II--THE CRIME
Upstairs in his room Billy Kane changed from his dinner clothes into adark tweed suit, a very less noticeable attire for that neighborhoodwhere Antonio Laverto had his miserable home, and choosing a slouch hat,left the house. A bus took him down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square,and from there, crossing over Broadway, he continued on down the Bowery.
It was still early; and it was as though the night world here had notyet awakened from its day's slumber. The "gape wagons" had not yet begunto bring their slumming parties to rub shoulders with the flotsam andjetsam of the underworld, and to shudder in pharisaical horror at"planted" fakes; true, the ubiquitous gasoline lamps glowed in uselessyellow spots against the entirely adequate street lighting in front ofmany shops of all descriptions, and the pavements were alive with men,women and children of every conceivable nationality and station in life,but--Billy Kane smiled a little grimly, for he had learned a great deal,a very great deal in the last three months, about this section of hiscity--it was still early, and it was not yet the Bowery of the night.
Some half dozen blocks along, Billy Kane turned into a cross street andheaded deeper into the East Side.
And now Billy Kane's forehead drew together in puckered furrows, as heapproached the lodging of Antonio Laverto, the cripple. In the insidepocket of his vest were two thousand dollars in cash, for the outlay ofwhich, in spite of the old millionaire's attitude in reference to it,he, Billy Kane, held himself morally responsible. The frown deepened. Itwas strange, very strange! He had logically convinced himself thatLaverto's was a worthy case--but the intuition that something was wrongwould not down, and the nearer he approached the miserable and squaliddwelling in which the Italian lived, the stronger that intuition grew.
And then Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders. He could at least put thecase to one more test, and if Laverto came through that all right thatwas the end of it, and the man got the money. Laverto would certainlynot anticipate another visit this evening, so soon after the one of theafternoon; and if he could come unawares upon the man, and observe theother unawares perhaps, the chances were decidedly in favor of Lavertobeing caught napping if he were sailing under false colors.
Billy Kane, reaching his destination, paused in front of a tumble-downand dilapidated frame house, and glanced around him. The little sidestreet here was dirty and ill-lighted, but populous enough. Small shops,many of them basement shops with cavernous, cellar-like entrancesopening from the sidewalk, lined both sides of the street; for the rest,it was simply a matter of two rows of flanking, dingy tenements and oldhouses--save for the usual saloon, whose window lights were brightenough on the corner ahead.
The house door was wide open, and Billy Kane, pulling his slouch hatdown over his eyes, stepped into the dark unlighted interior. The placewas a hive of poverty, a miserable lodging house of the cheapest class;and the air was close, almost fetid, and redolent with the smell ofgarlic. How many humans eked out an existence here Billy Kane did notknow; but, though he knew them to be woefully many, for he had seen agreat number of them on his visit here that afternoon, the only evidenceof occupancy now was the occasional petulant cry of a child fromsomewhere in the darkness, and a constant murmuring hum of voices frombehind closed doors.
Antonio Laverto's room was the second one on the right of the passage.Billy Kane moved quietly forward to the door, and stood there in theblackness for a moment listening. There was no sound from within; norwas there any light seeping through the keyhole or the door panels,which later, he remembered, were badly cracked. Satisfied that thecripple, unless he were asleep, was not inside, Billy Kane tried thedoor, and, finding it unlocked, opened it silently, and stepped into theroom.
He lighted a match, held it above his head, and glanced around him. Itwas a pitiful abode, pitiful enough to excite anyone's sympathy--as ithad his own that afternoon. There was a cot in one corner with a thin,torn blanket for covering, a rickety chair, and an old deal table onwhich stood a cracked pitcher and wash basin, and the remains of a smallloaf of bread.
The match went out, and Billy Kane retreated to the door, and from thedoor, to the street again. It was pretty bad in there, and evidentlyjust as genuinely on the ragged edge of existence as it had been thatafternoon--but still the persistent doubt in his mind would not down. Itwas a sort of dog in the manger feeling, and he did not like it, and itirritated him--but it clung tenaciously.
He lighted a cigarette, and, frowning, flipped the match stub away fromhim. In any case, he had to find the man before he went home, whether itresulted in his paying over the two thousand dollars or not. His eyecaught the lighted window of the saloon, and he started abruptly forwardin that direction. If there was anything at all in his suspicions, thesaloon was the most likely place in the neighborhood where they would beverified; but in any event, the barkeeper, who probably knew everyone inthe locality better than anyone else, could possibly supply at least asuggestion as to where the Italian spent his evenings and might befound.
Billy Kane chose the side entrance to the saloon--it would probablyafford him a preliminary inspection of the place without being observedhimself--and entered. He found himself in a passageway that was meagerlylighted by a gas jet, and that turned sharply at right angles a fewsteps ahead. He reached the turn in the passage, and halted suddenly, asa voice, curiously muffled, reached him. The passage here ahead of him,some four or five yards in length, was lighted by another gas jet, andterminated in swinging doors leading to the barroom; but halfway downits length, in a little recess, most thoughtfully situated for theprivacy and convenience of the saloon's perhaps none too reputableclientele, was a telephone booth.
Billy Kane drew back, and protected from view by the angle of thepassage while he could still see the telephone booth himself quiteplainly, stood motionless. The booth, like a good many others, was by nomeans sound-proof, and the voice, though muffled seemed strangelyfamiliar to him. Billy Kane's brows drew together sharply. Through theglass panel of the upper portion of the booth he could see the figure ofa man of about his own height, and he could see, as the man stood alittle sideways with his lips to the transmitter, the man's profile.
And then Billy Kane, with a grim smile, reached suddenly up to the gasjet over his head and turned it out. This left him in darkness and madeno appreciable diminution in the lighting of the passage leading to thebarroom. The man who stood upright in the booth at full height, and whowas speaking most excellent English, was Antonio Laverto, the maimed andbroken cripple whose pitiful and heart-rending story had been solaboriously told in the few halting and hardly understandable words athis command!
And now, Billy Kane, listening, could make out snatches of what the manwas saying.
"... That's none of your business, and I guess the less you know aboutit the better for yourself.... What?... Yes, Marco's--the second-handclothes dealer.... What?... Yes, sure--by the lane.... The back door'sgot a broken lock--it's never been fixed since he moved in two weeksago. All you got to do is walk in. It's a cinch.... Sure, that'sright--that's all you got to do. Marco don't keep open in the eveningand besides he's away, you don't need to worry about that.... Eh?... No,there won't be no come-back.... You pull the break the way I tell you,and you get a hundred dollars in the morning.... What?... All rightthen, but don't make any mistake. You got to be out of there before aquarter of eleven! Get me? Before a quarter of eleven--that's all Icare, and that's give you all the time you want.... Eh?... Yes--sure....Good-night."
The grim smile was still on Billy Kane's lips, as he crouched backagainst the wall. The door of the telephone booth opened, and Lavertostuck his head out furtively. The little black eyes, staring out of thethin, swarthy face, glanced up and down the passageway, and then thehead seemed to shrink into the shoulders, the body to collapse, and,with legs twisted and dragging under him, there came the _flop-flop_ ofthe palms of the man's hands on the bare wooden flooring, as he startedalong the passageway.
But Billy Kane was already at the side door of the s
aloon--and aninstant later he had swung around the street corner, and was headingbriskly back in the direction of the Bowery. He laughed shortly, as hishand automatically crept into his inside pocket. The two thousanddollars were still there--and they would stay there! His intuition,after all, had not been at fault. The man was a vicious and damnablefraud, and, as a logical corollary to that fact, was moreover adangerous and clever criminal. What was this "break" that was to be"pulled" at Marco's before a quarter of eleven?
Quite mechanically Billy Kane looked at his watch. He and DavidEllsworth had dined early, and it was even now barely eight o'clock.Billy Kane's face hardened, as he walked along, reached the Bowery, and,by the same route he had come, gained Washington Square, and swung ontoa Fifth Avenue bus. Why Marco's? There was surely nothing worth whilethere! Marco's was little more than a rag shop. He happened to knowMarco, because on the corner next to the tumble-down place that, asLaverto had said, Marco had rented a week or so ago, there was a smallnotion shop kept by an old Irish widow by the name of Clancy, where,more than once on his visits to the East Side, he had dropped in to buya paper or a package of cigarettes. Why Marco's? It puzzled him. The oldwhite-bearded, stoop-shouldered dealer did not seem to have much thatwas worth stealing!
The bus jolted on up the Avenue. Billy Kane shifted his positionuneasily on the somewhat uncomfortably hard seat on the top of the bus.His first impulse had been to confront Laverto on the spot, but quick onthe heels of that impulse had come a better plan. With rope enough theman would hang himself. If there was anything in this Marco affair, arobbery as was indicated, Marco would obviously report it to the policeas soon as it was discovered, and he, Billy Kane, being in possession ofthe evidence that would convict its author, would then be in a positionto put an end, for a good many years at least, to Laverto's criminalcareer; and besides this, there was David Ellsworth--he did not want towound or hurt the other's finer sensibilities, but that David Ellsworthshould see Laverto for himself in the latter's true colors wasessential, for it would and must make the old philanthropist in thefuture less the victim of that over-generous and spontaneous sympathywhich was so easily excited by those who preyed upon him.
The thought of David Ellsworth brought back again the thought of DavidEllsworth's anonymous letter. Billy Kane lighted a cigarette, and smokedit savagely. It was someone of the same breed as Antonio Laverto, andfor the same reason that Laverto would soon have for revenge, who hadwritten that letter. He was quite sure of that in his own mind. Whatelse, indeed, could it be? Not David Ellsworth's explanation! That wasentirely too chimerical! One by one he reviewed the cases where he haduncovered fraudulent attempts upon the old millionaire's charity duringthe past three months; but, while more than one was concerned withcharacters vicious, dissolute and criminal enough, not one seemed todovetail into the niche in which he sought to fit it.
A second cigarette followed the first, and his mind was still busy withhis problem, as he pressed the button at the side of his seat, clambereddown the circular iron ladder at the rear of the bus, stepped to thesidewalk as the bus drew up to the curb, and stood waiting for the busto pass on--David Ellsworth's residence was on the first corner down thecross street on the other side of the Avenue. The bus creakedprotestingly into motion, and Billy Kane, in the act of stepping fromthe curb to cross the Avenue, paused suddenly, instead, as a voice spokebehind him.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Kane, sir, may I speak to you for a moment?"
Billy Kane turned around abruptly. He stared at the other in surprise.It was Jackson, the footman.
"Why yes, of course. But what on earth are you doing out here, Jackson?"he demanded a little sharply.
"I was waiting for you, sir," the man answered hurriedly. "I knew you'dgone out, Mr. Kane; and I knew I couldn't miss you here, sir, when youcame back, as you always come by the Avenue, sir. And, begging yourpardon again, sir, would you mind if we didn't stand here? You wouldn'ttake offense, sir, if we went in by the garage driveway where we couldbe alone for a minute, sir?"
Billy Kane eyed the man critically. Jackson, immaculate in his livery,appeared to be quite himself; but Jackson at times had been known topossess a greater fondness for a bottle than was good for him.
"What is it, Jackson?" he demanded still more sharply. "Did Mr.Ellsworth send you here?"
"No, sir; he didn't," the man answered nervously. "But, if you please,Mr. Kane, sir, that is, if you don't mind, sir, I'd rather waituntil----"
"Very well, Jackson!" Billy Kane interrupted curtly. "I suppose you havea reason for your rather strange request. Come along, then, and I'lllisten to what you have to say."
"Thank you, sir," said the man earnestly.
They crossed the Avenue, passed down the cross street, turned thecorner, and a moment later, entering by the garage driveway, gained thecourtyard in the rear of the house. It was dark here, there were nolights showing from the back of the house itself or from the garage; andhere, close to the private entrance to the "office" and library, BillyKane halted.
"Well, Jackson, what's it all about?" he inquired brusquely.
"If you please, Mr. Kane, sir"--the man's voice had taken on a curious,quavering note--"don't speak so loud. We--you--you might be heard, sir,from the servants' entrance over there. I--Mr. Kane, sir--Mr. Ellsworthhas been murdered, and the money, sir, and the rubies are gone."
Billy Kane was conscious only that he had reached out and grasped thefootman's arm. They were very black, the shadows of the house, and itwas dark about him, but strange quick little red flashes seemed to danceand dart and shoot before his eyes; and in his brain the man's wordskept repeating themselves over and over in an insistent sort of way, andthe words seemed meaningless except that they were pregnant with anoverwhelming and numbing horror.
"For God's sake, sir, let go my arm--you're breaking it!" moaned thefootman in a whisper.
The man's voice seemed to clear Billy Kane's brain. DavidEllsworth--murdered! The horror was still there, but now there came afury beyond control, and a bitter grief that racked him to the soul.David Ellsworth, his second father, the gentlest man and the kindest hehad ever known--_murdered_! His hand dropped to his side, and, turning,he sprang up the few steps to the entrance just in front of him. Hewhipped out his key, opened the door, and stepped forward into thepassageway. At his right was the door to the stenographer's room, andbeyond, opening from that room, was the door to the library. He felt forthe door handle, for there was no light in the passage, and, finding it,opened the door--and stood there rigid and motionless like a man turnedto stone. Across the blackness of the intervening room the library doorwas partially open, and sprawled upon the floor lay the figure of awhite-haired man, only the hair was blotched with a great crimsonstain--and it was David Ellsworth. And something came choking into BillyKane's throat, and a blinding mist before his eyes shut out the sight.
"In Heaven's name, don't go in there, sir!" Jackson was beside himagain, whispering in his ear, and pulling the door softly shut. "Don't,sir--don't go--they'll get you!"
"Get--_me_! What do you mean?" Billy Kane whirled on the man.
"For the love of God, sir," pleaded Jackson, "don't speak so loud! I'mrisking my neck for you, as it is, sir. There's a couple ofplain-clothesmen waiting up in your room, sir, hiding there, and there'sanother two hiding in the front hall."
"Are you mad, Jackson!" Billy Kane's voice was low enough now in itsblank amazement.
"I'm telling you the truth, sir," Jackson whispered tensely. "They'vegot you dead to rights, sir. There ain't a chance, except to run forit--and that's what I'd do, sir, if I were you, Mr. Kane. I didn't meanyou to enter the house at all, but you acted so quick I couldn't stopyou."
Billy Kane's two hands fell in an iron grip on the other's shoulders,and in the darkness he bent his head forward to stare into the man'sface and eyes.
"You mean, Jackson," he said hoarsely, "that _you_ believe I did that?"
The man wriggled himself free from Billy Kane's grip.
; "It's not for me to say sir," he answered uneasily. "I--I can only tellyou what they say."
"Tell me, then!" Billy Kane's voice, low as it was, was deadly in itseven, monotonous tone.
"Yes, sir," said Jackson. "Keep your ear close to my lips, sir If anyonehears us, it's all up. They found him, Mr. Ellsworth, sir, lying theredead in the library with his head split open, about half an hour afteryou went out, sir. You were with him in the library after dinner alone,sir; and no one was with him after that, and--don't grip me again likethat, sir, or I can't go on. You don't know your own strength, sir, Mr.Kane."
"Go on, Jackson!" breathed Billy Kane. "I'm sorry! Go on!"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. It was Peters, the butler, sir, who found thebody, and he sent for the police. Mrs. Ellsworth doesn't know anythingabout it yet, sir. They're afraid to tell her, she's so delicate andsick, sir. It was about half an hour after you went out, sir, as I said,that Peters went to see Mr. Ellsworth about something, and found himthere like you just saw, sir. And then the police came, sir, and theyfigured that you did it before you went out, and that you went out todispose of the money and jewels, sir, in some safe place, and maybe alsoas a sort of alibi like, so that they'd think it was done while you wereaway, sir, and that when you returned, if you did return, sir, you wouldprofess horror and surprise, sir."
"Are you mad, Jackson!" Billy Kane said again.
"No, sir--you'll see, sir--they've got you dead to rights. Both thevault and safe doors were open, and the money and rubies gone, and onthe floor of the vault, way in by the wall under the lower shelf, likeit had fluttered in there without you noticing it, sir, was a card withthe combinations on it, and it was in your handwriting, Mr. Kane, sir.And in Mr. Ellsworth's hand, clutched there tight, sir, was a littlepiece of black silk cord, and on the floor, under the table, sir, whereit must have rolled without you knowing it, sir, was a black button."
"I don't understand," said Billy Kane, a little numbly now. There hadbeen something grotesquely absurd, something in the nature of a ghastly,hideous and ill-timed joke, something that was literally the phantasm ofa diseased brain in the murmur of this man's voice whispering out of thedarkness; but there was creeping upon him now a prescience as of somedeadly and remorseless thing that was closing down, around and upon himwith inexorable and crushing force. "I don't understand," he said again.
"Yes, sir." Jackson's low, guarded voice went on. "It's not for me tosay, sir. You'll remember, Mr. Kane, that you were wearing a dinnerjacket, and that before going out you went up to your room and changed.I suppose it was excitement, sir, and you never noticed it, and it's notto be wondered at under the circumstances, sir. The button had beenpulled off the jacket, sir, and had taken the black silk loop with it.And the button had rolled under the library-table, Mr. Kane, sir, andthe loop was clutched in Mr. Ellsworth's hand."
Billy Kane said no word. There was a strange whirling in his brain. Someinsidious and abhorrent thing was obsessing his consciousness, but insome way it was not fully born yet, nor concrete, nor tangible. Heraised his hand and brushed it across his eyes.
"But that's not all, Mr. Kane, sir." The whispering voice was coming outof the darkness again, and it seemed curiously fraught withimplacability, as though, not content with its unendurable torture, itmust torment the more. "They found a letter in the pocket of your dinnerjacket, Mr. Kane. It was a letter addressed to Mr. Ellsworth, which thepolice figure you must have intercepted so that he wouldn't see it, youbeing the one who opens the mail, sir. It was a letter warning him tolook out for you, sir."
And now it had come like a flash, the clearing of Billy Kane's brain,and now it was brutally clear, clear beyond any possibility ofmisunderstanding; and, as a man walking in a fog that had suddenlylifted, he found himself reeling, in the full consciousness of itshorror, on the brink of a yawning chasm.
"My God!" he cried heavily. "This is damnable! I----"
"Keep quiet, sir!" implored Jackson frantically. "They'll hear you! Ifyou care anything about a chance for your life, don't make a sound. Thepolice figured that you would do one of three things, sir. They figuredthat after you had hidden the loot somewhere, you would walk back hereas though nothing had happened, and pretend innocence, not knowing aboutthat button and the cord, sir; and so there's a couple of them waitingfor you in the front hall, sir. Or they thought that you might discoveryou had lost the card with the combinations written on it and rememberthe letter in your dinner-jacket pocket, sir, and try to get backunobserved, just as you've come in now, sir, and hoping that the murderhadn't been discovered in the meantime, try to recover the card and theletter before you played any other game; and they meant to let you, sir,only, as I told you, there's a couple more hiding up in your room, andyou couldn't step into the library without the fellows in front seeingyou. Or they thought you might just simply make a break for it, makeyour getaway, sir, and never come back at all; and so there's an alarmout, and your description, sir, in every precinct in the city, and allthe railway stations are being watched. But that's your only chance,sir, to run for it."
It was silent here in the great house, ominously, strangely silent; andthe silence grew heavy, and grew _loud_ with great palpitating throbsthat hammered at the ear drums--and then, in the distance, from theother side of the door in the long passage leading to the front of thehouse, faint but nevertheless distinct, there came the sound of anapproaching footstep.
"There's someone coming!" whispered Jackson wildly. "Run for it,sir--while you've got the chance!"
Billy Kane's lips were thinned into a hard, straight line. Run for it!He had never run from anything in all his life! And now his brain wasworking in a sort of lightning debate, battling it out--logic that badehim go, against that finer sense that bids a brave man drop where hestands rather than turn his back.
Still nearer came that footstep.
"Run!" prompted Jackson again. "In another minute it will be too late!"
Billy Kane's hands were clenched until the nails bit into the flesh.David Ellsworth had been right. That letter was but part of a deliberateplot; and the plot had been framed with hellish ingenuity, not only tosecure the fortune in the vault, but, safeguarding its authors, to fixirrevocably the guilt upon someone else, upon _him_, Billy Kane. Not aloophole for escape had been left, every detail had been worked out witha devil's craft; the evidence was damning, incontrovertible, and if, inspite of all, there might still have lingered a doubt in any jury'smind, he, Billy Kane, by an ironic trick of fate had----
"Run, I tell you!" came Jackson's voice again. "Run, or--" And thenJackson's voice lost its deference, and his whisper was like the snarlof a savage beast--the door along the passage was opening. "You damnfool! I gave you your chance, and you wouldn't take it--now take this!"
Billy Kane reeled suddenly back from the impact, as the man sprangviciously upon him--and for a moment again his brain groped blindly inconfusion, even as he fought.
Jackson was yelling wildly at the top of his voice.
"Help! Here he is! Quick! Help! I've caught him!"