VII--WHISPERING SHADOWS
It was the next evening--in the Rat's den. Through half closed eyes, ashe lay stretched out on the bed, Billy Kane watched Whitie Jack acrossthe room. The man was tilted back in his chair, his legs were sprawledacross the table, and from his cigarette, which dangled from one cornerof his lower lip, a thread of blue smoke spiraled lazily upward. WhitieJack was not smoking; the cigarette simply hung forgotten on the man'slip. For the moment Whitie Jack with bated interest was poring over theevening paper.
And then Whitie Jack looked up suddenly, and spoke--out of theunoccupied corner of his mouth.
"Say, dat secretary guy dat croaked de old geezer last night was asweet, downy bird--nit! But believe me, he made some haul--_some_ haul!"
Billy Kane made no reply. Whitie Jack resumed his absorbing perusal ofthe newspaper. Billy Kane's eyes closed completely--but not in sleep. Ithad been a day that, viewed in retrospect, made the brain whirl. It hadbeen a wild untrammelled phantasmagoria. That was it--phantasmagoria.There was no other word. The day was expressed in shadows, movingshadows, shadows that came and went, many of them, shadows that wereparadoxically real and concrete, and shadows that were the reflection ofthings felt and sensed, but unseen. And these latter, the shadows of themind, were weird, uncanny things like denizens out of some black worldapart--ghoulish things. And the shadows that were real and concrete,that spoke and whispered, seemed to take it for granted that he was andalways had been in their evil confidence, and so their words were notrounded out, and there was only the hint of dark and hideous things inwhich he was supposed to have his part. It had been a day of mutterings,of whisperings, of skulking things that had fled the sunlight. The brainand mind was in riot from it. It was evening now; it had been thestrangest day through which any man had ever lived.
He had held court that morning and through the day, here in the Rat'slair--a sort of grim, unholy court to which grim, unholy courtiers hadflocked to pay him homage. And these courtiers had been admitted to thepresence one by one, their names announced by Whitie Jack, who hadacted--quite innocently, quite free from any thought of connivance--asthe master of ceremonies. Billy Kane's lips twisted in a mirthlesssmile. It had been very simple, that part of it; much more simple thanhe had dared to hope it would be. Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat, wassupposed to know all those who composed the elite of the underworldintimately and well--but Billy Kane upon whom fate had thrust for themoment the personality and entity of Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat, knewnone of them. And yet it had been simple--so simple that, against theperil, the certain death that would follow fast on the heels of even amisplaced word or an unguarded look, it had been even grotesquely absurdin its simplicity. Through the dens and dives of the Bad Lands, spreadby Whitie Jack when he had gone away the night before, the whisper hadpassed that the Rat had returned; and so, throughout the day, stealthyfootsteps had descended from the street to the basement door here, andin response to the knock Whitie Jack had opened the door a cautiousinch, peering out; and then he, Billy Kane, from the bed, his voicequerulous for the occasion, had demanded who it was, and Whitie Jack hadanswered--and the unsuspected introduction thus performed, he had biddenWhitie Jack admit the visitor.
There had been many like that--very many. And he had learned manythings. His hands clenched suddenly at his sides. The role he playedpromised well! Innuendoes, words toying with the fringe of things, hadmade it only too glaringly clear that the Rat was enmeshed indevilishness that ran the gamut of every crime in the decalogue. And forthe moment he was the Rat! There was some hell's syndicate, whose scopeand power he could only dimly plumb though he was satisfied that itsbranches were rooted in every nook and corner of the underworld. And ofthis syndicate he was now, by proxy, a member; and he was not only amember, but he was one of those magnates of crime who composed its innercouncil, its unhallowed directorate.
He twisted a little on the bed--more in mental than in physical unrest.His wounded shoulder was still far from healed of course, but it gavehim very little discomfort, and in no way interfered with his freedom ofaction--but it had been the safer way, this accentuating of his hurt,this pretended state of semi-helplessness. It had brought those he mustknow _here_ to him; it had brought about those unsuspected introductionswithout which, had he first left this lair of the Rat's and attempted,trusting to luck, to pick up the threads of the Rat's life, wouldinevitably have plunged him in his blind groping to certain destruction.Also it had brought him a quite thorough understanding of WhitieJack--the man's deference that had been almost cringing at their firstmeeting, and then the man's subsequent eagerness to serve.
Whitie Jack was one of the lesser breed that looked up to the heightsthe Rat had attained with both awe and unbounded admiration. The man hadcome like a dog to heel, but like a faithful dog. Whitie Jack was livingin a sort of reflected glory--he would be the envy of the proletariat ofthe Bad Lands--he was associating now, was even on terms of certainintimacy, with one of those in high places in that ingloriouscommonwealth of crime to which, both by birth and inclination, he owedallegiance. It opened a new prospect to Whitie Jack, one that was fullof dazzling possibilities--and it had made of the man an invaluableally. Whitie Jack had been at once valet, nurse, surgeon and attendantall through the day. He had returned at daylight that morning, dressedthe wound, and thereafter had not left the place except to go out andbuy certain necessities, such as food--and a pocket flashlight, whichBilly Kane, mindful of his previous night's experience in theunderground passage to the shed and lane, had ranked amongst thosenecessities as the first on the list.
Billy Kane shifted his position restlessly on the bed again. His mindwas in a turmoil of feverish activity. It seemed as though a thousanddivergent thoughts fought with each other to obtain undivided attentionand recognition each for itself, and the battle went on incessantly. Whowas the woman who had crept in here in the darkness through that secretdoor last night? What did it mean, that message she had written and lefton the table? "So you are back, are you? Well, so am I! _Remember!_"There was something malignant, something ominous in thatword--"remember." Remember what? Why? What sinister thing was it thatlay between her and the Rat--that he, Billy Kane, must now accept andstand sponsor for--since he was now the Rat!
The Rat! The Rat! The Rat! His brain was off again at another tangent.In Heaven's name, who was the Rat? Where was the Rat at this moment?When would the Rat return? Guarded questions all through the day helpedhim little. The Rat's absence had been accepted, that was all--noneseemed to know, or have any interest in the cause of it. One ray ofreassurance only had filtered through the murk. The Rat's return in his,Billy Kane's, person, had seemingly been premature, the Rat hadseemingly not been expected; and he could argue from that, and with fairlogic, that he might for a little while at least be left undisturbed inhis possession of the Rat's personality, and the Rat's belongings--asfar as the Rat was concerned. The Rat! Those innuendoes, those whispers,those shadows, that strange woman's stranger message were back again,seething and boiling in his brain. Naked ugliness! What mess of iniquitywas the Rat not mixed up in! And what mess of iniquity might not he,Billy Kane, accepted without question as the Rat now, with the Rat'sface and features, with the Rat's satanic partnerships, be forced towallow in to save his life, and, more than life, to----
The paper rustled in Whitie Jack's hand.
"Some haul!" Whitie Jack rolled the words on his tongue like some sweetmorsel. "S'help me! Five hundred thousand dollars' worth of rubies! Datguy Kane is some slick gazabo! Say, d'youse get it, Bundy? Five hundredthousand--an' a bunch of de green stuff, too!" He licked his lips. "Somehaul!"
The paper had exaggerated. David Ellsworth's rubies at the outside wouldnot exceed three hundred thousand dollars in value. Billy Kane foundhimself curiously and querulously irritated at the inaccuracy. He openedhis eyes, nodded unconcernedly at Whitie Jack--and closed his eyesagain. His mind was suddenly alert and concentrated. In a few minutesnow some of those who composed that inner council of crime wo
uld behere. He had arranged that this morning--with Red Vallon. Red Vallon wasthe biggest gangster in New York. Whitie Jack had dropped thatinformation in an enthusiastic eulogy of Red Vallon. And Vallon had bentover the bed that morning and whispered of a meeting to-night at theusual time and place. But he, Billy Kane, was not ready for that yet. Heknew too little, it was too great a risk; and he knew too much--toescape alive, if a chance word or act betrayed him. But there had come athought, swift, in a blinding flash, a staggering thing, a gambler'sstake, and he had whispered back what was apparently the obviousreply--that he was too badly hurt to go. And then: "One or two of youslip in here on your way over," he had said quickly. "Get me? I've gotsomething!" And Red Vallon had agreed--and with Red Vallon would comeKarlin. Karlin! The name had somehow seemed familiar; but though WhitieJack had subsequently furnished a partial clew by referring to Karlin asone of the high-brow lawyers of the city, he could not definitely placethe man.
Billy Kane turned on his side, with his face away from Whitie Jack. RedVallon and Karlin would be here in a few moments--and he must make nomistake now. What he meant to do was an impudent thing--impudent with aTitanic impudence. He meant to pit the underworld in a fight on the sideof justice against the police. He meant to use the craft, the cunningand the stealth of the Bad Lands to establish his innocence. He too hadread the papers--the morning and the evening papers--and the headlineshad shrieked out at him the infamy of which he was accused. His name wasa by-word now from one end of the country to the other. A viper and adegraded wretch, a thing inhuman and apart, the papers had called him.
He had read them all to the last word. Murderer of his benefactor! Athief--an assassin thief, who had fled for his life with those blood-redrubies! A bead of sweat came out on his forehead, and he raised his handand brushed it away. Yes, he had fled--to fight--to take the only chancehe had of bringing to justice the hell-hounds who had struck down hisold friend, the only chance he had of clearing his own name.
Well, he would fight! It was beginning now, that fight. But he wasbetween two fires that threatened him at any instant with destruction.The police, not only in New York, but from the Atlantic to the Pacific,would search ceaselessly for him, and if he were caught it was death.Fate, that had made him the double of a character that ironically seemedto measure up to everything the papers had said about himself, hadthrown in that way a temporary mantle of protection over him, but letthat mantle slip but ever so slightly and he would better a thousandtimes hand himself over to the law and have done with it--the end wouldbe more merciful!
But fate, too, had given him a weapon with which to fight; and,two-edged though it was, with a chance always that it might turn uponhimself, he meant to use it now--and that weapon was the underworld. Hedid not know yet, he was not sure yet just how high he stood in thatunsavory command, but he had discounted rather than overrated his power,and he believed he had power enough for his purpose--those whispers andthose shadows had seemed to assure him of that. The Rat seemed to be thedriving strategical force in this crime syndicate that appeared topermeate the Bad Lands with its influence, and move and sway theunderworld at its own imperious pleasure--and for the moment he was theRat!
There was Jackson--and Jackson was dead. His mind had flown off atanother apparently irrelevant tangent. But it was not irrelevant. Thepapers had said that Jackson, the footman, had died that morning afterlingering in a semi-conscious state through the night. Jackson was thesingle clue in his possession. Jackson, he knew, was one of themurderers, but Jackson was the _only_ man he knew who was concerned inthat devil's work last night--and Jackson was dead. And now he, BillyKane, was "wanted" on a double charge of murder--for the murder ofJackson, who had probably himself struck old David Ellsworth down, aswell as for the murderer of the old millionaire! Yet Jackson, even ifdead, must still have left some clue behind him, if only that clue couldbe found. Who was Jackson? The man had already been in service at DavidEllsworth's before he, Billy Kane, had gone there as the oldphilanthropist's secretary, and he had naturally had neither motive norinterest then in any of the footman's personal concerns. But those factswere vital now. Who was Jackson? Where had the man come from? Whowere----
Footsteps were descending from the street. There was a low knock, twicerepeated on the door. Whitie Jack was on his feet, and lookinginquiringly toward the bed.
"Watch yourself!" said Billy Kane gruffly. "I'm not entertainingto-night, except----"
"Sure--I know!" said Whitie Jack. He crossed the room, and, opening thedoor a crack, peered out. "Red and Karlin," he informed Billy Kane in awhisper.