XIII--THE CIPHER MESSAGE
Billy Kane's hands came from his pockets again, and he leisurely lighteda cigarette. Though sitting sideways to the door, he neverthelessunostentatiously commanded a full view of the entrance. Red Vallon hadjust entered, and, after a moment's pause in which the man's eyessearched around the dance hall, was coming forward, threading his waythrough the intervening tables. Billy Kane flung a short nod ofrecognition in the direction of the approaching gangster; and then hiseyes fastened in a sort of hard, curious expectancy on the street dooragain. Whether or not it was intuition or premonition, induced by whathad happened the previous night when Red Vallon had been followed, hedid not know, but he was somehow prepared now, a little more thanprepared, almost sure, in fact, that there would be a repetition of lastnight's occurrence.
Red Vallon dropped into the seat vacated by Whitie Jack.
"Hello, Bundy!" he greeted affably.
"Hello, Red!" The response was purely mechanical. Billy Kane shifted hiscigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other--to hide a smile inwhich there was no humor. His intuition, if it were intuition, had notbeen at fault. A woman had just entered the dance hall. He was notlikely to mistake that slim, graceful figure, nor those dark, steadyeyes--that were spanning the room and resting upon him. He could not seethe lurking mockery in those eyes, the distance was a little too greatfor that, but his imagination could depict it readily enough. Nor did itrequire much imagination! It was the Woman in Black. He glanced at RedVallon. Red Vallon's back was turned to the door, and he had quiteevidently not observed her.
The beer-stained attendant hurried to the table.
"What'll you have, Red?" inquired Billy Kane pleasantly.
Red Vallon waved the man away.
"Nix!" he said in a lowered voice. "I got to beat it--I got to meetBirdie Rose. There's something doing."
Billy Kane, even as he watched that trim figure make its way to a tablenear the wall on a line with his own, leaned abruptly, eagerly forward,toward Red Vallon. He felt his pulse throb and quicken. Luck seemed tobe breaking wide open at last. If, coupled with his own clue, Red Vallonand Birdie Rose had unearthed another, this infernal masquerade thatthreatened his life at every turn was as good as ended.
"What is it?" he demanded sharply. "Have you spotted the stones?"
Red Vallon shook his head.
"Not them stones," he said a little uneasily. "Some others. I gotorders."
Billy Kane's face hardened.
"Orders!" he echoed shortly. "Didn't I tell you last night thateverything else was piker stuff? A half million in rubies, that's whatwe're after--to the limit! Understand? To the limit! Orders! Who gaveyou any orders except to stick to the game?"
"You know," said Red Vallon, and pushed a sheet of paper across thetable. "Tear it up when you're through. It's no good to me any more. Ijust wanted to show it to you, so's you'd know I wasn't side-stepping onmy own."
Billy Kane did not tear it up. His face, still set hard, showed no othersigns of emotion, as his eyes studied the paper, but inwardly there camea sort of numbed dismay. It was a code message. It meant nothing to himin one sense, in another it meant a very great deal. He was _supposed_to know what this jumble of letters signified. Red Vallon expected himto know. To arouse Red Vallon's suspicion for an instant was simply andliterally equivalent to bringing down the underworld upon him--and theunderworld would be as gentle and merciful as a pack of starving wolves!The jumble of letters seemed to possess a diabolical leer all their own,as he stared at them.
zidu6vesfuu6fwefwjf8dfsuofnIIohjtopdteop8nbje3ofueobt8v piutsb7mmpez5bepun4psgnb9esfutnbf4wbiopjubIInspgoj3fiuf m4p2ntjho6jzbImbuo5bm2qpuu3fhnf4iuuih7jopuoff7xufcu5ih j3feobf4ojold6pmd3peobu6sfwjeopjd9jqtv2tpuf4np3tfopf4tm 3fov3sf4iufmp2npui5usb3fe4obflb3nn5jiih2vpdqv.
Was it a code that, with the key in one's possession, one could read ata glance? He did not know. Was it a code that required elaborate andpainstaking effort to decipher? He did not know. Did Red Vallon, sittingthere across the table watching him, expect him to give instantindication that the code message was plain and intelligible to him? Hedid not know. There was only one course to take--the middle course. Helaid the paper on the table, and laid his clenched fist over the paper,as he leaned farther over, truculently, toward Red Vallon.
"I tell you again that everything else is piker stuff," he said angrily."Do you get me? What have you done, you and Birdie, and the rest? Haveyou got anywhere to-day? Do you know where that secretary guy, BillyKane, is? Do you know where those rubies are?"
"No," said Red Vallon hurriedly, "we haven't turned anything up yet,but----"
"But you're going to--by nosing around after something else!" snappedBilly Kane. "Do you think I'm going to see the biggest thing that wasever pulled slip through my fingers? If you do, you've got another thinkcoming! Things have changed since I've been away--eh? How long sincethere's been any monkeying with what I dope out?"
"Don't get sore, Bundy," said Red Vallon appeasingly. "It's nothing likethat. You know how it was. Karlin's arrest last night queeredeverything. That cursed snitch with the mask on put everything on therough. There wasn't any meeting. You know who sent that code there;well, _he_ didn't know about the other job, or that he was butting in onyou. Tumble? There ain't nothing to be sore about, Bundy. Say, me andBirdie ain't going to be more'n an hour or two doing this trick, anyhow.Someone of the Mole's gang must have leaked; or maybe one of our boyspiped him off. I dunno. But we got him cold this trip. He's a slick oneall right, and he's been getting away with the goods quite a lot lately,and giving us the laugh. You know all about that. Well, this is where hedoesn't laugh--see? He's pulling a nice one to-night. Got it all fixedup to make it look like somebody else did it. Sure! Well, we're notkicking at that--so long as _we_ get the loot. Sure! We'll let him pullit, all right, all right, believe me!"
Billy Kane appeared to be unmoved. He studied the gangster coldly.
"And how does it happen that you and Birdie, out of all the rest, arepicked for this?"
Red Vallon indulged in an ugly grin.
"'Cause we know the Mole down to the ground," he said; "but principallybecause the Mole knows _us_! There won't be any fooling when we spring ashow-down, he's wise to that, and he'll come across. And, besides,'tain't only Birdie and me, I'm taking some of my own gang along aswell."
Billy Kane scowled. It probably mattered very little indeed that RedVallon's efforts were to be sidetracked for the next few hours, andshould he, Billy Kane, during that time, be successful, it mattered notat all; but his play for the moment was to preserve his role in RedVallon's eyes, to keep away from anything intimate concerning thepurport of this cipher message that still lay beneath his clenched hand,and that might so easily betray his ignorance, and above all now to getrid of Red Vallon before any such awkward and dangerous _impasse_ couldarise. He shrugged his shoulders, but his voice was still sullen as hespoke.
"Well, go to it!" he growled. "Go and pick up your chicken feed! But youget this into your nut, Red, and let it soak there. After this"--heleaned far over the table, his face thrust almost into RedVallon's--"you stay with the game every minute, or quit! It's the limit,or quit! There's just one thing that counts--those rubies, or the manwho pinched them. If we get the man, he'll cough--red--the stones, orblood. Do you think I'm going to let anything queer me on my share ofhalf a million? You don't seem to get what I mean when I say the limit.Look out I don't give you an object lesson!"
Red Vallon licked his lips, and drew back a little. There was somethingin Red Vallon's eyes that was not often there--fear.
"It's all right, Bundy," he said with nervous eagerness. "I'm with you.Sure, I am! This thing must have broke loose quick, and there wasn't noidea of crabbing anything you'd started. I got ten of the best of 'emcombing out the 'fences' for you right now."
"All right," responded Billy Kane gruffly. "Make a report to me on thatbefore morning."
"Where'll you be?" Red Vallon was apparently rel
ieved, for his voice hadrecovered its buoyancy.
"At my place--some time," said Billy Kane curtly. "You can wait for methere." He smiled suddenly with grim facetiousness. "My shoulder's a lotbetter--enough so that maybe I can sit in for a hand myself to-night."
"I hope you do," said Red Vallon fervently. "You always had theknock-out punch, Bundy, and it'll seem like old times." He half rosefrom his chair; then, looking furtively about him, bent forward over thetable. "There's something else, Bundy, before I go--that snitch lastnight at Jerry's, the man in the mask. He's played hell with the crowd.There's no telling what'll tumble down behind Karlin. And it don't looklike he's just stumbled on that deal by _accident_. It don't look good,Bundy. We got to get him, and get him quick, before he pulls anythingmore. The word's out to bump him off."
Billy Kane nodded.
"Well, don't lose your nerve over it, Red," he said coolly. "If it wasby accident, he won't do us any more damage, and we've only got tosettle with him for what he's done, providing we can ever find him; ifit wasn't accident he'll show his hand again--won't he?"
"Yes," said Red Vallon.
Billy Kane's smile was unpleasant.
"Well, you'll know what to do with him then, won't you?" he inquiredsoftly.
The gangster's red-rimmed eyes narrowed to slits.
"Yes, I'll know!" said Red Vallon coarsely. He made an ugly motiontoward his throat. "Well, so long, Bundy!"
Billy Kane nodded again by way of answer. He watched Red Vallon threadhis way back among the tables, and pass out through the front door. Withthe gangster out of the way, he picked up the sheet of paper upon whichthe code message was written, studied it for a moment, then thrust itinto his pocket--and his glance travelled to the table opposite to himand against the wall, where that slim little figure in black was seated.She appeared to be quite indifferent to his presence, and quite intentupon the consumption of a glass of milk and the sandwich on the platebefore her.
Billy Kane smiled with grim comprehension. The frugality of the meal wasnot without its object. It was fairly obvious that she could dispose ofwhat was before her in short order, and leave the place at an instant'snotice without inviting undesirable attention to an unfinished meal--ifshe so desired! It was his move. She had followed Red Vallon in, but shehad not followed Red Vallon out--she was waiting for him, Billy Kane.The seat she had chosen had been in plain view of Red Vallon, thereforeshe was evidently free from any fear of recognition on the part of thegangster, and, as a logical corollary, from probably anybody else in theroom. That she gave no sign now therefore could mean but one thing. Itwas his move. If he cared to cross swords with her here, he was atliberty to do so; if he had reasons of his own for preferring a lesspublic meeting, he had only to leave the place--and she wouldundoubtedly follow.
In one sense she was most solicitous of his welfare! She would donothing to hamper or hinder him in protecting himself, as long as hecontinued to double-cross and render abortive the crimes of that innercircle of the underworld in which she believed him to be a leader;failing that, as she had already made it quite clear, she proposed, asnear as he could solve the riddle, to expose some past crime of theRat's to the police, and end his career via the death chair in SingSing. Also she had made her personal feelings toward him equallyclear--she held for him a hatred that was as deep-seated as it wasmerciless and deadly.
He shrugged his shoulders. He, by proxy, stood in the shoes of one who,seemingly, had done her some irreparable wrong, and since she would doghim all night until she had had the interview that she evidentlyproposed to have, it might as well be here as anywhere. It mattered verylittle to him, as the Rat, that he should be observed by those in theroom to get up from his table and walk over to hers. He was not beingwatched in the sense that anyone held surveillance over him, and, in anycase, the conventions here in the heart of the underworld were of tooelastic a character to have it cause even comment; and, besides, in afew hours from now, if luck were with him, he would be through with allthis, done with this miserable role of super-crook, which, though itbrought a new and greater peril at every move he made, was the one thingthat, for the present, he was dependent upon for his life.
He rose, crossed the room nonchalantly, and dropped as nonchalantly intothe chair at the end of her table, his back to the door.
She greeted him with a smile--but it was a smile of the lips only. Thedark eyes, under the long lashes, studied him in a cold, uncompromisingstare; and there was mockery in their depths, but deeper than themockery there was contempt and disdain.
A cigarette, pulled lazily from his pocket and lighted, preserved hisappearance of unconcern. In spite of himself, in spite of the fact thatthat contemptuous stare was his only through a damnable and abhorrentproxy, he felt suddenly ill at ease. He had never seen her as closely asthis before. He had only seen her twice before--once in the dark; andonce with the width of the Rat's den separating them. He had beenconscious then that she was attractive, beautiful, with her clusteringmasses of brown hair, and the dainty poise of her head, and the purewhiteness of her full throat; but he was conscious now that beyond themere beauty of features lay steadfastness and strength, that in thesweetness of the face there was, too, a wistfulness, do what she wouldto hide it, and that there was strain there, and weariness. And he wassuddenly conscious, too, that he disliked the role of the Rat more thanhe had ever disliked it, and that the loathing in those eyes, whichnever left his face, was responsible for this added distaste of the factthat nature had, through some cursed and perverted sense of humor ormalevolence, seen fit to make him the counterpart of a wanton rogue,and, worse still, seen fit to force upon him the enactment of that role.
He could not tell her that he was not the Rat, could he?--that he wasBilly Kane! Would the loathing in those eyes have grown the less atthat? Billy Kane--the thief, the Judas assassin, whose name was a bywordthroughout the length and breadth of the land at that moment, whose namewas a synonym for everything that was vile and hideous and depraved! Hewas the Rat--until to-night was over! After that--well, after that, whoknew? Now, he was the Rat, and he must play the Rat's part.
She broke the silence, her voice cool and even:
"I left it entirely to you as to whether you would come over to thistable here or not."
"I quite understood!" Billy Kane forced a sarcastic smile. "You arealmost too considerate!"
"Am I?" she said. Her eyes flashed suddenly. "Well, perhaps you areright! I have thought sometimes that even the chance I give you is morethan you deserve. I feel so strongly about it, in fact, that the onlything which prevents me from putting an end to it--and you--is that byusing you to defeat the ends of your own criminal associates a greatdeal of good is being done. They will trap you sometime, of course, and,knowing them, you know what will happen, and I am satisfied then that,as an alternative, you would prefer Sing Sing and the chair; but you areclever--that is why you grasp at the chance I give you. You areextremely clever--and you believe you can continue to outwit themindefinitely. I don't think you can, though I admit your cleverness,cunning and craft."
"You flatter me!" said Billy Kane ironically.
"No," she said, her voice suddenly lowered, passionate, tense; "I hateyou."
"You told me that last night." Billy Kane indolently blew a ring ofcigarette smoke ceilingwards. "I am beginning to believe you. Did youfollow Red Vallon in here to tell me the same thing again?"
She did not answer for a moment.
"Sometimes you make me lose my faith in God," she said, in a slow,restrained way. "It is hard to believe that a God, a just God, couldhave created such men as you."
Billy Kane removed his cigarette from his lips, and flicked the ash awaywith a tap of his forefinger. He felt the color mount and tinge hischeeks. There was something, not alone in her words, but in her tone,that struck at him and _hurt_. The brown eyes, deep, full of implacablecondemnation, burned into his. What was it that the Rat had done to her,or hers? He turned slightly away. An anger, smoldering in his
soul,burst into flame. He was the Rat by proxy--and the proxy was damnable.He could not tell her he was not the Rat. He could not tell her hewas--Billy Kane. He must play on with his detestable role! He must playthe Rat. What answer would the Rat have made to her?
"Cut that out!" rasped Billy Kane.
"Yes," she said quietly, "I spoke impulsively. There are only two thingsin life that affect you--your own safety, and to be quite sure that youget all of your share out of your crimes, and, if possible, somebodyelse's share as well. But the latter consideration is at an end now,isn't it, Bundy? I think I have taken care of that. It's just a questionof whether you can save yourself or not with those clever wits of yours.Well"--she shrugged her shoulders suddenly--"you did very well lastnight. His life would not be worth very much if the underworld shouldever lay hands on the man in the mask. Would it, Bundy?"
He did not answer her.
"Yes, you did very well, indeed," she went on calmly. "You will meetsomewhere else, of course, as soon as you can find a suitable place, butyou will hold no more of your secret council meetings at Jerry's forsome time to come."
Billy Kane's face was impassive now. He was apparently intent only onthe thin blue spiral of smoke that curled upward from the tip of hiscigarette. So those meetings of that cursed directorate of crime hadbeen held at Jerry's, had they? He had not known that.
"Suppose," suggested Billy Kane, curtly, "that we come to the point.What is it that you want to-night?"
"I am coming to the point," she answered levelly. "Owing to the eventsof last night your organization is in confusion, some of the morefaint-hearted of your partners have temporarily even taken to theirheels; but, even so, the organization's activities can hardly come to anabrupt standstill. You will perhaps remember a somewhat similar occasiononce before? There are perhaps certain matters that are imperative, thatcannot wait. Is it not so, Bundy? And in such an emergency it is leftto--shall we call him the organization's secretary?--to keep thingsgoing. Personal touch is lost with one another, but there is still away. I know, it does not matter how, that Red Vallon received a writtenorder a little while ago. I followed Red Vallon here. I _think_ he gavethat order to you."
Billy Kane looked at her for a moment, a quizzical, whimsical expressioncreeping into his face. She was in deadly earnest, he knew that well.And yet there was a certain sense of humor here too--a grim humor withsomething of the sardonic in it, and nothing of mirth. Red Vallon's codeorder was quite as meaningless to him as it would be to her!
"Sure!" said Billy Kane, alias the Rat--and chuckled. "Sure, he gave itto me! You don't think I'd hold anything out on _you_, do you? Sure, hegave it to me!" He tossed the paper across the table toward her. "Helpyourself! All you've got to do is ask for anything _I've_ got, and it'syours. You're as welcome as the sunshine to it."
She studied it for an instant calmly. Billy Kane, watching her narrowly,frowned slightly in a puzzled way. She appeared to be neither agitatednor confused. She raised her eyes to his, a glint half of mockery, halfof menace, in their brown depths.
"Did you think I did not know it was in cipher?" she inquired coldly."You would hardly have been so obliging otherwise, would you? It isalways in cipher under these circumstances, isn't it? Well, what is thetranslation?"
"Red Vallon didn't tell me," said Billy Kane complacently.
"Quite probably not!" she countered sharply. "It was hardly necessary,was it? But since you have decoded it yourself?"
Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders.
"I've been away so long," he said, "that I've forgotten the key."
"Really!" She was smiling at him in derision now. "In other words, yourefuse to tell me what it is."
"Don't you think you expect a little too much from me?" He forced asudden roughness into his tones. "I haven't decoded it yet, as a matterof fact; but if I had, do you think I'm looking for trouble--to give youthe chance to force me into another mess?"
She shook her head in a sort of mocking tolerance.
"Does it really matter, Bundy?" she asked softly. "You are not as brightthis evening as usual. I know that some crime is planned and set forthhere on this paper. It really makes no vital difference to me to knowbeforehand specifically just what that crime is, for if it succeeds Ishall know about it, and, in that case, I shall equally know that youdid not prevent it. I think you quite understand what that means, don'tyou, Bundy? However"--she smiled again, as she opened her purse and tookout a pencil--"let us put it down to a woman's insatiable curiosity, ifyou like, and decode it together."
Decode it! The twisted smile that came to his lips was genuine enough.He couldn't decode it. He had only one card to play--a flat andunequivocal refusal.
"Nothing doing!" he snarled.
"Oh, yes, I think there is," she said softly again.
He stared at her. Her pencil was flying across the paper. Who was thiswoman? She knew the key! Was there anything that she did not know? Hewatched her in a stunned way, his mind in confusion. And then he leanedforward to observe her work more closely. Beneath the original ciphershe had written this:
ziduve sfuufw efwjfdfs uofnohjtopd teopnbje ofu eobtvpiu tsbmmpe zbepu npsg nbesfutnb fwbi opjubnspgoj fiu fmpn tj hojzbm b uobmq pu ufh nfiu uihjopu offxufc uihjf eob fojo lpmdp eob usfwje opjdjqtvt pu fnpt fop ftmf ovs fiu fmpn pu iusbf eob flbn nji ihvpd qv.
"It is so simple, Bundy," she murmured caustically. "The numerals todesignate the number of letters in the words, the transposition of 'a'for 'b', and so on, and the words spelled backwards. It is so simple,Bundy, that it is strange you should have forgotten--and forgotten thatthere are other secrets I have found in that den of yours, apart fromthat very convenient and ingenious door!"
She was working as she spoke, paying no attention to him. He made noreply, only watched her as she set down a second series of letters:
yhctud rettev deviecer tnemngisnoc sdnomaid net dnasuoht srallod yadot morf madretsma evah noitamrofni eht elom si gniyal a tnalp ot teg meht thginot neewteb thgie dna enin kcolco dna trevid noicipsus ot emos eno esle nur eht elom ot htrae dna ekam mih hguoc pu.
A moment more, and she had written out the message in plain English:
Dutchy Vetter received consignment diamonds ten thousand dollars to-day from Amsterdam. Have information the Mole is laying a plant to get them to-night between eight and nine o'clock, and divert suspicion to some one else. Run the Mole to earth and make him cough up.
She was studying the paper in her hand. Billy Kane lighted anothercigarette. He was still watching her, but it was in a detached sort ofway. Between eight and nine o'clock! Peters was rarely able to leave theEllsworth home on his evenings off until well after eight o'clock;Peters, therefore, would not reach his flat much before nine, andcertainly was not likely to leave there again immediately.
Billy Kane's mind was working in quick, and seemingly unrelated snatchesof thought. There was time enough to see this Vetter game throughwithout interfering with that interview he meant to hold with Peters....It was strange that it should be Vetter ... Whitie Jack had spoken ofVetter ... Savnak, the violin player, and Vetter ... Whitie Jack saidthat Savnak and Vetter spent most of their evenings together at Vetter'splaying pinochle and the violin.... Savnak would likely be there thenbetween eight and nine.... Upon whom was it that the so-called Moleintended to point suspicion?... Here was the moral obligation again....He had fought that out last night.... She, this woman here, was not thedriving force.... She only represented disaster from an entirelydifferent source if he failed.... If he stood aside with theforeknowledge of crime in his possession he was as guilty as thisMole.... Perhaps he had been trying to trick his own conscience in notpressing Red Vallon for explanations.... Perhaps, in a measure, he hadallowed the argument that he might invite Red Vallon's suspicions to actas an excuse for evading the responsibility that this foreknowledge ofcrime entailed.... Well, that responsibility was his now, thanks toher.... He had no choice.... It was likely to be the man in the m
askagain, and----
She pushed the paper toward him.
"Perhaps you would like to destroy this--for safety's sake," sheobserved complacently.
He took the paper mechanically, and mechanically tore it up.
"I do not know the Mole personally"--she was speaking almost more toherself than to him, as though feeling her way cautiously along atortuous mental path--"I only know him as an exceedingly cleverscoundrel, and as the head of a small, but very select, band ofcriminals. He is a sort of competitor of yours, I believe, and more thanonce has had the temerity to act as a thorn in the side of your ownrapacious and diabolical crime trust. But I do know that this Vetter isan honest old man. It would be too bad"--her voice, still low, wassuddenly vibrant with a significance that there was no mistaking--"ifVetter should lose his diamonds, wouldn't it, Bundy?"
The spiral of cigarette smoke again occupied Billy Kane. It was quitetrue that his mind was already made up; but for the moment he was theRat, and the Rat would not be likely to accede to her suggestion withany overwhelming degree of complacency.
"You are a little inconsistent, aren't you?" he inquired sarcastically."If you are so anxious to prevent this crime, why don't you warn thepolice?"
"You can put down my inconsistency to the frailty of my sex again, ifyou like," she answered quickly. "But you know quite well why. And,besides, one Bundy Morgan, having more at stake than the police, is morelikely to accomplish the task successfully. Yes--Bundy?"
"But this isn't my hunt!" he protested, with a snarl. "I can't stop allthe crimes in the world! This isn't _my_ crowd! I'm not responsible forthe Mole. I don't know _his_ plans. How can I put the crimp in them? Thegame is to let the Mole go ahead, isn't it, and then Red Vallon is tograb the chestnuts out of the Mole's pocket? Well, that's all right! Butsuppose I butt in, and, knowing nothing about the Mole's plans, falldown, and he gets away with the goods, and is too sharp for Red Vallonso that I can't even get the loot away from Red--am I responsible?"
"I'm not unreasonable," she said--and smiled. "There is a good deal oftruth in what you say. But there is a way to provide against bothcontingencies."
The snarl was still in his voice.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Steal the diamonds yourself before the Mole gets to work," she proposedcalmly.
Billy Kane's gasp was wholly genuine.
"What?" he ejaculated.
"You've plenty of time," she said sweetly. "Vetter's isn't far fromhere, and it's not much more than half past seven now. The diamonds canbe returned to Vetter tomorrow. After having had them stolen once, Ithink Vetter could be trusted to put them somewhere where neither theMole nor anyone else would be likely to succeed a second time."
"But I don't know where the diamonds are now!" His voice was helpless inspite of himself.
She lifted her shoulders.
"Neither do I," she said imperturbably.
"Well, you've got your nerve!" he burst out--and it was Billy Kane, notthe Rat, who spoke.
The interview, as far as she was concerned, was evidently at an end. Shehad resumed her frugal meal, and was picking daintily at the sandwich onher plate. Her eyebrows arched.
"I hope you've got yours," she murmured.
He stood up. He could have laughed ironically, and likewise he couldhave sworn. She was distractingly pretty, as she sat there quite themistress of herself; but her profound and utter disregard as to how theperilous project might result for him personally brought suddenly avicious sweep of anger upon him--and abruptly, without a word, he swungfrom the table, and made his way toward the door. But the few stepscleared his brain a little, brought things into sharper focus. Afterall, he had forgotten! To her, he was the Rat. And the Rat--he did notquestion it--merited little of either mercy or consideration at herhands. At the door he looked back. She nodded to him pleasantly, andsmiled--not in the manner of one who might very well be sending anotherto his death!
"Well, I'll be damned!" muttered Billy Kane, and, opening the door,stepped out to the street.