Once in the street, Billy Kane started hurriedly in the direction of the
Bowery. He hastened on, his mind in a state of chaotic turmoil.
Presently he turned into the cross street, a block away from the Rat’s
den. He had until morning. It was thoughtful of her to have given him
that much time! The Man with the Crutch had the paper, of course. Red
Vallon and the Pippin had had since noon to find the man. If the man
were not found by morning the rôle of the Rat would be at an end. There
was something damnably ironical in that! He had wanted the rôle of the
Rat to end. And now he didn’t want it to end on account of this Man with
the Crutch, who was disastrously likely to bring that end about! He
needed the rôle now more than ever in order to use it against this Man
with the Crutch, because the other held the knowledge that would enable
him, Billy Kane, to cast off the rôle forever; yet if he didn’t find the
man, and even before morning, the rôle, and quite as certainly forever,
would be cast off for him!
He swept his hand across his eyes. His brain seemed to be working in
some silly, sing-song cycle, and yet it was quite logical. And then his
shoulders squared. For the night at least he was still the Rat, and the
underworld was at the Rat’s beck and call. If Red Vallon and the Pippin
could not find the Man with the Crutch, he would unleash the underworld
to help them pick up the scent. First, however, he must get in touch
with Red Vallon. But that should not be difficult, for Red Vallon,
whether he had had any success or not, was certain to make a report
before the night was very much older, and—
Billy Kane halted suddenly, and turned around, as a low voice hailed
him. A man was hurrying along behind him. He smiled grimly. A little
luck, at least, seemed to be breaking for him at the start. Here was Red
Vallon now. Billy Kane, in apparent indifference, started on again in
the direction of the den.
“Hello!” he said gruffly, as the gangster caught up with him and fell
into step alongside.
Red Vallon chuckled low.
“We got him!” he said. There was hoarse elation in the gangster’s voice.
A fierce uplift swept in an almost overmastering surge upon Billy Kane.
His answer, however, was little more than a grunt of approval.
“You have—eh?” he said.
“You bet your life!” exclaimed the gangster jubilantly. “You know
Marlot’s saloon? Well, the guy lives next door in that old motheaten
shack. Some place! The police have been leery of it for a long while.
There’s mostly a bunch of slick-fingers hang out there. Get me? He’s got
the back room—used to be the kitchen, I guess. He’s a smooth one, all
right! He’s got a private entrance of his own when he doesn’t want to go
in or out by the front; the old back door opens right into his room from
the yard. Savvy?”
Billy Kane nodded his head shortly in affirmation. He took a cigarette
from his pocket, and lighted it nonchalantly.
“But, say”—the elation in the gangster’s voice was growing still more
pronounced—“that ain’t all! The Pippin spotted his nibs through the
window from the yard a few minutes ago. Say, what do you think, Bundy!
The cripple hobbles across the room, and pulls the old washstand away
from the wall, and lifts up an innocent-looking piece of the wall paper
that you’d think was stuck down for fair. The Pippin had only a rip in
the window shade to see through, and he couldn’t see very well, but he
could see a dinky little hole there in the wall, and a satchel inside,
and the cripple takes something out of his pocket and slips it into the
hole, and smooths the wall paper back again. The Pippin beat it out of
there then, and found me, and he’s just wised me up.”
It was quite dark here on the street, but even so Billy Kane kept his
face turned slightly away from the gangster. The blood was racing in one
mad, ungovernable flood of feverish excitement through his veins. It
seemed somehow as though a weight that had been unendurable, an actual
physical burden beyond his strength to bear, had suddenly been lifted
from his shoulders. The Man with the Crutch! From the prior events of
the evening, from what Red Vallon had just said, there was no
possibility that the Pippin had stumbled upon _another_ man with a
crutch. This was the one, without question, without room for a single
shadow of a doubt. And he as good as had the man now! He flicked the ash
from his cigarette with his forefinger, and nodded curtly again.
“Figure it out for yourself,” said Red Vallon, a sort of eager
self-complacency in his voice. “Of course, the man had nothing to do
with that murder last night, but the police know he was around there
lugging a satchel, and you add to that the crook dump where he lives,
and a guy that has a nifty little hiding place in the wall with a
satchel in it—and where does he get off? I ain’t throwing any bouquets
at myself, Bundy, but I told you I’d pull something good this trip, and
I guess you got to hand it to me for delivering the goods. Pipe this,
Bundy! The police think the Pippin’s a stool-pigeon anyhow. Well, five
minutes ago I sent the Pippin to tip off the police, while I beat it up
here to put you wise. Get me? With all that stuff against the guy, he
ain’t got a hope. He goes up for that murder, and that lets you out,
Bundy.”
Billy Kane stood still. They had reached the cellarlike entrance to the
Rat’s den, but he made no move to descend the short, cavernous stairway.
A little way up the block the street lamp seemed suddenly to be swirling
around and around in swift, lightning-like irregular flashes. The blood
that had rushed hotly, madly through his veins but an instant before was
cold and sluggish now, as though some icy tourniquet were at work upon
his heart, stilling its action.
“That lets you out, Bundy.” The words mocked and jeered at him. Let him
out! It was ruin, disaster, death—unless in some way he could forestall
this move of Red Vallon. He fought desperately for control of himself.
That envelope, her threat, his own desire to get at the man, were like
issues fading into the background. He knew that the man _was_ the
murderer of Peters, and if the police, whether they caught the man or
not, found what he believed they would find in that satchel—some at
least of those rubies from the Ellsworth vault—then Red Vallon, this man
standing here, who with horrible callousness, but equally with the
genuine motive of protecting the Rat, was ironically planning, while
believing him innocent, to send the guilty man to his death, would know
absolutely beyond question that the Rat had _not_ killed Peters last
night, that last night’s alibi was a lie, and that he, Billy Kane, was
the man in the mask, at whose throat Red Vallon and his gang asked
nothing better than to hurl themselves like a pack of starving wolves!
To get rid of Red Vallon! Any excuse—anything! To get rid of the
man—without an instant’s delay!
He shoved out his hand to the gangster.
“I won’t forget this, Red!” he said earnestly. “Take it from me, I won’t
forget it! But you beat it now, Red. That Dayler game went wrong
to-night—the Cadger’ll tell you about it, if you see him—and I haven’t
got a minute. See—Red?”
“Sure! All right!” agreed the gangster heartily. “Well, so long, Bundy!”
Billy Kane shook hands again—with a grip that was hard and eloquent.
“So long, Red!” he said.
The gangster turned away. Billy Kane dove down the stairs, opened the
door of the den, locked it behind him, darted across the room in the
darkness, and in another minute, crawling through the tunnel from the
secret door, gained the shed and the street at the rear. He ran
breathlessly now. What did it matter if any one saw him! Time alone was
all that counted! If he could not beat the police in the race to that
room he was as good as dead already!
His mind worked swiftly, incisively, as he ran. The Pippin had had, say,
ten minutes’ start, but it was only a few blocks to that house next door
to Marlot’s saloon, and it would take a little while at least for the
police to make their preparations before acting on the Pippin’s
information. The chances lay with him, Billy Kane. The man might, or
might not, be there. It did not matter in so far as the main issue was
concerned. It was that handbag and its contents that were the vital
factor now—and, yes, if he got that, the envelope too—they would both
almost certainly be in the same hiding place—inasmuch as that hiding
place was a crafty one. If the man _were_ there, then it seemed as
though irony would have piled itself on irony to-night, for he would
automatically for the time being become the _ally_ of the man with whom
he asked only a deadly reckoning! He did not want the police to get the
Man with the Crutch. Whatever the story the man might tell to account
for his connection with Peters, it was certain that he would not be fool
enough to tell the truth about the murder of David Ellsworth! And if the
police had the Man with the Crutch in custody, then he, Billy Kane, was
irrevocably barred from that reckoning which he meant to have.
He had been perhaps five minutes. He was trying the door now of a
wretched, two-story frame building, that hugged, as its right-hand
neighbor, a saloon that was almost as disreputable in appearance as
itself. The door was unlocked. He stepped inside, and, feeling his way
in the darkness, but still moving rapidly, passed down a narrow hall. By
the sense of touch he was aware that there were rooms on only one side,
the left-hand side, and that there were two of them. He brought up
abruptly against a door now that made the end of the passage; the door
of the rear room of the house obviously, and obviously, therefore, the
“home” of the Man with the Crutch. It was silent everywhere in the
house. He smiled a little grimly. He knew the place well enough by
reputation to account for that silence. It was a crooks’ nest, a crooks’
lodging house, and, being night, the tenants had gone to work!
He slipped his mask over his face, and rapped on the door. There was no
answer. He rapped again; and then his skeleton keys came into play. The
man had obviously returned here from Dayler’s to get rid of that
envelope, though probably not at once, for it must have been then that
the Pippin had seen him; but now apparently he had gone out again.
The door yielded upon the trial of the third key. Billy Kane flung it
open, stepped inside, and his flashlight played through the blackness.
As he had expected, the room was empty. He locked the door again, and
crossed quickly to the rear door. This he found opened inward. He looked
out. This took a few seconds, but an accurate knowledge of his
surroundings was worth even more than that should he be caught here. The
door opened on practically a level with the ground; and it had an
old-fashioned latch, with heavy iron handles, loop-shaped, below the
thumb-pieces. He closed the door, and bolted it, smiling appreciatively
as he noted that the bolt moved both readily and silently, as though in
carefully oiled grooves.
His flashlight played around the room again now. The window shade was
drawn. He located the washstand—and frowned suddenly in perplexity. A
crutch leaned against the washstand. His face cleared the next instant.
Why shouldn’t the man have an extra one? Perhaps he had to buy them in
pairs, though he used only one at a time.
Billy Kane stepped swiftly to the washstand, and, preparatory to pulling
it away from the wall, lifted up the crutch—and the next instant was
examining the latter critically. It was extremely heavy. He whistled low
under his breath. It was not only a crutch, it was a murderous weapon!
The shaft of the thing, though painted a wood color, was solid iron! He
set it down and pulled out the washstand; then, picking up the crutch
again, he slashed it along the line of the wall where the washstand had
been. A large piece of the wall paper came away, disclosing a neatly
constructed little hiding place, some two feet long by a foot in depth.
A queer, twisted smile was on Billy Kane’s lips. In there lay only two
articles—but they were a manila envelope, and a small handbag.
He snatched up the envelope, and tore it open. A glance at the faded
writing was enough; it was Joe Laynton’s letter of twenty years ago. He
stuffed it into his pocket; and, almost more eagerly than before,
reached into the aperture again, and took out the handbag. But now his
fingers seemed to have gone clumsy with excitement as he fumbled with
the catches. No, it was locked. Well, his steel jimmy would soon settle
that! He pried the bag open, and stood staring at its contents. And the
contents were not rubies! And then he laughed a little, as he lifted out
and examined a package of banknotes. It did not matter, did it—the
rubies or the money! It linked the Man with the Crutch with the
Ellsworth murder just the same. This was the money, and apparently
intact, that had been in the Ellsworth vault; the paper bands pinned
around the packages, and marked in red ink with the amount in each
package, had been pinned there and marked by himself!
It was strange, very strange! He restored the steel jimmy to his pocket,
and attempted to fasten the bag with its end catches, but the frame had
been bent in prying the bag open, and the catches would not work easily.
It was very strange! How had this Man with the Crutch, so intimately
connected with Peters’ and David Ellsworth’s murders, come also to be so
intimately conversant with the Crime Trust’s game with Dayler?
His mind kept striking off at tangents, as he struggled with the bag. He
could not carry a bag that would gape open! Once he got it to the den,
that hole in the flooring, that he had thought so futile a reward for
his search, would not be so futile after all. The bag would fit very
nicely, and very securely, in there! Iron crutches weren’t usually made
in _pairs_. That was queer, too! Was it an iron crutch that was the
blunt instrument that had caused Peters’ death—and David Ellsworth’s?
Why had the man used that dummy envelope to-night, and—
His flashlight was out. Footsteps were creeping cautiously along the
hall outside. The police! The bag would have to do as it was now; but at
least one catch was partially fastened. He tucked it under his arm, and
for the fraction of a second, while he thrust the flashlight back into
his pocket, he stood still; and then, a sudden, curious smile on his
lips, he reached out and picked up the crutch again, and stole silently
over to the rear door. The smile was lost as his lips thinned into a
straight line. Yes, they were already here too! Well, the crutch might
perhaps still serve the same purpose!
His ear to the panel, a whisper reached him:
“Put your shoulder to it, Jerry, and push with me, when I get the bar in
the crack of the door.”
“All right,” another voice whispered. “The others will have been around
at the front long ago. Are you ready?”
The door creaked under a sudden pressure; and as suddenly from the wall
at the edge of the door, Billy Kane reached out and released the bolt.
The door swung violently open, and two figures, their balance lost,
sprawled and staggered into the room. And in a flash Billy Kane, as he
leaped through the doorway, snatched at the door, slammed it shut,
jabbed the crutch, as a lock-bar, through the iron loop of the door
handle, its end extending well over the frame of the doorway—and
sprinted across the yard.
There was a yell, and a battering thud on the door behind him, as he
reached a fence at the end of the yard, swung himself to the top and
dropped to the lane beyond. And then, as he ran, there came a crash of
broken glass. They had evidently forsaken the door for the window!
For a hundred yards Billy Kane ran at top speed along the lane; and
then, removing his mask, the bag concealed under his coat, he emerged
into the intersecting street, and dropped into a casual and quiet
stride.
He smiled queerly.
They would be looking for a cripple who, having sacrificed his crutch to
save his life, could at best but limp and hobble painfully along!