it afforded of inspecting these few mementos, interesting as they might
be. It was an excellent safeguard to change his clothes, but it would
avail him very little if—well, any one, say—were still permitted to
recognise—his face! From the top of the tray, where it lay upon the
packages of banknotes that had once reposed in the paymaster's safe,
the Hawk picked up a mask and slipped it into his pocket. He fitted the
false tray back into the lid of the trunk, closed the trunk, locked it,
put on a wide-brimmed, soft felt hat, locked the door of his room behind
him, descended the narrow staircase, and stepped out on the street.
His destination was the Corona Hotel, but there was no particular hurry.
Undoubtedly from the moment the Frenchman had left the train some,
or one, of the gang had fastened on the man's trail; but the
companionship of the Selkirk physician guaranteed the Frenchman's
immediate safety. His own plan, as far as it was matured, was very
simple. He meant to “spot” if he could, should that particular
member, or members, of the gang be unknown to him personally, the man,
or men, selected by the Wire Devils to shadow the Frenchman—and then
watch the gang! The Hawk had no intention whatever of making an attempt
on the Frenchman's property with the gang watching him—that would
have been little less than the act of a fool who was bent on suicide!
Since, therefore, he had no choice in the matter, he was quite content
to have the gang take the initiatory risk in relieving the Frenchman of
the handbag! After that—the Hawk's old twisted smile was back on his
lips as he walked along—after that it became his business to see that
the bag did not get very far out of his sight!
He reached and crossed the city park upon which the Corona Hotel
fronted, entered the hotel, and, sauntering leisurely through the
lobby, approached the desk. He glanced casually over the register; then,
lighting a cigar, he selected a chair near the front windows where he
could command a general view of the lobby, and sat down.
Doctor Meunier's room was Number 106.
Once the Hawk's eyes lazily surveyed the lobby; thereafter they
appeared to be intent on what was passing in the street. He was in luck!
The first trick, at least, had gone to him. Lolling in a chair near the
elevator doors, and apparently drowsy from a heavy luncheon, was—the
Bantam. The Hawk smoked on. Half an hour went by. The Bantam appeared to
awaken with a start, smiled sheepishly about him, went over to the news
stand, bought a paper—and returned to his seat. The Hawk finished his
cigar, rose, strolled to the main entrance, and went out. The Bantam
could be safely trusted to see that Doctor Meunier did not vanish into
thin air! He would do the like for the Bantam! He crossed over into the
park.
The Hawk chose a bench—strategically. Sheltered by a row of trees, he
had the corner upon which the hotel was built diagonally before him,
and could see both the side entrance on the cross street and the front
entrance on the main thoroughfare.
The Hawk's vigil, however, was not immediately rewarded. An hour
passed—and yet another—and the greater portion of the afternoon.
Five o'clock came. A newsboy passed, crying the Evening Journal. The
Hawk bought one. A headline in heavy type on the front page instantly
caught his eye: ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN A LEAD CAPSULE
And beneath this, still in assertive type:
Famous French Surgeon en route to Japan with Fortune in Radium Misses
Connections Through Destruction of Railroad Bridge.
Offers Company Large Sum of Money for Special Train to the Coast.
“Yes,” observed the Hawk caustically, “and even if I hadn't
known anything about it before, I'd have had a look-in thanks to this!
Sting you, wouldn't it! The papers hand you a come-on—and then they
wonder at crime!”
The “story” itself ran a column and a half. The Hawk began to
read—or, rather, to divide his attention between the story and the
hotel entrances. The reporter had certainly set out with the intention
of overlooking no detail that could be turned to account. His meeting
and conversation with the Frenchman in the car were breezily set forth;
the member of a “prominent family” in Japan artfully disguised, or,
perhaps better, disclosed no less august a personage than the Emperor
himself; the value of radium, both intrinsically and scientifically, was
interestingly dealt with; and the surgeon's black handbag, with its
priceless contents, was minutely described and featured.
The Hawk had reached this point, when suddenly the newspaper and the
reporter's version of the story lost interest for him. Doctor Meunier,
gripping his little black handbag tenaciously, had stepped out through
the main entrance of the hotel, and was walking briskly down the street.
A moment later, the Bantam sauntered through the doorway and started in
the same direction, a hundred yards behind the Frenchman. The Hawk, with
a grim smile, folded his paper, stuffed it into his pocket, rose from
the bench, crossed the street, and fell into the procession—a hundred
yards behind the Bantam.
It was still light, though it was beginning to grow dusk—too light
for any highway thuggery, and yet—the Hawk gradually closed the gap
between himself and the Bantam to half the original distance.
The chase led on for a half dozen blocks, then turned into one of the
crowded streets of the shopping district, and proceeded in a downtown
direction. And then, abruptly, the Hawk dropped further behind the
Bantam again, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk. It was perhaps
only fancy, but intuitively he felt that he, too, in turn, was being
followed. His hat brim, hiding his face, was pulled a little farther
forward over his eyes, as he hurried now until he was abreast of the
Frenchman. Intuition or not, it was quite possible and even likely that
one of the gang might “cover” the Bantam.
The Hawk scowled. He could not be sure; and he dared not put it to more
than a casual test, for he could not afford to lose sight of the Bantam.
He paused, took a slip of paper from his pocket, and, as though having
consulted it for an address, appeared to scan the signs and numbers on
the stores in his immediate vicinity. The Frenchman had passed by; the
Bantam was directly opposite to him now across the street. The Hawk's
keen eyes searched the stream of pedestrians behind the Bantam. And
then suddenly he shrugged his shoulders, and returned the paper to his
pocket—a man, in a light suit and brown derby hat, had stepped out
of the crowd, and was leisurely lighting a cigarette in a doorway just
across from where he, the Hawk, stood.
The Hawk went on, but keeping in the rear of the Bantam now on the
opposite side of the street. He was still not sure; but, in any case,
neither could the man in the brown derby be sure that he, the Hawk, was
following the Bantam. So far then, granted that he was being followed,
it was an even break!
At the next crossing the Frenchman accosted a policeman, and, as though
he had received directions, at once turned down the cross street. The
Hawk, as he followed, smiled grimly. The cross street automatically
verified the suspicions of the man in the brown derby—if the man in
the brown derby had any suspicions to verify; but, at one and the same
time, it also answered the Hawk's own question.
The Hawk, in turn, made use of a doorway. He could afford to allow the
Bantam, temporarily, the lead of an extra half block now, for there were
fewer people on the cross street and he would still be able to keep the
other in sight. A minute, two, elapsed—and then the Hawk picked up the
Bantam's trail again. The man in the brown derby hat had passed by the
corner and continued on along the main street.
And yet still the Hawk was not satisfied. And it was not until after
he had repeated the same manouvre some four or five times, as the
Frenchman, leading, turned into different streets, that he was finally
convinced that neither the man in the brown derby hat, nor any one else,
was interested in his movements.
The chase, since leaving the main street, had wound its way through the
less populous wholesale district—it ended at the railway station.
The Frenchman passed along the front of the building, and disappeared
through the doorway leading upstairs to the divisional offices, his
object being, it now appeared obvious, to obtain another interview with
the superintendent; the Bantam disappeared inside the main entranceway
of the station, evidently to await the Frenchman's reappearance; and
the Hawk, on the far side of the street, slipped into the lane that had
served him many times as a thoroughfare between the station and his room
over the saloon two blocks away.
It was growing dark now. A half hour went by. Still the Hawk crouched
in the shadow of the building that bordered the lane. The street lights
went on. The six o'clock whistle blew from the shops over across the
tracks. Either the Frenchman was a visitor not easy to get rid of, or
Lanson was out and the other was awaiting the superintendent's return.
But the Hawk's patience was infinite.
Another fifteen minutes dragged away; then the office door opened, the
Frenchman emerged, and started back uptown. The Bantam appeared from
the main entranceway, and started after him. The chase was on again. The
Hawk followed.
The Frenchman, seemingly sticking to rule of thumb and following the
directions he had received on the way down, took exactly the same
route on the way back. But now the neighborhood presented an entirely
different aspect. The wholesale houses were closed; the streets
deserted, dark, and poorly lighted.
The Hawk hugged the shadows of the buildings craftily on the opposite
side of the street. Was it coming now? Certainly the gang would go
far before finding a more ideal opportunity, and the Bantam, if he had
realised that fact, could easily have sent, or telephoned, a message
from the station. He, the Hawk, had not cared to take the risk of
following the Bantam inside—the Bantam might remember having seen him
in the hotel lobby.
And then the Hawk's lips thinned. Yes—it was the old, old game! They
were on the cross street, a little less than a block distant from the
main street ahead. The Bantam began to close up on the Frenchman.
The Hawk now, crouching low, slipped almost literally from doorway to
doorway. Two men, apparently drunk and quarrelling, were coming down the
block toward the Frenchman. The Bantam closed to within a few yards of
his quarry. The brawl attained its height as the two men reached the
Frenchman. One man struck the other. They clenched, and, smashing into
the Frenchman knocked him down. His hat flew in one direction, the
handbag in another. The brawlers curiously did not resume their quarrel,
but lounged a few paces away—within call of the Bantam. The Hawk,
squeezed in his doorway directly opposite the scene, kept his eyes on
the Bantam. If the play had lacked originality before, it did not lack
it now! The Bantam stooped, picked up the handbag, and, as he stooped
again for the hat, slipped the handbag under his coat, and slipped
another bag—evidently a carefully prepared duplicate—out from under
his coat and into his hand. The Frenchman was rising dazedly to his
feet. The Bantam stepped hurriedly forward, holding out hat and bag.
“I hope you're not hurt, sir,” the Hawk heard him say—and then
the two moved on together toward the corner.
The Hawk shook his shoulders in a queer, almost self-apologetic sort of
way, as he followed again. And then he smiled as queerly. The Bantam had
the bag now, and, if he, the Hawk, were permitted to hazard an opinion,
the Wire Devils had very kindly picked the fruit again for him to eat!
At the corner, the Bantam shook hands with the Frenchman, and, stepping
out into the street, signalled an approaching car. Quick, alert on the
instant, the Hawk, safe in the protection of the crowded sidewalk,
moved swiftly along in the direction that the car would take, his eyes
searching the street on both sides for a taxicab. The street car passed
him, but stopped at the next corner, and he caught up with it again. And
then, over his shoulder, he saw a taxi coming up behind him. He stepped
from the curb, and stopped it.
“Sorry, sir,” said the chauffeur. “I'm going after a fare.”
“You've got one now—and a good one,” said the Hawk quietly. He
had opened the door—a ten-dollar bill lay in the chauffeur's hand.
“Yes, but look here, sir,” said the chauffeur, a little dubiously,
“I'll get into trouble for this, and——”
The Hawk had stepped inside, and lowered the window between himself and
the chauffeur.
“Follow that car,” said the Hawk pleasantly. “And while we're on
the crowded streets don't get so far behind it that you can't close
up near enough to see who gets off every time it stops. And don't
worry about your trouble—there's another ten coming on top of the
regular fare. That's good enough, isn't it?”
“I guess I'm not kicking!” admitted the chauffeur. The taxi
started forward. He looked back over his shoulder at the Hawk.
“What's the lay? Fly-cop?”
“Maybe!” said the Hawk. “Mind yourself! It's stopping again.
Keep where I can see both sides of the car.”
“I get you!” said the chauffeur. “Leave it to me!”
Block after block was passed, the street car stopping frequently. The
Hawk, in the body of the taxi, knelt behind the chauffeur's back, his
eyes held steadily on the street car ahead. The Bantam did not alight.
The street car began to run out into the suburbs. The taxicab, with
lights out now, risking the city ordinance, dropped back to a more
respectful distance in the rear. The district became less settled, the
houses farther apart; the street lights were single incandescents now,
and these few and far between. There was one passenger left in the
car—the Bantam.
The chauffeur spoke abruptly.
“We're pretty near the end of the line,” he said.
“All right,” the Hawk answered. “Stop when the car stops—keep
about this distance, we're not likely to be noticed.” A moment later
he stepped from the taxi. “Wait for me here!” he directed.
The Bantam, leaving the street car, had started off at a sharp pace past
the end of the car line. It was little more than a country road now;
only a house here and there. The Bantam, just discernible in the
darkness, had a lead of perhaps a hundred yards, and the Hawk, moving
stealthily, began to creep nearer, and still nearer, until the hundred
yards were fifty—and then suddenly, with a low muttered exclamation,
he threw himself flat on the ground. The Bantam, abreast of a house from
which there showed a light in the side window, had turned in abruptly
from the road. A glow of light spread out as the front door opened. The
Hawk lay motionless. Then the Bantam entered, and the door was closed
again. A little later, a form appeared at the side window, a hand
reached up, and the shade was drawn.
“Nice respectable neighborhood, too!” observed the Hawk tersely.
“Wonder if it's the lair, and if the Master Spider's in there
now?”
He was creeping forward now across a small lawn. He neared the side
window; it was open, and the shade lacked a tiny, though inviting, space
of reaching to the sill. A murmur of voices came from within. There was
not a sound from the Hawk. And then, from beneath the window, which was
low and not more than four feet from the ground, he raised himself up
cautiously, and suddenly his dark eyes narrowed. It was not the Master
Spider—it was the Butcher, whose treachery had nearly done for him
that night in the paymaster's office, the man whom he had promised
should one day remember!
He could hear now, and he could see. It was a sitting room such as
one might find anywhere in a house whose occupants were in comfortable
circumstances. It was cosily and tastefully furnished. It bore no sign
of criminal affiliation; it was, as it were, a sort of alibi in itself.
A telephone stood on the table beside a pile of magazines, the latter
flanked by an ornamental reading lamp; deep leather lounging chairs
added to the inviting and homelike appearance of the room—the
incongruity was in the Butcher's thin, hatchet-like face, and in the
coarse, vicious features of the short, stocky Bantam, as they faced each
other across the table.
“Where's the others, d'ye say?” demanded the Bantam.
“Out,” said the Butcher. “The chief called 'em an hour ago. I
don't know what's up. I guess you and I keep house here to-night;
he said you were to stay. Mouser and Jack were to report to Kirschell,
weren't they?”
“Yes, that's what they said.”
“Well, all right!” The Butcher shrugged his shoulders. “That's
none of our hunt. I suppose you got it, didn't you—or you wouldn't
be here?”
“Sure, I got it!” answered the Bantam. “What d'ye think?”
“Let's have a look,” said the Butcher eagerly. “The chief says
we can cash in on it for fifty thousand.”
“Fifty thousand!” The Bantam growled, as he unbuttoned his coat,
and, taking out the bag, laid it on the table. “I thought it was worth
a hundred thousand!”
“So it is.” The Butcher was opening the bag. “But it's no cinch
to turn it into money without a big split—savvy?”
The Butcher opened the lead box, took out the lead cylinder, and
balanced it speculatively in the palm of his hand.
The Bantam regarded it distrustfully.
“It don't look like fifty cents to me!” he commented finally.
“I know,” said the Butcher facetiously; “but your eyesight's
bum, Bantam! Have any trouble?”
The Bantam grinned.
“Not what you'd notice! After the Mouser and Jack smashed into him,
the poor old boob didn't know what had happened till I was handing him
his hat and the other bag. I guess he bumped his bean kind of hard on
the sidewalk.”
The Butcher nodded approvingly. He was still twisting the lead cylinder
around and around in his hand.
“Say,” suggested the Bantam impatiently, after a moment, “when
you've done chucking it under the chin, put it to bed somewhere, and
if there's any grub in the house lead me to it. I'm hungry!”
“All right!” agreed the Butcher. He replaced the lead cylinder
in its box, and the box in the bag, crossed the room, opened a little
cupboard in the wall opposite the window, laid the bag inside, and
closed the cupboard door again. “Come on!” he said.
XIII—THE MAN WITH THE SCAR
THE two men left the room. The Hawk did not move. He was fingering in
a curiously absent-minded sort of way the edges of the newspaper that
still protruded from his pocket. It was very simple, very easy. The
window was open, the cupboard was not locked, the room was empty, there
were only the Bantam and the Butcher to look out for, and they were in
another part of the house; he had only to lift aside the window
shade, step in, steal across the room, and steal out again—with a
hundred-thou-sand-dollar prize. It was very inviting. It seemed suddenly
as though it were a pressing invitation to enter that room—and never
leave it alive!
Flashing quick through the Hawk's brain now was a résumé of the
afternoon, of each separate and individual occurrence since he had left
the train. Had he, after all, been followed? If so—how? Had the Bantam
been warned? He shook his head, as though impatient with himself. Even
apart from that, what he had begun to suspect now would be thoroughly
logical on the part of the gang. The newspaper supplied the key. He
would unquestionably have seen the newspaper that afternoon, and he
would, apart from being spared several aimless hours in the park, have
done exactly as he had done, and just as unquestionably be where he was
now at this precise moment even if he had not been with the Frenchman on
the train. The newspaper placed him in possession of the same facts
that the Wire Devils possessed. They must know that. They were therefore
justified in assuming that he, quite as rabidly as themselves, would
make an attempt to steal the bag. They knew, in that case, that he would
have discovered that they were already at work; and they knew that, on
a dozen occasions before, that had not prevented him from snatching the
prize they had already counted within their grasp. Were they on their
guard now—or a little more than on their guard! Were they offering
him, on the chance or with the knowledge that he was here now, the
opportunity to snatch another prize—and seeing to it that it was for
the last time!
The Hawk edged back from the window; and, silent as a shadow now,
began to circuit the house. And then suddenly his suspicion became a
certainty. It was only a little thing—a slip—but it was enough. The
Butcher had made a misplay! There was no light in any other window—and
a man did not usually eat in the dark! It was fairly, even painfully,
evident now that the Bantam and the Butcher were in, say, the adjoining
room, waiting for him to enter through that window into their trap.
But there was still the little black bag—and one hundred thousand
dollars! The Hawk's smile was more ominous than pleasant. There were
other ways apart from a window—and even two men, especially if
they were caught napping, had been known to be quite amenable to the
influence of the muzzle of an automatic!
The Hawk found the back door entrance, found it locked—and used a
skeleton key. He was perhaps five minutes in opening the door; but in
those five minutes there was no click of lock as the handle turned by
infinitesimal fractions of an inch, no creak of hinge as the door little
by little swung back and was closed again.
The silence was almost uncanny. It was utter blackness. By feeling out
with his hand he discovered he was in a passageway. He moved along,
guiding himself by the sense of touch against the wall, his weight
balanced and full upon one foot before he lifted the other for the next
step.
It seemed a passage of interminable length, that led on and on through
blackness and silence. In reality he had come possibly thirty feet,
and had passed one door. And then he began to catch the sound of voices
whispering. The whisperings grew more distinct and became low, guarded
tones, as he moved forward—and now he could distinguish words. He
flattened back against the side of the passage. Opposite to him was an
open door; and within the room, instead of blackness now, was a sort of
murky gloom which was created by a ray of light that seeped in through
a partially open door at the far side of the room. The Hawk's fingers
slipped into his pocket—and slipped his mask over his face. He had his
bearings now. The room from which the light came was the baited trap;
the room immediately in front of him was the room from which the trap
was to be sprung! His hand went to his pocket again, and came out
with his automatic. It was their move now. If, when they finally grew
impatient, they went back into the lighted room, or turned on the light
in the room where they were now waiting, they sprang the trap upon
themselves.
Came the Bantam's low growl—and the twitching of the Hawk's jaw
muscles.
“I don't like it, I tell you! Where is he? What's he waiting for?
I know he followed me. You saw him yourself from the front room creeping
across the lawn out there. 'Twouldn't take him all this time to get
in through that window.”
“Aw, shut up!” snarled the Butcher. “You'd give any one the
creeps!”
“That's all right,” whispered the Bantam hoarsely; “but I said
from the start it was a fool game not to cover him close on the way
back, and——”
“Yes—and scare him off!” sneered the Butcher. “There ain't
but one guy that'd pick up that trail—and that's the Hawk. He's
butted in enough, but he's butted in for the last time to-night! The
two of us are aplenty, aren't we? Sure—cover him close on the way
back—and scare him off! D'ye think he's a fool!”
“No, I don't, curse him!” retorted the Bantam. “And if I'd had
my way, I'd have croaked him in broad daylight with a bullet through
his bean, and finished him for keeps the minute Jack spotted him
following me! Instead of that, Jack never even gets a look at his
mug.”
“You're some bright guy!” grunted the Butcher. “We'd have
had a hot chance making a dead man tell us where he'd planted those
diamonds off the Fast Mail, not to speak of a few other little trifles
the swine did us out of!”
“And you think——”
“You bet, I do!” the Butcher cut in viciously. “He'll talk
to-night to save his life—and then I'll toss you, Bantam, if you
like, to see who bumps him off!”
The Hawk's fingers played in a curious, caressing motion over the
stock of the automatic in his hand; the twist on his lips grew a little
harder, a little more merciless.
There was movement in the room now. One of the two, the Bantam
undoubtedly, in growing uneasiness, was moving softly, erratically, up
and down the room. It proved to be the Bantam.