The house would have been more in place on the main street of a town
than here in the mountain desert; but when the first John Merchant had
made his stake and could build his home as it pleased him to build, his
imagination harked back to a mid-Victorian model, built of wood, with
high, pointed roofs, many carved balconies and windows, and several
towers. Here the second John Merchant lived with his son Charles, whose
taste had quite outgrown the house.
But to the uneducated eye of Andrew Lanning it was a great and dignified
building. He reined the pinto under the trees to look up at that tall,
black mass. It was doubly dark against the sky, for now the first
streaks of gray light were pale along the eastern horizon, and the house
seemed to tower up into the center of the heavens. Andy sighed at the
thought of stealing through the great halls within. Even if he could
find an open window, or if the door were unlatched, how could he
find the girl?
Another thing troubled him. He kept canting his ear with eternal
expectation of hearing the chorus of many hoofs swinging toward him out
of the darkness. After all, it was not a simple thing to put Bill Dozier
off the trail. When a horse neighed in one of the corrals, Andy started
violently and laid his fingertips on his revolver butt.
That false alarm determined him to make his attempt without further
waste of time. He swung from the stirrups and went lightly up the front
steps. His footfall was a feathery thing that carried him like a shadow
to the door. It yielded at once under his hand, and, stepping through,
he found himself lost in utter blackness.
He closed the door, taking care that the spring did not make the lock
click, and then stood perfectly motionless, listening, probing the dark.
After a time the shadows gave way before his eyes, and he could make out
that he was in a hall with lofty ceiling. Something wound down from
above at a little distance, and he made out that this was the stairway.
Obviously the bedrooms would be in the second story.
Andy began the ascent.
He had occasion to bless the thick carpet before he was at the head of
the stairs; he could have run up if he had wished, and never have made a
sound. At the edge of the second hall he paused again. The sense of
people surrounded him. Then directly behind him a man cleared his
throat. As though a great hand had seized his shoulder and wrenched him
down, Andy whirled and dropped to his knees, the revolver in his hand
pointing uneasily here and there like the head of a snake laboring to
find its enemy.
But there was nothing in the hall. The voice became a murmur, and then
Andy knew that it had been some man speaking in his sleep.
At least that room was not the room of the girl. Or was she, perhaps,
married? Weak and sick, Andy rested his hand against the wall and waited
for his brain to clear. "She won't be married," he whispered to himself
in the darkness.
But of all those doors up and down the hall, which would be hers? There
was no reasoning which could help him in the midst of that puzzle. He
walked to what he judged to be the middle of the hall, turned to his
right, and opened the first door. A hinge creaked, but it was no louder
than the rustle of silk against silk.
There were two windows in that room, and each was gray with the dawn,
but in the room itself the blackness was unrelieved. There was the one
dim stretch of white, which was the covering of the bed; the furniture,
the chairs, and the table were half merged with the shadows around them.
Andy slipped across the floor, evaded a chair by instinct rather than by
sight, and leaned over the bed. It was a man, as he could tell by the
heavy breathing; yet he leaned closer in a vain effort to make surer by
the use of his eyes.
Then something changed in the face of the man in the bed. It was an
indescribable change, but Andrew knew that the man had opened his eyes.
Before he could straighten or stir, hands were thrown up. One struck at
his face, and the fingers were stiff; one arm was cast over his
shoulders, and Andy heard the intake of breath which precedes a shriek.
Not a long interval--no more, say, than the space required for the lash
of a snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself--but in that interim
the hands of Andy were buried in the throat of his victim.
His fingers, accustomed to the sway and quiver of eight-pound hammers
and fourteen-pound sledges, sank through the flesh and found the
windpipe. And the hands of the other grappled at his wrists, smashed
into his face. Andy could have laughed at the effort. He jammed the shin
of his right leg just above the knees of the other, and at once the
writhing body was quiet. With all of his blood turned to ice, Andy
found, what he had discovered when he faced the crowd in Martindale,
that his nerves did not jump and that his heart, instead of trembling,
merely beat with greater pulses. Fear cleared his brain; it sent a
tremendous nervous power thrilling in his wrists and elbows. All the
while he was watching mercilessly for the cessation of the struggles.
And when the wrenching at his forearms ceased he instantly relaxed
his grip.
For a time there was a harsh sound filling the room, the rough intake of
the man's breath; he was for the time being paralyzed and incapable of
any effort except the effort to fill his lungs. By the glint of the
metal work about the bits Andy made out two bridles hanging on the wall
near the bed. Taking them down, he worked swiftly. As soon as the fellow
on the bed would have his breath he would scream. Yet the time sufficed
Andy; he had his knife out, flicked the blade open, and cut off the long
reins of the bridles. Then he went back to the bed and shoved the cold
muzzle of his revolver into the throat of the other.
There was a tremor through the whole body of the man, and Andy knew that
at that moment the senses of his victim had cleared.
He leaned close to the ear of the man and whispered: "Don't make no loud
talk, partner. Keep cool and steady. I don't aim to hurt you unless you
play the fool."
Instantly the man answered in a similar whisper, though it was broken
with panting: "Get that coat of mine out the closet. There--the door is
open. You'll find my wallet in the inside pocket and about all you can
want will be in it."
"That's the way," reassured Andy. "Keep your head and use sense. But it
isn't the coin I want. You've got a red-headed girl in this house.
Where's her room?"
His hand which held the revolver was resting on the breast of the man,
and he felt the heart of the other leap. Then there was a current of
curses, a swift hissing of invective. And suddenly it came over Andy
that since he had killed one man, as he thought, the penalty would be no
greater if he killed ten. All at once the life of this prostrate fellow
on the bed was nothing to him.
When he cut into that profanity he meant what he said. "Partner, I've
got a pull on this trigger. There's a slug in this gun just trembling to
get at you. And I tell you honest, friend, I'd as soon drill you as turn
around. Now tell me where that girl's room is?"
"Anne Withero?" Only his breathing was heard for a moment. Then: "Two
doors down, on this side of the hall. If you lay a hand on her I'll
live to--"
"Partner, so help me heaven, I wouldn't touch a lock of her hair. Now
lie easy while I make sure of you."
And he promptly trussed the other in the bridle reins. Out of a
pillowcase folded hard he made a gag and tied it into the mouth of the
man. Then he ran his hands over the straps; they were drawn taut.
"If you make any noise," he warned the other, "I'll come back to find
out why. S'long."