Billy Kane’s hands came from his pockets again, and he leisurely lighted
a cigarette. Though sitting sideways to the door, he nevertheless
unostentatiously commanded a full view of the entrance. Red Vallon had
just entered, and, after a moment’s pause in which the man’s eyes
searched around the dance hall, was coming forward, threading his way
through the intervening tables. Billy Kane flung a short nod of
recognition in the direction of the approaching gangster; and then his
eyes fastened in a sort of hard, curious expectancy on the street door
again. Whether or not it was intuition or premonition, induced by what
had happened the previous night when Red Vallon had been followed, he
did not know, but he was somehow prepared now, a little more than
prepared, almost sure, in fact, that there would be a repetition of last
night’s occurrence.
Red Vallon dropped into the seat vacated by Whitie Jack.
“Hello, Bundy!” he greeted affably.
“Hello, Red!” The response was purely mechanical. Billy Kane shifted his
cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other—to hide a smile in
which there was no humor. His intuition, if it were intuition, had not
been at fault. A woman had just entered the dance hall. He was not
likely to mistake that slim, graceful figure, nor those dark, steady
eyes—that were spanning the room and resting upon him. He could not see
the lurking mockery in those eyes, the distance was a little too great
for that, but his imagination could depict it readily enough. Nor did it
require much imagination! It was the Woman in Black. He glanced at Red
Vallon. Red Vallon’s back was turned to the door, and he had quite
evidently not observed her.
The beer-stained attendant hurried to the table.
“What’ll you have, Red?” inquired Billy Kane pleasantly.
Red Vallon waved the man away.
“Nix!” he said in a lowered voice. “I got to beat it—I got to meet
Birdie Rose. There’s something doing.”
Billy Kane, even as he watched that trim figure make its way to a table
near the wall on a line with his own, leaned abruptly, eagerly forward,
toward Red Vallon. He felt his pulse throb and quicken. Luck seemed to
be breaking wide open at last. If, coupled with his own clue, Red Vallon
and Birdie Rose had unearthed another, this infernal masquerade that
threatened his life at every turn was as good as ended.
“What is it?” he demanded sharply. “Have you spotted the stones?”
Red Vallon shook his head.
“Not them stones,” he said a little uneasily. “Some others. I got
orders.”
Billy Kane’s face hardened.
“Orders!” he echoed shortly. “Didn’t I tell you last night that
everything else was piker stuff? A half million in rubies, that’s what
we’re after—to the limit! Understand? To the limit! Orders! Who gave you
any orders except to stick to the game?”
“You know,” said Red Vallon, and pushed a sheet of paper across the
table. “Tear it up when you’re through. It’s no good to me any more. I
just wanted to show it to you, so’s you’d know I wasn’t side-stepping on
my own.”
Billy Kane did not tear it up. His face, still set hard, showed no other
signs of emotion, as his eyes studied the paper, but inwardly there came
a sort of numbed dismay. It was a code message. It meant nothing to him
in one sense, in another it meant a very great deal. He was _supposed_
to know what this jumble of letters signified. Red Vallon expected him
to know. To arouse Red Vallon’s suspicion for an instant was simply and
literally equivalent to bringing down the underworld upon him—and the
underworld would be as gentle and merciful as a pack of starving wolves!
The jumble of letters seemed to possess a diabolical leer all their own,
as he stared at them.
zidu6vesfuu6fwefwjf8dfsuofnIIohjtopdteop8nbje3ofueobt8v
piutsb7mmpez5bepun4psgnb9esfutnbf4wbiopjubIInspgoj3fiuf
m4p2ntjho6jzbImbuo5bm2qpuu3fhnf4iuuih7jopuoff7xufcu5ih
j3feobf4ojold6pmd3peobu6sfwjeopjd9jqtv2tpuf4np3tfopf4tm
3fov3sf4iufmp2npui5usb3fe4obflb3nn5jiih2vpdqv.
Was it a code that, with the key in one’s possession, one could read at
a glance? He did not know. Was it a code that required elaborate and
painstaking effort to decipher? He did not know. Did Red Vallon, sitting
there across the table watching him, expect him to give instant
indication that the code message was plain and intelligible to him? He
did not know. There was only one course to take—the middle course. He
laid the paper on the table, and laid his clenched fist over the paper,
as he leaned farther over, truculently, toward Red Vallon.
“I tell you again that everything else is piker stuff,” he said angrily.
“Do you get me? What have you done, you and Birdie, and the rest? Have
you got anywhere to-day? Do you know where that secretary guy, Billy
Kane, is? Do you know where those rubies are?”
“No,” said Red Vallon hurriedly, “we haven’t turned anything up yet,
but——”
“But you’re going to—by nosing around after something else!” snapped
Billy Kane. “Do you think I’m going to see the biggest thing that was
ever pulled slip through my fingers? If you do, you’ve got another think
coming! Things have changed since I’ve been away—eh? How long since
there’s been any monkeying with what I dope out?”
“Don’t get sore, Bundy,” said Red Vallon appeasingly. “It’s nothing like
that. You know how it was. Karlin’s arrest last night queered
everything. That cursed snitch with the mask on put everything on the
rough. There wasn’t any meeting. You know who sent that code there;
well, _he_ didn’t know about the other job, or that he was butting in on
you. Tumble? There ain’t nothing to be sore about, Bundy. Say, me and
Birdie ain’t going to be more’n an hour or two doing this trick, anyhow.
Someone of the Mole’s gang must have leaked; or maybe one of our boys
piped him off. I dunno. But we got him cold this trip. He’s a slick one
all right, and he’s been getting away with the goods quite a lot lately,
and giving us the laugh. You know all about that. Well, this is where he
doesn’t laugh—see? He’s pulling a nice one to-night. Got it all fixed up
to make it look like somebody else did it. Sure! Well, we’re not kicking
at that—so long as _we_ get the loot. Sure! We’ll let him pull it, all
right, all right, believe me!”
Billy Kane appeared to be unmoved. He studied the gangster coldly.
“And how does it happen that you and Birdie, out of all the rest, are
picked for this?”
Red Vallon indulged in an ugly grin.
“’Cause we know the Mole down to the ground,” he said; “but principally
because the Mole knows _us_! There won’t be any fooling when we spring a
show-down, he’s wise to that, and he’ll come across. And, besides,
’tain’t only Birdie and me, I’m taking some of my own gang along as
well.”
Billy Kane scowled. It probably mattered very little indeed that Red
Vallon’s efforts were to be sidetracked for the next few hours, and
should he, Billy Kane, during that time, be successful, it mattered not
at all; but his play for the moment was to preserve his rôle in Red
Vallon’s eyes, to keep away from anything intimate concerning the
purport of this cipher message that still lay beneath his clenched hand,
and that might so easily betray his ignorance, and above all now to get
rid of Red Vallon before any such awkward and dangerous _impasse_ could
arise. He shrugged his shoulders, but his voice was still sullen as he
spoke.
“Well, go to it!” he growled. “Go and pick up your chicken feed! But you
get this into your nut, Red, and let it soak there. After this”—he
leaned far over the table, his face thrust almost into Red Vallon’s—“you
stay with the game every minute, or quit! It’s the limit, or quit!
There’s just one thing that counts—those rubies, or the man who pinched
them. If we get the man, he’ll cough—red—the stones, or blood. Do you
think I’m going to let anything queer me on my share of half a million?
You don’t seem to get what I mean when I say the limit. Look out I don’t
give you an object lesson!”
Red Vallon licked his lips, and drew back a little. There was something
in Red Vallon’s eyes that was not often there—fear.
“It’s all right, Bundy,” he said with nervous eagerness. “I’m with you.
Sure, I am! This thing must have broke loose quick, and there wasn’t no
idea of crabbing anything you’d started. I got ten of the best of ’em
combing out the ‘fences’ for you right now.”
“All right,” responded Billy Kane gruffly. “Make a report to me on that
before morning.”
“Where’ll you be?” Red Vallon was apparently relieved, for his voice had
recovered its buoyancy.
“At my place—some time,” said Billy Kane curtly. “You can wait for me
there.” He smiled suddenly with grim facetiousness. “My shoulder’s a lot
better—enough so that maybe I can sit in for a hand myself to-night.”
“I hope you do,” said Red Vallon fervently. “You always had the
knock-out punch, Bundy, and it’ll seem like old times.” He half rose
from his chair; then, looking furtively about him, bent forward over the
table. “There’s something else, Bundy, before I go—that snitch last
night at Jerry’s, the man in the mask. He’s played hell with the crowd.
There’s no telling what’ll tumble down behind Karlin. And it don’t look
like he’s just stumbled on that deal by _accident_. It don’t look good,
Bundy. We got to get him, and get him quick, before he pulls anything
more. The word’s out to bump him off.”
Billy Kane nodded.
“Well, don’t lose your nerve over it, Red,” he said coolly. “If it was
by accident, he won’t do us any more damage, and we’ve only got to
settle with him for what he’s done, providing we can ever find him; if
it wasn’t accident he’ll show his hand again—won’t he?”
“Yes,” said Red Vallon.
Billy Kane’s smile was unpleasant.
“Well, you’ll know what to do with him then, won’t you?” he inquired
softly.
The gangster’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed to slits.
“Yes, I’ll know!” said Red Vallon coarsely. He made an ugly motion
toward his throat. “Well, so long, Bundy!”
Billy Kane nodded again by way of answer. He watched Red Vallon thread
his way back among the tables, and pass out through the front door. With
the gangster out of the way, he picked up the sheet of paper upon which
the code message was written, studied it for a moment, then thrust it
into his pocket—and his glance travelled to the table opposite to him
and against the wall, where that slim little figure in black was seated.
She appeared to be quite indifferent to his presence, and quite intent
upon the consumption of a glass of milk and the sandwich on the plate
before her.
Billy Kane smiled with grim comprehension. The frugality of the meal was
not without its object. It was fairly obvious that she could dispose of
what was before her in short order, and leave the place at an instant’s
notice without inviting undesirable attention to an unfinished meal—if
she so desired! It was his move. She had followed Red Vallon in, but she
had not followed Red Vallon out—she was waiting for him, Billy Kane. The
seat she had chosen had been in plain view of Red Vallon, therefore she
was evidently free from any fear of recognition on the part of the
gangster, and, as a logical corollary, from probably anybody else in the
room. That she gave no sign now therefore could mean but one thing. It
was his move. If he cared to cross swords with her here, he was at
liberty to do so; if he had reasons of his own for preferring a less
public meeting, he had only to leave the place—and she would undoubtedly
follow.
In one sense she was most solicitous of his welfare! She would do
nothing to hamper or hinder him in protecting himself, as long as he
continued to double-cross and render abortive the crimes of that inner
circle of the underworld in which she believed him to be a leader;
failing that, as she had already made it quite clear, she proposed, as
near as he could solve the riddle, to expose some past crime of the
Rat’s to the police, and end his career via the death chair in Sing
Sing. Also she had made her personal feelings toward him equally
clear—she held for him a hatred that was as deep-seated as it was
merciless and deadly.
He shrugged his shoulders. He, by proxy, stood in the shoes of one who,
seemingly, had done her some irreparable wrong, and since she would dog
him all night until she had had the interview that she evidently
proposed to have, it might as well be here as anywhere. It mattered very
little to him, as the Rat, that he should be observed by those in the
room to get up from his table and walk over to hers. He was not being
watched in the sense that anyone held surveillance over him, and, in any
case, the conventions here in the heart of the underworld were of too
elastic a character to have it cause even comment; and, besides, in a
few hours from now, if luck were with him, he would be through with all
this, done with this miserable rôle of super-crook, which, though it
brought a new and greater peril at every move he made, was the one thing
that, for the present, he was dependent upon for his life.
He rose, crossed the room nonchalantly, and dropped as nonchalantly into
the chair at the end of her table, his back to the door.
She greeted him with a smile—but it was a smile of the lips only. The
dark eyes, under the long lashes, studied him in a cold, uncompromising
stare; and there was mockery in their depths, but deeper than the
mockery there was contempt and disdain.
A cigarette, pulled lazily from his pocket and lighted, preserved his
appearance of unconcern. In spite of himself, in spite of the fact that
that contemptuous stare was his only through a damnable and abhorrent
proxy, he felt suddenly ill at ease. He had never seen her as closely as
this before. He had only seen her twice before—once in the dark; and
once with the width of the Rat’s den separating them. He had been
conscious then that she was attractive, beautiful, with her clustering
masses of brown hair, and the dainty poise of her head, and the pure
whiteness of her full throat; but he was conscious now that beyond the
mere beauty of features lay steadfastness and strength, that in the
sweetness of the face there was, too, a wistfulness, do what she would
to hide it, and that there was strain there, and weariness. And he was
suddenly conscious, too, that he disliked the rôle of the Rat more than
he had ever disliked it, and that the loathing in those eyes, which
never left his face, was responsible for this added distaste of the fact
that nature had, through some cursed and perverted sense of humor or
malevolence, seen fit to make him the counterpart of a wanton rogue,
and, worse still, seen fit to force upon him the enactment of that rôle.
He could not tell her that he was not the Rat, could he?—that he was
Billy Kane! Would the loathing in those eyes have grown the less at
that? Billy Kane—the thief, the Judas assassin, whose name was a byword
throughout the length and breadth of the land at that moment, whose name
was a synonym for everything that was vile and hideous and depraved! He
was the Rat—until to-night was over! After that—well, after that, who
knew? Now, he was the Rat, and he must play the Rat’s part.
She broke the silence, her voice cool and even:
“I left it entirely to you as to whether you would come over to this
table here or not.”
“I quite understood!” Billy Kane forced a sarcastic smile. “You are
almost too considerate!”
“Am I?” she said. Her eyes flashed suddenly. “Well, perhaps you are
right! I have thought sometimes that even the chance I give you is more
than you deserve. I feel so strongly about it, in fact, that the only
thing which prevents me from putting an end to it—and you—is that by
using you to defeat the ends of your own criminal associates a great
deal of good is being done. They will trap you sometime, of course, and,
knowing them, you know what will happen, and I am satisfied then that,
as an alternative, you would prefer Sing Sing and the chair; but you are
clever—that is why you grasp at the chance I give you. You are extremely
clever—and you believe you can continue to outwit them indefinitely. I
don’t think you can, though I admit your cleverness, cunning and craft.”
“You flatter me!” said Billy Kane ironically.
“No,” she said, her voice suddenly lowered, passionate, tense; “I hate
you.”
“You told me that last night.” Billy Kane indolently blew a ring of
cigarette smoke ceilingwards. “I am beginning to believe you. Did you
follow Red Vallon in here to tell me the same thing again?”
She did not answer for a moment.
“Sometimes you make me lose my faith in God,” she said, in a slow,
restrained way. “It is hard to believe that a God, a just God, could
have created such men as you.”
Billy Kane removed his cigarette from his lips, and flicked the ash away
with a tap of his forefinger. He felt the color mount and tinge his
cheeks. There was something, not alone in her words, but in her tone,
that struck at him and _hurt_. The brown eyes, deep, full of implacable
condemnation, burned into his. What was it that the Rat had done to her,
or hers? He turned slightly away. An anger, smoldering in his soul,
burst into flame. He was the Rat by proxy—and the proxy was damnable. He
could not tell her he was not the Rat. He could not tell her he
was—Billy Kane. He must play on with his detestable rôle! He must play
the Rat. What answer would the Rat have made to her?
“Cut that out!” rasped Billy Kane.
“Yes,” she said quietly, “I spoke impulsively. There are only two things
in life that affect you—your own safety, and to be quite sure that you
get all of your share out of your crimes, and, if possible, somebody
else’s share as well. But the latter consideration is at an end now,
isn’t it, Bundy? I think I have taken care of that. It’s just a question
of whether you can save yourself or not with those clever wits of yours.
Well”—she shrugged her shoulders suddenly—“you did very well last night.
His life would not be worth very much if the underworld should ever lay
hands on the man in the mask. Would it, Bundy?”
He did not answer her.
“Yes, you did very well, indeed,” she went on calmly. “You will meet
somewhere else, of course, as soon as you can find a suitable place, but
you will hold no more of your secret council meetings at Jerry’s for
some time to come.”
Billy Kane’s face was impassive now. He was apparently intent only on
the thin blue spiral of smoke that curled upward from the tip of his
cigarette. So those meetings of that cursed directorate of crime had
been held at Jerry’s, had they? He had not known that.
“Suppose,” suggested Billy Kane, curtly, “that we come to the point.
What is it that you want to-night?”
“I am coming to the point,” she answered levelly. “Owing to the events
of last night your organization is in confusion, some of the more
faint-hearted of your partners have temporarily even taken to their
heels; but, even so, the organization’s activities can hardly come to an
abrupt standstill. You will perhaps remember a somewhat similar occasion
once before? There are perhaps certain matters that are imperative, that
cannot wait. Is it not so, Bundy? And in such an emergency it is left
to—shall we call him the organization’s secretary?—to keep things going.
Personal touch is lost with one another, but there is still a way. I
know, it does not matter how, that Red Vallon received a written order a
little while ago. I followed Red Vallon here. I _think_ he gave that
order to you.”
Billy Kane looked at her for a moment, a quizzical, whimsical expression
creeping into his face. She was in deadly earnest, he knew that well.
And yet there was a certain sense of humor here too—a grim humor with
something of the sardonic in it, and nothing of mirth. Red Vallon’s code
order was quite as meaningless to him as it would be to her!
“Sure!” said Billy Kane, alias the Rat—and chuckled. “Sure, he gave it
to me! You don’t think I’d hold anything out on _you_, do you? Sure, he
gave it to me!” He tossed the paper across the table toward her. “Help
yourself! All you’ve got to do is ask for anything _I’ve_ got, and it’s
yours. You’re as welcome as the sunshine to it.”
She studied it for an instant calmly. Billy Kane, watching her narrowly,
frowned slightly in a puzzled way. She appeared to be neither agitated
nor confused. She raised her eyes to his, a glint half of mockery, half
of menace, in their brown depths.
“Did you think I did not know it was in cipher?” she inquired coldly.
“You would hardly have been so obliging otherwise, would you? It is
always in cipher under these circumstances, isn’t it? Well, what is the
translation?”
“Red Vallon didn’t tell me,” said Billy Kane complacently.
“Quite probably not!” she countered sharply. “It was hardly necessary,
was it? But since you have decoded it yourself?”
Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve been away so long,” he said, “that I’ve forgotten the key.”
“Really!” She was smiling at him in derision now. “In other words, you
refuse to tell me what it is.”
“Don’t you think you expect a little too much from me?” He forced a
sudden roughness into his tones. “I haven’t decoded it yet, as a matter
of fact; but if I had, do you think I’m looking for trouble—to give you
the chance to force me into another mess?”
She shook her head in a sort of mocking tolerance.
“Does it really matter, Bundy?” she asked softly. “You are not as bright
this evening as usual. I know that some crime is planned and set forth
here on this paper. It really makes no vital difference to me to know
beforehand specifically just what that crime is, for if it succeeds I
shall know about it, and, in that case, I shall equally know that you
did not prevent it. I think you quite understand what that means, don’t
you, Bundy? However”—she smiled again, as she opened her purse and took
out a pencil—“let us put it down to a woman’s insatiable curiosity, if
you like, and decode it together.”
Decode it! The twisted smile that came to his lips was genuine enough.
He couldn’t decode it. He had only one card to play—a flat and
unequivocal refusal.
“Nothing doing!” he snarled.
“Oh, yes, I think there is,” she said softly again.
He stared at her. Her pencil was flying across the paper. Who was this
woman? She knew the key! Was there anything that she did not know? He
watched her in a stunned way, his mind in confusion. And then he leaned
forward to observe her work more closely. Beneath the original cipher
she had written this:
ziduve sfuufw efwjfdfs uofnohjtopd teopnbje ofu eobtvpiu
tsbmmpe zbepu npsg nbesfutnb fwbi opjubnspgoj fiu fmpn
tj hojzbm b uobmq pu ufh nfiu uihjopu offxufc uihjf eob
fojo lpmdp eob usfwje opjdjqtvt pu fnpt fop ftmf ovs fiu
fmpn pu iusbf eob flbn nji ihvpd qv.
“It is so simple, Bundy,” she murmured caustically. “The numerals to
designate the number of letters in the words, the transposition of ‘a’
for ‘b’, and so on, and the words spelled backwards. It is so simple,
Bundy, that it is strange you should have forgotten—and forgotten that
there are other secrets I have found in that den of yours, apart from
that very convenient and ingenious door!”
She was working as she spoke, paying no attention to him. He made no
reply, only watched her as she set down a second series of letters:
yhctud rettev deviecer tnemngisnoc sdnomaid net dnasuoht
srallod yadot morf madretsma evah noitamrofni eht elom
si gniyal a tnalp ot teg meht thginot neewteb thgie dna enin
kcolco dna trevid noicipsus ot emos eno esle nur eht elom
ot htrae dna ekam mih hguoc pu.
A moment more, and she had written out the message in plain English:
Dutchy Vetter received consignment diamonds ten thousand dollars
to-day from Amsterdam. Have information the Mole is laying a
plant to get them to-night between eight and nine o’clock, and
divert suspicion to some one else. Run the Mole to earth and
make him cough up.
She was studying the paper in her hand. Billy Kane lighted another
cigarette. He was still watching her, but it was in a detached sort of
way. Between eight and nine o’clock! Peters was rarely able to leave the
Ellsworth home on his evenings off until well after eight o’clock;
Peters, therefore, would not reach his flat much before nine, and
certainly was not likely to leave there again immediately.
Billy Kane’s mind was working in quick, and seemingly unrelated snatches
of thought. There was time enough to see this Vetter game through
without interfering with that interview he meant to hold with Peters....
It was strange that it should be Vetter ... Whitie Jack had spoken of
Vetter ... Savnak, the violin player, and Vetter ... Whitie Jack said
that Savnak and Vetter spent most of their evenings together at Vetter’s
playing pinochle and the violin.... Savnak would likely be there then
between eight and nine.... Upon whom was it that the so-called Mole
intended to point suspicion?... Here was the moral obligation again....
He had fought that out last night.... She, this woman here, was not the
driving force.... She only represented disaster from an entirely
different source if he failed.... If he stood aside with the
foreknowledge of crime in his possession he was as guilty as this
Mole.... Perhaps he had been trying to trick his own conscience in not
pressing Red Vallon for explanations.... Perhaps, in a measure, he had
allowed the argument that he might invite Red Vallon’s suspicions to act
as an excuse for evading the responsibility that this foreknowledge of
crime entailed.... Well, that responsibility was his now, thanks to
her.... He had no choice.... It was likely to be the man in the mask
again, and——
She pushed the paper toward him.
“Perhaps you would like to destroy this—for safety’s sake,” she observed
complacently.
He took the paper mechanically, and mechanically tore it up.
“I do not know the Mole personally”—she was speaking almost more to
herself than to him, as though feeling her way cautiously along a
tortuous mental path—“I only know him as an exceedingly clever
scoundrel, and as the head of a small, but very select, band of
criminals. He is a sort of competitor of yours, I believe, and more than
once has had the temerity to act as a thorn in the side of your own
rapacious and diabolical crime trust. But I do know that this Vetter is
an honest old man. It would be too bad”—her voice, still low, was
suddenly vibrant with a significance that there was no mistaking—“if
Vetter should lose his diamonds, wouldn’t it, Bundy?”
The spiral of cigarette smoke again occupied Billy Kane. It was quite
true that his mind was already made up; but for the moment he was the
Rat, and the Rat would not be likely to accede to her suggestion with
any overwhelming degree of complacency.
“You are a little inconsistent, aren’t you?” he inquired sarcastically.
“If you are so anxious to prevent this crime, why don’t you warn the
police?”
“You can put down my inconsistency to the frailty of my sex again, if
you like,” she answered quickly. “But you know quite well why. And,
besides, one Bundy Morgan, having more at stake than the police, is more
likely to accomplish the task successfully. Yes—Bundy?”
“But this isn’t my hunt!” he protested, with a snarl. “I can’t stop all
the crimes in the world! This isn’t _my_ crowd! I’m not responsible for
the Mole. I don’t know _his_ plans. How can I put the crimp in them? The
game is to let the Mole go ahead, isn’t it, and then Red Vallon is to
grab the chestnuts out of the Mole’s pocket? Well, that’s all right! But
suppose I butt in, and, knowing nothing about the Mole’s plans, fall
down, and he gets away with the goods, and is too sharp for Red Vallon
so that I can’t even get the loot away from Red—am I responsible?”
“I’m not unreasonable,” she said—and smiled. “There is a good deal of
truth in what you say. But there is a way to provide against both
contingencies.”
The snarl was still in his voice.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Steal the diamonds yourself before the Mole gets to work,” she proposed
calmly.
Billy Kane’s gasp was wholly genuine.
“What?” he ejaculated.
“You’ve plenty of time,” she said sweetly. “Vetter’s isn’t far from
here, and it’s not much more than half past seven now. The diamonds can
be returned to Vetter tomorrow. After having had them stolen once, I
think Vetter could be trusted to put them somewhere where neither the
Mole nor anyone else would be likely to succeed a second time.”
“But I don’t know where the diamonds are now!” His voice was helpless in
spite of himself.
She lifted her shoulders.
“Neither do I,” she said imperturbably.
“Well, you’ve got your nerve!” he burst out—and it was Billy Kane, not
the Rat, who spoke.
The interview, as far as she was concerned, was evidently at an end. She
had resumed her frugal meal, and was picking daintily at the sandwich on
her plate. Her eyebrows arched.
“I hope you’ve got yours,” she murmured.
He stood up. He could have laughed ironically, and likewise he could
have sworn. She was distractingly pretty, as she sat there quite the
mistress of herself; but her profound and utter disregard as to how the
perilous project might result for him personally brought suddenly a
vicious sweep of anger upon him—and abruptly, without a word, he swung
from the table, and made his way toward the door. But the few steps
cleared his brain a little, brought things into sharper focus. After
all, he had forgotten! To her, he was the Rat. And the Rat—he did not
question it—merited little of either mercy or consideration at her
hands. At the door he looked back. She nodded to him pleasantly, and
smiled—not in the manner of one who might very well be sending another
to his death!
“Well, I’ll be damned!” muttered Billy Kane, and, opening the door,
stepped out to the street.