DREW LANE STEPS INTO SOMETHING
That same night Drew Lane “stepped into something,” something that was
quite unexpected and—well, you’ll see.
During the day he had conducted his raids on the city’s two “kidnaping
centers.” They had turned out as he had prophesied they might—quite tame
affairs. Most of the gentlemen, expecting a call, had stepped out. The
raids yielded three guns, sixteen pocket knives and no information of
importance regarding the mysterious disappearance of the Red Rover.
Indeed the protestations of innocence, the ready offer of assistance
which he received on every hand led him to believe that this was a job
pulled off by some one quite outside the well-ordered circle of kidnaping
gentlemen.
“Honest, Lane, we don’t know a thing!” one smooth-spoken gentleman
assured him. “We don’t want the Red Rover snatched. Why should we? Our
money is up on him, a lot of it. We want him to come through with a
touchdown, a whole flock of ’em. Tell you what—” His voice dropped to a
whisper. “Your pay isn’t too big. Know where you can pick up a piece of
change? I do. You just step out and bring the Red Rover back. The boys
here will make up a purse for you. Just you say: ‘The Red Rover plays,’
and you’ll hear the clink of gold.”
“Do men gamble on football?” Drew had opened his eyes wide.
“Do they? Why, say! They—”
But something—a wink, a thrust in the side, a dark look,
something—silenced the talkative one. He said no more. He had said
enough, however, to put Drew in a thoughtful mood.
His collecting of pocket knives was received on the whole as a huge joke.
It was suggested that he go out on a sand lot and take up a jack-knife
collection from the boys playing ball.
Drew felt a bit silly about it himself and, since he had no notion what
purpose it was intended to serve, he was tempted to chuck it. In the end
he carried it through. So sixteen pocket knives all duly labeled reposed
in the drawer of his desk.
All of which has nothing whatever to do with the thing he “stepped into”
after darkness had fallen.
He had gone into a place for a belated dinner. This place, he knew, had a
bad reputation. That was why he wished to eat there. A born detective,
Drew was always looking for things, and sometimes he found them.
Having ordered baked flank steak, French fried potatoes, pie, and black
coffee, he sat back in his chair to stare dreamily about him. He was
truly hungry. “Flank steak all filled with dressing! Um!” he whispered.
Little did he dream that the meal would never be eaten.
Just before him eight men were grouped around a double table. Their meal
over, they sat drinking amber liquid from tall glasses.
“Might be soda water,” Drew mused. The men were far more interesting than
their drink. They were a strange lot. Three of them, dark complexioned
gentlemen with short black moustaches, looked exactly alike. They were
dressed alike and often all spoke at the same time. They laughed together
in a sort of symphonic chorus. To the right of these was a large man with
a huge red nose who roared when he laughed. A smaller and younger man,
who might well have been his son, sat beside him. Across from these were
two others who did not fall under Drew’s gaze.
The man at the end caught and held Drew’s attention. A small man, he said
never a word, but all the time sat poised as if for a spring.
“Looks like a jack-in-the-box,” Drew told himself.
This little man’s eyes were roving from one to another of his companions.
Once, these eyes, swinging in a wide circle, took Drew in. Cold
steel-gray eyes that glittered, they sent a chill coursing down his
spine. He felt in his pocket. Yes, the safety on his automatic was
snapped off.
It was then that Drew’s keen mind registered an important fact. This
little man with the fiery eyes was branded, or so it seemed; there was a
double scar on the right side of his forehead. Together these scars, one
red, the other purple, formed a Maltese Cross.
“Know him anywhere,” Drew told himself. “And yet, those scars might be
faked, little touches of colored wax. It’s been done.”
Drew was expecting something to happen. The room was like a country place
before a thunderstorm. One expects the roar of it long before the first
peal comes rolling in.
When the thing did happen Drew was ready. It was nothing much at that,
you might say. The little man half rose in his chair. As he did so
something heavy slipped from his pocket and fell to the floor with a
crash. It was a blue-barreled automatic.
Without so much as glancing about, the little man reached down to pick it
up.
A look of pained surprise overspread his face as he realized the gun was
not on the floor.
Then, as if a thought had struck him all of a heap, he whirled about to
fix his fiery eyes on Drew Lane and to remark in a tone as smooth and
hard as glass:
“You got that.”
“Sure did.” Sliding back his chair, Drew stood up, thrust both hands deep
in his pockets, then with a trick he had learned by long practice, threw
out the lapel of his coat to display his star pinned underneath.
He said never another word—just stood there smiling a little. What more
was to be said? The man had carried concealed weapons. This he had no
right to do. As an officer Drew was doing his duty.
The little man’s face went red all over, like an angry sunset. His eyes
swept the circle of his companions and, as if attached to strings held in
his hand, they arose—the three all alike, the big man, his son and the
other two.
Drew Lane was young. But he was no novice. He knew what it meant. He was
prepared.
“Gentlemen,” he spoke in an even tone, “you can take me. You are eight to
one. But I’ll get two of you first.” His eyes fell a trifle.
There was not a man in the group but read his meaning. In his pockets
were two automatics. Time and again he had won the police prize for
straight shooting from the hips. One false move and a member of the
little man’s gang would get a bullet in his heart or his brain. Drew was
good for exactly two of them.
It was a tense moment. Perhaps the glittering eyes of that little man had
never wavered. Perhaps they would not have wavered now. Who could say? No
one. For at that instant the lights went out, and on the instant, save
for the feeble light of one small window, the place was dark.
A deep silence fell upon the room. Without realizing it, Drew began
counting under his breath: “One, two, three, four, five, six.” Perhaps he
was counting the seconds before things began to happen. Keeping a tight
grip with either hand on the things of blue steel in his pockets, he
waited, silent, breathless.
He had just become conscious of a clock that ticked loudly in a corner,
when a low gasp caught his attention.
Without knowing why, he fixed his eyes upon the one small window. Other
eyes were fixed upon that narrow window. How many pairs of eyes? Who
could say? It was dark.
Something was moving by the window. Not a person—no, surely not that! A
skull perhaps, an ugly skull with hollow eye sockets from which a pale
light gleamed. A sigh passed over the room like the low moan of the sea
at night.
And then something stranger happened. The skull disappeared and a ghost
with bones bleached white and a long, flowing sheet went racing away
across an empty space beside the building. Again the long sigh swept
across the room.
And then the lights went on. These lights disclosed eight gentlemen
standing just as they had stood before, staring rather stupidly at one
another—the three alike, the big man and his son, the little one with
glittering eyes and the other two. Drew Lane had vanished.
For a full minute by the clock on the wall they stood there staring at
one another. Then the big man said in a loud voice:
“The Galloping Ghost!” After which he let forth a roar of laughter that
suggested a crazy baboon roaring in the night.
Ten minutes later the place was raided by the police. There was no one
there.
One fact about this affair seems important. Drew Lane retained possession
of the automatic that had fallen on the floor. This automatic was the key
to a situation. What situation? This, for a while, was to remain a
mystery.