X--THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE
Billy Kane made no effort to stop her, as she closed the door silentlybehind her. She was gone. The minutes passed, and he still sat there onthe side of the bed, his eyes mechanically fixed on the spot, aninnocent blank wall now, where she had disappeared. His face, hard andset at first, grew harder. What was he to do? There seemed to yawnbefore him, to have opened at his feet an abyss, bottomless, pitiless,and he tottered on the brink of it, and unseen hands reached up andsnatched at him to drag him from the narrow ledge that was all that wasleft to him of safety. What was he to do? To go on? Every hour that heclung to this role of the Rat held a surer promise, not only ofdesperate peril to himself, but a promise that he would find himselflaunched in a sea of crime, of shuddering things, of murder, of blood,of sordid viciousness, of hate. In God's name, who was this Rat, who inthis hole here with its secret opening and its gnawed tunnel to thedaylight made the pseudonym so apt!
He clenched his hands suddenly, and rising to his feet began to pace theroom. He began to see now what, strangely enough, though it should havebeen plainly obvious all through that day, he had not seen until she,this unknown, mysterious woman, had, herself unconscious of it, made himsee. Her power over the Rat to which he was subject in his assumedcharacter, did not, in the final analysis, whatever the source of thatpower might be, materially affect the situation. It was not her threatthat was the driving force that must actuate him. There was another anda far greater force which he could neither ignore nor escape. He sawthat now. If the foreknowledge of proposed crime came to him, he was asguilty, if he stood idly by, as those who became the actual perpetratorsof that crime. To-night, if there was to be murder done, and it waswithin his power to prevent that murder, or even if it were only withinhis power to attempt to prevent that murder--and he did nothing--he wasa murderer himself. And so to-night he had no choice. He must act. Itdid not seem to him that there had been any question in his mind aboutthis in a specific way at all from the moment she had spoken of murder.But afterwards--if he went on--the crimes that Red Vallon and Karlin andtheir confederates would plot, and that he would know of--what then?
He halted by the table, and laughed in a short, harsh way, and in thedark eyes there burned a sudden fire. Was there really any questionabout that, either? Had there ever been! He asked only one thing in lifenow, and to that everything else was subordinate--to feel his hands uponthe throat of the man who had murdered David Ellsworth, and who hadfastened that guilt upon him--Billy Kane--to wring from that man aconfession that would clear his name. Nothing else mattered. He couldrun for it, discard this role of the Rat, and perhaps effect his escape,but he would thereby throw away almost every hope of bringing the guiltyman to justice. The other way was to fight. Well, he would fight! Itwould be a good fight! And, as the Rat, he would not have to fightalone! If he accepted the chances as they stood, he must accept the riskinvolved in foiling the plots and crimes of those who thought him theirconfederate; but against this, the first step already inaugurated, hehad the craft and cunning of the underworld at his back in the onepurpose that meant anything to him now. It would be a good fight! If hefailed, he might as well go out this way as any other--better this way,for then at least some of the projected deviltry would never knowfruition. He drew in his breath sharply as in a sort of strange relief.It was settled now, once for all! He would go on--as the Rat--to theend. And to-night he would see this Merxler plot through to the end.
Billy Kane picked up the crumpled piece of paper she had dropped on thetable, studied it for an instant, then placed it in his pocket. Itcontained the scrawled figures of a safe's combination, nothing more.And now, glancing at his watch and finding that it was already a littleafter eight o'clock, Billy Kane worked quickly. The mask that had servedhim the night before was already in his pocket, as was his revolver. Tothese he added the electric flashlight that Whitie Jack had procured forhim that morning, and, from where they dangled in the lock of the door,Whitie Jack's bunch of skeleton keys. He extinguished the light; thenpassing out through the secret door, which he closed carefully behindhim, he made his way quickly through the little underground passage,gained the shed through the trap-door, emerged on the lane, and fromthere, cautiously, he reached the street.
He walked rapidly now, but keeping always in the shadows, shunning thedirect rays of the street lamps. He cared nothing for the police; hisdanger did not lie in that direction. Seen anywhere in the city byeither police or plain-clothes man he would be recognized, not as BillyKane, but as the Rat--and the authorities, he was fairly well satisfied,had no particular or immediate interest in the Rat. His danger layto-night in an unlucky recognition by some prowler of the underworld,the report of which might reach the ears of Red Vallon and his crowd.Supposed to be confined to bed, pleading physical inability to take hisplace at that unhallowed council board of which he was accepted as amember, it would be very awkward to explain his presence on the streetwithin half an hour after Red Vallon and Karlin had left his room!To-morrow, the day after, it would be a different matter, he could goand come then as he pleased, but to-night it multiplied his difficultiesand his dangers a thousandfold. And yet, after all, that was the mostsimple of the problems that confronted him--with luck, he could see hisway out of that. But for the rest, he was almost like a blind mangroping his way along in what was already near to an inextricable maze.He knew something of Merxler both by sight and hearsay, he knew whereMerxler lived, that there was a will in the safe which he must secure,that he possessed the combination of the safe, and that afterwards therewas "the back door of Jerry's before ten," which referred undoubtedly tothe notorious gambling hell of that name, and that in these fragments,once pieced together, there was murder--that was all he knew. And therewas something grim, and horribly ironic, and mocking, and somethingforbidding, and ominous and premonitory in the fact that he was supposedto know _all_!
The street for the moment in his immediate vicinity was deserted, andjust well enough within the radius of a street lamp to enable him tosee, he drew the package of money from his vest pocket that the oldmillionaire had confided to his keeping the night before. He selectedseveral bills of the smaller denominations, placed them in his trousers'pocket, and returned the package to the inside pocket of his vest. ThankGod for the money! He had enough in the bank twice over to replace thistwo thousand that now belonged to the Ellsworth estate, but he could notget it! He was a fugitive from the law! But this should see himthrough--by the time two thousand was exhausted he must either have wonor lost. He smiled a little bitterly. Win or lose, the estate at leastwould get its two thousand back! If he won, he would pay it backhimself; if he lost--well, his money in the bank had probably alreadybeen attached!
And now he retreated to the shadows of the buildings again as he wentalong. His surreptitious excursion from the Rat's den last night had, toone who knew the East Side as intimately as he knew it, supplied himwith a mental map, as it were, of the neighborhood in which the Rat hadchosen to reside. A block further on was The Purple Scarf, a so-calledBohemian restaurant and dance hall, as lurid as its name, that for themoment was the craze with the slummers and those of New York's upperstrata who aped all things Bohemian--and from early evening until earlymorning a line of taxis waited to snatch their share of the spoils fromthe free-handed and, quite often, hilarious clientele. It was a taxithat he wanted--without attracting any unnecessary attention tohimself--a taxi that he could not stand on a crowded thoroughfare andhail--and there was, as usual, a line of them there now in front of therestaurant.
He reached the corner, drew his hat far down over his eyes, stepped outinto the street, and approached the last taxi in the line from the sideaway from the curb. The chauffeur was nodding in his seat. Billy Kanetouched the man on the arm.
"I want to go up to the Nineties--Broadway--probably several placesafter that," said Billy Kane pleasantly.
The chauffeur yawned, and shook his head.
"I'm waitin' for a party in there." He jerked his h
and toward therestaurant. "I got a fare."
"I know you have," said Billy Kane coolly. "You've got me." He extendeda ten-dollar bill. "There's another one just like this, perhaps morethan one, coming later--on top of the fare."
The chauffeur grinned, pocketed the banknote, and, leaning out, openedthe door. His grin broadened.
"What did you say the address was?" he inquired.
"The one I gave you will do for the present," Billy Kane answeredquietly. "I'll let you know where to stop. Get up there as fast as youcan. I'm paying for speed to-night. Get the idea?"
"Leave it to me!" said the chauffeur. "Hop in!"
Billy Kane settled back in the seat. The car swung out of the line, shotforward, and took the first corner on little better than two wheels.Billy Kane smiled grimly. Between here and that purposely vague addressin the Nineties which he had given, the chauffeur could very obviouslybe depended upon to do his part! In the meanwhile, and for the firsttime, he, Billy Kane, had an opportunity to study those scattered piecesof the puzzle in detail.
He lighted a cigarette. That there should be a will in Merxler's safe atall had a nasty look--unless it were Merxler's own will, which wasaltogether too highly improbable a supposition to be entertainedseriously. And besides, in that case, what was Karlin's, and RedVallon's, and the underworld's interest in the matter? He shook his headdecisively. The existence of a will did not tend to place young Merxlerin an enviable light.
Merxler's uncle, a man by the name of Theodore Rodgers, who had diedsome few months before, had been quite an intimate friend of DavidEllsworth--that was where his, Billy Kane's, personal knowledge ofMerxler came from. He had met Rodgers several times at the oldmillionaire's home; and once he had met the nephew there as well. Thetwo did not get on very well together. Young Merxler was a notorious"high-roller." Left a large fortune by his father two years ago, he hadsquandered it to the last copper. Theodore Rodgers, his uncle, had timeand again, both privately and publicly, stated that he would havenothing more to do with the boy. That was the gist of it. It hadoccasioned some surprise then that, when Rodgers had died, it was foundthat he had taken no steps to keep his money, what he had of it, somesixty or seventy thousand dollars, out of the young spendthrift's hands.But no will had been found. Rodgers was a bachelor; young ClaytonMerxler was a dead sister's only son--and Merxler had inherited as nextof kin, and had promptly moved his family--he was married--into his lateuncle's residence.
Billy Kane finished his cigarette, and finished still another, as thetaxi made its way uptown. There had never been anything criminal, so faras was known, about young Merxler, nothing wrong up to now, except thathe had gone the pace, and that, perhaps more than anything else, he hadbeen a foolish and unbalanced boy and had lost his head; but now therewere two very unpleasant facts that loomed up insistently. First, it wascommon knowledge that at the time of his uncle's death young Merxler washaving an exceedingly hard time of it to make both ends meet. And,second, was the fact that Karlin was in this too. Knowing Karlin now forwhat Karlin really was, it looked ugly enough for young Merxler. Karlin,accepted in the upper circles in which he moved, as a respected citizenand an excellent attorney, had always been trusted as a friend and thelegal adviser of both young Merxler's father and uncle--which placed himnow in a position where he could be a very useful, if not indispensableconfederate in assisting Merxler to enter without obstacle into thepossession of his uncle's estate.
The minutes passed. Billy Kane, within a few blocks of his destination,noted the cross streets carefully now, as he shook his head again. Thepieces did not fit so perfectly after all. Suppose that Rodgers _had_left a will disinheriting his nephew, and suppose that young Merxler hadfound that will and that it was in Merxler's safe now, and that Karlinwas a party to it--why hadn't the will been _destroyed_? That would seemthe obvious and safe thing to have done! And if Merxler and Karlin andRed Vallon were all hand in glove in the affair, where was the incentivefor murder that she had spoken of? Whose murder? There was a snarl inthe thing. He was conscious that he had not untangled it at all to hissatisfaction.
He tapped suddenly on the glass front, signalling the chauffeur; and, asthe taxi drew up at the curb, he stepped quickly to the sidewalk.
"Wait for me here," he directed, and started at a brisk pace up theblock.
He turned at the first corner, heading east along the cross street. Itwas purely a residential neighborhood here. There was no otherpedestrian in sight for the moment. Merxler's house was one of a rowhalfway up the block. Billy Kane's pace became a nonchalant stroll. Hepassed the row of houses slowly, though apparently indifferent to theirexistence, and then, retracing his steps quite as negligently, slippedsuddenly into the shadows of a flight of high front steps, and the nextinstant was crouched against the basement door.
A skeleton key from Whitie Jack's comprehensive assortment crept intothe lock. It proved abortive. Billy Kane, as he made a second attemptwith another key, was subconsciously rehearsing certain details in hismind. There was a light in the vestibule or front hallway above him, butthe windows on that floor were dark. Above that again the windows werelighted, and it was a fair presumption that the family proper were allupstairs. There was probably a maid, but as there was no sign of lifehere in the basement it might well be her evening out.
Again Billy Kane selected another key, still another--and then the dooropened silently under his hand. He stepped inside, closed the doornoiselessly behind him, and stood listening. There was no sound and nolight. It was pitch black. He could not have seen his hand before hiseyes. And then his flashlight winked through the black, went out, winkedinquisitively again, and he moved forward. The stairs were just at hisright, and made a right-angled turn halfway up. He gained the stairs andbegan to mount them, testing each separate tread cautiously before thenext step was attempted. Stairs before now had been known to creak outdiscordantly! Billy Kane smiled in a grim, mirthless way. He wasbecoming an adept at this burglarious trade where silence was so prime afactor. Since last night he----
_What was that?_
He felt his muscles, as though without volition of his, strain suddenlyand grow rigid. He was halfway up the stairs now, and he drew back intothe angle made by the turn, his body hugged tight against the wall. Whatwas that! He thought he had heard a sound as of someone moving in thehall above, but it was gone now and there was only a stillness in thehouse, a stillness that, as he listened, became exaggerated until itseemed to possess noises of its own that began to throb, and pound, andpalpitate, and make his eardrums ring, and--_no!_--there it was again--alight, quick step--and, unmistakably now, upon the topmost stair.
It was inky black. He could not see. He pressed still closer, flatteninghimself against the wall. The step was very light, scarcely audible; awoman's step probably, and probably the maid's. Billy Kane held hisbreath. If he were found here, discovered, caught, the Rat would----Hedid not care to dwell upon the consequences.
Something, a shapeless thing, a deeper, shadowy blackness passed by him.It seemed to escape contact with him by the barest fraction of an inch.He heard the sound of breathing--then a step along the passagewaybelow--and the basement door closed quietly. There was silence again,save for that din infernal that beat at his eardrums. He lifted his handto his forehead--it was moist as he brought it away again.
A moment more, and he was grimly composed again. It was the maidprobably. That seemed the natural conclusion. Who else would have goneout by the basement door? Well, if that were so, he was left now withalmost unrestricted freedom of action; the family being all upstairs, hemight reasonably expect to have the first floor quite to himself withoutvery great fear of interruption.
He crept on up the stairs, and reached the main hallway. Here the dimlight in the vestibule sifting down the length of the hall metamorphosedthe blackness into a murky gloom. He listened again. A murmur of voicescame intermittently from above. There was no other sound.
There was a door at his right. He opened it silently, and steppe
dthrough into the room beyond. He closed the door, and the flashlightwinked out again. He was in luck now! This, at the first venture, wasthe room he was looking for. The round, white ray of the flashlight,cutting a filmy path through the darkness, fell upon the nickel dial ofa small safe that stood against the opposite wall. He crossed to thesafe, knelt before it, and took the crumpled piece of paper that borethe combination from his pocket. Thereafter for a moment, as his fingersmoved swiftly, the silence was broken by the faint, musical whirling ofthe dial--and then a low, metallic thud, as he shot the lever over--andthe safe door swung open.
The ray from the flashlight flooded the interior of the safe. It was asmall safe, but even so it was evidently more than large enough for itsrequirements. On the floor of the safe was a package of securities, heldtogether by broad elastic bands, but the pigeon-holes were but sparselyfilled, some being entirely empty. A few minutes' examination disposedof the pigeon-holes--and the skeleton keys came into service again on alittle locked drawer. The drawer contained a single envelope, sealed. Heslit the envelope open. It contained two folded sheets of paper. Heexamined only one of them, and that only to the extent of glancing atthe first few words: "I, Theodore Rodgers, being of sane mind and----"
Billy Kane's face darkened, as he thrust the envelope into his pocketand locked the drawer. It was true then! His lips pursed grimly, as hiseyes fell upon the package of securities again. He took up the packageand riffled it tentatively through his fingers. Theodore Rodgers hadperhaps been a little eccentric--if eccentricity was defined by adivergence from the general habits and customs of others! He had made nosecret that he kept his securities in his own safe, preferring thatmethod to depositing them in a safe-deposit vault, and claiming that, asthe securities were made out in his name and were therefore valueless toanyone else, they offered no temptation for robbery. Young Merxler hadevidently followed in his uncle's footsteps in this particular! ButTheodore Rodgers had been credited with being worth in the neighborhoodof seventy thousand dollars! Billy Kane's lips pursed tighter, as hereplaced the package of bonds and stock certificates in the safe, andclosed and locked the safe door. At a generous estimate there remainedno more than twelve or fifteen thousand dollars. Young Merxler, in thebrief period following his uncle's death, had evidently done well!
Billy Kane retreated from the room, descended the stairs, and lethimself out through the basement door--and five minutes later, in histaxi, was being whirled downtown again. "The back room at Jerry's beforeten." He had directed the chauffeur to drive to a side street just offthe Bowery near Chatham Square--that was close to Jerry's. He had lookedat his watch, as he had entered the taxi. It was just nine o'clock. Hehad therefore plenty of time now. He took the envelope from his pocketand extracted the two folded sheets. There was not light enough to readby, but that was quite easily rectified. He had his flashlight.
He bent well down toward the floor of the cab so as not to attract thechauffeur's attention, read both of the papers, read them again--and alook of stunned surprise and bewilderment settled on his face. One was awill, evidently drawn and written by Rodgers himself, and dulywitnessed, bequeathing practically everything to charity, and specifyingfour or five different organizations as the beneficiaries. It appointedKarlin, who was referred to as a "trusted and lifelong friend," the soleexecutor; and, "as a mark of personal esteem," and as a "slightcompensation" for the administration of the estate, left Karlin a legacyof two thousand five hundred dollars. The other paper was a lettersigned by young Merxler. Billy Kane read this again for the third time:
"If I die before Karlin does, this is a joke on Karlin; if Karlin dies before I do the will and this letter go into the fire. Damn him--I hate him! He's a smooth oily-tongued hypocrite! It was Karlin more than anybody else who backed my uncle up in the idea of cutting me off. Well, I guess this is where I get even! If there's two thousand five hundred dollars left when I get through, I hope Karlin will enjoy it--but there won't be! I just wanted him to know how thoughtful my uncle was, and it was worth the risk of keeping the cursed will for the sake of the jolt it will give Karlin's miserly, snivelling soul. If there's anything Karlin loves, it's money. If Karlin's got any God at all, it's money. He worships that, all right!"
Here the letter veered abruptly into direct address:
"It'll break your heart, Karlin, won't it, to think I spent two thousand five hundred dollars of _your_ money! That's the joke, Karlin! It's rich, isn't it? And I just want to tell you, too, that you had the will in your own hands once--and overlooked the bet! That's where you slipped up, Karlin. It was the day my uncle died, and we were going over the papers together. It was in a plain, unsealed envelope--and didn't look like anything. You tossed it on a heap of other stuff to be looked into later--all you could think of was counting stocks and bonds, getting your fingers into money--that you didn't know was yours--some of it, anyway! I was looking for something else--and found it. I only had to read about two words and see that it was in my uncle's handwriting, and--well, since you're the executor, you'll find it enclosed herewith!
Clayton Merxler."
Billy Kane refolded the papers, returned them to the envelope, restoredthe envelope and flashlight to his pockets, and leaned back in his seat.The taxi lurched and swayed along at a pace that gave small deference orheed to speed laws. Billy Kane stared out of the window.
The letter was viciously facetious, callous and unscrupulous. The boywas a self-confessed and blatantly unrepentant thief. In that at leasthis first supposition had evidently been justified, and it was quiteclear now why Merxler had not destroyed the will--but otherwise thewhole affair had now assumed an entirely different aspect. Instead ofKarlin being in league with Merxler, Karlin, unknown to Merxler, it nowappeared, was aware of the existence of the will--and Karlin, if _she_had not exaggerated, meant murder. And, since no one else was involved,meant Merxler's murder.
Billy Kane's face hardened in perplexity. But why? What could Karlinhope to gain thereby? Certainly it was not on account of the littlelegacy of two thousand five hundred dollars--Karlin had only to exposethe fact that the will existed to obtain that. And that applied equallyto the executorship. And what good could the executorship do Karlin?With the stocks and bonds there open to inspection and their valueknown, Karlin's executorship could afford no opportunity for crookedwork--he could simply turn the securities into cash, turn the cash overto the various charities, and the cash must correspond with thevaluation of the estate's schedule of assets. Why, then--murder?Personal enmity? No; Red Vallon and the underworld were interested inthis, and the enmity that had caused Merxler to preserve the will, anenmity that no doubt was fully returned by Karlin, had nothing to dowith Red Vallon and the rest.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by. The taxi reached the lower sectionof the city. Billy Kane still stared from the window, his face stillhard in perplexity. Murder! No, he did not understand. But there wasstill the "back room at Jerry's"--where he was going now! Did the answerlie there? Jerry's, safely entrenched in one of the most abandonedneighborhoods of the city, was a gambling hell that yet boasted acertain exclusiveness--and its patrons quite made good the boast. It wasan open secret that men whose names ranked high in the city's commercialand professional world went there for their fling. Jerry, it was said,was an ex-croupier from Monte Carlo, and had brought the spirit of MonteCarlo with him. He, Billy Kane, had heard of the place often enough--theentertainment was lavish, the play unlimited. Did the answer liethere--in the back room at Jerry's? He shrugged his shouldersphilosophically now, and a grim little smile came and flickered acrosshis lips. Well, if there were any means by which an uninvited guestcould gain access to that back room, he would know within a very fewminutes now!