THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE
The Sheriff had gone with his prisoner; Cummings left; and then there
came to me, in the street there before the lock-up, riding with Jim
Edwards in his roadster, a Worth Gilbert I had never known. Quiet he had
been before; but never considerate like this. When I rushed up to him
with my triumph and congratulations, and he put them aside, it was with
a curious gentleness.
"Yes, yes, Jerry; I know. Vandeman turned out to be Clayte." Then,
noticing my bewilderment, "You see, Jim let it slip that Barbara's hurt.
Where is she?" And Edwards leaned around to explain.
"When we came past Capehart's, and she wasn't there, I--"
"Oh, that's only a scratch," I hurried to assure the boy. "Barbara'll be
all right."
"So Jim said," he agreed soberly. "I'm afraid you're both lying to me."
"All right," I climbed in beside him. "We'll go and see. She's up at
your house--waiting for you."
As we headed away for the other end of town, he spoke again, half
interrogatively,
"Vandeman shot her?" and when I nodded. "He's on his way to jail. I'm
out. But I'm the man that's responsible for what's happened to her.
Dragged her into this thing, in the first place. She hated those
concentrating stunts; and I set her to do one at that woman's table. To
help play my game--I risked her life."
I listened in wonder; sidelong, in the dimness, I studied the carriage
of head and shoulders: no diminution of power; but a new use of it. This
was not the crude boy who would knock everybody's plans to bits for a
whim; Worth had found himself; and what a man!
"How does it look for recovering the money, Boyne?" Edwards questioned
as we drove along.
I plunged into the hottest of that stuff Clayte-Vandeman had spilled,
talked fascinatingly, as I thought, for three minutes, and paused to
hear Worth say,
"Who's with Barbara at my house?"
"Mrs. Bowman," I said in despair, and quit right there.
We came into Broad Street a little above the Vandeman bungalow which lay
black and silent, the lights of Worth's house showing beyond. As we
turned the corner, a man jumped up from the shadow of the hedge where
the Vandeman lawn joined the Gilbert place; there was a flash; the
report of a gun; our watchers had flushed some one. I'd barely had time
to say so to the others when there was a second sharp crack, then the
whine of a ricochetting chunk of lead as it zipped from the asphalt to
sing over our heads.
"Beat it!" I yelled. "Stop the car and get to cover!"
Edwards slowed. A moment Worth hung on the running board, peering in the
direction of the sounds. I started to climb out after him. There came
another shot from up ahead, and then a shout. As I tumbled to my feet in
the dark road, Worth had started away on the jump. And I saw then, what
I'd missed before, that the man who had burst from the hedge, was
running zig-zag down the open roadway toward us. He was making his legs
spin, and dodging from side to side as if to duck bullets. Worth headed
straight for him, as though it wasn't plain that some one out of sight
somewhere was making a target of the runner.
Not the kind of a scrap I care for; in a half light you can't tell
friend from foe; but Worth went to it--and what was there to do but
follow? I shouted and blew my whistle, hoping our men would hear, heed,
and let up shooting. At the moment of my doing so, Worth closed with the
man, who dropped something he was carrying, and tackled low, lunging at
the boy's knees, aiming I could see to let Worth dive over and scrape up
the pavement with his face.
No dodging that tackle; it caught Worth square; he even seemed to spring
up for the dive; and somehow he carried his opponent with him to soften
the fall. They came down together in the middle of the hard road with
the shock of a railway collision; rolled over and over like dogs in a
scrap, only there wasn't any growling or yelping. It was deadly quiet;
not for an instant could you tell which was which, or whether the
whirling, pelting tangle of arms and legs was man, beast or devil.
That's why, even when I got near enough, I didn't dare plant a large,
thick-soled boot in the mess.
The fight was up to Worth; nothing else for it. Capehart came rolling
from the hedge where I had seen the pistols flash; Eddie Hughes,
inconceivable in pink puffings, bounded after; Jim Edwards chased up
from his car; but all any of us could do was to run up and down as the
struggle whirled about, and grunt when the blows landed. These sounded
like a pile-driver hitting a redwood butt. Out of the mêlée an arm would
jerk, the fist at the end of it come back to land with a thud--on
somebody's meat.
"Who the devil is it?" I bellowed at Capehart, as the two grappled,
afoot, then down, no knowing who was on top, spinning around in a
struggle where neither boots nor knees were barred.
"He sneaked out of the bungalow just now," Capehart snorted. "We'd
searched the place. Didn't think there was room for a louse to be hid in
it. Got by the boys. I stopped him at the hedge and drove him into the
open. Now Worth's got him. That is Worth, ain't it? Fights like him."
"Yes," I said, "It's Worth." But in my own mind I wasn't sure whether
Worth had the fugitive, or the fugitive had Worth. And Jim Edwards
muttered anxiously, as we skipped and side-stepped along with the fight,
"That fellow may have a knife or a gun."
"Not where he can draw," I said, "or he'd have used it before now." And
Capehart sung out,
"Sure. Leave 'em go. Worth'll fix him."
Edging in too close, I got a kick on the shin from a flying heel, and
was dancing around on one foot nursing the other when I heard sounds of
distress issue from the tangle in the road; somebody was getting breath
in long, gaspy sighs that broke off in grunts when the thud of blows
fell, and merged in the harsh nasal of blood violently dislodged from
nose and throat. For a while they had been up, and swapping punches
face to face, lightning swift. Sounds like boxing, perhaps, but there
wasn't any science about it. Feint? Parry? Footwork? Not on your life!
Each of these two was trying to slug the other into insensibility,
working for any old kind of a knock-out.
I began to be a little nervous for fear the boy I was bringing home from
jail as a peace offering to Barbara might arrive so defaced that she
wouldn't recognize him, when I saw one dark form pull away, leap back,
an arm shoot out like a piston-rod, and with a jar that set my own teeth
on edge, connect with the other man's chin. He went down clawing the
air, crumpled into a bunch of clothes at the side of the road.
"You wanted the Chink, didn't you, Bill?" This was Worth, facing Jim
Edwards's torch, fumbling for his handkerchief. "I heard you, and I
thought you wanted him."
"It's Fong Ling!" bawled Capehart. "Sure we wanted him--and whatever
that was he was carrying. Where is it? Did he drop it?"
"Sort of think he did," Worth was dabbing off his own face with a
gingerly, respectful touch. "I know he dropped some teeth back there in
the road. Saw him spit 'em out. Maybe he left it with them. You might go
and look."
The four of us drifted along the field of battle, Capehart's assistant
having taken charge of the unconscious Chinaman, whom he was frisking
for weapons. Halfway back to the hedge Bill stumbled on something,
picked it up, and dropped it again with a disgusted grunt.
"Nothing but a Chinaboy's keister," he said contemptuously. "Not much
to that. Why in blazes did he run so?"
"Because you were shooting him up, I'd say," Jim Edwards suggested.
"Naw. Commenced to run before we turned loose on him," Bill protested.
"Hello!" I had pounced on the unbelievable thing, and called to Edwards
for his light. "Worth, here's your eight-hundred-thousand-dollar
suitcase!"
"That!" he followed along, dusting himself off, trying out his joints.
"Oh, yes. I left it in my closet, and it disappeared. Told you of it at
the time, didn't I, Jerry?"
"You did not," I sputtered, down on my knees, working away at the
catches. "You never told me anything that would be of any use to us. If
this thing disappeared, I suppose Vandeman stole it to get a piece of
evidence in the Clayte case out of the way."
"Likely." Worth turned, with no further interest, and started toward his
own gate.
"Hi! Come back here," I yelled after him. For the lock gave at that
moment; there, under the pale circle of the electric torch, lay
Clayte-Vandeman's loot!
"My gosh!" mumbled Capehart. "I didn't suppose there was so much money
in the known world."
Eddie Hughes, breathing hard; Jim Edwards, bending to hold the torch;
Capehart, stooping, blunt hands spread on knees, goggle-eyed; my own
fingers shaking as I dragged out my list and attempted to sort through
the stuff--not one of us but felt the thrill of that great fortune
tumbled down there in the open road in the empty night.
But Worth delayed reluctantly at the edge of the shadows, looking with
impatience across his shoulder, eager to be on--to get to Barbara. Yet I
wanted that suitcase to go into the house in his hand; wanted him to be
able to tell his girl that she'd made him a winner in the gamble and the
long chase. Roughly assured that only a few thousands had been used by
Vandeman, I stuck the handles into his fist and trailed along after his
quick strides. Edwards followed me. Laura Bowman opened the door to us;
she stopped Edwards on the porch.
And then I saw my children meet. I hadn't meant to; but after all, what
matter? They didn't know I was on earth. Creation had resolved itself,
for them, into the one man, the one woman.
The suitcase thumped unregarded on the floor. She came to him with her
hands out. He took them slowly, raised them to his shoulders, and her
arms went round his neck.
THE END
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| Transcriber's notes |
| |
| Page 26, word "sowly" changed to "slowly" (Slowly he brought that) |
| |
| Page 26, duplicate "the" deleted (followed it with the other) |
| |
| Page 134, word "inconspicious" changed to "inconspicuous" |
|(inconspicuous eye on Edwards) |
| |
| Page 156, word "expaining" changed to "explaining" (explaining |
| how I'd have run) |
| |
| Page 172, word "Warf" changed to "Wharf" (land me at Fisherman's |
| Wharf) |
| |
| Page 315, word "Los Angles" changed to "Los Angeles" (I bought |
| in Los Angeles) |
| |
| Page 315, word "nonenity" changed to "nonentity" (to deduce that a |
| nonentity) |
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