And there P. Sybarite stood, near the middle of a fence-enclosed area
of earth and flagstones; winded and weary; looking up and all around
him in distressed perplexity; in a stolen coat (to be honest about it)
and with six months' income from a million dollars unlawfully procured
and secreted upon his person; wanted for resisting arrest and
assaulting the minions of the law; hounded by a vengeful and
determined posse; unacquainted with his whereabouts, ignorant of any
way of escape from that hollow square, round whose sides window after
excitable window was lighting up in his honour; all in all, as
distressful a figure of a fugitive from justice as ever was on land or
sea....
Conceiving the block as a well a-brim with blackness and clamorous
with violent sound, studded on high with inaccessible, yellow-bright
loopholes wherefrom hostile eyes spied upon his every secret movement,
and haunted below by vicious perils both animate and still: he found
himself possessed of an overpowering desire to go away from there
quickly.
But--short of further dabbling in crime--_how_?
To break his way to the street through one of those houses would he
not only to invite apprehension: it would be downright burglary.
To continue his headlong career of the fugitive backyards tom-cat was
out of the question, entirely too much like hard work, painful into
the bargain--witness scratched and abraded palms and agonised shins.
Sooner or later his strength must fail, some one would surely espy him
and cry on the chase, he must be surrounded and overwhelmed: while to
hide behind some ash-barrel was not only ignoble but downright
fatuous: faith the most sublime in his _Kismet_ couldn't excuse any
hope that, eventually, he wouldn't be discovered and ignominiously
routed out.
Very well, then! So be it! Calmly P. Sybarite elected to venture
another and deeper dive into amateurish malfeasance; and gravely he
studied the inoffensive building whose back premises he was then
infesting.
It seemed to offer at least the negative invitation of desuetude. It
showed no lights; had not an open window--so far as could be
determined by straining sight aided only by a faint reflection from
the livid skies. One felt warranted in assuming the premises to be
vacant. Encouraging surmise! If such were in fact the case, he might
hope soon to be counting his spoils in the privacy of his
top-floor-hall-bedroom, back....
At the same time, to one ignorant of the primary principles of
house-breaking, the problem of negotiating an entrance was of
formidable proportions.
To break a basement window was feasible, certainly--but highly
inadvisable for a number of obvious reasons.
To force a window-latch required (if memory served) a long flat-bladed
knife--a kitchen knife; and P. Sybarite happened to have no such
implement about him.
Similarly, to pry open the back door would require the services of a
jimmy (whatever that might be).
Moreover, there were such things as burglar alarms--inventions of the
devil!
On the other hand, unless his senses deceived him, there were police
officers in plenty only a fence or two away; and the back of this
house boasted a fire-escape. By inverting a convenient ash-can and
standing on it, an active man might possibly, if sufficiently
desperate, manage to jump a vertical yard (more or less), catch the
lowermost grating of the fire-escape, and draw himself up.
In a thought P. Sybarite turned the galvanised iron cylinder
bottom-up, clambered upon it, and on tiptoe sought to gauge the exact
distance of the requisite leap. But now the grating seemed to have
receded at least three feet from its position as first judged--to be
hopelessly removed from the grasp of his yearning fingers.
Yet that mad attempt must be made. Why die fighting when a broken neck
would serve as well?
Gathering his slight person together, P. Sybarite crouched, quivered,
jumped for glory and the Saints--and all but brained himself on that
impish and trickish grating. Clutching it and kicking footloose, he
was stunned by the wonder of many brilliant new-born constellations
swirling round his poor head to the thunderous music of the spheres,
as rendered by the ash-can which, displaced by the vigour of his
acrobatics, had toppled over and was rolling and clattering hideously
on the flagging.
In his terrified bosom P. Sybarite felt the heart of him turn to cold
and clammy stone.
No clamour more infernal could well have been improvised, given
similar circumstances and facilities as rude. It seemed hours, rather
than instants, that the damned thing wallowed and bellowed beneath
him, raising a din to disturb all Christendom. While, the moment it
was still, the cries of the police pack belled clear and near at hand:
"This way, b'ys!"
"There he is, the--"
"Got 'im now--"
"Halt or--!"
Another pistol shot!...
Glancing over shoulder, the hunted man caught a glimpse of uncouth
shapes wriggling along a fence ridge several rods away. No more than
the barest glimpse, it served: with a mighty heave and wriggle he
breasted the lower platform, shifted a hand to the top of its railing,
heaved himself up to a foothold, and swarmed up the iron ladder with
an agility an ape might have envied.
But as he mounted, it grew momentarily more evident that the stage
thunder manufactured by that wretched galvanised iron cylinder had, in
fact, served him far from ill; reverberating from wall to wall within
the hollow of the block, its dozen echoes diverted pursuit to as many
quarters, luring the limbs of the law every way but the right one.
Nobody, it appeared, was alert enough to espy that fugacious shadow on
the fire-ladder. And in less than a brace of minutes P. Sybarite, at
the top, was pulling himself gingerly over the lip of a stone coping.
Surmising that he had gained not the roof of the house but that of a
two-story rear extension, he found himself in what seemed a small
roof-garden, made private by awnings and Venetian blinds. Between his
soles and the stone flooring he could feel the yielding texture of a
grass mat, and he could not only dimly discern but also smell the
perfume of green things in pots here and there. And his first step
forward brought him into soft collision with a wicker basket-chair.
He paused and took thought in perturbation.
A most disappointing and deceptive sort of a house--inhabited, after
all: its sombre and quiet aspect masking Heaven alone knew what
pitfalls!...
Not a glint of light, not a sound....
When he moved again, it was with scrupulous caution.
Stealing softly on, the darkness seemed to thicken round him. He was
sensible of suspense and qualms, of creeping flesh and an almost
irresistible inclination to hold his breath. Uncanny business,
this--penetrating unknown fastnesses of a dark and silent house at
dead of night: a trespasser unable to surmise when the righteous
householder, lurking on familiar ground and vigilant under arms, might
not open fire....
Nevertheless, the police behind him were a menace of known calibre.
With whatever shrinkings and dire misgivings, P. Sybarite went on.
Without misadventure he gained the main wall of the house, and there
found open windows and (upon further cautious investigation) a
doorway, likewise wide to the bland night air. Hesitant on the
threshold of this last he sought with impotent senses to probe
impenetrable obscurity--listening, every nerve taut and vibrant, for
some sound significant of human tenancy, and detecting never an one.
In spite of this, it was without the least confidence that presently
he plucked up heart to proceed....
Three steps on into darkness, and his knee found a chair that might
have poised itself on one leg, in malicious ambush, so promptly did it
go over--and with what a racket.
Incontinently something rustled quite near at hand; followed a
click--blinding light--a shrill, excited voice:
"Hands up!"
With a jerk, up went his hands high above his head. Blinking furiously
in the glare, he comprehended his plight.
The lights he found so dazzling blazed from sconces round the walls of
a bedroom more handsome than any he had thought ever to see--unless
perhaps upon a stage. The voice belonged to a young woman sitting up
in bed and coolly covering him with the yawning muzzle of a peculiarly
poisonous-looking automatic pistol.
It was astonishingly evident that she wasn't at all frightened. The
arm that levelled the weapon (a round and shapely arm, bare to the
shoulder) was admirably steady; the rich colouring of her distinctly
handsome face showed not a trace of pallor; and the fire that
flickered in her large and darkly beautiful eyes was of indignation
rather than of fear.
Abruptly she dropped her weapon and sat up yet straighter in her
huddled bed-clothing, mouth and eyes widening with astonishment.
"Well!" she said quite simply--"I'll be damned if it ain't a cop!"
P. Sybarite immediately took occasion to lower his hands to a more
comfortable position.
Fright inspired his latent histrionic genius; momentarily he became
almost a good actor.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently. "You're the one woman in a
thousand who knows enough to look before she shoots! _Phwew!_"
[Illustration: "You're the one woman in a thousand who knows enough to
look before she shoots!"]
Quite naturally he drew a braided blue cuff across a beaded forehead.
"That's all very well," the woman took him up sharply--"but be careful
I don't shoot after looking. Cop or no cop, you--what the devil do you
want in my bedroom at this hour of the night?"
"Madam," P. Sybarite expostulated, aggrieved yet with an air of the
utmost candour--"my duty, of course!"
"Duty!" she echoed. "What do you think you mean by that?"
"Perhaps," he countered blandly, "you're not aware a burglar has
passed through this room?"
"A burglar? What rot!"
"Pardon me, madam," P. Sybarite lied nonchalantly, "but five minutes
ago I was called in by the people in Two-thirty-three Forty-fifth
Street, to nab a burglar who'd broken in there. They thought they had
him locked up safe enough in one of the rooms, but when they came to
open the door and let _me_ at him--the bird had flown! He'd taken a
long chance--swung himself from the window-ledge to a fire-escape five
feet away--don't ask _me_ how he did it! I got to the window just in
time to see him go over the back fence. You heard me take a shot at
him? No?"
"No, I didn't," said the woman in a manner eloquent of positive
incredulity.
"Well, _any_way," P. Sybarite went on with elaborate ease, "I saw this
man climb your fire-escape and so I came after him."
The woman frowned as she weighed this likely story; and P. Sybarite
was at pains to conceal any exultation he may have felt over the
prompt response of his vivid imagination to the call of exigence.
Would she or wouldn't she accept that wildly fanciful yarn of his? For
moments that, brief though they must have been, seemed intolerably
protracted, he awaited her verdict in the extremest anxiety--not,
however, neglecting to employ the respite thus afforded him to make
another quick survey of the room and a second and more shrewd
appraisal of its admirably self-possessed tenant.
A bit too florid and ornate--he concluded--woman and lodgings alike
were somewhat overdone. A superabundance of gilt and pink marred the
colour scheme of the apartment; and there was ostentatious evidence of
wealth lavishly expended on its furnishings. An overpowering
voluptuousness of silken clothing dressed the bed itself.
But if her setting were luxurious, the woman outshone it tenfold with
the dark splendour of her animal beauty. As comely and as able-bodied
as a young pantheress, she was (one judged) little less dangerous--as
vital, as self-centred, as deadly. Sitting up in bed, openly careless
of charms hardly concealed by nightwear of sheer silk lace and _crêpe
de Chine_, she looked P. Sybarite up and down with wide eyes overwise
in the ways of life, shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol
with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing
sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the
phraseology of convention--swearing without the least affectation,
slanging heartily when slang best suited her humour....
"Maybe you're telling the truth, at that," she announced suddenly,
eyes coldly unprepossessed. "You sound fishy as all-hell, and God
_knows_ you're the sickest-looking cop I ever laid eyes on; but there
are less unlikely things than that a second-story man should try this
route for his getaway.... Well!" she demanded urgently--"what're you
standing there for, like a stone man?"
"My dear lady--!" expostulated the dismayed P. Sybarite.
"Can the fond stuff and get busy. What're you going to do?"
"What am I--? What--ah--do you wish me to do?"
"If you're a cop, go to it--cop somebody," she replied with a brusque
laugh--"and then clear out. I can use the room and time you're
occupying. Besides, while you stand there staring as if you'd never
seen a good-looking woman in a nightgown before, you're slipping the
said burglar a fine young chance to make the front door--unless he's
under the bed."
"Under the bed?" stammered the masquerader.
"You said something then," the woman snapped. "Why not look?"
Mechanically obedient to her suggestion, down P. Sybarite plumped on
his knees, lifted the silken valance at the foot of the bed, and
pretended to explore the darkness thereunder--finding precisely what
he had anticipated, that is to say, nothing.
While thus occupied (and badgering his addled wits to invent some
plausible way to elude this Amazon) he was at once startled and still
further dismayed to hear the bed-springs creak, a light double thump
as two bare feet found the floor, and again the woman's voice
flavoured with acid sarcasm.
"You seem to find it interesting down there. Is it the view? Or are
you trying to hypnotise your burglar by the well-known power of the
human eye?"
"It's pure and simple reverence for the proprieties," P. Sybarite
replied without stirring, "keeps me emulating the fatuous ostrich. I
don't pretend it's comfortable, but I, believe me, madam, am a plain
man, of modest tastes, unaccustomed to--"
"Get up!" the lady interrupted peremptorily. "I guess your regard for
the proprieties won't suffer any more than my fair name. Come out of
that and hunt burglars like a good little cop."
"But who am I," pleaded the little man, "to gaze unblinded upon the
sun?"
"That," said the lady, smothering a giggle, "will be about _all_ from
you. Get up--or I'll call in a sure-enough cop to search your title to
that uniform."
Hastily P. Sybarite withdrew his head and rose. An embarrassed glance
askance comforted him measurably: the lady had thrown an exquisite
negligee over her nightdress and had thrust her pretty feet into
extravagantly pretty silken mules.
"Now," said she tersely, "we'll comb the premises for this burglar of
yours: and if we don't find him"--her lips tightened, her brows
clouded ominously--"I promise you an interesting time of it!"
"I'm vastly diverted as it is--truly I am!" protested P. Sybarite,
ruefully eyeing the lady's pistol. "But there 's really no need to
disturb yourself: I'm quite competent to take care of any
housebreaker--"
"That," she broke in, "is something you'll have to show me.... Where's
your nightstick?"
"My--er--what?"
"Your nightstick. What've you done with it?"
With consternation P. Sybarite investigated the vacant loop at his
side.
"Must've dropped out while I was shinning over the back fence," he
surmised vaguely. "However, I shan't need it. This"--with a bright and
confident smile displaying Penfield's revolver--"will do just as
well--better, in fact."
"That?" she questioned. "That's not a Police Department gun. Where'd
you--"
"Oh, yes, it is. It's the new pattern--recently adopted. They've just
begun to issue 'em. I got mine to-day--"
The lady's lips curled. "Very well," she concluded curtly. "I don't
believe a word you say, but we'll see. Lead the way--show me one
solitary sign that a burglar has been here--"
"Perhaps you'd prefer me to withdraw from the case?" the little man
suggested with offended dignity. "After all, I may be mistaken--"
"You'd better not be. I warn you, find me a burglar--or"--she added
with unmistakable significance--"I'll find one myself."
Interpreting the level challenge of her glance, P. Sybarite's heart
quaked, his soul curdled, his stomach for picaresque adventure failed
him entirely: anatomically, in short, he was hopelessly disqualified
for his chosen rôle of favourite of _Kismet_, protagonist of this Day
of Days. Withal, there was no use offering resistance to the demands
of this masterful woman; she was patently one to be humoured against a
more auspicious turn of affairs.
He shrugged, gave in with a gesture. Her imperative arm, uplifted,
indicated an inner door.
"Find that burglar!"
"Swell chance I've got to get away with that proposition," he
grumbled. "You've delayed me long enough to let any burglar get clean
away!"
"And you hang back, giving him more time," she cut in. "Lead the way,
now!"
Awed, P. Sybarite grasped his revolver and strode to the door with
much dramatic manner, but paused with a hand on the knob to look over
his shoulder.
The woman was there, not a foot distant, her countenance a mask of
suspicious determination.
"Go on!" she commanded in menacing accents.
He pulled the door open, flung out into the hallway, paused again at
the mouth of the back pit of the stairway.
Behind him the woman snapped a switch; an electric bulb glared out of
the darkness. And P. Sybarite, peering down, started back with a gasp
of amazement that was echoed in his ear.
On the stairs, halfway down, a man was crouching in a posture of
frozen consternation: a small electric pocket-lamp burning brilliantly
in one hand, the other, lifted, grasping a weapon of some curious
sort, in the eyes of P. Sybarite more than anything else like, a small
black cannon: a hatless man in evening clothes, his face half blotted
out by a black mask that, enhancing the brightness of startled eyes
gleaming through its peepholes, left uncovered only his angular
muscular jaw and ugly, twisted mouth.
For a full minute (it seemed) not one of the three so much as drew
breath; while through the haze of dumfounderment in P. Sybarite's
brain there loomed the fact that once again _Kismet_ had played into
his hands to save his face in thus lending material body and substance
to the burglar of his desperate invention.
And then, as if from a heart of agony, the woman at his side breathed
a broken and tortured cry:
"You dog! So it's come to murder, has it?"
As if electrified by that ejaculation, P. Sybarite whipped up
Penfield's revolver and levelled it at the man on the stairs.
"Hands up!" he snapped. "Drop that gun!"
The answer was a singular sound--half a choking cough, half a
smothered bark--accompanied by a jet of fire from the strange weapon,
and coincident with the tinkling of a splintered electric bulb.
Instantly the hall was again drenched in darkness but little mitigated
by the light from the bedroom.
Heedless of consequences, in his excitement, P. Sybarite pulled
trigger. The hammer fell on an empty chamber, rose and fell half a
dozen times without educing any response other than the click of metal
against metal: demonstrating beyond question that the revolver was
unloaded.
From the hand of the marauder another tongue of flame licked out, to
the sound of the same dull, bronchial cough; and a bullet thumped
heavily into the wall beside P. Sybarite.
Enraged beyond measure, he drew back his worthless weapon and threw it
with all his might. And _Kismet_ winged the missile to the firing arm
of the assassin. With a cry of pain and anger, this last involuntarily
relaxed his grasp and, dropping his own pistol, stumbled and half
fell, half threw himself down to the next floor.
As this happened, a white arm was levelled over the shoulder of P.
Sybarite.
The woman took deliberate aim, fired--and missed.