“Aw, shut up!” snarled the Butcher savagely for the second time.
The Bantam's shadow, as the man paced up and down, passed the doorway,
repassed, and passed again.
“I tell you, I don't like it!” he flung out suddenly.
“Something's wrong! If he's outside the house, he can't see,
anyway. I'm going to take a chance, and——”
There was a click, the light in the passageway went on—then a yell
from the Bantam in the doorway—a lightning spring from the Hawk, as
the other jerked a weapon upward—and the Bantam went down in a heap,
as the Hawk's clubbed weapon caught him on the head. It was quick,
like the winking of an eye. From back in the room, the Butcher sprang
forward for the doorway—and fired—and missed—and the Hawk's
left hand, as they came upon each other, darting out, closed with the
strength of a steel vise on the Butcher's right wrist, and with a
terrific wrench twisted the other's arm halfway around. It was
lighter now in the room—light enough to see. The two forms swayed
strangely—a little apart—the Butcher's body bent over, as though
queerly deformed. Slowly, remorselessly, the Hawk turned the other's
arm in its socket. Sweat sprang to the Butcher's forehead, his face
writhed with pain—and, with a scream of agony, his revolver clattered
to the floor.
“You're breaking it—for God's sake, let go!” he moaned.
The Hawk kicked the revolver to the other side of the room.
“Take the Bantam by the shoulders and drag him into that lighted
room!” The Hawk's tones were flat, unpleasant. “I don't think I
hit him hard enough to take the chance of leaving him there alone!”
The Butcher obeyed—with the muzzle of the Hawk's automatic pressed
persuasively against the small of his back. He left the Bantam in the
middle of the sitting room floor, and himself accepted a chair—at the
Hawk's invitation.
“You again—eh, Butcher?” The Hawk's voice had become a drawl.
With his automatic covering the Butcher, he had backed to the cupboard,
opened it, and was feeling inside with his left hand. “My grateful
thanks, and you'll convey my compliments—the Hawk's, you know—to
our friend—the chief.” He had slipped the little black bag under his
arm, and now his hand was back in the cupboard again; he had felt a ball
of heavy cord there. “Sorry I haven't a phony ten-spot with me—my
card, you know—unpardonable breach of etiquette—really!” He smiled
suddenly. The ball of cord was in his hand, as he advanced toward the
Butcher's chair. He set the little black bag down on the table.
The Butcher seemed to have lost all his characteristic ferocity; the
sharp little ferret eyes rested anywhere but on the Hawk, and on his
face was a sickly grin.
“Stand up!” commanded the Hawk curtly—he was knotting the end
of the cord into a noose. “Now—your hands behind your back—and
together! Thank you!” He slipped the noose over the Butcher's hands,
and began to wind the cord around the other's wrists.
The Butcher winced.
“I'm sorry,” said the Hawk apologetically; “but it's all
I have. The cord is rather thin, and I'm afraid it may cut into
you—not strong enough to allow you any play, you know. And, by the
way, Butcher, I heard the Bantam say that I was spotted on the way
down—I presume he meant on the way down to the station. I'll
be honest and admit I'm disappointed in myself. Would you mind
explaining, Butcher—I was quite convinced there was no one behind
me.”
“There wasn't!” The Butcher risked a sneer. “Mabbe the French
guy was heard telephoning to the station, and the Bantam passed on the
word. Nobody had to follow behind. All there was to do, knowing where
the Frenchy was going, was to dodge around the blocks ahead, and keep
hidden down the different intersecting streets, and see if the same guy
kept going by the corners after the Bantam.”
“Thank you, Butcher,” murmured the Hawk gratefully. “That lets me
out a little, doesn't it?” He wound the cord again and again around
the Butcher's wrists, knotted it, shoved the other unceremoniously
back into the chair, and tied the Butcher's legs.
The Hawk then gave his attention to the Bantam. The Bantam was just
beginning to regain consciousness. The Hawk knelt down, rolled the
man over on his side, and secured him in the same manner as he had the
Butcher. But with the Bantam he went a little farther. He transferred
the Bantam's handkerchief from the Bantam's pocket to the Bantam's
mouth—and tied it there.
He turned once more to the Butcher.
“I must apologise again,” he said softly. “I hate to
do this”—he felt for, and obtained, the Butcher's
handkerchief—“but the house is unfortunately close to the road,
and you might inadvertently make yourself heard before I got decently
away.”
The Butcher's reply was a shrug of the shoulders.
The Hawk, about to cram the handkerchief into the other's mouth,
paused.
“Butcher,” said the Hawk, almost plaintively, “if you'll
permit me to deal in mixed metaphors, you appear to have shed your
spots—you're too awfully docile!”
“You got the goods,” muttered the Butcher sullenly. “What more do
you——”
He stopped suddenly. His eyes met the Hawk's. The telephone on the
table was ringing.
The Hawk hesitated. Into the Butcher's eyes, narrowed now, there
seemed to have come a mocking gleam. The telephone rang again. And then
the Hawk reached out abruptly, and took the receiver from the hook.
“Hello!” he said gruffly.
“Four X. Who's that?” responded a voice.
There was something familiar about the voice, but he could not on the
instant place it. The Hawk's mind, even as he answered, was swiftly
cataloguing every member of the gang known to him in an effort to
identify it.
“The Bantam,” he said.
“All right,” replied the voice. “Give me the Butcher.”
“Hold the line,” answered the Hawk.
He placed his hand over the transmitter. The voice was still eluding
him. He turned, and eyed the Butcher.
“Four X wants you, Butcher.” All the drawl, all the insouciance was
gone now; his voice was hard with menace, cold as death. “And you're
going to speak to him—but you're going to say what I tell you to
say. But before you begin, I want you to remember the little account
between us that's been hanging over since that night in the
paymaster's office. If you make a break, if you try to frame
me—I'll settle that account here to-night, while you sit in that
chair. If you hesitate on a word, I'll fire—and not through my
pocket, you yellow cur! Understand? Don't kid yourself on this,
Butcher! If I nod my head, say 'yes'—and no more. Now!”
The Butcher had sunk back in his chair. There was fear in his face; it
was white, and he circled his lips with his tongue.
Beneath the mask, the Hawk's lips were a straight line. He laid down
his automatic on the table, placed the receiver to his own ear, and held
the transmitter to the Butcher's lips.
“Go ahead!” ordered the Hawk. “Ask him what he wants.” His
fingers, cupped and pressed over the transmitter, lifted.
“Hello!” said the Butcher. “What is it?”
“That you, Butcher? Everything all right?” inquired the voice.
The Hawk nodded.
“Yes,” said the Butcher.
“Well, open up a bit!” complained the voice. “Did you get him,
and——”
The voice was speaking on. The Hawk's lips had set a little tighter.
He had recognised the voice now. His fingers were pressed over the
transmitter again.
“Tell him you laid me out cold,” instructed the Hawk; “and that
I haven't regained consciousness, yet. Now!” The voice had ceased
speaking; the Hawk's fingers lifted again.
“We beaned him,” said the Butcher morosely.. “He's still
asleep.”
“Good!” chuckled the voice. “I'll be up there by and by,
and——”
“Tell him to stay where he is, that it will be—safer.” The Hawk
clipped off his words.
The Butcher delivered the message, the snarl in his voice entirely to
the Hawk's liking.
“What?” questioned the voice. “I didn't get you.”
“Repeat!” whispered the Hawk.
The Butcher repeated.
“O. K.,” came back the answer. “Yes, I guess you're right. So
long, Butcher.”
“Say 'good-night,'.rdquo; prompted the Hawk.
“'Night!” growled the Butcher.
The Hawk replaced the receiver on the hook, and the instrument on the
table.
The Butcher's lips were livid.
The Hawk picked up his automatic and leaned forward, his eyes on a level
with the Butcher's.
“What's that fellow's moniker, Butcher?”
The Butcher hesitated.
The automatic crept forward an inch.
“Parson Joe.” The Butcher's voice choked with mingled rage and
fear.
“Parson Joe, eh?” repeated the Hawk ruminatingly. “Was he the chap
who pulled that con game on the Riverdale Bank back in New York State
about six years ago, and afterwards got cornered by the police in Ike
Morrissey's gambling hell, and was caught because he nearly bled to
death, with his wrist half off, trying to get through a broken window
pane? He got four spaces. That him?”
“If you say so, it must have been!” There was a leer in the
Butcher's voice.
“Was it?” The automatic touched the Butcher's breast.
“Yes,” said the Butcher.
“Thank you!” smiled the Hawk. “Now——!”
He gagged the Butcher with the handkerchief, tied it securely into
place, stood up, picked up the little black bag, switched off the
electric reading lamp, moved to the window, and drew aside the shade.
“We'll let that account stand open for a little while
longer, Butcher,” he said softly. “Just a little while
longer—good-night!”
He swung out of the window, dropped to the ground, ran across the lawn,
and gained the road. His mask and automatic were back in his pockets.
His fingers felt and patted the little black bag under his coat.
“Always play your luck,” whispered the Hawk confidentially to
himself. “It seems to me I saw a little loose change in Doctor
Meunier's pocket-book, and I don't think he's opened the duplicate
bag yet and stirred up a fuss. It isn't much compared with a hundred
thousand, or even fifty, to quote the Butcher, but 'every little bit
added to what you've got——'” He fell to whistling the tune
pleasantly under his breath, as he hurried along the road.
A minute later he had regained the taxicab.
“Drop me a block this side of the Corona—and give her all she's
got!” he directed crisply.
“D'ye get him?” demanded the chauffeur eagerly.
“My friend,” replied the Hawk gently, as he stepped into the taxi,
“if you'll think it over, you'll come to the conclusion that you
really don't want to know. Take it from me that the less you're wise
about to-night the wiser you will be to-morrow. Now, cut her loose!”
It had taken a good thirty minutes on the trip up; it took less than
half of that, by a more direct route, for the return journey. At
the corner, a block from the hotel, the Hawk crumpled two generous
bank-notes into the chauffeur's hand, and bade the man good-night.
He traversed the block, entered the hotel lobby, and, ignoring the
elevators, leisurely and nonchalantly ascended the staircase to the
first floor. From the landing he noted the room numbers opposite to
him, and with these as a guide passed on along the corridor to where it
turned at right angles at the corner of the building, and halted before
room No. 106. A light showing above the transom indicated that the
Frenchman was within. He had passed one or two people. No one had paid
any attention to him. Why should they! He glanced up and down. The
corridor, for the moment, was empty. He tried the door gently—it was
locked. His right hand, in his side pocket, closed over his automatic.
He pressed close to the door, knocked gently with his left hand—and
with his left hand reached quickly into his pocket for his mask.
“Who's there?” the Frenchman called out.
“Message for you, sir,” the Hawk answered.
Footsteps crossed the room, the key turned in the lock—and, in a
flash, the Hawk, slipping on his mask, had pushed the door open, closed
it behind him, and the Frenchman was staring into the muzzle of the
automatic.
“Mon Dieu!” gasped the Frenchman faintly.
“That's right!” said the Hawk coolly, “Don't speak any louder
than that, or——” He shrugged his shoulders significantly, as he
locked the door.
The Frenchman, white-faced, was evidently fighting for his nerve.
“What—what is it?” he stammered. “What is it that you want?”
It was almost a reassuring smile that flickered on the Hawk's lips,
and his voice did not belie it—it was purely conversational in its
tones.
“I was reading in the paper this afternoon about the famous Doctor
Meunier. I'm a bit of a scientist myself, in an amateur way, and
I'm particularly interested in radium when there's enough of it
to——”
“Ah! My radium! That is what you want!” cried out the Frenchman
wildly. The duplicate bag lay on the bed. He ran for it, and snatched
it up. “No! That you shall not have! You come to steal my radium,
you——”
“You jump at conclusions, doctor,” said the Hawk patiently. “Since
it is already stolen, I——”
“Stolen!” The Frenchman stared—and then with feverish fingers
opened the bag. He looked inside. The bag dropped to the floor,
his hands went up in the air. “It is empty—empty!” he cried
distractedly. “It is gone—gone! Mon Dieu, my radium is gone!
What shall I do!” His hands were rumpling through his hair like one
demented. “What shall I do—it is gone!”
“Well,” suggested the Hawk suavely, “I thought perhaps you might
like to buy it back again.”
“Buy it back! Are you crazy? Am I crazy?” The man appeared to be
beside himself; he flung out his arms in mad gesticulation. “With what
would I buy it back? It is worth a hundred thousands dollars—a half
million francs!”
“You are excited, Doctor Meunier,” said the Hawk calmly. From where
it bulged under his coat he drew out the black bag. “I said nothing
about a hundred thousand dollars.”
The Frenchman reached out a shaking hand, pointing at the bag.
“It is you then, after all, who stole it—eh? The bags—they
are identical! Mon Dieu, what does this mean? I am mad! I do not
understand!”
There was a chair on each side of the small table near the bed.
“Sit down!” invited the Hawk, indicating one with the muzzle of his
automatic. The Frenchman sat down with a helpless and abandoned gesture
of despair. The Hawk took the other chair. He opened the bag, opened
the lead box, and laid the lead capsule on the table. “Do you identify
this?” he inquired pleasantly.
The Frenchman reached for it eagerly.
The Hawk drew it back.
“One moment, please, Doctor Meunier!” he murmured. “You recognise
it? You are satisfied that it is your tube of radium?”
“Yes, yes—mon Dieu! But, yes!”
“And it is worth, you say, a hundred thousand dollars?”
“But, yes, I tell you!” cried the Frenchman. “A hundred
thousand—certainly, it is worth that!”
“Quite so!” said the Hawk placidly. “Therefore, Doctor Meunier,
a comparatively small sum—eh?—you would be willing to pay that—a
sum, I might add, that would be quite within your means.”
“Quite within my means?” repeated the Frenchman a little dazedly.
“Yes,” said the Hawk sweetly. “And to be specific, let us
say—whatever is in your pocketbook.” The Frenchman drew back in his
chair. His face blanched.
“You—you mean to rob me!” he exclaimed hoarsely.
“I do not see it quite in that light.” The Hawk's voice was
pained. “But we will not discuss the ethics involved—we probably
should not agree. I did not steal your precious capsule from you, and I
am returning it, not, I might say, without having incurred considerable
personal risk in so doing. Perhaps we might better agree if we called
it—a reward.”
“No!” said the Frenchman desperately.
The Hawk's automatic tapped the table top with a hint of petulance.
“And—and what guarantee have I,” the Frenchman burst out, “that
you will give me the tube after you have taken my money?”
“My word,” said the Hawk evenly. “And—I am waiting, Doctor
Meunier!”
The Frenchman hesitated, then, with an oath, flung his pocketbook upon
the table. The Hawk opened it, extracted the wad of bills that he had
seen exhibited in the superintendent's office, smiled as he fingered
them, and put them in his pocket. He pushed the lead capsule across the
table—and suddenly, as the other reached for it, the Hawk was on his
feet, his automatic flung forward, his left hand grasping the other's
sleeve.
They held that way for an instant, eying each other—the Hawk's left
hand slowly pushing back the other's right-hand sleeve. And then
the Hawk's eyes shifted—to a long, jagged, white scar on the bare
forearm just above the wrist.
“Shall I introduce myself—Parson Joe?” purred the Hawk.
The other's face was a mottled red—it deepened to purple.
“No, blast you!” he said between his teeth. “I know you—but
I didn't think you knew me. So you called the turn when the Bantam
followed me—eh?”
The Hawk shook his head.
“I never saw you in my life before to-day,” he said grimly;
“and, if it will do you any good to know it, I fell for that radium
plant—until you telephoned the Butcher half an hour ago.”
“And how did you know me, then?” The other flung the question
fiercely.
Again the Hawk shook his head. He had no desire that Parson Joe should
know he had been on the Limited that morning—Parson Joe might possess
an inconveniently retentive memory for faces, and he, the Hawk, did not
always wear a mask.
“Maybe I guessed it, Parson!” he said insolently. “I must
have—it was the only thing that wasn't in the paper! What
encyclopedia did you get that 'Becquerel burn' dope out of? And was
the reporter lying, or how did you work it to get him on the train?”
Parson Joe was leaning forward over the table, fingering the lead
capsule. He suddenly crushed it with a blow of his fist, twisted it in
two, and hurled the pieces across the floor.
“We got him up the line on a fake that didn't come off!” he
snarled.
There was an instant's silence, then the Hawk spoke.
“Nice, amiable crowd, you are, Parson!” The Hawk's voice was
silken. “I'm just beginning to appreciate you. Let's see! You had
to pull a story that any newspaper would jump at and feature, didn't
you? And you had to have a big enough bait to make sure I'd rise to
it. And you had to account for the celebrated Doctor Meunier's layover
in Selkirk; and, not expecting I'd pick up the trail quite so quickly,
say, not until after the paper had been out a little longer and you
had made another baiting trip or two to Lanson's office, you had to
account for the famous gentleman's enforced stay through the night if
necessary; and it gave a big swing to the story, and let you work your
stunt for the special train that you knew you couldn't get; and
you figured I'd be even more sure to see it in the paper if it was
connected with some pleasant little episode of yours—and so, on
several counts, you blew up the bridge.”
The man's teeth were clamped together.
“Yes!” he choked. “And we'd blow a dozen more to get you!”
“You flatter me!” said the Hawk dryly. “I'm afraid I've put
you to quite a little trouble—for nothing!”
Sullen, red, furious, Parson Joe's face twitched.
“You win to-night”—the heavy-lensed spectacles were off, and the
black eyes, the pupils gone, burned on the Hawk—“but you're going
out! As sure as God gave you breath, we'll get you yet, and——”
“The Butcher told me that, and so did the Cricket—some time
ago,” said the Hawk wearily. “I'm—keep your hands above the
table—I'm sure you mean well!” He was backing toward the door.
“I won't bother to relieve you of your revolver; and I don't think
you'll telephone down to the office. It might be awkward explaining to
the police how Doctor Meunier lost his pocketbook—and got his medical
degree! I shall, however, lock the door on the outside, as I shall
require a minute or two to reach the street, and I cannot very well go
through the hotel corridor with—this”—he jerked his hand toward
his mask.
The other's hands were above the table, obediently in plain view—but
they were clenching and unclenching now, the knuckles white.
The Hawk reached behind him, took the key from the lock, listened,
opened the door slightly, and, still facing into the room, still
covering the other with his automatic, reached around the door and
fitted the key into the outside of the lock.
“When you get out,” said the Hawk, as though it were an
afterthought, “I'm sure the Butcher will be glad to see you—I am
afraid he is not as comfortable as he might be!”
The black eyes, with a devil's fury in them, had never left the
Hawk's. And now the other lifted one of his clenched hands above his
head.
“I'd give five years—five years of my life—for a look at your
face!” he whispered hoarsely.
The Hawk was backing through the door.
“It's not enough, Parson,” he said softly. “Make it
another—pocketbook.”
XIV—THE CLUE
TWO days had passed—two days, and a night. The Hawk's fingers
drummed abstractedly without sound on the table top; his eyes, in a
curiously introspective stare, were fixed on the closely drawn
window shade across the room. From the ill-favoured saloon below his
unpretentious lodgings, there came, muffled, a chorus of voices in
inebriated and discordant song—an over-early evening celebration, for
it was barely seven o'clock.
The finger tips drummed on. At times, the strong, square chin was
doggedly outthrust; at times, a frown gathered in heavy furrows on
the Hawk's forehead. The net at last was beginning to tighten
ominously—every sign pointed to it. He would be a blind fool indeed
who could not read the warning, and a fool of fools who would not heed
it!
His eyes strayed from the window, and rested upon the trunk that stood
between the table and the foot of the bed; and his fingers abruptly
ceased their restless movements. Within that trunk, concealed in its
false lid, was the loot, totalling many thousands of dollars, obtained
through his knowledge of the Wire Devils' secret code, which had
enabled him to-turn their elaborately prepared plans on more occasions
than one to his own account. But it was no longer a question of
outwitting them in order to add to that purloined store; it was a
question of outwitting them in order that—in very plain English—he,
the Hawk, might live!
Nor was it the Wire Devils alone who threatened disaster. There were
other factors; and, even if these factors were less imminent, as it
were, less in a measure to be feared, they were by no means to be
ignored. The police were showing increasing activity. The police
circular, which he had once torn down from the station wall, was now
replaced by another, only with this difference that, where the reward
for the Hawk's capture had then stood at five thousand dollars, it now
stood at ten. Also, last night—quite inadvertently!—while crouched
under the window of the turner's “cubbyhole” at the rear of
the roundhouse, the chosen spot for Lanson's and MacVightie's
confidential conferences, he had overheard a conversation between the
division superintendent and the head of the railroad's detective force
that was certainly not intended for his ears. According to MacVightie,
a man by the name of Birks, the sharpest man in the United States Secret
Service, had been detailed by the Washington authorities to the case.
MacVightie had even taken a generous share of the credit for this move
to himself. Thefts there might be until the country rang with them,
murders might add their quota to the reign of terror, yet all this was
outside the province of the Secret Service. It was, so MacVightie had
said, through MacVightie's insistence that the systematised thefts and
murders were inseparable with the counterfeit notes then flooding the
country that had induced Washington to act. The Hawk and his gang,
according to MacVightie again, were at the bottom of both one and the
other—and counterfeiting was, very pertinently, within the province of
the Secret Service!
The Hawk permitted a twisted smile to flicker across his lips.
MacVightie, the police in general, and Birks of the Secret Service in
particular, might be classed as complications, even decidedly awkward
complications, but his immediate peril lay, not in that direction, but
from those whose leadership MacVightie so blandly credited to—the
Hawk!