TIGERS’ DEN
Just eleven, by the illuminated dial of some obscure factory, when
Leamy raised stricken eyes for a look about him. Still time! But he
was getting old, getting a trifle fat and soft. The water beckoned.
“Just eleven,” said Craig to himself, as he looked at that same dial
from the north. “Still time.”
But his thought was of Count Wolf, and he regretted the time that he
had given to Leamy thus far. Not that he had given very much. After
all, Leamy had been incidental to his search for Wolf. It was Wolf
who was going to require a test of strength. Wolf also he had traced
from lair to lair--tireless, unceasing, with the look and the feel
about him that he had brought away from the office where, in the
presence of all the world he and Joan Gracie had plighted themselves
as surely as if they had written out their troth on white parchment.
The taxi sped. The eleven o’clock dial was left behind. Over the tops
of the houses Craig saw the stars, quiet, reassuring. They recalled
other nights. But this was the night of nights. He breathed deep.
There had been one interruption in Craig’s search for the master
sinner who went by the name of Count Wolf. That was after Craig had
learned that the count was at Madame Marebello’s. A ball, if you
please! That was the count’s style! A ball for the count on the eve
of Waterloo. Or was it Waterloo?
Craig had gone to his hotel and decked himself in his finest--had
shaved himself for the second time this day, manicured himself and
made himself immaculate in every respect, nor counted the precious
minutes lost that he had devoted to this end.
For, all the time that he was doing it he was telling himself that
if, peradventure, he should have to die it would be well to die
clean. It was odd how that thought of death kept beating at the
shutter of his mind, like Poe’s _Raven_. And finally, as had the
poet, so Craig had thrown the shutter open, let the sable bird come
in. For, after all, what was there so terrible about death? He could
imagine a thousand things worse.
Just five minutes after eleven, and the taxi that had brought Craig
from the center of the city into this quiet and eminently respectable
street, had stopped before an imposing house surrounded by an
imposing garden. The house was shuttered. For all except the front
door it was dark. For all except a muted hum of music and laughter it
was silent.
Craig directed his chauffeur into an alleyway at the side of the
garden. He was grateful now for the presence of this man, a detective
lent him by his friend, Colonel Bird.
But no raven was croaking in Craig’s mind as he mounted the Marebello
steps. The power was still in him, plus a certain knowledge that
whatever should happen to him, that thing would not be bad.
He didn’t have to ring the bell. A butler saw him coming, opened the
door. That was a point about this house. No raiding party of police
would ever have to scandalize this neighborhood by chopping down the
outer door. Inside--if it ever came to that--there would have to be
some chopping, perhaps. For, if reports were to be believed, the
stately rooms and cozy alcoves of the Marebello’s house concealed a
labyrinth.
Said the butler:
“Whom shall I announce?”
Said Craig:
“The gentleman from Frisco.”
Craig was glad that he had the password right. They changed the
password rather frequently in houses where Count Wolf was an honored
guest. He heard the door close behind him with a metallic click. The
butler was helping him off with his coat. A few moments later he was
saluting his hostess.
She was a tall woman, very dark, very richly colored--with a color
that was all her own. Craig smiled at her. But his smile was of the
lips only.
“This is indeed a pleasure,” said the Marebello.
Her voice was a rich and vibrant contralto, very soft, very musical.
It had a caressing touch about it like the hand that the lady placed
on Craig’s arm.
“The pleasure is mine,” said Craig.
It was easier to lie when the time-worn old phrases of polite speech
were used.
“I was afraid that you had forgotten me.”
“No man could ever forget you,” said Craig truthfully, this time.
“You are very beautiful.”
It was a phrase that the Marebello must have heard ten thousand
times, but there was a soberness about Craig as he said it that gave
the familiar words a quality of freshness.
“You’re a charming boy,” she retorted meltingly.
“You are so beautiful,” said Craig softly, “that I’m going to tell
you something right now before I fall under your spell.”
“You almost frighten me.”
“You may well be frightened,” said Craig, with that odd sobriety of
his, “but not of me.”
They had been standing in the broad hall. From an adjacent room there
came the sound of an orchestra creeping and strumming into the first
bars of an exotic, voluptuous dance, a babble of voices, the popping
of a champagne cork.
“What do you mean?” the woman asked, with an accent of alarm, genuine
this time, even if it was subdued.
Craig whispered the rest:
“It’s what I say--or murder!”
He made it brutal. He knew where he was. He was a trainer in the
tiger den. He had shown the red-hot iron.
The woman didn’t flinch. She had an excellent nerve. No one perhaps
had a wider experience with the varieties of passion. In her world
the raw and the primitive were never covered with more than a thin
veneer. She knew the value of keeping her head. On the other hand,
she must have known that here was a crisis where there was no time
to be lost. And, in a way, she was prepared for meeting violence
with violence. That butler who had helped Craig off with his coat
was a heavyweight slugger. There were other servants in the house
like that. There were a number of guests who would have been equally
efficient in putting a man to sleep.
“You forget where you are,” she said.
“Listen closely,” said Craig pleasantly and softly. “For you, it’s
peace or war.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve come to get Count Wolf.”
“Can’t you wait ’til he leaves?”
“No.”
“You will ruin me.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll tell him to come away with me.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Do you know who I am?”
She gave him a melting look, still tried to argue. “Be a nice boy.
Why can’t we all be friends?”
“All I ask of you,” said Craig steadily, “is no interference--from
your servants or your guests. The D. A.’s office and the police know
where I am. They’re waiting for me. Got that?”
“Yes.”
“And they’re waiting for Wolf.”
Craig was alone as he strolled into the big room where the
dancers were. There were a dozen couples on the floor. There were
other couples and groups about the walls. It was an ornate room,
brilliantly lighted. There was nothing much to differentiate it
from any private ballroom; nor, for that matter, was there anything
superficial to differentiate these guests from the guests, say, at
some large but intimate house party. The girls were attractive. Most
of the men were quiet.
Men only interested Craig as he looked about him. He saw the one man
he was looking for. Count Wolf stood with a small party, men and
women, almost opposite the broad double doors by which Craig entered.
Almost at the same instant Count Wolf must have seen Craig.
Craig was fair. The count was dark. Craig was shaven to the tinted
marble of his face. The count wore the pointed black beard that had
become his treasure and his pride, as well as his principal disguise,
since quitting San Pedro. Both Craig and the count were supple,
straight, and strong. If it came to a physical encounter, all other
things equal, it would be a pretty guess as to which might win.
But Craig, from the first, had resolved that there should be no
physical encounter--not if he could help it--not in the usual sense.
He was still in the tiger den. He knew that. It would be folly to
take his chances with fang and claw.
His entrance had attracted notice. He was aware of this. It was the
great Three Sevens who stepped across the room.
Craig never wavered. He stepped up to Count Wolf and squared himself
in front of the count. Craig said:
“So there you are, you cur!”
He lifted his open hand. He gave the count a smart slap--not very
hard, but swift.
The count let out a snarl. But the attack had been so swift, so
surprising, so completely devoid of anything like fear or hesitation,
that the count was defeated while Craig’s fingers were still against
his cheek.
Craig had something in him that the count didn’t understand, that
was as much a mystery to him as the power of an animal trainer is
mysterious to a slinking, but deadly, black panther. Perhaps the
black panther says to itself in its own way: “I am deadly. I can
kill. But here is one creature who ignores that fact. What has he got
that is greater?” Had there been a thought like that in the count’s
mind, as there was, most likely, Craig could have made a satisfactory
answer.
Right then and there, Craig was answering some such problem for
himself. He had all the power of civilization back of him. The count
didn’t.
There had been a swift recoil, a tensing of nerves and muscles. It
was a tension not only of the count, but of those who had been with
him--a youth with a snout like a boar, a man of uncertain age who in
the passing fancy of the moment might have been a polar bear. The
women were drawn back--coiling, one would have said, like cobras and
pythons.
There came an added touch to the scene.
The orchestra was not very far away. A moment ago the orchestra
had been playing its music for this human menagerie. There was a
jangling succession of discords. The music stopped.
“You talk of killing me,” said Craig. His voice was so cold and thin
he could hardly recognize it as his own. He looked about him, and
took his time about it, but not too much time. “I’ve come to get this
man,” he explained. He snapped his eyes back on the count. “Come on
with me. Get out of here. Or I’ll kick you out.”
“You’ll answer for this,” said the count.
But his threat was a mockery. He knew it was a mockery. The trouble
was that the count couldn’t think--couldn’t think at all except about
that thing that Craig had that the count himself couldn’t understand.
After all, it’s the mystery that counts--mystery that has always
frightened both animals and men, and made the old kings and gods what
they were.
“Outside,” said Craig, and he stood aside.
The count was like a man in a vacuum, only it was not mere air that
had been pumped away from him; it was that finer thing that all men
breathe when in the society of their fellows--sympathy, accord. The
count was aware that this crowd, suddenly, was not “with him.” He was
a man who had just had his face slapped. And the crowd also was in
the presence of this something that it couldn’t understand--a greater
strength, a greater skill, a greater fame.
The count drew himself up. He made a last play for dignity.
“We’ll settle this outside,” he said, and started for the door.
But Craig was watchful. His eyes, including the third eye in the top
of his head, were everywhere. He was as strong and yet as delicate as
a seismograph, ready to note the slightest vibration of the unsettled
world about him.
He was watchful in the hall, while that heavy-shouldered,
light-handed butler was helping the count into his things, then Craig
himself. In the midst of it all, Craig caught an impression of the
Marebello smiling at him tropically, from the shadow of the stairs,
whereupon he thanked God that he was putting this place back of him
forever.
And then, the moment that he and the count were on the steps, and
the door clanging back of them like the bronze gates of hell,
Craig seized the count in such a crushing grip that the count
believed--must have believed--that his end was at hand.