VIII--A LEASH IS SLIPPED
Billy Kane lighted a cigarette. Red Vallon he already knew---Karlin hewas _supposed_ to know. "Let them in," instructed Billy Kane.
He raised himself on his elbow.
"Hello, Karlin!" he greeted, as the two men stepped into the room."Red's told you I was laid up---eh? Glad to see you! Shake!"
His eyes, half closed, fixed on the other in scrutiny, as the manadvanced toward the bed. Karlin was immaculately dressed--in sharpcontrast to the untidy and careless attire of the stocky, brutal-facedgangster who followed close at his heels. The man was tall, slimlybuilt, and, save that the black eyes were too close together and toosmall, had a pleasant and attractive face. It was a mask perhaps! Thesmile was too engaging; and it was rather curious how small the earswere, and how tightly they hugged the skull. He toyed with a littleblack Vandyke beard, as he shook hands.
"Same to you, Bundy!" The voice was soft, silky, persuasive. "Gladyou're back, too!" He made an almost imperceptible movement with hishead toward Whitie Jack, who still remained near the door.
Red Vallon was more blunt.
"What about _him_, Bundy?" he growled, and jerked a thumb in WhitieJack's direction. "We got to mosey along as soon as we can. Savvy?"
"Sure!" said Billy Kane. "Whitie, you take a holiday for the night. Comeback in the morning. Beat it!"
The cigarette hanging on Whitie Jack's lip drooped in sudden dejection;but if he swallowed hard to choke back what was evidently a verygrievous disappointment, he made no demur.
"All right, Bundy, if youse says so," he blurted out, and went from theroom, closing the door behind him.
The man's footfalls mounting the cellar-like stairs to the street diedaway, and for a moment there was no sound except for a faint, irregular_tapping_ from the floor above.
"What's that?" demanded Karlin sharply.
Billy Kane blew a ring of smoke ceilingward, and lazily watched itdissolve into air. Whitie Jack, through judicious prodding, had servedhim well that day.
"Old Ignace--keeps the cobbler's shop above--half blind, and has to workovertime--wife's nearly seventy, and deaf." Billy Kane was explainingalmost wearily. "What do you think I hang onto this hole for?"
"Sure!" grunted Red Vallon corroboratingly. "But Karlin's never beenhere before." He pushed a chair with the toe of his boot across thefloor toward Karlin, and appropriated one beside the table for himself."Well, spill it, Bundy!" he invited. "We got to hurry! It's too badyou're laid up an' can't sit in on the showdown, but Merxler's plum'sgot ripe, an' we got to pick it to-night. Savvy?"
Billy Kane duplicated the first smoke ring. Merxler! He had identifiedKarlin now! Karlin and Merxler! That was where he had heard Karlin'sname--in connection with Merxler--and it must, necessarily then be thesame Merxler. Was young Merxler, whom he had heard of and had even metthrough David Ellsworth, more then than simply the notorious spendthriftthat he was credited with being? Karlin, it was obvious, was leading adouble life. Was Merxler another of the inner circle, another from thehigher ranks of society--and the greater criminal therefor!
"Piker stuff!" commented Billy Kane complacently.
Karlin leaned forward with a jerk in his chair.
"Piker stuff!" he ejaculated, and the little black eyes contracted andfixed on Billy Kane in a puzzled glitter. "Piker stuff!" he echoedchallengingly.
Billy Kane nodded indifferently. He was skating on thin ice, onperilously thin ice. Whatever the "Merxler plum" might be, it wasobviously far from the definition he had given it, and having apparentlydisplayed an intimacy with the affair, an intimacy that he was evidentlysupposed to possess, it was decidedly best left alone!
"That's what I said," he drawled deliberately. "Piker stuff--comparedwith what I've got. I told you I had something, Red--didn't I?"
Red Vallon hitched sideways in his chair, his head thrust forward.
"Go to it, Bundy! Spill it!" He circled his lips with his tongue. "Ifyou say so, that goes! What's the lay?"
"Five hundred thousand dollars--a half million--cold"--Billy Kane hadlowered his voice.
He did not look at either of the men, but he was watching them bothintently--his eyes were on the mirror, the mirror of the bureau at thefar end of the room, that bore testimony to the cunning of his unwittinghost. The mirror held the door and the upper part of the room in focus;and, lying there on the bed, he had the profiles of the two men indistinct outline. Karlin was fingering his Vandyke in a sort of hesitantincredulity. Vallon's face had suddenly blotched red with rapaciousexcitement.
"Gawd!" Red Vallon spluttered out. "D'ye mean that, Bundy?"
"Sure, I mean it!" Billy Kane answered a little curtly. "What do youthink I told you to come here for? Sure, I mean it! It's allthere--right on the table, hitting you between the eyes."
Red Vallon jerked himself around; and, as though he had taken the wordsliterally, stared with a frown of bewilderment at the only thing in viewupon the table--the newspaper that Whitie Jack had dropped there when hehad answered the summons at the door.
Billy Kane laughed quietly.
"Get it, Red?" he inquired. "Five hundred thousand dollars--better thandiamonds--blood-red rubies--red with blood, the paper says. Can't youread?"
Karlin had forgotten his beard. His hands clenched on his knees.
"You mean the Ellsworth murder--the robbery?" He was whisperinghoarsely.
"You win!" said Billy Kane.
"My God!" whispered Karlin. "Do you know where that stuff is?"
Billy Kane's eyes had returned to the mirror, and now suddenly theyshifted a little to the wall at the side of the bureau. Something coldand forbidding seemed to grip at him, numbing for an instant mental andphysical action--and then left him in a state of grim, unnaturalcalmness. Was it imagination? He could have sworn that the wall _moved_slightly. He swung over on his left side, as though to face Karlin andRed Vallon more directly before he answered them--but his hand, slippinginto his coat pocket, closed over his revolver. It _might_ beimagination, but the possibility remained that someone was on the otherside of that secret door, and, having pushed the door almostimperceptibly open, was listening there. If that were so, he must getrid of Red Vallon and Karlin before any denouement came if possible, getrid of them without an instant's loss of time; but equally vital was thenecessity of setting in motion, and equally without loss of time, themachinery of the underworld upon which now he was practically stakinghis all.
"Pull your chair over here, closer to the bed, Red--and you, too,Karlin," he said coolly. "We aren't likely to be heard from the street,but that's no reason for shouting. No; I don't know where they are, Ihaven't got the rubies in my pocket--but I know how to get them there.What?"
Red Vallon's face was working in a sort of anticipatory and avariciousugliness; Karlin's expression was scarcely less rapacious.
"Go on, Bundy!" Karlin said under his breath. "What do you know aboutit?"
"What you could have read for yourself in the paper," Billy Kaneanswered tersely. "And it looks like a cinch. It's just a case ofbeating the police to it, and it sizes up as though we had the jump onthem." He was speaking almost mechanically. His mind was on that sectionof the wall that _might_ have moved; and through half-closed eyes, butas though deep in thought and as though concentrated on what he wassaying, he was watching it narrowly. It had not moved a second time, ofthat he was sure; perhaps it had not moved at all, it might be onlynerves on his part, nerves high strung, taut to the breaking point, buthis fingers were still rigid around the stock of his revolver, and, inthe pocket, the weapon, resting on his hip as he lay sideways, held abead on the panels of the secret door.
"I don't quite get you," muttered Karlin, with a frown.
Red Vallon swore roughly, intolerant in his eagerness.
"Aw, give him a chance!" he said impatiently. "If he says so, that'sgood enough for me. Bundy never pulled a steer in his life, an' if hesays this is a cinch--that goes! Give him a chance!"
"It's like this," sai
d Billy Kane. "It's a thousand to one shot thatthis secretary chap who croaked the old millionaire and got away withthe goods is still in New Work. Why? Well, I'll tell you why. Afterpulling the murder, according to the papers, he beat it out of the housewith the loot, and evidently hid the stuff somewhere. Then he came backto the house again, and the footman, Jackson, grabbed him. But there wasa good half hour between the time the police found out about the murderand before this guy Kane came back to the house. Get me? And during thattime the police got busy and shot flycops around all the stations andferries. It's a cinch, the way I look at it, that after he crawled intothat lane and they lost him there, that he's been crawling ever sincesomewhere around New York. He never left the city--he never had achance."
Red Vallon whistled low and complacently under his breath; Karlin,fingering his Vandyke again, nodded sharply now in approval.
"Besides," added Billy Kane, "he had sort of queered his own game. He'dhidden the loot somewhere, and he couldn't make a direct get-away then.He had to get hold of the goods again before he went. All right! What Iwant to know is who's got the better chance of grabbing him--us or thepolice? He isn't one of us. He's working on his own. Well, all right! Ifwe nip him, and he's satisfied with a little rake-off, and is willing tocough up the rest, that'll be treating him fair. If he isn't strong oncoughing up, we'll find another way of making him come across that hewon't like so well, and we'll get the half million, and he'll get----"Billy Kane completed his sentence with a significant shrug of hisshoulder.
An oath, the more callous and brutal for the soft purring way in whichit fell from his lips, came from Red Vallon.
"What do you want done, Bundy?" Karlin was terse and to the point. "Itlooks good to me, if you can pull it off."
"It's the biggest haul we'll ever get our mitts on if we live a hundredyears!" Billy Kane's eyes shifted for an instant from the wall to fixthemselves impressively on the two men. "I've been lying here all daythinking it out. What do I want done? Well, I'll tell you! I want everystring and every wire we've got pulled. Savvy? We've got to beat thepolice to it. We've got to get Kane--_first_. I want all the boys thatthe bulls think they've got sewed up as stool pigeons to stool-pigeonthe police and get all the inside dope. And then that fellow Jackson,the footman, looks like a bet we can't throw down. He's dead--but helooks like a good bet. He lived all through the night, but the papersdon't say anything about the story he told. Perhaps he knew somethingthat will help, perhaps he didn't; but he doesn't go into the discardyet. Find out who he was and all about him, and get next to his familyif he's got one. If he told any story to the police, any of the familythat were clustering around the bedside will be wise to it. Get theidea?"
"Birdie Rose is the boy for that!" Red Vallon's bullet head was thrustforward in vicious earnestness, his red-rimmed black eyes wereglittering with a feverish light.
"Let Birdie go to it, then!" said Billy Kane.
"Birdie was slated for the Merxler affair to-night." Karlin spoke alittle dubiously.
"Shift him!" snapped Billy Kane curtly. "Red's right! Birdie's the boyfor this job."
"All right!" agreed Karlin, and shrugged his shoulders. He turned to RedVallon. "Put Bull McCann in Birdie's place, then. See that he gets toJerry's back room before ten."
"I'll fix it!" grunted Red Vallon. "What's next, Bundy? This goes--allthe boys'll fall for it."
"There's only one thing more--until something begins to crack open."Billy Kane's lips had tightened, his eyelids had drooped still lower. Itwas only a bare fraction of an inch at most--if at all--but it seemedthat door had moved again. His words were coming barely above a whispernow. "There's only one way he can get anything out of those rubies, andthat's through a 'fence.' They're no good to him unless he can cash in.He'll try to get rid of some of them as soon as he can. How soon dependson how well he knows his way about. But he's probably slick enough tohave got a line on a blind uncle or two. All right! The police, ofcourse, have passed the word down the line, but here's where we put oneover on the police. There's some of the joints they don't know--we knowthem all. Kane might get away from the police there--but he can't getaway from _us_ on that deal. I want every 'fence' in New York tipped offthat he's to stall on the job the minute he gets his lamps on a rubythat's being shoved his way, and that instead of opening up to thepolice he's to wise us up on the hop. That's all for a starter--and nowgo to it!"
Red Vallon drew in his breath noisily, as though he were sucking at someluscious and juicy fruit.
"Some head, Bundy!" he applauded with undisguised admiration, as hepushed away his chair and stood up. "Sure, we'll go to it! Karlin'srunning the Merxler game to-night; but I'll start this other thingbumping along on the high gear. What about the reports? Who'll the boysmake 'em to? You? Here?"
It was a moment before Billy Kane answered. It was the one thing he musthave, the one thing upon which he was staking everything--an intimateknowledge of the result of every move made in this game that he hadinitiated, and, beyond that again, it was vital that he, and no one elseshould control each successive move. But Whitie Jack was gone for thenight. In one way he deplored that fact, in another way he was relieved.If it was only imagination, if there was no one crouching there now onthe other side of that secret door, Whitie Jack's presence would notmatter, but otherwise--his mind leaped to that other point--if WhitieJack was not here to perform those very necessary introductions, and RedVallon's messengers came, messengers that he would be supposed to knowbut would not be able to recognize, it would spell almost certaindisaster, and----
"There isn't anything likely to break to-night, Red," he saiddeliberately. "If there does you look after it; or if it's anything veryimportant you come here yourself. I want to get a night's sleep if Ican, I'm feeling pretty rocky. But I ought to be on my feet to-morrow,and in the morning you can swing the whole business over to me, and I'llrun it."
"Attaboy!" said Red Vallon heartily. "See you in the morning, then."
Karlin too had risen from his chair.
"Good-night, Bundy!" he said--and grinned. "I pay you the compliment ofbeing the trickiest crook unhung!"