XVI--TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER
From above, faintly, through the flooring, came the tap-tap, tap-tap ofthe old Italian cobbler's hammer. Billy Kane, from his hands and knees,straightened up, easing his body from the discomfort of his crampedposition; and, as he listened, he toyed now with the steel jimmy,commandeered from Whitie Jack, that was in his hand. He had been evenmore assiduous in his own tapping, at least for the last hour or more,than was the old fellow above there. The old fellow seemed to work allday--and all night. It was night now--or, rather, evening. If there wasany sound heard from the street it would be attributed to the oldcobbler, of course, which was just as well.
The murky light from the single incandescent across the room threw thesparse furnishings of the Rat's den into uncouth shadows on the walls,and threw his own shadow into a grotesque, shapeless blotch upon thefloor. From the street level, down through the cellar-like stairway tothis underground abode, seeping in through the closed door, came themuffled roll of traffic, and a footstep now and then on the pavementlike the echo of some sound that was detached, far distant.
He resumed his work, tapping with infinite pains with the butt of hissteel jimmy on board after board of the flooring. And now this board orthat seemed to give back a more resonant sound than its fellows, and hetapped it again, and still again, only to shake his head finally, andpass on to the next board.
There were other secrets in this crime hole besides that ingenious doorand its tunnel to the shed and lane behind; secrets that _she_ hadplainly stated existed, and had as plainly stated were no secrets toher; secrets that she wielded in such a manner as to complicate asituation that was already one of extreme peril and desperate enough.They were the Rat's secrets; and for the moment he was the Rat, andself-preservation made the possession of those secrets vitally essentialto him.
The net seemed to be drawing closer around him; at moments it seemed tobe strangling him. He had built so heavily on Peters. And Peters wasdead. And he, Billy Kane, was still the Rat. It was difficult enough tocarry out the role, as it was--but if the Rat should unexpectedlyreturn! Where was the Rat? If he could glean a hint of when the Ratmight probably return, or of the Rat's whereabouts! Surely those secretshidden here somewhere would answer, in a measure at least, thosequestions. Or, if not, then the fuller and more intimate knowledge theymust give him of the Rat would make his assumed role more secure, saferas long as he was forced to play it, since they would place in his handsthe trumps that would enable him to preserve this character he hadusurped as he came more and more into direct contact with that malignantCrime Trust of which the legitimate Rat was obviously one of the leadingspirits. And she, that strange, mysterious being, whom he had come tocall the Woman in Black, whose hatred, a hatred that was boundless, morebitter, more deliberate, more merciless than, it seemed, any human couldhold for another, he had acquired through this abhorrent proxy that fatehad thrust upon him--surely these things hidden here, if he could butfind them, must too, in a measure at least, explain what lay between herand the devil in human guise whose part he, Billy Kane, was compelled toplay.
He worked on, his ear attuned to the sound as the steel jimmy tapped theflooring, his mind feverishly, insistently active. He had counted onforcing the truth from Peters last night. Instead, he had found the oldbutler murdered, and had only managed to escape destruction himself atthe hands of Red Vallon and the underworld through a spurious alibi thatwas in itself a ghastly thing. He, as the Rat, stood now theself-confessed murderer of Peters! Yes, the net seemed to be drawing itsstrands so tightly about him sometimes that they strangled him, andstrangled his soul, and made his courage falter.
Peters was dead, murdered--and to have made the man talk he would havegone the limit himself. He had meant to wring the truth from Peters'lips at any cost. But a dead man couldn't talk!
It was not warm in the room, nor was he overheated by his exertions, butBilly Kane, with the back of his hand, swept away a bead of moisturethat had oozed out upon his forehead. Who was it who had murderedPeters? And why? His brain had wrestled with that problem since lastnight. There seemed to be but one answer, one solution. Peters'connection with the Ellsworth murder, the search that had been made inPeters' bedroom, and carried no further than that single room,indicating that what had been sought had been found, seemed to be proofpositive that the author of the crime was at least conversant with thedetails of David Ellsworth's murder, if he were not, indeed, as seemedeven more likely, one of those who had actually participated in thatmurder himself. And with this as a premise the motive behind Peters'murder was apparently clear enough. Nearly fifteen thousand dollars anda fortune in rubies had been taken from the steel vault in the Ellsworthhome. Peters might have been the temporary custodian, in whole or inpart, of the proceeds of the robbery, or he might only have been inpossession of his share. In either case it was enough to account for hishaving been double-crossed and murdered by one of his own accomplices,or else by some one sufficiently well informed about the Ellsworthmurder to know that Peters had at least a tempting enough portion of the"goods" in his flat to make a visit there very much worth while.
Billy Kane smiled a little grimly now, as, moving forward, he pushed thebed to one side in order to continue his examination of the flooring.That had been his solution; but, strangely enough, the newspapers foronce had had no solution to offer. The known presence of so manymen--when Red Vallon's gang had invaded the house--indicated quiteclearly, the papers said, that it was the work of an organized band;but, apart from that, they were frankly mystified. But because Petershad been the butler of David Ellsworth, and had been murdered just threenights after his master had been murdered, the morning papers had flungclamorous headlines across their front pages, and had filled theircolumns with every detail that had even the remotest bearing upon theaffair. They, however, scarcely hinted at even a possible connectionbetween the two crimes, for the very simple reason that Peters hadobviously been attacked by a gang, whereas, in the case of DavidEllsworth, they _knew_ that the old millionaire had been done to deathby his private secretary, Billy Kane!
He had read the papers, all of them. But out of the welter of wordsthere had been only one thing that had possessed any value for him inthe shape of information, and even that had been of a negativecharacter. Some reporter had unearthed the fact that a stranger, whosedescription answered in a general way to Whitie Jack, had been seenloitering around the neighborhood of Peters' apartment during a goodpart of the previous day. The description was not accurate enough toidentify Whitie Jack positively; but as Whitie Jack _had_ been there,and there on his, Billy Kane's instructions, he had immediately sent theman away that morning, and had told him to keep under cover untilfurther orders.
The steel jimmy tapped with persistent inquisitiveness along anotherboard. Billy Kane's lips were tight now. Peters' death had seemed atfirst to have robbed him of all he had been building upon; and duringthe hours alone here in this den last night, facing what looked like theruin of the final chance and hope of establishing his own innocence, ofclearing his own name, of bringing to justice the wantons who had struckdown old David Ellsworth, he had known those bitterest of hours wherethe will weakens, and courage seems a useless thing and a mockery. Buthe had fought through those hours, and the morning had brought itsreward. Peters' murder had broken the thread of evidence, but equally,it seemed, after all, it had knitted it together again--there was theMan with the Crutch.
His lips relaxed a little in an ironical smile. The papers hadoverlooked the Man with the Crutch! It was Red Vallon who, allunconsciously, had joined together the broken thread. The gangster hadcome here to the den that noon. There had been a marked increase ofdeference in the man's attitude and manner, a sort of unholy admiration,awe, respect and fear. The man, hardened though he was himself, wasstill visibly affected by the fact that he stood in the presence of theRat, alias Bundy Morgan, who, as he believed, had coolly andimperturbably given gruesome evidence that, to gain his ends, he wouldneither hesitate nor s
top at murder. Red Vallon had not forgotten, andwas not likely to forget, his "object lesson!"
Red Vallon had told his story furtively, leaning across the table,talking in a guarded whisper. He had got it straight enough from one ofhis own men, who the police in turn believed was one of their own stoolpigeons. Shortly before the confusion incident to the exit of RedVallon's men on the previous night, the exact hour not positivelyestablished, a man with a crutch, and carrying a small hand bag, wasknown to have crept cautiously out of the apartment house where Petershad his flat. After that the man had disappeared. "The police haveelected the cripple as the guy that waltzed off with the swag while therest of the bunch made a noise to smear up his tracks," Red Vallon hadsaid, with a malicious grin. "What's the matter with pushing a goodthing along, Bundy? What's the matter with pushing out a few feelers,and trying to spot this crutch gazabo? The Pippin's the one that put mewise, and the Pippin can make good nosing him out if any one can."
There had come upon Billy Kane an overwhelming surge of relief. Morethan anything else on earth that he had suddenly wanted at that momentwas--the Man with the Crutch.
"Yes!" he had answered gruffly, afraid almost to trust his voice.
"Sure!" Red Vallon had responded. "I thought you'd be strong for it!Mabbe it won't last long, 'cause the guy ought to be able to clearhimself unless we can hitch it onto him for keeps, but there's nothinglike heaving a little dirt in the eyes of the bulls, and shooting 'emoff on the wrong lay. It'll keep 'em guessing for a while anyhow. Youleave it to me, Bundy. I owe you something for queering your game lastnight, though I guess there wasn't any more of them rubies there besidesthe one you found, for the Pippin says the bulls didn't get anything,and I owe you something for the lemon I've handed you so far in fallingdown on spotting the ruby collection in any of the speak-easy joints;but I won't fall down here. You leave it to me! I'll pull some slickstuff this time!"
The steel jimmy tapped on. Billy Kane's face was set. The Man with theCrutch! Was there any doubt but that the Man with the Crutch was notonly Peters' murderer, but, more vital still, one who, in Peters' steadnow, embodied the clue to the hell-hatched plot that had cost DavidEllsworth his life, and had craftily woven the evidence of murder aroundhim, Billy Kane? The Man with the Crutch! If only Red Vallon and thePippin did not fail, then-- The steel jimmy, almost perfunctorily,tapped over the same board again; and then Billy Kane suddenly bentlower, his ear close to the floor. He tapped once more. There was nodoubt of it! The sound was unquestionably and distinctly _hollow_. Hefelt his pulse quicken. Off and on during the day he had covered almostthe entire flooring of the room. He had started with the flooring. Onlythe flooring and the walls could contain any hidden recess. He had nottouched the walls yet, and it might not be necessary now!
He was examining the board critically. It was a short board, rough anduneven, about ten inches wide, that ran to the edge of the wall. Thereseemed to be no sign of any secret spring, either on the adjacentflooring or on the wall, nor did the board itself appear to be in anyway loose or show any evidence of ever having been removed before. Hefrowned as he tapped it again and found that, quite as unmistakably asbefore, the hollow sound came back to him; and then, inserting the pointof the jimmy in the joint at the end of the board, he gave the board asharp wrench. It came away readily, but with it came a weary smile toBilly Kane's lips. Nothing! The under flooring had rotted away, whichaccounted for the hollow sound, and he was rewarded with nothing morethan a hole bounded both in depth and width by the floor joists whichrested on the ground. Half angry, half ironically amused, he reachedforward to replace the board--and, straightening up suddenly, listened.
Someone was coming down the steps from the street.
In an instant he had the board and bed back in place, and the steeljimmy in his pocket. And now a cigarette was drooping languidly from hislips, as, in answer to a low knock, he crossed the room, and halted infront of the door.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"It's de Cadger," a voice answered.
Billy Kane opened the door. The Cadger, unknown to him personally, wasknown to him by reputation. As one of those details vital to thepreservation of the role he played, he had stored up in his memoryduring the past few days the name of every one connected with the CrimeTrust that he had heard mentioned either by Red Vallon or others. TheCadger was one of the lesser breed; a stage hand, in the expressivevernacular of the underworld.
The Cadger, a shrivelled, unkempt figure, his coat collar turned up overa collarless shirt, an aggressively checkered peak cap pulled far downover his eyes, thrust an envelope unceremoniously into Billy Kane'shand.
"Dis is fer youse, Bundy," he said hurriedly, already turning and makinghis way up the steps to the street again. "See youse later! I gotta goto Gannet's joint fer his kit."
Billy Kane closed the door, and locked it. He had not heard from RedVallon since noon, nothing in reference to the Pippin's quest for theMan with the Crutch. He tore the envelope open eagerly, the thoughtuppermost in his mind that this was a message from Red Vallon now; andthen, staring at the sheet of paper which he had extracted from theenvelope, he dropped, suddenly tight-lipped, into the chair by the tableunder the light.
It wasn't from Red Vallon. It was a message like the one Red Vallon hadshowed him the night before, a message in the Crime Trust's cipher. Heturned instinctively in his chair, glancing toward the secret door atthe rear of the room, as though he half expected to see it open, and seethat slim little figure in black enter, as though he half expected tohear her cool, softly modulated voice that veiled, even as did the clearripple in her laugh, menace and contempt. And then he laughed aloud in ashort, hard way. A fool! Was he? Well, she had come in through that doorbefore, hadn't she, when something was in the wind?
His eyes reverted to the sheet of paper. He knew what it was! Theheadquarters of the Crime Trust had been broken up, and some of theleaders had even taken to cover since the night Karlin had been arrestedby the police; but all the cogs in that Machiavellian machinery had notstopped, and plans formulated and set in motion in the past were stillto be carried to their ultimate conclusions as they matured day by day.There was not the slightest doubt but that this was one of their devil'sschemes. Red Vallon--or was it the owner of those great, dark, steadyeyes?--had said enough to make him understand that, when temporarilyscattered, temporarily wary of the police, some unhallowed "managingdirector" carried on their work, and communicated with the differentmembers of the gang by means of these cipher messages.
And now as he stared at the missive in his hand, angry flush rose slowlyto his cheeks, and he half made as though to tear the paper into shreds.God knew, he had enough to do to keep his own life in his own bodywithout this; there was scarcely a moment of the day or night when hewas not battling with all the wits he possessed to save himself fromdiscovery--from the police as Billy Kane, from the underworld as thespurious Rat--and his brain was already sick and tormented beyondendurance with the struggle. Why, then, should he decipher this? If hedid, he could not sit idly by and, in the possession of the details ofsome purposed crime, permit that crime to be enacted! It was the moralobligation flung in his face again, just as it had been on the night hehad trapped Karlin, just as it had been last night when he had snatchedVetter's diamonds from Red Vallon's maw, and not through any threat of_hers_ held over his head, as she so thoroughly believed! She wasn'there now--was she?
He laid the paper down upon the table, and smoothed it out. Tear it up!His short laugh was a jeer flung at himself. Certainly, he could tear itup, and he would know nothing about it, except that he had shirked andturned his back like a coward upon the responsibility that was alreadyhis! He _could_ read the cipher, if he wanted to; he had seen her workone out the night before.
"I thought I'd settled this sort of thing with myself before!" hemuttered grimly, and taking a pencil from his pocket he began to workout the cipher.
It took some time, perhaps twenty minutes; and then he was studying asecond
sheet of paper upon which he had written the decoded message:
The Cadger and Gannet will report to you at nine o'clock. The Ninth Street house will be empty. Dayler and servants out this evening. Secure sealed manila envelope in wall safe, left of mantel, in library. Combination: Two right, eighteen; one left, eight; one right, twenty-eight. Police on trail to-morrow.
The Cadger's "see youse later," then, was to be taken literally, andnot, as he had supposed, as simply a common and slang expression ofadieu! Billy Kane looked at his watch. It was not quite eight o'clock.There was an hour, then, before the Cadger and this Gannet, another ofthe Cadger's ilk, would report here ready to follow his leadership in aburglarious raid. Billy Kane stood up; and, in a sort of mechanical andreassuring inventory, his hands felt over the outside of his pockets,over the skeleton keys they contained, the steel jimmy, the flashlight,the automatic, and the soft, slight bulge made by the neatly foldedmask--and, too, over another bulge that was made by a certain chamoispocketbook. This latter brought a frown. He had not found a way yet toreturn Vetter's diamonds. It wasn't so easy a thing to do when, if theRat's hand showed in the matter, it was certain destruction for the Rat,alias Bundy Morgan, and, for the moment, alias Billy Kane! But Vetterand Vetter's diamonds were extraneous things just now, weren't they?
He extinguished the light, crossed to the door, unlocked it, steppedout, locked the door behind him, made his way up the steps, and startedbriskly off along the street. He did not know what the contents of that"manila envelope" were, nor who Dayler was, nor the Crime Trust'smotive--he was _supposed_ to know all that--he knew only that there wassome devil's scheme on foot that would be worthy of the Crime Trust inits scope and proportions. And the Crime Trust did not interest itselfin _little_ things!