Chief: The Monk has turned up at the Blue Goose on Water Street. He is
drunk and telling all he knows. Come down at once to help us quiet him.
Hurry or every thing will be known. You know who.”
Shirley looked at the message, and then with tilted eyebrows at his fair
companion.
“What do you know about the Blue Goose?” he asked. “And the Monk? For I
presume that you wrote this out?”
“Your presumption is correct. I remembered hearing Warren ask Taylor
this afternoon after that telephone call from you, where the Blue Goose
saloon could be. Taylor told him it was a sailor's dive on Water Street.
The night they thought me dreaming on his library couch, I heard Taylor
ask Warren if they had heard from the Monk. So, it seemed to me that
the two questions might interest Mr. Reginald Warren if presented in a
language that he understood.”
“And what was that language?”
“It was a code message, which I typed out on this Remwood machine here,
by the system you told me. It was slow work, but I finished it and sent
it over to the club, knowing Warren would be with you. I really don't
know what good the message would do. But being an illogical woman, and
a descendant of Pandora, I thought it would be amusing to open the
Pandora's box and let all the little devils loose, just to see the
glitter of their wings!”
Shirley caught her hands delightedly.
“You bully girl! Nothing could have happened better. I'll improve my
time now, by visiting Mr. Warren's apartment, impolite as it is without
an invitation. And then I think I will go calling in that little cave of
the winds in the rear of his art collection, on the other street.”
“But, Monty--I Mean, Mr. Shirley,” and a rosy embarrassment overcame
her, “you will put your head into the lion's mouth once too often. Why
not wait until you get him under lock and key?”
“My dear girl, we will telephone my club and talk to the door man. I
think that he may be under lock and key by this time, in a manner you
little suspect. Let me have the number.”
He went to the instrument on her dressing-table. The club was soon
reached, and Dan the door man was answering his eager question.
“Yes, sir, the taxi has come back, sir.”
“Send the chauffeur to the wire. I want to talk to him,” said Shirley.
The man was soon speaking. “What address did you take that gentleman to,
my man?”
“Why, sir, I started out for the Battery, but sir, a terrible thing
happened.”
“What was it?”
“The gentleman was overcome with an ep'leptic stroke or somethin' like
that. He pounded on the winder behind me, and when I stopped me car, and
looked in he was down an' out. I was on Thirty-third Street and Fift'
Avenue at the time, so I calls a cop, and he orders me to run 'im over
to Bellevue. He's there now, sir. He ain't hardly breathin', sir. It's
terrible!”
“Too bad, I must go and call, to see if I can help him!” was Shirley's
remark as he hung up the receiver. He repeated the news to Helene. Her
eyes sparkled, as she said: “Ah, those symptoms resemble the ones you
told me which came from that amo-amas-amat-citron, or whatever it was.”
“Not quite such a loving lemon, Miss Marigold,” he chuckled. “Amyl
nitrite. The same soothing syrup which quieted our would-be robbers on
Sixth Avenue, that night when we left his apartment. It will wear off
in about three hours. I had a little glass container folded in my own
handkerchief, which I put in his overcoat pocket as a parting souvenir,
crushing it as I did so. I reasoned that undue anxiety which he
displayed might cause him to mop his brow, close to that student-duel
scar. One smell of the chemical on that handkerchief, in the quantity
which I gave, was enough to quiet his worries. Now for the Somerset
Apartment.”
He looked at his watch.
“It is eight fifteen. I want you to telephone up to Warren's apartment
exactly at ten o'clock. Tell them--there should be a them, that I have
been overcome in your apartment, and that they are the only people who
can help you, or who know you. I believe that the idea of finding me
unconscious, and getting me away will bring any and all of his friends
who may be there. If Taylor is there with others, he will hardly leave
them in the place when he goes. What I want is to be sure that the coast
is cleared of people at that hour. Then I will make an investigation
into his papers and other matters of interest. Can I count on you?”
A reproachful pouting of the scarlet lips was the only answer. Shirley
left, this time hurrying uptown to a certain engine-house, whose fire
captain he had known quite well in the old reportorial days.
It was beginning to snow once more. And as Shirley slipped out of the
engine-house, carrying a scaling ladder which he had borrowed after much
persuasion from his good-natured friend, he thanked his luck for this
natural veiling of the night, to baffle eyes too curious about the
campaign he had planned. He knew the posts of the policemen on this
street, and sedulously avoided them.
The Warren apartment faced the Eastern side of the structure, and when
he reached the front of the Somerset, he sought for a way in which
to use his implement. A scaling ladder, it may be explained to the
uninitiated, is about eight feet long--a single fire-proof bar, on which
are short cross-pieces. At one end is a curiously curving serrated hook,
which is used for grappling on the sills of windows or ledges above.
It is the most useful weapon for the city fire-fighter, enabling him to
climb diagonally across the face of a threatened structure, or even
to swing horizontally from one window to a far one, where ladders and
hose-streams might not reach.
A hundred feet to the West of the Somerset he found the excavations for
a new apartment house. No watchman was in sight, in the mist of falling
flakes, so the criminologist disappeared over the fence which separated
the plot of ground from the sidewalk. Advancing with many a stumble
through the blasted rock and shale, he obtained ingress to an alleyway
in the rear. Following this brought him to the back of the Somerset.
Shirley had an obstinate grandfather, and heredity was strong upon him.
It seemed a foolhardy attempt to scale the big structure, but he raised
the ladder to the window-sill of the second story, climbing cautiously
up to that ledge.
On the second sill he rested, then stretched his scaler diagonally
forward to the left. As he put his feet upon this, he swung like a
pendulum across the space. It was a severe grueling of nerves, but his
judgment of placement was good. When the ladder stopped swinging he
clambered up another story, as he had learned to do on truant afternoons
wasted at the firemen's training school, during the privileged days of
journalistic work.
Floor after floor he ascended, until he reached the eighth, on which was
Shirley's great goal. Here he exerted the utmost prudence, refraining
from the natural impulse to look down at the great crevasse beneath
him. His footing was slippery, but the thickening snowfall was a boon
in white disguise, for it protected him from almost certain observation
from the street below. Slowly he raised his eyes to a level with the
illuminated window, and peered in.
A strange sight greeted him.
Shine Taylor was busily engaged in the 'twisting of coils of wire, about
shiny brass cylinders, with an array of small and large clocks, electric
batteries and mysterious bottles on the carved library table. He was
intent upon the manufacture of another of his diabolical engines of
death!
Even as he watched, the door opened and who should stagger into the room
but Reginald Warren!
“Great Scott, Reg! What hit you?” was Taylor's ejaculation, as the
other stumbled forward, with a hand to his purple face, to sink into an
easy-chair, groaning. The man outside the window could not distinguish
the words, but the current of thought was well expressed in pantomime.
“I've been drugged!” moaned Warren. “That devil put something on my
handkerchief which knocked me out. I came to in Bellevue and I had a
time getting away to come back here. What about the Monk? Did you see
him?”
Taylor had run to his side. It seemed as though Warren's eyes would pop
from his head. The veins were swollen on his pallid brow, and he gasped
for air.
“Open the window!” he murmured, and his confederate rushed to the very
portal through which the criminologist was watching this unusual
scene, with bated breath. His heart sank, as he lowered himself with
a suddenness which vibrated the loosely-attached scaler. For the first
time his eyes turned toward the terrifying distance from which he had
ascended.
There was a squeak and he heard the window slide in its frame. He
felt that all was over. It would be impossible for Shine Taylor not to
observe the hooked prong of the ladder, with its curving metal a few
inches from his hands. In this ghastly minute of suspense, Shiley's
thoughts, strangely enough turned back to one thing. He did not
dash through the gamut of his life experiences nor regret all past
peccadilloes, as novelists inform us is generally the ultimate thought
in the supreme moment before a dash into eternity! He felt only a
maddening, itchingly bewitching desire to reach up to his coat pocket
and draw out that scent-laden page of typed note-paper which had been
glorified by its caress of the warm, bare bosom of the wonderful woman
who had so mysteriously drifted into the current of his life.
Then he heard a voice through the open window so close to his ears: it
was Shine Taylor's nasal whine.
“It's snowing, Reg. The air will do you good. What a gorgeous night for
a murder. Tell me now, what was the trouble?”
And Shirley swung, and swung and swung!