“Police headquarters speaking.”
“Ina Holden is in a house with phone number Cartwright 872. Mark it down.”
He heard the voice of the officer dictating “Cartwright 872. Ina Holden.”
Then, “What else, sir?”
“There are at least four armed men in the house, and one woman.”
“Where is the house?”
“I don’t know. I’m a prisoner with her myself. Send enough men at once to
surround the house. Look it up in the numerical index.”
Carlson could hear the officer giving rapid orders, and, more faintly,
their repetition being shouted out through the station.
“All right, sir. We’ve located the house, and it will take us about
twenty minutes to get to you. I’m sending out a general alarm, and maybe
some of our men out there can arrive sooner. How are you fixed?”
“I knocked out one of the men. I and the girl are barricaded in a third
floor back room, and we’ll try to hold out until your men come.”
“Good! Stay at the ’phone as long as you can and keep me informed to the
last possible moment. Good luck to you!”
“I’ll put the girl at the ’phone, and stand guard myself. Ina!”
“Yes, doctor.” She came in quickly, the pistol in her hand.
“Please sit down here and hold the ’phone. The police are on the wire.
I’ll call out to you how things go, and you report to them. Has Tony
moved?”
“No. He doesn’t seem to breathe.”
Carlson left Ina at the ’phone and went to Tony. He lay absolutely still,
just as they had placed him at the foot of the bed. Carlson tore off the
mask and turned the face around and listened with his ear to the month.
Not a sound! Then he used his stethoscope over the heart. Silence! Tony
was dead!
Carlson picked up Tony’s automatic, turned off the light plug in the
large bed room, and went back to Ina. She was at her post, her elbows on
the little table, the receiver at her ear. She looked up at him with a
grave smile.
“The police have been asking me a lot of questions. How about the man in
the next room?”
“Dead. I’m sorry I killed him, but there was nothing else to do. Anyway,”
said Carlson, “it makes our work easier. We won’t have to watch him, and
his body will help hold the door a little longer.”
He looked quickly around the room.
“And now for our plan of defense until the police come. The barricade
in the bedroom may hold till then. But, if it doesn’t then we will have
to barricade ourselves again in here. We ought to be able to hold out
easily.”
And then Carlson began dragging furniture from the bedroom into the
dressing room until the latter was nearly full.
“I guess that’ll be enough,” he said. “They’re taking a long time fixing
that fuse, but they can’t be too long for us.” He stood beside Ina once
more, having done all that could be done for the present.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “and their bungling delay probably means our
salvation. Anyhow, there’s nothing for it but to wait—for what is to
come.”
Carlson had been looking at Ina Holden while they were talking, and he
thought he had never seen a more charming girl. Her thick dark hair was
unloosed and uncombed and fell over her shoulders. She was clad only in
the coarse, sleeveless, night garment, which showed beautifully rounded
arms to the shoulders. Her feet were bare. Her eyes were a pure and
brilliant blue, shining under heavy but well arched brows. Her features
were almost faultless, but the strong jaw and firm though adorable lips
expressed unusual force and will power for a woman. A woman worth going
through hell for—Carlson thought grimly.
Her face, neck and arms were deeply suffused as with the flush of high
fever. But her manner and movements were not those of a very sick person.
Carlson was puzzled.
“I confess I don’t know what to make of your fever,” he said frankly.
She half smiled as she replied:
“Of course. I should have thought of that before. It isn’t a _real_
fever, but what the Italians call an _impressione_.”
“What’s that?”
“An effect of a shock.”
“But no mere shock can cause actual fever!”
“That’s what many doctors have said. But the fact is that it _does_
with me. I was always that way. There’s something abnormal in my
constitution. I can even bring on a fever by willing it. I’m ashamed to
say that when I was a child I would sometimes play sick in that way in
order to get what I wanted. But I hadn’t done it for so long that I’d
almost forgotten about it—until this horrible thing happened, and then I
remembered and tried it. But they wouldn’t call a doctor for three days,
not until they got badly scared and thought I might die on their hands.
And that is why they brought _you_ here.”
“I never heard of such a case before,” said Carlson. “Never! To be sure,
there are a few cases on record where the heart and pulse rate were
under the control of the will to some extent; but certainly _not_ the
temperature.”
He then asked: “How does it happen that the kidnappers have a house like
this?”
“This house belongs to a wealthy family named Carriello. They are
traveling in Europe, and have left the house in charge of an Italian and
his wife.”
“The woman Teresa?”
“Yes. The two are black-handers, and their gang figured that the police
would never suspect that I might be hidden in such a place.”
Suddenly the lights flashed out. The fuse was repaired at last. The
kidnappers would be at the door in a few moments!
Carlson gripped Tony’s automatic a little harder, and his left hand fell
almost involuntarily on the girl’s shoulder. They waited thus, tensely,
hardly breathing, and with quickened heart-beats, until they heard
footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Then Carlson drew a deep breath, and
whispered:
“They are coming now—but don’t be afraid.”
She said nothing, but raised both her hands and clasped them over his for
a moment.
He stepped softly into the darkened bedroom, just as a key turned in the
lock. The knob was turned, the door tried—then shaken. There was a short
silence. Then, from the “boss:”
“Open the door, you fool!”
Carlson was silent.
“Tony!”
Silence.
“Tony! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Silence.
A whispered consultation outside the door. Then:
“Tony! Doctor! Open that door or, by God! I’ll——”
More whispering, then a short silence.
“Doctor!”
Silence.
Whispering again; then footsteps running down the stairs; then another
and longer silence. Carlson put his ear as near as he could to the door.
Soon he heard the footsteps returning, but they stopped at the second
floor. A voice called faintly from below:
“I can’t find anything but a hatchet.”
Smothered cursing told that the “boss” was still on the other side of the
door. Then he also seemed to run down stairs. Presently Carlson heard
hammering or pounding, far below, and at last a crushing and crumbling
sound, as if something heavy had given way. _What_ were the scoundrels
doing?
Then footsteps again, coming up the stairs, but more slowly this time.
And as they came, there was an occasional bumping sound, as if they were
carrying some bulky object which now and then struck the walls or stairs.
When they were opposite the door, something heavy hit the floor. Then,
once more, the sullen voice of the “boss.”
“Listen, Doc! I don’t know what you’ve done to Tony, and what’s more I
don’t give a damn, if you open the door now.”
Silence. Carlson thought he could hear their heavy breathing. As a
psychologist he knew that his own silence, and that of Tony, had a horror
about it that was telling severely, even on their hardened nerves.
“This is your last chance, Doc! If you open the door now, you can go, and
take your fee, and be damned. But if you won’t open, I’m going to break
down the door, and then—you’ll leave here in a coupla suit cases. Do you
get me?”
Silence! After about a quarter of a minute, the “boss” said:
“Now then! All together!”
Carlson braced himself. But suddenly the woman screamed, “Stop!”
“Shut up! You—”
“I won’t. Listen!” And though she spoke lower, Carlson could hear her say
something about the doctor and Tony’s pistol!
“I know that,” muttered the man, “but we’ve got to risk it!”
Another voice, Carlson thought that of the man who sat beside him in the
auto, half whispered:
“Wait, Boss! I don’t like this! What did the doc do to big Tony? I
wouldn’t go into that room again if you killed me! I’ve lost my nerve,
let’s chuck this job and make a getaway!”
“No, I won’t! and none of you won’t by God! We’ve gone too far to go
back. We’ll win together, or go to the Chair together! I’ll shoot the
first—”
“But—”
“Take that, will you, and shut up!” a blow, a fall, and a groan, as if
from the level of the floor.
A few seconds of dead silence, then the voice of the “boss”:
“Now, get together and smash that door!”
More shuffling of feet and the dragging of something heavy, then the
muffled voice of the woman:
“Maybe he found the phone—”
“Quick! Bust in that door!”
Carlson held his breath.
_CRASH!_
A terrific blow, as of from a battering ram, shook and shivered the
strong oak door. But door and bolt still held. Carlson knew from the
impact of the blow that some ponderous solid object had been driven
against the door. And he know also that a few more such blows would
shatter it, leaving only the bed and an overturned chiffonier and Tony’s
body as a barricade.
So he quickly began dragging more chairs, tables and what not into the
small dressing-room.
_CRASH!_ The door fell inward against the head of the massive bed.
Carlson dragged a davenport into the little room, and then closed its
door, locking and bolting it.
_CRASH!_
The devastating sound that followed told that the heavy overhanging
canopy of the bed had fallen inward. Carlson kept steadily working away
barricading the second door.
“Thank God _this_ door opens outward!” he said to Ina. She was still at
her post at the telephone.
“Hello!” she said calmly. “They have just smashed in the outer door
and are climbing in over the ruins of the bed and furniture. We have
retreated into a smaller room, and the doctor is piling furniture against
it—” She looked at Carlson.
“The police want to know how long we can hold out!”
“Perhaps another five minutes.”
“Five minutes more—what?... O, I hope so!”
_CRASH!_ This time on the inner door. It held perfectly!
“They are attacking our inner door, Inspector—you heard it?”
_CRASH!_ A panel cracked, all the way down.
_CRASH!_ The panel flew in splinters. One splinter struck the girl in the
face, making a small wound on the forehead, and blood trickled down into
her eyes, but she did nothing more than to wipe it off with the back of
her right hand.
Carlson readjusted the shifting barricade, and glanced at Ina.
“You are hurt!”
“It’s nothing.”
“Into the bathroom, quickly!”
_CRASH!_ Another panel cracked!
She got up calmly, and wiped the blood out of her eyes again with the
handkerchief Carlson pressed against her face; then, his arm around her,
she walked into the bathroom.
Carlson forced Ina into a chair and knelt beside her, indifferent to
everything now but the bleeding cut on her face.
“Let me look at it!”
“It’s nothing at all, I tell you! Go back and attend to the door. We must
barricade ourselves in here in another minute.”
_CRASH!_ The center of the door fell inward against the barricade. As
Carlson ran to pick up a heavy chair for the bathroom defense, a hand and
pistol came through the breach in the door and a shot rang out. He felt a
stinging pain in his side, but kept on with his work. Before he realized
it, Ina was in the room again, dragging another chair into the bathroom.
The barricade crumbled still more, and another shot was aimed at Carlson,
but did not hit him. Ina deliberately crossed the little room to the
telephone and turned off the light.
“They won’t shoot _me_—not yet, anyway,” she said.
The barricade fell to pieces. There was not a moment to lose. Carlson and
Ina rushed into the bathroom and locked and bolted the door and began
stacking the chairs and tables and one small chiffonier against the door.
Carlson felt blood soaking his clothing. He and Ina crouched together in
one corner. He held Tony’s pistol in his right hand, and both of Ina’s
hands in his left.
“Listen, Ina! When they force this door, I will try to pick them off one
by one. If I fall, be ready to snatch the pistol and shoot carefully.
Don’t waste a shot! The police should be here any moment.”
_CRASH!_ The lock and bolt snapped, and the door itself was pressed
inward several inches, but rebounded by the pressure of the barricade.
_CRASH!_ This time the door yielded more than a foot, and in the opening
Carlson could see a man’s form. He fired, and a shriek followed. Four or
five shots were aimed at Carlson, but did not reach him in his protected
corner angle. Suddenly a voice yelled from the outer room:
“The Cops! They’re around the house!”
“Damnation! Get the Girl, at all costs!”
When the next rush brought a man into view Carlson fired, and he knew by
the scream that he had hit once more. The pistol dropped from his hand,
and his body swayed. But the girl realized everything in an instant.
Quick as thought she snatched up the pistol with her right hand as she
knelt beside him, and her other arm went around him.
At that instant a perfect fusillade of shooting sounded from the outer
room, followed by screams, yelling and groaning. Then a masked man with
a pistol in his hand bounded wildly into the half-opened door of the
bathroom. But Ina fired from their darkened corner before he saw them,
and he fell backward among the debris.
Carlson felt everything growing dark.
“Ina?”
“Yes, dear; we’ve won the fight!”
His head sank against her breast, just as two policemen appeared in the
doorway.
She dropped the pistol and put both arms about him.
_VI_
“Miss Holden?” asked one of the officers, turning his bull’s-eye lantern
on them.
She did not answer, but looked long and tensely at Carlson’s white
unconscious face. Then she pressed a kiss on his forehead.
“He saved me!” she said, looking up at the officers. “I owe everything to
him. Please send for a surgeon and have him taken to my home immediately.”
“The police surgeon will be here in a moment, Miss Holden. Let us take
him into another room.”
As they took him from her arms they saw that her garment was soaked with
his blood.
“Who is he?” asked the lieutenant.
“I don’t know. He was brought here by the kidnappers when I seemed to be
very sick. We had no time for anything but defense.”
The lieutenant took off his overcoat and placed it over Ina’s shoulders,
and then they both followed the two officers who carried the unconscious
Carlson out through the wreck of the dressing-room and larger bedroom.
And what a scene of ruin and blood! They had to pick their way through
masses of broken furniture. One masked dead man lay just outside the
bathroom—the man Ina had shot. Another man, his mask torn off, sat
propped up against an overturned chiffonier on the floor of the large
bedroom. He was groaning and trying to wring his manacled hands, as two
officers knelt beside him and searched his pockets.
The mammoth carcass of Tony lay where Carlson and Ina had first dragged
it, but it was now half covered by the mattress and debris of the bed. At
least a dozen policemen in the rooms. The woman Teresa stood sniveling in
a corner, unmasked and handcuffed.
But there was a sudden silence as Ina Holden appeared, her face bloody,
her feet bare, and her form covered by the officer’s overcoat. All
eyes were fixed on the girl, whose name and picture had been in every
newspaper from Maine to California for the last five days.
They carried Carlson through the devastated rooms, into another room and
laid him on a bed. The police surgeon arrived at almost the same moment.
After a glance at the unconscious man on the bed, the surgeon said:
“But where is the _girl_?”
“I am Ina Holden,” she said quickly, “but never mind _me_. Look at _him_!”
“Who is he?”
“The man who saved me. They shot him just before the police came.”
The surgeon quickly tore open the blood-soaked shirt and found the bullet
wound in the right side. He listened a moment to his heart; then looked
up gravely.
“Very serious! There seems to be severe hemorrhage into the pleura. He
must be rushed to the nearest hospital for immediate operation.”
“Doctor,” asked Ina, with shaking voice. “Is he—will he recover?”
“I am sorry to say, Miss Holden, the chances are against him. Quick,
boys! The stretcher. One of you telephone Mercy Hospital to have the
operating-room ready.”
And then another man burst like a whirlwind into the room—a large,
bearded man of about fifty—a man of commanding presence, before whom
everyone made way.
“Ina!—my Girl!—”
Slowly Ina turned her eyes from Carlson and looked at her father. Then
she stood up and held out her arms, and was gathered into his embrace.
“Father, dear!” she panted, as soon as his joyful greetings would allow;
“Listen! I am all right. But that man lying there saved my life. If he
had not come—”
“Yes, my girl! Go on!”
“He was shot defending me before the police could get here. And now—he
may be—_dying_!—” Her voice broke.
Two men entered with a stretcher, just as the surgeon gave Carlson a
hypodermic of some powerful heart stimulant. Deftly they moved him from
bed to stretcher. Mr. Holden drew the surgeon aside and they exchanged a
few earnest words.
“We’ll do our best, sir, that’s all I can say. Good night, sir! Good
night, Miss Holden!” He hurried down stairs after the stretcher.
“Where’s the telephone?” said Holden.
Ina took him to it, and then he called the hospital and several famous
surgeons, telling them that the man who had saved his daughter must be
saved! _Must be saved!_
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I have found his name, sir. It’s on his surgical bag. He is Dr. Herbert
Carlson of New York.”
“Thank you very much! Please find his ’phone number and I will call his
wife and tell her what we are doing for him.”
As her father was calling Carlson’s telephone number, Ina listened with
strained attention. His _wife_! Somehow, it had never occurred to her
that he might be married!
“Hello! Is this Dr. Carlson’s residence?... Yes, yes, I know he’s
not there now. May I speak with his wife?... What’s that?... _Not_
married?... O, I beg your pardon! His sister?—yourself? Thank you! Now
listen to me, please!...”
Ina did not try to analyze her feelings when her father’s words at the
telephone seemed to prove that Carlson was unmarried. But then she
suddenly remembered, as with a stab at her heart, what the police surgeon
had said! Yes: As her father had ordered, He _must_ be saved! Nothing
else mattered!
At 2:53 A. M. the telephone at the Holden residence rang for at least
the hundredth time that fateful night. The butler had instructions not
to call Mr. Holden except for communications from the police or the
hospital. Ina and her mother, in Ina’s bedroom, heard the muffled buzzer
in the study below, and looked at each other anxiously. Ina snatched up
the extension receiver at her bedside and listened.
“Hospital speaking. I have a message for Mr. Holden.”
It was the second message from the hospital. The first had told the
hopeful news that Dr. Carlson had been successfully operated on, that
hemorrhage had been checked, and that his heart had responded to
stimulants. Mr. Holden, at his desk, lifted the receiver.
“Mr. Holden speaking. Quick! What’s your message?”
“Dr. Carlson slept until five minutes ago. Then he woke up suddenly and
asked: ‘Is Ina all right?’ We told him that Miss Holden was safe at home,
and he said: ‘Thank God!’ and went to sleep again.”
[Illustration]