XII--A CLUE
Billy Kane's eyes lifted from his plate, and fixed in a curiouslyintrospective way on Whitie Jack's unhandsome and unshaven face acrossthe little table. Twenty-four hours! He was out in the opennow--"convalescent." Twenty-four hours--and as far as Red Vallon andBirdie Rose were concerned specifically, and the underworld generally,there had been not a shred of success. He had unleashed the underworld,but the underworld had picked up neither thread nor clue; theunderground clearing houses for stolen goods, the "fences," had yieldedup no single one of the rubies belonging to the Ellsworth collection;the lead that he had given Birdie Rose in respect of Jackson, the deadfootman, had, up to the present at least, proved abortive.
Well, perhaps he, Billy Kane, would be more successful! The twenty-fourhours had not been wholly fruitless. Perhaps before the night was outthere would be a different story to tell--perhaps a grim and ugly story.There was one clue which had developed, but a clue that was to beentrusted to neither Red Vallon, nor Birdie Rose, nor any of the pack.Even they, case-hardened, steeped in crime though they were, might balkat pushing that clue to its ultimate conclusion. They might weaken atthe limit! He, Billy Kane, would not weaken, because, as between his ownlife and the life of one who he was already satisfied was a murderer, hewould not fling his own life away! His life was at stake. Red Vallon'swasn't. Birdie Rose's wasn't. It made a difference in--the limit!
An attendant, in a dirty, beer-stained apron, sidled to the edge of thetable. The man had been eager in his attentions, deferential, almostobsequious.
"Wot're youse for now, Bundy?" he inquired solicitously.
Billy Kane smiled, as he shook his head and jerked his hand by way ofinvitation toward Whitie Jack. He, Billy Kane, was the Rat, alias BundyMorgan! He had never in his life before been in this none-too-reputableplace run by one Two-finger Tasker, that combined at one and the sametime a restaurant and dance hall of the lowest type, yet he foundhimself not only well known but an honored guest! He had known of theplace by name and reputation; it was the sort of place that seemednaturally one the Rat would frequent, and he had told Red Vallon that hewould "eat" here this evening. Red Vallon would have to make a reportsomewhere, and he, Billy Kane, had become none too sure of his owntemporary quarters--that secret door, that underground passage into theRat's lair had not proved an altogether unmixed blessing! There was theWoman in Black, who had been an uninvited, unwelcome, and almostsinister visitor on two occasions already; and there was, far moredisturbing still, the matter of that ruby from the Ellsworth collectionwhich had found its way mysteriously to the table in that room--thesingle stone from the collection that had come to light since the murdertwo nights ago.
Whitie Jack accepted the unspoken invitation.
"Gimme another mug of suds," he said.
The glass was replenished.
"You seem to have pulled a good job, Whitie," said Billy Kaneapprovingly. "The tenement is next to the cafe on the corner, eh? Allright, I know the place. What next?"
Whitie Jack gulped down half the contents of his glass.
"I guess I did," he said complacently. "I wasn't pipin' de lay all dayfor nothin'--wot? De place has three floors, an' two flats on eachfloor, savvy? It ain't much of a place, neither. Peters' flat is on desecond floor, on de right as youse go up. Dere's nobody at home, but hecomes down dere himself to give de place de once-over one night a week.De family's away somewhere for a vacation, sniffin' in de ocean breezesat some boardin' house. Gee, say, de guy must have money to pull de highbrow, out-of-town-in-de-summer stuff for de family!"
Billy Kane nodded.
Whitie Jack finished his glass, and drew his sleeve across his mouth.
"Two of de flats is vacant," he said. "One on de second floor, an' oneon de top. De other one on de top over Peters' flat is where dat crazyold fiddler guy, Savnak, hangs out all by his lonesome. But Savnak won'tbother youse none. He's out every night. He goes down to Dutchy Vetter'sjewelry shop, an' him an' Dutchy, bein' nuts on music an' pinochle, deygoes to it for half de night. Old Savnak's got bats in his belfry, Iguess; but I guess he can fiddle all right. I heard he used to be a bigbug leadin' some foreign or-kestra, an' was a count or dook orsomething, an' den de dope got him, an' den he came out here. He ain'tlivin' like a dook now, an' I guess it takes him all his time to scratchup his rent. Bats, dat's wot he's got--bats an' dope. Dey got him toplay one night down to Heeney's music hall, an' he went up in de air an'quit flat 'cause de waiters kept circulatin' around an' dishin' out desuds while he was playin'! Say, wot do youse know about dat! An'den----"
"Stick to cases, Whitie," interrupted Billy Kane patiently. "I'mexpecting company in a few minutes. What about the ground floor? Wholives there?"
"Oh, dere!" said Whitie Jack somewhat contemptuously. "I dunno wot yerlay is, but dere's nothin' dere to bother youse neither. Dere's a coupleof sisters about sixty years old apiece on one side, an' a young guydat's just got married on de other."
"Back entrance?" inquired Billy Kane casually.
Whitie Jack shook his head.
"Nope!" he said. "Nothin' doin'! Dere's a back yard about four inchessquare, but the buildin' behind butts right up against it, an' dereain't no lane. But youse can get in de front door to-night whether it'slocked or not, for dere ain't any street lamp near enough to do youseany harm."
"Good work!" said Billy Kane. He pushed his plate away from in front ofhim. "I guess you'd better beat it now, Whitie."
Whitie Jack, of the lesser breed of criminal, self-attached familiar tothe man he believed to be the Rat and an aristocrat of Crimeland, rosefrom his seat with evident reluctance. There was a sort of dog-likefaithfulness and admiration in his eyes, the same deference in hismanner that seemed to mark the dealings of everyone in the underworldwith the Rat; but the look on Whitie Jack's face was nevertheless one ofundisguised disappointment.
"Ain't I in on dis any more?" he pleaded. "Ain't I got anything more todo?"
"Yes," said Billy Kane. He lowered his voice. "You've got more to do,and what will count for a lot more than you've already done--keep yourmouth shut tight." He leaned across the table, and his hand closed in afriendly pressure on the other's arm. "Take the night off. Show up inthe morning. Beat it now, Whitie."
Whitie Jack left the place. The waiter removed the dishes from thetable. Billy Kane leaned back in his chair, and his eyes, theintrospective stare back in their depths, travelled slowly over hissurroundings. The tables, ranged around the sides of the room, were butsparsely occupied; the polished section of the floor in the center wasdeserted--it was too early for the votaries of the bunny-hug and theturkey-trot to start in on their nightly gyrations. Two-finger Tasker'swas in a state of lethargy, as it were; a few hours later it would awaketo a riot of hilarity, and come into its own with a surging crowd andpacked tables, but it was too early for that yet.
Billy Kane's fingers slipped mechanically into his vest pocket, and,hidden there, mechanically began to twirl a small, hard object,irregular in its shape, between their tips. His face hardened suddenly.The touch of that little object stirred up in an instant a grim flood ofspeculation. It was the ruby from the Ellsworth collection that he hadfound on his return to the Rat's den last night. It worried him. How hadit got there? Who had put it there? And why? Above all--why?
Only a few hours before, turning his purloined authority to account, hehad set the underworld the task of tracing the Ellsworth collection--andmysteriously there had appeared upon his table this single stone,ostentatiously identified by a piece cut from one of the original plushtrays in which the stones had been kept. The bare possibility that ithad been Red Vallon, or some of his breed, who had stumbled upon thestone in their search through the underground exchanges, and had left itthere as evidence of a partial success for him to find on his return,had occurred to him; but a cautious probing of Red Vallon that morninghad put a final and emphatic negative on that theory.
Who, then? And why? It had seemed like a ghastly jeer when he had seenthat stone th
ere on the table, and the prelude to some sinister act thathe could not foresee, and against which therefore he could not prepareany defense. Did someone know that he was not the Rat, that, desperate,with no other thing to do, he had snatched at the role fate had thrustout to him, and was playing it now?
Who, then? Not the Woman in Black--her acceptance of him as the Rat hadbeen altogether too genuine! Not the underworld--even a suspicion therewould have been followed by a knife thrust long before this. Not theactual perpetrators of David Ellsworth's murder, if they knew him to beBilly Kane--for their one aim had been to fasten the crime irrevocablyupon him, all their hellish ingenuity had been centered on that oneobject, and they would certainly, therefore, have lost no time in givingthe police, in some roundabout, guarded way, a tip as to his identity.
His brain whirled with the problem, and ached in an actual physicalsense. It had been aching all day. He could minimize his peril, if hecared to make the wish father to the thought; he could not exaggerateit. It seemed impossible that his identity was known, but, even so, thequestion as to where that stone had come from, and why, still remainedunanswered. Was it, then--another possibility--the murderers of DavidEllsworth, who, while still believing him to be the Rat, and havingdiscovered in some way that, as the Rat, he was working against them,had given him this ugly and significant warning to keep his hands off?Well, if that were so, he was still in no less danger, for he must goon. To turn aside was to fail, and to fail, quite equally, meant death.
The hard pressure of his lips curved the corners of his mouth downwardin sharp lines. Nor was the question of that stone all! Since last nightwhen the cloak of respectability had been stripped from Karlin, and the"man in the mask" had turned the tables on the crime coterie in thegambling hell run by Jerry, the ex-croupier of Monte Carlo, theunderworld had been in a nasty mood, ugly, suspicious, in a ferment ofunrest. It was another alias added to his role, another alias tosafeguard even more zealously, if possible, than his unsought role ofthe Rat. He was the man in the mask. He shrugged his shoulders suddenly.Quite so! The mask was even at that moment in his inside coat pocket. Ifit were found there! He laughed harshly. It seemed as though he werebeing sucked in nearer and nearer to the center of some seething vortexthat hungrily sought to engulf him. It seemed as though his brain groundand mulled around in a sort of ghastly cycle. When he tried to bring onething into individual outline some other thing impinged, and all becamea jumbled medley, like pieces of a puzzle, no one of which would fitinto another.
The underworld looked askance and whispered through the corners of itsmouth as it asked the question: Who was the man in the mask? And he,Billy Kane, who could answer that question, sitting here in Two-fingerTasker's in the heart of that underworld, was asking himself another, adozen others, whose answers were vital, life and death to him in themost literal sense. Who was the Woman in Black, who, like a Nemesis,hovered over the Rat? Where was the man whose personality had been sostrangely thrust upon him, Billy Kane? When would the Rat return? Hadhe, Billy Kane, even the few hours at his disposal this evening thatwere necessary to enable him to run down the clue which he haddiscovered, and upon which he was banking his all now to clear himself,to bring to justice the murderers who had so craftily saddled theirguilt upon him--had he even that much time before the inevitable crashcame?
This evening! Yes, this evening! His fingers came from his vest pocket,and his hand clenched fiercely at his side. He would go the limit. Hismind was made up to that. He had never thought that he would consider,calculate and weigh the pros and cons of taking another's life, muchless come to a deliberate decision to do so! But he had made thatdecision now; and, if it were necessary, he would carry it through. Itseemed to affect him with an unnatural, cold indifference that surprisedhimself--that decision. It seemed to be only the result, the outcomethat continued to concern him. If he had luck with him to-night he wouldwin through. Red Vallon, Birdie Rose and the underworld had so farfailed. He had kept prodding them on, and would continue to prod them oneven now on the basis that he could not afford to let go of a singlechance; but his hopes, that amounted now to a practical certainty ofsuccess, were almost wholly centered on his own efforts in the next fewhours.
He stirred impulsively in his chair. The murderers of David Ellsworthhad been _too_ cunning, it seemed, had overstepped themselves at last intheir anxiety to weave their net of evidence still more irrevocablyaround him. The affair of last night, the capture of Karlin by thepolice, and the social prominence of both Karlin and Merxler, hadfurnished the morning papers with material for glaring headlines andcolumns of sensational "story"; but, even so, all this had not by anymeans overshadowed the Ellsworth murder and robbery. The press was stillalive with it, New York was still agog with the oldmillionaire-philanthropist's assassination, and with what it believed tobe the traitorous and abandoned act of, not only a trusted andconfidential secretary, but of one who at the same time was the son of alifelong friend.
The blood surged burning hot into Billy Kane's face. From coast to coastthey had heralded him as the vilest of his kind--he was a pariah, anoutcast, a thing of loathing! Yes, the papers were still giving him andthe Ellsworth murder prominence enough! But that prominence was notwithout its compensation, since it had furnished him with the clue nowin his possession.
The inquest had been held late yesterday afternoon, too late for morethan brief mention in the evening papers, but this morning the papershad carried a full and practically verbatim report of the proceedings.He had read the report, not daring at first to believe what he wanted tobelieve, afraid that his eyes were playing a mocking trick upon him--andthen he had read it again in a sort of grim, unholy joy.
Jackson, the footman, who he knew was one of the murderers, was dead,and so far Birdie Rose had been unable to trace the man's family orconnections; but Peters, the butler, was not dead, and out of Peters'own mouth, in his effort apparently to seal for all time his, BillyKane's, guilt, Peters had convicted himself!
True, before a jury, Peters had done himself no harm--that was thehellish ingenuity of the scheme that fitted in with all the rest of thedevil's craft with which the affair had been planned. Peters, in thepublic's eyes, or before any court, was treading on safe and solidground, for his, Billy Kane's, simple denial was worth nothing in anyman's opinion to-day; but he, Billy Kane, _knew_ that Peters' testimonywas not fact. Peters had testified that he had seen him, Billy Kane,leave the house about seven o'clock--which was true. Peters had thendeliberately testified that half an hour later, though he had not seenMr. Kane return, he had seen Mr. Kane come quietly down the back stairs,and enter the library--which, besides being untrue, since he, BillyKane, was not even in the house at that time, was also equivalent toswearing away his, Billy Kane's, life. Peters, continuing his evidence,had stated that he was quite sure he had not been seen by Mr. Kane, ashe, Peters, at that moment was standing just inside the cloakroom offthe hall. He did not see Mr. Kane emerge again from the library, butsome fifteen minutes later a telephone call came in for Mr. Ellsworth,and, knowing Mr. Ellsworth to be in the library, he connected with thatroom. He tried several times, but could get no reply. Finally he went tothe library door and opened it, and found Mr. Ellsworth with his skullcrushed in, dead upon the floor, the private vault and safe open andlooted. He at once called the police. He stated that it was obvious Mr.Kane had made his escape from the library through the stenographer'sroom at the rear, and from there to the back entrance, where, later onagain, as the police already knew, returning once more in the hopepresumably of recovering the card with the combinations of the safe andvault on it in his handwriting, he had been discovered by Jackson, thefootman, and had killed Jackson, who had tried to capture him.
Billy Kane's hands were shoved in an apparently nonchalant manner intothe side pockets of his coat--to hide them from view now. The nails werebiting into the palms of his hands. "_Killed_" that was the word Petershad used--"killed." It was very subtle of Peters to have used thatword--it just clinched the whole st
ory with the seemingly obvious.Everybody believed that he, Billy Kane, had killed Jackson, as well asDavid Ellsworth. Yes, Peters had put the finishing touch on the evidencethat was meant to free the actual perpetrators, himself quite evidentlyamongst them, from punishment, and to send him, Billy Kane, if caught,as their proxy to the death chair in Sing Sing.
Quite so! And Peters thought himself quite safe. What had Peters to fearfrom a hunted wretch who he undoubtedly believed was miles away, fleeingfor his life, cowering from the sight of his fellow humans, afraid toshow his face? But Peters and his accomplices had overshot the mark! Theevidence was final, incontrovertible, damning--only it was not _true_.He, Billy Kane, would not dispute it with a jury--he would put Peters ona witness stand of a grimmer nature than that! He had known on the nightof the crime that Jackson, the footman, was one of the guilty men; buthe had not suspected that the dignified, perfectly trained Peters, thebutler, with his fastidiously trimmed, gray, mutton-chop side-whiskers,was likewise one of the band. And now he wondered why he had not thoughtof it.
He saw Peters in quite a different light now! A hundred little incidentsmetamorphosed the man's excessive efficiency and attentiveness into asmug mask of hypocrisy. And, corroborative from this new viewpoint,where, for instance, had Peters, as it now appeared, got the money tosend his family away even to a boarding house? Butlers were not in thehabit of sending their families away to the seaside for the summer! EvenWhitie Jack had not failed to comment on that fact. Well, he wassatisfied that he knew the real Peters now, and it was not too late. Itwas Peters, or himself now. It was his life, or Peters' life--unlessPeters laid bare to the last shred the whole plot, and the name of everyman connected with it.
And the stage was set. From the moment he had read the papers thatmorning, he had put Whitie Jack at work--and Whitie Jack had done well,exceedingly well. He, Billy Kane, knew that Peters was married and had afamily, but he had not known Peters' home address. Whitie Jack hadproved a most praiseworthy ferret. He, Billy Kane, knew that Thursdaywas always Peters' night off. This was Thursday night. Peters, then, ifhe followed his usual custom, would visit his flat to-night; and, sincethe man's family was away, Peters and he would be _alone_. It wasfortunate that the family was away, luck seemed to be turning; itprecluded the necessity of getting Peters somewhere else--alone. Itsimplified matters. Peters' flat would serve most excellently for thatinterview!
He laughed a little now. He was strangely cool, strangely composed. Hewas in a mood in which he found difficulty in recognizing himself. Hewas going to-night to wring from a man either that man's life, or thatman's confession. He was absolutely merciless in that resolve; he wouldnot turn back, nothing would make him swerve one iota from thatdetermination, he would go the limit--and yet he sat here entirelyunmoved, callous.
Well, after all, why not? If the man was already a murderer, his lifewas already forfeit. If he, Billy Kane, must choose between losing hisown life and permitting one of the murderers of David Ellsworth toprofit further thereby, would one hesitate long over that choice, orhesitate to go--the limit?