XXII--THE FIGHT
Billy Kane stood in the lane for a moment, staring after her through thedarkness and his lips puckered in a sort of impotent little smile. Shewould find the Wop, of course, and thereafter the old relationshipbetween them would be reestablished, and----.
He whirled suddenly, and in an instant was astride the top of the fence,his face set and hard, as there came, low but unmistakably from theinterior of Barloff's house, the sound of blows and the rending of wood,as though a door were being violently forced. A glance showed him thatthe window had been closed and the shade drawn down. Barloff hadevidently got that far in safeguarding himself, only Red Vallon'sApaches had struck, perhaps suspicious of _her_ visit, without waitingfor the old Russian to go out! What else could those blows mean but anattack on Barloff? Certainly, Barloff must still be in there, forBarloff, warned, wasn't going out; he was going to appeal, by telephonepresumably, to the police.
Billy Kane's mind was racing, as he whipped his mask from his pocket,adjusted it over his face, dropped to the ground, and ran across theyard. The night's work obviously now, was far from over yet! He hadstill to play, after all, that other role of his in the underworld--theman in the mask! Red Vallon had said that the Pigeon, French Marr andthe Cadger were to carry out the robbery inside the house. That madethree to one! His one chance then was to take them by surprise.
He was working now with Whitie Jack's skeleton keys at the rear door.The Cadger was an expert safeworker, just as the Wop was, and that waspart of the game to make it appear to be the Wop's work. The Wop wassafe now, of course, but--he bit at his lips, cursing his clumsinesswith the keys--old Barloff certainly wasn't! They had intended to getBarloff out of the house, but if, without waiting for that, they struckwith Barloff there, they would not stand on any more ceremony with theold man than they had with the Wop, since the Wop was to stand for itanyway. It was strange, ominously strange, that there was no outcry fromBarloff, that even the sound of blows and splintering wood had ceased!
The door gave under his hand. He pushed it open cautiously, a bare halfinch at a time. In front of him was a small room, obviously the kitchen,that connected with the rest of the house only by the side door ofBarloff's rear room from which the light now filtered in across thekitchen floor. He stole silently forward in the direction of the lighteddoorway and halted, as, a little back from the edge of the door jamb, hestared in amazement into the room beyond.
The door near Barloff's desk that led into the front room hung shatteredon its hinges, its panels broken and splintered, but the only occupantof the room was Barloff himself. The man was standing there, a hatchetin his hand, surveying the wreckage, and mumbling inaudibly to himself.
And then suddenly there came a twisted smile of comprehension to BillyKane's lips. Old Barloff laid the hatchet down on the desk, and, rubbinghis hands together in a sort of fiendish exaltation, a malicious grin onhis cunning and crafty face, ran over to the safe and knelt before it.His mumble became quite audible now:
"The Wop! The Wop! Dead--eh? And all these little rentals, these nicelittle rentals, just in! And. if they are stolen--eh? I am a poorman--eh? I could not replace them. And so they would be mine--mine.She's sure he is dead. She said so--that they murdered him. But she didnot see it with her own eyes. If she comes back and tells the policethat, I will say that the Wop must have escaped the trap they set forhim, for with my own eyes I saw him, and since he is dead he will not beable to deny that. Yes, yes, Barloff, your old brain is still your bestfriend! And the others--ha, ha! They have planted it on the Wop--ha, ha!It would be a pity to disappoint them--and lose the rentals. Yes, yes,Barloff, that is so, is it not? Certainly, the Wop has robbed you, andtried to get revenge on you, too, because you were honest enough to goto the police five years ago!"
The man had the safe open now, and was snatching books and papers fromthe interior, and throwing them in a litter upon the floor. And now hehad an old tin cash box in his hands. He laid this on the floor andopened it, and in a sort of hideous rapacity seemed to gloat over it. Hedipped in his hands and lifted out banknotes, and let them filterthrough his fingers, and rubbed his hands together, and buried themagain in the money; while behind the steel-bowed spectacles his littleblack eyes glittered with feverish exaltation again, and his whole bodyseemed to quiver in unholy, greedy worship.
Billy Kane's jaw locked hard. The man's whole life was a damnablehypocrisy--a rogue's alias. Thousands the man had somewhere, and, bycomparison, the paltry hundreds in the cash box, if hundreds even therewere, seemed to hold up as to a mirror the man's soul, stripped bare,until it stood out in all its naked, shrivelled miserliness, its godlessgrovelling to the only god it knew!
"The rentals--all the rentals!" mumbled Barloff again. "I am a poorman--how can I pay them over to-morrow when they have been stolen fromme to-night, and I have nothing left? Yes, yes, Barloff, you are gettingold, but you are not yet a fool!"
The man was suddenly all haste. He snatched up the cash box, and ran tothe piece of furniture which had struck Billy Kane as so incongruous anadjunct to the furnishings of the room--the old morris chair. He turnedthis over on its back, there was a faint click of a hidden spring, andthe bottom underneath the seat gaped outward on what were evidentlyingeniously concealed hinges. Billy Kane's eyes, behind his mask,narrowed in grim humor, as he caught a glimpse of piles of neatlystacked banknotes in the hollow bottom of the chair, that was a sort ofspacious, boxlike compartment--and then the old miser had thrust in thecash box, closed the seat again, and righted the chair. Old Barloff,after all, did not place all his faith in a presumptive burglar'schivalry for the obvious helplessness of the rickety old safe!
Barloff was rubbing his hands together unctuously once more, as hehurried back now to the desk. The desk was close to the alreadysplintered door that led to the front of the house, and Barloff,catching up the hatchet in one hand, pulled the portable telephoneinstrument toward him with the other, and snatched the receiver from itshook.
"The police--quick--quick!" he called into the transmitter, his voicepitched in a well-simulated scream of terror, and brought the hatchetdown with a crash on the splintered panels.
Billy Kane made no movement save that his lips twitched a little. Thelow, cunning trickery of the man produced a sort of nauseating disgust,and, too, a sort of merciless anger; but, given enough rope now, Barloffwas in a fair way to hang himself, and it would afford him, Billy Kane,a very genuine pleasure to adjust, as he now proposed to do, the noosethat would accomplish that hanging!
Barloff was still raining his hatchet blows on the door; and thensuddenly, evidently having got his connection, he was screaming again,between blows, into the mouthpiece of the telephone:
"Is that the police?----Yes, yes!----Quick----This is IvanBarloff----Barloff, Barloff, Barloff----yes,Barloff----Quick----Help!----For God's sake, help!----It is theWop!----Do you hear?----The Wop!"
Barloff slammed the receiver back on the hook, and flung the hatchetdown on the floor. It was quiet in the room now except that the old manwas talking again to himself, in a sort of triumphant glee:
"Ha, ha--got to escape from the Wop now--got to escape----yes, yes,Barloff, you have done well, very well--but you must hurry now--yes,hurry."
Billy Kane drew silently back into the darkness at the far side of thekitchen. There was still a little more rope left to give Barloff forBarloff's undoing! He, Billy Kane, had no intention of interfering withthe hypocritical old scoundrel's self-styled escape, nor of preventingBarloff now from rushing, for instance, to the police to amplify histale; but Barloff, to "escape" and carry out his ruse successfully,could not rush out through the door supposed to be barred by the Wop andso reach the street that way! Barloff then, if Barloff were logical, hada choice of the kitchen and back door, or the window.
The light in Barloff's room went out. Billy Kane smiled in satisfaction.With the kitchen in complete darkness now there was no chance of hisbeing seen if Barloff came that way, and--no, it was the window! T
hesash creaked as the window was opened. There was a low thud as the mandropped to the ground, and then the sound of the other's footstepsrunning across the yard toward the fence.
Billy Kane laughed a little, grimly under his breath, as he steppedinstantly forward and entered the room old Barloff had just vacated. Itwas his turn now at the telephone! A hint to the police as to where themoney was, and, with the Wop's alibi thoroughly established, Barloffwould be condemned by his own story. It would require only a moment totelephone, and then he would make his own get-away; also, it would beten minutes at least before the police from the nearest station couldanswer Barloff's call, but if, in the meanwhile, the Cadger and his packarrived, they would not only get nothing, but would run a very excellentchance of being trapped by the police, and----.
Billy Kane with his hand groping out through the darkness for thetelephone, stood suddenly tense and still; and then, as suddenly,actuated partly by some intuitive sense of danger, and partly becausesome indefinable sound of movement caught his ear, he swerved, throwinghis body sharply to one side. There was a swish like the ugly sweep ofsome weapon cutting through the air from a ferocious, full-arm swing, aqueer numbness from a glancing blow on the side of his head, a crashupon the desk, a metallic clatter on the floor--and then he lungedforward, and his hands, pawing out, touched and closed on a man's formin front of him.
Billy Kane's head was dizzy and swirling. He was conscious that armswhich were like bands of steel were around him, and that his own arms,to keep from being torn apart and his hold on the other loosened, werestraining until they hurt in their sockets. It seemed as though in thepitch blackness they were reeling around the room in the crazy, jerky,unbalanced dance of some mad orgy! A voice was snarling in his ear,snarling vicious oaths, snarling in a fury that seemed ungovernable,beyond all license, that seemed to have taken possession of the other,body and soul, and made the other's strength demoniacal. That was it! Itcould not be anything else. That was what made the man so strong. Theman was mad--a madman! He tried to think, as he gasped and panted forhis breath. It wasn't the Cadger, or French Marr, or the Pigeon, forthen there would have been three of them. Who was it? His brain was sickand swimming, and refused its functions. He could not think very well.He must fight--that was all--fight!
It seemed to Billy Kane as though hours were passing. It seemed asthough gradually, very gradually, his strength was oozing away, and thathis hands were slipping from around the man's back. He clenched histeeth together. He remembered suddenly that murderous swish through theair. It seemed to steady him, to bring to him, too, a sudden fury inplace of that unnerving giddiness. He wanted to strike; to strike, asmurderously as he had been struck, at this thing whose hot, taintedbreath was on his cheek, at this thing that snarled like a beast as itstruggled and fought. He wanted to strike, only the giddiness from theblow on his head was back again, and----.
The other had wrenched himself free. Billy Kane flung his weight forwardto retain his hold, and with the impact both men reeled, tripped on thelittered floor, lost their balance, and, locked together, crashed to theground.
They rolled over once, and then the other's snarl became a viciouslaugh. The giddiness was coming in quick flashes over Billy Kane now,and he felt his hands wrenched and torn away from the other, and he feltthe other's body upon him now like some crushing, insupportable weight.He reached out in the darkness in a desperate, frantic effort to closeagain, to protect himself from the short-arm jabs that were raining intohis face. His fingers touched the man's bare, collarless throat, slippedon the throat--and suddenly held. There was a string, or a cord, orsomething around the man's neck. It was very curious! But his fingershad hooked in between the cord and the flesh, and he clung theretenaciously. If he could only twist it, and twist it hard enough, hecould choke the other! He wasn't strong enough to do anything else--justtwist at the cord--and choke the other--and----
There was a sound that seemed to come from the front of the house, likethe opening of a door, and then voices--unmistakably voices. But theother had heard it too. The man was struggling now to get away, not tostrike any more blows, just to wrench and tear himself loose from thatcord that Billy Kane had twined around his hands and fingers. And thenthe cord gave with a sudden snap, the man sprang to his feet, and,without a sound, like a shadowy form just visible in the darkness, flunghimself out through the window.
The cord was still twined around Billy Kane's fingers as he lay,half-dazed, his head swimming weakly, flat on his back on the floor. Heshook it free from his hand and raised himself up into a sittingposture, as he smiled in a queer, bitter way. There was a light in thefront room now, and he was too exhausted to reach the window as his lateantagonist had done, unless he stumbled and lurched there, and then hewould be heard in the front room.
It was the end of the Rat, alias Bundy Morgan--and it was the end ofBilly Kane. It was probably the Cadger and his crowd out there, but, atleast, they would not take him alive. His hand dove into his pocket forhis automatic and encountered the brandy flask that had already stoodthe Wop in such good stead. He snatched it from his pocket, and, hismask already awry on his face, carried the flask to his lips, and drankeagerly.
The stimulant whipped through his veins in a fiery tide. It cleared hisbrain. No, it wasn't the Cadger out there--the Cadger and his crowdwould be scared off for good now--there were two men--he could see themcoming through the doorway--and he heard old Barloff's voice.
He drank again greedily, shifting the flask to his left hand, while hisright dove once more into his pocket, and this time secured hisautomatic. He drew his mask back over his face. The light over the deskwent on, and, sitting there on the floor, Billy Kane blinked in thesudden glare at old Barloff and a police officer.
"Don't move, please, either of you, except to put your hands up!" saidBilly Kane in a low voice.
There was a startled exclamation from the officer, as his hands went upabove his head; while a gray, blank look spread over the old miser'sface, as he, too, obeyed with equal celerity.
It was very curious! Billy Kane frowned in a puzzled way. It was verycurious--not so much that he should be sitting there on the litteredfloor, with the side of his head trickling a warm flow of blood downunder the neck of his shirt, and holding a brandy flask in one hand, andholding up two men at the point of his automatic with the other; itwasn't so much that, it was an object on the floor near the desk thatlooked like a round piece of grained wood, about an inch in diameter andthree feet in length.
He thrust the flask into his pocket, and, over his mask, rubbed the backof his hand across his eyes. It wasn't a vagary of his sick brain, wasit? Well, he would know in a minute as soon as he lifted it and felt itsweight. No, that wasn't necessary, he remembered that _metallic_ clatterupon the floor. He knew what the thing was. It was the iron shaft of thecrutch that he had seen two nights ago--a detachable shaft probably--theweapon that he was satisfied had already murdered David Ellsworth, andmurdered Peters.
His mind was clear now and working in lightning flashes. His assailanthad been the one man in the world upon whose throat he had prayed to gethis fingers--the Man with the Crutch! Well, his fingers had been there,only he had been, at a disadvantage, weak and dizzy from the blow fromthat thing there, and--yes, this was curious too! He was watching thetwo men, his automatic covered them unswervingly; but out of the cornerof his eye he could not help but see that red patch on the floor besidehim, that looked like an ordinary flannel chest protector, and to whichthe cord that he had torn from his antagonist's neck was still attached.He reached for it and thrust it into his pocket, as he rose slowly, anda little unsteadily, to his feet.
He eyed the two men now for a long calculating second. Yes, his brainwas quite clear now--exhilaratingly clear. And the mental exhilarationseemed to bring in its train a new physical strength as well. In a flashhe saw the way out now, and with it, too, the means of slippingBarloff's self-knotted noose around the miserly old Russian's throat.But he must work quickly. There was not
an instant to spare. Thisofficer could not have come in answer to Barloff's telephone call, forhe realized that, long as it had seemed, his fight here in the roomcould not have lasted in reality more than two or three minutes, and ithad begun almost on the instant that Barloff had run from the house.There would not, therefore, have been time for the telephone call tohave been answered, for the nearest police station was too far away, andbesides, in that event, there would have been more than one officer.Barloff had probably encountered the policeman out on the street, and,carrying out his devilishly inspired plan, had poured his story into theofficer's ears, and rushed the other back to the house. But in thatcase, the men from the station would be on their way here now, and theleeway left him, Billy Kane, in which to act must, even now, be narrowedto the very perilous margin of but another four or five minutes--perhapsless!
"Move to the wall, face it, and keep your hands up!" ordered Billy Kanecurtly.
The officer, with a chagrined scowl and a shrug of his shoulders,obeyed. Barloff, white and trembling, and thoroughly frightened, neededno urging.
"You've got the drop on me," snarled the officer. "But don't worry, mybucko, I know who you are! That mask ain't doing you any good! There's afree ride and board coming to you again!"
Billy Kane's automatic was pressed into the small of the officer's back.With his free hand he deftly relieved the other of a pair of handcuffsand a revolver.
"That's all right!" said Billy Kane coolly. "Now, Barloff, stick yourright hand out behind you!" He slipped one of the steel cuffs over theRussian's wrist. "Now you, officer! No, your _right_ hand! I know it'scustomary in making an arrest to leave your right hand free, but in thecircumstances I am forced to inconvenience you a little in yourmovements." He snapped the other cuff shut. "Thank you! You may bothturn around now!" He stepped back, hurled the officer's revolver outthrough the window, and picked up the weapon whose blow, luckily forhim, he had partially evaded. He had in no way been mistaken. It was theiron shaft of the crutch, and it was ingeniously fashioned with a springcatch that obviously fitted into a socket in the now missing armpiece ofthe crutch. It served him now as a support. He leaned upon it, using itas a cane, as he swayed a little on his feet. "I can only spare amoment," he said engagingly to the officer; "but possibly I can makethat moment well worth your while. We'll talk quickly, if you please. Iimagine that you were on your beat out there on the street when Barloffhere found you. Am I right?"
"Where else would I be?" said the officer gruffly.
"That's what I wanted to make sure of," returned Billy Kane pleasantly."And that's why I want to get through here in a hurry--before yourreinforcements arrive. What story did this man tell you?"
"Say," said the officer shortly, "you've got your nerve with you! Butyou can't get away with it! I tell you, I know you! You might as welltake that mask off. You're the Wop."
"You're jumping at conclusions," said Billy Kane calmly, "becauseBarloff here has told you the Wop had broken in and robbed him. Well,ask Barloff, then!" He turned on Barloff. "I'm not the Wop, am I,Barloff?"
The old man shook his head.
"No, you're not." Barloff swallowed hard; he was evidently flounderingin a perplexed mental maze. "But my money's gone, and the Wop was here.I saw him. I saw him. Maybe you're a pal of his."
"I am for to-night," said Billy Kane quietly. "When did you see the Wop?What did you tell this officer here?"
"Oh, you are, are you!" Barloff seemed suddenly relieved. He shook hisfree fist at Billy Kane. "So you're a pal of the Wop's, are you! Well, Idon't know where you came from, but I saw the Wop just as plainly as Isee you now." He edged around and addressed the officer eagerly. "I wassitting at the desk there, officer, just as I told you, and that doorwas open, and there was a light in that front room. The Wop must havegot the front door open without my hearing him. I saw him stealingacross that room out there. I rushed to the door, and shut it, andcalled for help. He began to smash it in and I grabbed up the telephoneand called the police, and then ran for the window, and got out by thelane to the street where I found you. He would have killed me. He sworehe would when he went to prison." His voice changed suddenly into awhining wail. "He's got my money! Look at the floor--look at the safe!He's got my money, and run with it when he heard us coming." He began toclaw frantically at the officer's sleeve. "The Wop's got it! Look,officer, this pal of his has been hurt! Look at the side of hishead--that's why he didn't get away too--that's why we found him here onthe floor!"
"You talk as though you'd been frisked of a million!" Billy Kane wastauntingly sarcastic now. "How much did you have, anyway?"
"How much! How much!" howled Barloff. "Enough to ruin me! All thismonth's rentals that I had just collected. Three hundred andeighty-seven dollars!"
"Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!" Billy Kane mimicked the otheradmirably. "You don't mean to say you'd keep three hundred andeighty-seven dollars in that crazy old safe that's falling to pieces, doyou?"
"Where else would I keep it?" Barloff was shaking his fist again. "Yes,I kept it there! And that's where it was to-night--and it's gonenow--gone!"
"Is that all you had?" Billy Kane's sneer was irritatingly contemptuous.
"All!" shrieked Barloff. "All--yes, it is all! But it is enough! I am apoor man, and the money was not mine, and I cannot replace it, and----"
He choked suddenly, and shrank back, dragging the officer with him astep. Billy Kane had moved abruptly to the morris chair, and had toppledit over on the floor.
"You pitiful liar! You haven't seen the Wop in five years!" rasped BillyKane, and the iron shaft in his hand crashed through the false bottom ofthe chair. A package of banknotes tumbled out on the floor, another, andyet another. A second blow dislodged the cash box, and a further rain ofbanknotes. "You thought the Wop was dead, and that you could make himstand for this, did you!" rasped Billy Kane again. "You yellow cur--sothat you could steal those few miserable rentals yourself!"
"My God!" gasped the officer. Barloff was a grovelling thing at hisside. He jerked the other toward him, and stared into the white, workingfeatures.
Billy Kane backed to the window, and there was an abrupt change in hisvoice as he addressed the officer.
"I'm going now," he said softly. "I am not quite sure of the technicalcharge against your prisoner, but I imagine it is just plain theft--ofthree hundred and eighty-seven dollars. And it might be interesting,too, to know where so poor a man got that small fortune there on thefloor! Perhaps Barloff will tell you! As for the Wop, he has never beennear this place, and you will find him at the Reverend Mr. Claflin'shouse, where he has been all evening. I think that's all, officer,except"--Billy Kane had straddled the window sill--"except that Iapologize to you for anything in the shape of lese majesty of which Imay have been guilty, but as I have certain personal reasons thatjustify me in not desiring to appear publicly in the matter, I am sureyou will admit I had no other----"
Billy Kane did not finish his sentence. He dropped hurriedly to theground, and ran, or, rather, half ran, half stumbled his way to thefence and lane. Someone was at the front door again--obviously thepolice detail from the station.
He made his way along the lane, and from that lane into another. He wasstill weak and progress was slow, and for half an hour he kept undercover. When he finally emerged into the open he was blocks away fromBarloff's house, and very much closer to a certain temporary sanctuaryin the heart of the underworld!
Ten minutes later, behind locked doors, he was sitting at thedilapidated table under the single incandescent light, in the Rat's den.Before him lay a small red flannel sack, that might have passed for anordinary chest protector, and which he had cut open with his knife. Heraised his hand, and passed it across his eyes. The Wop and Barloff wereextraneous considerations now. There was something far more vital tothink about, but his brain was refusing its functions again. He was verytired--very tired and weak. There was the Man with the Crutch, the manwho, he knew now, had killed Peters and David Ellsworth, the m
an who hadlooted David Ellsworth's vault of its money and its priceless rubies,the man for whose guilt he, Billy Kane, was held accountable, the manwith whom he had fought to-night. In a numbed way, because his mind wasin a sort of torpor, Billy Kane was dimly conscious that there was nomore any mere coincidence in this repeated appearance of the Man withthe Crutch. He knew now that Jackson, the footman, had only been anunderling. It was curious, singular, sinister. Who was the man? What didit mean? The man wasn't even lame, was he? He remembered theextraordinary agility the other had showed two nights ago--and why wasthe shaft of the crutch detachable?--and the man hadn't fought like acrippled man to-night--and there had been no sign of the upper portionof the crutch, either!
Billy Kane's head sank forward a little on his shoulders. He raisedhimself with a jerk, and stared at the red flannel sack in front of him.A score of magnificent rubies scintillated in fiery flashes under thelight.
"They're not all here," mumbled Billy Kane, with a twisted smile."They're not all here--not yet."