Eternity had passed, the Judgment Day had been overlooked and new aeons
had gone their way, it seemed to the criminologist, when the voice was
audible again.
“Oh, all right. I just drew it down from the top. Tell me about your
doping. Who was the devil?”
He had been unobserved. By the grace of the fates, Warren's sudden
appearance had given him a better chance to hear their secrets, and
Taylor's own abstraction had dissipated any interest in the world beyond
the window. Again he lifted himself to the level of the sill, sure that
the creamy curtains upon which the light from the big electrolier
was beaming, would shield him from their view. Warren called for some
brandy. Taylor served him, but it was three minutes or more before the
other could collect himself. Then he began furiously, as the pain in his
forehead diminished.
“This Shirley: he's a clever dog. He put something on my handkerchief,
and when I got that message of yours it got me, right in the taxicab, as
I was on my way to the Blue Goose to meet you.”
“To meet me?” and Taylor's turn came to be startled. “I don't know why
you should meet me at the Blue Goose!”
“Say, didn't you send me this note in code?” demanded Warren, drawing
out the typewritten sheet. Taylor shook his head, with a blanched face.
The other looked at him with the first evidence of fear which Shirley
had ever seen on the confident face. Warren caught his assistant's hand,
and drew his face down toward the note.
“Look, it is in our code. Phil can read it but he is the only one beside
you. He is locked up in jail, and couldn't reach a typewriter. I got a
message from him this afternoon that he wouldn't squeal. You know how he
smuggled it out to me. Tell me how could any one know about the Monk and
write this so?”
Taylor shook his head, speechless. As he turned his face toward the
window Shirley observed the great drawn shadows under his squinting
eyes. The sudden shock was telling on that weasel face. Taylor walked
unsteadily toward the infernal machine, and he looked blankly toward
Warren again. The other's blazing orbs were full upon him now. There was
a frightful menace in their glittering depths as he spoke.
“Taylor, if I thought you had sold out I'd skin you alive right now!”
“Reg--Reg--you are my best friend. Don't say a thing like that.”
“Are you selling me for some purpose. Are you soft on that chicken? Has
she blarneyed you into this?” demanded his chief, rising, unsteadily,
but fierce in his suspicious tensity.
Taylor cowered, with imploring hands stretched out.
“Why, Reg, no one ever did for me what you've done. I'd die rather than
sell you out, and there ain't a dame in the world that could make me
soft on a real game like this.”
As Warren studied his white face there came a tinkle on the telephone.
“What's that? Who's that?” Warren turned and ran toward the instrument,
still studying the face of his companion. It was evident that a seed of
distrust was planted in his bosom. He answered nervously.
“Yes, yes! What do you want? Who's speaking?”
Then he listened, and a wise expression came over his face. It broke
into a smile for the first time since he entered the room. He winked at
Taylor who drew near him. Shirley strained his ears to catch the words.
“Yes, yes, why, my dear Miss Bonbon. Surely, I'll be glad to come
down--To help take care of Mr. Shirley--Of course, I will come in my
machine and bring him uptown to a hospital--That's what you want?--Yes,
indeed, nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
He rang off, and turned toward Taylor.
“That smooth devil has sniffed some of his own dope as sure as you live,
Shine. We'll get him. Call up and have the machine sent around. You and
I will be a committee of two, and we'll end this tonight. Bring what you
need.”
Warren drank another full glass of brandy, while Taylor gave a quick
order over the telephone. Then the latter snatched up a small black
satchel which was standing on a side table. The assistant came to the
window, and Shirley dropped down out of sight, for another moment of
suspense. But the sash was quickly closed and bolted.
The light was turned out, and he waited another five minutes, stiffening
in the cold wind which had sprung up to send the big flakes in eddies
against his numbed fingers. With difficulty he fished out a long, thin
wire from his pocket, with which he had frequently turned the safety
catch of windows on other such occasions. Again it served its purpose,
and he drew himself up to the sash of the opened window. He brushed off
the snow, so as to leave no telltale puddles of drippings. He went to
the door of the library, and then to that of the vestibule.
It was locked from the outside, even as they had done when Helene was
the drowsy prisoner.
He had little time, he knew, for his search, but he first thought of
the girl's predicament. He must cover the tracks there. He took up the
receiver, and in a minute was talking to her.
“I'm in. Leave word downstairs (and pay the clerk and bell-boy a good
bribe) that you have gone to a hospital with a sick friend. Tell them
to swear to that, and better still leave the hotel at once, hunt up
Dick Holloway--you'll find him at the Thespis Club to-night. Send in the
chauffeur to ask for him and have him stay with you in the machine. I am
going to visit the other place when I finish here. I'll be down there,
at the Thespis Club, by eleven again. Good-bye--use your wits.”
Then he began a hurried ransacking of the apartment. He picked up a
note-book here, sheets of memoranda there, letters and documents which
he thought would be convenient. Warren's bedrooms were locked, but a
small “jimmie” sufficed to force them open. He found in one drawer a
dozen or more bank books, with as many different financial houses, and
under many names. This he shoved into his pockets. At last, satisfied
that he could gain no more, he retreated to the window. He shut this
and was once more on the windowsill. Here he looked down, and a new
inspiration came to him. He would have difficulty in getting admission
to the apartment entrance, at this time of night. The attendant would
remember him and warn Warren upon the latter's return. It was but one
more climb, a single story, to the roof. So, up he went, deserting the
faithful scaling ladder on the roof, for the time being.
He sought around for several minutes on the snowy, slippery surface
before he found the entrance to the iron stairway close by the elevator
shaft. Then he went softly down.
Past Warren's apartment, on his way without a noise, his boots off, he
continued until he reached the second floor. Here he was baffled again.
Why had he not taken some impression of the pass-key of the negro
attendant when let in before? Yet now he remembered that the man had
never relinquished his hold upon that open sesame. He remembered the
“jimmy”--yet this would betray him, by the broken lock!
There was the servant's entrance, however, in the rear of the hallway.
To this he slipped, even as the elevator passed up bearing Warren and
Shine Taylor, muttering angrily. Shirley found the rear door to the
rooms, and there he worked quickly, forcing the lock. He was soon
inside, and hid himself in the pantry of the darkened apartment. He had
not long to wait.
There was a clicking noise which reverberated through the empty room,
as the other two entered by the front portal. He heard them talking in
whispers, then the creaking of a window, and all was silent again.
Shirley went to the same small window through which he had descended
before. With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from
his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly. He found
the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor. A
block of wood held it back from the jamb.
“He is prepared for a quick retreat. So shall I be,” thought Shirley,
as he noiselessly crept into the chamber, after having drawn away the
wooden block. He let the door come gently to its frame, stopping it
within an inch of its lock. As he turned slightly forward he caught two
curious silhouettes: Warren at his table, with Shine at his side, their
outlines clear and black against the brightness of the headlights.
On, the other side of the transparent screen stood a man, with one
eye blackened, his face badly bruised and wicked in its battered
condensation of evil determination with rage and fright, so oddly mixed.
“It ain't my fault, Chief! There are only six of the boys left. I tried
me best but this little Chinyman he soaks me one on the lamp, with a
gun butt. Me pal was nabbed in the room when I sneaks out on the rope. I
finds out afterward that Jimmie's watch must-a been about twenty minutes
slow. That's how we misses.”
“But you didn't get him, and I'm going to break you for this!”
“But gov'nor, listen--we leaves the machine all right. That'll git 'im
anyway. What'll I do?”
“I have the addresses of the other men here in my pocket. You tell them
to stick right in their rooms for the next twenty-four hours. If they
don't hear anything from me, tell them to go to Frisco by roundabout
ways and I'll forward their money, care of Kelso. Now get out.”
The man disappeared and there was a double click as the door to the
front compartment closed. Warren turned toward Taylor, While Shirley
flattened himself against the rear wall, and crouched down slowly,
without a betraying sound.
“I don't understand that girl not being there. Some one's closing in on
us. I'm going to break that girl's spirit before I'm through. She'll be
on the yacht tonight, for everything's ready now. What sort of a machine
did you arrange for his room?”
“The old telephone one we worked in Oakland. It is under his bed. I told
the men to do that first before they went through his things. Then it
would look like plain robbery, and when he goes to take the receiver
off the hook it's 'good-night, nursey!' That little popper will blow the
roof off that club house!”
Shirley's blood might have run cold at the calm pride of this degenerate
fiend, had it not been boiling at the reference to Helene. He crept
nearer to them, along the wall. He lay down on the floor, below the
level of the first bullet paths. Then he drew his automatic and the bulb
light, ready for his surprise.
“I'll call up Kick Brown at the telephone company. He's on duty until
twelve. That's an hour yet.”
He placed the plug in position but there came no answer over his private
wire. Warren cursed: this time in a dialect unknown to Shirley. The man
was asserting his most primitive nature now.
“What does that mean? He knows that it's important to-night. I wonder if
some one has squealed. You know what I said upstairs, Shine?” Warren's
voice was ominous. “I don't like the looks of things. And you're the
only one who has ever known the inside working of my system. I've even
told you the key to my code--Phil knows it in part, but there is nothing
I've kept from you.”
Here Shirley's dramatic instinct asserted itself. In a sepulchral voice,
he spoke: “One key to the right, in writing. One to the left to read.
Hands up, Warren, you're wanted in Paris, and we have the goods on you!”
Placing the bulb light far to his left, he twisted the little catch
which kept it glowing permanently. The light fell full on the face of
Warren and Taylor as they sprang up back to back!
“Drop that revolver. It's all up now. You go to the chair for these
murders.”
Warren shot for the body he supposed to be above the little light. As he
did so Shirley sent a bullet into the arch criminal's right wrist.
The weapon dropped from his hand to the table. Shine Taylor,
terror-stricken, staggered against his companion, groping for support.
Warren misunderstood it: he thought his assistant was trying to hold
him. The swift interpretation gave new fuel to the flame of mistrust
which had sprung up in his heart. He knew not how many men were
about him--he merely realized that his crafty plans had been set at
naught,--there could be only this one explanation. He struck at Taylor,
who moaned in pain.
“You cur, you've squealed on me!” With his uninjured left hand he caught
the other in his Oriental death grip, with all his consummate skill.
Astonished at the sudden move, Shirley rose to his feet. But he
hesitated too long.
With a faint gurgle, Shine Taylor, pickpocket, mechanical artist and
criminal genius sank to the mouldy ground of the cellar--lifeless!
Shirley snatched up the light, instinctively throwing its rays upon the
face of the dead man. It was horrible to see this ghastly ending of the
miserable life, so suddenly conceived and grewsomely executed! Here was
Warren's opportunity. He caught up his weapon from the table with the
left hand, and sent a shot at the intruder, leaping at the same time
toward the rear entrance. Monty swung the light about, but the other
threw on an electric switch. He stood by the iron portal a fiendish
smirk on his distorted features.
“So, my luck is good after all: I've got you where I most want you!” His
weapon covered Shirley's. “I shoot as well with my left hand as with
my right. But, no, I won't shoot you. I'll put you away without a
trace left. That is always the clever way. I told you that the average
criminal was too careless about little things. Good-bye, Mr. Montague
Shirley, I wish you a pleasant journey!”
His hand, bleeding from the bullet wound, was pushing the iron door,
behind him as he faced Shirley. Suddenly a frightful sound broke the
stillness: it was the final exhalation of air from the dead man's lungs.
It sent a creeping chill through Shirley's blood. Warren's right hand
dropped, nervously for an instant, despite his resolution. In that
second Shirley had brought his own weapon up to a level with the other's
eyes.
The door closed with a clang!
Warren's face lost its sneering smile. He was locked in from the rear!
“Now, let's see you get out the front way,” retorted the criminologist.
He had one hand behind him. He felt a metal contrivance, With three
buttons on it. He thought perhaps it were the controlling switch for
the lights. He would take his chances in the dark. He pressed all three
quickly.
There was a clang from the front, as some mechanism whirred for an
instant. A gong sounded above, and scurrying feet could be heard--then
were audible no more. It was the warning alarm for the gangsters: they
had fled.
Suddenly to Shirley's straining ears came the tick-ticking of an alarm
clock, from the corner of the room to his right. He dare not look at it.
Warren's eyes grew black with the Great Fear!
“You fool, you've locked all the entrances, and sent the men away. That
clock will ring in exactly five minutes. When it does, this place will
go up from a load of lyddite. You've dug your own grave!”
Warren's voice was hoarse, and his bright eyes radiated venomously, as
he kept his weapon pointed, like Shirley's, at the face opposite. They
were both prisoners in the death cellar, with the advantage in favor of
neither!
And the ticking clock, with its maddening, mechanical death chant
seemed to Shirley to cry, with each beat, like the reminiscence of some
nightmare barbershop: “Next! Next! Next!”