XXI--WITHOUT MERCY
Billy Kane went on to the intersecting street at the other end of thealleyway, removed his mask, and stepped out on the sidewalk. He lookedat his watch under a street lamp, and smiled whimsically in surprise. Itwas still only half-past eight. All told, he could not have been in WongYen's more than fifteen minutes, hardly that, in fact, and it seemed asthough he had been there half the night!
Well, it was Barloff's now! Barloff's was a little farther uptown, alittle deeper over in the East Side. Billy Kane's smile, from whimsical,became tinged a little with weariness, became a little wan, as he walkedalong. He was the victim of a plot himself, that was aimed at his life,that sought to throw the guilt of a crime upon his shoulders, just asthe Wop was. And circumstances not only permitted, but seemed to forcehim constantly into these byways to save others, while he himself stoodcondemned in the eyes of the public as a murderer and a thief; and therewas bitter irony in the thought that he could not clear his own name,that he seemed powerless to help himself, while the mantle of one of theunderworld's archcriminals, which temporarily afforded him sanctuaryfrom the police, supplied him with almost unlimited information and themeans of helping others!
His brows knitted suddenly into a puzzled frown. Was that altogethertrue?
There seemed to be a most strange coincidence in these excursions,forced or voluntary, of his into the byways of criminal things, acoincidence that always seemed in some way to link up his own plightwith these other criminal schemes in which he became involved. There wasthe night that Peters had been murdered, for instance, which had led himto the knowledge that the Man With The Crutch was at least a co-murdererof David Ellsworth. And then the attempt at blackmail of two nights agohad again disclosed the hand of the Man With The Crutch, and, moresignificant still, had enabled him, Billy Kane, to recover the cashstolen from the library vault on the night of the Ellsworth murder. Whowas this Man With The Crutch--this man with a crutch whose shaft wasstained to resemble grained wood and so disguise the murderous iron ofwhich it actually consisted, and which, he was sure now, was the weaponthat had brought both David Ellsworth and Peters to their deaths?
Billy Kane shook his head. It was a curious chain of coincidence, but itcould be only coincidence. And there was a limit to that. To-night, forinstance, it would put a pretty severe strain upon the imagination toconceive of any connection between the Wop and the Man With The Crutch!And yet----
He shrugged his shoulders. He would have said the same thing two nightsago, wouldn't he? It was very strange! It was all strange! He seemed tobe existing in a sphere of unreality. There was the Man With The Crutch,whom neither police nor underworld could find since that raid on theman's room; there was the constant, ominous swirl and eddy of hidden andunseen things on every hand; there was the Rat--and there was the Womanin Black!
His face softened suddenly. He had not seen _her_ since yesterdaymorning when she had entered the Rat's den through the secret door, andhe had returned to her Dayler's letter. She had not been in a pleasantmood at what she believed had been his trickery; and, failing to haverestored that letter to her, she would have turned him, whom she, likeevery one else, believed to be the Rat, incontinently over to thepolice. What was the hold she had upon the Rat? Where was she to-night?How was it that her hand had not already showed in this attempt upon theWop, since she seemed to have always in her possession the details ofthe Rat's schemes?
He shrugged his shoulders again. What was the use! To-night, at least,she could harbor no delusion that he was acting under any spur of hers!No, that wasn't it--that wasn't what was troubling him. What troubledhim was that she should think him what he was, or, rather, all that hewas not! Strange that her opinion of him, even when his back was againstthe wall and his life was literally in jeopardy at every turn, shouldmake any difference! Strange that the loathing and contempt in thosebrown eyes, that were fearless and deep and steady, should haunt him,and add to his own abhorrence of the role he played because he must lether think him the Rat! Well, what did it matter? What was she to him?What was she becoming to him? He laughed a little uncertainly. There wasno need to answer that question, was there--even if he could? What didanything matter unless he could clear his own name, which was now mireddeeper than the Rat's!
He turned a corner, walked on the length of a block, and on the nextcorner, drawing back into a doorway out of the radius of the streetlamp, paused a moment to get his bearings. He smiled a little grimly. Ifthe affair ever came to her knowledge, would she give the Rat creditthis time for a spontaneous change of heart in saving the Wop's life,and saving Ivan Barloff's cash? He scowled suddenly. The latterproposition did not altogether please him. Barloff was not far removedin guilt from those who proposed to victimize Barloff! There would be acertain ironical justice in robbing from Barloff the cash that Barloffhad all too patiently, a great portion of it at least, robbed fromothers! But Red Vallon and his pack were not to get it, were they? Itwas the lesser evil to warn Barloff, that was all. In the main,therefore, the night's work was over, since the Wop was safe, for fiveminutes' conversation with Barloff would end the whole affair now, sofar as he, Billy Kane, was concerned.
He glanced down the street. Just a little ahead, on the opposite side,huddled in between two six-story tenements, was Barloff's squat, dingy,little house. There was a faint glow of light, as though it came fromsomewhere far in the interior, showing through the single front windowon the ground floor. Billy Kane considered this thoughtfully for a fewseconds. Barloff was at home evidently, but the probability was thatone, at least, of Red Vallon's men was on watch in front of the house.In fact, it wasn't probability; it was a certainty. Barloff, accordingto Red Vallon, was to receive a fake telephone message that would lurehim out of the house, and someone undoubtedly would be waiting to reportthe old Russian's exit. It therefore, to say the least of it, wouldbe--Billy Kane's smile was mirthless--unwise for the Rat to walk up toBarloff's front door under the existing conditions!
He might have telephoned. He shook his head, as he crossed the road,and, keeping in the shadows, stepped into the cross street. He preferredto interview Barloff via Barloff's back yard. He was still obsessed withthe desire to take personal toll from all concerned in the miserablenight's work, but he realized that impulse and sane action did notalways go hand in glove. He could not afford to play fast and loose withthis role of the Rat, or take any unnecessary risks, but he couldsatisfy himself to the extent, at least, of a personal interview withBarloff, who was perhaps after all the most despicable of the lot, andput into the puny, shrivelled soul of the man a fear that would make forsome degree of future righteousness!
A lane, as he had expected, ran in the rear of the tenements andBarloff's house. Billy Kane slipped into this, located Barloff's house,low-lying against the sky line between the taller buildings, swunghimself over the fence, dropped noiselessly to the ground, and for amoment stood there motionless.
The yard was very small, and, but a few feet in front of him, a lightfrom the open and uncurtained window of Barloff's rear room streamed outacross the intervening space. Voices reached him, but he could notdistinguish the words; neither, from where he stood, could he see anyonein the room, though the window was quite low, little more than breasthigh from the ground.
And then a form inside the room passed across the window space, awoman's form; and again a voice reached him, a woman's voice, and BillyKane drew in his breath sharply. He still could not distinguish thewords, but he had recognized the voice.
Once again he had jumped too hastily to conclusions in so far as she wasconcerned--it was the Woman in Black. There was no question as to whyshe was there; it was obvious that she had simply forestalled him inwarning the old Russian; but--a perplexed frown furrowed Billy Kane'sforehead--her hand would have showed a little late in the game to havesaved the Wop!
He stole forward, keeping in the shadows of the side fence, reached therear wall of the house, edged across to the side of the window where hecould both see an
d hear, and crouched there. His eyes swept the interiorin a swift, comprehensive survey. It was a sordid, ill-furnished,bare-floored room, and very dirty. A seedy old morris chair in thecenter of the room supplied the only suggestion of comfort or luxury,and that an incongruous one, that the place possessed. Apart from that,there was a huge and aged safe, a relic of the days when such thingswere locked with keys, which was backed up against one wall; and near anopen door, which apparently led into the front room, there was abattered desk with an equally battered swivel chair--and that was all,unless the telephone that stood upon the desk might be included in thefurnishings. There was, however, another door, also open, which facedthe safe, and which apparently gave on a passageway that in turn openedon the back yard. Billy Kane glanced around him. Yes, there was a reardoor here, just a little to his right.
His eyes reverted to the interior of the room. _She_ was still pacing upand down its length from the desk to the window and back again. Perhapsit was the effect of the green-shaded incandescent bulb that dangledover the desk, but, as she turned facing the window, he saw that herface, drawn in sharp, pinched lines, was very white, and that in thedark brown eyes, all softness gone from them now, there was a hard andbitter light. And at the desk, the old Russian, a gray-bearded andthreadbare figure in dirty and grease-spotted clothes, huddled deep downin his chair, and wrung his hands together, and with little, black,shifty eyes, that peered over the rims of steel-bowed spectacles,followed her about in a fascinated sort of way, and the while he keptcircling his lips with his tongue.
"The Wop! The Wop!" he shrilled out suddenly, and seemed to cower lowerin his chair. "Yes, yes, I am afraid! My God, I am afraid! He is strong.He would have no pity on an old man. He has sworn it. I know! I havebeen afraid of this day. Why did they let him out? They know, too! And Iwas only honest--everybody knows that. He was a thief. What else couldan honest man do except what I did? He--he will kill me, and----"
"The Wop is dead." Her voice was low, bitter, hard, and yet, too, itseemed to hold impatience and irritation directed against the Russian."I have told you that. It is not the Wop you have to fear now. The Wopis dead."
"But you are not sure, not positive, not absolutely positive of it!"Barloff was wringing his hands the harder; and his tones, rather thanbeing assertive, seemed to be pleading for a denial.
"I am positive enough of it," she answered evenly, "to see that the onewho is responsible pays for it to-night! It is my fault"--her voicecaught a little, but hardened instantly--"I trusted where I was a foolto trust, and I have paid for it with another's life. But that hasnothing to do with you. You know now that the telephone message youreceived a little while ago was simply to lure you out of the house athalf past nine in order that they might have a clear field in which,without contradiction, to make it appear that the robbery they areplanning was the Wop's work. It is scarcely nine o'clock yet. You haveplenty of time in which to act. You can appeal to the police, or----"
Billy Kane was no longer paying any attention to her words. Tense,strained, he stood there. He seemed to be trying to lash his brain intovirility, into activity. He seemed to be groping out in an ineffectualmental way for some means to avert a disaster that he realized wasclosing down upon him. She believed the Wop was dead. She naturally heldthe Rat responsible--and he was the Rat, so far as she was concerned.She had warned him, without mincing words, that if any crime in whichthe Rat was involved was carried through to its fulfilment she wouldhold him responsible and hand him over to the police. She had reason tobelieve that he had already tried to double cross her once; she nowbelieved that to-night he had tried to do it again. She would leavehere, and go straight to the police. The police, then, would not only belooking for Billy Kane, they would be looking for the Rat--and theywould get Billy Kane! And that would be the end of it all!
The end of it--when he already knew who the murderer of David Ellsworthwas; when, apart from the collection of rubies, he had already recoveredthe proceeds of the Ellsworth vault robbery; when, if he could onlycling for a few days more to this role he played, he might hope to clearhis own name, to stand foursquare with the world again, and to bring tojustice those who had taken old David Ellsworth's life. Somehow, in someway, he must prevent her from carrying out what was now her obviousintention of unmasking the Rat. But he dared not show himself in frontof the house to intercept her when she went out--he dared not showhimself as the Rat out there. To bring the underworld down upon him wasonly to invite a swifter destruction from another source.
He gnawed in perplexity at his lips, staring into the room. She keptpacing up and down. Barloff had risen from his seat, and in a curious,cringing way, standing now by the rickety old safe, was fondling it andpatting it with his hands.
"Yes, yes!" Barloff was crooning. "I thank you--I thank you! I do notknow who you are, but I thank you! I have not much, very little, very,very little, but I am an old man, and what would become of me if I lostmy little? The police, yes, the police----"
The old Russian, his back now to the window, was still talking, more tohimself than to her. She came close to the window this time and BillyKane suddenly showed himself. She was very clever, very self-centered,very sure of herself. If she was startled, she gave no sign of it. Shecame still closer until she leaned for a moment against the sill.
"Out here--the lane--when you leave!" he whispered quickly.
She nodded her head, but her lips had tightened in a forbidding littlesmile as she turned away again,
Billy Kane drew back from the window. There was a sense of relief uponhim; but also a vague, disquieting, and very much stronger sense ofsomething else that he could not quite define; only that between themthere always seemed to stand that barrier of a forbidding smile, andthat cool, contemptuous light in the brown eyes that very often changedfrom contempt to loathing and abhorrence. He shrugged his shoulderssuddenly. He was a fool--that was all!
Her voice drifted out to him, dying away as he neared the fence:
"I am going now, Mr. Barloff, and I should advise you not to waste anytime in taking whatever precautions you intend to take. You had bettercommunicate at once with the police, and----"
Billy Kane swung himself over the fence, and stood there waiting in thelane. A minute, two, three passed, and then he caught the sound of alight step, and she stood before him in the darkness.
"Well?" she said curtly. "I am here, Bundy. What do you want?"
He was the Rat, alias Bundy Morgan, in her eyes, and it was the Rat whospoke.
"I heard you in there," he said gruffly. "You're going to beat it forthe police, and wise them up about me. Well, you want to can that stunt,because I've got a little explanation to make. See?"
"You do not need to make any explanation," she answered evenly. "Mystupidity is at an end! That enigmatic little memo of yours was a bettersafeguard in itself than the hiding place in which you had secreted it,for I did not understand it until I saw a few lines in the paper thisevening giving a short resume of the Wop's somewhat unedifying career,and stating that he had been released from prison. I was too late tosave the Wop himself, but was not too late to prevent you from climbingin through that window, and carrying out the rest of your abominablescheme."
"I went there to warn Barloff myself," said Billy Kane.
She laughed icily.
"Do you expect me to believe that, after you have murdered a man so thatyou could put the onus of another crime upon him! This is the endto-night! I was mad to trust you at all. I was madder still to give youanother chance, when I caught you playing a double game both with yourown criminal associates and with me when you stole that letter fromDayler two nights ago!" She came a little closer to him. Both hands weretightly clenched. Her lips quivered a little; her voice choked. "I didnot know what it was like to feel guilty of murder, to feel that one hadtaken another's life. I know now. My folly in giving you a moment'sfreedom has made me as guilty as you. But the end has come. Do youunderstand? You might put me out of the road, too, here in this lane,b
ut that would not change the result any. You know that. You know inthat case that the police would be after you anyway--that I have takencare of that. On the other hand, you may run for it now, and you maymake it a question of hours, or a question of days, but as soon as thepolice lay hands on you your career is finished."
There was a strange stirring within Billy Kane's soul. She was veryclose to him, so close that he could see the pinched, haggard look inher face, and see the lips quiver again, and see the clenched hands riseto her eyes as though to shut out the abhorrent sight of him from her,and to shut out perhaps, too, the pictured sight of a man murdered, andfor whose life she not illogically held herself accountable.
His hands gripped hard--hard as the mental grip in which he heldhimself. A sudden yearning, an almost uncontrollable impulse was uponhim to reach out and sweep this lithe, fearless little figure that hadbecome so mysteriously a part of his life, a greater part than he hadever realized before, into his arms. She would struggle like a wild cat,and fight with every ounce of strength, yes, and hatred, that was inher, but he could hold her because he was the stronger, and tell herthat he was not the Rat, and---- He swallowed hard. And then what? Tellher that he was Billy Kane? A wan smile came to his lips. She wouldperhaps prefer the Rat! The Rat, publicly at least, was known as theless infamous of the two! He laughed a little harshly.
"Forget it!" he said roughly. "I've played straight with you, and beforeyou go spilling any beans to the police you'd better get onto yourself.You don't know what you're talking about!"
"I know that the Wop was murdered to-night in Wong Yen's by you, or yourorders," she said passionately. "I know that the Wop is dead--that isenough!"
"Nix!" said Billy Kane, alias Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat. "The Wopisn't dead, and he isn't in Wong Yen's either. I pulled him out ofthere."
She stared at him, coming still closer in the darkness until he couldfeel her breath upon his face. It was a long minute before she spoke.
"I do not believe you!" she said in a dead voice.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I did not expect you to!" The Rat's tones were insolent now. "But youcan prove it, can't you? The Wop's safe. He's at a minister's house. Theminister's name is Claflin. I don't know the address, but you can easilyfind it. It wouldn't do me any good to lie to you, would it? You can'tdrag me to the police by force, and whether you squealed to them in thenext ten minutes, or half an hour later after finding out I was lying,I'd be just as bad off, wouldn't I?"
She drew back--but her eyes were still fixed steadily upon him.
"Yes," she said.
"Well?" demanded Billy Kane.
"I can find this minister's house in that half hour, I think," she saidin a low voice. "And the Wop--if he is there." Her voice hardened. "Youare quite right, Bundy, it will have done you no good to have lied. Ipromise you that! If I do not find the Wop, the police willfind--_you_!"
She was gone.