CHAPTER IX
A PLACE OF FEAR
Big Slim lived at Bohlmier's. This was a little hotel in a huddledsection of the city, and had the Swiss coat of arms on a sign at thedoor.
"I always pick out little islands where I'll be quiet, and where no onecomes poking around," said the lank burglar. "The swift places are thekind to pass up."
There was a little sanded office, with prints of the Rhine Castles, ofthe Alps, of mountain folk with their goats. Old Bohlmier with his baldhead and big spectacles sat behind a high desk peering at a much thumbedscrap of music, and blowing the notes upon a flute.
"Friend of mine," announced Big Slim, indicating Scanlon. "Wants aroom."
"So!" Bohlmier put down the flute and looked at the big athlete over therims of his spectacles. "Yah, I suppose I haf one yet." He arose andopened a small register. "Your name you will put inside here," hedirected.
Scanlon did as requested; then the proprietor toiled, in ashort-breathed fashion, up the stairs before them, unlocked a door andstood aside for Scanlon to enter. The room was small and slimlyfurnished; but it was clean and had two windows peering upon whatlooked, in the dimness, like a courtyard.
"If you do not der stable mind," suggested Bohlmier, "der ventilation isgoot, by der windows."
"Nice," said Bat "This will do me--great."
When the proprietor had gone, Big Slim shuffled about the room, hishands in his pockets.
"The Dutchman's real," said he, to Bat. "I've known him for some time,and he's in on more than anybody would think."
The athlete threw some cigarettes upon the table and drew up two chairs.
"Sit down," said he, with a ready air of ownership. "Let's get betteracquainted."
"Not now," replied Big Slim. "Some other time, maybe, I'll open a can ofexperience with you; but to-night," and he leered knowingly, "I've got alittle business."
"All right," said Bat. "I'll see you to-morrow, then."
"Sure," said the lank burglar. "I don't want to lose sight of you, pal,for I owe you one."
"Oh, that's all right," said Scanlon, as he shook hands with the otherat the room door. "It was only a little try-out for a freight car likeme."
Scanlon stood in the doorway and watched the angular, stoop-shoulderedfigure go down the hall; there was something so slinking, so furtivelydeadly in the burglar's motions that Bat felt a prickly sensation run upand down his spine.
"That's the kind of a fellow that would snuff out your light and neverlose an hour's sleep over it," said the big athlete to himself. "A wolf!A prowling wolf! But, just as Kirk thought, he's got something insidethat lean head of his that I ought to know about, and I mean to knowit."
Big Slim turned a sharp angle and disappeared from view; but Scanlonstood looking down the hall, and thinking. The corridor was lowceilinged and narrow; the lights were dim and the doors ran in anunbroken line on either side, each with a black number upon it.
"Nice," pronounced Bat, "every thing clean and orderly. The old Swiss isthere with the soap and dust brush. I'll hand it to him for that.But----"
He paused and a wrinkle appeared between his eyes. Yes, the place wasmuch better than he had expected--that is, as far as he could see. Butsometimes there were things not to be seen; if you were aware of them atall, you _felt_ them. And as Bat Scanlon stood looking down the dim hallwith its two rows of expressionless doors, he was aware of a peculiarsomething from which his mind drew back. Rising from an invisiblesource, much as a miasma arises from a marsh, there came a subtlequality--an impression of evil; it seemed to creep by and around him;silently, insidiously, poisonously.
The big man stepped into his room and quietly closed the door. Then,grimly, he slipped a huge Colt's revolver from a holster hooked underthe left armhole of his vest; with a snap he threw it open, and theejector threw the black, oily, murderous looking cartridges upon thetable with a rattle. Bat inspected and tested the working parts of theweapon; satisfied that all was right, he replaced the cartridges withpracticed fingers.
"I only had that feeling once before in my life," said he, "and that wasthe night in Dacy's place at Holdover when the four 'breeds' werewaiting for me in the dark room." He put the Colt back in its holster,and stood ruminating. "What was it the burglar fellow said about theskipper of this outfit? 'He's in on more than anybody would think.'Well, I'd better watch myself," and Bat smiled, though his eyes narrowedat the same time; "for when a bald-headed old simp with a flute is onthe cross, he's sure to be the limit. The surprise kind of crook alwaysis."
He walked the floor for a few moments, then he shot the bolt on the doorand stretched himself across the low iron cot, with the light turnedoff. Bat Scanlon's mind was not a particularly imaginative one; but atthe same time it possessed one of the attributes of the imaginativetype: and that was the mental antennae which felt things while they werestill in the distance. As he lay there upon the hard bed in thecloset-like room, he kept sensing something, but could get no clear ideaof its shape.
"That's where Kirk pins on the medal," spoke Bat. "These things nevercome to him done up in fogs; they are always pretty clear pictures andhave a definite meaning."
However, vague as the premonition was, Bat was confident of one thing;that was: whatever shape the thing took, it would have something to dowith the affair at Stanwick.
"Maybe I believe it because I've got a mind full of the Stanwick thing,"Scanlon told himself; "a fellow does fool himself that way sometimes.But this time ain't one of them. Before I get out of this phony hotelI'm going to get another little jolt."
Another jolt! Bat whistled between his teeth in dismay. Were there notjolts enough in the thing already? One by one, as he lay there, hemarshaled his impressions in his mind, in the order in which they hadoccurred. When Nora first called him on the telephone there hadunquestionably been a note of fear in her voice. In her dread of thepolice, as afterward shown, he fancied he recalled something more thanthe shrinking of a sensitive nature. And her eagerness to know what wasgoing forward at Stanwick was--well, it was curious.
And to Stanwick he had gone. He saw the ugly evidence of a brutal crime;he saw a sick girl, very much attached to her brother, who quivered withdread at what had happened, and who, so he fancied, was even in a deeperstate of fear at what might yet come to pass. Also he had watched andlistened to a harassed young man who seemed to be groping his way amidstthe bitter resentments of years, the frightful actualities of themoment, and a disconcerting sense of impending disaster.
"And that same young fellow's in bad," said the big man, to the darknessof the little room. "The cops always make it tough for the man they pickout to bear the weight of a crime. They try and twist everything topoint his way."
And after this came the evident interest of Ashton-Kirk in the matter.
"I don't know but what he was interested even before that," thought Bat."He saw something I didn't see--which ain't hard to do, for I'm a dub atthat kind of a thing."
He remembered that Nora was even more agitated when he saw her againthan she had been the first time. Young Burton was innocent! He must befreed! She _knew_ he didn't do it! She _knew_!
"How did she?" Bat asked himself. "That's strong talk."
And, then, there was the bruise upon her forehead. Nora had deceivedthem about that. There were the footprints behind the rose arbor, therewas the small revolver, there were the marks of the "creepers" in theyard at Stanwick and upon the scaffold outside Nora's window. And, then,there was also the apparently sudden resolution upon the girl's part toplace her jewels in a place of security.
"People don't get these sudden notions for no reason at all," mused Bat."And Nora had her own reasons for doing that. But," and there was alittle tightening of his mind, an unpleasant straining which made himwant to draw back from the thought, "she didn't want to tell anythingabout it. I believe in Nora. Nothing could drive me from that; but sheis holding back on us; she knows things that she won't tell."
At some of these things Bat could
guess; some others Ashton-Kirk's hintshad partly covered. But the background, the reason for it all, puzzledhim. He pondered deeply for a long time, but not a ray of light appearedthrough the mists that obscured the matter.
"But this burglar fellow's got something I want to know!" Bat sat up,and his forceful hands shut tightly. "And maybe it's just the thing weneed. Maybe it's just the----"
He stopped. When he had turned off his single gas jet a half hourbefore, all had been dark outside. Now there was a flare of light frombelow. He arose and looked out. A wall loomed across the courtyard; andin the previous darkness he had thought it blank. But now he saw therewere windows in it; and two of them, on the ground floor, wereilluminated.
"Huh!" said Bat, as he stood looking down. "There's old Bohlmier, andexercising his old flute again."
The bald dome of the old Swiss shone under the gas light; the scrap ofthumbed music was propped up against a bottle, and he was blowinggravely into his instrument, his fingers moving up and down and alongthe keys with methodical precision.
"Just like an old-fashioned picture," said Bat, the quaintcharacteristics of the composition in the frame of the window appealingto him. "I wonder if I've not been a little hasty with these notions ofmine about this place. That old lad looks as harmless as----"
But he stopped! For the composition below had suddenly changed. Some onehad evidently knocked at the door of the room in which old Bohlmiersat. One hand had reached, in a clawing motion, at the music; the flutewas held pinned to the table in a bony, convulsive grip by the other;the bald head was thrust forward and seemed to wave gently to and frolike that of a snake. The big athlete drew in his breath, hissingly.
"The bets are off!" said he, between his teeth. "That old rat's got itin him! I'll bet his veins run ice water; and if you gave him the chanceto knife a man, you'd be doing him a favor."
The Swiss had apparently spoken to whomever had knocked, and now,although still invisible to Bat, had entered the room. Bohlmier leanedback in his chair, his hands clasped before him; but from the motions ofthe shiny poll, Bat knew he was speaking.
"That room must be somewhere behind the office," Bat told himself."Maybe a private den of the old fellow's."
Here Bohlmier suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. With headthrust forward once more he seemed to stab a question at his visitor, aquestion apparently of vast importance. Evidently this was answered tothe liking of the Swiss; eagerly, triumphantly, inquiringly, one handwent up and hung pointing across the room to a point behind the other.
"The door's there," said Bat, intuitively getting the meaning of thegesture. "And on the other side of it is some one, or something the oldman's been expecting to see."
Then there followed a period of earnest talk between the hotel-keeperand the unseen visitor. It was carried on in a low tone; Bat recognizedthis fact by the attitudes and gestures of the old Swiss who finally,with almost trembling hands, pulled open a drawer in the table at whichhe had been seated. From this he took something which he patted, almostfondly. But a hand came across the table--the hand of the unknown--a bigbony hand, and pushed it aside.
"It's Big Slim!" exclaimed Bat, with fresh interest. "And old smooth topis up to something he don't like."
The tall burglar now came into view; he sat upon the corner of the tableand bent his head toward the Swiss, gesturing angularly. With no goodhumor, the hotel-keeper pulled open the table drawer once more andreplaced the thing he had taken out; the bald head wagged in protest;every motion he made suggested a man convinced against his will. Deep inhis inner consciousness, Bat Scanlon had a stirring of unrest. Herecalled the words of Big Slim while they were still at Sheehan's:
"'I lost out on that deal, bo; but that's not all. More's to follow;and this time I'll get mine.'"
And then the business of which he had spoken when he left Bat in thehall only a short time before.
"I wonder if it could have anything to do with the other matter," Batquestioned himself. "I wonder if what they are talking about is----" Hestopped. At the window next that through which he saw the men, he caughta stir. A shadow--a woman's shadow--moved stealthily across the walltoward the two, whose backs were turned; the hands were outstretched asthough reaching for something. Then the woman herself appeared in thefull flare of the light, and paused at a small stand; a revolver laythere, and it was for this she was reaching. As she took it up, sheturned her head; and for the first time Bat had a full view of her face.It was Nora Cavanaugh!