As Smith and Brown closed the door gently behind them, the four men
listened to the receding footsteps, then the three turned with one
impulse and stared at the man lying bound and gagged on the cot.
Although they studied him curiously, they found not a sign of flinching
or of fear in the bright, steady eyes that looked at them over the
bandage. Instead, he wriggled his shoulders in a derisive way.
"I must say," said the man who had lost at cards, "this job is not at
all to my taste. I have killed before, but to bump a man off in cold
blood and sit around waiting for it to come three o'clock to do it, I
don't relish!"
"No other way out," said the short man. "Smith fixed that when he told
him everything he knew. Now we can't let him go and save our own skins.
He is too wise. I don't care, anyhow. Let him pass along! What's it to
us?" He stared insolently at O'Brien, and the eyes smiled at him.
The third man, who had not spoken, shivered a little. "Let's have a
drink," he suggested, going over to the table.
The fallen plaster puffed up under his feet as he went.
"You know Mr. Smith forbade it," said one of the others.
"I don't care!" said the first speaker. "How is he to know whether we
have a drink or not? He was afraid of us getting full." He held up the
bottle. "There is only enough for three good drinks in there, and I am
cold." Again he looked at O'Brien and shivered. It was evident that the
job of killing did not appeal to his taste. O'Brien held his eyes with a
wild, revengeful look. Then again he moved his shoulders.
"What's the matter with him?" demanded the man. "Do you want to talk?"
"Don't ungag him," said the one they called John hastily. "One yip, and
somebody would be up here."
"That's not what he wants," said the other, watching O'Brien. "The rope
hurts him."
"What if it does?" demanded John. "It won't hurt him any after three
o'clock. Leave him alone!"
"I am going to loosen that rope," said the other. "If _I_ was going to
die at three I would just as soon take a little comfort while I waited."
"Well, don't take the gag out," counseled John. "Here, I will fix him."
He loosened the cord that held O'Brien's hands tightly bound behind his
back, bent them in front of him and fastened them in such a way that
they were free unless he tried to reach his face. He could not quite
touch the gag.
"Come on, let's have a drink," said the man who had advised it before.
"You heard!" warned John.
"I don't care _what_ I heard!" said the man, almost whining. "I want a
drink and I am going to _have_ a drink! Didn't Smith tell us to put the
empty bottle in his pocket?" He uncorked the bottle and gave it a little
shake. The fumes were strong.
O'Brien, hoping, praying, watching, could see that the men, used to
stiffening their grit with liquor, smelled the fiery stuff and weakened.
Hoping, praying, watching, yet seemingly with nothing in his eyes but
apprehension, O'Brien watched the three draw up to the table and
commence to smoke. In the center between them the bottle sat, its cork
out and the empty glass beside it.
"Well, if you are going to disobey orders," said John suddenly, "it is
as well that we should be on the same boat. Are there any more glasses?"
"On the shelf there," replied another man, pointing. He grinned happily.
"Smith is a fool. A glass apiece couldn't hurt a flea. Not a flea!
And I am cold. I say we give him a little too." He nodded toward
O'Brien.
O'Brien turned chilly himself. With his life hanging on the merest
thread, he did not want to get a dose of drugged whiskey! But he nodded
his head violently, and looked as wistful as he could.
"There is not enough for four," said John coldly. "Perhaps where he is
going there will be a drink ready for him."
He set the grimy glasses in a row and with great care poured out a
portion for each. The division filled the glasses pretty well, and
O'Brien wondered if there would be _four_ dead men before the night
ended.
One of the men looked at his watch.
"Two o'clock," he said. "What's the use of waiting? Let's give him the
shot and take him down. I want to go to bed."
"_Bed?_ What are you talking about?" demanded the other. "You have got
to catch that four o'clock train for the dirigible."
"We have an alarm clock. We can get a little snooze. That is why I want
to get this job done."
"That is why Smith told you to wait 'til three," said John. "Come, take
your drink and have a smoke, and then it will soon be time to put our
guest on his homeward way." He laughed evilly and lifted his glass.
O'Brien noted with delight that his was the largest share. Drops of
perspiration stood like beads on O'Brien's forehead as he lay there
bound and gagged, waiting to see if the powder in the whiskey was going
to work. What if it should taste and rouse suspicion in the breasts of
the three villains? But the three drank down their several potions
without a blink. They did not follow it with water, but let the fiery
liquid run down their leathern throats as though it was milk.
Then filling their pipes, they settled back in their chairs to await the
hour set for O'Brien's death. For fifteen minutes they talked and
laughed and quarrelled about the exact time of administering the poison.
But John stood firm. Smith had said three o'clock, and not one moment
earlier would he hear to. He yawned as he spoke, and yawns from the
others answered him. Suddenly he looked up with a queer look of surprise
on his face.
"I feel funny," he said. "Funny!"
The others sat staring at him.
John tipped forward in his chair. The others, still staring, slid
backward and at once, it seemed, three heavy bodies swayed in their
seats and slid to the floor. For a few moments the air seemed full of
the sound of breathing rough and irregular; then slowly the breathing
grew slower, deeper and more regular. It sounded like three great
animals breathing together. They lay almost as they had fallen.
Painfully O'Brien raised himself to his elbow. He sat up. He could do no
more as his feet were bound together. After a moment's thought, he lay
back across the cot and commenced to slide toward the front edge. When
his body was well off the edge he stiffened his neck and, carefully
sliding along, went to the floor without a thump. Sitting there, he
wondered what he would do next. If there was one thing he wanted, it was
to avoid making a noise that might alarm the people who were cheerfully
quarreling in the flat below. Not yet was his own head out of the noose,
and he wanted to get help so that he could have the three unconscious
men arrested. But there he was, still bound and, worse still, gagged! At
any moment Smith might return to see that his orders were being carried
out. O'Brien knew Smith too well to hope that he would leave anything as
important as his, O'Brien's, execution to an underling. Haste was of the
greatest importance. O'Brien knew that his life would not be worth a
penny if Smith should drop in on the group now assembled on the floor.
But O'Brien's arms were bound at the elbows and the gag covered all of
his face except the twinkling eyes. Suddenly he had a thought. Beside
John on the floor lay a box of safety matches where they had dropped
when the owner fell from his chair. Reaching them with a series of
wriggles, he succeeded in getting a match in his hand and striking it on
the box. As the match flared up, he bent far back and held the flame
close to the rope that bound his ankles and legs. Twisting his head
painfully around, he saw that the scheme was working. The little flame
for a moment bit into the strands of the rope. Another and another
O'Brien lighted and carefully guided to the rope. Once in awhile the
match went out, and as O'Brien saw the supply giving out, his anxiety
became more intense. Time was flying. It was almost three o'clock. There
were still three matches. In the silence the breathing of the three men
sounded loud and ominous.
Two matches burned out. For the twentieth time O'Brien strained at his
bonds. He lighted the last match, held it close to the rope until it
burned his fingers. Then he strained on the rope. Alas, it did not give!
He jerked and twisted, and it seemed as though he could feel the fibres
giving, yet they held. As he paused to rest, he saw a single match still
clasped in John's fingers. Rolling over and over, with the empty box in
his hand, he secured the match, lighted it, and held it carefully to the
rope. It singed his ankle and burned his finger. Then once more he
strained mightily. Once, and twice; at the third struggle the rope
parted so suddenly that it unwrapped and spun out straight before him.
His feet were free!
The loosening of the ropes around his ankles loosened one end of the
rope that bound his elbows. A series of twists and wriggles and he
slipped out of the coils and stood a free man once more. Tearing the gag
from his mouth, he swallowed, and rubbed his bruised lips.
He was free! Free! And ten minutes before he had been as good as a dead
man, his sentence pronounced, his doom lying on the table. Hastily
pocketing the hypodermic needle he picked up his hat and hurried out of
the back door, locking it as he went. Carefully and noiselessly he
slipped down the black, narrow stairs, feeling his way and not daring to
use his flashlight. Every few steps he would stop and listen. He was
shaken by the narrow escape he had just had, in spite of his coolness
and courage. It was not pleasant to lie bound and gagged with what
seemed to be certain death staring him brutally in the face. O'Brien was
braver than most, but it had shaken him. As he collected himself, he was
filled with a cold, still rage: rage against the men lying senseless
above him, rage against the arch-plotter who called himself Smith. And
O'Brien, thinking of the man and of the position he had seen him
occupying for the past months, grew colder and more furious still.
Reaching the street, he hurried over to the nearest call box and sent in
a demand for a patrol wagon and a half dozen officers. There was a
station near, and almost immediately the wagon came tearing up. O'Brien
was ready for them. Three senseless forms were hurriedly bundled into
the wagon, a couple of officers were left to watch the entrance of the
building, and O'Brien, taking a last look at the room to see that it was
in the order that it would naturally be left in if the men had
accomplished their purpose with him, hurried off.
It was four o'clock. O'Brien commenced to realize that he was very
tired. But his papers had been stolen, and the two most dangerous
members of the gang were still at large. A hasty telephone to the house
of Mr. Ridgeway was answered by one of the servants, who said that Mr.
Ridgeway and his guest were not at home. The man could not or would not
say more. O'Brien called the Aviation Field and learned from the night
watchman that one of the planes was gone.
That was all he wanted to know. Hurriedly he secured a taxi and broke
the speed laws in a mad dash for the Field. Arousing a couple of the
best men, he opened the hangar where the dirigible, once more fit for
any flight, swung lazily.
The men manoeuvered it into the open, O'Brien selected the two whom he
wanted, and almost before they realized what they were doing, the big
car rose into the inky blackness of the morning sky. O'Brien, at the
wheel, steered a straight course for the hiding place of the dirigible
Smith intended to use.
There was a glow in the sky as they approached, and as they paused over
the field, they looked down on a burning mass of tumbled timbers that
had been the hangar. O'Brien would have liked to know whether the
dirigible had sailed up in the sky or gone up in smoke. He sped on,
however, reaching Barnegat as the first streaks of day showed in the
east.
There the hangar doors swung open; the dirigible had gone. O'Brien
straightened up and gave a quick glance over his big car. He knew that
it was in the pink of condition, and his heart was glad, for he knew
that the chase was on; a chase possibly to the death.
Somewhere ahead of him, out over the waste of waters that tossed and
tumbled far below, the dirigible carrying Mr. Ridgeway, Lawrence, the
state papers and the crown jewels, sailed swiftly. And behind it,
instead of the guardian dirigible from their own Field and driven by
O'Brien, another machine followed--a machine its very twin in looks and
speed, but bearing a cutthroat crew.
O'Brien pressed a lever, shoving it far to the front, and the big
machine answered with a burst of speed. His men, moving carefully about,
were looking over every nut and screw and brake, and finding all in
perfect condition.
O'Brien wondered how much of a start the other cars had. He did not
think that he was far behind, so he settled to a good rate, and kept it,
as mile after mile was left behind.
As the sun came up O'Brien was more and more conscious of an intense
fatigue. Finally deciding that he would be needed most at the close of
the race, he called one of his men, and directing him to keep up the
speed and the direction indicated, he went back, and lying down on the
floor of the tiny cabin went instantly to sleep. His jaw was sore, and
every muscle ached. In his sleep he twitched and tossed and muttered so
that one of the men covered him with his own sheepskin coat, and at last
he quieted down until the lines in his face smoothed out and he relaxed.
"It would be worth listening to, to hear what O'Brien has been doing
these last few hours," said one of the airmen as they watched their
chief.
"Some scrap, I'll bet!" said the other. "See his face? No bruises like a
blow, but those two red welts stretching out from each corner of his
mouth. I never saw that but once before, and that was on a man who had
been gagged all night."
"They don't look pretty, do they? I'll bet he has been in some close
corner. I'll bet he has been gagged."
"Well, Billy, I bet so too, so there are no takers," said the other
airman.
"Well," said Billy, "if I had your pull with O'Brien, Hank, I would sort
of bring the conversation around to scraps and gags and things of that
sort when he wakes up, and see what he says."
"You don't know O'Brien very well, do you, Billy?" asked Hank. "Well,
_I_ do, and I can tell you that the first question some gazaboo puts
about O'Brien's own private affairs, there will be another gagging
episode and O'Brien won't be the one to worry about who is going to come
and untie him. Not much!"
"Oh, I wasn't goin' to _ast_ him anything," said Billy hastily.