Chapter XXVII: Tigers’ Den

Just eleven, by the illuminated dial of some obscure factory, when Leamy raised stricken eyes for a look about him. Still time! But he was getting old, getting a trifle fat and soft. The water beckoned.

“Just eleven,” said Craig to himself, as he looked at that same dial from the north. “Still time.”

But his thought was of Count Wolf, and he regretted the time that he had given to Leamy thus far. Not that he had given very much. After all, Leamy had been incidental to his search for Wolf. It was Wolf who was going to require a test of strength. Wolf also he had traced from lair to lair--tireless, unceasing, with the look and the feel about him that he had brought away from the office where, in the presence of all the world he and Joan Gracie had plighted themselves as surely as if they had written out their troth on white parchment.

The taxi sped. The eleven o’clock dial was left behind. Over the tops of the houses Craig saw the stars, quiet, reassuring. They recalled other nights. But this was the night of nights. He breathed deep.

There had been one interruption in Craig’s search for the master sinner who went by the name of Count Wolf. That was after Craig had learned that the count was at Madame Marebello’s. A ball, if you please! That was the count’s style! A ball for the count on the eve of Waterloo. Or was it Waterloo?

Craig had gone to his hotel and decked himself in his finest--had shaved himself for the second time this day, manicured himself and made himself immaculate in every respect, nor counted the precious minutes lost that he had devoted to this end.

For, all the time that he was doing it he was telling himself that if, peradventure, he should have to die it would be well to die clean. It was odd how that thought of death kept beating at the shutter of his mind, like Poe’s _Raven_. And finally, as had the poet, so Craig had thrown the shutter open, let the sable bird come in. For, after all, what was there so terrible about death? He could imagine a thousand things worse.

Just five minutes after eleven, and the taxi that had brought Craig from the center of the city into this quiet and eminently respectable street, had stopped before an imposing house surrounded by an imposing garden. The house was shuttered. For all except the front door it was dark. For all except a muted hum of music and laughter it was silent.

Craig directed his chauffeur into an alleyway at the side of the garden. He was grateful now for the presence of this man, a detective lent him by his friend, Colonel Bird.

But no raven was croaking in Craig’s mind as he mounted the Marebello steps. The power was still in him, plus a certain knowledge that whatever should happen to him, that thing would not be bad.

He didn’t have to ring the bell. A butler saw him coming, opened the door. That was a point about this house. No raiding party of police would ever have to scandalize this neighborhood by chopping down the outer door. Inside--if it ever came to that--there would have to be some chopping, perhaps. For, if reports were to be believed, the stately rooms and cozy alcoves of the Marebello’s house concealed a labyrinth.

Said the butler:

“Whom shall I announce?”

Said Craig:

“The gentleman from Frisco.”

Craig was glad that he had the password right. They changed the password rather frequently in houses where Count Wolf was an honored guest. He heard the door close behind him with a metallic click. The butler was helping him off with his coat. A few moments later he was saluting his hostess.

She was a tall woman, very dark, very richly colored--with a color that was all her own. Craig smiled at her. But his smile was of the lips only.

“This is indeed a pleasure,” said the Marebello.

Her voice was a rich and vibrant contralto, very soft, very musical. It had a caressing touch about it like the hand that the lady placed on Craig’s arm.

“The pleasure is mine,” said Craig.

It was easier to lie when the time-worn old phrases of polite speech were used.

“I was afraid that you had forgotten me.”

“No man could ever forget you,” said Craig truthfully, this time. “You are very beautiful.”

It was a phrase that the Marebello must have heard ten thousand times, but there was a soberness about Craig as he said it that gave the familiar words a quality of freshness.

“You’re a charming boy,” she retorted meltingly.

“You are so beautiful,” said Craig softly, “that I’m going to tell you something right now before I fall under your spell.”

“You almost frighten me.”

“You may well be frightened,” said Craig, with that odd sobriety of his, “but not of me.”

They had been standing in the broad hall. From an adjacent room there came the sound of an orchestra creeping and strumming into the first bars of an exotic, voluptuous dance, a babble of voices, the popping of a champagne cork.

“What do you mean?” the woman asked, with an accent of alarm, genuine this time, even if it was subdued.

Craig whispered the rest:

“It’s what I say--or murder!”

He made it brutal. He knew where he was. He was a trainer in the tiger den. He had shown the red-hot iron.

The woman didn’t flinch. She had an excellent nerve. No one perhaps had a wider experience with the varieties of passion. In her world the raw and the primitive were never covered with more than a thin veneer. She knew the value of keeping her head. On the other hand, she must have known that here was a crisis where there was no time to be lost. And, in a way, she was prepared for meeting violence with violence. That butler who had helped Craig off with his coat was a heavyweight slugger. There were other servants in the house like that. There were a number of guests who would have been equally efficient in putting a man to sleep.

“You forget where you are,” she said.

“Listen closely,” said Craig pleasantly and softly. “For you, it’s peace or war.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ve come to get Count Wolf.”

“Can’t you wait ’til he leaves?”

“No.”

“You will ruin me.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll tell him to come away with me.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“Do you know who I am?”

She gave him a melting look, still tried to argue. “Be a nice boy. Why can’t we all be friends?”

“All I ask of you,” said Craig steadily, “is no interference--from your servants or your guests. The D. A.’s office and the police know where I am. They’re waiting for me. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“And they’re waiting for Wolf.”

Craig was alone as he strolled into the big room where the dancers were. There were a dozen couples on the floor. There were other couples and groups about the walls. It was an ornate room, brilliantly lighted. There was nothing much to differentiate it from any private ballroom; nor, for that matter, was there anything superficial to differentiate these guests from the guests, say, at some large but intimate house party. The girls were attractive. Most of the men were quiet.

Men only interested Craig as he looked about him. He saw the one man he was looking for. Count Wolf stood with a small party, men and women, almost opposite the broad double doors by which Craig entered. Almost at the same instant Count Wolf must have seen Craig.

Craig was fair. The count was dark. Craig was shaven to the tinted marble of his face. The count wore the pointed black beard that had become his treasure and his pride, as well as his principal disguise, since quitting San Pedro. Both Craig and the count were supple, straight, and strong. If it came to a physical encounter, all other things equal, it would be a pretty guess as to which might win.

But Craig, from the first, had resolved that there should be no physical encounter--not if he could help it--not in the usual sense. He was still in the tiger den. He knew that. It would be folly to take his chances with fang and claw.

His entrance had attracted notice. He was aware of this. It was the great Three Sevens who stepped across the room.

Craig never wavered. He stepped up to Count Wolf and squared himself in front of the count. Craig said:

“So there you are, you cur!”

He lifted his open hand. He gave the count a smart slap--not very hard, but swift.

The count let out a snarl. But the attack had been so swift, so surprising, so completely devoid of anything like fear or hesitation, that the count was defeated while Craig’s fingers were still against his cheek.

Craig had something in him that the count didn’t understand, that was as much a mystery to him as the power of an animal trainer is mysterious to a slinking, but deadly, black panther. Perhaps the black panther says to itself in its own way: “I am deadly. I can kill. But here is one creature who ignores that fact. What has he got that is greater?” Had there been a thought like that in the count’s mind, as there was, most likely, Craig could have made a satisfactory answer.

Right then and there, Craig was answering some such problem for himself. He had all the power of civilization back of him. The count didn’t.

There had been a swift recoil, a tensing of nerves and muscles. It was a tension not only of the count, but of those who had been with him--a youth with a snout like a boar, a man of uncertain age who in the passing fancy of the moment might have been a polar bear. The women were drawn back--coiling, one would have said, like cobras and pythons.

There came an added touch to the scene.

The orchestra was not very far away. A moment ago the orchestra had been playing its music for this human menagerie. There was a jangling succession of discords. The music stopped.

“You talk of killing me,” said Craig. His voice was so cold and thin he could hardly recognize it as his own. He looked about him, and took his time about it, but not too much time. “I’ve come to get this man,” he explained. He snapped his eyes back on the count. “Come on with me. Get out of here. Or I’ll kick you out.”

“You’ll answer for this,” said the count.

But his threat was a mockery. He knew it was a mockery. The trouble was that the count couldn’t think--couldn’t think at all except about that thing that Craig had that the count himself couldn’t understand. After all, it’s the mystery that counts--mystery that has always frightened both animals and men, and made the old kings and gods what they were.

“Outside,” said Craig, and he stood aside.

The count was like a man in a vacuum, only it was not mere air that had been pumped away from him; it was that finer thing that all men breathe when in the society of their fellows--sympathy, accord. The count was aware that this crowd, suddenly, was not “with him.” He was a man who had just had his face slapped. And the crowd also was in the presence of this something that it couldn’t understand--a greater strength, a greater skill, a greater fame.

The count drew himself up. He made a last play for dignity.

“We’ll settle this outside,” he said, and started for the door.

But Craig was watchful. His eyes, including the third eye in the top of his head, were everywhere. He was as strong and yet as delicate as a seismograph, ready to note the slightest vibration of the unsettled world about him.

He was watchful in the hall, while that heavy-shouldered, light-handed butler was helping the count into his things, then Craig himself. In the midst of it all, Craig caught an impression of the Marebello smiling at him tropically, from the shadow of the stairs, whereupon he thanked God that he was putting this place back of him forever.

And then, the moment that he and the count were on the steps, and the door clanging back of them like the bronze gates of hell, Craig seized the count in such a crushing grip that the count believed--must have believed--that his end was at hand.