Chapter V: Part 5

Billy Kane’s revolver was in his hand. If the newcomer came around the corner of the house, dark as it was, it was almost certain that—no! The other had halted evidently before those shuttered French doors, and was rapping softly—three raps, a single rap, two raps. The raps were repeated. Someone moved swiftly across the floor of the room. There was the faint clash of portière rings, and the sound of the French doors being opened.

Billy Kane was at the window again. A third man was in the room now. Karlin was speaking sharply.

“You’ve been a long time coming, Bull!”

The newcomer, his back turned to Billy Kane, shrugged his shoulders.

“I had to wait until Merxler went out,” he answered. “I didn’t lose no time after that, an’ I came downtown as fast as I could. I ain’t been much more’n half an hour from Merxler’s to here.”

“Well, all right!” grunted Karlin. “Have any trouble?”

“Nix!” said the other. “I slipped the envelope into the drawer of the safe, all right. It was a cinch! The family was all upstairs.”

Karlin nodded.

“Where are the securities?” he demanded.

The man took what Billy Kane could see were a number of stock and bond certificates from his pocket, and handed them to Karlin.

Karlin nodded again, as he ran through the papers rapidly.

“How much did you leave in the safe?” he inquired crisply.

“What Red told me—about ten or twelve thousand.”

“All right!” said Karlin. “Good work, Bull! Beat it, now!”

The man turned, and left the room. Billy Kane heard him step across the yard, heard him climb the fence, heard Karlin within the room close the shuttered French doors—but this time Billy Kane made no movement, save that there was a curious twitching of his face muscles as his jaws locked together. All the bald, hellish brutality of the scheme was beginning to take form now in his mind. It was a plant, all of it, the letter, the will; a plant with the devil’s stamp of ingenuity upon it—and it was the man who had just gone from the room, Bull McCann, who had passed him on that black stairway from the basement in Merxler’s home!

Karlin was laughing in a viciously jubilant way, as he came back to the ex-croupier’s side.

“Fifty thousand dollars!” said Karlin, as he thrust the securities into the inside pocket of his coat, and patted the pocket complacently. “Fifty thousand, Jerry, and all of it in Theodore Rodger’s name—I kept stalling the kid on the idea of transferring the securities into his own name—told him there was no hurry—that he could clip the coupons and get the dividend checks through all right, just the same. I was his attorney too—see? Works pretty smooth, eh, Jerry? Too bad you didn’t get a chance to have a look at that letter and the will! The Chipper did the job, and they’re the best pieces of forged penwork that were ever pulled in America! Some head the Rat’s got, I’ll give him credit for that—he worded the letter. It’s _prima facie_ evidence that the kid was blowing the coin just as fast as he did when he came into his father’s money—and nobody’s surprised that most of it has gone up in smoke. And, besides that, it’s a confession. Well, what happens? Merxler is killed in a gambling brawl—at which nobody is surprised, either!—his safe is opened, the will is found, and with it that little hymn of hate against me, which accounts for what would otherwise have been a fool play in having kept the will. I am found to be the executor, empowered to transfer and sell, and administer the estate—and we find that all that’s left is about ten thousand—which is _all_ I have to account for. I enter that as the value of the estate, split it up among the beneficiaries, and”—he chuckled softly—“I generously waive my claim to any share in the legacy on the score that the estate has been so hard hit. Neat little play, eh, Jerry? Well, after that, there’s nothing to it! My signature is legally good on any document, and little by little, here and there, we turn the fifty thousand into the long green—and pocket it. If it’s done quietly, a security or so at a time, no one would ever think of digging around to find out if it was one of those on the schedule filed by the estate. Feeling better, Jerry?”

The ex-croupier walked over to the buffet, poured out for himself a stiff four fingers of whisky, and tossed off the neat spirit at a gulp. He forced an uneasy grin.

“I don’t often drink in business hours,” he said nervously. “But I’m not used to playing this high—maybe I’m a little shaky. Are you sure-fire on the witnesses to that will? Their signatures would have to be proved.”

“They’re the only things that are genuine,” said Karlin, with a malicious laugh. “We had two of our boys working around the hotel down on Long Island where Rodgers spent a month this spring, and where he is supposed to have written the will. They identify their signatures, and their story’s straight. Rodgers asked them to witness his signature to a paper, that’s all. He didn’t tell them what the paper was, and they didn’t know—see? If there’s any question crops up, the hotel proves that the two men were its employees at the time Rodgers was staying there.” He pulled out his watch again. “It’s ten o’clock!” he said brusquely. “Merxler ought to be showing up. I——”

The ex-croupier had suddenly laid a finger to his lips in caution. A knock was sounding on the hall door.

“Here he is now,” said the ex-croupier, in a lowered voice. “I told them to send him here as soon as he came.”

“All right, let him in,” instructed Karlin. “And tell the boys to drift along as soon as they like. _It’s the man who cuts the first jack._”

The ex-croupier opened the door, and was instantly continental in both manner and speech. He bowed profoundly, as a young man entered.

“Ah, Monsieur Merxler—a great pleasure! I was telling Monsieur Karlin that——”

Billy Kane had drawn slightly back from the window. His lips were thinned, compressed. The fiendishness of it all had got him now—Karlin with his suave, oily, Judas smile, preening at his Vandyke beard—and Merxler, for all that he had played the fool for several years now, still with a frank and boyish face, his broad shoulders squared back as he laughed a pleasant greeting. There was a whiteness in Billy Kane’s face, a whiteness that was like to the fury, no longer cold, that was white-hot in his soul. Murder! Well, perhaps—but it would not be Merxler’s murder! He whipped his mask from his pocket, and adjusted it swiftly over his face. His fingers automatically tested the mechanism of his revolver, as he again looked in through the window. The ex-croupier was bowing himself out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Quick and silent now in every movement, Billy Kane crept around the corner of the house, and crouched before the shuttered French doors. He had a minute, perhaps two at the outside, in which to act before Karlin’s confederates entered the room. He tapped softly with his revolver on the shutters—three raps, a single rap, two raps; he repeated it—three raps, a single rap, two raps.

From within a step came hurriedly across the floor, there was the faint clashing of the curtain rings again as the portières were drawn aside, and through the interstices of the shutters came little gleams of light. Billy Kane shifted his grip upon his revolver—to the muzzle end. The doors opened a few inches cautiously. And then Karlin’s voice:

“Who’s there? What—”

But Billy Kane was in action now, and the words ended in a wild shout of alarm. His left hand shot forward like a flash into the opening, wrenching the doors wide apart; and, lithe as a panther in its spring, he launched himself forward, and struck with the butt of his revolver, struck as he would have struck at a mad dog, full on Karlin’s head.

There was a crash as the man went limply, senseless, to the floor, and another cry, from Merxler now, and then, dazing Billy Kane for an instant by the sudden and unexpected onslaught, Merxler had sprung and locked his arms around him in a grip of steel. They crashed against the table, upsetting it.

“Let go!” Billy Kane panted frantically. “The hall door—lock it! You don’t understand!”

There was no answer from Merxler, save another hoarse shout for help. The boy was fighting like a demon. Here and there about the room they lurched, staggered, reeled, but Billy Kane was the stronger. It seemed only by inches, but still by inches they were nearing the hall door. There was something of ghastly irony in this frenzied effort of the boy to bar his own road to safety; but there was something fine in it too, something that, even as he fought, found recognition in Billy Kane’s mind. The boy, spendthrift though he might be, a fool with his money though he might be, was game to the core in standing by a man whom he believed to be his friend.

There was an uproar now from the interior of the house. There came the rush of feet along the hall. Another instant and they would be at the door. Massing his strength for the effort, Billy Kane tore himself free, flung Merxler back, and plunged forward. The door was being opened now. He hurled his weight against it.

“Quick, Merxler! Quick! The inside pocket of Karlin’s coat!” he gasped out. “Quick!”

There was a yell of fury from the hall, as the door slammed shut, and Billy Kane turned the key—and then a crash upon it, and another, as human battering rams launched themselves madly against the panels. Over his shoulder Billy Kane saw Merxler standing hesitant, glancing in stupefaction alternately from the door to Karlin on the floor.

A panel cracked and splintered. Billy Kane’s revolver roared like a cannon shot through the room. The bullet, aimed low, ripped along the threshold.

“Merxler, the inside pocket of Karlin’s coat!” he said in deadly quiet. “Man, are you mad! Hurry! They’ll have us both in another minute!”

The revolver shot had checked the rush against the door for an instant, though only for an instant, but that instant was enough. Merxler, stung into action, had leapt to Karlin’s side, and was bending over the man. And then he was on his feet, staring wildly at the papers in his hand.

“Good God, what’s this!” he cried out. “What’s——”

“The French doors—the fence—run for it!” said Billy Kane tensely, and fired again. And the next instant the room was in darkness, as he switched off the light; and in another, with Merxler running now beside him, he had crossed the few feet of yard and was swinging himself over the fence.

From behind came the rip and tear and smash of the yielding door, shouts, yells, oaths, a confusion of noises; but Billy Kane had reached the cross street now, and, pulling the mask from his face, jerking his hat brim far over his eyes, turned in the opposite direction from that in which he had entered the lane, and, urging Merxler on, was running at top speed. At the next block they swerved again—and Billy Kane, with a restraining pressure on Merxler’s arm, here dropped into a slower and less noticeable pace. There was little or no chance of pursuit now; no one, it seemed, had taken the immediate initiative of following them into the lane, yet Billy Kane made a wide detour before he finally reached his waiting taxi cab.

“Get in,” he said to Merxler; and, crisply, to the chauffeur: “Drive as fast as you know how! Go up the street at the rear of The Purple Scarf!”

He followed Merxler into the cab.

Merxler drew his hand across his eyes in a dazed way, and laughed nervously.

“I can’t see your face now, and you had a mask on before,” he said jerkily. “This is a queer business! Who are you? What’s it mean? Those securities were in my safe an hour ago—how did they get into Karlin’s pocket? What was he doing with them?”

“Stoop over!” said Billy Kane quietly. He handed Merxler the forged letter, and flashed the ray of his lamp upon the paper.

His head bent forward, Merxler read the letter, and his face, already white under the ray, gradually took on a drawn, grayish pallor.

“I—I never wrote this,” he faltered. “It’s my handwriting, but I—I never wrote it.”

“Nor your uncle this,” said Billy Kane, the same grim, quiet intonation in his voice, as he placed the will in turn in Merxler’s hand.

The light played on the paper, and over Merxler’s face. Billy Kane sat drawn back in the shadows.

There was moisture on Merxler’s forehead, as he looked up after a moment.

“My God,” he whispered hoarsely, “what does this mean?”

The flashlight was out. It was dark in the cab now, and the taxi rattled on traversing block after block. Billy Kane spoke swiftly, sketching the events of the night. Merxler did not move, save that at the end his hand sought and found and closed tight upon Billy Kane’s arm.

It was Merxler in a new light who spoke.

“You’ve saved my life—and you haven’t preached,” he said slowly. “I’m a fool! I’ve played the fool—they never would have tried to get away with it if I hadn’t played the fool all my life. I guess perhaps I’ve had my lesson tonight. But fool, or not”—his voice rasped suddenly, bitter hard—“Karlin will pay for this, or——”

“You will—yet!” Billy Kane cut in grimly. “You know too much, and you haven’t a minute to lose. They lost their heads for a moment in the confusion and the darkness when we got away, but their one hope now will be to get you before you tell your story. They may figure that you will hesitate about telling it, as you would have to admit your presence at Jerry’s gambling hell—and they may figure that you wouldn’t act anyway before morning. Do you understand? That’s _their_ chance. Your chance is the police without a second’s delay—you may even get Karlin before he regains consciousness, or before they try to move him, if you’re quick enough. I know your story will sound strange with an unknown man in a mask running through it, but you have only to tell the truth. You have all the evidence you need. The police will know the Chipper, who forged the papers; and the police will know how to make those fake witnesses to the will squeal—it’s a different proposition now with them than simply appearing before Karlin and a notary public and swearing to the signatures. Understand?”

“Yes,” said Merxler tersely. “You’re right—and I’ll see it through. But you—you saved my life, and——”

“I get out here,” said Billy Kane, and leaning forward suddenly, tapped sharply on the glass front. They had turned into the street that was not only in the rear of The Purple Scarf, but was equally in the rear of that secret entrance into the Rat’s lair. He held out his hand to Merxler. “Good-night, Merxler—I——”

“But,” Merxler cried, as the taxi stopped, “I can’t let you go like this! I owe you too much. Who are you? What is your name? Where can I find you to——”

“I’m trying to find—myself,” said Billy Kane, with grim whimsicality. “Let it go at that!” He caught Merxler’s hand in a hard grip. “Good-night, Merxler—and good luck!” he said, and stepping quickly from the taxi, closed the door. He handed the chauffeur another bill. “Drive this gentleman to police headquarters—fast!” he ordered, and, turning, moved swiftly away down the street, hugging the shadows again, avoiding the rays of the street lamps.

He slipped into the lane, gained the shed, and from the shed made his way through the underground passage to the secret door, listened here intently for a moment, then stepped through into the Rat’s room, and groped forward toward the electric light that hung over the table.

It was strange! There was something almost mockingly ironic in it all! It was like the night before again. In peril himself as grave as Merxler’s, he had saved Merxler—and his own peril remained, was increased even, for the inner circle of this crime world that ranked him as a trusted confederate would be aroused now to an unbridled pitch of fury and excitement, seeking the unknown man in the mask who had foiled them to-night. Suspicious as they would be of every one, he now had that suspicion to combat, and he could ill afford that a breath of it should touch him. His all was at stake—Red Vallon, with the underworld at his heels, was enlisted now in a hunt for those rubies, which, if successful, must inevitably discover too the identity of the man, or men, who had murdered David Ellsworth, and who had driven him, Billy Kane, into this damnable exile! It was paramount, vital, that he should preserve his authority to keep the underworld at that work, the power to command, the——

Billy Kane switched on the electric light, and stood staring at the table, grim faced, his jaws locked tight together, his hand like a flash seeking his revolver in his pocket. His eyes lifted, and swept around the room. The swift, quick glance went unrewarded. The room was apparently as he had left it. He crossed quickly to the street door. It was still locked.

Again his eyes searched the room. He remembered that she had spoken of other secrets that the room possessed. What were they? Still another entrance? There was no sign of it! He knew only that someone had been here in his absence—and was now flaunting that visit in his face. Was it mockery? A warning? What?

It could not have been Red Vallon, or any of his pack. It was almost certain that Red Vallon had no knowledge of any secret entrance, and besides it was too soon for Red Vallon. Was it the woman? He shook his head. It was hardly likely, and his reason told him no—she had been outspoken enough that evening, and she had given no hint of _this_. Who then? And what was its meaning? Was it grim mockery? A grimmer warning? What?

On the table, ostentatiously placed in full view, and identified beyond possibility of mistake by a piece cut from the corner of the original plush tray on which it and many of its fellows had rested, was one of the rubies stolen from David Ellsworth’s vault!

XII—A CLUE

Billy Kane’s eyes lifted from his plate, and fixed in a curiously introspective way on Whitie Jack’s unhandsome and unshaven face across the little table. Twenty-four hours! He was out in the open now—“convalescent.” Twenty-four hours—and as far as Red Vallon and Birdie Rose were concerned specifically, and the underworld generally, there had been not a shred of success. He had unleashed the underworld, but the underworld had picked up neither thread nor clue; the underground clearing houses for stolen goods, the “fences,” had yielded up no single one of the rubies belonging to the Ellsworth collection; the lead that he had given Birdie Rose in respect of Jackson, the dead footman, had, up to the present at least, proved abortive.

Well, perhaps he, Billy Kane, would be more successful! The twenty-four hours had not been wholly fruitless. Perhaps before the night was out there would be a different story to tell—perhaps a grim and ugly story. There was one clue which had developed, but a clue that was to be entrusted to neither Red Vallon, nor Birdie Rose, nor any of the pack. Even they, case-hardened, steeped in crime though they were, might balk at pushing that clue to its ultimate conclusion. They might weaken at the limit! He, Billy Kane, would not weaken, because, as between his own life and the life of one who he was already satisfied was a murderer, he would not fling his own life away! His life was at stake. Red Vallon’s wasn’t. Birdie Rose’s wasn’t. It made a difference in—the limit!

An attendant, in a dirty, beer-stained apron, sidled to the edge of the table. The man had been eager in his attentions, deferential, almost obsequious.

“Wot’re youse for now, Bundy?” he inquired solicitously.

Billy Kane smiled, as he shook his head and jerked his hand by way of invitation toward Whitie Jack. He, Billy Kane, was the Rat, alias Bundy Morgan! He had never in his life before been in this none-too-reputable place run by one Two-finger Tasker, that combined at one and the same time a restaurant and dance hall of the lowest type, yet he found himself not only well known but an honored guest! He had known of the place by name and reputation; it was the sort of place that seemed naturally one the Rat would frequent, and he had told Red Vallon that he would “eat” here this evening. Red Vallon would have to make a report somewhere, and he, Billy Kane, had become none too sure of his own temporary quarters—that secret door, that underground passage into the Rat’s lair had not proved an altogether unmixed blessing! There was the Woman in Black, who had been an uninvited, unwelcome, and almost sinister visitor on two occasions already; and there was, far more disturbing still, the matter of that ruby from the Ellsworth collection which had found its way mysteriously to the table in that room—the single stone from the collection that had come to light since the murder two nights ago.

Whitie Jack accepted the unspoken invitation.

“Gimme another mug of suds,” he said.

The glass was replenished.

“You seem to have pulled a good job, Whitie,” said Billy Kane approvingly. “The tenement is next to the café on the corner, eh? All right, I know the place. What next?”

Whitie Jack gulped down half the contents of his glass.

“I guess I did,” he said complacently. “I wasn’t pipin’ de lay all day for nothin’—wot? De place has three floors, an’ two flats on each floor, savvy? It ain’t much of a place, neither. Peters’ flat is on de second floor, on de right as youse go up. Dere’s nobody at home, but he comes down dere himself to give de place de once-over one night a week. De family’s away somewhere for a vacation, sniffin’ in de ocean breezes at some boardin’ house. Gee, say, de guy must have money to pull de high brow, out-of-town-in-de-summer stuff for de family!”

Billy Kane nodded.

Whitie Jack finished his glass, and drew his sleeve across his mouth.

“Two of de flats is vacant,” he said. “One on de second floor, an’ one on de top. De other one on de top over Peters’ flat is where dat crazy old fiddler guy, Savnak, hangs out all by his lonesome. But Savnak won’t bother youse none. He’s out every night. He goes down to Dutchy Vetter’s jewelry shop, an’ him an’ Dutchy, bein’ nuts on music an’ pinochle, dey goes to it for half de night. Old Savnak’s got bats in his belfry, I guess; but I guess he can fiddle all right. I heard he used to be a big bug leadin’ some foreign or-kestra, an’ was a count or dook or something, an’ den de dope got him, an’ den he came out here. He ain’t livin’ like a dook now, an’ I guess it takes him all his time to scratch up his rent. Bats, dat’s wot he’s got—bats an’ dope. Dey got him to play one night down to Heeney’s music hall, an’ he went up in de air an’ quit flat ’cause de waiters kept circulatin’ around an’ dishin’ out de suds while he was playin’! Say, wot do youse know about dat! An’ den——”

“Stick to cases, Whitie,” interrupted Billy Kane patiently. “I’m expecting company in a few minutes. What about the ground floor? Who lives there?”

“Oh, dere!” said Whitie Jack somewhat contemptuously. “I dunno wot yer lay is, but dere’s nothin’ dere to bother youse neither. Dere’s a couple of sisters about sixty years old apiece on one side, an’ a young guy dat’s just got married on de other.”

“Back entrance?” inquired Billy Kane casually.

Whitie Jack shook his head.

“Nope!” he said. “Nothin’ doin’! Dere’s a back yard about four inches square, but the buildin’ behind butts right up against it, an’ dere ain’t no lane. But youse can get in de front door to-night whether it’s locked or not, for dere ain’t any street lamp near enough to do youse any harm.”

“Good work!” said Billy Kane. He pushed his plate away from in front of him. “I guess you’d better beat it now, Whitie.”

Whitie Jack, of the lesser breed of criminal, self-attached familiar to the man he believed to be the Rat and an aristocrat of Crimeland, rose from his seat with evident reluctance. There was a sort of dog-like faithfulness and admiration in his eyes, the same deference in his manner that seemed to mark the dealings of everyone in the underworld with the Rat; but the look on Whitie Jack’s face was nevertheless one of undisguised disappointment.

“Ain’t I in on dis any more?” he pleaded. “Ain’t I got anything more to do?”

“Yes,” said Billy Kane. He lowered his voice. “You’ve got more to do, and what will count for a lot more than you’ve already done—keep your mouth shut tight.” He leaned across the table, and his hand closed in a friendly pressure on the other’s arm. “Take the night off. Show up in the morning. Beat it now, Whitie.”

Whitie Jack left the place. The waiter removed the dishes from the table. Billy Kane leaned back in his chair, and his eyes, the introspective stare back in their depths, travelled slowly over his surroundings. The tables, ranged around the sides of the room, were but sparsely occupied; the polished section of the floor in the center was deserted—it was too early for the votaries of the bunny-hug and the turkey-trot to start in on their nightly gyrations. Two-finger Tasker’s was in a state of lethargy, as it were; a few hours later it would awake to a riot of hilarity, and come into its own with a surging crowd and packed tables, but it was too early for that yet.

Billy Kane’s fingers slipped mechanically into his vest pocket, and, hidden there, mechanically began to twirl a small, hard object, irregular in its shape, between their tips. His face hardened suddenly. The touch of that little object stirred up in an instant a grim flood of speculation. It was the ruby from the Ellsworth collection that he had found on his return to the Rat’s den last night. It worried him. How had it got there? Who had put it there? And why? Above all—why?

Only a few hours before, turning his purloined authority to account, he had set the underworld the task of tracing the Ellsworth collection—and mysteriously there had appeared upon his table this single stone, ostentatiously identified by a piece cut from one of the original plush trays in which the stones had been kept. The bare possibility that it had been Red Vallon, or some of his breed, who had stumbled upon the stone in their search through the underground exchanges, and had left it there as evidence of a partial success for him to find on his return, had occurred to him; but a cautious probing of Red Vallon that morning had put a final and emphatic negative on that theory.

Who, then? And why? It had seemed like a ghastly jeer when he had seen that stone there on the table, and the prelude to some sinister act that he could not foresee, and against which therefore he could not prepare any defense. Did someone know that he was not the Rat, that, desperate, with no other thing to do, he had snatched at the rôle fate had thrust out to him, and was playing it now?

Who, then? Not the Woman in Black—her acceptance of him as the Rat had been altogether too genuine! Not the underworld—even a suspicion there would have been followed by a knife thrust long before this. Not the actual perpetrators of David Ellsworth’s murder, if they knew him to be Billy Kane—for their one aim had been to fasten the crime irrevocably upon him, all their hellish ingenuity had been centered on that one object, and they would certainly, therefore, have lost no time in giving the police, in some roundabout, guarded way, a tip as to his identity.

His brain whirled with the problem, and ached in an actual physical sense. It had been aching all day. He could minimize his peril, if he cared to make the wish father to the thought; he could not exaggerate it. It seemed impossible that his identity was known, but, even so, the question as to where that stone had come from, and why, still remained unanswered. Was it, then—another possibility—the murderers of David Ellsworth, who, while still believing him to be the Rat, and having discovered in some way that, as the Rat, he was working against them, had given him this ugly and significant warning to keep his hands off? Well, if that were so, he was still in no less danger, for he must go on. To turn aside was to fail, and to fail, quite equally, meant death.

The hard pressure of his lips curved the corners of his mouth downward in sharp lines. Nor was the question of that stone all! Since last night when the cloak of respectability had been stripped from Karlin, and the “man in the mask” had turned the tables on the crime coterie in the gambling hell run by Jerry, the ex-croupier of Monte Carlo, the underworld had been in a nasty mood, ugly, suspicious, in a ferment of unrest. It was another alias added to his rôle, another alias to safeguard even more zealously, if possible, than his unsought rôle of the Rat. He was the man in the mask. He shrugged his shoulders suddenly. Quite so! The mask was even at that moment in his inside coat pocket. If it were found there! He laughed harshly. It seemed as though he were being sucked in nearer and nearer to the center of some seething vortex that hungrily sought to engulf him. It seemed as though his brain ground and mulled around in a sort of ghastly cycle. When he tried to bring one thing into individual outline some other thing impinged, and all became a jumbled medley, like pieces of a puzzle, no one of which would fit into another.

The underworld looked askance and whispered through the corners of its mouth as it asked the question: Who was the man in the mask? And he, Billy Kane, who could answer that question, sitting here in Two-finger Tasker’s in the heart of that underworld, was asking himself another, a dozen others, whose answers were vital, life and death to him in the most literal sense. Who was the Woman in Black, who, like a Nemesis, hovered over the Rat? Where was the man whose personality had been so strangely thrust upon him, Billy Kane? When would the Rat return? Had he, Billy Kane, even the few hours at his disposal this evening that were necessary to enable him to run down the clue which he had discovered, and upon which he was banking his all now to clear himself, to bring to justice the murderers who had so craftily saddled their guilt upon him—had he even that much time before the inevitable crash came?

This evening! Yes, this evening! His fingers came from his vest pocket, and his hand clenched fiercely at his side. He would go the limit. His mind was made up to that. He had never thought that he would consider, calculate and weigh the pros and cons of taking another’s life, much less come to a deliberate decision to do so! But he had made that decision now; and, if it were necessary, he would carry it through. It seemed to affect him with an unnatural, cold indifference that surprised himself—that decision. It seemed to be only the result, the outcome that continued to concern him. If he had luck with him to-night he would win through. Red Vallon, Birdie Rose and the underworld had so far failed. He had kept prodding them on, and would continue to prod them on even now on the basis that he could not afford to let go of a single chance; but his hopes, that amounted now to a practical certainty of success, were almost wholly centered on his own efforts in the next few hours.

He stirred impulsively in his chair. The murderers of David Ellsworth had been _too_ cunning, it seemed, had overstepped themselves at last in their anxiety to weave their net of evidence still more irrevocably around him. The affair of last night, the capture of Karlin by the police, and the social prominence of both Karlin and Merxler, had furnished the morning papers with material for glaring headlines and columns of sensational “story”; but, even so, all this had not by any means overshadowed the Ellsworth murder and robbery. The press was still alive with it, New York was still agog with the old millionaire-philanthropist’s assassination, and with what it believed to be the traitorous and abandoned act of, not only a trusted and confidential secretary, but of one who at the same time was the son of a lifelong friend.

The blood surged burning hot into Billy Kane’s face. From coast to coast they had heralded him as the vilest of his kind—he was a pariah, an outcast, a thing of loathing! Yes, the papers were still giving him and the Ellsworth murder prominence enough! But that prominence was not without its compensation, since it had furnished him with the clue now in his possession.

The inquest had been held late yesterday afternoon, too late for more than brief mention in the evening papers, but this morning the papers had carried a full and practically verbatim report of the proceedings. He had read the report, not daring at first to believe what he wanted to believe, afraid that his eyes were playing a mocking trick upon him—and then he had read it again in a sort of grim, unholy joy.

Jackson, the footman, who he knew was one of the murderers, was dead, and so far Birdie Rose had been unable to trace the man’s family or connections; but Peters, the butler, was not dead, and out of Peters’ own mouth, in his effort apparently to seal for all time his, Billy Kane’s, guilt, Peters had convicted himself!

True, before a jury, Peters had done himself no harm—that was the hellish ingenuity of the scheme that fitted in with all the rest of the devil’s craft with which the affair had been planned. Peters, in the public’s eyes, or before any court, was treading on safe and solid ground, for his, Billy Kane’s, simple denial was worth nothing in any man’s opinion to-day; but he, Billy Kane, _knew_ that Peters’ testimony was not fact. Peters had testified that he had seen him, Billy Kane, leave the house about seven o’clock—which was true. Peters had then deliberately testified that half an hour later, though he had not seen Mr. Kane return, he had seen Mr. Kane come quietly down the back stairs, and enter the library—which, besides being untrue, since he, Billy Kane, was not even in the house at that time, was also equivalent to swearing away his, Billy Kane’s, life. Peters, continuing his evidence, had stated that he was quite sure he had not been seen by Mr. Kane, as he, Peters, at that moment was standing just inside the cloakroom off the hall. He did not see Mr. Kane emerge again from the library, but some fifteen minutes later a telephone call came in for Mr. Ellsworth, and, knowing Mr. Ellsworth to be in the library, he connected with that room. He tried several times, but could get no reply. Finally he went to the library door and opened it, and found Mr. Ellsworth with his skull crushed in, dead upon the floor, the private vault and safe open and looted. He at once called the police. He stated that it was obvious Mr. Kane had made his escape from the library through the stenographer’s room at the rear, and from there to the back entrance, where, later on again, as the police already knew, returning once more in the hope presumably of recovering the card with the combinations of the safe and vault on it in his handwriting, he had been discovered by Jackson, the footman, and had killed Jackson, who had tried to capture him.

Billy Kane’s hands were shoved in an apparently nonchalant manner into the side pockets of his coat—to hide them from view now. The nails were biting into the palms of his hands. “_Killed_” that was the word Peters had used—“killed.” It was very subtle of Peters to have used that word—it just clinched the whole story with the seemingly obvious. Everybody believed that he, Billy Kane, had killed Jackson, as well as David Ellsworth. Yes, Peters had put the finishing touch on the evidence that was meant to free the actual perpetrators, himself quite evidently amongst them, from punishment, and to send him, Billy Kane, if caught, as their proxy to the death chair in Sing Sing.

Quite so! And Peters thought himself quite safe. What had Peters to fear from a hunted wretch who he undoubtedly believed was miles away, fleeing for his life, cowering from the sight of his fellow humans, afraid to show his face? But Peters and his accomplices had overshot the mark! The evidence was final, incontrovertible, damning—only it was not _true_. He, Billy Kane, would not dispute it with a jury—he would put Peters on a witness stand of a grimmer nature than that! He had known on the night of the crime that Jackson, the footman, was one of the guilty men; but he had not suspected that the dignified, perfectly trained Peters, the butler, with his fastidiously trimmed, gray, mutton-chop side-whiskers, was likewise one of the band. And now he wondered why he had not thought of it.

He saw Peters in quite a different light now! A hundred little incidents metamorphosed the man’s excessive efficiency and attentiveness into a smug mask of hypocrisy. And, corroborative from this new viewpoint, where, for instance, had Peters, as it now appeared, got the money to send his family away even to a boarding house? Butlers were not in the habit of sending their families away to the seaside for the summer! Even Whitie Jack had not failed to comment on that fact. Well, he was satisfied that he knew the real Peters now, and it was not too late. It was Peters, or himself now. It was his life, or Peters’ life—unless Peters laid bare to the last shred the whole plot, and the name of every man connected with it.

And the stage was set. From the moment he had read the papers that morning, he had put Whitie Jack at work—and Whitie Jack had done well, exceedingly well. He, Billy Kane, knew that Peters was married and had a family, but he had not known Peters’ home address. Whitie Jack had proved a most praiseworthy ferret. He, Billy Kane, knew that Thursday was always Peters’ night off. This was Thursday night. Peters, then, if he followed his usual custom, would visit his flat to-night; and, since the man’s family was away, Peters and he would be _alone_. It was fortunate that the family was away, luck seemed to be turning; it precluded the necessity of getting Peters somewhere else—alone. It simplified matters. Peters’ flat would serve most excellently for that interview!

He laughed a little now. He was strangely cool, strangely composed. He was in a mood in which he found difficulty in recognizing himself. He was going to-night to wring from a man either that man’s life, or that man’s confession. He was absolutely merciless in that resolve; he would not turn back, nothing would make him swerve one iota from that determination, he would go the limit—and yet he sat here entirely unmoved, callous.

Well, after all, why not? If the man was already a murderer, his life was already forfeit. If he, Billy Kane, must choose between losing his own life and permitting one of the murderers of David Ellsworth to profit further thereby, would one hesitate long over that choice, or hesitate to go—the limit?

XIII—THE CIPHER MESSAGE

Billy Kane’s hands came from his pockets again, and he leisurely lighted a cigarette. Though sitting sideways to the door, he nevertheless unostentatiously commanded a full view of the entrance. Red Vallon had just entered, and, after a moment’s pause in which the man’s eyes searched around the dance hall, was coming forward, threading his way through the intervening tables. Billy Kane flung a short nod of recognition in the direction of the approaching gangster; and then his eyes fastened in a sort of hard, curious expectancy on the street door again. Whether or not it was intuition or premonition, induced by what had happened the previous night when Red Vallon had been followed, he did not know, but he was somehow prepared now, a little more than prepared, almost sure, in fact, that there would be a repetition of last night’s occurrence.

Red Vallon dropped into the seat vacated by Whitie Jack.

“Hello, Bundy!” he greeted affably.

“Hello, Red!” The response was purely mechanical. Billy Kane shifted his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other—to hide a smile in which there was no humor. His intuition, if it were intuition, had not been at fault. A woman had just entered the dance hall. He was not likely to mistake that slim, graceful figure, nor those dark, steady eyes—that were spanning the room and resting upon him. He could not see the lurking mockery in those eyes, the distance was a little too great for that, but his imagination could depict it readily enough. Nor did it require much imagination! It was the Woman in Black. He glanced at Red Vallon. Red Vallon’s back was turned to the door, and he had quite evidently not observed her.

The beer-stained attendant hurried to the table.

“What’ll you have, Red?” inquired Billy Kane pleasantly.

Red Vallon waved the man away.

“Nix!” he said in a lowered voice. “I got to beat it—I got to meet Birdie Rose. There’s something doing.”

Billy Kane, even as he watched that trim figure make its way to a table near the wall on a line with his own, leaned abruptly, eagerly forward, toward Red Vallon. He felt his pulse throb and quicken. Luck seemed to be breaking wide open at last. If, coupled with his own clue, Red Vallon and Birdie Rose had unearthed another, this infernal masquerade that threatened his life at every turn was as good as ended.

“What is it?” he demanded sharply. “Have you spotted the stones?”

Red Vallon shook his head.

“Not them stones,” he said a little uneasily. “Some others. I got orders.”

Billy Kane’s face hardened.

“Orders!” he echoed shortly. “Didn’t I tell you last night that everything else was piker stuff? A half million in rubies, that’s what we’re after—to the limit! Understand? To the limit! Orders! Who gave you any orders except to stick to the game?”

“You know,” said Red Vallon, and pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “Tear it up when you’re through. It’s no good to me any more. I just wanted to show it to you, so’s you’d know I wasn’t side-stepping on my own.”

Billy Kane did not tear it up. His face, still set hard, showed no other signs of emotion, as his eyes studied the paper, but inwardly there came a sort of numbed dismay. It was a code message. It meant nothing to him in one sense, in another it meant a very great deal. He was _supposed_ to know what this jumble of letters signified. Red Vallon expected him to know. To arouse Red Vallon’s suspicion for an instant was simply and literally equivalent to bringing down the underworld upon him—and the underworld would be as gentle and merciful as a pack of starving wolves! The jumble of letters seemed to possess a diabolical leer all their own, as he stared at them.

zidu6vesfuu6fwefwjf8dfsuofnIIohjtopdteop8nbje3ofueobt8v
piutsb7mmpez5bepun4psgnb9esfutnbf4wbiopjubIInspgoj3fiuf
m4p2ntjho6jzbImbuo5bm2qpuu3fhnf4iuuih7jopuoff7xufcu5ih
j3feobf4ojold6pmd3peobu6sfwjeopjd9jqtv2tpuf4np3tfopf4tm
3fov3sf4iufmp2npui5usb3fe4obflb3nn5jiih2vpdqv.

Was it a code that, with the key in one’s possession, one could read at a glance? He did not know. Was it a code that required elaborate and painstaking effort to decipher? He did not know. Did Red Vallon, sitting there across the table watching him, expect him to give instant indication that the code message was plain and intelligible to him? He did not know. There was only one course to take—the middle course. He laid the paper on the table, and laid his clenched fist over the paper, as he leaned farther over, truculently, toward Red Vallon.

“I tell you again that everything else is piker stuff,” he said angrily. “Do you get me? What have you done, you and Birdie, and the rest? Have you got anywhere to-day? Do you know where that secretary guy, Billy Kane, is? Do you know where those rubies are?”

“No,” said Red Vallon hurriedly, “we haven’t turned anything up yet, but——”

“But you’re going to—by nosing around after something else!” snapped Billy Kane. “Do you think I’m going to see the biggest thing that was ever pulled slip through my fingers? If you do, you’ve got another think coming! Things have changed since I’ve been away—eh? How long since there’s been any monkeying with what I dope out?”

“Don’t get sore, Bundy,” said Red Vallon appeasingly. “It’s nothing like that. You know how it was. Karlin’s arrest last night queered everything. That cursed snitch with the mask on put everything on the rough. There wasn’t any meeting. You know who sent that code there; well, _he_ didn’t know about the other job, or that he was butting in on you. Tumble? There ain’t nothing to be sore about, Bundy. Say, me and Birdie ain’t going to be more’n an hour or two doing this trick, anyhow. Someone of the Mole’s gang must have leaked; or maybe one of our boys piped him off. I dunno. But we got him cold this trip. He’s a slick one all right, and he’s been getting away with the goods quite a lot lately, and giving us the laugh. You know all about that. Well, this is where he doesn’t laugh—see? He’s pulling a nice one to-night. Got it all fixed up to make it look like somebody else did it. Sure! Well, we’re not kicking at that—so long as _we_ get the loot. Sure! We’ll let him pull it, all right, all right, believe me!”

Billy Kane appeared to be unmoved. He studied the gangster coldly.

“And how does it happen that you and Birdie, out of all the rest, are picked for this?”

Red Vallon indulged in an ugly grin.

“’Cause we know the Mole down to the ground,” he said; “but principally because the Mole knows _us_! There won’t be any fooling when we spring a show-down, he’s wise to that, and he’ll come across. And, besides, ’tain’t only Birdie and me, I’m taking some of my own gang along as well.”

Billy Kane scowled. It probably mattered very little indeed that Red Vallon’s efforts were to be sidetracked for the next few hours, and should he, Billy Kane, during that time, be successful, it mattered not at all; but his play for the moment was to preserve his rôle in Red Vallon’s eyes, to keep away from anything intimate concerning the purport of this cipher message that still lay beneath his clenched hand, and that might so easily betray his ignorance, and above all now to get rid of Red Vallon before any such awkward and dangerous _impasse_ could arise. He shrugged his shoulders, but his voice was still sullen as he spoke.

“Well, go to it!” he growled. “Go and pick up your chicken feed! But you get this into your nut, Red, and let it soak there. After this”—he leaned far over the table, his face thrust almost into Red Vallon’s—“you stay with the game every minute, or quit! It’s the limit, or quit! There’s just one thing that counts—those rubies, or the man who pinched them. If we get the man, he’ll cough—red—the stones, or blood. Do you think I’m going to let anything queer me on my share of half a million? You don’t seem to get what I mean when I say the limit. Look out I don’t give you an object lesson!”

Red Vallon licked his lips, and drew back a little. There was something in Red Vallon’s eyes that was not often there—fear.

“It’s all right, Bundy,” he said with nervous eagerness. “I’m with you. Sure, I am! This thing must have broke loose quick, and there wasn’t no idea of crabbing anything you’d started. I got ten of the best of ’em combing out the ‘fences’ for you right now.”

“All right,” responded Billy Kane gruffly. “Make a report to me on that before morning.”

“Where’ll you be?” Red Vallon was apparently relieved, for his voice had recovered its buoyancy.

“At my place—some time,” said Billy Kane curtly. “You can wait for me there.” He smiled suddenly with grim facetiousness. “My shoulder’s a lot better—enough so that maybe I can sit in for a hand myself to-night.”

“I hope you do,” said Red Vallon fervently. “You always had the knock-out punch, Bundy, and it’ll seem like old times.” He half rose from his chair; then, looking furtively about him, bent forward over the table. “There’s something else, Bundy, before I go—that snitch last night at Jerry’s, the man in the mask. He’s played hell with the crowd. There’s no telling what’ll tumble down behind Karlin. And it don’t look like he’s just stumbled on that deal by _accident_. It don’t look good, Bundy. We got to get him, and get him quick, before he pulls anything more. The word’s out to bump him off.”

Billy Kane nodded.

“Well, don’t lose your nerve over it, Red,” he said coolly. “If it was by accident, he won’t do us any more damage, and we’ve only got to settle with him for what he’s done, providing we can ever find him; if it wasn’t accident he’ll show his hand again—won’t he?”

“Yes,” said Red Vallon.

Billy Kane’s smile was unpleasant.

“Well, you’ll know what to do with him then, won’t you?” he inquired softly.

The gangster’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed to slits.

“Yes, I’ll know!” said Red Vallon coarsely. He made an ugly motion toward his throat. “Well, so long, Bundy!”

Billy Kane nodded again by way of answer. He watched Red Vallon thread his way back among the tables, and pass out through the front door. With the gangster out of the way, he picked up the sheet of paper upon which the code message was written, studied it for a moment, then thrust it into his pocket—and his glance travelled to the table opposite to him and against the wall, where that slim little figure in black was seated. She appeared to be quite indifferent to his presence, and quite intent upon the consumption of a glass of milk and the sandwich on the plate before her.

Billy Kane smiled with grim comprehension. The frugality of the meal was not without its object. It was fairly obvious that she could dispose of what was before her in short order, and leave the place at an instant’s notice without inviting undesirable attention to an unfinished meal—if she so desired! It was his move. She had followed Red Vallon in, but she had not followed Red Vallon out—she was waiting for him, Billy Kane. The seat she had chosen had been in plain view of Red Vallon, therefore she was evidently free from any fear of recognition on the part of the gangster, and, as a logical corollary, from probably anybody else in the room. That she gave no sign now therefore could mean but one thing. It was his move. If he cared to cross swords with her here, he was at liberty to do so; if he had reasons of his own for preferring a less public meeting, he had only to leave the place—and she would undoubtedly follow.