Chapter III: Part 3

Whitie Jack had been only a tool used for the stage-setting of some deviltry that was to follow—at a quarter of eleven. That was obvious. He, Billy Kane, had intended that the police should be informed and should deal with Laverto, and that he in person should give evidence against Laverto; but he could no longer inform the police, no longer give evidence. He was wanted now himself for _murder_, and so upon him fell the moral obligation to prevent or render abortive, if he could, a crime that he knew was pending. And besides—his face hardened suddenly, as he moved swiftly along, evading the direct rays of the street lights, and keeping in the shadows—he had a personal account to settle with Antonio Laverto. If it had not been for the man’s damnable imposition having succeeded to the extent that it had, he, Billy Kane, would not have left the Ellsworth house to-night, and David Ellsworth would not now——

Billy Kane’s hand, in his pocket, tightened over the butt of Whitie Jack’s revolver. Unconsciously he quickened his stride.

Always hugging the shadows, his hat drawn far down over his face, giving the passers-by he met as wide a berth as possible, Billy Kane covered the short distance that separated the Rat’s den from Marco’s. He slipped into the lane unobserved, and for the second time that night crouched against the door with the broken lock. But now, mindful of the door’s tendency to squeak, he pushed it open cautiously an inch at a time. And then, with the door slightly open, he stood motionless, a puzzled and amazed expression on his face. Just exactly what he had expected to find here, he was not prepared to say—but certainly not this! A faint light came through from the door of the back room into the hallway, and from the room there came a woman’s voice that mingled a sort of pitiful defiance with a sob.

“It’s not true! I tell you it’s not true! The boy never did it!”

“So!” It was a man’s voice now, caustic and unrelenting. “Well, where is he now, then?”

“I don’t know,” the woman replied. “I haven’t seen him since supper. But that’s got nothing to do with it. That doesn’t prove anything.”

“So!” It was the man again. “Well, maybe not! But I am not to be fooled! I am a poor man. I cannot afford to lose my money. So, it has nothing to do with it, eh? You say that because you are his mother, eh? But did he tell you at supper that I had discharged him this afternoon? Eh? Answer me that!”

“N-no.” The answer seemed to come reluctantly.

Billy Kane pushed the outer door a little wider open and slipped through. Keeping close to the wall, he edged forward until he could see into the back room through its open door. A frown came and knitted his brows in hard furrows. He was frankly puzzled now. The woman, a tall, powerful, muscular woman of middle age, but curiously frail now in obvious fear and emotion, was Mrs. Clancy, who kept the little notion shop next door on the corner; and the other, bent-shouldered, in long, greasy black coat, with long, untrimmed and dirty white beard, whose eyes were distorted behind the heavy lenses of his steel-bowed spectacles, was Marco, the proprietor of the second-hand store. Marco was apparently in a state of equal distress and excitement. He alternatively wrung his hands together and gesticulated furiously.

“Eight hundred dollars!” he cried out wildly. “Do you hear, you, the mother of that brat? Eight hundred dollars! All I have on earth! And it is gone! Stolen by that cursed young prison bird of yours! So he did not tell you, eh, that I discharged him this afternoon because I was sure he was making little stealings from me all the time? But you are not surprised, eh? Maybe he has stolen from you, too, eh?”

The woman did not answer. She seemed to shiver suddenly, and then sank down heavily in the chair before the table, near which she had been standing.

Marco paced up and down the room, back and forth, from the table to where the floor was littered with the erstwhile contents of the rifled safe.

Billy Kane’s puzzled frown grew deeper. Evidently there _had_ been money in the safe, but in some way Laverto had got it before he had set Whitie Jack at work upon a stall, and it was obvious that Laverto had maneuvered to plant the crime on the shoulders of this woman’s son. But what then had been Laverto’s object in bringing Whitie Jack into it at all? It did not somehow seem to fit, or dovetail, or appear logical, or—— And then, with a sudden start, Billy Kane leaned tensely forward, his eyes fixed narrowly on Marco. Yes, it _did_ dovetail! He had it now—all of it—all of the damnable, unscrupulous ingenuity of the plot that had been hatched in Laverto’s cunning brain. The frown was hidden now by the mask which Billy Kane slipped quickly over his face, but his lips just showing beneath the edge of the mask were tight and hard.

“I was a fool—a fool!” Marco cried out sharply. “A fool, ever to have taken him in here as my clerk! I might have known! He has already been in jail!”

“It was only the reform school.” Mrs. Clancy was wringing her hands piteously. “He is only a boy—only seventeen now. And he did not mean any harm even then—and—and since then he has been a good boy.”

“Has he?” Marco flung out a clenched fist and shook it in the air. “He has—eh? Well, then, where did he get this? Answer me that! Where did he get this?” Marco’s closed hand opened, and he threw what looked to Billy Kane like a little brooch, a miniature in a cheap setting, upon the table. “That’s you, ain’t it? That’s his mother’s picture, ain’t it? Do you think I do not recognize it? That’s you twenty years ago—eh? Did you _give_ it to him—eh? Answer me that—did you _give_ it to him?”

The woman had risen from her chair, and was swaying upon her feet.

“Did you think I did not have reason to be pretty sure when I asked if he had not stolen from you, too?” Marco, apparently beside himself with rage, was gesticulating furiously again. “And you said I had no proof of _this_—eh?” He shook his fist in the direction of the safe. “Well, I found that brooch there on the floor where he must have dropped it out of his pocket when he blew my safe open, and he didn’t know he’d dropped it in the dark, and then some of the papers he pulled out covered it. That’s where I found it—under the papers! That’s proof enough, ain’t it? I guess with his record it will satisfy the police—no matter what his mother thinks!”

A great sob came from the woman. The tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“My boy!” she faltered. “It’s true—I—I am afraid it’s true. Oh, my boy—my boy—my fatherless boy!” She thrust out her hands in a sudden imploring gesture toward the other. “Listen! I will tell you all I know. I will show you that I am honest with you, and you will have mercy on us. To-night, after supper, I found that the little chamois bag in which I keep the few little things I have like that brooch, and the money I take in from the store during the day, was gone. Yes, I was afraid then. I was afraid. But he is all I have, and——”

“And my eight hundred dollars, that he came over here and stole afterwards, was all _I_ had!” screamed Marco. “You tell me only what a blind man could see for himself! Did I not put two and two together myself? He has run away now—eh—with all he could get? That he stole from you does not give me back my money. But the police will find him! Ha, ha! The police will find him, and when they do they will remember the reform school and he will get ten years—yes, yes, ten years—for this!”

“Listen!” Mrs. Clancy’s voice choked. She brushed the tears from her cheeks with a trembling hand. “If—if I give you back the money, will you let him go?”

“Ha!” Marco stood stock still, staring at her. “What is that you say? You will give me back the money? You! Are you trying to make a fool of me?”

“No, no!” she cried. “I’ve got that much—it is my savings—it is in the bank. Listen! Oh, for God’s sake, be merciful! Give him a chance! You’ll get your money back, you won’t lose anything, and—and you would the other way, because—because before they caught him he would perhaps have spent a lot of it.”

“That is true!” said Marco, in a milder tone; and then, a hint of suspicion in his voice: “What bank is it in? The bank down the street?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“That is my bank, too,” said Marco. He stared at the woman for a moment speculatively, then his eyes circled the room, and he stared at the broken safe. “Will you pay for my safe?” he demanded abruptly.

“Yes,” she agreed eagerly.

“Fifty dollars,” said Marco. “It would be fifty dollars.”

“Yes—oh, thank God!” She was crying again.

“So!” Marco shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I will do it.” He walked back toward the safe, picked up a check book from amongst the debris on the floor, tore out a blank check, dropped the book on the floor again, and returned to the table. He pushed the slip of paper toward Mrs. Clancy, and pulled out a fountain pen from his pocket. “So! Well, make out a check for eight hundred and fifty dollars.” He shrugged his shoulders again.

It was slow work. Mrs. Clancy’s hand trembled, and she stopped at intervals to wipe her eyes. Billy Kane edged closer to the door. It was probably all she had, the savings of years from the little shop, but the fear and strain was gone from her face, and her lips were quivering in a smile, as she signed her name at last, and handed the check to Marco.

But now Billy Kane’s revolver was in his hand—and suddenly, as Marco held the check close to his eyes to peer at it through his thick lenses, Billy Kane stepped forward across the threshold. And then Billy Kane spoke.

“Drop that, Marco!” he said quietly.

There was a cry of terror from the woman, as she whirled around, white-faced, clutching at her breast; it was echoed by a frightened gasp from Marco, and as though the slip of paper in his fingers had suddenly turned to white hot iron, he snatched his hands back in a sort of grotesque jerk, and the check fluttered to the table.

Billy Kane stepped toward the man.

“You’ve made a mistake, Marco, haven’t you?” he inquired coolly. “Instead of this woman’s son being the robber, are you sure it isn’t—yourself?”

The man shrank back.

“What do you mean—myself?” he stammered hoarsely. And then, recovering a little of his self-control: “Who are you? And what are you butting in here for? What’s your game to say I did that?” He jerked his hand toward the safe. “You can’t bluff old Marco, whatever you’re up to! I was in Morgenfeldt’s café all evening until half past ten, and I can prove it; and ten minutes after that I was pulling her”—he jerked his hand toward Mrs. Clancy now—“out of her shop next door to show her what I had found here. She’ll tell you so, too! I couldn’t have come all the way from Morgenfeldt’s, and done all that, and blown that safe open in ten minutes, could I?”

Billy Kane’s smile was unpleasant.

“Don’t be in such a hurry to produce your alibi, Marco,” he said evenly. “It sounds suspicious—and it also accounts for a good deal. I think we’ll take a look through your pockets, Marco—not for the eight hundred”—Billy Kane’s smile had grown still more uninviting—“but on the chance that we may find something else. Put your hands up!”

The man hesitated.

Billy Kane’s revolver muzzle came to a level with the other’s eyes.

“Put them up!” he ordered curtly; and, as the man obeyed now, he felt deftly over the other’s clothing, located a revolver, whipped it out, and laid it on the table behind him. A moment later, also from the man’s pocket, he took a chamois bag, which, too, he placed upon the table.

Mrs. Clancy, with a startled cry, snatched at it.

“Mary, Mother of Mercy, what does this mean!” she gasped out. “It’s—it’s my bag!”

“It means that our friend Marco here is a very versatile rogue,” said Billy Kane grimly. “You may put your hands down now, Marco, and”—he was clipping off his words—“you won’t need that beard, or those glasses any more! Take them off!”

The man had gone a sudden grayish white. Mechanically he obeyed—and cowered back, his eyes in terror fixed on Billy Kane’s mask. _It was Antonio Laverto._

With a scream of rage, Mrs. Clancy rushed at the man.

“You—you devil!” she shrilled. “You made me believe my boy was a thief—God forgive me for it! And—ah, let me at him! I’m only a woman, but——”

Billy Kane had stepped between them.

“Wait!” he said. “There’s a better way, Mrs. Clancy.” He swung on the Italian. “If it hadn’t been for your voice, Laverto—you see, I know you—you might have got away with it. I didn’t recognize you at first. You’re clever, damnably clever, I’ll give you credit for that, if it’s any satisfaction to you. You must be a busy man! Are there any more rôles in your repertoire? Well, no matter! The Italian crippled beggar, and Marco the second-hand clothing dealer are enough for now—and enough to put you where you belong!” His voice rasped suddenly. “You blotch on God’s earth!” he said between his teeth. “You knew Mrs. Clancy had a little money, and you knew that her son had a reform school record against him. And so, about two weeks ago, you rented this place next to hers that was then vacant, and you stocked it with a few old clothes, and you hired her son to act as clerk; and you hired him, not with an idea of doing any business, but as a necessary part of your plan to incriminate him in his mother’s eyes, and also to enable you, without arousing suspicion by appearing to neglect business here, to attend to other irons equally as despicable that you had in the fire at the same time—playing the flopper, for instance, up on Fifth Avenue. The whole outlay probably cost you but a few dollars—and in return you meant to get all of this woman’s life savings. I say all, because you probably found out how much she had, and if she had had much more than eight hundred dollars you would have set your fake loss higher. And to-night in some way—the details do not matter at this moment—you stole from her that chamois bag, both to impress her with the belief that the boy had stolen from her too, and also to secure spurious evidence to prove that he had been guilty of what you claimed had happened here.”

Billy Kane paused. His eyes had travelled to the wrecked safe—and sharp and quick had come the thought of Whitie Jack. He smiled grimly. He did not want Whitie Jack to appear in this. He owed Whitie Jack a good deal to-night—and the “Rat” never forgot! His eyes came back to Marco. The man was circling his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“You’re going up for this, Marco,” Billy Kane said in level tones. “But I’ll give you a friendly tip—for reasons of my own. Maybe you didn’t pull this safe-cracking game yourself, maybe your alibi stands on that count; but, if it does, you got some tool to pull it off for you just for that reason, and possibly also because you didn’t know how to handle the ‘soup’ yourself—and if it’s one of the boys it won’t help your case any to snitch on him, for you’re caught open and shut in this anyhow, and maybe, Laverto, some of his friends might remember it when you _got out_ again! You get the idea, don’t you? Yes, I see you do! Well, then, there’s just one thing more. If this little game of yours had broken right for you, Mrs. Clancy’s son—to make it appear that he had run away—would have had to disappear for several days, until you could have pulled up stakes here without exciting suspicion, and have pretended to move away. Therefore, where is he now—Laverto?”

There were beads of sweat on the man’s forehead. His lips moved mumblingly.

“_Where?_” Billy Kane’s revolver edged viciously forward. “I didn’t hear you!”

“Wong Yen’s,” the man whispered.

Billy Kane’s jaws snapped together. He had heard of Wong Yen’s! It was one of the most infamous Chinese underground dives in the Bad Lands.

“Doped?” He bit off the word.

“Yes,” the man whispered again.

Billy Kane turned to Mrs. Clancy.

“He’s yours now, Mrs. Clancy. You know the story, and you know where to send them for your boy. I guess I can leave him to you. They say the female of the species is more deadly than the male! There’s his revolver. Do you think you could march him out of the front door, and hand him over to the first officer you see?”

There was a bitter, hard look on Mrs. Clancy’s face. Big and brawny, she towered over the cringing figure of the Italian—and the Italian shrank still farther away from her, as she snatched up the weapon.

“I can!” she said, and her short laugh was not a pleasant one. “And I can shoot if I have to, and, faith, there’d be joy in the doin’ of it; but you”—her voice broke suddenly—“I don’t know who you are, and I owe you——”

Billy Kane was backing toward the rear door.

“You’ll pay it all, and more, Mrs. Clancy, when you hand him over to the police,” he said quickly—and, stepping out into the passageway, he ran down its length, whipping the mask from his face as he went; and in another instant, from the lane, had gained the cross street.

VI—A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

Keeping in the shadows and avoiding the passers-by as on his way to Marco’s, Billy Kane hurried even more now on his return to the Rat’s. In a moment or so, when Mrs. Clancy reached the front street with her prisoner, there was likely to be an uproar, and he wanted to be housed and under cover if possible before that broke loose. Mrs. Clancy’s story could hardly omit reference to the man in the mask, and the police, to say nothing of the on-lookers, might evince a most unpleasant degree of practical curiosity—and he, Billy Kane, was in no condition, either mental, or, above all, physical, to play hare to the hounds of the law again that night. He was conscious now, as he made his way swiftly along, that his shoulder was paining him intensely again, and that, though through nerve force, his feet moved quickly enough under him, his knees were wobbly and weak.

He turned a corner, and still another—and drew a deep breath of relief. He was out of range of the second-hand shop now, and the Rat’s den was just ahead up the street, and there was no one in sight.

Billy Kane swept his hand heavily across his eyes. It was strange! There was not far from being a very close analogy between himself and Mrs. Clancy’s son to-night. Mrs. Clancy’s son had been selected as the victim of a “plant” much like himself—only there had been no murder, and the “plant” had failed. It was curious, very curious, that the two should have been so much alike, and that though he had been able to save the other, he himself was being searched for at that moment in every corner of New York, and that the human drag-net was spread for him, and that the wires all over the country were hot with his description, and that into every newspaper office in every state was pouring the story that would make of him an abominable and an abandoned thing!

His head was singing. He stumbled a little, as he made his way down the stairs, and fumbled with Whitie Jack’s key in the lock of the Rat’s door. Well, if the Rat, who was away, did not return too soon, and if—he shook his head, as he opened the door, and stepped inside, and locked it behind him—no, he was too tired, and too near the breaking point to think any more. He had a chance to rest now until morning. Whitie Jack had said that no one would dare disturb the Rat, and that was enough—he did not want to think any more—until morning.

He groped his way forward to the electric light, reached up to turn it on—and, with his arm poised in mid-air, stood suddenly tense and rigid. He listened. It came again—as though some one were knocking cautiously on the wall—and it seemed to come from the far end of the room near the bureau.

Billy Kane’s hand shot into his pocket and closed on his revolver; and, quick and silent in every movement now, he tiptoed across the room in the darkness, slipped in behind the cretonne hanging and waited, peering through a corner of the hanging.

And now it was absolutely silent again. Perhaps a half minute passed, and then, grotesquely, as though it came through the wall itself, the white ray of a flashlight streamed into the room, and circled it slowly and deliberately. And then a form moved forward—a woman’s form—and crossed the room to the table. There was a slight sound as of the rustling of paper, and, with the ray now flooding the top of the table, Billy Kane could see that she was writing; but her back was turned, and he could not see her face. For a moment more she stood there bending over the table, and then, turning, she retreated again to the rear of the room.

The flashlight now was full on the rear wall—but there was no opening there. Billy Kane leaned tensely forward, watching through the corner of the hanging. This den of the Rat’s that he, or fate for him, had appropriated, promised much more than appeared on the surface! It was obvious that there was another entrance than that from the street, and to obtain its secret now was a matter upon which his life, sooner or later, might very easily depend.

She was stooping now slightly, and her hand in the glare of the flashlight was moving in a slow, tentative way up and down one of the wall boards—and then her hand for an instant remained motionless. Billy Kane drew in his breath softly. It was ingenious, clever, cunning—and a craftsman’s work. A small door swung open into the room—a most curious door! Its top was of an absurd zigzag shape—due to the fact that it followed the natural joints of the wall boards. And the whole, three boards in width, in no part therefore, to casual or even critical examination, would show any signs of an opening, since it opened only where boards joined one another, and since everywhere in the room all the wall boards were more or less warped and ill-fitting!

The light was suddenly shaded, obliterated almost, as she passed through the opening—and then was blotted out. The door had closed without a sound. She was gone.

Billy Kane did not move. His eyes, as though fascinated, as though fearful that he might lose it, were fixed through the darkness on the particular spot on the wall where this strange midnight visitor had run her hand up and down. A minute, two, three, passed. Wherever that opening led to, she must be far enough away now to make it safe for him to act. But he dared not turn on the electric light. It might throw a glimmer to the street. He was none too sure of either the sill or panels of that front door! Whitie Jack had passed the word around of the Rat’s return—was this woman one to whom that word had come? In any case, she had thought the room empty, the Rat away, and therefore he could not run the risk of exposing the fact that he had been _hidden_ there—he knew too little—and perhaps already too much!

He stepped silently over to the wall now. If he only had a match! But he had lost his match-safe with his coat—no, there were matches here, a box of them—his fingers had been mechanically searching his pockets—he had forgotten—it was not even the coat Whitie Jack had given him at the second-hand shop, it was the Rat’s coat now he was wearing!

He struck a match, located the board, pressed his hand up and down its length, and felt something give slightly. The door began to swing open. He blew out the match instantly, and, crouched there, listened. He could hear nothing. He lighted another match, and this time held it above his head. A short, tunnel-like passage through the ground, strongly braced and stayed, and trending gently upward, confronted him.

He stepped forward into the opening, and, bending head and shoulders, for the roof was scarcely four feet in height, followed the passage for some five or six yards to where it ended abruptly in a blank wall of earth, but where, above his head, a third match disclosed a trap-door. Again Billy Kane listened, and then cautiously raised the door. It was pitch black now. He drew himself up, and once more listened. There was no sound. He lighted another match—the stub of the one before being carefully consigned to his pocket—and nodded his head in understanding. The passage had led him into a shed, evidently little used, for it was littered and stored with odds and ends that, judging from the accumulated dust and dirt, had been untouched for a long time; and the shed itself—yes, he was right—he had pushed the back door open a little—the shed gave directly on a lane.

Billy Kane closed the shed door; and, noting with grim appreciation that the trap-door, as he closed it above his head, was an ingenious arrangement of the floor planking similar to the construction of the door within the Rat’s quarters, and was moreover, as an added precaution, surrounded by an apparently careless stowage of the shed’s litter, he made his way back along the passage again. The room door he examined as he passed through. It was manipulated from the _inside_ of the passage by an ordinary and frankly obvious spring lock. He closed it, and stood for a moment staring at it speculatively. There seemed no way of locking it here in the room, of protecting himself from an intrusion through the night that might not be either as instructive or as harmless as this first one had been. There might be a way, and there probably was a way of fastening it, the Rat would surely have seen to that, but he, Billy Kane, was too far gone, too weak, too tired, too nearly all in to hunt or search for it now—and there _was_ a way of obviating the possibility of the door being opened without first arousing him and putting him on his guard. He went to the table, picked up a chair, and, carrying it back, tilted it against the door in the wall.

And now he swayed a little, and his hand sought his eyes. He was conscious again of his aching shoulder, and that his head was swimming dizzily—but he seemed to have forgotten something—yes, he remembered now—that paper—that paper on which she had written something. He laughed in a strained, almost delirious way. He must be worse than he imagined, if he had, even for an instant, forgotten that! Or was it just simply the reaction coming now?

He stumbled toward the table, and, feeling with his hand, secured the paper—but there was no chair here now, and he stumbled across the room, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He lighted another match, held it close to the paper, and read the pencilled lines.

So you are back, are you?
Well, so am I! _Remember!_

The match burned down to his fingers, and he dropped it on the floor. What did it mean? Who was she? He shook his head. And then, with a queer, twisted smile, he folded the paper, thrust it into his pocket—and, stretching himself out fully dressed upon the bed, lay there staring into the darkness.

VII—WHISPERING SHADOWS

It was the next evening—in the Rat’s den. Through half closed eyes, as he lay stretched out on the bed, Billy Kane watched Whitie Jack across the room. The man was tilted back in his chair, his legs were sprawled across the table, and from his cigarette, which dangled from one corner of his lower lip, a thread of blue smoke spiraled lazily upward. Whitie Jack was not smoking; the cigarette simply hung forgotten on the man’s lip. For the moment Whitie Jack with bated interest was poring over the evening paper.

And then Whitie Jack looked up suddenly, and spoke—out of the unoccupied corner of his mouth.

“Say, dat secretary guy dat croaked de old geezer last night was a sweet, downy bird—nit! But believe me, he made some haul—_some_ haul!”

Billy Kane made no reply. Whitie Jack resumed his absorbing perusal of the newspaper. Billy Kane’s eyes closed completely—but not in sleep. It had been a day that, viewed in retrospect, made the brain whirl. It had been a wild untrammelled phantasmagoria. That was it—phantasmagoria. There was no other word. The day was expressed in shadows, moving shadows, shadows that came and went, many of them, shadows that were paradoxically real and concrete, and shadows that were the reflection of things felt and sensed, but unseen. And these latter, the shadows of the mind, were weird, uncanny things like denizens out of some black world apart—ghoulish things. And the shadows that were real and concrete, that spoke and whispered, seemed to take it for granted that he was and always had been in their evil confidence, and so their words were not rounded out, and there was only the hint of dark and hideous things in which 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 brain and mind was in riot from it. It was evening now; it had been the strangest day through which any man had ever lived.

He had held court that morning and through the day, here in the Rat’s lair—a sort of grim, unholy court to which grim, unholy courtiers had flocked to pay him homage. And these courtiers had been admitted to the presence one by one, their names announced by Whitie Jack, who had acted—quite innocently, quite free from any thought of connivance—as the master of ceremonies. Billy Kane’s lips twisted in a mirthless smile. It had been very simple, that part of it; much more simple than he had dared to hope it would be. Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat, was supposed to know all those who composed the élite of the underworld intimately and well—but Billy Kane upon whom fate had thrust for the moment the personality and entity of Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat, knew none of them. And yet it had been simple—so simple that, against the peril, the certain death that would follow fast on the heels of even a misplaced word or an unguarded look, it had been even grotesquely absurd in its simplicity. Through the dens and dives of the Bad Lands, spread by Whitie Jack when he had gone away the night before, the whisper had passed that the Rat had returned; and so, throughout the day, stealthy footsteps had descended from the street to the basement door here, and in response to the knock Whitie Jack had opened the door a cautious inch, peering out; and then he, Billy Kane, from the bed, his voice querulous for the occasion, had demanded who it was, and Whitie Jack had answered—and the unsuspected introduction thus performed, he had bidden Whitie Jack admit the visitor.

There had been many like that—very many. And he had learned many things. His hands clenched suddenly at his sides. The rôle he played promised well! Innuendoes, words toying with the fringe of things, had made it only too glaringly clear that the Rat was enmeshed in devilishness that ran the gamut of every crime in the decalogue. And for the moment he was the Rat! There was some hell’s syndicate, whose scope and power he could only dimly plumb though he was satisfied that its branches were rooted in every nook and corner of the underworld. And of this syndicate he was now, by proxy, a member; and he was not only a member, but he was one of those magnates of crime who composed its inner council, 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 gave him very little discomfort, and in no way interfered with his freedom of action—but it had been the safer way, this accentuating of his hurt, this pretended state of semi-helplessness. It had brought those he must know _here_ to him; it had brought about those unsuspected introductions without 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, would inevitably have plunged him in his blind groping to certain destruction. Also it had brought him a quite thorough understanding of Whitie Jack—the man’s deference that had been almost cringing at their first meeting, and then the man’s subsequent eagerness to serve.

Whitie Jack was one of the lesser breed that looked up to the heights the Rat had attained with both awe and unbounded admiration. The man had come like a dog to heel, but like a faithful dog. Whitie Jack was living in a sort of reflected glory—he would be the envy of the proletariat of the Bad Lands—he was associating now, was even on terms of certain intimacy, with one of those in high places in that inglorious commonwealth of crime to which, both by birth and inclination, he owed allegiance. It opened a new prospect to Whitie Jack, one that was full of dazzling possibilities—and it had made of the man an invaluable ally. Whitie Jack had been at once valet, nurse, surgeon and attendant all through the day. He had returned at daylight that morning, dressed the wound, and thereafter had not left the place except to go out and buy certain necessities, such as food—and a pocket flashlight, which Billy Kane, mindful of his previous night’s experience in the underground passage to the shed and lane, had ranked amongst those necessities as the first on the list.

Billy Kane shifted his position restlessly on the bed again. His mind was in a turmoil of feverish activity. It seemed as though a thousand divergent thoughts fought with each other to obtain undivided attention and recognition each for itself, and the battle went on incessantly. Who was the woman who had crept in here in the darkness through that secret door last night? What did it mean, that message she had written and left on the table? “So you are back, are you? Well, so am I! _Remember!_” There was something malignant, something ominous in that word—“remember.” Remember what? Why? What sinister thing was it that lay between her and the Rat—that he, Billy Kane, must now accept and stand 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 helped him little. The Rat’s absence had been accepted, that was all—none seemed to know, or have any interest in the cause of it. One ray of reassurance only had filtered through the murk. The Rat’s return in his, Billy Kane’s, person, had seemingly been premature, the Rat had seemingly not been expected; and he could argue from that, and with fair logic, that he might for a little while at least be left undisturbed in his possession of the Rat’s personality, and the Rat’s belongings—as far 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 iniquity was 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’s face and features, with the Rat’s satanic partnerships, be forced to wallow 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 sweet morsel. “S’help me! Five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of rubies! Dat guy Kane is some slick gazabo! Say, d’youse get it, Bundy? Five hundred thousand—an’ a bunch of de green stuff, too!” He licked his lips. “Some haul!”

The paper had exaggerated. David Ellsworth’s rubies at the outside would not exceed three hundred thousand dollars in value. Billy Kane found himself curiously and querulously irritated at the inaccuracy. He opened his eyes, nodded unconcernedly at Whitie Jack—and closed his eyes again. His mind was suddenly alert and concentrated. In a few minutes now some of those who composed that inner council of crime would be here. He had arranged that this morning—with Red Vallon. Red Vallon was the biggest gangster in New York. Whitie Jack had dropped that information in an enthusiastic eulogy of Red Vallon. And Vallon had bent over the bed that morning and whispered of a meeting to-night at the usual time and place. But he, Billy Kane, was not ready for that yet. He knew too little, it was too great a risk; and he knew too much—to escape alive, if a chance word or act betrayed him. But there had come a thought, swift, in a blinding flash, a staggering thing, a gambler’s stake, and he had whispered back what was apparently the obvious reply—that he was too badly hurt to go. And then: “One or two of you slip in here on your way over,” he had said quickly. “Get me? I’ve got something!” And Red Vallon had agreed—and with Red Vallon would come Karlin. Karlin! The name had somehow seemed familiar; but though Whitie Jack had subsequently furnished a partial clew by referring to Karlin as one of the high-brow lawyers of the city, he could not definitely place the man.

Billy Kane turned on his side, with his face away from Whitie Jack. Red Vallon and Karlin would be here in a few moments—and he must make no mistake now. What he meant to do was an impudent thing—impudent with a Titanic impudence. He meant to pit the underworld in a fight on the side of justice against the police. He meant to use the craft, the cunning and the stealth of the Bad Lands to establish his innocence. He too had read the papers—the morning and the evening papers—and the headlines had shrieked out at him the infamy of which he was accused. His name was a by-word now from one end of the country to the other. A viper and a degraded wretch, a thing inhuman and apart, the papers had called him.

He had read them all to the last word. Murderer of his benefactor! A thief—an assassin thief, who had fled for his life with those blood-red rubies! A bead of sweat came out on his forehead, and he raised his hand and brushed it away. Yes, he had fled—to fight—to take the only chance he had of bringing to justice the hell-hounds who had struck down his old friend, the only chance he had of clearing his own name.

Well, he would fight! It was beginning now, that fight. But he was between 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 seemed to measure up to everything the papers had said about himself, had thrown in that way a temporary mantle of protection over him, but let that mantle slip but ever so slightly and he would better a thousand times hand himself over to the law and have done with it—the end would be 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 upon himself, he meant to use it now—and that weapon was the underworld. He did not know yet, he was not sure yet just how high he stood in that unsavory command, but he had discounted rather than overrated his power, and he believed he had power enough for his purpose—those whispers and those shadows had seemed to assure him of that. The Rat seemed to be the driving strategical force in this crime syndicate that appeared to permeate the Bad Lands with its influence, and move and sway the underworld at its own imperious pleasure—and for the moment he was the Rat!

There was Jackson—and Jackson was dead. His mind had flown off at another apparently irrelevant tangent. But it was not irrelevant. The papers had said that Jackson, the footman, had died that morning after lingering in a semi-conscious state through the night. Jackson was the single clue in his possession. Jackson, he knew, was one of the murderers, but Jackson was the _only_ man he knew who was concerned in that devil’s work last night—and Jackson was dead. And now he, Billy Kane, was “wanted” on a double charge of murder—for the murder of Jackson, who had probably himself struck old David Ellsworth down, as well as for the murderer of the old millionaire! Yet Jackson, even if dead, must still have left some clue behind him, if only that clue could be found. Who was Jackson? The man had already been in service at David Ellsworth’s before he, Billy Kane, had gone there as the old philanthropist’s secretary, and he had naturally had neither motive nor interest then in any of the footman’s personal concerns. But those facts were vital now. Who was Jackson? Where had the man come from? Who were——

Footsteps were descending from the street. There was a low knock, twice repeated on the door. Whitie Jack was on his feet, and looking inquiringly toward the bed.

“Watch yourself!” said Billy Kane gruffly. “I’m not entertaining to-night, except——”

“Sure—I know!” said Whitie Jack. He crossed the room, and, opening the door a crack, peered out. “Red and Karlin,” he informed Billy Kane in a whisper.

VIII—A LEASH IS SLIPPED

Billy Kane lighted a cigarette. Red Vallon he already knew—Karlin he was _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 man advanced toward the bed. Karlin was immaculately dressed—in sharp contrast to the untidy and careless attire of the stocky, brutal-faced gangster who followed close at his heels. The man was tall, slimly built, and, save that the black eyes were too close together and too small, had a pleasant and attractive face. It was a mask perhaps! The smile was too engaging; and it was rather curious how small the ears were, and how tightly they hugged the skull. He toyed with a little black Vandyke beard, as he shook hands.

“Same to you, Bundy!” The voice was soft, silky, persuasive. “Glad you’re back, too!” He made an almost imperceptible movement with his head 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 Whitie Jack’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. Come back 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 very grievous disappointment, he made no demur.

“All right, Bundy, if youse says so,” he blurted out, and went from the room, closing the door behind him.

The man’s footfalls mounting the cellar-like stairs to the street died away, 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 it dissolve into air. Whitie Jack, through judicious prodding, had served him well that day.

“Old Ignace—keeps the cobbler’s shop above—half blind, and has to work overtime—wife’s nearly seventy, and deaf.” Billy Kane was explaining almost wearily. “What do you think I hang onto this hole for?”

“Sure!” grunted Red Vallon corroboratingly. “But Karlin’s never been here before.” He pushed a chair with the toe of his boot across the floor toward Karlin, and appropriated one beside the table for himself. “Well, spill it, Bundy!” he invited. “We got to hurry! It’s too bad you’re laid up an’ can’t sit in on the showdown, but Merxler’s plum’s got ripe, an’ we got to pick it to-night. Savvy?”

Billy Kane duplicated the first smoke ring. Merxler! He had identified Karlin now! Karlin and Merxler! That was where he had heard Karlin’s name—in connection with Merxler—and it must, necessarily then be the same Merxler. Was young Merxler, whom he had heard of and had even met through David Ellsworth, more then than simply the notorious spendthrift that he was credited with being? Karlin, it was obvious, was leading a double life. Was Merxler another of the inner circle, another from the higher 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 and fixed on Billy Kane in a puzzled glitter. “Piker stuff!” he echoed challengingly.

Billy Kane nodded indifferently. He was skating on thin ice, on perilously thin ice. Whatever the “Merxler plum” might be, it was obviously far from the definition he had given it, and having apparently displayed an intimacy with the affair, an intimacy that he was evidently supposed to possess, it was decidedly best left alone!

“That’s what I said,” he drawled deliberately. “Piker stuff—compared with 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. “If you say so, that goes! What’s the lay?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars—a half million—cold”—Billy Kane had lowered his voice.

He did not look at either of the men, but he was watching them both intently—his eyes were on the mirror, the mirror of the bureau at the far end of the room, that bore testimony to the cunning of his unwitting host. 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 in distinct outline. Karlin was fingering his Vandyke in a sort of hesitant incredulity. Vallon’s face had suddenly blotched red with rapacious excitement.

“Gawd!” Red Vallon spluttered out. “D’ye mean that, Bundy?”

“Sure, I mean it!” Billy Kane answered a little curtly. “What do you think I told you to come here for? Sure, I mean it! It’s all there—right on the table, hitting you between the eyes.”

Red Vallon jerked himself around; and, as though he had taken the words literally, stared with a frown of bewilderment at the only thing in view upon the table—the newspaper that Whitie Jack had dropped there when he had answered the summons at the door.

Billy Kane laughed quietly.

“Get it, Red?” he inquired. “Five hundred thousand dollars—better than diamonds—blood-red rubies—red with blood, the paper says. Can’t you read?”

Karlin had forgotten his beard. His hands clenched on his knees.

“You mean the Ellsworth murder—the robbery?” He was whispering hoarsely.

“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 they shifted a little to the wall at the side of the bureau. Something cold and forbidding seemed to grip at him, numbing for an instant mental and physical action—and then left him in a state of grim, unnatural calmness. Was it imagination? He could have sworn that the wall _moved_ slightly. He swung over on his left side, as though to face Karlin and Red Vallon more directly before he answered them—but his hand, slipping into his coat pocket, closed over his revolver. It _might_ be imagination, but the possibility remained that someone was on the other side of that secret door, and, having pushed the door almost imperceptibly open, was listening there. If that were so, he must get rid of Red Vallon and Karlin before any dénouement came if possible, get rid of them without an instant’s loss of time; but equally vital was the necessity of setting in motion, and equally without loss of time, the machinery of the underworld upon which now he was practically staking his 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, I haven’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 avaricious ugliness; Karlin’s expression was scarcely less rapacious.

“Go on, Bundy!” Karlin said under his breath. “What do you know about it?”

“What you could have read for yourself in the paper,” Billy Kane answered tersely. “And it looks like a cinch. It’s just a case of beating the police to it, and it sizes up as though we had the jump on them.” He was speaking almost mechanically. His mind was on that section of the wall that _might_ have moved; and through half-closed eyes, but as though deep in thought and as though concentrated on what he was saying, he was watching it narrowly. It had not moved a second time, of that he was sure; perhaps it had not moved at all, it might be only nerves on his part, nerves high strung, taut to the breaking point, but his fingers were still rigid around the stock of his revolver, and, in the pocket, the weapon, resting on his hip as he lay sideways, held a bead 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’s good enough for me. Bundy never pulled a steer in his life, an’ if he says this is a cinch—that goes! Give him a chance!”

“It’s like this,” said Billy Kane. “It’s a thousand to one shot that this secretary chap who croaked the old millionaire and got away with the goods is still in New Work. Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. After pulling the murder, according to the papers, he beat it out of the house with the loot, and evidently hid the stuff somewhere. Then he came back to the house again, and the footman, Jackson, grabbed him. But there was a good half hour between the time the police found out about the murder and before this guy Kane came back to the house. Get me? And during that time the police got busy and shot flycops around all the stations and ferries. It’s a cinch, the way I look at it, that after he crawled into that lane and they lost him there, that he’s been crawling ever since somewhere around New York. He never left the city—he never had a chance.”

Red Vallon whistled low and complacently under his breath; Karlin, fingering his Vandyke again, nodded sharply now in approval.