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DOORS OF THE NIGHT
FRANK L. PACKARD


BY FRANK L. PACKARD
DOORS OF THE NIGHT
PAWNED
THE WHITE MOLL
FROM NOW ON
THE NIGHT OPERATOR
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF
JIMMIE DALE
THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE
DALE
THE WIRE DEVILS
THE SIN THAT WAS HIS
THE BELovéd TRAITOR
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
THE MIRACLE MAN
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY


DOORS
OF THE NIGHT
BY
FRANK L. PACKARD
AUTHOR of “PAwNED,” “The white Moll,” “The
NIGHT OPERATOR,” “THE FURTHER ADVEN-
TUREs of JIMMIE DALE,” ETC.
* * * * * * * ~ * * ~ *
- - - - - - -
NEW © YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
wº


Tº rºw YORK
Pºp . . .2RARY
º A Q
349138A
Astok, LENOY AND
TILDEN FOUN DATIONS
R 1928 L.
copyRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
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-- * * * - - e. * * • * =
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PRINTED in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


chapTer
II
III
IV
VI
VII
VIII
IX
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
CoNTENTs
ACROSS THE THRESHold
THE CRIME .
INTO THE UNDERworLD
ALIAS THE RAT .
THE SEcond-HAND DEALER .
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR .
WHISPERING SHADows
A LEASH IS SLIPPED
BEHIND THE Door .
THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE
THE BACK Room. At JERRY's .
A CLUE .
THE CIPHER MESSAGE .
THE ROBBERY .
THE ALIBI .
Twenty-Four HouRs LATER
THE MAN witH THE CRUTCH
MIRRORED YEARs
A Hole IN THE WALL
THE CAT’s-PAw
WITHOUT MERCY . . . .
race
IIO
I24
I35
I5I
I59
I73
183
195
208
217
23O


vi CONTENTS
chapter Page
XXII THE FIGHT . . . . . . . . . . 241
XXIII THE RENDEzvous . . . . . . . . 255
XXIV AGAINST TIME . . . . . . . . . 267
XXV THE OLD WAREHOUSE . . . . . . . .277
XXVI THE LAST PORTAL . . . . . . . . 285


DOORS OF THE NIGHT





DOORS OF THE NIGHT
— I —
ACROSS THE THRESHOLD
of the room before him, as his dark, steady eyes
travelled over the appointments in a sort of meas-
ured approval such as a connoisseur who knew his art
might bestow upon a canvas in which he found no flaw.
The apartment was quite in keeping with everything else
that pertained to the palatial residence in that upper Fifth
Avenue section of New York. The indirect lighting fell
soft and mellow upon the priceless Oriental rug, the massive
desk of dark, carved wood, the wide, inviting leather-up-
holstered chairs, the heavy portières that filled the window
spaces and hung before the doors, the bookshelves that lined
the walls almost ceiling high and that were of the same
dark, polished wood as the desk and chairs. There was
luxury here, and wealth; but it was luxury without osten-
tation, and wealth that typified only good taste and refine-
ment.
He closed the door behind him, and began to pace slowly
up and down the room. And now he frowned a little. He
had dined alone with his employer as usual, for Mrs. Ells-
worth being an invalid was rarely in evidence, and David
Ellsworth usually so genial an old gentleman, had not been
entirely himself. From the pocket of his dinner jacket
Billy Kane took out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette,
and lighted it. Mr. Ellsworth had lingered in the dining
Bº: KANE paused for an instant in the doorway
9


10 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
room, and had said that he would come presently to the
library—that there was a little matter he wished to attend
to. There was nothing strange in that, for they often
worked together here in this room in the evenings, and yet
Billy Kane's puzzled frown deepened. There was some-
thing certainly amiss with the old multi-millionaire to-
night, and that anything should disturb the old philan- .
thropist's tranquillity, except when his sympathies had been
aroused and the man's heart, that was softer than a wom-
an’s, had been touched by some pathetic appeal, was de-
cidedly strange.
Billy Kane continued his pacing up and down the room
in long, athletic strides, the great, broad shoulders squared
back as his hands were thrust into the pockets of his jacket.
It was far more than a feeling of respect or mere liking that
he held for his employer, for there had come esteem for the
old gentleman's sterling qualities, and with the esteem a
sincere affection, and out of it all, very curiously, a sort of
fathering, or protecting interest for this man of millions.
The frown passed away, and Billy Kane smiled a little
whimsically at the somewhat quaint conceit. Fathering!
Nevertheless, it was true! There was scarcely an hour of
the day that some appeal for charity, ranging from a few
cents to many thousands of dollars, was not made upon
David Ellsworth—too many of them spurious, and it was
his, Billy Kane's, self-appointed task to stand between his
employer and these fraudulent attempts. All the world,
at least all the world within reach, seemed to be thor-
oughly conversant with the old gentleman's ask-no-ques-
tions liberality—and to lose no opportunity in taking ad-
vantage of that knowledge | For instance, though here he
was forced to the belief that it was genuinely worthy, there
was the case of the deformed beggar, one Antonio Laverto,
who, during the last week, had taken up his station on the
corner a block away from the house. The beggar had
already secured the old gentleman's attention, and also a
dollar or two every time David Ellsworth passed; in return
for which David Ellsworth had become possessed of a very


12 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
Billy Kane tamped out his cigarette on the edge of an
ash receiver, and stood leaning with his back against the
desk, facing the hall door. Yes, it was a very singular
existence! His new home was veritably a palace, with ser-
vants at every beck and call. His work was not onerous;
and his salary was over-generous. He, in turn, had a
private secretary, or at least a most capable stenographer,
who, having been long in David Ellsworth's employ, took
care of the daily routine; and it was mostly routine as far
as business went, for the millionaire had long since retired
from any active participation in the various interests
through which he had acquired his fortune. But the work,
that is the bulk of it, had now taken on quite a different
angle, due to his, Billy Kane's own initiative, than had
been thought of when he had accepted the position. He
had not been there a week before he had realized that the
old philanthropist was being victimized right and left by
fraudulent appeals for money. It had been sufficient sim-
ply to excite David Ellsworth's sympathy in order to open
the ever-ready purse. David Ellsworth had inquired no
further. He, Billy Kane, but not without protest from the
old gentleman, to whom the loss of the money was nothing,
but to whom the uncovering of some pitiful fraud was a
cause of genuine distress, had instituted a new régime, and
had undertaken to investigate every case on its merits.
The whimsical smile came back to his lips. Born and
brought up in the city, he had imagined that he knew his
New York; but the last three months had opened his eyes
to a new world around him—the world of the Bad Lands,
with its own language, its own customs and its own haunts.
He knew his New York a great deal better now ! Those
three months had brought him into intimate touch with
the dens and dives, and many of the habitués of the under-
world, since it was amongst those surroundings that his
investigations had mainly led him. He had even been in
the heart of that sordid world no later than that afternoon.
Behind his back, Billy Kane's fingers were drumming a
meditative tattoo upon the desk. His train of thought had


ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 13
brought him back to the crippled Italian beggar, Antonio
Laverto. The man was a pitiful looking object enough—
one of those mendicants commonly designated in the ver-
nacular as a “flopper.” His legs were twisted under him
in contorted angles at the knees, and his means of locomo-
tion consisted in lifting himself up on the palms of his
hands and swaying himself painfully along a foot or
so at a time. Laverto's story, told in halting and broken
English, was equally pitiful. The man had been a photog-
rapher, an artist he had called himself, and he had come
to America a few years before from some little town in
Italy, lured by the high prices that he had heard the rich
New World would pay him for his work. But within a
few days of landing he had met with an accident in a tene-
ment fire that had crippled and maimed him for life. He
had been practically destitute, his sole possessions being the
camera and a few of the cherished photographs he had
brought with him. The camera had gone to pay for his
support during convalescence; and subsequently, reduced
to beggary, most of his pictures had gone the same way.
That, in substance, was the Italian's story. Billy Kane
shook his head impatiently. The man bothered him. He
had been frankly skeptical and wholly suspicious at first;
but investigation had only confirmed the man's story. Cer-
tainly, an Italian by that name, newly arrived in the coun-
try, had been badly hurt and crippled in a tenement fire a
few years ago, and had been treated in one of the city
hospitals. That much, at least, he had discovered Also, no
more than a few hours ago, he had gone to Laverto's home
and found the man existing in a small, miserable room on
the East Side, and surrounded by every evidence of squalor
and abject poverty; and the man, he was obliged to confess,
had got his sympathy too. There were two exquisite little
photographs, landscapes, real gems of art, wrapped up in
fold after fold of newspaper. Laverto had shown them to
him, and had told his story again, begging him to buy one
of the pictures—and when he had produced the money the
cripple had drawn his treasures back, and had clutched


14 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
them to his breast, and had cried over them, and finally
had refused to sell at all.
Billy Kane's fingers continued to drum on the desk.
David Ellsworth would undoubtedly want to know about
Laverto to-night—and the man bothered him. He had no
grounds for further suspicion, fairness compelled him to
the admission that the man's story seemed true; and yet,
based on nothing more tangible than intuition, there still
lingered a doubt about the whole matter in his mind.
Billy Kane straightened up from the desk. Jackson, one
of the footmen, had opened the door from the hall, and
David Ellsworth, an immaculate little gray-haired old gen-
tleman, in evening clothes, stepped into the library.
The footman closed the door silently.
David Ellsworth wore glasses. He took them off, pol-
ished them with nervous energy while his blue eyes swept
around the room, fixed on Billy Kane's face, and swept
around the room again. He cleared his throat once or
twice before he spoke.
“I’ve kept you waiting, Billy,” he said abruptly. “You .
must have noticed that I had finished dinner at the same
time as yourself; but I have been very much disturbed and
perplexed all day, and I have been trying to solve a prob-
lem before saying anything to you.”
“I hope there's nothing seriously wrong, sir,” Billy Kane
answered quickly. “May I ask wha 32
“Yes,” said David Ellsworth, a sort of curious reluc-
tance in his voice. He took a letter from his pocket, and
handed it to Billy Kane. “It’s this.”
Billy Kane opened the letter—and, staring at the type-
written words on the sheet in his hand, suddenly an angry
red tinged his cheeks and mounted to his temples. His eyes
mechanically travelled over the lines again:
Like father like son may be an old adage, but like a
good many old adages its face value is not always to be
relied upon. It might pay you to keep an eye on your
confidential secretary—and on the contents of your vault.
A Friend.


ACROSS THE THRESHOLD I5
Billy Kane laid the letter down upon the desk without
a word—but his lips were tight.
“You understand, Billy,” said the old millionaire eagerly,
“that the only reason why I did not show this to you im-
mediately when I received it this morning was because
I wanted, if possible, to formulate a definite conclu-
sion as to the motive that prompted the writing of the
contemptible thing. You understand, my boy, don't you?
I could talk to you then about it without hurting you. As
for the actual letter itself, there is, of course, but one
answer, and that is—this!”
David Ellsworth reached out for the letter—but Billy
Kane had already picked it up.
“You were going to tear it up, sir,” he said deliberately.
“I’d rather you wouldn't. There may be a chance some day
of showing this to the cur who wrote it—and I wouldn't like
to lose that chance.”
“Then keep it, by all means !” agreed David Ellsworth.
He nodded his head in vigorous assent, as Billy Kane re-
stored the letter to its envelope, and placed the letter in the
pocket of his dinner jacket. “So much for that! But
what do you make of it, Billy?”
“It's object is obvious enough,” Billy Kane replied sav-
agely. “Somebody appears to have it in for me.”
David Ellsworth was polishing his glasses again.
“You’ve told me that I was the most guileless man you
ever knew, Billy,” he said, shaking his head slowly; “and
perhaps I am, and then again perhaps I’m not—and per-
haps it isn't always because I’m guileless that I close my
eyes to many things. But I guess, after all, that I can peer
as far through a stone wall as the next man. I’ve had to
do some pretty stiff peering in the days gone by to get the
few millions together that I’ve got now. I mention this,
Billy, so that you may not confuse my idiosyncrasies with
—well, whatever you like to call it. Those dollars, my boy,
didn't just drop into my hands—they were thought there.
And so you think that letter means someone has it in for
you? Think a little deeper, Billy.”


16 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“I don't quite follow you,” said Billy Kane, in a puzzled
way.
“And yet it is quite simple—although I’ve spent a day
over it!” returned the old millionaire, with a wry smile.
“I have known you from a child. Nothing has ever oc-
curred to shake my confidence in you. The person who
wrote that letter was obviously acquainted with my past
friendship for your father and my long knowledge of your-
self, and, with nothing to back it up, he would be a madman
indeed who would expect a scurrilous missive such as that
to have any weight with me. Am I right—or wrong,
Billy?”
“Well; yes, sir—I suppose you're right,” Billy Kane
answered.
“I am sure I am,” declared the old gentleman decisively.
“Quite sure of it! But suppose, Billy, that to-morrow, or
at any time subsequent to my having received that letter,
something did occur here—what then?”
The old millionaire's face was grave. Billy Kane leaned
sharply forward.
“What do you mean?” he questioned in a startled tone.
“Sit down there at the desk, Billy, and I'll tell you,” said
David Ellsworth; and then, as Billy Kane obeyed, he stepped
swiftly across the room, opened the hall door, looked out,
closed the door softly again, and from there walked to one
of the two doors at the lower end of the room, opened this,
looked into the room beyond, and closed it again.
Billy Kane watched the other in frank amazement. The
door that David Ellsworth had just opened was the door of
the “office”—the room that during working hours, which
were from ten to five, was occupied by the stenographer.
True, the room opened on the back hallway and had a
separate entrance from the courtyard in the rear, an en-
trance always used by the stenographer, but it was always
locked by Peters, the butler, at night, and he, Billy Kane,
had the only other key.
David Ellsworth returned, and halted before Billy Kane's
chair.


ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 17
“No, I am not in my second childhood, Billy,” he said
quietly. “That letter was certainly not written without a
purpose; and yet from every angle that I have been able
to view it, except one, it would have been exactly that—
without purpose. I believe it is the first step in a carefully
laid plan that will divert, or fix, suspicion upon you.”
Billy Kane shook his head in perplexity.
“A plan?” he repeated. “I don't understand.”
David Ellsworth's only reply was to jerk his head sig-
nificantly toward the other of the two doors at the end of
the room.
Mechanically Billy Kane followed the direction of the
gesture with his eyes; and then he was on his feet, his face
suddenly grim and set.
“My God!” he murmured under his breath. “You
mean—”
“Yes,” said David Ellsworth evenly. “Why not? I
couldn't tell you myself exactly how much those stones in
there are worth, but they are ranked as one of the most
valuable single collections of rubies in existence, and cer-
tainly the figures would run somewhere between two and
three hundred thousand dollars. Besides, there's always
a little cash there—you know better than I do precisely how
much at the present moment.”
“Fourteen thousand five hundred odd,” Billy Kane
answered automatically.
“Quite so!” nodded the old millionaire. “Well, it's worth
it, isn't it, Billy? I've never been afraid of any ordinary
cracksman's attempt against that vault; but, if I am right
now, this wouldn't be any ordinary attempt. I believe we
are dealing with—brains. I believe, further, that instead of
you and I being the only ones who know the combinations,
as we have imagined, they are known to someone else.
Suppose, then, that the vault is found empty some morning?
I immediately recall to mind that letter. I remember that
you are the only one to whom I have confided the combi-
nations. And suppose that some additional clue pointing


18 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
to you is left on the scene of the robbery? It would look
pretty black for you, Billy, would it not? Naturally the
stolen stones and money would not be found in your posses-
sion; but the plain, logical supposition would be that, not
being a fool, and believing that you were above suspicion,
you had secreted the proceeds of the robbery, and were pur-
suing what you considered the safest course—that is, to
brazen it out and indignantly proclaim your innocence. The
object of all this, of course, being immunity for the real
authors of the crime, for if you were accused and convicted
it is obvious that the police would look no further and con-
sider the case closed.” -
Billy Kane did not reply for a moment. He had been
startled at first, but now he was conscious rather of a slight
sense of inward amusement. The old millionaire's deduc-
tions were, of course, plausible and possible; but, also, they
appeared to be a little labored, a little far-fetched, a little
visionary. Apart from being based on a premise that en-
tailed somewhat elaborate preparations, there was one very
weak point in the old gentleman's argument. The com-
binations being known only to the two of them, David
Ellsworth had failed to explain how, or where the combi-
nations had been obtained by a third party; and Billy Kane
was even more than ever confirmed in his mind that there
was a very much simpler, and a very much more creditable
motive for that letter—spite. Through his efforts there
was more than one none too reputable a character who
otherwise would have partaken liberally of the old philan-
thropist's bounty; and that was probably the secret of the
letter. That the day's cogitations of David Ellsworth had
resulted in the discovery of a mare's nest was the way it
struck Billy Kane now; but if the old gentleman found sat-
isfaction in his deductions, he, Billy Kane, was of no mind
to dispute them. There was nothing to be gained by it, and
on occasions he had known even David Ellsworth to grow
stubborn and most unpleasantly irascible.
“You may be right, sir,” Billy Kane said deliberately.


ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 19
David Ellsworth's two hands fell on Billy Kane's shoul-
ders, and pressed him back into his chair again.
“So you think I may be right, do you?” There was a
twinkle in the blue eyes. “Tut, tut! You can't fool the
old man, Billy, my boy! What you really think is that I've
got a brain storm. But”—his voice grew suddenly grave
and agitated—“I know I’m right, Billy—I feel it. I'm as
sure now, as though it had already happened. But we'll
beat them, my boy! Take your pen, and a blank card—
there are some in the top drawer there. Being forewarned,
all that's necessary is to change the combinations. And I
guess that will be an answer to their letter that they didn't
expect!”
David Ellsworth was already across the room. Billy
Rane took a small blank card from the drawer of the desk,
picked up a pen, and, without comment, turned in his chair
to watch the other. After all, little as he shared the old
millionaire's alarm, the changing of the vault's combina-
tion was a precaution well worth while under any circum-
stances. If it even became a habit, so much the better!
The portières were swung back now, the innocent looking
door that matched the others in the room was opened, and
the nickel-plated knobs and dials of the massive steel inner
door glistened in the light. Came a faint musical tinkle,
as the dial whirred under David Ellsworth's fingers; then,
presently, a soft metallic thud, as the old millionaire swung
the handle over and the bolts shot back. The heavy door
moved slightly inward, there was the click of an electric-
light switch, the vault was flooded with light, and from
where he sat Billy Kane could see into the interior. It was
as large as a small sized room, and built of the finest steel
throughout. Steel shelves piled with document cases lined
the vault, and at the far end was a huge safe of the most
modern and perfected design. Billy Kane smiled a little to
himself. In one thing, at least, that David Ellsworth had
said, the old millionaire had indubitably been justified. The
vault was as impregnable as human ingenuity and skill


20 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
could make it, and there was very little indeed to be feared
from any ordinary attempt upon it.
A few minutes passed while David Ellsworth worked
with the key used for changing the combination and with
the mechanism on the inner side of the door, and then he
began to call out a series of numbers. Billy Kane jotted
them down on the card.
“We'll test it now—call them back,” said David Ells-
worth; and then, as Billy Kane obeyed: “All right, Billy.
Now we'll do the same thing with the safe.”
He moved down to the end of the vault, spent a moment
or two over the safe's dial; and, as this door in turn was
swung open, Billy Kane caught a glimpse of the tiers of
plush-lined trays that held the famous ruby collection, and
of the score of packages of banknotes that lay neatly piled
in the compartments inside the safe.
Again David Ellsworth called out a series of numbers,
and as before tested the new combination; and then, from
beside the open door of the safe, he spoke abruptly:
“Before I lock up again, Billy, what about our friend
Laverto? You went down there this afternoon, I believe?”
“Yes,” Billy Kane answered—and frowned. “But there's
no hurry about it, is there? I’m bound to confess that his
story seems to be straight enough, and that I can't find any-
thing wrong, but 3.2 *
David Ellsworth chuckled suddenly, as he reached inside
the safe and took out a package of banknotes.
“You’ve been laughing at me up your sleeve for fussing
around with those combinations, my boy—I know you have.
But you're the old woman of the two, Billy. If you couldn't
find anything wrong, I guess everything is all right. If it
isn't”—he chuckled again, as he closed and locked the safe—
“it would do my heart good to see someone put something
over on you!”
The light in the vault went out. The vault door was
closed and locked, the outer door shut, the portières drawn
back into place, and David Ellsworth, coming back across
the room, dropped the package of banknotes on the desk.


ACROSS THE THRESHOLD 21
“Take 'em to him, Billy,” he smiled; “and take 'em to him
now. He'll have twelve hours more joy out of life than if
you waited until to-morrow morning.” He picked up the
card upon which Billy Kane had written the combinations,
and placed it in his pocket. “You’ve got a better memory
than I have, Billy,” he observed, “and I guess you've got
this down pat now; but I'm afraid I’ll have to study the
memo over a few times before I take a chance on destroying
it.”
Billy Kane was paying little attention to the other's
words; he was riffling the banknotes through his fingers—
they were of all denominations, from hundred-dollar bills
down to fives. It was, in fact, a package of loose bills that
he remembered having counted that morning.
“Do you happen to know how much there is here, Mr.
Ellsworth?” he inquired abruptly.
“Not precisely”—David Ellsworth peered over the rims
of his glasses at the package—“but I should say around a
couple of thousand dollars. I—er—promised him that, if
he turned out to be deserving, and I’d—”
“There are two thousand dollars here exactly,” said Billy
Kane a little curtly. “What I understood that you prom-
ised him was that you would start him up in life again, but
it doesn't require two thousand dollars to start a man of
his type going as a photographer.”
“H’m I Don't you think so, Billy?” David Ellsworth's
blue eyes were twinkling, and he was drawling his words.
“Well, let's see? Now, first of all, judging from the photo-
graphic landscape he showed me, the man's a real artist,
and he ought to have the best of tools to work with. A
good lens is a rather expensive commodity. I'm not much
up on photographic apparatus, but I'll bet you could pay
as high as a thousand dollars for one outfit. And then
there's all the paraphernalia, and a little place to furnish,
and a little something to keep things going until returns
come in. Two thousand dollars—shucks, my boy! Indeed
as a matter of fact, now that you call my attention to it and


22 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
I come to think it over, Billy, I'm not sure that two thou-
sand dollars is »y
And then Billy Kane laughed, and picked up the money,
and went to the door.
“All right, sir, I’ll go—at once,” he said, laughing again.


— II —
THE CRIME
his dinner clothes into a dark tweed suit, a very
less noticeable attire for that neighborhood where
Antonio Laverto had his miserable home, and choosing a
slouch hat, left the house. A bus took him down Fifth
Avenue to Washington Square, and from there, crossing
over Broadway, he continued on down the Bowery.
It was still early; and it was as though the night world
here had not yet awakened from its day's slumber. The
“gape wagons” had not yet begun to bring their slumming
parties to rub shoulders with the flotsam and jetsam of the
underworld, and to shudder in pharisaical horror at
“planted” fakes; true, the ubiquitous gasoline lamps glowed
in useless yellow spots against the entirely adequate street
lighting in front of many shops of all descriptions, and the
pavements were alive with men, women and children of
every conceivable nationality and station in life, but—Billy
Kane smiled a little grimly, for he had learned a great deal,
a very great deal in the last three months, about this section
of his city—it was still early, and it was not yet the Bowery
of the night.
Some half dozen blocks along, Billy Kane turned into a
cross street and headed deeper into the East Side.
And now Billy Kane's forehead drew together in puck-
ered furrows, as he approached the lodging of Antonio
Laverto, the cripple. In the inside pocket of his vest were
two thousand dollars in cash, for the outlay of which, in
spite of the old millionaire's attitude in reference to it, he,
Billy Kane, held himself morally responsible. The frown
U: in his room Billy Kane changed from
23


24 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
deepened. It was strange, very strange! He had logically
convinced himself that Laverto's was a worthy case—but
the intuition that something was wrong would not down,
and the nearer he approached the miserable and squalid
dwelling in which the Italian lived, the stronger that in-
tuition grew.
And then Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders. He could
at least put the case to one more test, and if Laverto came
through that all right that was the end of it, and the man got
the money. Laverto would certainly not anticipate another
visit this evening, so soon after the one of the afternoon;
and if he could come unawares upon the man, and observe
the other unawares perhaps, the chances were decidedly in
favor of Laverto being caught napping if he were sailing
under false colors.
Billy Kane, reaching his destination, paused in front of a
tumble-down and dilapidated frame house, and glanced
around him. The little side street here was dirty and ill-
lighted, but populous enough. Small shops, many of them
basement shops with cavernous, cellar-like entrances open-
ing from the sidewalk, lined both sides of the street; for
the rest, it was simply a matter of two rows of flanking,
dingy tenements and old houses—save for the usual saloon,
whose window lights were bright enough on the corner
ahead.
The house door was wide open, and Billy Kane, pulling
his slouch hat down over his eyes, stepped into the dark
unlighted interior. The place was a hive of poverty, a
miserable lodging house of the cheapest class; and the air
was close, almost fetid, and redolent with the smell of gar-
lic. How many humans eked out an existence here Billy
Kane did not know; but, though he knew them to be woe-
fully many, for he had seen a great number of them on his
visit here that afternoon, the only evidence of occupancy
now was the occasional petulant cry of a child from some-
where in the darkness, and a constant murmuring hum of
voices from behind closed doors.
Antonio Laverto's room was the second one on the


THE CRIME 25
right of the passage. Billy Kane moved quietly forward
to the door, and stood there in the blackness for a moment
listening. There was no sound from within; nor was there
any light seeping through the keyhole or the door panels,
which later, he remembered, were badly cracked. Satisfied
that the cripple, unless he were asleep, was not inside, Billy
Kane tried the door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it
silently, and stepped into the room.
He lighted a match, held it above his head, and glanced
around him. It was a pitiful abode, pitiful enough to excite
anyone's sympathy—as it had his own that afternoon.
There was a cot in one corner with a thin, torn blanket for
covering, a rickety chair, and an old deal table on which
stood a cracked pitcher and wash basin, and the remains of
a small loaf of bread.
The match went out, and Billy Kane retreated to the door,
and from the door to the street again. It was pretty bad
in there, and evidently just as genuinely on the ragged edge
of existence as it had been that afternoon—but still the per-
sistent doubt in his mind would not down. It was a sort
of dog in the manger feeling, and he did not like it, and it
irritated him—but it clung tenaciously.
He lighted a cigarette, and, frowning, flipped the match
stub away from him. In any case, he had to find the man
before he went home, whether it resulted in his paying
over the two thousand dollars or not. His eye caught the
lighted window of the saloon, and he started abruptly for-
ward in that direction. If there was anything at all in his
suspicions, the saloon was the most likely place in the neigh-
borhood where they would be verified; but in any event,
the barkeeper, who probably knew everyone in the locality
better than anyone else, could possibly supply at least a sug-
gestion as to where the Italian spent his evenings and might
be found.
Billy Kane chose the side entrance to the saloon—it would
probably afford him a preliminary inspection of the place
without being observed himself—and entered. He found
himself in a passageway that was meagerly lighted by a gas


26 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
jet, and that turned sharply at right angles a few steps
ahead. He reached the turn in the passage, and halted sud-
denly, as a voice, curiously muffled, reached him. The pas-
sage here ahead of him, some four or five yards in length,
was lighted by another gas jet, and terminated in swinging
doors leading to the barroom; but halfway down its length,
in a little recess, most thoughtfully situated for the privacy
and convenience of the saloon's perhaps none too reputable
clientele, was a telephone booth.
Billy Kane drew back, and protected from view by the
angle of the passage while he could still see the telephone
booth himself quite plainly, stood motionless. The booth,
like a good many others, was by no means sound-proof,
and the voice, though muffled seemed strangely familiar to
him. Billy Kane's brows drew together sharply. Through
the glass panel of the upper portion of the booth he could
see the figure of a man of about his own height, and he
could see, as the man stood a little sideways with his lips to
the transmitter, the man's profile.
And then Billy Kane, with a grim smile, reached sud-
denly up to the gas jet over his head and turned it out. This
left him in darkness and made no appreciable diminution
in the lighting of the passage leading to the barroom. The
man who stood upright in the booth at full height, and who
was speaking most excellent English, was Antonio Laverto,
the maimed and broken cripple whose pitiful and heart-
rending story had been so laboriously told in the few halting
and hardly understandable words at his command
And now, Billy Kane, listening, could make out snatches
of what the man was saying.
“. . . That's none of your business, and I guess the less
you know about it the better for yourself. . . . What?
. . . Yes, Marco's—the second-hand clothes dealer . . .
What? . . . Yes, sure—by the lane . . . The back door's
got a broken lock—it's never been fixed since he moved in
two weeks ago. All you got to do is walk in. It's a cinch
. . . Sure, that's right—that's all you got to do. Marco
don't keep open in the evening and besides he's away, you


THE CRIME 27
don't need to worry about that. . . . Eh? . . . No, there
won't be no come-back. . . . You pull the break the way I
tell you, and you get a hundred dollars in the morning . . .
What? . . . All right then, but don't make any mistake.
You got to be out of there before a quarter of eleven! Get
me? Before a quarter of eleven—that's all I care, and
that's give you all the time you want. . . . Eh P . . . Yes—
sure. . . . Good-night.”
The grim smile was still on Billy Kane's lips, as he
crouched back against the wall. The door of the telephone
booth opened, and Laverto stuck his head out furtively.
The little black eyes, staring out of the thin, swarthy face,
glanced up and down the passageway, and then the head
seemed to shrink into the shoulders, the body to collapse,
and, with legs twisted and dragging under him, there came
the flop-flop of the palms of the man's hands on the bare
wooden flooring, as he started along the passageway.
But Billy Kane was already at the side door of the
saloon—and an instant later he had swung around the street
corner, and was heading briskly back in the direction of
the Bowery. He laughed shortly, as his hand automatically
crept into his inside pocket. The two thousand dollars were
still there—and they would stay there! His intuition, after
all, had not been at fault. The man was a vicious and
damnable fraud, and, as a logical corollary to that fact,
was moreover a dangerous and clever criminal. What was
this “break” that was to be “pulled” at Marco's before a
quarter of eleven P
Quite mechanically Billy Kane looked at his watch. He and
David Ellsworth had dined early, and it was even now barely
eight o'clock. Billy Kane's face hardened, as he walked
along, reached the Bowery, and, by the same route he had
come, gained Washington Square, and swung onto a Fifth
Avenue bus. Why Marco's 2 There was surely nothing
worth while there! Marco's was little more than a rag shop.
He happened to know Marco, because on the corner next
to the tumble-down place that, as Laverto had said, Marco
had rented a week or so ago, there was a small notion shop


28 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
kept by an old Irish widow by the name of Clancy, where,
more than once on his visits to the East Side, he had dropped
in to buy a paper or a package of cigarettes. Why Marco's?
It puzzled him. The old white-bearded, stoop-shouldered
dealer did not seem to have much that was worth stealing!
The bus jolted on up the Avenue. Billy Kane shifted his
position uneasily on the somewhat uncomfortably hard seat
on the top of the bus. His first impulse had been to con-
front Laverto on the spot, but quick on the heels of that
impulse had come a better plan. With rope enough the
man would hang himself. If there was anything in this
Marco affair, a robbery as was indicated, Marco would ob-,
viously report it to the police as soon as it was discovered,
and he, Billy Kane, being in possession of the evidence that
would convict its author, would then be in a position to put
an end, for a good many years at least, to Laverto's criminal
career; and besides this, there was David Ellsworth—he
did not want to wound or hurt the other's finer sensibilities,
but that David Ellsworth should see Laverto for himself in
the latter's true colors was essential, for it would and must
make the old philanthropist in the future less the victim of
that over-generous and spontaneous sympathy which was so
easily excited by those who preyed upon him.
The thought of David Ellsworth brought back again the
thought of David Ellsworth's anonymous letter. Billy Kane
lighted a cigarette, and smoked it savagely. It was someone
of the same breed as Antonio Laverto, and for the same
reason that Laverto would soon have for revenge, who had
written that letter. He was quite sure of that in his own
mind. What else, indeed, could it be? Not David Ells-
worth's explanation' That was entirely too chimerical!
One by one he reviewed the cases where he had uncovered
fraudulent attempts upon the old millionaire's charity during
the past three months; but, while more than one was con-
cerned with characters vicious, dissolute and criminal
enough, not one seemed to dovetail into the niche in which
he sought to fit it.
A second cigarette followed the first, and his mind was


THE CRIME 29
still busy with his problem, as he pressed the button at the
side of his seat, clambered down the circular iron ladder at
the rear of the bus, stepped to the sidewalk as the bus drew
up to the curb, and stood waiting for the bus to pass on—
David Ellsworth's residence was on the first corner down
the cross street on the other side of the Avenue. The bus
creaked protestingly into motion, and Billy Kane, in the act
of stepping from the curb to cross the Avenue, paused sud-
denly, instead, as a voice spoke behind him.
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Kane, sir, may I speak to you
for a moment?”
Billy Kane turned around abruptly. He stared at the
other in surprise. It was Jackson, the footman.
“Why yes, of course. But what on earth are you doing
out here, Jackson?” he demanded a little sharply.
“I was waiting for you, sir,” the man answered hurriedly.
“I knew you'd gone out, Mr. Kane; and I knew I couldn't
miss you here, sir, when you came back, as you always
come by the Avenue, sir. And, begging your pardon again,
sir, would you mind if we didn't stand here? You wouldn't
take offense, sir, if we went in by the garage driveway
where we could be alone for a minute, sir?”
Billy Kane eyed the man critically. Jackson, immaculate
in his livery, appeared to be quite himself; but Jackson at
times had been known to possess a greater fondness for a
bottle than was good for him.
“What is it, Jackson?” he demanded still more sharply.
“Did Mr. Ellsworth send you here?”
“No, sir; he didn't,” the man answered nervously. “But,
if you please, Mr. Kane, sir, that is, if you don't mind, sir,
I’d rather wait until—”
“Very well, Jackson'" Billy Kane interrupted curtly.
“I suppose you have a reason for your rather strange re-
quest. Come along, then, and I'll listen to what you have to
say.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the man earnestly.
They crossed the Avenue, passed down the cross street,
turned the corner, and a moment later, entering by the gar-


THE CRIME 31
and sprawled upon the floor lay the figure of a white-haired
man, only the hair was blotched with a great crimson stain
—and it was David Ellsworth. And something came chok-
ing into Billy Kane's throat, and a blinding mist before his
eyes shut out the sight.
“In Heaven's name, don't go in there, sir!” Jackson was
beside him again, whispering in his ear, and pulling the
door softly shut. “Don’t, sir—don't go—they'll get you!”
“Get—met What do you mean?” Billy Kane whirled
on the man.
“For the love of God, sir,” pleaded Jackson, “don’t speak
so loud! I'm risking my neck for you, as it is, sir. There's
a couple of plain-clothesmen waiting up in your room, sir,
hiding there, and there's another two hiding in the front
hall.”
“Are you mad, Jackson?” Billy Kane's voice was low
enough now in its blank amazement.
“I’m telling you the truth, sir,” Jackson whispered tensely.
“They’ve got you dead to rights, sir. There ain't a chance,
except to run for it—and that's what I’d do, sir, if I were
you, Mr. Kane. I didn't mean you to enter the house at all,
but you acted so quick I couldn't stop you.”
Billy Kane's two hands fell in an iron grip on the other's
shoulders, and in the darkness he bent his head forward
to stare into the man's face and eyes.
“You mean, Jackson,” he said hoarsely, “that you believe
I did that?”
The man wriggled himself free from Billy Kane's grip.
“It's not for me to say sir,” he answered uneasily. “I—
I can only tell you what they say.”
“Tell me, then I’’ Billy Kane's voice, low as it was, was
deadly in its even, monotonous tone. -
“Yes, sir,” said Jackson. “Keep your ear close to my
lips, sir If anyone hears us, it's all up. They found him,
Mr. Ellsworth, sir, lying there dead in the library with his
head split open, about half an hour after you went out, sir.
You were with him in the library after dinner alone, sir;
and no one was with him after that, and—don't grip me


32 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
again like that, sir, or I can't go on. You don't know your
own strength, sir, Mr. Kane.”
“Go on, Jackson 1" breathed Billy Kane. “I’m sorry!
Go on!”
“Yes, sir; thank you, sir. It was Peters, the butler, sir,
who found the body, and he sent for the police. Mrs.
Ellsworth doesn't know anything about it yet, sir. They're
afraid to tell her, she's so delicate and sick, sir. It was
about half an hour after you went out, sir, as I said, that
Peters went to see Mr. Ellsworth about something, and
found him there like you just saw, sir. And then the police
came, sir, and they figured that you did it before you went
out, and that you went out to dispose of the money and
jewels, sir, in some safe place, and maybe also as a sort of
alibi like, so that they'd think it was done while you were
away, sir, and that when you returned, if you did return,
sir, you would profess horror and surprise, sir.”
“Are you mad, Jackson!” Billy Kane said again.
“No, sir—you'll see, sir—they've got you dead to rights.
Both the vault and safe doors were open, and the money
and rubies gone, and on the floor of the vault, way in by the
wall under the lower shelf, like it had fluttered in there
without you noticing it, sir, was a card with the combi-
nations on it, and it was in your handwriting, Mr. Kane, sir.
And in Mr. Ellsworth's hand, clutched there tight, sir, was
a little piece of black silk cord, and on the floor, under the
table, sir, where it must have rolled without you knowing
it, sir, was a black button.”
“I don't understand.” said Billy Kane, a little numbly
now. There had been something grotesquely absurd, some-
thing in the nature of a ghastly, hideous and ill-timed joke,
something that was literally the phantasm of a diseased
brain in the murmur of this man's voice whispering out of
the darkness; but there was creeping upon him now a pre-
science as of some deadly and remorseless thing that was
closing down, around and upon him with inexorable and
crushing force. “I don't understand,” he said again.
“Yes, sir.” Jackson's low, guarded voice went on. “It’s


THE CRIME 33.
not for me to say, sir. You'll remember, Mr. Kane, that you
were wearing a dinner jacket, and that before going out
you went up to your room and changed. I suppose it was
excitement, sir, and you never noticed it, and it's not to be
wondered at under the circumstances, sir. The button had
been pulled off the jacket, sir, and had taken the black silk
loop with it. And the button had rolled under the library
table, Mr. Kane, sir, and the loop was clutched in Mr. Ells-
worth's hand.” -
Billy Kane said no word. There was a strange whirling
in his brain. Some insidious and abhorrent thing was ob-
sessing his consciousness, but in some way it was not fully
born yet, nor concrete, nor tangible. He raised his hand
and brushed it across his eyes.
“But that’s not all, Mr. Kane, sir.” The whispering
voice was coming out of the darkness again, and it seemed
curiously fraught with implacability, as though, not content
with its unendurable torture, it must torment the more.
“They found a letter in the pocket of your dinner jacket,
Mr. Kane. It was a letter addressed to Mr. Ellsworth,
which the police figure you must have intercepted so that
he wouldn't see it, you being the one who opens the mail,
sir. It was a letter warning him to look out for you, sir.”
And now it had come like a flash, the clearing of Billy
Kane's brain, and now it was brutally clear, clear beyond
any possibility of misunderstanding; and, as a man walking
in a fog that had suddenly lifted, he found himself reeling,
in the full consciousness of its horror, on the brink of a
yawning chasm.
“My God!” he cried heavily. “This is damnable !
I—”
“Keep quiet, sir!” implored Jackson frantically. “They'll
hear you! If you care anything about a chance for your
life, don't make a sound. The police figured that you would
do one of three things, sir. They figured that after you had
hidden the loot somewhere, you would walk back here as
though nothing had happened, and pretend innocence, not
knowing about that button and the cord, sir; and so there's


34 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
a couple of them waiting for you in the front hall, sir. Or
they thought that you might discover you had lost the card
with the combinations written on it and remember the letter
in your dinner-jacket pocket, sir, and try to get back unob-
served, just as you've come in now, sir, and hoping that
the murder hadn't been discovered in the meantime, try to
recover the card and the letter before you played any other
game; and they meant to let you, sir, only, as I told you,
there's a couple more hiding up in your room, and you
couldn't step into the library without the fellows in front
seeing you. Or they thought you might just simply make a
break for it, make your getaway, sir, and never come back
at all; and so there's an alarm out, and your description, sir,
in every precinct in the city, and all the railway stations are
being watched. But that's your only chance, sir, to run for
it.”
It was silent here in the great house, ominously, strangely
silent; and the silence grew heavy, and grew loud with great
palpitating throbs that hammered at the ear drums—and
then, in the distance, from the other side of the door in
the long passage leading to the front of the house, faint but
nevertheless distinct, there came the sound of an approach-
ing footstep.
“There's someone coming!” whispered Jackson wildly.
“Run for it, sir—while you’ve got the chance!”
Billy Kane's lips were thinned into a hard, straight line.
Run for it! He had never run from anything in all his
life! And now his brain was working in a sort of lightning
debate, battling it out—logic that bade him go, against that
finer sense that bids a brave man drop where he stands
rather than turn his back.
Still nearer came that footstep.
“Run!” prompted Jackson again. “In another minute it
will be too late!”
Billy Kane's hands were clenched until the nails bit into
the flesh. David Ellsworth had been right. That letter was
but part of a deliberate plot; and the plot had been framed
with hellish ingenuity, not only to secure the fortune in


THE CRIME 35
the vault, but, safeguarding its authors, to fix irrevocably the
guilt upon someone else, upon him, Billy Kane. Not a
loophole for escape had been left, every detail had been
worked out with a devil's craft; the evidence was damning,
incontrovertible, and if, in spite of all, there might still
have lingered a doubt in any jury's mind, he, Billy Kane,
by an ironic trick of fate had
“Run, I tell you!” came Jackson's voice again. “Run,
or—” And then Jackson's voice lost its deference, and his
whisper was like the snarl of a savage beast—the door along
the passage was opening. “You damn fool! I gave you
your chance, and you wouldn't take it—now take this!”
Billy Kane reeled suddenly back from the impact, as the
man sprang viciously upon him—and for a moment again
his brain groped blindly in confusion, even as he fought.
Jackson was yelling wildly at the top of his voice.
“Help! Here he is Quick! Help! I’ve caught him!”


—III—
INTO THE UNDERWORLD
thrown a dim glow along the rear of the passage, and
Jackson, in his onslaught, had missed what was evi-
dently intended for a throathold, and his hands, slipping
down, had caught at and bunched the shoulders of Billy
Kane's coat. But now Billy Kane was in action. His arms,
straightened, shot back behind him—and the coat alone was
in Jackson's hands.
With an oath, the man dropped the coat to the floor, and
wrenched a revolver from his pocket. But there was light
enough to see now—to see the murder in the other's eyes—
and to see something there as well that brought a surging
fury whipping through Billy Kane's veins.
“You devil! I understand it now!” he gritted, as he
snatched and gripped at the other's wrist.
Jackson was twisting, squirming, fighting like a maniac.
“Help!” he shrieked. “Help! Here he is!”
Cries and shouts answered the man. There came the
sound of racing feet. Then a blinding flash—a wild scream.
And Jackson, the revolver going off in his hands as they
struggled, sagged limply, and, with the revolver clattering
against the wall, slid to the floor—and Billy Kane, with a
bound, was through the back door, and leaping down the
steps to the courtyard.
There was no question in his mind now as to whether
he should run for it, or not. Jackson was one of the mur-
derers . . . there must . . . be others. . . . Jackson could
hardly have staged it all alone . . . but to remain there and
be caught was but to play into their hands! His brain was
I had been dark before the opening of the door had
36


INTO THE UNDERWORLD 37
working in flashes swift beyond any measure of time. If
there could still have remained a lingering doubt favorable
to him in any jury's mind, fate had played him an ironic
trick that would dispel any such doubt instantly. He had
two thousand dollars of the money from that vault in his
vest pocket at that moment! And to be caught there, having
presumably gained entrance stealthily by the rear door,
would condemn him out of hand. To run, too, was to con-
demn him, that was their hell's snare that they had laid for
him . . . but there was a chance this way! A rage that was
merciless was upon him now. There was a chance this
way . . . one chance . . . the only chance, not alone of
saving his own life and clearing his own name, but of
bringing to justice the inhuman fiends who had taken David
Ellsworth's life . . . there was a chance . . . one chance . . .
this way . . . that someone would pay . . . if he, Billy
Kane, lived, that someone would pay!
There came a short, curt shout from behind him, an im-
perative order to halt He had gained the courtyard now,
and was running along the garage driveway, heading for the
street. He glanced back over his shoulder. In the dark-
ness he could just make out a number of shadowy forms
rushing down the steps.
The order came again. Then the tongue-flame of a revol-
ver split through the black. And as though a red hot iron
had been laid suddenly across his left shoulder, Billy Kane
gritted his teeth together in pain—and stumbled—and recov-
ered himself—and plunged out through the driveway gates
to the street.
Halfway down the block, he remembered, was an alley-
way; and, running like a deer now, Billy Kane again glanced
behind him. Forms, a great many of them, though perhaps
his fancy exaggerated the number, were pouring out into
the street in pursuit. The men servants had evidently joined
forces with the detectives; and yelling hoarsely, a pack of
human hounds in cry, with the blood-scent in their nostrils,
were some twenty-five to thirty yards behind.
How curiously warm his shoulder was He clapped his


INTO THE UNDERWORLD 39
silently, raised himself to the top of the fence once more.
He had counted on just this exactly, it was simply what was
naturally to be expected, and he knew no elation on that
score. The chance, the one chance he had, still lay ahead
of him, and was still to be taken—and to be taken without
an instant's loss of time before the neighborhood became
aroused to the extent of pouring curiously out-of-doors.
Across the intervening street the alleyway extended in the
opposite direction, and if he could gain the other side,
double on his tracks, he would, for the time being at least,
be safe. -
The sound of the pursuit came from well down the alley-
way now, and the pursuers were lost to sight in the black-
ness. He swung himself over the fence, dropped without a
sound into the alleyway, and keeping close against the fence,
crept forward to the edge of the street.
And then Billy Kane's lips moved in a silent prayer of
fervent thankfulness for that quiet and sedate neighborhood
that had not instantly responded to the disturbance. It had
seemed hours, of course, since that shot had been fired at him
in the courtyard of David Ellsworth's home, but in reality
he knew that it could scarcely have been much more than a
minute ago. The street, to all appearances, was deserted;
and Billy Kane, quick now, running again, darted out from
the lane; and, mindful that if he crossed the street in a
direct line, he would be in the light, and that any one of
those in the alleyway behind who might chance to look back
would see him, made a slight detour, and a moment later
gained the alleyway again where it continued on from the
opposite side of the street.
He ran on now breathlessly. It had been raining hard
that morning, and the ground under foot was soft and slip-
pery. He reeled once, and fell—and rose splattered with
grime and mud. He laughed again, but his laugh was des-
perate now. It had been bad enough before—coatless, and
with a blood-soaked shirt—but his appearance must be dis-
reputable beyond description now, so disreputable that he
would attract instant suspicion the moment he were seen by


40 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
anyone, and this quite apart even from the fact that before
very long the net spread for the “murderer” of David Ells-
worth would widen, and every man and woman abroad in
that great city to-night would automatically become allies of
the police in apprehending him.
He stopped. He was at the end of the alleyway, and it
did not seem to extend again on the other side of the next
street. But he must go on—somehow. He brushed his hand
across his eyes. His shoulder pained him, and those dizzy
flashes kept recurring, though perhaps not now with such
great frequency. He must go on—somehow. That was es-
sential. He must put as great an immediate distance be-
tween himself and the Ellsworth mansion as possible; later,
if by some means he could get there, if luck broke for him
just a little, his chances would be better, thanks to those
three months of intimacy with the underworld, if he could
get somewhere into the maze of the East Side.
He peered out into the street, waited for some pedestrians
who were near at hand to pass further on, and then, moving
quickly forward, crouched down in the shadows made by
the flight of front door steps of the nearest house.
If he only had a coat! He could walk boldly then along
the street without the blood showing on his white shirt, and
it would cover up enough of the mud so that no one would
pay any particular attention to him. If he only had a coat!
He had two thousand dollars in his vest pocket—but it was
not worth a coat. Anybody would sell him a coat for two
thousand dollars, but— PHis hands went to his eyes, and
then pressed against his throbbing temples. Yes, certainly,
his brain was verging on delirium! Why should he think
of Marco's? Yes, yes, he remembered now ! Somebody
was going to break into Marco's to-night . . . and Marco
was a second-hand clothing dealer ... and the back door had
its lock broken . . . and the way was open. He could steal
too . . . a coat . . . at Marco's . . . and that was the only
way he could get a coat . . . to steal it . . . he dared not
make any attempt to buy one . . . and he must have a coat.
His brain cleared again, and he smiled a little ironically


INTO THE UNDERWORLD 41
at himself. But the thought of Marco's now stuck per-
sistently. It was possible, of course—if he could get to
Marco's! But Marco's was a long way off. Marco's was a
long way downtown on the East Side. He shook his head,
smiling ironically again. Yes, he would very much like to
be there now ! That was where he wanted to be—in the
East Side, instead of here!
Billy Kane peered up and down the street again, and again
moved stealthily forward. He repeated these tactics over
and over, sometimes covering only a few yards at a time,
sometimes making as much as half a block, and sometimes
even more when a friendly lane or alleyway offered him the
opportunity. And at the expiration of half an hour he had
covered a distance that surprised even himself, for, though
still uptown, he had succeeded in getting entirely away from
the more wealthy neighborhood.
Another ten minutes passed, and hidden again in the
shadows of a porch, he was staring now with feverish eager-
ness at a great, covered motor truck, a furniture van, that
was drawn up in front of what appeared to be a truck-
man's office across the street. The driver had gone into the
office, but there was the street to cross—and two men were
coming leisurely in his direction along the sidewalk. He
clenched his hands fiercely at his sides. Here was the chance
flaunting him in the face and tantalizing him, the chance
that was a far greater chance even than he had dared hope
for, and he was powerless to avail himself of it unless those
two men passed by before the driver came out again. He
could read the name and address in the huge letters on the
side of the van. It belonged down on the East Side. This
was probably only a small uptown branch office, and the
odds were a hundred to one that the van would be going
home now. And if the driver took a direct route he was
bound to use a cross street that would intersect that lane in
the rear of Marco's, and intersect it within at least a few
blocks of the second-hand dealer's shop. Billy Kane's hands
clenched tighter, and his face was strained and drawn, as
from his hiding place he alternately watched the van and


42 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
the two men. Those few blocks through a lane would be
nothing! God, if he could only reach Marco's—and a coat!
A coat! It seemed an absurd thing to be of such moment—
a coat! But it meant life or death. A coat would cover his
blood-stained shirt, and he would be able to move with free-
dom enough to give him at least a fighting chance, and
The two men had passed by; there was no one else in
sight. He waited another moment until they were still
further away—and then, in a flash, Billy Kane was across
the road, and had swung himself over the tail-board into the
van. It seemed like some vast cavernous place here inside,
for the van was empty, save for what appeared to be, as
nearly as he could make out in the gloom, some large pieces
of crated furniture piled at the front end just behind the
driver's seat. Billy Kane's eyes swept the interior anxiously
—and the drawn, strained look in Billy Kane's face relaxed.
By lying flat on the floor of the van the driver would
hardly be likely to notice him in any case; but, to make
assurance doubly sure, some bits of sacking, evidently used
to wrap around and protect furniture from being scratched
and marred, were strewn about on the floor. Billy Kane
pulled off his slouch hat, that had been jammed down over
his eyes, drew a piece of the sacking over him, and lay
still.
And then presently he heard the driver come out from the
office. The man climbed to his seat. The van jolted for-
ward. Billy Kane's hand, under the sacking, felt tentatively
over his shoulder. It was paining him brutally, and was
burning and hot, but it seemed to have stopped bleeding,
and the sense of nausea and giddiness had passed away. It
was a flesh wound only, probably; or, at least, the bullet
had not fractured any bone, for he could move both
shoulder and arm readily.
And now, safe for the moment, Billy Kane's mind was
back on the events of the evening; and for a time grief
for the man he loved had its sway; and then came fury, piti-
less and remorseless, and a cry in his soul for vengeance;
and then a quiet, measured analysis of every detail, an


INTO THE UNDERWORLD 43
analysis that was deadly in its cold, unnatural calm. Jack-
son's acts in that back passageway, Jackson's possession of a
revolver, and Jackson's words at the end stamped the foot-
man irrevocably as being one of the men in the murder
plot. And with Jackson's guilt established as a premise, the
rest unravelled itself step by step, clearly, logically, irre-
futably.
David Ellsworth's deductions had proved themselves in
ghastly truth. The letter had been written as the initiatory
step toward incriminating him, Billy Kane, in the robbery
that was to follow; and this demanded, even as he had
argued before, that the vault and safe combinations should
be known to a third party. Who knew them? The answer
came now quickly and emphatically enough—someone with-
in the house—Jackson. He remembered now, though he
had paid no attention to it before, that Jackson had been
in the library on several occasions when he, Billy Kane,
was opening the vault. It had probably taken the man a
month or two, perhaps more, watching both David Ells-
worth and himself at every opportunity and with infinite
patience, to pick up little by little, possibly but a single num-
ber or turn at a time, the combinations—but he had undoubt-
edly accomplished it finally.
The original plan had certainly not contemplated the mur-
der of David Ellsworth, for the letter was primarily in-
tended to make the old millionaire one of the first to accuse
him, Billy Kane, of the crime—there having been left on the
scene of the crime, of course, in that case, as David Ells-
worth had also reasoned, some further damning evidence of
his, Billy Kane's, supposed guilt. But the changing of the
combinations had completely upset that original plan. Who
was it, then, who knew that the combinations had been
changed? Again the question answered itself almost auto-
matically. It must have been someone in the house at
the time, and someone who was both listening and watching
—Jackson. True, David Ellsworth had looked out into the
hall, and had opened the door and looked into the unlighted
stenographer's room, but he had done it only cursorily, and


44 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
Jackson all the time might well have been hiding in that
room—in fact, must have been hiding there.
The rest was self-evident. Without the combinations they
were helpless, but the new combinations were on a card in
David Ellsworth's pocket. It had been necessary, then, only
to add murder to the theft, employing as accessories the
card, the letter, the button and the black silk loop, in order
to seize the opportunity of the moment; for, the card bearing
the combinations once destroyed or out of reach, the months
of work that had been put in to secure the old combina-
tions would have to be repeated to obtain the new—and with
very little likelihood of success, since Jackson would know
that David Ellsworth's suspicions were thoroughly aroused.
The van rolled rapidly downtown. Billy Kane, peering
out from under the sacking, kept watch on the streets
through which he passed. But his mind was still busy with
its problem.
Jackson's act in accosting him on the corner, and after-
wards luring him by suggestion to the rear of the house,
had puzzled him at first, but that, too, was clear enough
now. There was a grain of truth in what the man had said
about giving him a chance, though Jackson would care lit-
tle enough whether he ultimately got away, or not. Jack-
son's idea, or perhaps the idea of a keener brain behind
Jackson, was to prevent him, Billy Kane, from entering the
house at all, and so, by inducing him to run for it, to cor-
roborate the evidence of guilt against him, in which case,
being a self-elected fugitive, he would be doubly condemned
if eventually caught. On the other hand, if he refused to
listen and insisted on entering the house, as they were afraid
he might do, they meant to see to it that his entrance was
made by apparent stealth, and here again he but added the
final touch to the evidence against him, and discredited him-
self beyond any hope or possibility of recovery. Jackson
had taken no personal risk or chance in doing this, as far as
the police were concerned; and it was evident now that
Jackson had meant to kill him there in that back passageway
should he, Billy Kane, persist in refusing to run. The case


46 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
he were seen for an instant as he left the van, he would not
be running any very great risk for he would be out of sight
again before any particular attention could be riveted upon
him; and, besides, in that miserable and sordid quarter a
man might do many things out of the ordinary, for instance,
dive suddenly into a lane and disappear, without exciting
even passing curiosity or notice.
He jerked his slouch hat over his eyes, flung off the sack-
ing, dropped to the ground, and slipped across the sidewalk
into the lane. And now he was running again. He reached
the next intersecting street, and was forced to draw back
under cover to wait for an opportunity to cross unnoticed.
And then the chance came, and he continued on down the
lane on the opposite side of the street again.
Marco's was the second store in from the next corner on
the street that paralleled the lane, and halfway down he
stopped running and began to move forward cautiously.
It was very black in here, and he wished now that he had
looked at his watch when he had had the opportunity; but
it must be somewhere around ten o'clock. It was two hours,
then, since he had overheard that telephone conversation in
which Laverto had said that all he cared was that the man to
whom he was telephoning should be away from Marco's
before a quarter of eleven.
Billy Kane was crouched now in the darkness against the
back door of the second-hand shop. The chances were that
whoever Laverto had been telephoning to had already been
here and gone. Certainly two hours would have given any
one ample time, and as Laverto had said that Marco did not
keep open in the evening there would have been no cause
for delay on that score.
He placed his ear to the panel of the door, and listened.
There was no sound, and he tried the door. It stuck a little
in spite of its broken lock, and gave with a slight squeak.,
Billy Kane drew in his breath sharply, and listened again.
There was still no sound. He closed the door behind him,
and crept forward, feeling his way with his hands along the
wall in the pitch blackness. The flooring was old, and once


INTO THE UNDERWORLD 47
it creaked under his foot, causing his lips to tighten rigidly,
and his face to set in a hard, dogged way. He had no
matches—they, in the match-safe that he usually carried in
the ticket-pocket of his coat, were gone with the coat. A
coat! All sense of absurdity in the length to which he was
going to obtain so common-place an article as a coat had
vanished. It was the one, final, ultimate, essential thing that
he must and would have if he was to know a single chance
for life. Without it he might as well throw up the sponge
at once, but if his luck still held he would get one now.
Marco's stock of clothing would naturally be in the shop
in front, and
His hand dove suddenly forward into space, and he
halted for an instant. He had come to an open doorway on
his right. He felt around him in all directions. The passage
seemed to end a foot or so ahead, and to lead nowhere but
into what was probably the back room here at his side.
The entrance, then, to the shop proper would be through the
back room.
Again he moved forward, crossed the threshold, and
again halted. It was dark, intensely dark, and he could see
nothing; and it was still and silent, and there was no sound.
But suddenly he found himself standing in a tense, strained
attitude, his head thrown a little forward, his eyes striving
to pierce the darkness. He could hear nothing, see nothing
—but the sense of presence was strong upon him.
A minute passed, the seconds dragging out interminably—
and he did not move. And then it seemed that close to him
he caught a faint stirring sound. But he was not sure. It
might have been his imagination. The silence, so heavy and
prolonged, had taken on strange little noises of its own.
Billy Kane's lips thinned. He was bare-handed, wounded
and unarmed, but he had a stake that he would fight for
with a beast's ferocity. And that stake was a coat! If
there was anyone here, if it was more than his excited
and wrought-up fancy playing tricks upon him, it was cer-
tain at least that it was not the police, for the police would
have no incentive to play at cat-and-mouse, and therefore it


48 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
was probably the man, not yet through with his work, to
whom Laverto had telephoned; it was probably a fellow
thief, fellow since he, Billy Kane, had also come to steal—
a coat. Well, he would at least end the suspense! He
turned in the direction from which he thought the sound,
imaginary or real, had come, took a step forward—and
stood still, hands clenched at his sides, as he blinked, through
the ray of a flashlight that was suddenly thrown full in his
face, at the round, ugly muzzle of a revolver that held a
steady bead upon him on a level with his eyes.
A voice came through the silence in a savage, guttural
snarl:
“Throw up yer mitts, youse—” The words ended in an
amazed and startled oath. The revolver muzzle sagged
downward, as though the hand that held it had become sud-
denly powerless. “Well, fer Gawd's sake, if it ain't de
Rat!” gasped the voice in a hoarse whisper. “When did
youse get back? I thought youse was hobnobbin' wid some
of de swells youse used to know, an' was givin' Noo Yoik
de icy paw until next month!”


—IV—
ALIAS THE RAT
brain was working with desperate speed. There had
come in a flash with the other's words a vista, not
quite clear, nor distinct, but a vista that seemed to promise
the way and the chance, not only of immediate escape from
this place here, but perhaps more than that—assistance,
help, perhaps even refuge and temporary sanctuary from
the police who, before morning, would be scouring every
quarter of New York in an effort to capture him. This
man, a thief, a criminal, one of the underworld himself, had
obviously mistaken him, Billy Kane, for another of his own
ilk—for one known as the Rat. His appearance, disreput-
able, blood-stained and mud-covered, had undoubtedly been
a very large factor in bringing about the man's mistake, it
was true; but that did not in any way apply to his, Billy
Kane's, face, and his face had been, and was still, full in
the pitiless glare of the flashlight. Therefore he must to a
very remarkable extent resemble this so-called Rat. And,
moreover, this Rat must be a figure of some consequence in
the underworld; for, even through the man's hoarse and
amazed tones, Billy Kane's quick ear had caught a note of
almost cringing deference. And then Billy Kane's under
jaw crept out a little, and his eyes narrowed. Well, for the
moment, at least, he would play the part—because he must.
“Who in hell are you?” he demanded gruffly. “I can't see
you behind that light.” -
“I’m Whitie Jack,” the other answered mechanically.
“Whitie Jack, eh?” snapped Billy Kane. “Well, then”
B: KANE'S face was impassive. The keen, alert
49


50 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
—his hand shot out, and pushed the flashlight roughly away
—“take your cursed lamp out of my eyes? What are you
playing at?”
“Sure!” mumbled the man. “Sure—it's all right! Only
youse gave me de jumps sneakin' in here. Bundy Morgan
—de Rat! Wot's de idea?”
Nothing perhaps would confirm the man more in his mis-
take than an allusion to the common enemy—the police.
Billy Kane dropped into the vernacular. But the man's
reference to “de swells youse used to know” had given him
his cue. The Rat at one time had probably known quite a
different station in life, and the Rat's speech therefore, even
in the vernacular, would hardly be ungrammatical.
“A coat,” said Billy Kane tersely. “The bulls have got
my costume spotted.”
“Swipe me!” Whitie Jack drew in his breath in a low
whistle. “De bulls—eh? So dat's de lay ! Well, youse wait
a minute, an' I'll get youse one. Youse look as though
youse had blamed near cashed in ' Youse have spilled a lot
of red out of dat shoulder, eh?”
“It’s pretty bad,” answered Billy Kane laconically.
“Sure!” said Whitie Jack again; and then, eagerly, the
deference back in his voice: “Well, youse wait a minute,
Bundy, an’ I’ll get youse de best coat de old geezer's got-
though dat's not sayin' much, for dere's nothin' here but a
bunch of rags.”
The man was gone. Billy Kane leaned back against the
wall. His hand swept across his eyes. It seemed as though
for hours he had been living through some horrible and
ghastly nightmare from which he could not awake. He was
Billy Kane, whom the world, in the morning, would pro-
claim the murderer of David Ellsworth; but he was also
now Billy Kane, alias Bundy Morgan, alias the Rat! Again
his hand swept across his eyes. And the Rat—who was
the Rat? And what
Whitie Jack was back.
“Here!” said Whitie Jack. “Here youse are!” He
handed Billy Kane a coat, and his flashlight fell again on


ALLAS THE RAT 51
Billy Kane's shoulder. “Say, dat's bad!” he jerked out;
and then, irrelevantly, “Say, wouldn't it sting youse—youse
showin' up here! When did youse blow into town, Bundy?”
“To-night,” said Billy Kane.
“Well, youse didn't take long in startin' something!” said
Whitie Jack admiringly. He helped Billy Kane on with
the coat. “Was it a big one, Bundy?”
“No,” said Billy Kane. “Only a fight, but someone got
hurt in the fight—get me, Whitie? And the bulls are out
for fair.”
Whitie Jack drew in his breath in a low, comprehensive
whistle again.
“Sing Sing, an’ de juice route—eh?” he muttered. “Did
dey spot who youse were 2"
“No,” said Billy Kane.
“Aw, well den, wot de hell!” observed Whitie Jack, with
a sudden grin. “Dat's easy! Youse have got a coat now,
an' we'll beat it over for yer dump, an’ dat's de end of it!
You have got to get dat shoulder fixed, an' I'm some guy
wid de bandage stuff—believe me!”
Billy Kane did not answer for a moment. Well, why
not? He had accepted the absent Rat's personality, why
not the absent Rat's hospitality? It would afford him shel-
ter for the moment, and he was living, feeling, groping his
way now only from moment to moment. Also, and what
was of even more urgent importance, he must somehow
and in some way get his wound dressed.
The flashlight in Whitie Jack's hand was sweeping in a
circle around the room—in a sort of precautionary leave-
taking survey of the place, as it were. The room was evi-
dently the proprietor's office; but from what Billy Kane
could see of it, it was bare and uninviting enough. He
caught a glimpse of a rough table and a couple of chairs,
and then the flashlight went out. But he was still staring,
through the darkness now, toward the far end of the room
—and it seemed that he could still see just as vividly as
though the light still played upon the spot. There was an
old safe there, a large and cumbrous thing, long out of date,


52 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
and the door sagged on its hinges where it had been blown
open, and the floor around it was littered with the books
and papers it had evidently contained.
“That's a bum job you made, Whitiel” commented Billy
Kane sarcastically. “You’re an artist, you are What did
you expect to get out of a piker hang-out like this?”
“Aw, forget it!” returned Whitie Jack. “It ain't so bum!
I'd like to see youse crack a box in here wid soup, an’
not wake de whole town up. Dat's wot I get mine for—a
century note—see? Dere wasn't nothin' in de safe! Not a
nickel! It's a stall—savvy? But, come on, Bundy, we'll
beat it out of here, an' get youse fixed up.”
A stall! What did Whitie Jack mean? Whitie Jack,
at Antonio Laverto's instigation, had blown open the safe,
knowing beforehand that there was nothing in it! What
was Laverto's game? Billy Kane mechanically made his
way out along the passage, the flashlight winking in Whitie
Jack's hand behind him. What was the game? Laverto was
no fool, and there seemed an ominous something back of it
all, but he dared not press Whitie Jack, or appear too in-
quisitive. His own position now was precarious enough as `
it was, and needed all his wits to see him through. For
instance, they were going now to the Rat's quarters, to what
was supposedly his, Billy Kane's, quarters—and he had not
the faintest idea where, or in what direction, those quarters
might bel Billy Kane smiled grimly in the darkness. But
Whitie Jack evidently knew. Therefore Whitie Jack, with-
out knowing it, must be made to act as guide!
They were outside now. Whitie Jack had closed the door.
Billy Kane raised his hand to his head, smiled grimly again
to himself in the darkness, and stumbled heavily against
his companion.
“Wot's wrong?” whispered Whitie Jack anxiously.
“Here, buck up, Bundy!”
“I guess I'm bad—worse than I thought I was—my head's
going round,” mumbled Billy Kane. “You’ll have to help
me, Whitie.”
“Sure, I will!” returned Whitie Jack encouragingly. He


ALLAS THE RAT 53
slipped his arm through Billy Kane's. “Youse just buck
up, Bundy! An' don't youse be afraid to throw yer weight
on me. "Taint far, an' we'll make it all right.”
Billy Kane, his object accomplished, leaned not lightly on
Whitie Jack. Occasionally, as he walked along, he stag-
gered and lurched, playing up his rôle—but only when the
street in his immediate neighborhood was clear, and he ran
no risk of attracting attention to himself and his com-
panion!
It was not far, a few blocks; and then Whitie Jack, still
unsuspectingly acting as guide, was helping Billy Kane down
the half dozen steps of one of those cellar-like entrances to
the basement of a low building in the middle of a block.
The building seemed to be a store of some kind, but it was
closed, the dingy front window dark, and in the none too
well lighted street Billy Kane could not make out exactly
what it was. At the bottom of the steps they halted—
before a locked door—and for an instant again that grim,
desperate smile twisted Billy Kane's lips. And then he
laughed shortly, as his free hand fumbled in the pockets of
the stolen coat.
“Kick it in, Whitie!” he growled. “I haven't got the key.
I lost my coat.”
“Nothin’ doin’?” said Whitie Jack complacently. “I got
de goods, ain't I? Wot d'youse think!”
From his pocket Whitie Jack produced a bunch of what
were evidently skeleton keys; and, trying first one and then
another, finally opened the door. His flashlight played
through into the interior, and indicated a chair that stood
before a table.
“Youse go over dere an’ sit down, an' get yer coat an’
shirt off, an’ leave de rest to me,” he directed.
Billy Kane, lurching again, stumbled into the chair, as
Whitie Jack, closing and locking the door, located an incan-
descent that hung from the ceiling, and switched on the
light.
“Say, where do youse keep yer stuff?” demanded Whitie


54 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
Jack. “A shirt'll do—anything to tear up an’ make a ban-
dage wid, see?”
Billy Kane did not answer. He did not know ! Instead,
he let his head sag limply forward, and fall on his crossed
arms upon the table.
“Aw, buck up, Bundy!” pleaded Whitie Jack anxiously.
“Youse'll be all right in a minute. Dat's de boy! Buck up !
It's all right! Leave it to me! I'll find something!”
Still Billy Kane did not answer. His face hidden in his
arms, he was making a surreptitious, but none the less crit-
ical, survey of his surroundings. It was a large room,
evidently comprising the entire basement of the building;
and the single incandescent that it boasted seemed only to
enhance, with its meager light, the sort of forbidding sor-
didness, as it were, that pervaded the place. There were
no windows. The walls had been boarded in with cheap
lumber that had warped and bulged in spots, and the walls
had been painted once—but so long ago that they had lost
any distinctive color, and had faded into a murky, streaky
yellow. The room was dirty and ill-kempt. A few old
pieces of carpet were strewn about the floor, and for decora-
tion prints from various magazines and Sunday supplements
were tacked here and there around the walls. There was
a bed in one corner; a wardrobe made by hanging a piece
of old cretonne diagonally across another corner; a sink at
one side of the room; and, at the far end, a bureau, whose
looking-glass seemed to be abnormally large. Billy Kane
studied the looking-glass for a moment curiously. It seemed
to reflect back some object that he could not quite identify,
something that glittered a little in the light. And then Billy
Kane smiled a sort of grim appreciation. Whitie Jack had
left his keys hanging in the lock of the door—the mirror
held in faithful focus the only entrance to the place that the
Rat's lair apparently possessed!
And now the reflection of the door in the mirror was
blotted out, and the figure of Whitie Jack took its place.
The man had crossed the room from an apparently abortive
search behind the cretonne hanging, and was rummaging


ALIAS THE RAT 55
now in the drawers of the bureau. And then, with a grunt
of satisfaction, and with what looked like a shirt and some
underclothing flung over his arm, Whitie Jack made his
way to the sink, filled a basin with water, and returned to
the table.
Billy Kane raised his head heavily—and with well-simu-
lated painful effort aided in the removal of his coat, vest
and shirt.
“Dat's de stuff, Bundy 1" said Whitie Jack approvingly.
It was a flesh wound, angry and nasty enough in appear-
ance when the clotted blood was washed away, but still only
a flesh wound. Whitie Jack surveyed it judicially.
“”Tain't so worse, Bundy!” he announced reassuringly.
“Youse'll be all to de good in a day or so.” He began to
rip and tear the underclothing into strips. “Youse'll need
de shirt to wear, an' dis stuff'll do for de bandages,” he
explained. “See?”
“Yes,” said Billy Kane.
The man dressed the wound with amazing deftness,
stepped back to observe his own work admiringly, and then,
picking up the folded shirt, shook it out, and began to un-
button it.
“Now den, Bundy,” he said, “get dis on, an' ” He
stopped. From where it had been hidden in the folds of
the shirt, a little black object dropped to the floor. Whitie
Jack stooped, picked it up, glanced at it, and tossed it on the
table. “An’ dat ain't so dusty a place to hide it, neither!”
grinned Whitie Jack. “Now den, up wid yer arms, an' on
wid de shirt.”
Billy Kane made no comment. The object Whitie Jack
had picked up was a black mask. He raised his arms, and
with deliberate difficulty struggled into the shirt.
“How d'youse feel now?” inquired Whitie Jack.
“Better,” said Billy Kane. “You’re an artist with the
swab rags, Whitie.”
“Sure!” said Whitie Jack. “Well, I guess dat's all.
Youse go to bed now, an’ keep quiet. I'll tip de fleet off
dat youse are back on de job.”


56 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
Billy Kane shook his head sharply.
“I don't want anybody butting in around here to-night !”
he said roughly.
“No, sure, youse don't!” agreed Whitie Jack, with an oath
for emphasis. “Don’t youse worry, I'll wise 'em up to
dat. Dere won't be nobody around here till youse says
so—youse know dat, don't youse? I ain't never heard of
any guy huntin' trouble wid de Rat yet—an' I guess dat ain’t
no con steer!”
Billy Kane was standing up now. It seemed strange, al-
most incredibly strange that this man, one who evidently
knew the so-called Rat intimately and well, had accepted
him, Billy Kane, without the slightest suspicion that there
could exist any question regarding his identity. He had
been watching and on his guard all the time that Whitie
Jack had been dressing his wound, but though Whitie Jack
had seen him under the full glare of a flashlight, and again
in this lighted room here, their heads close together as the
other had bent over him, Whitie Jack was obviously pos-
sessed of no doubts that he, Billy Kane, was anyone other
than the Rat! Well, it might be strange, but at least it
was undeniably true; so true that now that vista, which
he had glimpsed with Whitie Jack's first words of mistaken
recognition, was spreading out again before him, but more
concretely now, opening a staggering possibility; so true that
he dared not jeopardize anything by appearing too inquisi-
tive about Marco's, for instance—much as Marco's was still
in his mind! Marco's No, he was not through with Mar-
co's, for more reasons than one. There was some queer
deviltry that Laverto was hatching there—at a quarter to
eleven—and he meant to see it through. But, after all, even
if he broached the subject again to Whitie Jack, who was
patently only a tool in the affair, what more could Whitie
Jack tell him, except the name of the man who had hired
him to blow open an old safe whose contents were worth-
less—and that man's name he, Billy Kane, already knew.
No, he was not through with Marco's! But he would gain


ALIAS THE RAT 57
nothing, save perhaps to excite suspicion, by speaking of it
again to Whitie Jack.
“Youse get to bed, an' get some sleep!” prompted Whitie
Jack. “Youse can leave de mob to me.”
“Thanks, Whitie,” said Billy Kane. He moved across
the room, and flung himself down on the bed. “I’m not
going to forget this. You've handed me the glad paw to-
night—and I’m not going to forget it.”
“Aw, dat's all right!” said Whitie Jack earnestly. “I
knows youse ain't! An’, say, youse can take it from me
on de level dat I’d rather have had dis chance dan have a
thousand long green bucks in me mitt dis minute. Say, I
knows it, don't I, dat de Rat never forgets; an' I knows
dere's about a million guys around here dat would give deir
eye teeth for de chance dat came my way to-night!”
It was strange again—but the servility in the man's tones
that was coupled with elation was genuine beyond doubt.
The Rat was unquestionably a character of prominence
and power in the sordid realm wherein he appeared, by
some at least, by this Whitie Jack for example, to be held
in awe. That being so, it was obviously the Rat's preroga-
tive to command—Whitie Jack.
“All right, Whitie—that goes I’’ said Billy Kane tersely.
“And now, beat it! But before you go leave me your gun.
I got cleaned out when I lost my coat, and if anything
comes of that little game of mine to-night I might need
your iron. Yes, and leave those keys, too—I’ve no other
way to lock the door.”
“Sure!” said Whitie Jack promptly. He took his revol-
ver from his pocket, laid it on the table, and walked to the
door. “Are youse sure dere's nothin’ else youse wants,
Bundy?”
“No, that's all,” said Billy Kane.
“Well den, so long, Bundy!” said Whitie Jack. “I’ll see
youse in de mornin’?”
“So long, Whitie!” said Billy Kane.


—V-
THE SECOND-HAND DEALER
steps echoed back as he climbed to the street, echoed
faintly again from the pavement, and then died
away.
Billy Kane got up from the bed, went to the door, locked
it, and then walked down the length of the room—and
standing in front of the mirror stared into the glass in a
grimly impersonal way. It was himself—Billy Kane. His
face was in no whit changed, except perhaps that there was
a slight pallor there due to loss of blood, and that the lines
were sharper and harder, as though he were, as indeed he
was, under a tense and heavy strain; but, with his collarless
shirt, his trousers covered with mud and dirt, his whole
appearance had taken on an aspect that was at once sinister
and forbidding.
He laughed shortly, and turning abruptly from the mir-
ror, crossed the room again, and pushed aside the cretonne
hanging. There were some clothes on the wall pegs here.
He gathered them up, and took them nearer to the light for
an inspection. They were old, somewhat greasy, and wholly
disreputable. He laughed shortly again, as he changed
into them. As the Rat, he might venture out, though he
would do well to take care not to be recognized, since Whitie
Jack would have spread the report that he was wounded
and in bed; but he could at least go out without inviting
instant pursuit as the “murderer” of David Ellsworth. He
was safe now for the moment, safe until morning anyhow
—and he could even use those hours, if he would, in an
attempt to put as many miles as possible between himself
and New York! His hands clenched, and into the pallor of
T: door closed behind Whitie Jack, the man's foot-
58


THE SECOND-HAND DEALER 59
his face the red came burning hot. But he wasn't going to
do that! That “staggering possibility” was clear before his
mind's eye now. He wasn't going to do that; he was going,
instead—to play the Rat—to play the cards that fate, if
one believed in fate, had thrust into his hands—to take the
chance, the one chance, if the Rat did not come back too
soon, of clearing his own name, and of bringing to justice
the hell-hounds, who had struck down that gentle gray-
haired man who had been his friend. His hands clenched
harder, until, as they had done once before that night, the
nails bit into the palms. He, Billy Kane—the murderer of
his father's friend, the murderer of the man who had trusted
him and loved him! It was getting him now with all its
brutal and remorseless force! Broadcast over the country,
by morning his name would have become the synonym of
all that was vile and hideous, and Billy Kane would be
known as one of the most revolting characters in the annals
of crime—a foul and filthy thing who typified the dregs and
lees of human degradation—a thing from whom the friends
of old would turn in horror and in shame, and -
Slowly his hands unclenched. The surge of fury that
had been almost ungovernable passed, and he knew again
that cold, unnatural, deadly calm. If he lived, the guilty
man, or men, would pay! If he were taking a chance now,
a desperate chance, he was taking a chance that no man
could do otherwise than take. It was the chance to live
—for one might better otherwise be dead! A chance! He
had picked up Whitie Jack's revolver, and was twisting it
in his fingers, and now he thrust it suddenly into his pocket.
A chance! He was taking no chance, indeed, save with
the stake that was already flung upon the table—his life.
It was the one way! As the Rat, doubtless well known to
the authorities, he could move under the very noses of the
police at will without suspicion arising that he was Billy
Kane; and as the Rat, if Whitie Jack was to be relied upon
as a criterion, he would have the run of the underworld,
and in the underworld were many secrets, and amongst those
secrets was perhaps the one he sought—the clue to Jackson's


60 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
associates in the murder of David Ellsworth. He was not
blinded to the difficulties of this picking up of the tread of
another man's life; nor blinded to what was perhaps the
greatest difficulty of all, the necessity of being able to recog-
nize those with whom he should be acquainted, but even that
was not insurmountable. He could see a way, he believed,
to accomplish even that.
But all this was for to-morrow—and the to-morrows after
that! To-night he was going out again—to Marco's. That
was why he had changed his clothes just now. A graver
thing, the thought of merging his identity with the Rat's,
had impinged, obtruded itself, as it were, upon his mind.
But he had not forgoten Marco's.
He picked up his discarded vest, transferred the package
of banknotes and his watch to the pockets of the one he
now wore, and as he did so, he looked at the time. Laverto
had said a quarter to eleven. It was almost that now.
Billy Kane's eyes strayed over the table, and fell upon the
black mask. The mask, too, went into his pocket. It might
prove a most valuable discovery, that mask—under certain
circumstances even the Rat's identity was not lightly to be
disclosed. - -
He collected the muddy garments he had taken off, and
tucked them under the mattress on the bed. It was not
likely that anyone would come here, much less attempt to
enter, in his absence; but he was fully aware that now, and
from now on, his life depended upon his caution in every
detail. He extinguished the light, put on his hat, walked to
the door, unlocked it—and stood for a moment hesitant.
Was he a fool to take this added risk, when already his own
back was against the wall, when already he was in desperate
case himself? He shook his head in a sort of exasperated
remonstrance with himself for even his momentary hesita-
tion, then opening the door, he locked it behind him, and
crept cautiously up the stairs to the street.
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


THE SECOND-HAND DEALER 61
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
In Ot 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 sepa-
rated 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 cau-
tiously an inch at a time. And then, with the door slightly
open, he stood motionless, a puzzled and amazed expres-
sion 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.”


62 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“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 P 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 for-
ward until he could see into the back room through its open
door. A frown came and knitted his brows in hard fur-
rows. 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 bratř 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 sud-
denly, 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 erst-
while 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


THE SECOND-HAND DEALER 63
.
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 wring-
ing 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 furi-
ously 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,


64 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 roll-
ing 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, an »
“And my eight hundred dollars, that he came over here
and stole afterwards, was all I had l’’ 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 fro
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 sav-
ings—it is in the bank. Listen! Oh, for God's saise, 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.”


THE SECOND–HAND DEALER 65
“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.
“Sol" 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 sud-
denly, 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.


66 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“You’ve made a mistake, Marco, haven't you?” he in-
quired coolly. “Instead of this woman's son being the rob-
ber, 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 2 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 re-
volver, 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—


THE SECOND-HAND DEALER 67
“you won't need that beard, or those glasses any more!
Take them off f*
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 ſmade me believe
my boy was a thief—God forgive me for it! And—ah,
let me at him I'm only a woman, but yy
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 cloth-
ing dealer are enough for now—and enough to put you
where you belong!” His voice rasped suddenly. “You
plotch 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 mat-


68 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
ter 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 for-
ward. “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.


THE SECOND-HAND DEALER 69
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 l’ 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 sud-
denly—“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
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 refer-
ence 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 con-
dition, 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
| ‘ EEPING in the shadows and avoiding the passers-
70


72 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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, prom-
ised 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 in-
stant remained motionless. Billy Kane drew in his breath
softly. It was ingenious, clever, cunning—and a crafts-
man'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-fit-
ting!
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


A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 73
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 wear-
ing!
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 noth-
ing. 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


74 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
quarters, and was moreover, as an added precaution, sur- .
rounded 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 man-
ipulated 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 in-
structive 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 2
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


A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 75
*
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
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
spiralled 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 haull"
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—phan-
tasmagoria. 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
I was the next evening—in the Rat's den. Through
76


WHISPERING SEHADOWS 77
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 hom-
age. 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 occa-
sion, had demanded who it was, and Whitie Jack had
answered—and the unsuspected introduction thus per-
formed, he had bidden Whitie Jack admit the visitor.


78 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 devilish-
ness 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 pre-
tended state of semi-helplessness. It had brought those he
must know here to him; it had brought about those unsus-
pected 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 subse-
quent 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 un-
bounded 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 owned allegiance. It opened a new pros-
pect to Whitie Jack, one that was full of dazzling possibil-


WHISPERING SHADOWS 79
ities—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 day-
light 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 under-
ground 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 Il 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 undis-
turbed 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,


80 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
seething and boiling in his brain. Naked ugliness! What
mess of iniquity was the Rat not mixed up in 1 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 hun-
dred thousand dollars’ worth of rubies! Dat guy Kane is
some slick gazabol Say, d'youse get it, Bundy? Five hun-
dred thousand—an' a bunch of de green stuff, too !” He
licked his lips. “Some haull” :-
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 in-
formation 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 Kar-


WHISPERING SHADOWS 81
lin 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 Ti-
tanic 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 inhu-
man 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 clear-
ing 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 tem-
porary 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—


84 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 Kar-
lin's never been here before.” He pushed a chair with the
toe of his boot across the floor toward Karlin, and appro-
priated 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 con-


A LEASH IS SLIPPED 85
tracted 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 some-
thing, 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 mir-
ror of the bureau at the far end of the room, that bore tes-
timony 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 be-
tween the eyes.”
Red Vallon jerked himself around; and, as though he had
taken the words literally, stared with a frown of bewilder-
ment at the only thing in view upon the table—the news-
paper that Whitie Jack had dropped there when he had
answered the summons at the door.
Billy Kane laughed quietly.


86 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“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 P”
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 im-
perceptibly open, was listening there. If that were so, he
must get rid of Red Vallon and Karlin before any dé-
nouement came if possible, get rid of them without an in-
stant's loss of time; but equally vital was the necessity of
setting in motion, and equally without loss of time, the ma-
chinery of the underworld upon which now he was prac-
tically staking his all.
“Pull your chair over here, closer to the bed, Red—and
you, too, Karlin,” he said coolly. “We aren't likely te 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.


A LEASH IS SLIPPED 87
“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 fin-
gers were still rigid around the stock of his revolver, and,
in the pocket, the weapon, resting on his hip as he lay side-
ways, 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.”


88 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
Red Vallon whistled low and complacently under his
breath; Karlin, fingering his Vandyke again, nodded sharply
now in approval.
“Besides,” added Billy Kane, “he had sort of queered his
own game. He'd hidden the loot somewhere, and he couldn't
make a direct get-away then. He had to get hold of the
goods again before he went. All right! What I want to
know is who's got the better chance of grabbing him—us
or the police? He isn't one of us. He's working on his
own. Well, all right! If we nip him, and he's satisfied
with a little rake-off, and is willing to cough up the rest,
that'll be treating him fair. If he isn't strong on coughing
up, we'll find another way of making him come across that
he won’t like so well, and we'll get the half million, and
he'll get ” Billy Kane completed his sentence with a sig-
nificant shrug of his shoulder.
An oath, the more callous and brutal for the soft purring
way in which it fell from his lips, came from Red Vallon.
“What do you want done, Bundy?” Karlin was terse
. to the point. “It looks good to me, if you can pull it
O .”
“It's the biggest haul we'll ever get our mitts on if we
live a hundred years!” Billy Kane's eyes shifted for an
instant from the wall to fix themselves impressively on the
two men. “I’ve been lying here all day thinking it out.
What do I want done? Well, I'll tell you! I want every
string and every wire we’ve got pulled. Savvy 2 We've
got to beat the police to it. We've got to get Kane—first.
I want all the boys that the bulls think they've got sewed up
as stool pigeons to stool-pigeon the police and get all the
inside dope. And then that fellow Jackson, the footman,
looks like a bet we can't throw down. He's dead—but he
looks like a good bet. He lived all through the night, but
the papers don't say anything about the story he told. Per-
haps he knew something that will help, perhaps he didn't;
but he doesn't go into the discard yet. Find out who he
was and all about him, and get next to his family if he's got
one. If he told any story to the police, any of the family


A LEASH IS SLIPPED 89
that were clustering around the bedside will be wise to it.
Get the idea?”
“Birdie Rose is the boy for that!” Red Vallon's bullet
head was thrust forward in vicious earnestness, his red-
rimmed black eyes were glittering with a feverish light.
“Let Birdie go to it, then!” said Billy Kane.
“Birdie was slated for the Merxler affair to-night.” Kar-
lin spoke a little dubiously.
“Shift him?” snapped Billy Kane curtly. “Red's right!
Birdie's the boy for this job.”
“All right!” agreed Karlin, and shrugged his shoulders.
He turned to Red Vallon. “Put Bull McCann in Birdie's
place, then. See that he gets to Jerry's back room before
ten.”
“I’ll fix it!” grunted Red Vallon. “What's next, Bundy?
This goes—all the boys’ll fall for it.”
“There's only one thing more—until something begins to
crack open.” Billy Kane's lips had tightened, his eyelids
had drooped still lower. It was only a bare fraction of an
inch at most—if at all—but it seemed that door had moved
again. His words were coming barely above a whisper
now. “There's only one way he can get anything out of
those rubies, and that's through a “fence.’ They're no good
to him unless he can cash in. He'll try to get rid of some
of them as soon as he can. How soon depends on how well
he knows his way about. But he's probably slick enough
to have got a line on a blind uncle or two. All right! The
police, of course, have passed the word down the line, but
here's where we put one over on the police. There's some
of the joints they don't know—we know them all. Kane
might get away from the police there—but he can't get
away from us on that deal. I want every “fence' in New
York tipped off that he's to stall on the job the minute he
gets his lamps on a ruby that's being shoved his way, and
that instead of opening up to the police he's to wise us up
on the hop. That's all for a starter—and now go to it!”
Red Vallon drew in his breath noisily, as though he were
sucking at some luscious and juicy fruit.


90 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“Some head, Bundy!” he applauded with undisguised
admiration, as he pushed away his chair and stood up.
“Sure, we'll go to it! Karlin's running the Merxler game
to-night; but I'll start this other thing bumping along on
the high gear. What about the reports? Who'll the boys
make 'em to ? You? Here?”
It was a moment before Billy Kane answered. It was
the one thing he must have, the one thing upon which he
was staking everything—an intimate knowledge of the
result of every move made in this game that he had initi-
ated, and, beyond that again, it was vital that he, and no
one else should control each successive move. But Whitie
Jack was gone for the night. In one way he deplored that
fact, in another way he was relieved. If it was only imag-
ination, if there was no one crouching there now on the
other side of that secret door, Whitie Jack's presence would
not matter, but otherwise—his mind leaped to that other
point—if Whitie Jack was not here to perform those very
necessary introductions, and Red Vallon's messengers came,
messengers that he would be supposed to know but would
not be able to recognize, it would spell almost certain dis-
aster, and
“There isn't anything likely to break to-night, Red,” he
said deliberately. “If there does you look after it; or if it's
anything very important you come here yourself. I want
to get a night's sleep if I can, I’m feeling pretty rocky.
But I ought to be on my feet to-morrow, and in the morning
you can swing the whole business over to me, and I'll run
it.”
“Attaboy!” said Red Vallon heartily. “See you in the
morning, then.”
Karlin too had risen from his chair.
‘Good-night, Bundy!” he said—and grinned. “I pay you
the compliment of being the trickiest crook unhung!”


— IX—
BEEIIND THE DOOR
HE door closed behind the two men. Billy Kane
lay motionless, save that, as they climbed to the
street and their footsteps echoed back from the
stairs, his hand, gripping his revolver, stole silently from
his pocket. There was a grim whiteness around his set
lips. His ears strained to catch the slightest sound from
within the room, and strained to catch the last echo of
those retreating footfalls. He dared not make a move
until they were well away—out of earshot, say, of a re-
volver report. If it were fancy, if the movement of that
door were only his imagination unhealthily stimulated, and
unhealthily preying upon his nerves, he would at least put
an end to it in short order now ! The steps rang faintly
back from the pavement, still more faintly, and were lost.
And then Billy Kane spoke—a cold deadly monotony in
his voice:
“Those boards are thin' Come out into the room with
your hands up before I count three, or I'll put a bullet
through. One—two—”
There was a laugh, undisguised in its mockery, but low
and musical. The door, bizarre and grotesque in its zig-
zag projections, due to its ingenious adherence to the natural
joints in the wall boards, swung open wide, and a woman
stood in the room.
“I was only waiting for your friends to go, Bundy,”
she said coolly.
The revolver sagged a little in Billy Kane's hand. He
could not see her face very well, the single incandescent
dangling from the ceiling was miserably inadequate, but
91


92 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
dark eyes flashed at him out of an oval face, and the chin
thrown up gave a glimpse of the contour of a full throat,
ivory white—and all this was merged in the background
of a slender figure clothed and cloaked in some dark mate-
rial, unrelieved by a single vistage of color.
She spoke again. -
“I don't think you are quite as badly hurt as you pretend,
Bundy,” she said, with a sort of icy composure. “You were
out last night when I came here, and if you could prowl
around the streets, I think perhaps you could manage now to
get from the bed over to the door there and back again
without doing yourself any serious injury. The door has
been unlocked since Red Vallon went out, and it might be
safer—locked.”
Billy Kane did not answer her. He got up, crossed to the
door, locked it, and, returning, sat down on the edge of the
bed. She had not moved from her position near the far
end of the room. He became conscious that he was still
holding his revolver in his hand, and he thrust the weapon ,
quietly now into his pocket. A grim smile came and hov-
ered on his lips. This complication, another of the rami-
fications of his stolen identity, he did not understand at all
—except that it promised him no good. She was the author
of last night's note—she had just said as much—and the
wording of that note was not reassuring as to her attitude
toward him, nor was the mockery in her laugh, nor was the
self-contained, almost contemptuous note of command with
which she had just spoken. Who was she? What was she
to the Rat, that she knew the secret of that underground
tunnel, and the secret of that door?
He jerked his hand toward the chair Red Vallon had va-
cated.
“Sit down, won't you?” There was a tingle of irony in
his voice. His invitation was at least safe ground.
She came forward toward the table, a subtle, supple
grace in her movements. Subconsciously he noted that she
made no sound as she crossed the room. She was like a
cat—but a very beautiful cat. He could see her face bet-


BEHIND THE DOOR 93
•
ter now. The eyes were hard and unfriendly, but they were
great, brown, steady eyes of unfathomable depths.
She leaned against the table.
“I prefer to stand.” There was a challenge in her tones.
“What I have to say will not take long.”
Billy Kane waited. The initiative was with her. He
meant it to remain so. Her small white hand, ungloved,
clenched suddenly at her side until its knuckles stood out
like little chalky knobs.
“You look sleeker about the face, clearer about the eyes
—you beast!” There was a studied deliberation in her
voice that gave the words the sting of a curling whip lash.
“Perhaps you've been—”
“You were listening there at the door?” suggested Billy
Kane imperturbably, as he reached into his pocket for a
cigarette.
There was a mocking little lift to her shoulders.
“Of course! That is what I came for. I followed Red
Vallon here. I supposed that you would meet at the old
place, now that you are back; but since you are an in-
valid ” Again the shoulders lifted.
“I am afraid it hardly paid you for the trouble—to
listen,” Billy Kane murmured caustically. “I’m sorry! I
rather fancied I saw the door move, and you see, my illness
has affected my voice, and at times I can scarcely speak
above a whisper, otherwise you might have overhear 22
“I overheard enough!” She took a sudden step toward
him. Her eyes were flashing now; there was a flush, angry
red, mounting from the white throat, suffusing her cheeks.
She raised her clenched hands. “You will die with inso-
lence and bravado on your lips, I believe!” she cried out
passionately. “How I hate you! But I’ve got you—like
that”—she flung out an arm toward him, and the small
clenched hand opened and then closed again, slowly, as
though in its grip it were remorselessly crushing and ex-
terminating some abhorrent thing. And then her hand was
raised again, and was brushed across her eyes, and a little
quiver ran through her form, and she spoke more calmly.


94 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“I overheard enough. I thought this Merxler affair would
be worked to-night, and I came to tell you that you are to
stop it. I came to tell you to-remember! I promise, be-
fore God, that if there is murder done to-night you will
be in the hands of the police within an hour. And it's not
very far from the Tombs to the death chair in Sing Sing—
Bundy Morgan.”
Billy Kane's eyes were hidden by drooped lids. His eyes
were studying with curious abstraction the pattern of the
faded, greasy, threadbare strip of carpet on the floor beside
the bed. Murder! The word had come with a shock that
for a moment unnerved him. He had not associated any-
thing that Red Vallon or Karlin had said with murder.
They had spoken so lightly, referred to it in so humdrum a
way. Murder! There was something ghastly in that light-
ness now. A tightness came to his lips, a horror was creep-
ing into his soul. He was only on the verge of things, of
hidden and abominable things, here in this shadow land,
this night land of skulking shapes, this sordid realm of the
underworld. He pulled himself together. He was the Rat
—he had a part to play. He was conscious that those
brown, fearless eyes were fixed on him contemptuously.
“What have I to do with it?” he muttered sullenly.
“Do with it! You?” Her voice rose, as though suddenly
out of control. “You dare ask that! You, with your devil's
brains—you, who planned it all before you went away!”
The cigarette that he, had lighted had gone out. He
sucked at it, circling it around his lips. He was fencing
now with unbuttoned foils.
“Well, you've said it!” There was a snarl creeping into
his voice. “I’ve been away. I don't know what they've
done since I’ve been away.”
“You know about the will, and the sealed envelope in
Merxher's safe, and you know the combination to the safe,”
she said levelly. “And that's all you need to know to stop
this from going any further.”
He laughed out shortly.


BEHIND THE DOOR 95
“And suppose I don't know the combination! You don't
think I can carry a thing like that in my head forever, do
you?”
“No,” she said. She smiled curiously, and one hand
slipped into the bodice of her dress. “I don't think you
ever did memorize that combination. But perhaps you will
recognize it again—the original in your own handwriting.”
She held up a crumpled piece of paper before him, then
tossed it on the table.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded roughly.
Her shoulders lifted mockingly again.
“There are other secrets in this room besides that door
and the tunnel to the shed, aren't there—Bundy?”
He eyed her now for a long minute, biting openly at his
lip, his face twisted in a well-simulated ugly scowl.
“So, I'm to queer this game, am I?” he snarled suddenly.
“And if I'm caught—as a snitch—they'll tear me to pieces!”
She leaned a little forward from the table, a tense, lithe
thing, and her voice came low with passion:
“We’re wasting time—and you've none to lose. We've
gone over this ground before, haven't we? It's the one
chance you have—to save yourself. Some day you won't
be able to save yourself. Some day the reckoning will
come; but you will always have the hope that it won't, and
that you will always succeed in staving it off each time as
you have in the past. But until that day does come the only
chance you have for life is to pit your wits against the fiends
like yourself that are around you. For what you have
done there is no atonement—only punishment. I mean
you to live in suspense, but even while that suspense lasts
you will pull apart and unravel your devil's work as fast
as you knit it together. You have a chance that way!
When the end comes and they get you, you know how the
underworld will pay—but there is the chance—that is what
holds you—and with the alternative—the police—there is
no chance.”
She was breathing hard. She leaned back against the
table, her hands gripped tightly at its edge.


96 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
For a moment there was silence in the room. Billy
Kane's mind was groping blindly now, as in some utter
darkness. In some way, for there was no question of the
genuineness of her self-assurance, her very presence here in
seemingly placing herself in the Rat's power proved that she
held the Rat, and the Rat's life and liberty in the hollow
of her hand, at her beck and call. How? What was the
secret of the power she possessed over him? He lighted a
match nonchalantly, and, as he applied the flame to the
half-burned cigarette he lifted his eyes to her through the
blue haze of smoke that he blew negligently in her direction.
“Sometimes,” he said in a low, menacing tone, “people,
even women, who grow troublesome, have been known in
this neighborhood—to disappear.”
She laughed sharply.
“You have no time to waste in foolish words!” she
warned him curtly. “You know the consequences of my—
disappearance. You are at liberty to take those conse-
quences any time you choose. But you do not like them,
do you—Bundy?” She moved suddenly across the room,
back to the secret door through which she had entered.
“I am going now,” she said steadily. “If there is murder
to-night, or if any part of that plan goes through—
remember!”


98 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
a far greater force which he could neither ignore nor
escape. He saw that now. If the foreknowledge of pro-
posed crime came to him, he was as guilty, if he stood idly
by, as those who became the actual perpetrators of that
crime. To-night, if there was to be murder done, and it
was within his power to prevent that murder, or even if it
were only within his power to attempt to prevent that
murder—and he did nothing—he was a murderer himself.
And so to-night he had no choice. He must act. It did
not seem to him that there had been any question in his
mind about this in a specific way at all from the moment
she had spoken of murder. But afterwards—if he went
on—the crimes that Red Vallon and Karlin and their con-
federates would plot, and that he would know of what
then?
He halted by the table, and laughed in a short, harsh way,
and in the dark eyes there burned a sudden fire. Was there
really any question about that, either? Had there ever
been He asked only one thing in life now, and to that
everything else was subordinate—to feel his hands upon
the throat of the man who had murdered David Ellsworth,
and who had fastened that guilt upon him—Billy Kane—
to wring from that man a confession that would clear his
name. Nothing else mattered. He could run for it, dis-
card this rôle of the Rat, and perhaps effect his escape, but
he would thereby throw away almost every hope of bring-
ing the guilty man to justice. The other way was to fight.
Well, he would fight! It would be a good fight! And, as
the Rat, he would not have to fight alone! If he accepted
the chances as they stood, he must accept the risk involved
in foiling the plots and crimes of those who thought him
their confederate; but against this, the first step already
inaugurated, he had the craft and cunning of the under-
world at his back in the one purpose that meant anything
to him now. It would be a good fight! If he failed, he
might as well go out this way as any other—better this way,
for then at least some of the projected deviltry would
never know fruition. He drew in his breath sharply as in


THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE 99.
a sort of strange relief. It was settled now, once for all!
He would go on—as the Rat—to the end. And to-night
he would see this Merxler plot through to the end.
Billy Kane picked up the crumpled piece of paper she
had dropped on the table, studied it for an instant, then
placed it in his pocket. It contained the scrawled figures
of a safe's combination, nothing more. And now, glancing
at his watch and finding that it was already a little after
eight o'clock, Billy Kane worked quickly. The mask that
had served him the night before was already in his pocket,
as was his revolver. To these he added the electric flash-
light that Whitie Jack had procured for him that morning,
and, from where they dangled in the lock of the door,
Whitie Jack's bunch of skeleton keys. He extinguished
the light; then passing out through the secret door, which
he closed carefully behind him, he made his way quickly
through the little underground passage, gained the shed
through the trap-door, emerged on the lane, and from there,
cautiously, he reached the street.
He walked rapidly now, but keeping always in the shad-
ows, shunning the direct rays of the street lamps. He
cared nothing for the police; his danger did not lie in that
direction. Seen anywhere in the city by either police or
plain-clothes man he would be recognized, not as Billy
Kane, but as "the Rat—and the authorities, he was fairly
well satisfied, had no particular or immediate interest in
the Rat. His danger lay to-night in an unlucky recognition
by some prowler of the underworld, the report of which
might reach the ears of Red Vallon and his crowd. Sup-
posed to be confined to bed, pleading physical inability to
take his place at that unhallowed council board of which he
was accepted as a member, it would be very awkward to
explain his presence on the street within half an hour after
Red Vallon and Karlin had left his room! To-morrow,
the day after, it would be a different matter, he could go
and come then as he pleased, but to-night it multiplied his
difficulties and his dangers a thousandfold. And yet, after
all, that was the most simple of the problems that con-
34913S.


THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE 101
the slummers and those of New York's upper strata who
aped all things Bohemian—and from early evening until
early morning a line of taxis waited to snatch their share of
the spoils from the free-handed and, quite often, hilarious
clientele. It was a taxi that he wanted—without attracting
any unnecessary attention to himself—a taxi that he could
not stand on a crowded thoroughfare and hail—and there
was, as usual, a line of them there now in front of the
restaurant.
He reached the corner, drew his hat far down over his
eyes, stepped out into the street, and approachd the last taxi
in the line from the side away from the curb. The chauf-
feur was nodding in his seat. Billy Kane touched the man
on the arm.
“I want to go up to the Nineties—Broadway—probably
several places after that,” said Billy Kane pleasantly.
The chauffeur yawned, and shook his head.
“I’m waitin' for a party in there.” He jerked his hand
toward the restaurant. “I got a fare.”
“I know you have,” said Billy Kane coolly. “You’ve
got me.” He extended a ten-dollar bill. “There's another
one just like this, perhaps more than one, coming later—
on top of the fare.”
The chauffeur grinned, pocketed the banknote, and,
leaning out, opened the door. His grin broadened.
“What did you say the address was 2" he inquired.
“The one I gave you will do for the present,” Billy
Kane answered quietly. “I’ll let you know where to stop.
Get up there as fast as you can. I’m paying for speed
to-night. Get the idea?”
“Leave it to me!” said the chauffeur. “Hop in 1”
Billy Kane settled back in the seat. The car swung out
of the line, shot forward, and took the first corner on little
better than two wheels. Billy Kane smiled grimly. Be-
tween here and that purposely vague address in the Nineties
which he had given, the chauffeur could very obviously be
depended upon to do his part! In the meanwhile, and for


102 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
the first time, he, Billy Kane, had an opportunity to study
those scattered pieces of the puzzle in detail.
He lighted a cigarette. That there should be a will in
Merxler's safe at all had a nasty look—unless it were
Merxler's own will, which was altogether too highly im-
probable a supposition to be entertained seriously. And
besides, in that case, what was Karlin's, and Red Vallon's,
and the underworld's interest in the matter? He shook
his head decisively. The existence of a will did not tend
to place young Merxler in an enviable light.
Merxler's uncle, a man by the name of Theodore Rodgers,
who had died some few months before, had been quite an
intimate friend of David Ellsworth—that was where his,
Billy Kane's, personal knowledge of Merxler came from.
He had met Rodgers several times at the old millionaire's
home; and once he had met the nephew there as well. The
two did not get on very well together. Young Merxler was
a notorious “high-roller.” Left a large fortune by his
father two years ago, he had squandered it to the last
copper. Theodore Rodgers, his uncle, had time and again,
both privately and publicly, stated that he would have
nothing more to do with the boy. That was the gist of
it. It had occasioned some surprise then that, when
Rodgers had died, it was found that he had taken no steps
to keep his money, what he had of it, some sixty or seventy
thousand dollars, out of the young spendthrift's hands.
But no will had been found. Rodgers was a bachelor;
young Clayton Merxler was a dead sister's only son—and
Merxler had inherited as next of kin, and had promptly
moved his family—he was married—into his late uncle's
residence.
Billy Kane finished his cigarette, and finished still an-
other, as the taxi made its way uptown. There had never
been anything criminal, so far as was known, about young
Merxler, nothing wrong up to now, except that he had gone
the pace, and that, perhaps more than anything else, he had
been a foolish and unbalanced boy and had lost his head;
but now there were two very unpleasant facts that loomed


THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE 103
up insistently. First, it was common knowledge that at
the time of his uncle's death young Merxler was having an
exceedingly hard time of it to make both ends meet. And,
second, was the fact that Karlin was in this too. Knowing
Rarlin now for what Karlin really was, it looked ugly
enough for young Merxler. Karlin, accepted in the upper
circles in which he moved, as a respected citizen and an
excellent attorney, had always been trusted as a friend and
the legal adviser of both young Merxler's father and uncle—
which placed him now in a position where he could be a
very useful, if not indispensable confederate in assisting
Merxler to enter without obstacle into the possession of his
uncle's estate.
The minutes passed. Billy Kane, within a few blocks of
his destination, noted the cross streets carefully now, as
he shook his head again. The pieces did not fit so perfectly
after all. Suppose that Rodgers had left a will disinheriting
his nephew, and suppose that young Merxler had found
that will and that it was in Merxler’s safe now, and that
Karlin was a party to it—why hadn't the will been de-
stroyed? That would seem the obvious and safe thing
to have done! And if Merxler and Karlin and Red Vallon
were all hand in glove in the affair, where was the incentive
for murder that she had spoken off Whose murder?
There was a snarl in the thing. He was conscious that he
had not untangled it at all to his satisfaction.
. He tapped suddenly on the glass front, signalling the
chauffeur; and, as the taxi drew up at the curb, he stepped
quickly to the sidewalk.
“Wait for me here,” he directed, and started at a brisk
pace up the block.
He turned at the first corner, heading east along the
cross street. It was purely a residential neighborhood here.
There was no other pedestrian in sight for the moment.
Merxler's house was one of a row halfway up the block.
Billy Kane's pace became a nonchalant stroll. He passed
the row of houses slowly, though apparently indifferent to
their existence, and then, retracing his steps quite as negli-


104 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
gently, slipped suddenly into the shadows of a flight of
high front steps, and the next instant was crouched against
the basement door.
A skeleton key from Whitie Jack's comprehensive assort-
ment crept into the lock. It proved abortive. Billy Kane, as
he made a second attempt with another key, was sub-
consciously rehearsing certain details in his mind. There was
a light in the vestibule or front hallway above him, but the
windows on that floor were dark. Above that again the
windows were lighted, and it was a fair presumption that
the family proper were all upstairs. There was probably
a maid, but as there was no sign of life here in the base-
ment it might well be her evening out.
Again Billy Kane selected another key, still another—
and then the door opened silently under his hand. He
stepped inside, closed the door noiselessly behind him, and
stood listening. There was no sound and no light. It was
pitch black. He could not have seen his hand before his
eyes. And then his flashlight winked through the black,
went out, winked inquisitively again, and he moved for-
ward. The stairs were just at his right, and made a right-
angled turn halfway up. He gained the stairs and began
to mount them, testing each separate tread cautiously before
the next step was attempted. Stairs before now had been
known to creak out discordantly Billy Kane smiled in a
grim, mirthless way. He was becoming an adept at this
burglarious trade where silence was so prime a factor.
Since last night he-
What was that?
He felt his muscles, as though without volition of his,
strain suddenly and grow rigid. He was halfway up the
stairs now, and he drew back into the angle made by the
turn, his body hugged tight against the wall. What was
that! He thought he had heard a sound as of someone
moving in the hall above, but it was gone now and there
was only a stillness in the house, a stillness that, as he lis-
tened, became exaggerated until it seemed to possess noises
of its own that began to throb, and pound, and palpitate,


THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE 105
and make his eardrums ring, and—no!—there it was again
—a light, quick step—and, unmistakably now, upon the top-
most stair.
It was inky black. He could not see. He pressed still
closer, flattening himself against the wall. The step was
very light, scarcely audible; a woman's step probably, and
probably the maid's. Billy Kane held his breath. If he
were found here, discovered, caught, the Rat would—
He did not care to dwell upon the consequences.
Something, a shapeless thing, a deeper, shadowy black-
ness passed by him. It seemed to escape contact with him
by the barest fraction of an inch. He heard the sound of
breathing—then a step along the passageway below—and
the basement door closed quietly. There was silence again,
save for that din infernal that beat at his eardrums. He
lifted his hand to his forehead—it was moist as he brought
it away again.
A moment more, and he was grimly composed again. It
was the maid probably. That seemed the natural conclusion.
Who else would have gone out by the basement door?
Well, if that were so, he was left now with almost unre-
stricted freedom of action; the family being all upstairs,
he might reasonably expect to have the first floor quite to
himself without very great fear of interruption.
He crept on up the stairs, and reached the main hall-
way. Here the dim light in the vestibule sifting down the
length of the hall metamorphosed the blackness into a murky
gloom. He listened again. A murmur of voices came inter-
mittently from above. There was no other sound.
There was a door at his right. He opened it silently, and
stepped through into the room beyond. He closed the door,
and the flashlight winked out again. He was in luck now !
This, at the first venture, was the room he was looking for.
The round, white ray of the flashlight, cutting a filmy path
through the darkness, fell upon the nickel dial of a small
safe that stood against the opposite wall. He crossed to the
safe, knelt before it, and took the crumpled piece of paper
that bore the combination from his pocket. Thereafter for


106 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
a moment, as his fingers moved swiftly, the silence was
broken by the faint, musical whirling of the dial—and
then a low, metallic thud, as he shot the lever over—and
the safe door swung open.
The ray from the flashlight flooded the interior of the
safe. It was a small safe, but even so it was evidently more
than large enough for its requirements. On the floor of the
safe was a package of securities, held together by broad
elastic bands, but the pigeon-holes were but sparsely filled,
some being entirely empty. A few minutes' examination
disposed of the pigeonholes—and the skeleton keys came
into service again on a little locked drawer. The drawer
contained a single envelope, sealed. He slit the envelope
open. It contained two folded sheets of paper. He exam-
ined only one of them, and that only to the extent of glanc-
ing at the first few words: “I, Theodore Rodgers, being
of sane mind and >>
Billy Kane's face darkened, as he thrust the envelope into
his pocket and locked the drawer. It was true then! His
lips pursed grimly, as his eyes fell upon the package of
securities again. He took up the package and riffled it ten-
tatively through his fingers. Theodore Rodgers had per-
haps been a little eccentric—if eccentricity was defined by a
divergence from the general habits and customs of others!
He had made no secret that he kept his securities in his own
safe, preferring that method to depositing them in a safe-
deposit vault, and claiming that, as the securities were made
out in his name and were therefore valueless to anyone
else, they offered no temptation for robbery. Young Merx-
ler had evidently followed in his uncle's footsteps in this
particular! But Theodore Rodgers had been credited with
being worth in the neighborhood of seventy thousand dol-
lars 1 Billy Kane's lips pursed tighter, as he replaced the
package of bonds and stock certificates in the safe, and
closed and locked the safe door. At a generous estimate
there remained no more than twelve or fifteen thousand
dollars. Young Merxler, in the brief period following his
uncle's death, had evidently done well!


THE PIECES OF A PUZZLE 107
Billy Kane retreated from the room, descended the stairs,
and ſet himself out through the basement door—and five
minutes later, in his taxi, was being whirled downtown
again. “The back room at Jerry's before ten.” He had
directed the chauffeur to drive to a side street just off the
Bowery near Chatham Square—that was close to Jerry's.
He had looked at his watch, as he had entered the taxi.
It was just nine o'clock. He had therefore plenty of time
now. He took the envelope from his pocket and extracted
the two folded sheets. There was not light enough to read
by, but that was quite easily rectified. He had his flash-
light.
He bent well down toward the floor of the cab so as
not to attract the chauffeur's attention, read both of the
papers, read them again—and a look of stunned surprise
and bewilderment settled on his face. One was a will,
evidently drawn and written by Rodgers himself, and duly
witnessed, bequeathing practically everything to charity, and
specifying four or five different organizations as the bene-
ficiaries. It appointed Karlin, who was referred to as a
“trusted and lifelong friend,” the sole executor; and, “as a
mark of personal esteem,” and as a “slight compensation”
for the administration of the estate, left Karlin a legacy
of two thousand five hundred dollars. The other paper
was a letter signed by young Merxler. Billy Kane read
this again for the third time:
“If I die before Karlin does, this is a joke on Karlin;
if Karlin dies before I do the will and this letter go into
the fire. , Damn him—I hate him! He's a smooth oily-
tongued hypocrite!. It was Karlin more than anybody else
who backed my uncle up in the idea of cutting me off. Well,
I guess this is where I get even If there's two thousand
five hundred dollars left when I get through, I hope Karlin
will enjoy it—but there won't be? I just wanted him to
know how thoughtful my uncle was, and it was worth the
risk of keeping the cursed will for the sake of the jolt it
will give Karlin's miserly, snivelling soul. . If there's any-
thing Karlin loves, it's money. If Karlin's got any God
at all, it's money. He worships that, all right!”


108 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
Here the letter veered abruptly into direct address:
“It’H break your heart, Karlin, won't it, to think I spent
two thousand five hundred dollars of your money! That's
the joke, Karlin! It's rich, isn't it? And I just want to
tell you, too, that you had the will in your own hands once
—and overlooked the bet! That's where you slipped up,
Karlin. It was the day my uncle died, and we were going
over the papers together. It was in a plain, unsealed en-
velope—and didn't look like anything. You tossed it on a
heap of other stuff to be looked into later—all you could
think of was counting stocks and bonds, getting your
fingers into money—that you didn't know was yours—some
of it, anyway! I was looking for something else—and
found it. I only had to read about two words and see
that it was in my uncle's handwriting, and—well, since
you're the executor, you'll find it enclosed herewith !
Clayton Merxler.”
Billy Kane refolded the papers, returned them to the en-
velope, restored the envelope and flashlight to his pockets,
and leaned back in his seat. The taxi lurched and swayed
along at a pace that gave small deference or heed to speed
laws. Billy Kane stared out of the window.
The letter was viciously facetious, callous and unscrupu-
lous. The boy was a self-confessed and blatantly unrepent-
ant thief. In that at least his first supposition had evidently
been justified, and it was quite clear now why Merxler had
not destroyed the will—but otherwise the whole affair had
now assumed an entirely different aspect. Instead of Kar-
lin being in league with Merxler, Karlin, unknown to Merx-
ler, it now appeared, was aware of the existence of the will
—and Karlin, if she had not exaggerated, meant murder.
And, since no one else was involved, meant Merxler's mur-
der.
Billy Kane's face hardened in perplexity. But why?
What could Karlin hope to gain thereby ? Certainly it was
not on account of the little legacy of two thousand five
hundred dollars—Karlin had only to expose the fact that
the will existed to obtain that. And that applied equally
to the executorship. And what good could the executor-
ship do Karlin? With the stocks and bonds there open to
inspection and their value known, Karlin's executorship


—XI—
THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY's
far over his eyes as he stepped out. He stood an
instant debating with himself, then handed the chauf-
feur another bill. What might happen at Jerry's he did not
know—he was going it blind again. But as a means of
retreat, a taxi waiting around the corner would at least add
to his chances, if necessity arose. And a chauffeur well
paid was a guarantee of fidelity than which there was none
better.
“You’ve struck a gold mine to-night,” he said coolly. “I
may be gone half an hour, or I may be gone an hour—wait
for me.”
“You bet your life, I'll wait!” said the chauffeur fer-
vently. “I-”
Billy Kane was hurrying down the street. He turned
the first corner, and headed along the intersecting street,
that was dark, narrow and deserted. He passed another
cross street, and thereafter counted the houses as he went
along. Here tenements and the old-fashioned dwellings of
New York's early days incongruously rubbed shoulders
with one another. Jerry's, he found, was the fifth house
from the cross street. There was no mistaking Jerry's. It
was one of the old private dwellings, and it had been
pointed out to him more than once. He returned to the
cross street, turned down it, slipped into the lane that passed
in the rear of the houses he had just inspected from the
front, and, guardedly now, making his way silently along,
he again counted the buildings that here in the darkness
loomed up like black, uncouth shapes against the sky line.
T. taxi drew up to the curb. Billy Kane's hat was
- 110


THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY'S III
He stopped in the rear of the fifth house. Here and there
a thread of light showed from a window, but it was a
stealthy light, a light that played truant through the inter-
stices of closed shutters, or seeped perhaps through the folds
of curtains hanging inadvertently awry. It was abnormally
dark, and in the darkness there seemed to lurk a somber
secrecy, like a pall, cloaking evil things.
Billy Kane swung himself up and over a high fence,
and dropped noiselessly to the ground on the other side.
He found himself in a yard that, even in the darkness,
he could make out was strangely restricted in area. A few
feet in front of him was the wall of the building itself. He
crept forward, skirting along this wall. There was no win-
dow, but opening almost on a level with the ground were
shuttered French doors. He continued on, rounded the
angle of the building, and suddenly stooped down in a
crouching posture. There was a window here just above his
head, and from it came a meager gleam of light. His eyes
grown accustomed to the darkness, he could distinguish his
surroundings a little more clearly now. The yard here, a
narrow strip of it paralleling the side fence, seemed to run
back quite a distance, taking up a jut in the building.
They had puzzled him, those shuttered French doors where
logically he had expected to find an ordinary back door and
porch, but it was obvious now that the “back room at
Jerry's" was an addition that had been built onto the house,
extending almost to the fence in the rear.
The window beneath which he crouched was shoulder
high. He straightened up. The light came through slightly
parted, heavy portières. He felt the blood quicken suddenly
in his veins. He could see in quite well. There were two
men in the room—Karlin, and another man whom he did not
recognize. The room was luxuriously, if somewhat gar-
ishly furnished. A green baize card table, with several
unopened packs of cards upon it, stood in the center; there
was a blue-and-gold Chinese rug with a huge dragon pat-
tern upon the floor; and at one side a large buffet groaned
under a load of wine and whisky bottles, bowls of fruit,


112 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
and refreshments of various descriptions. The two men
were talking earnestly. Karlin pulled out his watch, and
scowled.
Billy Kane's lips tightened. He could see, but he could
not hear. He took his penknife from his pocket, and slipped
the blade under the window sill. If he had luck, if the win-
dow was not locked, he—ah!—his breath came in a soft,
long-drawn intake—the window gave slightly under a cau-
tious pressure. An inch was all that was necessary, half an
inch even. The window went up by infinitesmal fractions of
that inch.
Billy Kane returned the penknife to his pocket. He
could hear them now. Karlin was speaking; and the other
man, it appeared now, was the proprietor of the place, Jerry,
the ex-croupier of Monte Carlo.
“What's the matter with you, Jerry—getting nervous
waiting?” said Karlin curtly. “Well, forget it! This is the
Rat's plan—and that ought to be good enough, what?
Nothing is going wrong, nothing can go wrong. Certainly,
the police will close you up for a month, but that's all
there is to it, so far as you are concerned. They have
nothing on you. That's the inside of the whole thing—
that the killing is done in an unpremeditated, drunken brawl
over cards—that it just happened—just an untimely end
without any other strings to it! There's no reason why you
should lose your nerve—your story is straight. Young
Merxler came here often. He gives a little party here to-
night. Neither you nor your doorkeeper knows a damned
one of his guests. He vouched for them, and that's all
you know. You heard a row in here, then a revolver shot,
and when you got here the table was upset, wine, cards and
glasses all over the place, the boys beating it out through the
French doors there, and young Merxler dead on the floor.
You just notify the police. Your loss through being closed
for a month makes it a cinch your story's straight—you don't
have to tell the police that your share of the split is the
best bet you ever made in your life! Let me do the worry-
ing! I'm the one who's taking the risk. I'm the one who's


THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY'S 113
been showing a seamy side to Merxler in confidence lately.
I'm the one who's invited him to the party that the police
will be told he was giving. You can leave it to me that
nothing goes wrong. I've got my own skin staked on this.
There won't be any mistake made—dead men can't talk.
The only thing I’m bothering about is what is keeping Bull
McCann. He might—”
Billy Kane drew suddenly back from the window, and
crouched down again against the wall of the building. Some-
one, unless he were curiously mistaken, was out there in the
lane at the rear of the place. He was listening intently
now—but there was a strange turmoil in his brain that
seemed somehow to divide his attention, that had made
his act of caution one that was almost purely automatic.
Murder! That casual discussion of murder There was
something within him, soul deep, that he could not quite
analyse—save that it seemed a lust for murder was upon
him too, possessing him, engulfing him. Would that be mur-
der? Was it murder to crush out the life of a poison-
fanged snake! There was a fury upon him, but a most
strange fury, a fury that was utterly cold—and utterly mer-
ciless. Murder! Yes, he knew now beyond question that
there was to be murder, that the stage for it was set with a
devil's craft, with the craft of the Rat whose identity he
had assumed; that it would appear on the face of it nothing
more than quite a logical outcome of the life led by young
Merxler, that there would appear to be no connection what-
ever with young Merxler's death and what was to follow—
but what was it that was to follow 2 How, in what way,
was this murder, in dollars and cents, to show a profit at the
next meeting of that unhallowed directorate of crime? How
did Karlin
Strange how his mind should isolate itself from his imme-
diate surroundings, and yet leave him fully conscious of
those surroundings! He was still listening—listening in-
tently. There was no mistake. A boot scraped against a
board. Someone was climbing the fence. Came then the


114 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
soft thud of feet dropping to the ground, and now a quick
step across the yard.
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 l The other had halted evi-
dently before those shuttered French doors, and was rap-
ping 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 rap-
idly.
“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—


THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY'S 115
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? Merx-
ler is killed in a gambling brawl—at which nobody is sur-
prised, 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


116 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 lit-
tle, 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 nerv-
ously. “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 writ-
ten the will. They identify their signatures, and their
story's straight. Rodgers asked them to witness his signa-
ture 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 xx
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 con-
tinental in both manner and speech. He bowed profoundly,
as a young man entered.


THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY'S 117
“Ah, Monsieur Merxler—a great pleasure! I was telling
Monsieur Karlin that »y
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 mechan-
ism of his revolver, as he again looked in through the win-
dow. 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 for-
ward, 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,


118 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
to the floor, and another cry, from Merxler now, and then,
dazing Billy Kane for an instant by the sudden and unex-
pected 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 recog-
nition 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 in-
stant 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, glanc-
ing 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


THE BACK Room AT JERRY's 119
deadly quiet. “Man, are you mad! Hurry! They'll have
us both in another minute l’’
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 Kar-
lin'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, pull-
ing 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 run-
ning 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 chauf-
feur: “Drive as fast as you know how ! Go up the street
at the rear of The Purple Scarf ſ”
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 be-
fore,” 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?”


120 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“Stoop over!” said Billy Kane quietly. He handed Merx-
ler 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 handwrit-
ing, 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 to-
night. 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


THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY'S 121
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 yy
“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 Merx-
ler. “Good-night, Merxler—I 3y
“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


122 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 star-
ing 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 P. He shook his head. It was
hardly likely, and his reason told him no—she had been out-
spoken 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?


THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY'S 123
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!


A CLUE 125
the edge of the table. The man had been eager in his
attentions, deferential, almost obsequious.
“Wot're youse for now, Bundy?” he inquired solicit-
ously.
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 under-
ground passage into the Rat's lair had not proved an alto-
gether 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 2 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.


126 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 some-
thing, 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 xx
“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 mar-
ried 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


128 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 ap-
peared upon his table this single stone, ostentatiously identi-
fied 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 stum-
bled upon the stone in their search through the tinderground
exchanges, and had left it there as evidence of a partial suc-
cess 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 de-
fense. 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 P
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 impos-
i


A CLUE 129
sible that his identity was known, but, even so, the question
as to where that stone had come from, and why, still re-
mained 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 dan-
ger, 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 respecta-
bility 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 pos-
sible, than his unsought rôle of the Rat. He was the man
in the mask. He shrugged his shoulders suddenly. Quite
so I 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 an-
swer 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 .


130 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 suc-
cess, 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 over-
stepped 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-philan-


A CLUE 131
thropist'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 re-
port, 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 mur-
derers, 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’ tes-
timony 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,


132 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
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 pre-
sumably of recovering the card with the combinations of the
safe and vault on it in his handwriting, he had been dis-
covered by Jackson, the footman, and had killed Jackson,
who had tried to capture him.
Billy Kane's hands were shoved in an apparently non-
chalant 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 undoubt-
edly 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


A CLUE 133
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 hun-
dred 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 turn-
ing; it precluded the necessity of getting Peters somewhere
else—alone. It simplified matters. Peters' flat would serve
most excellently for that interview


—XIII—
THE CIPHER MESSAGE
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 for-
ward, 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, in-
duced 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
OCC111 rence.
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 re-
Bº KANE'S hands came from his pockets again,
- 135


136 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
quire 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 pleas-
antly.
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 oth-
ers. 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! Under-
stand? 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 sup-
posed to know what this jumble of letters signified. Red


THE CIPHER MESSAGE 137
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 under-
world 'would be as gentle and merciful as a pack of starv-
ing wolves! The jumble of letters seemed to possess a dia-
bolical leer all their own, as he stared at them.
ziduðvesfuu6f wefwif8dfsuof nſ Iohjtopdteop8nbje3ofueobt8v
piutsb7mmpez5bepunapsgnbgesfutnbf{wbiopjublinspgoj9fiuf
mAp2ntjhoéjzbImbuosbm2qpuu.3f.hnf4iuuihzjopuoff7xufcuših
j3feobf4ojold.6pmd3peobuðsfwjeopjdojqtv2tpuf4np3tfopf4tm
3fov3sf4iufmp2npuisusbsfe4obfib3nn5.jiih2vpdqv.
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 any-
thing 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 fin-
gers? 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


THE CIPHER MESSAGE 139
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 1"
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 re-
port 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 al-
ways 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 Kar-
lin. 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.


140 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“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 indif-
ferent to his presence, and quite intent upon the consump-
tion of a glass of milk and the sandwich on the plate
before her.
Billy Kane smiled with grim comprehension. The fru-
gality 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 with-
out 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 there-
fore 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


THE CIPHER MESSAGE 141
public meeting, he had only to leave the place—and she
would undoubtedly follow.
In one sense she was most solicitous of his welfare! She
would do nothing to hamper or hinder him in protecting
himself, as long as he continued to double-cross and render
abortive the crimes of that inner circle of the underworld
in which she believed him to be a leader; failing that, as
she had already made it quite clear, she proposed, as near
as he could solve the riddle, to expose some past crime of
the Rat's to the police, and end his career via the death
chair in Sing Sing. Also she had made her personal feelings
toward him equally clear—she held for him a hatred that
was as deep-seated as it was merciless and deadly.
He shrugged his shoulders. He, by proxy, stood in the
shoes of one who, seemingly, had done her some irreparable
wrong, and since she would dog him all night until she had
had the interview that she evidently proposed to have, it
might as well be here as anywhere. It mattered very little
to him, as the Rat, that he should be observed by those in
the room to get up from his table and walk over to hers.
He was not being watched in the sense that anyone held
surveillance over him, and, in any case, the conventions
here in the heart of the underworld were of too elastic a
character to have it cause even comment; and, besides, in a
few hours from now, if luck were with him, he would be
through with all this, done with this miserable rôle of super-
crook, which, though it brought a new and greater peril at
every move he made, was the one thing that, for the present,
he was dependent upon for his life.
He rose, crossed the room nonchalantly, and dropped as
nonchalantly into the chair at the end of her table, his back
to the door.
She greeted him with a smile—but it was a smile of the
lips only. The dark eyes, under the long lashes, studied
him in a cold, uncompromising stare; and there was mock-
ery in their depths, but deeper than the mockery there was
contempt and disdain.
A cigarette, pulled lazily from his pocket and lighted,


142 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
preserved his appearance of unconcern. In spite of him-
self, in spite of the fact that that contemptuous stare was
his only through a damnable and abhorrent proxy, he felt
suddenly ill at ease. He had never seen her as closely as
this before. He had only seen her twice before—once in
the dark; and once with the width of the Rat's den sep-
arating them. He had been conscious then that she was
attractive, beautiful, with her clustering masses of brown
hair, and the dainty poise of her head, and the pure white-
ness of her full throat; but he was conscious now that be-
yond the mere beauty of features lay steadfastness and
strength, that in the sweetness of the face there was, too,
a wistfulness, do what she would to hide it, and that there
was strain there, and weariness. And he was suddenly con-
scious, too, that he disliked the rôle of the Rat more than
he had ever disliked it, and that the loathing in those eyes,
which never left his face, was responsible for this added dis-
taste of the fact that nature had, through some cursed and
perverted sense of humor or malevolence, seen fit to make
him the counterpart of a wanton rogue, and, worse still,
seen fit to force upon him the enactment of that rôle.
He could not tell her that he was not the Rat, could he?
—that he was Billy Kane! Would the loathing in those
eyes have grown the less at that? Billy Kane—the thief,
the Judas assassin, whose name was a byword throughout
the length and breadth of the land at that moment, whose
name was a synonym for everything that was vile and
hideous and depraved He was the Rat—until to-night
was over ! After that—well, after that, who knew 2 Now,
he was the Rat, and he must play the Rat's part.
She broke the silence, her voice cool and even:
“I left it entirely to you as to whether you would come
over to this table here or not.”
“I quite understood l’ Billy Kane forced a sarcastic
smile. “You are almost too consideratel”
“Am I?” she said. Her eyes flashed suddenly. “Well,
perhaps you are right! I have thought sometimes that even
the chance I give you is more than you deserve. I feel so


THE CIPHER MESSAGE 143
strongly about it, in fact, that the only thing which prevents
me from putting an end to it—and you—is that by using
you to defeat the ends of your own criminal associates a
great deal of good is being done. They will trap you
sometime, of course, and, knowing them, you know what
will happen, and I am satisfied then that, as an alternative,
you would prefer Sing Sing and the chair; but you are
clever—that is why you grasp at the chance I give you.
You are extremely clever—and you believe you can con-
tinue to outwit them indefinitely. I don't think you can,
though I admit your cleverness, cunning and craft.”
“You flatter me!” said Billy Kane ironically.
“No,” she said, her voice suddenly lowered, passionate,
tense; “I hate you.”
“You told me that last night.” Billy Kane indolently
blew a ring of cigarette smoke ceilingwards. “I am begin-
ning to believe you. Did you follow Red Vallon in here
to tell me the same thing again?”
She did not answer for a moment.
“Sometimes you make me lose my faith in God,” she said,
in a slow, restrained way. “It is hard to believe that a God,
a just God, could have created such men as you.”
Billy Kane removed his cigarette from his lips, and
flicked the ash away with a tap of his forefinger. He felt
the color mount and tinge his cheeks. There was some-
thing, not alone in her words, but in her tone, that struck
at him and hurt. The brown eyes, deep, full of implacable
condemnation, burned into his. What was it that the Rat
had done to her, or hers? He turned slightly away. An
anger, smoldering in his soul, burst into flame. He was the
Rat by proxy—and the proxy was damnable. He could not
tell her he was not the Rat. He could not tell her he was—
Billy Kane. He must play on with his detestable rôle ! He
must play the Rat. What answer would the Rat have made
to her?
“Cut that out!” rasped Billy Kane.
“Yes,” she said quietly, “I spoke impulsively. There are
only two things in life that affect you—your own safety,


144 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
and to be quite sure that you get all of your share out of
your crimes, and, if possible, somebody else's share as well.
But the latter consideration is at an end now, isn't it,
Bundy? I think I have taken care of that. It's just a
question of whether you can save yourself or not with
those clever wits of yours. Well”—she shrugged her
shoulders suddenly—“you did very well last night. His life
would not be worth very much if the underworld should
ever lay hands on the man in the mask. Would it, Bundy?”
He did not answer her.
“Yes, you did very well, indeed,” she went on calmly.
“You will meet somewhere else, of course, as soon as you
can find a suitable place, but you will hold no more of your
secret council meetings at Jerry's for some time to come.”
Billy Kane's face was impassive now. He was appar-
ently intent only on the thin blue spiral of smoke that curled
upward from the tip of his cigarette. So those meetings of
that cursed directorate of crime had been held at Jerry's,
had they? He had not known that.
“Suppose,” suggested Billy Kane, curtly, “that we come
to the point. What is it that you want to-night?”
“I am coming to the point,” she answered levelly. “Owing
to the events of last night your organization is in confusion,
some of the more faint-hearted of your partners have tem-
porarily even taken to their heels; but, even so, the organ-
ization's activities can hardly come to an abrupt standstill.
You will perhaps remember a somewhat similar occasion
once before? There are perhaps certain matters that are
imperative, that cannot wait. Is it not so, Bundy? And in
such an emergency it is left to—shall we call him the or-
ganization's secretary?—to keep things going. Personal
touch is lost with one another, but there is still a way. I
know, it does not matter how, that Red Vallon received a
written order a little while ago. I followed Red Vallon
here. I think he gave that order to you.”
Billy Kane looked at her for a moment, a quizzical, whim-
sical expression creeping into his face. She was in deadly
earnest, he knew that well. And yet there was a certain


146 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
cifically just what that crime is, for if it succeeds I shall
know about it, and, in that case, I shall equally know that
you did not prevent it. I think you quite understand what
that means, don't you, Bundy? However”—she smiled
again, as she opened her purse and took out a pencil—
“let us put it down to a woman's insatiable curiosity, if you
like, and decode it together.”
Decode it! The twisted smile that came to his lips was
genuine enough. He couldn't decode it. He had only one
card to play—a flat and unequivocal refusal.
“Nothing doing!” he snarled.
“Oh, yes, I think there is,” she said softly again.
He stared at her. Her pencil was flying across the paper.
Who was this woman? She knew the key! Was there any-
thing that she did not know? He watched her in a stunned
way, his mind in confusion. And then he leaned forward
to observe her work more closely. Beneath the original
cipher she had written this:
ziduve sfuufw efwjfdfs uofnohjtopd teopnbje of u eobtvpiu
tsbmmpe zbepu npsg nbesfutnb fubi opjubnspgoj fill frnpn
tj hojzbm b uobma pu ufh nñu uihjopu offixufc uihjf eob
fojo lpmdp eob usfwje opjdjqtvt pu fript fop ftmf ovs fill
fnpn puiusbf eob fibn nji invpd qv.
“It is so simple, Bundy,” she murmured caustically. “The
numerals to designate the number of letters in the words,
the transposition of ‘a’ for ‘b’, and so on, and the words
spelled backwards. It is so simple, Bundy, that it is strange
you should have forgotten—and forgotten that there are
other secrets I have found in that den of yours, apart from
that very convenient and ingenious door!”
She was working as she spoke, paying no attention to him.
He made no reply, only watched her as she set down a
second series of letters:
yhctud rettev deviecer themngisnoc sqnomaid net dmasuoht
srallod yadot morf madretsma evah noitamrofni eht elom
signiyal a thalp ot teg meht thyinot neewteb thgie dma enin
kcolco dna trevid noicipsus ot emos eno esle nur eht elom
ot htrae dma ekam mih hguoc pu.


THE CIPHER MESSAGE 147
A moment more, and she had written out the message in
plain English:
Dutchy Vetter received consignment diamonds ten thousand
dollars to-day from Amsterdam. Have information the
Mole is laying a plant to get them to-night between eight and
nine o'clock, and divert suspicion to some one else. Run
the Mole to earth and make him cough up.
She was studying the paper in her hand. Billy Kane
lighted another cigarette. He was still watching her, but
it was in a detached sort of way. Between eight and nine
o'clock! Peters was rarely able to leave the Ellsworth home
on his evenings off until well after eight o'clock; Peters,
therefore, would not reach his flat much before nine, and
certainly was not likely to leave there again immediately.
Billy Kane's mind was working in quick, and seemingly
unrelated snatches of thought. There was time enough to
see this Vetter game through without interfering with that
interview he meant to hold with Peters. . . . It was strange
that it should be Vetter . . . Whitie Jack had spoken of
Vetter . . . Savnak, the violin player, and Vetter . . .
Whitie Jack said that Savnak and Vetter spent most of
their evenings together at Vetter's playing pinochle and
the violin. . . . Savnak would likely be there then between
eight and nine. . . . Upon whom was it that the so-called
Mole intended to point suspicion? . . . Here was the moral
obligation again. . . . He had fought that out last night.
. . . She, this woman here, was not the driving force. . . .
She only represented disaster from an entirely different
source if he failed. . . . If he stood aside with the fore-
knowledge of crime in his possession he was as guilty as this
Mole. . . . Perhaps he had been trying to trick his own
conscience in not pressing Red Vallon for explanations.
. . . Perhaps, in a measure, he had allowed the argument
that he might invite Red Vallon's suspicions to act as an
excuse for evading the responsibility that this foreknowl-
edge of crime entailed. . . . Well, that responsibility was
his now, thanks to her. . . . He had no choice. . . . It
was likely to be the man in the mask again, and


THE CIPHER MESSAGE 149
the goods, and is too sharp for Red Vallon so that I can't
even get the loot away from Red—am I responsible?”
“I’m not unreasonable,” she said—and smiled. “There
is a good deal of truth in what you say. But there is a
way to provide against both contingencies.”
The snarl was still in his voice.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Steal the diamonds yourself before the Mole gets to
work,” she proposed calmly.
Billy Kane's gasp was wholly genuine.
“What?” he ejaculated.
“You’ve plenty of time,” she said sweetly. “Vetter's
isn't far from here, and it's not much more than half past
seven now. The diamonds can be returned to Vetter to-
morrow. After having had them stolen once, I think Vetter
could be trusted to put them somewhere where neither the
Mole nor anyone else would be likely to succeed a second
time.”
“But I don't know where the diamonds are now !” His
voice was helpless in spite of himself.
She lifted her shoulders.
“Neither do I,” she said imperturbably.
“Well, you've got your nerve!” he burst out—and it was
Billy Kane, not the Rat, who spoke.
The interview, as far as she was concerned, was evi-
dently at an end. She had resumed her frugal meal, and
was picking daintily at the sandwich on her plate. Her
eyebrows arched.
“I hope you've got yours,” she murmured.
He stood up. He could have laughed ironically, and
likewise he could have sworn. She was distractingly pretty,
as she sat there quite the mistress of herself; but her pro-
found and utter disregard as to how the perilous project
might result for him personally brought suddenly a vicious
sweep of anger upon him—and abruptly, without a word,
he swung from the table, and made his way toward the
door. But the few steps cleared his brain a little, brought
things into sharper focus. After all, he had forgotten! To


I50 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
her, he was the Rat. And the Rat—he did not question it
—merited little of either mercy or consideration at her
hands. At the door he looked back. She nodded to him
pleasantly, and smiled—not in the manner of one who
might very well be sending another to his death!
“Well, I'll be damned” muttered Billy Kane, and, open-
ing the door, stepped out to the street.


— XIV —
THE ROBBERY
- T was not far to Vetter's place, but—Billy Kane looked .
I at his watch under a street lamp—it was later than
she had said. It was ten minutes of eight. He knew
where Vetter's was. That point presented no difficulties;
he could hardly have spent the months he had amongst the
queer, heterogeneous lives of the East Side without know-
ing at least that much about so outstanding a character as
the old Holland diamond merchant—but that was quite
another matter from knowing where the old Hollander
domiciled his diamonds!
Billy Kane frowned, as he went along. Well, was it
necessary to steal the diamonds? That task, on the face
of it, was so almost practically impossible as to render it
bizarre. He had nothing to work on, no information, just
the cool suggestion that he should steal the diamonds first;
and, under ordinary circumstances, he might well be filled
with dismay at the prospect of failure in view of the threat
which she held over his head, though that side of it need not,
and did not, concern him to-night. In a few hours from now
he no longer expected to be the Rat; in a few hours Peters
would have had his choice between losing his life and telling
the truth, and under those conditions there was very little
room for doubt but that Peters would have told—the truth.
If, however, he could meanwhile save the old Hollander from
loss, he, Billy Kane, was quite ready to go to almost any
length to do so.
He went on at a quick pace, traversing block after block.
He smiled ironically to himself, as he finally turned a cor-
ner, and with more caution now, approached a low frame
151


152 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
building that was bordered by a dark and narrow lane.
Yes, it was bizarre enough! He could not very well inform
the police himself! The Rat—and particularly Billy Kane
—was not at the moment on speaking terms with the police 1
But was it necessary to steal the diamonds?
Her idea, of course, was that then they would be abso-
lutely safe from any attempt, or, perhaps what she feared
most, physical coercion on the part of the Mole—even if
Vetter were given a warning.
But surely Vetter could take care of himself if he were
warned He, Billy Kane, certainly preferred that method |
But, even that, as an alternative, was not quite so simple as
it appeared. He was still the Rat. He did not know the
plan this so-called Mole had evolved, and, more vital still,
he did not know how closely Red Vallon was, in
turn, watching the Mole. It was eight o'clock now,
and any or all of them might already be here. If he, Billy
Kane, were discovered there would never be that little in-
terview with Peters! The corollary was self-evident. Even
for the purpose of warning the man, to reach Vetter inside
this house here, that he was just passing, demanded the
same degree of caution and secrecy on his part as though he
entered for the purpose of stealing the stones himself. Also
the little shop that made the front of the building was closed
and dark. Vetter's living quarters, he had heard, which was
one of the eccentricities that had made the man a talked-of
character on the East Side, consisted of no more than a
single room, serving for every purpose, at the rear of the
shop itself. He did not dare take the risk of inviting atten-
tion by rapping and bringing the old Hollander to the door.
He turned, and retracing his steps, sauntered noncha-
lantly along, passed by the house again—and slipped into
the lane. Circumstances, as he found them, alone could
govern his actions.
Billy Kane took stock now of the surroundings. The
frame building was an old affair, and the floors therefore
would be outrageously creaky. Billy Kane scowled. The
prospect of creaky floors and protesting boards was not a


154 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
playing was exquisite. It was some plaintive, haunting
melody given life by a master touch. He remembered Whitie
Jack's description of the expatriated musician. Without
question Savnak could “fiddle”; the man, in spite of having
come a moral cropper, was, if he, Billy Kane, were any
judge, little short of a genius.
Glancing sharply about him once more, Billy Kane, with
a lithe spring, caught the top of the fence, and drew him-
self cautiously up until he could peer over. He hung there
motionless for a moment. A few yards away from him, in
a slightly diagonal direction, and between himself and the
back door, was the window of the rear room; and, as he
had suspected, the window was open. He could see inside;
that is, in a restricted sense. A man, it was Savnak of
course, chin on his violin, standing, was swaying gently to
and fro on his feet to the tempo of the music, his back to
the window; and at the table, side face to the window, but
with his back toward Billy Kane, Vetter, the old Hollander,
white-haired, sat rapt in attention, staring at the violinist.
Billy Kane drew himself further up, and straddled the
fence. The position of the two men rendered him safe
from observation. The notes of the violin, in a tremolo,
died softly away. The old Hollander dug his knuckles
across his eyes; and his words, spoken in perfect English,
evidently the language common to the two men of diverse
nationalities, reached Billy Kane distinctly:
“You are wonderful, my old friend Savnak. It is divine.
My friend, you are wonderful.”
The violinist shrugged his shoulders.
“Once,” he said, “I could really play. Yes, I tell you,
you who will believe me, that I could sway the people, that
I could do with them as I would, that I–’” He stopped
abruptly, and shrugged his shoulders again. “But what is
the use of memories? Memories. They are bad! They
leave a bad taste! Let us forget them? You were to show
me the great purchase that arrived to-day.”
“These!” The old Hollander took from his pocket what
looked like a soft, plia'le, chamois-skin pocketbook, which


THE ROBBERY 155
he opened and laid on the table, disclosing a cluster of gems
that, nesting on a snowy bed of wadding, sparkled and
scintillated as the rays of the gas jet above the table fell
upon them; and then, impulsively closing the pocketbook
again, he pushed it a little away from him. “They can
wait!” he said. “By and by, we will look at them one by
one. But they do not feed the soul, my Savnak, like your
music. Play some more. They are not worth one of your
notes.”
“Are they not?” Savnak's voice seemed tinged with
bitterness. “The soul ray be well fed, Vetter, but that does
not keep one often enough from tightening the belt! I
think I would be fortunate to make the exchange—my gift,
such as it is, for your diamonds.”
“You do not mean what you say!” the old Hollander
replied, shaking his head reprovingly. “I know better!
But I do not like to ear you talk like that. Things are not
so bad with you now. You are moody. Play some more,
my friend.” -
“As you will!” Again Savnak shrugged his shoulders.
He nestled his chin on the violin. “It will be something
gay, then, and lively—eh, Vetter?—to chase the blue devils
away.” -
The notes of the violin rose again. Billy Kane began to
lower himself from the fence into the backyard. His mind
was made up now. Since there were two of them there,
a warning surely was all that was necessary. The window
was not much more than shoulder high from the ground,
and he had, then, only to cross the yard and call to Vetter
through the window. His appearance there would no doubt
startle and alarm the old Hollander half out of his wits,
but that was exactly what would cause the man to guard
his diamonds all the more zealously for the rest of the night.
Once warned, the two men in there between them ought
certainly to be able to take care of themselves and that
chamois pocketbook.
Billy Kane dropped softly to the ground, straightened up,
took a step forward—and stopped as though rooted to the


156 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
spot. There had come a cry from Vetter. The violin
broke off with a jerky, high-pitched, screaming note. Then
silence. Billy Kane raised himself on tiptoes. He could
just see in through the window; no more. It seemed like
some picture flashed on a cinema screen, quick, instantane-
ous. A third man, hat drawn far over his face, was standing
by the table, covering Vetter and Savnak with a revolver.
The man snatched up the chamois pocketbook, reached above
his head, turned out the gas—and the room and window
were in blackness.
It had happened with the suddenness and swiftness of a
lightning flash, so quick that the brain stumbled a little in
a dazed way in an effort to grasp its significance. And then
Billy Kane wrenched his automatic from his pocket. The
thief, when or in whatever way he had got into the house,
must necessarily make his escape either by the front door,
or by the back door and through the yard here. If it were
the latter, which seemed the more likely, he, Billy Kane, had
the man at his mercy; if it were the former, the man
would probably reach the street, in any case, before he,
Billy Kane, could get over the fence and rush down the
lane.
Billy Kane was moving swiftly in the direction of the
back door. He had to choose one way or the other. He
could not attempt to guard both exits at the same time! If
the man
Vetter's voice rose in a furious cry from the room:
“It is by the front, Savnak, he has gone! Quick! I
hear him going out ! Quick! The street!”
“Yes! Quick! The street!” Savnak, like a parrot, in a
shrill, hysterical voice, was echoing the other's words.
“Quick! Chase him! And shout for the police!” A
chair fell over. The two men were evidently floundering
their way to the door. “Curse him for turning out the
light!” -
Billy Kane whirled, and dashed for the fence. As he
straddled the top, he saw a figure, thrown into relief on the
lighted street, speed past the head of the lane—and then, with


THE ROBBERY 157
a wry smile at a sudden realization of his own impotence,
he dropped to the lane, and, instead of running now, made
his way slowly and cautiously forward, hugged close against
the wall. If he ran out of the lane into the arms of Vetter
and Savnak, besides hampering the pursuit by distracting
their attention from the fugitive, he invited the decidedly
awkward and very natural suspicion of being connected
with the thief himself; and the police would be very apt
to listen with their tongues in their cheeks to any explana-
tion that the Rat might offer to account for his presence in
the lane at that particular moment! And if there was any
one thing that he wished to avoid to-night, it was a com-
plication with the police that would inevitably interfere with
his freedom of action during the next few hours.
Came a wild cry now from both Vetter and Savnak
from the front of the house; and then the two men, yelling
at the top of their voices, both hatless, Savnak, apparently
unconscious in his excitement that he was brandishing his
violin frantically in one hand and his bow in the other,
tore madly down the street in pursuit of their quarry.
Billy Kane slipped out to the street. Doors of tenements
and houses were beginning to open; heads were beginning to
be thrust out through upper windows; the street was be-
ginning to assume a state of pandemonium. A block down,
the quarry, well in the lead of the old Hollander and the
violinist, leaped suddenly into a waiting automobile, and
vanished around the corner.
Billy Kane turned away. He felt a curiously chagrined
resentment against this so-called Mole, that was quite apart
from his angry resentment of the fact that the old Hollander
had been victimized. He had expected something quite dif-
ferent from the Mole! Red Vallon—and she, too—had
given the Mole a reputation for cleverness, craft and cun-
ning; but, instead of having shown any cleverness, or even
a shred of originality, the Mole, or his minion, had perpe-
trated nothing more than a bald, crude theft that any house-
breaker, or broken-down old “lag” could have pulled off
with equal lack of fineness! Well, anyway, for the moment


158 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
so far as he was concerned, the affair was at an end, and
he could only await developments. It all hinged on Red
Vallon now—on Red Vallon, who proposed in turn to rob
the robber—on Red Vallon, who, later on, would keep an
appointment with him, Billy Kane, in the Rat's den!
As he turned a corner, Billy Kane consulted his watch.
It was still early, just a trifle after eight—too early for that
interview with Peters yet. He might as well go back to
Two-finger Tasker's then. It was scarcely likely that she
was still there, but, if she were, so much the better! She
could hardly hold him responsible for failure; and, in any
case, she would realize that there was still the chance
of recovering the stones by, in turn again, outwitting Red
Vallon, if the gangster had been successful. If she were not
there, Two-finger Tasker's was as good a place as any in
which to put in the time.
He reached the dance hall, and found, as he had half
expected, that she had already gone. He sat down at a
table, ordered something from the waiter, and, apparently
absorbed in the dancers, who had now begun to gather, he
made a sort of grimly-reassuring inventory of his equip-
ment for the night's work that still lay ahead of him—his
mask, his automatic, Whitie Jack's skeleton keys, were in
his pockets. His lips twisted in a curious smile. The
Mole, Vetter, the diamonds, the old violinist—all these
seemed suddenly extraneous, incidents thrust upon him,
dragged irrelevantly into his existence. They sank into
inconsequential obtrusions in the face of the stake for
which he was now about to play: his freedom, a clean name
again, the end of this devil's tormenting masquerade, his
life or, perhaps, another man's life—Peters'? -
Half an hour passed. Once more he looked at his watch.
A few minutes later he consulted it again. And then at a
quarter to nine he rose from the table, and left Two-finger
Tasker's resort.


THE ALIBI
WENTY minutes later, having satisfied himself that
the immediate neighborhood was free of passers-by
for the moment, and that he had not been observed,
he tried the street door of the tenement that had been the
subject of Whitie Jack's earlier investigations. The door
was unlocked, and he stepped silently into the vestibule, and
closed the door softly behind him.
He stood for a moment listening, and taking critical note
of his surroundings. A single incandescent burning here in
the lower hall supplied ample illumination. The stairs were
directly in front of him, and on the right of the hallway.
There was a closed door, also on the right and just at
the foot of the stairs, and from behind this there came the
murmur of voices. There was no other sound.
He moved quietly forward, mounted the stairs, gained
the landing, and, with more caution now, turned back along
the hall, making for the door on the right—Peters' door,
according to Whitie Jack—that, if in the same relative loca-
tion as the one below, would be at the foot of the next
flight of stairs. A faint light came up through the stair
well, but the end of the hall itself beyond the second flight
of stairs was in blackness. He nodded grimly in satisfac-
tion. He would not need any light to find Peters' door!
His lips pressed hard together. He had reached the door
now, and now he crouched against it, his ear to the panel.
He listened intently. A sudden doubt came and tormented
him and obsessed him. What, if by any chance Peters had
someone with him! A bead of moisture oozed out on his
forehead, and he brushed it hurriedly away. He was not
159


160 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
so callous now! Behind that door lay, literally, life and
death; behind that door, if it proved necessary, he meant
to take a man's life, a miserable life, it was true, a mur-
derer's life, a life that had no claim to mercy, but still a
man's life. Had he ever laid claim to being callous? But
that did not mean that his resolution was being under-
mined. The issue to-night was clearly defined, ultimate,
final, and he had accepted that issue, and he would see it
through. His lips relaxed a little in a smile of self-mockery.
Well, suppose Peters were not alone he, Billy Kane, had
only to wait until the visitor conjured up by his doubts
had gone.
He steadied himself with a mental effort. His nerves
were getting a little too high strung. To begin with, there
wasn't anybody in there with Peters. He would have heard
voices if there had been, and he had heard none. He
glanced around him now, but the act was wholly one of
exaggerated caution. Here at the end of the hall he could
see nothing. Opposite him was probably the door of the
other apartment on this floor that Whitie Jack had said was
unoccupied. There was no fear of interruption. He took
his automatic from his pocket, tried the door cautiously,
and finding it locked, knocked softly with his knuckles on
the panel.
There was no response. He knocked again, a little louder,
more insistently. There was still no response. Billy Kane
was gnawing at his under lip now. Not only had Peters
no visitor, but even Peters himself was not there! Out
of the darkness it seemed as though a horde of mocking
devils were suddenly jeering at him in unholy glee. He
had somehow been very sure that everything to-night would
go as he had planned, and, instead, there had been nothing
so far but stark futility.
But the night was not ended yet! He thrust the auto-
matic abruptly back into his pocket. There was still time
for Peters to come. It was only a little after nine. And
Peters would have a visitor after all—a visitor waiting
there inside that room for him!


THE ALIBI 161
!
Billy Kane drew Whitie Jack's bunch of skeleton keys
from his pocket, and, crouching now low down in front of
the door, inserted one of the keys in the lock. It would not
work. He tried another with the same result. He was not
an adept at lock-picking as yet! He grinned without mirth
at the mental reservation—and suddenly drew back from the
door, retreating into the deeper blackness at the end of the
hall. Here was Peters now, and Peters would have much
less trouble in opening the door!
Footsteps were ascending the stairs. A figure, in the
murky light from the stair well, gained the landing, and
came forward along the hall. Billy Kane's sudden smile
held little of humor. It was not Peters. It was Whitie
Jack's tenant of the third floor, Savnak, the old violin
player, hugging his violin case under his arm, and as he
came into the shadows, feeling out with his other hand for
the banisters of the second flight of stairs. Fifteen feet
away, flattened against the wall, himself secure from obser-
vation, in the darkness, Billy Kane, in a sort of grim
philosophical resignation, watched what was now little more
than a shadowy outline, as the other went on up the stairs
to the third floor.
A door above slammed shut. Billy Kane returned to
Peters' door. Again he tried a key, and still another, until,
with a low-breathed ejaculation of satisfaction, he finally
unlocked the door. He exchanged the keys for his
automatic once more; and once more his hand on the door-
knob, he held tense and motionless, listening. From below
there came again the sound of footsteps on the stairs. It
was Peters at last, probably; but, if it was Peters, Peters
was not alone. The footsteps of two men were on the
stairs.
Futility again! The door was unlocked, but it availed
him nothing at all now. He had meant to go in and wait
for Peters, but it would be a fool play from any angle to
go in there now if Peters had anybody with him. Nor was
there time to lock the door again. He had returned the
bunch of keys to his pocket, and it would take a moment


162 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
to sort out the right one, and there was not that moment
to spare. The footsteps were already on the landing. Billy
Kane drew back once more silently and swiftly to the front
of the hall. He was tight-lipped now. It seemed as though
every turn of the luck had gone against him. Peters was
certain to notice that the door was unlocked. What effect
would that have on Peters? What would the man do,
and
Billy Kane was staring down the hall in a numbed, dazed
way. Two men had come into the radius of light from the
stair well, and were moving quickly along the hall in his
direction. He brushed his hand across his eyes. That
little horde of devils were at their jeers of unholy mirth
again. Peters! There was no such man as Peters! Peters
was a myth ! The whole cursed night was a series of
damnable hallucinations. This wasn't Peters—it was Red
Vallon, and Birdie Rose.
Out of the darkness he watched them, his mind fogged.
What were they doing here? Why had they become sud-
denly so quiet and stealthy as they went up that second flight
of stairs—where Savnak had gone! Savnak—Vetter—the
diamonds—Red Vallon! He remembered the tribute paid
to the Mole's cleverness, a tribute that, in his estimation
as an eyewitness to the theft, had come far from being
borne out in practice. Was there something that he had
not seen, something behind that bald, crude scene which he
had witnessed? His brain was stumbling on, groping,
striving for understanding. He remembered the code mes-
sage—the Mole was to divert suspicion to someone else.
Had the Mole in some way outwitted Red Vallon? Birdie
Rose and Red Vallon obviously believed that the old violin-
ist had the diamonds—there was no other possible explana-
tion to account for their presence here hard on Savnak's
trail. And if that were so, it would go hard with Savnak,
very hard, indeed, when, believing Savnak was lying, Red
Vallon failed to secure the stones. Red Vallon was not a
man to trifle with; Red Vallon was perhaps the most


164 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
denly slipped into the room. He was quite safe, providing
he #. no noise that would betray his presence. Across
from him, at an angle that kept him out of the line of light,
was the open door of what was obviously the front room of
the apartment. Savnak had evidently been flung violently
down into a chair; Birdie Rose's fingers were crooked,
claw-like, within an inch of the violinist's throat; and Red
Vallon, leaning on a table in front of the two, was leering
at Savnak in ugly menace. Savnak was speaking, low and
earnestly, but Billy Kane could not catch the man's words.
Red Vallon interrupted the other with scant ceremony.
“Can that!” he snarled. “It don't go! That stagehand of
yours ain't got the goods—you got 'em. We're wise to
your game. We know you, Birdie and me, and you know
we know it. How long you been cultivating the old Dutch-
man, and waiting for something worth while like to-night
to break loose? Pinochle and a violin! Pretty nifty, that
violin stunt! It helped a lot—we got in the same as that
boob of yours did—while you was making enough noise fid-
dling to let an army in without being heard. Sure, you got
a tricky nut on your shoulders, all right! It's too bad,
though, you don't know enough not to stack up against a
better crowd And the guy turned out the gas to help him
in his get-away, did he? Yes, he did—like hell! That's
where he slipped you the sparklers, old bucko! Well, we've
got your number, ain't we? We hung around after that to
give you a chance to finish out the play. We're with you
there! Nothing suits us better than to have the police
chasing some guy they don't know, and that ain't got the
white ones anyhow ! Come on now, come across!”
Billy Kane, like a man bewildered, mentally stunned,
stood there motionless. A singsong refrain repeated itself
crazily over and over again in his brain: “Savnak was the
Mole! Savnak was the Mole?” He lifted his hand and
swept it across his eyes. Savnak's face in there in that room
was working in a sort of livid fury. Yes, of course—Savnak
was the Mole. It was quite clear now, quite plain—and
the Mole was not lacking quite so much after all in craft


THE ALIBI 165
and cunning! So Red Vallon had been in Vetter's, too,
had he? There came a sudden, grim set to Billy Kane's
lips. Well, at least, the diamonds were here now!
Savnak was speaking again.
“Who put you wise to this?” he demanded sullenly.
“I dunno!” said the gangster indifferently. “I got or-
ders, that's all. Mabbe some of our crowd piped you off
making your play with Dutchy during the last month, and
figured two and two made twenty-three—for you; or mabbe
one of your own bunch whispered out loud. I dunno! Are
you coming across without getting hurt, or aren't you?”
Billy Kane was moving softly toward the inner door.
Savnak had apparently regained his composure. He looked
from one to another of his captors, and forced a smile.
“Look here,” he said ingratiatingly, “we’re all in this.
Suppose we play fair. I'm willing to split.”
“D'ye hear that, Birdie?” jeered Red Vallon, with a nasty
laugh. “He wants a split ! Well, give him one—mabbe it'll
help him to get a move on! Twist his pipes a little more
—that's the sort of split he won't argue over !”
Birdie Rose's two hands closed with a quick, ugly jerk
on Savnak's throat. There was a gurgling cry.
“Wait!” Savnak choked out. “Wait! It's—it's all right,
boys.” He rubbed his throat, as Birdie Rose released him.
“I know when I'm beaten.” He shrugged his shoulders in
a sort of philosophically fatalistic way, and, reaching into
his inside coat pocket, threw Vetter's chamois pocketbook
down on the table.
“That's the stuff!” grunted Red Vallon maliciously. “But
seeing it's you, we'll just take a look at it to make sure
you're honest!” He picked up the pocketbook, opened it,
nodded and chuckled over the gleaming array of diamonds,
and closed the pocketbook again. “Well, I guess that'll
be all for to-night, Mister Savnak, and—” His words
ended in a sudden gasp.
Billy Kane was standing in the doorway, his automatic
covering the men.


166 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“Don’t move, please, any of you!” Billy Kane's voice,
gruffly unrecognizable, was facetiously debonair.
Birdie Rose's face had gone a pasty white; Savnak,
hunched in his chair, stared helplessly; Red Vallon, his
jaw dropped, still holding the pocketbook, found his voice.
“The man in the mask!” he mumbled.
“I was a little late for the tombola myself at Vetter's
to-night,” said Billy Kane coolly. “I understand you were
all there. I only got as far as the back yard when the
gathering broke up, and I was a little disappointed because
I had a hunch that I held the winning number. However,
if you, there, with the pocketbook, whatever your name is,
will just toss the prize over here, I'm willing to overlook
any slight irregularity there might have been in the draw-
ing.”
Red Vallon did not answer.
The muzzle of Billy Kane's automatic lifted to a level
with the gangster's eyes.
“Did you hear me?” The facetiousness was gone from
Billy Kane now. His voice rasped suddenly. “Toss it
over !”
With an oath, Red Vallon flung the pocketbook over the
table.
Billy Kane caught it deftly with his left hand.
“Thank you!” said Billy Kane politely. He tucked the
chamois case into his pocket, and reached out for the door-
knob. “I think that is all—gentlemen,” he said softly; “ex-
cept to wish you—good-night!”
In a flash he had shut the door upon them, and, turning,
was running across the outer room. But Red Vallon, too,
was quick. Before Billy Kane reached the door leading
into the hall, he heard the window of the front room flung
up—and Red Vallon's voice: -
“Quick, boys, come in The man in the mask! Head him
off! Jump for it! He's going downstairs!”
Billy Kane's jaws clamped hard, as he swung through
the door to the head of the stairs. It was true! He re-
membered that Red Vallon had said he had some of his


168 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
in a queer, jerky, horrified motion; and then, with a low
cry, he ran forward into the other room. The place was in
confusion. It was a bedroom, and bureau drawers had been
wrenched out and thrown around; every possible receptacle
that might have concealed the smallest object had been ran-
sacked and looted, and the contents strewn in wild disorder
everywhere about—and on the floor a man lay sprawled,
dead, murdered, a brutal wound in the side of his head from
a blow that had apparently fractured the skull.
He knelt for a moment over the man. It was Peters. He
rose, then, and stood there, fighting to rouse his brain from
blunted torpor, to force it to resume its normal functions.
Peters had been lying here dead, all the time that he, Billy
Kane, had been waiting outside there in the hall! It must
have taken quite a little while to have accomplished this
murder and ransack the room. Peters, therefore, must have
left the Ellsworth house earlier than usual, since the mur-
derer, allowing for the length of time he would have re-
quired for his work, must have completed it and made his
escape before he, Billy Kane, had arrived here at nine
o'clock. It was very strange, horribly strange—to find
Peters murdered ' Who was it, who had done it? Who
was it, other than himself, who could have had any motive?
What did it mean? What was it that Peters had had here,
that had been the object of such a frantic search? Billy
Kane drew his breath in suddenly, sharply. What could
it be save one thing! The Ellsworth rubies! That was it,
wasn’t it—rubies!
A sound from somewhere out in the hall brought surging
back upon him a realization of his own imminent peril.
There must be some way out, he must find a way. If he
knew Red Vallon at all, he knew that he, Billy Kane, would
never leave by the door! Well, a fire escape then, per-
haps!
Quick now, every faculty alert, he ran noiselessly from
room to room, and from window to window. He returned
a moment later to the hall door, his face a little harder
set and strained. There was no escape by the windows.


THE ALIBI 169
There was nothing, except an increasing sound of disturb-
ance that seemed to be affecting all parts of the house.
Nothing, save Red Vallon's voice just outside the door,
talking, evidently, to some of his men:
“He ain't got out—and he ain't going to get out till
we've searched every flat in the place! He's most likely
on this floor, and Birdie and me’ll tackle this door here
first; but you go down there and tell those people below
to shut up their row, and some of you look through their
rooms. Beat it!”
Footsteps scurried away. The doorknob was tried. Billy
Kane's lips were a thin line. There was no physical way
of escape. Was there a way of wits? His wits against
Red Vallon's He stood there motionless, a queer, grim
look creeping into his face, as the door now was shaken
violently. And then, suddenly, he jerked his mask from his
face, and thrust it into his pocket. Yes, there was a way,
but a way that held a something of ghastly, abysmal irony
in it. He could prove an alibi—he had a witness to it.
The door quivered, but held, under a crashing blow.
Then Red Vallon's growling voice:
“Get out of the road, Birdie, and let me at it! I'll
bust it in l’”
And then Billy Kane spoke.
“Is that you, Red?” he demanded harshly.
There was a surprised gasp from the hall without, a sec-
ond's tense silence, and then Red Vallon's voice again,
heavy with perplexity and amazement:
“Who in hell are you?”
Billy Kane unlocked the door, flung it open, and stepped
back. The hall had been lighted now, evidently to facili-
tate Red Vallon's search, and the light fell full upon Billy
Kane through the doorway.
“The Rat!” The gangster's little red-rimmed eyes
blinked helplessly—then suddenly narrowed. “What are
you doing here?”
“You fool!” snarled Billy Kane angrily. “I thought I


170 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
recognized your voice! You gave me a scare! What are
you doing here? What's all this cursed noise about?”
“What's it about?” repeated Red Vallon mechanically.
He spoke automatically, as though through force of habit at
the Rat's command. “The Mole lives upstairs. He got
those diamonds from Vetter; then Birdie and me took 'em
from him, and not five minutes ago that blasted man in the
mask turned the trick on us, and”—his voice changed with
a jerk, and became suddenly truculent—“it’s damned funny
where he got to "
“Come in here, both of you!” ordered Billy Kane per-
emptorily. “Come in here, and shut that door! Now”—
as they obeyed him—“that's the story, is it, Red? Well,
listen to mine!” His voice grew raucous, menacing, un-
pleasant. “This is the second time to-night you've run foul
of my plans with your infernal diamonds and your piker
hunts, and if trouble comes from this, look out for yourself |
Five minutes ago, you said. Well, I wish he'd beaned you
while he was at it! You've put an hour's work of mine
to the bad! How long do you think this disturbance is
going on, before the police butt in? Take a look in that
room, there !”
The two men took a step forward, and shrank suddenly
back. Birdie Rose's face had gone gray. He looked wildly
at Billy Kane.
“My Gawd!” whispered Red Vallon.
“I said something to you to-night about needing an ob-
ject lesson, so that it would sink into you that when I said
the limit I meant it,” said Billy Kane evenly. “Well, you've
got it now! Do you know who that man is?”
Red Vallon shook his head. Birdie Rose was nervously
plucking at a package of cigarette papers that he had drawn,
from his pocket.
“His name is Peters,” said Billy Kane curtly. “Peters
was the butler at Ellsworth's. Jackson's pal. Get me? I
found this”—the ruby, from his vest pocket, was lying now
in the open palm of Billy Kane's hand. “Do you under-
stand what “limit’ means now, Red P I found this. He
y


THE ALIBI 171
wouldn't talk, and so—” Billy Kane shrugged his shoul-
ders coolly, and his hand jerked forward, pointing to the
disordered room. “I hadn't found any more of them when
you messed it up with your noise.”
Red Vallon circled his lips with his tongue.
“Let's get out of here!” he said hoarsely.
“We'll have to now, thanks to you!” snapped Billy Kane
shortly. “That's the only room that's been searched, and
you've queered any chance of doing anything more now.”
He whirled impetuously on Red Vallon, and shook his fist
in the gangster's face. “You see what you've done! Even
if the police haven't got wise to the row, those people in
the apartments downstairs will call them in the minute
they get a chance. Yes, we've got to beat it! You and
your diamonds are likely to give us a ride by the juice
route up in that little armchair in Sing Sing. If your man
gets away it's a small matter now. Anybody that's caught
here will have to stand for—this. You go first, Birdie,
and call the crowd off, and scatter the minute you're out-
side the house. I don't want it published in the papers that
I was with Peters in his expiring moments! Tumble? I
can trust you two, because”—Billy Kane's smile was un-
happy—“if anything leaks, I'll know where it leaked from 1
Get the idea? Now, beat it, Birdie! We'll give you a
couple of minutes ahead of us.”
The man went out. Billy Kane walked coolly to the door,
took the skeleton key from the inside of the lock, and fitted
it again to the outside.
“Come on, Red " he said.
He locked the door, and put the bunch of keys in his
pocket. It was comparatively quiet in the house now. A
door of one of the lower apartments opened cautiously,
but closed instantly again, as Billy Kane, with the gangster
beside him, went down the stairs. In another moment
they were out on the street, and had turned the first cor-
11er.
The gangster was muttering to himself:
“There's Birdie and me. But Savnak won't dare let a


172 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
peep out of him, 'cause he was in on the diamond pinch
himself. I’ll get that guy with the mask yet, if I swing for
it. Spilled every blasted bean in the bag—that's me!” His
voice took on a sudden, half cringing, half deferential note.
“It wasn't my fault, Bundy—honest! You know that!
You ain't sore, are you, Bundy?”
Billy Kane pushed his hat to the back of his head. The
night air was cool, even crisp, but his hatband was wring-
ing wet. He brushed his damp hair back from his fore-
head. It was strange that he should have murdered Peters,
after all !
He answered gruffly.
“Forget it!” said Billy Kane, alias the Rat.


—XVI—
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER
ROM above, faintly, through the flooring, came the
tap-tap, tap-tap of the old Italian cobbler's hammer.
Billy Kane, from his hands and knees, straightened
up, easing his body from the discomfort of his cramped
position; and, as he listened, he toyed now with the steel
jimmy, commandeered from Whitie Jack, that was in his
hand. He had been even more assiduous in his own tapping,
at least for the last hour or more, than was the old fellow
above there. The old fellow seemed to work all day—
and all night. It was night now—or, rather, evening. If
there was any sound heard from the street it would be at-
tributed to the old cobbler, of course, which was just as
well.
The murky light from the single incandescent across the
room threw the sparse furnishings of the Rat's den into
uncouth shadows on the walls, and threw his own shadow
into a grotesque, shapeless blotch upon the floor. From
the street level, down through the cellar-like stairway to this
underground abode, seeping in through the closed door,
came the muffled roll of traffic, and a footstep now and then
on the pavement like the echo of some sound that was de-
tached, far distant.
He resumed his work, tapping with infinite pains with
the butt of his steel jimmy on board after board of the
flooring. And now this board or that seemed to give
back a more resonant sound than its fellows, and he tapped
it again, and still again, only to shake his head finally, and
pass on to the next board.
There were other secrets in this crime hole besides that
173


174 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
ingenious door and its tunnel to the shed and lane behind;
secrets that she had plainly stated existed, and had as plainly
stated were no secrets to her; secrets that she wielded in
such a manner as to complicate a situation that was already
one of extreme peril and desperate enough. They were
the Rat's secrets; and for the moment he was the Rat, and
self-preservation made the possession of those secrets vitally
essential to him.
The net seemed to be drawing closer around him; at
moments it seemed to be strangling him. He had built so
heavily on Peters. And Peters was dead. And he, Billy
Kane, was still the Rat. It was difficult enough to carry
out the rôle, as it was—but if the Rat should unexpectedly
return! Where was the Rat? If he could glean a hint
of when the Rat might probably return, or of the Rat's
whereabouts! Surely those secrets hidden here somewhere
would answer, in a measure at least, those questions. Or,
if not, then the fuller and more intimate knowledge they
must give him of the Rat would make his assumed rôle more
secure, safer as long as he was forced to play it, since they
would place in his hands the trumps that would enable him
to preserve this character he had usurped as he came more
and more into direct contact with that malignant Crime
Trust of which the legitimate Rat was obviously one of
the leading spirits. And she, that strange, mysterious being,
whom he had come to call the Woman in Black, whose
hatred, a hatred that was boundless, more bitter, more de-
liberate, more merciless than, it seemed, any human could
hold for another, he had acquired through this abhorrent
proxy that fate had thrust upon him—surely these things
hidden here, if he could but find them, must too, in a meas-
ure at least, explain what lay between her and the devil in
human guise whose part he, Billy Kane, was compelled to
play.
He worked on, his ear attuned to the sound as the steel
jimmy tapped the flooring, his mind feverishly, insistently
active. He had counted on forcing the truth from Peters
last night. Instead, he had found the old butler murdered,


176 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
ward, he pushed the bed to one side in order to continue
his examination of the flooring. That had been his solu-
tion; but, strangely enough, the newspapers for once had
had no solution to offer. The known presence of so many
men—when Red Vallon's gang had invaded the house—
indicated quite clearly, the papers said, that it was the work
of an organized band; but, apart from that, they were
frankly mystified. But because Peters had been the butler
of David Ellsworth, and had been murdered just three
nights after his master had been murdered, the morning
papers had flung clamorous headlines across their front
pages, and had filled their columns with every detail that
had even the remotest bearing upon the affair. They, how-
ever, scarcely hinted at even a possible connection between
the two crimes, for the very simple reason that Peters had
obviously been attacked by a gang, whereas, in the case
of David Ellsworth, they knew that the old millionaire
had been done to death by his private secretary, Billy
Rane!
He had read the papers, all of them. But out of the wel-
ter of words there had been only one thing that had pos-
sessed any value for him in the shape of information, and
even that had been of a negative character. Some reporter
had unearthed the fact that a stranger, whose description
answered in a general way to Whitie Jack, had been seen
loitering around the neighborhood of Peters' apartment dur-
ing a good part of the previous day. The description was
not accurate enough to identify Whitie Jack positively; but
as Whitie Jack had been there, and there on his, Billy
Kane's instructions, he had immediately sent the man away
that morning, and had told him to keep under cover until
further orders.
The steel jimmy tapped with persistent inquisitiveness
along another board. Billy Kane's lips were tight now.
Peters’ death had seemed at first to have robbed him of all
he had been building upon; and during the hours alone
here in this den last night, facing what looked like the ruin
of the final chance and hope of establishing his own inno-


TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER 177
cence, of clearing his own name, of bringing to justice the
wantons who had struck down old David Ellsworth, he had
known those bitterest of hours where the will weakens, and
courage seems a useless thing and a mockery. But
he had fought through those hours, and the morning had
brought its reward. Peters' murder had broken the thread
of evidence, but equally, it seemed, after all, it had knitted
it together again—there was the Man with the Crutch.
His lips relaxed a little in an ironical smile. The papers
had overlooked the Man with the Crutch It was Red Val-
lon who, all unconsciously, had joined together the broken
thread. The gangster had come here to the den that noon.
There had been a marked increase of deference in the man's
attitude and manner, a sort of unholy admiration, awe, re-
spect and fear. The man, hardened though he was himself,
was still visibly affected by the fact that he stood in the
presence of the Rat, alias Bundy Morgan, who, as he be-
lieved, had coolly and imperturbably given gruesome evi-
dence that, to gain his ends, he would neither hesitate nor
stop at murder. Red Vallon had not forgotten, and was
not likely to forget, his “object lessonſ"
Red Vallon had told his story furtively, leaning across
the table, talking in a guarded whisper. He had got it
straight enough from one of his own men, who the police
in turn believed was one of their own stool pigeons. Shortly
before the confusion incident to the exit of Red Vallon's
men on the previous night, the exact hour not positively
established, a man with a crutch, and carrying a small hand
bag, was known to have crept cautiously out of the apart-
ment house where Peters had his flat. After that the
man had disappeared. “The police have elected the cripple
as the guy that waltzed off with the swag while the rest
of the bunch made a noise to smear up his tracks,” Red Val-
lon had said, with a malicious grin. “What's the matter
with pushing a good thing along, Bundy? What's the mat-
ter with pushing out a few feelers, and trying to spot this
crutch gazabof The Pippin's the one that put me wise, and
the Pippin can make good nosing him out if any one can.”


178 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
There had come upon Billy Kane an overwhelming
surge of relief. More than anything else on earth that he
had suddenly wanted at that moment was—the Man with
the Crutch.
“Yes!” he had answered gruffly, afraid almost to trust
his voice.
“Sure!” Red Vallon had responded. “I thought you'd be
strong for it! Mabbe it won't last long, 'cause the guy
ought to be able to clear himself unless we can hitch it onto
him for keeps, but there's nothing like heaving a little dirt
in the eyes of the bulls, and shooting 'em off on the wrong
lay. It'll keep 'em guessing for a while anyhow. You leave
it to me, Bundy. I owe you something for queering your
game last night, though I guess there wasn't any more of
them rubies there besides the one you found, for the Pippin
says the bulls didn't get anything, and I owe you something
for the lemon I’ve handed you so far in falling down on
spotting the ruby collection in any of the speak-easy joints;
but I won't fall down here. You leave it to me! I'll pull
some slick stuff this time!”
The steel jimmy tapped on. Billy Kane's face was set.
The Man with the Crutch I Was there any doubt but that
the Man with the Crutch was not only Peters' murderer,
but, more vital still, one who, in Peters’ stead now, em-
bodied the clue to the hell-hatched plot that had cost David
Ellsworth his life, and had craftily woven the evidence of
murder around him, Billy Kane? The Man with the
Crutch ' If only Red Vallon and the Pippin did not fail,
then The steel jimmy, almost perfunctorily, tapped
over the same board again; and then Billy Kane suddenly
bent lower, his ear close to the floor. He tapped once more.
There was no doubt of it! The sound was unquestionably
and distinctly hollow. He felt his pulse quicken. Off and
on during the day he had covered almost the entire flooring
of the room. He had started with the flooring. Only the
flooring and the walls could contain any hidden recess.
He had not touched the walls yet, and it might not be
necessary now !


TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER 179
He was examining the board critically. It was a short
board, rough and uneven, about ten inches wide, that ran to
the edge of the wall. There seemed to be no sign of any
secret spring, either on the adjacent flooring or on the wall,
nor did the board itself appear to be in any way loose or
show any evidence of ever having been removed before.
He frowned as he tapped it again and found that, quite
as unmistakably as before, the hollow sound came back
to him; and then, inserting the point of the jimmy in the
joint at the end of the board, he gave the board a sharp
wrench. It came away readily, but with it came a weary
smile to Billy Kane's lips. Nothing! The under flooring
had rotted away, which accounted for the hollow sound,
and he was rewarded with nothing more than a hole bounded
both in depth and width by the floor joists which rested on
the ground. Half angry, half ironically amused, he reached
forward to replace the board—and, straightening up sud-
denly, listened.
Someone was coming down the steps from the street.
In an instant he had the board and bed back in place,
and the steel jimmy in his pocket. And now a cigarette
was drooping languidly from his lips, as, in answer to a low
knock, he crossed the room, and halted in front of the
door.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
“It's de Cadger,” a voice answered.
Billy Kane opened the door. The Cadger, unknown to
him personally, was known to him by reputation. As one
of those details vital to the preservation of the rôle he
played, he had stored up in his memory during the past few
days the name of every one connected with the Crime
Trust that he had heard mentioned either by Red Vallon
or others. The Cadger was one of the lesser breed; a stage
hand, in the expressive vernacular of the underworld.
The Cadger, a shrivelled, unkempt figure, his coat collar
turned up over a collarless shirt, an aggressively checkered
peak cap pulled far down over his eyes, thrust an envelope
unceremoniously into Billy Kane's hand.


180 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“Dis is fer youse, Bundy,” he said hurriedly, already turn-
ing and making his way up the steps to the street again.
“See youse later! I gotta go to Gannet's joint fer his
kit.”
Billy Kane closed the door, and locked it. He had not
heard from Red Vallon since noon, nothing in reference to
the Pippin's quest for the Man with the Crutch. He tore
the envelope open eagerly, the thought uppermost in his
mind that this was a message from Red Vallon now ; and
then, staring at the sheet of paper which he had extracted
from the envelope, he dropped, suddenly tight-lipped, into
the chair by the table under the light. -
It wasn't from Red Vallon. It was a message like the
one Red Vallon had showed him the night before, a mes-
sage in the Crime Trust's cipher. He turned instinctively in
his chair, glancing toward the secret door at the rear of
the room, as though he half expected to see it open, and
see that slim little figure in black enter, as though he half
expected to hear her cool, softly modulated voice that veiled,
even as did the clear ripple in her laugh, menace and con-
tempt. And then he laughed aloud in a short, hard way.
A fool! Was he? Well, she had come in through that door
before, hadn't she, when something was in the wind?
His eyes reverted to the sheet of paper. He knew what
it was The headquarters of the Crime Trust had been
broken up, and some of the leaders had even taken to cover
since the night Karlin had been arrested by the police; but
all the cogs in that Machiavellian machinery had not
stopped, and plans formulated and set in motion in the past
were still to be carried to their ultimate conclusions as they
matured day by day. There was not the slightest doubt
but that this was one of their devil's schemes. Red Vallon
—or was it the owner of those great, dark, steady eyes?—
had said enough to make him understand that, when tem-
porarily scattered, temporarily wary of the police, some
unhallowed “managing director” carried on their work, and
communicated with the different members of the gang by
means of these cipher messages.


TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER 181
And now as he stared at the missive in his hand, an angry
flush rose slowly to his cheeks, and he half made as though
to tear the paper into shreds. God knew, he had enough
to do to keep his own life in his own body without this;
there was scarcely a moment of the day or night when he
was not battling with all the wits he possessed to save him-
self from discovery—from the police as Billy Kane, from
the underworld as the spurious Rat—and his brain was al-
ready sick and tormented beyond endurance with the strug-
gle. Why, then, should he decipher this? If he did, he
could not sit idly by and, in the possession of the details of
some purposed crime, permit that crime to be enacted 1
It was the moral obligation flung in his face again, just
as it had been on the night he had trapped Karlin, just as it
had been last night when he had snatched Vetter's diamonds
from Red Vallon's maw, and not through any threat of hers
held over his head, as she so thoroughly believed She
wasn't here now—was she?
He laid the paper down upon the table, and smoothed it
out. Tear it up! His short laugh was a jeer flung at
himself. Certainly, he could tear it up, and he would know
nothing about it, except that he had shirked and turned his
back like a coward upon the responsibility that was already
his He could read the cipher, if he wanted to; he had seen
her work one out the night before.
“I thought I'd settled this sort of thing with myself be-
fore!” he muttered grimly, and taking a pencil from his
pocket he began to work out the cipher.
It took some time, perhaps twenty minutes; and then
he was studying a second sheet of paper upon which he
had written the decoded message:
The Cadger and Gannet will report to you at nine o'clock.
The Ninth Street house will be empty. Dayler and servants
out this evening. Secure sealed manila envelope in wall
safe, left of mantel, in library. Combination: Two right,
eighteen; one left, eight; one right, twenty-eight. Police
on trail to-morrow.


182 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
The Cadger's “see youse later,” then, was to be taken lit-
erally, and not, as he had supposed, as simply a common
and slang expression of adieu! Billy Kane looked at his
watch. It was not quite eight o'clock. There was an hour,
then, before the Cadger and this Gannet, another of the
Cadger's ilk, would report here ready to follow his leader-
ship in a burglarious raid. Billy Kane stood up; and, in a
sort of mechanical and reassuring inventory, his hands felt
over the outside of his pockets, over the skeleton keys they
contained, the steel jimmy, the flashlight, the automatic, and
the soft, slight bulge made by the neatly folded mask—
and, too, over another bulge that was made by a certain
chamois pocketbook. This latter brought a frown. He had
not found a way yet to return Vetter's diamonds. It
wasn't so easy a thing to do when, if the Rat's hand showed
in the matter, it was certain destruction for the Rat, alias
Bundy Morgan, and, for the moment, alias Billy Kane! But
Vetter and Vetter's diamonds were extraneous things just
now, weren't they?
He extinguished the light, crossed to the door, unlocked
it, stepped out, locked the door behind him, made his way
up the steps, and started briskly off along the street. He
did not know what the contents of that “manila envelope”
were, nor who Dayler was, nor the Crime Trust's motive—
he was supposed to know all that—he knew only that there
was some devil's scheme on foot that would be worthy of
the Crime Trust in its scope and proportions. And the
Crime Trust did not interest itself in little things


—XVII–
THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH
rapidly down the block. She was not here to-night
with her cool, contemptuous voice bidding him to do
this thing. It was evident, therefore, that she was not quite
as infallible as she apparently believed herself to be For
once, she was not acquainted beforehand with the Crime
Trust's movements, it seemed ! Perhaps it was because, for
once, the Rat might not have had anything to do with
originating the plan that was afoot to-night, for she had cer-
tainly always appeared to be thoroughly informed where the
Rat was concerned
He shrugged his shoulders suddenly, dismissing her from
his thoughts. He would better concentrate his mind on the
work in hand The secret lay in the manila envelope. That
the envelope contained something of great value, or was of
great value to someone, was obvious; to Dayler, probably,
since it was in Dayler's carefully guarded possession. He
shrugged his shoulders again. He could tell better about
that in the course of another hour—when the envelope was
in his pocket instead of Dayler's safe! To balk this organ-
ized gang of super-criminals was sufficient for the moment!
Once more his shoulders lifted. He perhaps was not even
entitled to any great credit to-night in fulfilling his “moral
obligations !” For once, there appeared to be neither any
great danger, nor any great difficulty. The house was
empty; it was not very far away; he had an hour in which
to work undisturbed; and at fne expiration of that time he
should be back in his room, and ready to set out with the
Cadger and Gannet to rob an empty safe. If he with the
B: KANE smiled with grim irony, as he walked
183


I84 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
two men then entered the house, and, for their pains, found
the manila envelope already gone, certainly there could be
no suspicion to rest upon him
Billy Kane had reached the Bowery now. He went in
through the side entrance of a corner saloon. Here, a
minute's search in the telephone directory supplied him with
the number of Dayler's house on Ninth Street. After that,
he made his way over to Washington Square, crossed the
Square, gained the lower end of Fifth Avenue, practically
deserted now at this hour, and, a moment later, turning into
Ninth Street, headed down the block in the direction of
Sixth Avenue. -
It was one of the old aristocratic neighborhoods of New
York, but changed now a great deal with the changing years.
What had once been classed as mansions had in many cases
been metamorphosed into lodging and boarding houses;
but the “mansions” were still here, big, substantial, com-
modious stone dwellings. Nor had the boarding houses
entirely ousted a certain unobtrusive type of wealth and
means from their midst, and it argued not at all that this
Dayler, for instance, because he had his residence here, was
not well to do, even exceedingly well to do.
The street was quiet. Billy Kane located the house he
sought. He passed by it, noting that it had a basement
entrance, a flight of stone steps to the front door, that it
was entirely in darkness, and, returning, he mounted the
steps quietly and without any attempt at concealment, found
the outer vestibule door unlocked, opened it—after making
pretense of ringing the doorbell for the benefit of anyone
on the street who might have paid him any notice—stepped
inside, and closed the door behind him. The inner door
was locked. His skeleton keys came into play. Still far
from an adept in their use, he was several minutes at this
work. Then he stepped forward into the hall of the house
itself.
His flashlight stabbed a lane of light through the dark-
ness. The stairs leading to the upper floors of the house
were ahead of him and on his right; on his left, opening off


THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH 185
the hall, which seemed to run almost the depth of the house,
were several doors, all of which were closed. The house
was empty, the cipher message had assured him of that,
but nevertheless he moved now with extreme caution to the
first door on his left. He knew nothing of the plan of the
house, but it was at least logical to assume that the library
was on this floor, and the library was the objective of his
search.
He opened the door slightly, quietly, then drew sharply
back, and stood tense and motionless, listening. There was
a dull, faint glow of light in there, not as though the room
itself were illuminated, but as though the light came from,
perhaps, another room beyond. But there was no sound.
A minute passed, and still he stood there, alert, his ears
strained to catch the slightest noise. And then, reassured,
he pushed the door wider open, and stepped over the thres-
hold. That a light might have been left burning, either in-
tentionally or inadvertently, presented in itself nothing of
the unusual, or
He was drawing his hand across his eyes like a man
dazed from a blow. The light had gone in the winking of
an eye. It was pitch black. He was still involuntarily
staring, through darkness now, toward the front end of
the room. The light had not come from that direction,
it had come through a portièred archway in quite the op-
posite direction, but for the moment his mind was chaotic,
out of control. The room was a drawing-room, a large,
stately sort of a drawing-room, and there had been a huge
pier glass, gilt-framed, between the heavily curtained front
windows. What he had seen could not have been a fan-
tasy, nor due to disordered imagination. His eyes, the
instant he had entered the room, had gone straight to that
glass because it reflected the light from the other room.
The surface of the glass had been blank as his eyes had
first fallen upon it, and then, like a flash, enduring for but
the minutest fraction of a second, the reflection of a figure,
a man's figure, a man's figure with a crutch, had swept
across it—and the light in the other room had gone out.


186 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
And now Billy Kane acted quickly. The time that he had
stood there, inert, mentally stunned, had been but a mat-
ter of seconds exaggerated into seemingly interminable,
measureless hours. Swiftly, silently, he reached the arch-
way, and, sheltering himself behind the folds of the por-
tières, but in a position to command the other room with his
automatic, which he had whipped from his pocket, he stood
still and listened. There was only the quick, fierce pounding
in his own eardrums, in tempo with the mad race of blood
through his veins. The Man with the Crutch
How or why the man came to be here, or what the other
had to do with what was afoot to-night, scarcely entered
his mind. It did not matter! Nothing mattered—save to
get the Man with the Crutch. Everything else paled into
insignificance. It was the same man that had murdered
Peters; there would not be two men with crutches who
prowled stealthily at night in other people's houses! But
that it was Peters' murderer was significant now only be-
cause it identified the man as one who held the secret of
David Ellsworth's murder; the man who, if he, Billy Kane,
could but get to grips with him, would tell what he knew
to the last word, or one or the other of them would never
leave this house alive. It was the man who could end this
hideous masquerade that he, Billy Kane, was forced to as-
sume; the man who could clear his name of the foul blot
that had cost him friends, the companionship of honest men,
and that was like at any instant to cost him his life.
There was no sound.
And then Billy Kane's voice rang suddenly, imperatively
through the silence:
“Hands up!”
His flashlight bored through the darkness, circling the
room in front of him. The room—it was the library beyond
doubt—was empty. His jaws locked. He had taken a
chance. It had failed. But now his glance fell upon the
door, diagonally across the library from him, that, from its
position, obviously opened on the hall. He could have


THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH 187
sworn that the doors opening on the hall were all closed
when he had entered the house. This one was ajar now !
He crossed the library with a bound, swung the door
wide, and peered out into the hall. He could see nothing;
but now, from somewhere below, he caught a sound as of a
boot heel thudding on a bare floor—or, perhaps, the tap of
a crutch !
Along at the rear of the hall his flashlight focused
on the head of a basement stairway. He ran for this now;
and then, with more caution, wary of offering himself as a
target for a shot that would put an end to any hope of get-
ting within reach of the other, his flashlight out, he began
to pick his way downstairs. Halfway down, he caught
another sound. From the front of the house, softly and
cautiously though it was done, there came the unmistakable
opening and closing of the basement door.
Billy Kane took the remaining stairs in a leap, and, his
flashlight pointing the way, dashed along the hallway be-
low. He reached the door, and pulled at it. Then, with
an angry, muttered exclamation, he stood there for an in-
stant hesitant. The man had managed to lock the door
behind him! Mechanically his hand went toward his pocket
for his skeleton keys, but stopped halfway as, turning sud-
denly, he raced back upstairs. It would take too long to
try out key after key. There was a better way. There
was the front door. He had left that unlocked when he
came in. He gained this now, jerked it open, lunged through
the little vestibule, snatched at the knob of the outer door—
and wrenched at it viciously like a madman in mingled rage
and chagrin. It was locked! It had not been locked even
when he had come in -
Calmer in an instant, he took his keys from his pocket
and worked with feverish haste at the lock. It would pos-
sibly take less time to run into the drawing-room, get a win-
dow open, and jump to the ground, but he did not dare do
that. He had to come back here with the Cadger and
Gannet in a little while, and he dared not risk anything that
would imperil his rôle in the eyes of the underworld. Even


190 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
and the dial, with a sort of diabolical mockery, it seemed,
winked back reflected rays from the glare of the flashlight.
It was blatantly apparent now that this had been the object
of the other's visit to the house, and it was almost as equally
apparent that the man had got what he had come for. And
yet—
“Two right, eighteen; one left”—almost perfunctorily,
muttering the combination, Billy Kane had reached in and
was twirling the knob of the dial—“eight; one right, twenty-
eight.”
The little steel door swung noiselessly open. Billy Kane
stared into the miniature safe, bewildered. And then he
laughed a little. A minute before and he would not have
given a penny for his chances! The other had got only so
far as to move the bottles to one side. He had beaten the
Man with the Crutch by the very narrow margin of time it
would have taken to manipulate the combination! Perhaps,
though, the other hadn't known the combination, and was
just about to set to work to force the safe! Well, it didn't
matter! The manila envelope lay there, sealed, intact.
He took the envelope from the safe, closed the door,
and locked it—and whirled suddenly around from his posi-
tion in front of the mantel. His flashlight, jerked upward,
played full upon the archway. A cool, disdainful laugh
rippled low through the room—a woman's laugh. Billy
Kane did not move. The chill that had clutched at his
heart, the fear of discovery, was gone almost as quickly
as it had come. He had nothing to dread on that score
from—the Woman in Black' And it was not the first time
she had come upon him unexpectedly ' And it was she
who stood there now; and she still stood full in the glare
of his flashlight, a bewitching, entrancing, mysterious little
figure, whose great dark eyes were fixed on him, half in a
deliberate, speculative way, and half in a sort of contemptu-
ous mockery.
It was she who broke the silence.
“I wonder if it's true, Bundy?” she said softly.
He felt the blood surge hot into his cheeks. He knew a


THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH 191
sudden bitter rebellion at the contempt in those steady eyes,
the same bitter rebellion he had known last night in her
presence, a rebellion against the fate that caused him,
through reason of being the counterpart of some incarnate
fiend, to stand in her eyes as that actual fiend himself, as the
one who in some way had done her, or hers, irreparable
wrong, as the embodiment of all that was loathsome and
hideous to her. He was the Rat to her, as to everybody
else. The envelope crackled in his fingers, as he clenched
his hand. Would he always have to play the Rat—to her!
What would that perfect oval face, beautiful even now in its
fearless contempt, look like in softer mood?
“Is what true?” he demanded gruffly.
She came toward him across the room.
“That you are really playing the game,” she said slowly.
“It’s not much credit to you, of course, since you are doing
it through fear, but still—” She shrugged her shoulders
daintily, as she stood beside him. “Do you know, Bundy,
that lately you seem to have changed somehow. I do not
Rnow just how, and I cannot account for it. It puzzles
me.”
“Forget it!” growled Billy Kane, alias the Rat. “And I
don't know what game you're talking about, either!”
“Oh, yes, you do!” she answered. “I told you that I
would hold you responsible for any crime committed by
your accomplices that it lay within your power to circum-
vent. That was the chance I gave you, and you seem to be
taking it. I thought I would test you out to-night when
you might imagine that I was ignorant of what was going
on, and that you might, therefore, count on escaping the
consequences as far as I was concerned. You were tº come
here with the Cadger and Gannet at nine o'clock to rob
that safe. You are here alone long before that hour, and
you have robbed the safe. I presume, at least I am going
to give you credit for it, that it is because you are playing
the game I referred to, and are checkmating your partners,
and preventing the crime from being carried any further.”
There was silence for a moment.


192 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“I think you had better put out that flashlight,” she said.
He must play the Rat. His soul jeered at him ironically.
He snapped off the light.
“How did you get wise to this?” he flung out.
“About to-night? Why, it was one of your own pet
schemes, wasn't it, Bundy—all worked out quite a while
ago? That's how I knew Well, am I right about the rea-
son for you being here alone? And, if so, how did you
propose to square yourself with your cronies of the under-
world?”
“By coming back here with the Cadger and Gannet, of
course,” he replied curtly, “and letting them fall for the
idea that someone had beaten us all to it.”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “Well, I quite approve, Bundy.
And I'll take that envelope now, please! You won't have
any further use for it, and I'll attend to the rest of this
affair.”
He handed her the envelope. He asked nothing better
than that she should assume any further responsibility that
might be connected with its contents. As far as he was con-
cerned there were matters of far greater moment now.
There was the Man with the Crutch' And that was a mat-
ter in which he had very cogent reasons for desiring to play
a lone hand. His lips tightened. It was fairly evident that
she had not been in the house the first time he had entered
but he wanted to be sure.
“When did you get in here?” he snapped. “Followed me,
I suppose!”
“About five minutes ago,” she said quietly. “And you left
the door unlocked—though I had a key. No, I didn't follow
you! Why should I? I knew that you would be here at
nine o'clock anyway, and I simply came a little ahead of
time. I really hoped, you see, that you would do the same
—and for more reasons than the one I have just men-
tioned.”
“What do you mean?” he grunted.
“I haven't seen you since last night, you know,” she said


THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH 193
deliberately. “What about the diamonds that were stolen
from Vetter?”
“I’ve got them,” he answered shortly.
“Vetter hasn't!” There was a cold, unpleasant inflection
in her voice.
“Well, what do you expect!” He forced a raucous note
into his voice. He was not sure that it sounded genuine.
It was not easy to play the Rat with her “Think it over!
It's not so soft a job to get them back to him without leav-
ing a trail behind that might trip me up ! See?”
She appeared to consider this for a moment.
“That is true,” she said at last. “Well, have you got
them here?”
“Yes.” He reached into his pocket and took out the
chamois pocketbook. He laughed brusquely, as he held it
out to her. “If you can handle that envelope, maybe you
can handle the sparklers, too!”
“I can—and I will,” she said simply, as she took the
pocketbook from him. “That's only fair. I told you once
that I would put no difficulties in the way of your keeping
yourself solid—if you could !—with your fellow yeggs.
And that applies equally to to-night. You may bring the
Cadger back here. You will find the house empty.”
“Thanks!” he said grimly. “I’ll move along then; I’ve
got just about enough time left. And would you mind
locking the front door when you go out? I’d like the
Cadger to get all the run that's coming to him for his
money.”
He stepped forward to pass her, but she laid a detaining
hand on his arm.
“Wait!” she said tersely. “I agreed to look after this
envelope, but even so you are not through yet to-night,
Bundy. I know where Mr. Dayler is this evening, and I
am going to bring him back here to his own house myself.
But I will give you time first to play out your little farce
with your two thugs, and send them about their business.
Say, ten o'clock. Mr. Dayler and myself will be here at that
time—and so will you.”


194 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“Will I?” inquired Billy Kane insolently. “What's the
lay? A trap?”
“No-an experiment,” she said evenly. “I would like to
find out if there is really anything human, if there is a
shred of decency left in you. I want you to see your crime
for once from your victim's standpoint. It may help you, if
you are human, to keep on ‘playing the game'; and that will
help you, if you can keep out of the clutches of the under-
world, to keep out of the electric chair at Sing Sing. You
quite understand, Bundy? At ten o'clock! And I should
not even mind if you are found here in this room—in the
dark—when Mr. Dayler and myself enter the house—at
ten o'clock. And now I think you had better hurry,
Bundy.”
There was a twisted smile on Billy Kane's lips. He was
the Rat, and the Rat would be here, or anywhere else at ten
o'clock—if she said so. There was no comment to make.
The Rat had no choice.
“All right!” he said gruffly, and moved past her to the
door, and out to the hall; and a moment later, reaching
the street, he swung into a hurried stride, heading back
for the Rat's den.


MIRRORED YEARS
T was quite dark here in Dayler's library, yet he had
I sat so long in this chair that his eyes seemed to have
accommodated themselves to the darkness, and it
seemed as though he could distinguish every object in the
room. Surely, interminably as the minutes dragged them-
selves out, the quarter-hour that had stood between ten
o'clock and the time he had sent the Cadger and Gannet
away was up now ! His flashlight winked through the
blackness, played on the dial of his watch, and the black-
ness fell again. It still lacked five minutes of the hour.
Strange how his mind worked 1 There was no specula-
tion as to precisely why she had demanded his presence
here, there was only intolerant, angry impatience because
she had done so. If it had not been for her, he could have
been making vital use of every one of these minutes! There
was nothing else to have hindered him! It had been almost
childishly easy to pull the wool over Gannet's and the
Cadger's eyes. He had let the Cadger and Gannet take
all the initiative—apparently. The two men had forced the
basement door, and then, going upstairs, had opened the
front door for him, which he, strolling down the street a
few minutes later, had entered as casually as he had already
done before on two occasions that night. After that, the
three of them, clustered around the mantel, the Cadger
manipulating the dial of the safe while Gannet held the
flashlight, had made the discovery in common that the safe
had been already looted. He had joined in the dismay,
chagrin and fury of his companions; he had joined in the
frantic search of desks and drawers, which he had inaugu-
195


196 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
rated, and which he had permitted to endure for a full half
hour. At the expiration of that time he had coded a terse
cipher report, and had handed it to the Cadger and Gannet
for delivery. They were to leave the house, himself last, a
few minutes apart in order to avoid arousing any attention;
and the Cadger and Gannet, obediently and unsuspiciously,
had gone. And he had remained
It had been very simple. And there remained no trace
of the search that had been made. His eyes now, so
strangely accustomed to the darkness, reassured him on that
score. He had warned the men not to leave any traces
behind them 1
He stirred uneasily in his chair. All this had been essen-
tial, necessary, vital, in order to preserve his rôle of the
Rat from suspicion, and himself from subsequent and
quick disaster at the hands of the underworld; but the
minutes that were slipping away from him now, as he sat
here impotent, were priceless. Red Vallon and the Pippin
at any moment might run the Man with the Crutch to earth,
and his hands were tied. He had no concern with the
effect that the loss of the envelope might have had on this
Dayler; he was utterly indifferent to either the contents of
that envelope, or Dayler's connection with it. It seemed to
plumb the very depths of irony that she appeared to labor
under the impression she might somehow, in this way,
arouse his better nature and touch some softer human chord
within him! He was concerned more with the connection
between that envelope and the Man with the Crutch; and
very much more with the contents of that handbag the Man
with the crutch had carried away from Peters' flat the night
before; and still more again with the Man with the Crutch
himself The man had tricked him here tonight, slipped
through his fingers this time, but—
The front door was being opened. Billy Kane stood up,
shrugging his shoulders. He was in a truculent mood now,
impatient to be gone, prompted even now to go, restrained
only by the cooler counsel of common sense. She had the
whip-hand over him. A word from her, and he would be


MIRRORED YEARS 197
in exactly the same case as if he had failed in the play he
had just made with the Cadger and Gannet. Voices reached
him; hers, quiet and controlled; a man's, gruff, irritated,
sharply antagonistic.
And then the door from the hall opened, and the lights
in the library went on. Billy Kane's eyes, passing swiftly
over the trim little figure in black across the room, met and
held those of a man who, startled now, stepped hastily back,
only to discover that his companion had quietly and swiftly
closed the door behind them.
The man's lips were suddenly compressed and hard,
though the color had ebbed a little from his face.
“Please sit down over there at the table, Mr. Dayler,”
she requested softly.
“No!” exclaimed the man angrily. “I’ll do nothing of
the kind I What's the meaning of this? You inveigled me
back here by hinting at some kind of story, and you run me,
in my own house, into the presence of a thug!”
She shook her head.
“It is true that I asked this—gentleman”—she hesitated
over the choice of the word, while her eyes in a sort of
mocking humor inventoried Billy Kane's none too reputa-
ble appearance and attire—“to come here; but it is
equally true that I have ‘some kind of a story’ that I think
will interest you. Bundy, you might try and persuade Mr.
Dayler to sit down!”
A grim smile came to Billy Kane's lips. He was a pawn
too, like this Dayler; a pawn to be moved about at will by
this outrageously courageous, imperturbable, and, yes, in
spite of his own irritation, adorable little personage. He
turned his attention now to Dayler. The other could have
been no more than forty-five, yet his hair was not merely
prematurely gray, it was white, as a very old man's is white;
his face, clean shaven, was kindly, though drawn now in
tense lines about the lips and forehead.
“Sit down!” Billy Kane ordered curtly. He was finger-
ing his automatic, playing up to the cue she had given him.
Dayler hesitated; and then abruptly stepped forward and


198 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
flung himself into a chair at the table, his back to the mantel.
“Well?” he challenged. “You got me out of my club on
the pretext of having something to say about a man named
Keats whom I once knew; but from the look of things it
appears to be much more likely that, with my own house
affording you protection, I am to be coolly robbed of my
watch, money, and such other valuables as you may be able
to lay your hands on!”
The slim little figure had slipped gracefully into a chair,
facing Dayler on the opposite side of the table. She
smiled curiously.
“But, at least, I will keep my promise first, and tell you
about this Keats,” she said. “Buck Keats, wasn't it, Mr.
Dayler? And, as your servants may be back in another
half hour or so, we won't waste any time in getting to the
story. It goes back about twenty years. At that time you
were in the Yukon, and pretty well away from civilization,
and you had been prospecting all summer with your partner,
a man quite a little older than you were, a man named
Laynton, Joe Laynton—Square Joe, they called him in that
country, and you ought to know why. He was a big man—
in his body and in his soul—a God's nobleman, wasn't he,
Mr. Dayler?” -
Dayler was leaning forward, staring at her in a strange,
puzzled way.
“How do you know all this?” he demanded sharply.
She shook her head again.
“I may not be quite accurate in the little details,” she
went on. “You will overlook that. You and Laynton de-
layed your return to Dawson too long that fall. You were
caught in bad weather. Your provisions ran low. Laynton
met with a nasty accident with an axe. In reaching up
above his head to cut some branches for fuel, the axe in
some way glanced off and inflicted a very serious and a very
ugly wound in his shoulder and chest. Things went from
bad to worse. For days Laynton could do nothing but lie
in his blood-soaked bunk. Provisions ran still lower. The
winter was settling down hard. You had already delayed
i


MIRRORED YEARS 199.
too long, and now Laynton couldn't go. And yet you woke
up one morning to find his bunk empty.”
She paused. Billy Kane's eyes, as he stood beside the
table, passed from one to the other. Her small gloved hand,
resting on the arm of her chair, had closed tightly; and into
Dayler's face, grown haggard now, had come the look of a
dumb beast in hurt.
“On a sheet of paper on the table”—her voice was lower
now—“Laynton had left a message for you, the kind a
brave man would leave, explaining it all, and bidding you
take the one chance you had and go without him. And
piled on the table beside the sheet of paper was his money,
quite a few hundred dollars. You went to the door of the
shack, and you followed the tracks in the snow. And you
found him, and you found his revolver beside him. You
were already weak and half delirious yourself for lack
of food, and I think this crazed you and unhinged your
mind. You buried him in the snow, and picked up the re-
volver and put it in your pocket. You took the paper and
the money and what food there was, and you ran, like the
madman you then were, away from the shack. I do not
know how long you wandered, nor how you existed, nor the
number of miles you put between yourself and the man who
had given his life for you; but eventually you were found
by a trapper, and the trapper's name was Keats, Buck Keats,
a man with a very unsavory record. You spent some time
with Keats. You recovered your physical health, but your
mind remained affected. What had taken place was tem-
porarily a blank to you. Keats robbed you of Laynton's
money and most of your own, and he stole that paper which
later on was to mean so much to you. He preferred, if any-
thing were ever known, that you, and not he, should be
credited with having stolen Laynton's money, and he further
helped out that suggestion by getting you, after some
months, out of the country, by having you, in a word, dis-
appear. I imagine you were like a child in his hands. I
am sure you do not even know how you got there, but the
spring found you, quite normal in all respects save a broken


MIRRORED YEARS 201
you felt yourself secure; and finally, a few years ago, you
came here and settled in New York.”
Dayler's head came up. He passed his hand across his
eyes.
“How do you know all these things?” he asked again.
“Does it matter?” she answered. “They are true, aren't
they?”
“Yes, they are true.” His voice was scarcely audible.
“It was Keats who found you, not the Royal Northwest
Mounted,” she continued. “Keats had long ago left the
Yukon, and had settled in Chicago—a drunkard. He was
an old man now, and down and out, living from hand to
mouth. I do not know how he found you; I only know
that after all these years he decided to make restitution,
though counting no doubt on you giving him some money in
return for the letter. However, be that as it may, two days
ago a man brought you a sealed envelope, which he said a
man named Keats, who had just died in Chicago, had con-
fessed, as he was dying, to have stolen from you, and that
Keats, as a last request, had asked that it be given back to
you. You opened the envelope, and found that it con-
tained Laynton's letter. With this in your possession at
last you were absolutely secure, even in the very improb-
able event of anything ever being done by the police. Why
then, after twenty years, should you voluntarily open the
case and disrupt the associations you had formed, and your
life as you had molded it in all that time? In any event, you
would consider long and carefully before taking so vital
and momentous a step. I do not know what your final
decision was, or even if you have come to one yet; but,
pending such a decision, you—” She motioned suddenly
across the table. “But first, will you please open the table
drawer in front of you, Mr. Dayler.”
He obeyed her, a sort of slow wonder in his movements.
The drawer, open, disclosed, among other supplies of sta-
tionery, a pile of long, manila envelopes.
She motioned again—this time to the envelopes.
“You sealed the letter up again, in one of those envelopes


202 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
and put it away. And that brings us to to-night. I would
like to have you show that letter to”—she indicated Billy
Kane with a curt nod of her head—“this man here.”
For an instant Dayler did not move, then he stiffened
back in his chair, his eyes narrowed.
“I begin to see!” His jaws snapped hard together. “So
that's what you are after! You propose to steal that paper
from me, and then blackmail me with it afterwards. It is
the letter that you want!”
“And perhaps you will get it for us?” she suggested
softly.
There was a grim sort of finality in Dayler's short, un-
pleasant laugh.
“No ſ” he said.
“Well then”—she still spoke softly—“suppose I were to
tell you that the Men Who Never Sleep have been advised
that Dayler and John Forbes are one, and that they are trav-
elling down from the Canadian West now, and that to-
morrow you will be arrested—and that the letter is already
gone.”
“Gone!” It came in a startled cry. Dayler half rose
from his chair, but dropped back again quite coolly, a sar-
castic smile suddenly on his lips. “Clever!” he said ironi-
cally. “Quite a pretty little ruse to get me to indicate the
whereabouts of that paper! Perhaps you will try something
else now !”
“Bundy”—she turned calmly to Billy Kane—“open the
door of that little cupboard on the left of the mantel.”
Billy Kane stepped across the room in a sort of mechani-
cal obedience, and opened the leaded glass door—just as
Dayler, his self-assurance shaken now, jumped from his
chair, and rushed to the mantel.
“Perhaps”—her voice came calmly again from the table
—“Mr. Dayler prefers to look for himself, after all, Bundy!”
The man seemed to be fighting desperately for a grip upon
himself, and again his jaws snapped hard together.
“No!” he cried. “It’s another trick to get the combina-
tion of that safe, to get me to open it! Do you think I'm a


MIRRORED YEARS 203
fool to let that paper go now, even at the cost of my life,
after you have so kindly warned me that I am to be arrested
to-morrow 2 You would have done better not to have talked
quite so much l”
“Open the safe, Bundy!” she instructed evenly. “Watch
him, Mr. Dayler, and satisfy yourself.”
The dial whirled deftly, swiftly, under Billy Kane's fin-
gers. The steel door swung open.
“Gone! My God, it is gone!” Dayler's cry now was
broken, almost inarticulate. His head half buried in the
cupboard, he was staring into the empty safe. And then he
reeled back to the table, and stood there clawing at its edge,
gray to the lips, looking from one to the other.
“I have not quite finished my story,” she said quietly.
“It is quite true that Keats is dead; but he did not die two
or three days ago, he has been dead well over a month.
Nor did he die from natural causes. He was murdered.
There is a gigantic Crime Ring in this country, whose
headquarters are here in New York, that is as implacable
and heinous as it is far-spread and powerful. Keats, far
under the influence of liquor in a low dive one night and in
maudlin self-admiration at the idea of making restitution
to you, became drunkenly confidential, and his ‘confidant,’ as
it happened, was an old broken-down yegg of about his own
age, too old for active work at his sordid trade, a pensioner,
a hanger-on, as it were, of this Crime Ring, who made him-
self as valuable as he could in any way that he could. He
reported the story. Keats was promptly murdered—not so
much for the sake of the paper, for that could easily have
been taken from him without resorting to murder, but that
there should be no Keats, with his change of heart, ready
to take the witness stand in your behalf, and therefore
render the paper of no value to them at all. The Crime
Ring did not, however, act with the same haste as far as
you were concerned. That is not their way! They watched
you, they became thoroughly conversant, intimately ac-
quainted with you, and your house, and your mode of liv-
ing. It was necessary that they should do so before the next


MIRRORED YEARS 205
“You do not place a very complimentary value on your
life,” she said evenly.
“Twenty.” His hand still nervously brushed at his
forehead. “Twenty-five.”
Her laugh rippled through the room. It was low and
coolly disdainful, but it seemed to Billy Kane, standing by
the mantel, tight-lipped, watching the scene, that it held,
too, a queer, underlying, tremulous note.
Dayler wet his lips.
“Thirty-five.”
“That paper is the only thing that will save you,” she
explained monotonously. “Is money any good to you—
unless you live?”
It was Dayler who laughed now, but it was hysterically.
His hands would not remain still. He had let his head
alone now, and, instead, kept laying his hands on the table
in front of him, by turns opening and clenching them, and
they left damp prints on the top of the table.
“Fifty—I-I'll make it fifty thousand dollars,” he whis-
pered.
She shook her head.
“My God!” It was a helpless cry. Dayler stretched out
his arms imploringly. “You don't understand! It's not
easy for me to get even that amount. I'm not worth what
you think I am. I—I've gone the limit.”
Her voice was still monotonous.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Give me—give me time, and—and I might make it a
little more.” There was no doubt of the agonized sin-
cerity in the man's voice. “Perhaps—sixty.”
“No” she said. She was on her feet now, her voice
breaking a little. “I want more than that—what it will per-
haps be harder for you to give than sixty thousand dollars.
I want your forgiveness for what I have just made you
suffer—for this scene here. I had reasons, reasons that I
believed justified me.” She glanced at Billy Kane. “I do
not think you would understand, and I am afraid you
would not see the justification in them even if I tried to ex-


206 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
plain, and so.”—she had drawn the manila envelope from the
bodice of her dress, and was holding it out to him—“I can
only ask you to forgive me.”
He took the envelope wonderingly, rising slowly to his
feet. He was like a man dazed. Stupefaction, incredulity,
a mighty relief, mingled their expressions in his face. He
turned the envelope over and over; and then, opening it,
extracted a folded piece of paper from within. And then
for the second time his laugh rang through the room, but
now it was a laugh like the laugh of a man that was insane,
high-pitched, sustained.
“Go on!” he cried wildly. “Go on with your hellish
tricks! What’s next?”
Billy Kane had involuntarily stepped closer to the table.
He drew in his breath sharply now, in an amazed, startled
way. Dayler was holding a blank piece of paper in his
hands!
And she, too, was leaning tensely forward. He glanced
at her. She turned her head toward him; and out of a
face that was as white as death, her dark eyes burned full
of fury and bitter condemnation, as they fixed upon him.
“I see it now !” Her lips were quivering with passion.
She steadied her voice with an obvious effort. “I gave you
credit for too much ! I caught you at your work just a
second too late. I thought you were taking an envelope out
of the safe, whereas you were attempting to put one in 1
The one you took out was already in your pocket. You
were checkmating your miserable accomplices unquestion-
ably—but it was for your own ends! You were playing
the traitor to them and to me at the same time. You meant,
with your cold-blooded cunning, to use that paper against
Mr. Dayler for your own private gain. You lied to me!
It wasn't an empty safe to which you meant to introduce
the Cadger and Gannet; there was a little more finesse, it
clouded the issue a little more to put a dummy envelope
there. And it was so easy! Just one of those envelopes
taken from the drawer there, and a piece of paper slipped
inside!” She paused an instant, surveying him with merciless


MIRRORED YEARS 207
eyes. “I hardly suppose that you would be fool enough not
to have already put it in a safer place than your pocket,
but if you still have it there—hand it over!”
Billy Kane did not move. Somehow he was not paying
undivided attention to her. It was the Man with the
Crutch who seemed to be standing there in her place, grin-
ning at him—only he could not see the man's face. And
then, with a mental jerk, he pulled himself together. He
could not tell her that he had almost caught someone else
in the act of stealing the paper, but that the “some one
else” had got away. It would sound ridiculous! She
would laugh in his face | He could not tell her that, like a
thunderbolt falling upon him, there had just come the real-
ization that the Man with the Crutch had stolen the paper
after all. He could not explain the Man with the Crutch,
Peters' murder, a hundred other things, so that she would
believe him, without telling her that he was Billy Kane.
And he could not tell her that he was Billy Kane! The old,
hard, ironical, mirthless smile came to his lips. He was—
the Rat!
“Maybe you'd like to search me!” he snarled insolently.
She turned to Dayler. The man had sunk into his chair
again and was smiling now, but in a horribly apathetic sort
of way.
“Mr. Dayler,” she said quietly, “it does not matter in the
least if he has got rid of it for the moment. I promise you
that paper will be in your possession again by to-morrow
morning.” She swung on Billy Kane, and pointed to the
door. “I think you heard what I said, Bundy”—her voice
was ominously low now, strained with menace—“I will
give you until to-morrow morning to produce that paper.
The alternative is the electric chair.”
She was still pointing to the door.
He shrugged his shoulders. What was the use! The
net was closing tighter about him, tighter than ever before,
and the strands now were like some devil's tentacles that
would not let go. He swung on his heel abruptly, and
without a word left the room.


*
—XIX—
A HOLE IN THE WALL
NCE in the street, Billy Kane started hurriedly in the
direction of the Bowery. He hastened on, his mind
in a state of chaotic turmoil. Presently he turned
into the cross street, a block away from the Rat's den. He
had until morning. It was thoughtful of her to have given
him that much time! The Man with the Crutch had the
paper, of course. Red Vallon and the Pippin had had since
noon to find the man. If the man were not found by morn-
ing the rôle of the Rat would be at an end. There was some-
thing damnably ironical in that! He had wanted the rôle
of the Rat to end. And now he didn't want it to end on ac-
count of this Man with the Crutch, who was disastrously
likely to bring that end about! He needed the rôle now
more than ever in order to use it against this Man with the
Crutch, because the other held the knowledge that would
enable him, Billy Kane, to cast off the rôle forever; yet if
he didn't find the man, and even before morning, the rôle,
and quite as certainly forever, would be cast off for him!
He swept his hand across his eyes. His brain seemed to
be working in some silly, sing-song cycle, and yet it was
quite logical. And then his shoulders squared. For the
night at least he was still the Rat, and the underworld was
at the Rat's beck and call. If Red Vallon and the Pippin
could not find the Man with the Crutch, he would unleash
the underworld to help them pick up the scent. First,
however, he must get in touch with Red Vallon. But that
should not be difficult, for Red Vallon, whether he had had
any success or not, was certain to make a report before
the night was very much older, and—
208


A HOLE IN THE WALL 209
Billy Kane halted suddenly, and turned around, as a low
voice hailed him. A man was hurrying along behind him.
He smiled grimly. A little luck, at least, seemed to be
breaking for him at the start. Here was Red Vallon now.
Billy Kane, in apparent indifference, started on again in the
direction of the den.
“Hello!” he said gruffly, as the gangster caught up with
him and fell into step alongside.
Red Vallon chuckled low.
“We got him!” he said. There was hoarse elation in the
gangster's voice.
A fierce uplift swept in an almost overmastering surge
upon Billy Kane. His answer, however, was little more
than a grunt of approval.
“You have—eh?” he said.
“You bet your life!” exclaimed the gangster jubilantly.
“You know Marlot's saloon? Well, the guy lives next door
in that old motheaten shack. Some place! The police have
been leery of it for a long while. There's mostly a bunch
of slick-fingers hang out there. Get me? He's got the back
room—used to be the kitchen, I guess. He's a smooth one,
all right! He's got a private entrance of his own when he
doesn't want to go in or out by the front; the old back door
opens right into his room from the yard. Savvy f"
Billy Kane nodded his head shortly in affirmation. He
took a cigarette from his pocket, and lighted it nonchal-
antly.
“But, say”—the elation in the gangster's voice was grow-
ing still more pronounced—“that ain't all! The Pippin
spotted his nibs through the window from the yard a few
minutes ago. Say, what do you think, Bundy! The cripple
hobbles across the room, and pulls the old washstand away
from the wall, and lifts up an innocent-looking piece of
the wall paper that you'd think was stuck down for fair.
The Pippin had only a rip in the window shade to see
through, and he couldn't see very well, but he could see a
dinky little hole there in the wall, and a satchel inside, and
the cripple takes something out of his pocket and slips it into


210 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
the hole, and smooths the wall paper back again. The Pip-
pin beat it out of there then, and found me, and he's just
wised me up.”
It was quite dark here on the street, but even so Billy
Kane kept his face turned slightly away from the gangster.
The blood was racing in one mad, ungovernable flood of
feverish excitement through his veins. It seemed some-
how as though a weight that had been unendurable, an
actual physical burden beyond his strength to bear, had
suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. The Man with
the Crutch | From the prior events of the evening, from
what Red Vallon had just said, there was no possibility
that the Pippin had stumbled upon another man with a
crutch. This was the one, without question, without room
for a single shadow of a doubt.. And he as good as had the
man now ! He flicked the ash from his cigarette with his
forefinger, and nodded curtly again.
“Figure it out for yourself,” said Red Vallon, a sort of
eager self-complacency in his voice. “Of course, the man
had nothing to do with that murder last night, but the
police know he was around there lugging a satchel, and you
add to that the crook dump where he lives, and a guy that
has a nifty little hiding place in the wall with a satchel in
it—and where does he get off? I ain't throwing any bou-
quets at myself, Bundy, but I told you I'd pull something
good this trip, and I guess you got to hand it to me for de-
livering the goods. Pipe this, Bundy! The police think
the Pippin's a stool-pigeon anyhow. Well, five minutes ago
I sent the Pippin to tip off the police, while I beat it up
here to put you wise. Get me? With all that stuff against
the guy, he ain't got a hope. He goes up for that murder,
and that lets you out, Bundy.”
Billy Kane stood still. They had reached the cellarlike
entrance to the Rat's den, but he made no move to descend
the short, cavernous stairway. A little way up the block
the street lamp seemed suddenly to be swirling around and
around in swift, lightning-like irregular flashes. The blood |
that had rushed hotly, madly through his veins but an instant


212 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
gained the shed and the street at the rear. He ran breath-
lessly now. What did it matter if any one saw him! Time
alone was all that counted! If he could not beat the police
in the race to that room he was as good as dead already!
His mind worked swiftly, incisively, as he ran. The
Pippin had had, say, ten minutes' start, but is was only a
few blocks to that house next door to Marlot's saloon, and
it would take a little while at least for the police to make
their preparations before acting on the Pippin's informa-
tion. The chances lay with him, Billy Kane. The man
might, or might not, be there. It did not matter in so far as
the main issue was concerned. It was that handbag and its
contents that were the vital factor now—and, yes, if he got
that, the envelope too—they would both almost certainly
be in the same hiding place—inasmuch as that hiding place
was a crafty one. If the man were there, then it seemed
as though irony would have piled itself on irony to-night,
for he would automatically for the time being become the
ally of the man with whom he asked only a deadly reckon-
ing ! He did not want the police to get the Man with the
Crutch. Whatever the story the man might tell to account
for his connection with Peters, it was certain that he would
not be fool enough to tell the truth about the murder of
David Ellsworth ! And if the police had the Man with the
Crutch in custody, then he, Billy Kane, was irrevocably
barred from that reckoning which he meant to have.
He had been perhaps five minutes. He was trying the
door now of a wretched, two-story frame building, that
hugged, as its right-hand neighbor, a saloon that was almost
as disreputable in appearance as itself. The door was un-
locked. He stepped inside, and, feeling his way in the
darkness, but still moving rapidly, passed down a narrow
hall. By the sense of touch he was aware that there were
rooms on only one side, the left-hand side, and that there
were two of them. He brought up abruptly against a door
now that made the end of the passage; the door of the
rear room of the house obviously, and obviously, therefore,
the “home” of the Man with the Crutch. It was silent


A HOLE IN THE WALL 215
made in pairs. That was queer, too! Was it an iron
crutch that was the blunt instrument that had caused Peters'
death—and David Ellsworth's? Why had the man used
that dummy envelope to-night, and—
His flashlight was out. Footsteps were creeping cau-
tiously along the hall outside. The police The bag would
have to do as it was now; but at least one catch was par-
tially fastened. He tucked it under his arm, and for the
fraction of a second, while he thrust the flashlight back
into his pocket, he stood still; and then, a sudden, curious
smile on his lips, he reached out and picked up the crutch
again, and stole silently over to the rear door. The smile
was lost as his lips thinned into a straight line. Yes, they
were already here too ! Well, the crutch might perhaps
still serve the same purpose !
His ear to the panel, a whisper reached him:
“Put your shoulder to it, Jerry, and push with me, when
I get the bar in the crack of the door.”
“All right,” another voice whispered. “The others will
have been around at the front long ago. Are you ready?”
The door creaked under a sudden pressure; and as sud-
denly from the wall at the edge of the door, Billy Kane
reached out and released the bolt. The door swung violently
open, and two figures, their balance lost, sprawled and
staggered into the room. And in a flash Billy Kane, as he
leaped through the doorway, snatched at the door, slammed
it shut, jabbed the crutch, as a lock-bar, through the iron
loop of the door handle, its end extending well over the
frame of the doorway—and sprinted across the yard.
There was a yell, and a battering thud on the door behind
him, as he reached a fence at the end of the yard, swung
himself to the top and dropped to the lane beyond. And
then, as he ran, there came a crash of broken glass. They
had evidently forsaken the door for the window !
For a hundred yards Billy Kane ran at top speed along
the lane; and then, removing his mask, the bag concealed
under his coat, he emerged into the intersecting street, and
dropped into a casual and quiet stride.


216 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
He smiled queerly.
They would be looking for a cripple who, having sacri-
ficed his crutch to save his life, could at best but limp and
hobble painfully along!


218 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
He moved forward through the blackness, cautiously,
silently. Where was the next wall? Or was there any
wall at all? His hands, reaching out as far as they could
stretch, touched nothing. This was below the ordinary
cellar level; it was a sub-cellar, a chain of sub-cellars.
How many men had entered here, yes, and women too—
and disappeared? A murder hole! And up above him
somewhere was New York—millions of people, taxicabs,
crowded sidewalks, theatres, and, yes, churches, places where
people worshipped. Incredible!
He had heard of places like this, and so had the public;
and the public smiled in self-sufficient tolerant amusement.
Well, why not, where even the police were ignorant!
Everybody admitted that the Chinese quarter was full of
ridiculously imitated catacombs perhaps; but what did it
matter if in a block of houses the inmates burrowed from
cellar to cellar like rats, and built mysterious doors and
passageways, and threw about everything the disguise of
wicked and shuddering things—when it was only disguise!
It was good for business. The gape-wagons and the slum-
ming conductors profited and so did the Celestials; and
the slummers, satiated with thrills, the women drawing their
skirts closely around their silk-clad ankles, the men surrepti-
tiously feeling in their pockets to assure themselves that
their watches and valuables were still in their possession, got
their money's worth. Everybody was satisfied, and the
public smiled.
Billy Kane's fingers tightened on the butt of his automatic.
Back somewhere behind him in the darkness a Chinaman
still guarded a door that neither slummer nor police had ever
entered; but the guard was a gagged and huddled thing on
the floor now, still senseless probably from the blow on the
head from this same pistol butt. There had been no other
way. The man was not far behind—just at the entrance
so skilfully disguised by an ordinary coal bin. Was there
still another guard in front of him? More than one? If
he only dared to use his flashlight for a second A fool to
come here where, if caught, he would not have a chance of


THE CAT’S-PAW 219
escape, was he? Well, perhaps—only there was a man's
life at stake.
Perhaps he was already too late! Red Vallon had said,
though, that there wasn't any hurry about “bumping off”
the Wop, that they had him safe in here “with his bean
tapped to keep him quiet until they finished the rest of the
game.” It was less than an hour ago that Red Vallon had
said that, and it was only eight o'clock now, and the “rest
of the game,” to give it every chance of success, would not
be played out for still another hour yet, not before old Bar-
loff had closed up for the night. He wasn't too late, he
couldn't be too late—there was a man's life at stake: only
an ex-convict's, a man out from Sing Sing but a few hours
ago. Just a prison bird! But the Wop was innocent this
time and—
Was that a sound there from somewhere in front of him?
Billy Kane stood still. Nothing! No; a dozen sounds that
were not really sounds at all. His ears were full of un-
canny noises.
The back cellar entrance beneath a Chinese tea-shop, and
after that the rear of the coal bin Billy Kane was laughing
to himself, but the laugh was void of mirth. There was a
grim, horrible sort of irony about it all. Believing him,
Billy Kane, to be the Rat, Red Vallon had reported the ac-
complishment of the first stage in the execution of the plan
with gusto. After that, deft questioning had elicited from
the gangster the secret of this entrance to Wong Yen’s, and
then luck, and then the guard taken unawares. The guard
could hardly be blamed. The guard naturally enough, had
little reason to suspect the approach to that coal bin of any
one who had not the “open sesame” to what was beyond,
and he had been lurking there where the boards of the bin
ingeniously slid apart, and had shown not the slightest un-
easiness at his, Billy Kane's, presence until it was too late.
Then there had been a steep, narrow passage downward,
and then—this. Beyond, near or far, he did not know
which, these sub-cellars hid the real thing that the so-called
underground Chinatown above counterfeited, hid debau-


220 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
chery and vice, and cradled crime, and here the poppy
reigned, and the dregs of humanity skulked fearful of the
sunlight.
“They had flung the Wop into a corner and left him
until they got around to finishing the job,” Red Vallon had
explained callously. The Wop, therefore, must be some-
where near at hand. But he, Billy Kane, could see nothing,
hear nothing, feel nothing.
His physical faculties strained and alert, subconsciously
Billy Kane's mind was milling over that conversation with
the gangster of an hour ago, and upon him, in spite of his
own present peril, there came a cold and merciless fury. It
was more to-night than the ordinary moral obligation, more
than the mere responsibility to render abortive the crimes
that came to his knowledge through his tenure of this rôle
of the Rat, that was actuating him now; it was the callous,
damnable brutality of the scheme that, linked with its hell-
ish ingenuity, seemed to outrage every instinct of manhood
he possessed, and fired him with an overmastering desire,
not only to frustrate the crime itself, but to take toll in a
personal, physical way, if he could, from those who were
enacting it.
It was one of those plans, conceived by the Rat, that
waited patiently for its hour of maturity to arrive, and
then was executed and carried through to its fulfilment by
the minions of that Directorate of crime of which the Rat
appeared to be the most versatile and vicious member, but
without the Rat, necessarily, taking any further active part
in it. And he, Billy Kane, who fate had seen fit to mold
with features that were evidently a counterpart of that
master rogue's, who was for the moment accepted and
obeyed as the Rat, and was supposed to be the originator of
the plan itself, could not very well ask Red Vallon, for
instance, for details! Therefore he did not know all the
details, but he knew enough
He had wormed quite a little out of Red Vallon with-
out the gangster suspecting anything more than that he,
Billy Kane as the Rat, was taking particular pains to see that


THE CAT’S-PAW 221
the stage was properly set, and that the possibility of failure
was reduced to its absolute minimum. It was very simple.
It required simply a man's life—the murder of the Wop.
He knew something of the Wop, for the Wop's story
was common property. The Wop, in the old days, five
years ago, before he had gone “up the river” for a “job”
in the line which was his particular specialty, was known
both as a tough customer and as one of the cleverest “box-
workers” in the safe-cracking profession. The testimony of
one Ivan Barloff had been mainly responsible for the Wop's
capture and conviction, and the Wop had travelled to Sing
Sing with a thirst for vengeance gnawing at his soul, and
with the threat quivering on his twisted lips that he would
get even with the other when he got out again. Nor had
the five years of prison hell seemed to assuage any of the
Wop's desire to square accounts! He had repeated his
threat many times in prison, and he had been indifferent as
to who heard him. The feud was no secret to the police.
That was the gist of it.
As for Ivan Barloff, Billy Kane was somewhat more
precisely informed, both because the time he, Billy Kane,
had spent on the East Side in carrying out David Ells-
worth's philanthropies could hardly have been passed with-
out at least a hearsay acquaintanceship with so well-known
a character in that quarter as Ivan Barloff, and because,
too, Red Vallon, in that last interview, had seemed to take
a malicious delight in exploiting his own vastly more intim-
ate knowledge of the little old Russian of many parts. On
his own account he knew, naturally, only what the public
knew and believed about the man: Barloff was a sort of
father to the flock, a very numerous flock, of Poles and
Russians of the uneducated and illiterate class. He was all
things to them. He was counselor and confidant, he was
money lender, he was entrusted with what money they had
as savings for investment, he wrote their letters, he collected
their rents, being a kind of owners’ sub-agent, and he lived
amongst them, alone, in a little old frame house that was
sandwiched in among the ramshackle tenements that housed


THE CAT’S-PAW 223
that he was suspicious as to how the Wop had come by
them, but had bought them to pull the wool over the Wop's
eyes so as to enable him, Barloff, to communicate with
the police, and give the police a chance to make an investi-
gation. Barloff got away with it, and the Wop got his ride
“up the river.” It was perhaps not unnatural that the Wop
had sworn revenge, and had made no secret of it!
Billy Kane's twisted smile deepened. It was all very
simple. It involved simply the taking of a man's life—
the Wop's—which was a very small matter in the eyes of
that Crime Trust which was running rampant now through
the underworld. Also, the Rat was a man of large vision.
He builded ahead and waited patiently. Barloff was known
by the Rat to have a great deal of money in ready cash.
It would not have been a very difficult matter perhaps to
have robbed the old Russian at any time, but there was
always the certainty of an investigation as an aftermath,
and investigations sometimes had a tendency to lead in
awkward directions. Much better, therefore, and much
safer, that the trend of the investigation, and its limits,
should be fixed in advance—by the Rat. And so they had
waited for the Wop to regain his freedom.
They had not waited five years, however, for the scheme
probably had not occurred to the Rat until perhaps a few
months ago. But now the Wop being free at last, the
Wop's first act of freedom was to be made to appear that
of putting his oft-repeated threat into execution. Barloff
was to be lured out of his house on some specious pretext,
the house would then be entered, and a forged note in the
Wop's scrawl, carefully prepared beforehand, jeering in its
tone and to the effect that the Wop would have got Barloff
as well as Barloff's cash if the latter had not been fortunate
enough to have been out of the house at the time, would be
left pinned, say, to the wall. There would not be much
room for investigation The Wop, being dead, would not
make any defense. The Wop would never be found;
and as the natural thing for the Wop to do was to dis-
appear after leaving his defiant message behind him, who


THE CAT’S-PAW 227
“I’ll tell you, then,” said Billy Kane. “It was because
you threatened to get even with Ivan Barloff.”
“Barloff " The Wop's fists clenched, and he stepped
closer to Billy Kane. “So it was Barloff, was it? He must
have had the fear of God in him, then, to make him spend
any money—even to hire thugs! Barloff, eh? Well, I'm
going to see Barloff pretty soon!”
“No, you're not!” said Billy Kane crisply. “That's
exactly why I am telling you this. It isn't Barloff. It's a
crowd that knew of your threat, and they're getting after
Barloff, and framing you up for the job. They're planting
a little evidence against you in Barloff's place in exchange
for Barloff's cash, and with you finished off via the murder
route, they expect the police to throw up their hands after
a while and admit you've made a clean get-away—with the
swag.”
The Wop's face was close to Billy Kane's, and the Wop's
face was suddenly pinched and white. He touched his lips
with his tongue. And then, as suddenly, the blood flushed
back, and he thrust out his under jaw truculently.
“They would, eh—the dirty swabs?” he snarled. “Who
are they? I'll make 'em crawl for this!”
Billy Kane smiled grimly.
“No, I guess not!” he said softly. “You’re very much
better out of it. But I promise you they'll not get away
with it if you'll do what you are told now.”
The Wop knuckled his forehead in a perplexed way.
“What do you want me to do?” There was a lingering
sullen note in the Wop's voice.
“Just this,” said Billy Kane quietly. “I want you to get
out from under. You're not looking for another five years
in Sing Sing, are you?”
The Wop flinched. He drew his knuckles again across
his eyes.
“No,” he said hoarsely.
Billy Kane nodded.
“Quite so!” he said calmly. “Well, then, it is simply
a question of establishing an alibi for you that will be


228 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
absolutely hole-proof from now until, say, midnight. Where
can you go?”
“I know Gus Moray, that runs the Silver King saloon,”
said the Wop. “He’d swear to it, all right.”
“Yes; whether you were “there or not!” said Billy Kane
dryly. “That's not good enough ' If anything breaks wrong
to-night you've got to have something better than an alibi
in a dive like that to stack up against what will look like
open-and-shut evidence against you. You've got to get on a
higher plane than that.”
The Wop shook his head. -
“I ain't been a very regular church attendant,” he said,
with a sickly grin, “and He stopped short, and sud-
denly leaned toward Billy Kane. “Say, would a minister
do?”
“It would be an improvement,” admitted Billy Kane, with
a smile.
“Well, I got it, then?” announced the Wop. His hesitancy
had vanished. He seemed eager, almost anxious now. The
iron of five years of prison was evidently far too poignant
a memory to risk it being turned into reality again. “I
got it! There's a guy named Mister Claflin that ran one
of them mission joints down around where I uster hang
out before I went up. He's all right! He's the only soul
on God's earth came near me when I was doing my spaces.
Twice he came up to Sing Sing to see me. He didn't
hold no prayer meeting with me neither, but he's got a grip
in his hand that makes a fellow feel he ain't all dirt. He's
white, he is "
“Do you know where he lives?” inquired Billy Kane
crisply.
“No,” said the Wop, and was suddenly downcast. “And
he ain't at the mission any more, 'cause he told me he'd got
a regular layout uptown somewhere.”
“No matter!” said Billy Kane cheerfully. “Any drug
store has a directory. You can find the address there. Got
any money?”


—XXI—
WITHOUT MERCY
the other end of the alleyway, removed his mask,
—” and stepped out on the sidewalk. He looked at his
watch under a street lamp, and smiled whimsically in sur-
prise. It was still only half-past eight. All told, he could
not have been in Wong Yen’s more than fifteen minutes,
hardly that, in fact, and it seemed as though he had been
there half the night!
Well, it was Barloff's now! Barloff's was a little farther
uptown, a little deeper over in the East Side. Billy Kane's
smile, from whimsical, became tinged a little with weari-
ness, became a little wan, as he walked along. He was the
victim of a plot himself, that was aimed at his life, that
sought to throw the guilt of a crime upon his shoulders, just
as the Wop was. And circumstances not only permitted,
but seemed to force him constantly into these byways to
save others, while he himself stood condemned in the eyes of
the public as a murderer and a thief; and there was bitter
irony in the thought that he could not clear his own name,
that he seemed powerless to help himself, while the mantle
of one of the underworld's archcriminals, which tempo-
rarily afforded him sanctuary from the police, supplied him
with almost unlimited information and the means of helping
others!
His brows knitted suddenly into a puzzled frown. Was
that altogether true?
There seemed to be a most strange coincidence in these
excursions, forced or voluntary, of his into the byways of
criminal things, a coincidence that always seemed in some
B. KANE went on to the intersecting street at
230


232 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
had not already showed in this attempt upon the Wop,
since she seemed to have always in her possession the details
of the Rat's schemes?
He shrugged his shoulders again. What was the use!
To-night, at least, she could harbor no delusion that he was
acting under any spur of hers! No, that wasn't it—that
wasn't what was troubling him. What troubled him was
that she should think him what he was, or, rather, all
that he was not! Strange that her opinion of him, even
when his back was against the wall and his life was literally
in jeopardy at every turn, should make any difference!
Strange that the loathing and contempt in those brown eyes,
that were fearless and deep and steady, should haunt him,
and add to his own abhorrence of the rôle he played be-
cause he must let her think him the Rat! Well, what did.
it matter? What was she to him? What was she becoming
to him? He laughed a little uncertainly. There was no
need to answer that question, was there—even if he could?
What did anything matter unless he could clear his own
name, which was now mired deeper than the Rat's
He turned a corner, walked on the length of a block, and
on the next corner, drawing back into a doorway out of the
radius of the street lamp, paused a moment to get his bear-
ings. He smiled a little grimly. If the affair ever came to
her knowledge, would she give the Rat credit this time for
a spontaneous change of heart in saving the Wop's life, and
saving Ivan Barloff's cash? He scowled suddenly. The
latter proposition did not altogether please him. Barloff
was not far removed in guilt from those who proposed to
victimize Barloff! There would be a certain ironical jus-
tice in robbing from Barloff the cash that Barloff had all
too patiently, a great portion of it at least, robbed from
others! But Red Vallon and his pack were not to get it,
were they? It was the lesser evil to warn Barloff, that was
all. In the main, therefore, the night's work was over,
since the Wop was safe, for five minutes' conversation with
Barloff would end the whole affair now, so far as he, Billy
Kane, was concerned.


WITHOUT MERCY 235
green-shaded incandescent bulb that dangled over the desk,
but, as she turned facing the window, he saw that her face,
drawn in sharp, pinched lines, was very white, and that in
the dark brown eyes, all softness gone from them now,
there was a hard and bitter light. And at the desk, the
old Russian, a gray-bearded and threadbare figure in dirty
and grease-spotted clothes, huddled deep down in his chair,
and wrung his hands together, and with little, black, shifty
eyes, that peered over the rims of steel-bowed spectacles,
followed her about in a fascinated sort of way, and the
while he kept circling his lips with his tongue.
“The Wop! The Wop!” he shrilled out suddenly, and
seemed to cower lower in his chair. “Yes, yes, I am afraid!
My God, I am afraid! He is strong. He would have no
pity on an old man. He has sworn it. I know! I have
been afraid of this day. Why did they let him out? They
know, too! And I was only honest—everybody knows that.
He was a thief. What else could an honest man do except
what I did? He—he will kill me, an 2x
“The Wop is dead.” Her voice was low, bitter, hard,
and yet, too, it seemed to hold impatience and irritation di-
rected against the Russian. “I have told you that. It is not
the Wop you have to fear now. The Wop is dead.”
“But you are not sure, not positive, not absolutely posi-
tive of it!” Barloff was wringing his hands the harder; and
his tones, rather than being assertive, seemed to be pleading
for a denial.
“I am positive enough of it,” she answered evenly, “to
see that the one who is responsible pays for it to-night!
It is my fault”—her voice caught a little, but hardened in-
stantly—“I trusted where I was a fool to trust, and I have
paid for it with another's life. But that has nothing to do
with you. You know now that the telephone message you
received a little while ago was simply to lure you out of the
house at half past nine in order that they might have a clear
field in which, without contradiction, to make it appear that
the robbery they are planning was the Wop's work. It is


236 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
scarcely nine o'clock yet. You have plenty of time in which
to act. You can appeal to the police, or—”
Billy Kane was no longer paying any attention to her
words. Tense, strained, he stood there. He seemed to be
trying to lash his brain into virility, into activity. He
seemed to be groping out in an ineffectual mental way for
some means to avert a disaster that he realized was closing
down upon him. She believed the Wop was dead. She
naturally held the Rat responsible—and he was the Rat, so
far as she was concerned. She had warned him, without
mincing words, that if any crime in which the Rat was in-
volved was carried through to its fulfilment she would hold
him responsible and hand him over to the police. She had
reason to believe that he had already tried to double cross
her once; she now believed that to-night he had tried to do
it again. She would leave here, and go straight to the police.
The police, then, would not only be looking for Billy Kane,
they would be looking for the Rat—and they would get
Billy Kane! And that would be the end of it all!
The end of it—when he already knew who the murderer
of David Ellsworth was; when, apart from the collection of
rubies, he had already recovered the proceeds of the Ells-
worth vault robbery; when, if he could only cling for a few
days more to this rôle he played, he might hope to clear
his own name, to stand foursquare with the world again,
and to bring to justice those who had taken old David Ells-
worth's life. Somehow, in some way, he must prevent her
from carrying out what was now her obvious intention cºf
unmasking the Rat. But he dared not show himself in front
of the house to intercept her when she went out—he dared
not show himself as the Rat out there. To bring the unde
world down upon him was only to invite a swifter destruct
tion from another source.
He gnawed in perplexity at his lips, staring into the roomſºn.
She kept pacing up and down. Barloff had risen from his
seat, and in a curious, cringing way, standing now by t
rickety old safe, was fondling it and patting it with hº
hands. -
l


WITHOUT MERCY 237
“Yes, yes!” Barloff was crooning. “I thank you—I thank
you! I do not know who you are, but I thank you! I have
not much, very little, very, very little, but I am an old
man, and what would become of me if I lost my little?
The police, yes, the police—”
The old Russian, his back now to the window, was still
talking, more to himself than to her. She came close to the
window this time and Billy Kane suddenly showed him-
self. She was very clever, very self-centered, very sure of
herself. If she was startled, she gave no sign of it. She
came still closer until she leaned for a moment against the
sill.
“Out here—the lane—when you leave!” he whispered
quickly.
She nodded her head, but her lips had tightened in a for-
bidding little smile as she turned away again.
Billy Kane drew back from the window. There was a
sense of relief upon him; but also a vague, disquieting, and
very much stronger sense of something else that he could
not quite define; only that between them there always
seemed to stand that barrier of a forbidding smile, and that
cool, contemptuous light in the brown eyes that very often
changed from contempt to loathing and abhorrence. He
shrugged his shoulders suddenly. He was a fool—that was
a111
Her voice drifted out to him, dying away as he neared
the fence:
“I am going now, Mr. Barloff, and I should advise you
not to waste any time in taking whatever precautions you
intend to take. You had better communicate at once with
the police, and—”
Billy Kane swung himself over the fence, and stood there
waiting in the lane. A minute, two, three passed, and then
he caught the sound of a light step, and she stood before him
in the darkness.
“Well?” she said curtly. “I am here, Bundy. What do
you want?”


238 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
He was the Rat, alias Bundy Morgan, in her eyes, and it
was the Rat who spoke.
“I heard you in there,” he said gruffly. “You’re going
to beat it for the police, and wise them up about me. Well,
you want to can that stunt, becauses I’ve got a little explana-
tion to make. See?”
“You do not need to make any explanation,” she an-
swered evenly. “My stupidity is at an end! That enig-
matic little memo of yours was a better safeguard in itself
than the hiding place in which you had secreted it, for I
did not understand it until I saw a few lines in the paper
this evening giving a short résumé of the Wop's somewhat
unedifying career, and stating that he had been released
from prison. I was too late to save the Wop himself, but
was not too late to prevent you from climbing in through
that window, and carrying out the rest of your abominable
scheme.”
“I went there to warn Barloff myself,” said Billy Kane.
She laughed icily.
“Do you expect me to believe that, after you have mur-
dered a man so that you could put the onus of another crime
upon him! This is the end to-night! I was mad to trust
you at all. I was madder still to give you another chance,
when I caught you playing a double game both with your
own criminal associates and with me when you stole that
letter from Dayler two nights ago!” She came a little
closer to him. Both hands were tightly clenched. Her lips
quivered a little; her voice choked. “I did not know
what it was like to feel guilty of murder, to feel that one
had taken another's life. I know now. My folly in giving
you a moment's freedom has made me as guilty as you.
But the end has come. Do you understand? You might
put me out of the road, too, here in this lane, but that would
not change the result any. You know that. You know in
that case that the police would be after you anyway—that
I have taken care of that. On the other hand, you may run
for it now, and you may make it a question of hours, or a


WITHOUT MERCY 239
question of days, but as soon as the police lay hands on
you your career is finished.”
There was a strange stirring within Billy Kane's soul.
She was very close to him, so close that he could see the
pinched, haggard look in her face, and see the lips quiver
again, and see the clenched hands rise to her eyes as though
to shut out the abhorrent sight of him from her, and to
shut out perhaps, too, the pictured sight of a man mur-
dered, and for whose life she not illogically held herself
accountable.
His hands gripped hard—hard as the mental grip in
which he held himself. A sudden yearning, an almost un-
controllable impulse was upon him to reach out and sweep
this lithe, fearless little figure that had become so mysteri-
ously a part of his life, a greater part than he had ever
realized before, into his arms. She would struggle like a
wild cat, and fight with every ounce of strength, yes, and
hatred, that was in her, but he could hold her because he
was the stronger, and tell her that he was not the Rat,
and He swallowed hard. And then what? Tell her
that he was Billy Kane? A wan smile came to his lips.
She would perhaps prefer the Rat! The Rat, publicly at
least, was known as the less infamous of the two He
laughed a little harshly.
“Forget it!” he said roughly. “I’ve played straight with
you, and before you go spilling any beans to the police
you'd better get onto yourself. You don't know what you're
talking about!”
“I know that the Wop was murdered to-night in Wong
Yen’s by you, or your orders,” she said passionately. “I
know that the Wop is dead—that is enough!”
“Nix!” said Billy Kane, alias Bundy Morgan, alias the
Rat. “The Wop isn't dead, and he isn't in Wong Yen’s
either. I pulled him out of there.”
She stared at him, coming still closer in the darkness
until he could feel her breath upon his face. It was a long
minute before she spoke .
“I do not believe you!” she said in a dead voice.


THE FIGHT 243
the trap they set for him, for with my own eyes I saw him,
and since he is dead he will not be able to deny that. Yes,
yes, Barloff, your old brain is still your best friend! And
the others—ha, ha! They have planted it on the Wop—ha,
ha! It would be a pity to disappoint them—and lose the
rentals. Yes, yes, Barloff, that is so, is it not? Certainly,
the Wop has robbed you, and tried to get revenge on you,
too, because you were honest enough to go to the police five
years ago!”
The man had the safe open now, and was snatching books
and papers from the interior, and throwing them in a litter
upon the floor. And now he had an old tin cash box in his
hands. He laid this on the floor and opened it, and in a
sort of hideous rapacity seemed to gloat over it. He dipped
in his hands and lifted out banknotes, and let them filter
through his fingers, and rubbed his hands together, and
buried them again in the money; while behind the steel-
bowed spectacles his little black eyes glittered with feverish
exaltation again, and his whole body seemed to quiver in
unholy, greedy worship. -
Billy Kane's jaw locked hard. The man's whole life
was a damnable hypocrisy—a rogue's alias. Thousands the
man had somewhere, and, by comparison, the paltry hun-
dreds in the cash box, if hundreds even there were, seemed
to hold up as to a mirror the man's soul, stripped bare, until
it stood out in all its naked, shrivelled miserliness, its god-
less grovelling to the only god it knew !
“The rentals—all the rentals?” mumbled Barloff again.
“I am a poor man—how can I pay them over to-morrow
when they have been stolen from me to-night, and I have
nothing left? Yes, yes, Barloff, you are getting old, but
you are not yet a fool!”
The man was suddenly all haste. He snatched up the
cash box, and ran to the piece of furniture which had struck
Billy Kane as so incongruous an adjunct to the furnishings
of the room—the old morris chair. He turned this over on
its back, there was a faint click of a hidden spring, and the
bottom underneath the seat gaped outward on what were


246 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
**
movement caught his ear, he swerved, throwing his body
sharply to one side. There was a swish like the ugly sweep
of some weapon cutting through the air from a ferocious,
full-arm swing, a queer numbness from a glancing blow on
the side of his head, a crash upon the desk, a metallic
clatter on the floor—and then he lunged forward, and his
hands, pawing out, touched and closed on a man's form in
front of him.
Billy Kane's head was dizzy and swirling. He was con-
scious that arms which were like bands of steel were
around him, and that his own arms, to keep from being
torn apart and his hold on the other loosened, were straining
until they hurt in their sockets. It seemed as though in
the pitch blackness they were reeling around the room in
the crazy, jerky, unbalanced dance of some mad orgy A
voice was snarling in his ear, snarling vicious oaths, snarling
in a fury that seemed ungovernable, beyond all license, that
seemed to have taken possession of the other, body and
soul, and made the other's strength demoniacal. That was
it! It could not be anything else. That was what made
the man so strong. The man was mad—a madman He
tried to think, as he gasped and panted for his breath.
It wasn't the Cadger, or French Marr, or the Pigeon, for
then there would have been three of them. Who was it?
His brain was sick and swimming, and refused its functions.
He could not think very well. He must fight—that was all
—fight!
It seemed to Billy Kane as though hours were passing.
It seemed as though gradually, very gradually, his strength
was oozing away, and that his hands were slipping from
around the man's back. He clenched his teeth together. He
remembered suddenly that murderous swish through the air.
It seemed to steady him, to bring to him, too, a sudden
fury in place of that unnerving giddiness. He wanted to
strike; to strike, as murderously as he had been struck, at
this thing whose hot, tainted breath was on his cheek, at
this thing that snarled like a beast as it struggled and


THE FIGHT 247
fought." He wanted to strike, only the giddiness from the
blow on his head was back again, and -
The other had wrenched himself free. Billy Kane
flung his weight forward to retain his hold, and with the im-
pact both men reeled, tripped on the littered floor, lost their
balance, and, locked together, crashed to the ground.
They rolled over once, and then the other's snarl became
a vicious laugh. The giddiness was coming in quick flashes
over Billy Kane now, and he felt his hands wrenched and
torn away from the other, and he felt the other's body
upon him now like some crushing, insupportable weight.
He reached out in the darkness in a desperate, frantic
effort to close again, to protect himself from the short-arm
jabs that were raining into his face. His fingers touched
the man's bare, collarless throat, slipped on the throat—
and suddenly held. There was a string, or a cord, or some-
thing around the man's neck. It was very curious! But
his fingers had hooked in between the cord and the flesh,
and he clung there tenaciously. If he could only twist it,
and twist it hard enough, he could choke the other! He
wasn't strong enough to do anything else—just twist at
the cord—and choke the other—and
There was a sound that seemed to come from the front of
the house, like the opening of a door, and then voices—un-
mistakably voices. But the other had heard it too. The
man was struggling now to get away, not to strike any
more blows, just to wrench and tear himself loose from
that cord that Billy Kane had twined around his hands
and fingers. And then the cord gave with a sudden snap, the
man sprang to his feet, and, without a sound, like a shadowy
form just visible in the darkness, flung himself out through
the window.
The cord was still twined around Billy Kane's fingers as
he lay, half-dazed, his head swimming weakly, flat on his
back on the floor. He shook it free from his hand and
raised himself up into a sitting posture, as he smiled in a
queer, bitter way. There was a light in the front room now,
and he was too exhausted to reach the window as his late


THE FIGHT 251
beat out there on the street when Barloff here found you.
Am I right?”
“Where else would I be?” said the officer gruffly.
“That's what I wanted to make sure of,” returned Billy
Kane pleasantly. “And that's why I want to get through
here in a hurry—before your reinforcements arrive. What
story did this man tell you?”
“Say,” said the officer shortly, “you've got your nerve
with you! But you can't get away with it! I tell you, I
know you! You might as well take that mask off. You're
the Wop.”
“You’re jumping at conclusions,” said Billy Kane calmly,
“because Barloff here has told you the Wop had broken in
and robbed him. Well, ask Barloff, then l’” He turned on
Barloff. “I’m not the Wop, am I, Barloff?”
The old man shook his head. -
“No; you're not.” Barloff swallowed hard; he was evi-
dently floundering in a perplexed mental maze. “But my
money's gone, and the Wop was here. I saw him. I saw
him. Maybe you're a pal of his.”
“I am for to-night,” said Billy Kane quietly. “When
did you see the Wop? What did you tell this officer
here?”
“Oh, you are, are you!” Barloff seemed suddenly re-
lieved. He shook his free fist at Billy Kane. “So you're
a pal of the Wop's, are you! Well, I don't know where
you came from, but I saw the Wop just as plainly as I see
you now.” He edged around and addressed the officer
eagerly. “I was sitting at the desk there, officer, just as I
told you, and that door was open, and there was a light in
that front room. The Wop must have got the front door
open without my hearing him. I saw him stealing across
that room out there. I rushed to the door, and shut it, and
called for help. He began to smash it in and I grabbed up
the telephone and called the police, and then ran for the
window, and got out by the lane to the street where I found
you. He would have killed me. He swore he would when
he went to prison.” His voice changed suddenly into a


252 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
whining wail. “He’s got my money! Look at the floor—
look at the safe! He's got my money, and run with it
when he heard us coming.” He began to claw frantically
at the officer's sleeve. “The Wop's got it! Look, officer,
this pal of his has been hurt! Look at the side of his
head—that's why he didn't get away too—that's why we
found him here on the floor!”
“You talk as though you'd been frisked of a million!”
Billy Kane was tauntingly sarcastic now. “How much did
you have, anyway?”
“How much How much "howled Barloff. “Enough to
ruin me! All this month's rentals that I had just collected.
Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!”
“Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!” Billy Kane
mimicked the other admirably. “You don't mean to say
you'd keep three hundred and eighty-seven dollars in that
crazy old safe that's falling to pieces, do you?”
“Where else would I keep it?” Barloff was shaking his
fist again. “Yes, I kept it there! And that's where it was
to-night—and it's gone now—gone!”
“Is that all you had f" Billy Kane's sneer was irritatingly
contemptuous.
“All!” shrieked Barloff. “All—yes, it is all! But it is
enough ! I am a poor man, and the money was not mine,
and I cannot replace it, and >>
He choked suddenly, and shrank back, dragging the of-
ficer with him a step. Billy Kane had moved abruptly to
the morris chair, and had toppled it over on the floor.
“You pitiful liar! You haven’t seen the Wop in five
years!” rasped Billy Kane, and the iron shaft in his hand
crashed through the false bottom of the chair. A package
of banknotes tumbled out on the floor, another, and yet
another. A second blow dislodged the cash box, and a fur-
ther rain of banknotes. “You thought the Wop was dead,
and that you could make him stand for this, did you!”
rasped Billy Kane again. “You yellow cur—so that you
could steal those few miserable rentals yourself!”
“My God!” gasped the officer. Barloff was a grovelling


THE FIGHT 253
thing at his side. He jerked the other toward him, and
stared into the white, working features.
Billy Kane backed to the window, and there was an abrupt
change in his voice as he addressed the officer.
“I’m going now,” he said softly. “I am not quite sure of
the technical charge against your prisoner, but I imagine it
is just plain theft—of three hundred and eighty-seven dol-
lars. And it might be interesting, too, to know where so
poor a man got that small fortune there on the floor!
Perhaps Barloff will tell you! As for the Wop, he has
never been near this place, and you will find him at the
Reverend Mr. Claflin's house, where he has been all even-
ing. I think that's all, officer, except”—Billy Kane had
straddled the window sill—“except that I apologize to you
for anything in the shape of lèse majesty of which I may
have been guilty, but as I have certain personal reasons
that justify me in not desiring to appear publicly in the mat-
ter, I am sure you will admit I had no other >>
Billy Kane did not finish his sentence. He dropped hur-
riedly to the ground, and ran, or, rather, half ran, half
stumbled his way to the fence and lane. Someone was at
the front door again—obviously the police detail from the
station.
He made his way along the lane, and from that lane into
another. He was still weak and progress was slow, and
for half an hour he kept under cover. When he finally
emerged into the open he was blocks away from Barloff's
house, and very much closer to a certain temporary sanctu-
ary in the heart of the underworld! -
Ten minutes later, behind locked doors, he was sitting
at the dilapidated table under the single incandescent light,
in the Rat's den. Before him lay a small red flannel sack,
that might have passed for an ordinary chest protector,
and which he had cut open with his knife. He raised his
hand, and passed it across his eyes. The Wop and Barloff
were extraneous considerations now. There was something
far more vital to think about, but his brain was refusing
its functions again. He was very tired—very tired and


254 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
weak. There was the Man with the Crutch, the man who,
he knew now, had killed Peters and David Ellsworth, the
man who had looted David Ellsworth's vault of its money
and its priceless rubies, the man for whose guilt he, Billy
Kane, was held accountable, the man with whom he had
fought to-night. In a numbed way, because his mind was in
a sort of torpor, Billy Kane was dimly conscious that there
was no more any mere coincidence in this repeated appear-
ance of the Man with the Crutch. He knew now that Jack-
son, the footman, had only been an underling. It was curi-
ous, singular, sinister. Who was the man? What did it
mean? The man wasn’t even lame, was he? He remem-
bered the extraordinary agility the other had showed two
nights ago—and why was the shaft of the crutch detachable?
—and the man hadn't fought like a crippled man to-night—
and there had been no sign of the upper portion of the
crutch, either!
Billy Kane's head sank forward a little on his shoulders.
He raised himself with a jerk, and stared at the red flannel
sack in front of him. A score of magnificent rubies scintil-
lated in fiery flashes under the light.
“They're not all here,” mumbled Billy Kane, with a
twisted smile. “They're not all here—not yet.”


THE RENDEZVOUS 261.
Billy Kane, hugging close against the wall, moved silently
farther on toward the rear of the hall until he was beyond
the radius of light from the doorway of the room. The
street door had opened, and a footstep, hesitant, scuffling,
was out there somewhere behind him. The step came
nearer, and now he could make out a woman's form, that,
either in reality or as an illusion due to the uncertain light,
seemed to sway a little unsteadily as she walked. Opposite
the door she stood still, and now in the fuller light Billy
Kane could see her quite distinctly. Obviously, it was the
woman they had referred to as Shaky Liz—an old, unkempt,
hag-like creature, who blinked sore, red-rimmed eyes in
apparent astonishment and consequent indecision at the par-
tially open door and the light from within. And then she
stepped forward into the room, and the next moment the
door closed with a slam behind her, and with the slam her
voice rose in a curious, gurgling cry that seemed to mingle
terror and an unbridled fury.
In an instant, Billy Kane had retraced his steps, and was
crouching against the closed door. He could see now even
better than before. The gaping strip of cardboard that
did duty for the smashed panel, dislodged still farther by
the violent slam of the door, afforded him an almost unre-
stricted view of the interior. Clarkie Munn had not moved
from his chair, and a little away from him, legs swinging
from a dilapidated, rickety table, Gypsy Joe, black-visaged
and swarthy, sucked indifferently at a cigarette; but over in
the far corner of the room by the bed, the woman, her hat
knocked to the floor, her tangled gray hair draggling about
her eyes, was engaged in a violent struggle with a small
boyish figure, who had her by the throat and was shaking
her head savagely back and forth. Billy Kane drew in his
breath. He remembered Whitie Jack's description of the
Cherub in action—and it was literally true. The blue eyes
were bland and round and seemed to smile, the young face
was the face of a guileless youth in repose, and yet the boy
—he couldn't be much more than a boy—was in a passion
worthy of an incarnate fiend.


262 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
“Youse have been out hittin' de can, have youse?” snarled
the Cherub. “I’ll teach youse! Do youse think I’ve spent
two weeks hangin' around dis dirty hole of yers, an’ standin'
fer youse being me sick, disabled grandmother wid me sup-
posed to be doin' me best to keep bread in yer mouth, an'
playin' poor, an' having to listen to her tryin' to get me
jobs, an' handin' me de soft, goody-goody talk—d'ye think
I'm standin' fer dat just to have youse go out an’ kick de
stuffin' outer de whole lay! I'll teach youse!”
“It’s a lie!” screamed Shaky Liz. She shook herself sud-
denly free, and with crooked fingers clawed like a wild
cat at the Cherub's face. “I didn't crab no game! It's a
lie! I got it all fixed before I went out. I guess I got a
right to a drink now, ain't I?”
The Cherub warded off her attack with a vicious sweep
of his fist.
“Yes!” he snarled again. “An’ suppose she'd seen youse!
Or suppose she'd come back here by any chance an’ found
de poor bedridden grandma gone out fer a drink—eh! Blast
youse, couldn't youse wait a few hours more? De whole
outfit 'ud be glad if youse had drunk yerself to death den!”
Shaky Liz dashed the hair out of her eyes, and swept
her hands in a half angry, half expostulating gesture toward
the others.
“I didn't queer no game!” she insisted truculently. “I
guess I know wot I'm doin’; an' youse ain't comin' in here
to pull no rough-house business neither!”
“Aw, let her alone, an’ give her a chance to tell her
story,” drawled Gypsy Joe from the table. “We ain't got
all night to stay here.”
“Sure!” said the Cherub softly, and smiled beneficently,
as he sat down on the edge of the bed and calmly lighted
a cigarette. “Go on, Liz, spill it!”
The old hag stared at him for a moment in silence, as she
dug again at her dishevelled locks.
“Youse dirty little runtl” She found her voice at last,
and in spite of her scowl there was a grudging note of


THE RENDEZVOUS 263
admiration in her tones. “Youse are pretty slick, ain't
youse?”
“Sure!” admitted the Cherub imperturbably. “If I
wasn’t, youse wouldn't have a hundred dollars in yer kick
now, an’ two hundred more comin' to-morrow—if youse
ain't queered it fer yerself. Go on, give us de dope?”
Shaky Liz preened herself. She adjusted the threadbare
bodice of her dress that seemed to bulge and sag uncom-
fortably, picked up her hat, and smirked at her audience.
“It's all right!” She wagged her head secretively. “Youse
don't any of youse need to worry. When de Cherub pipes
me off this afternoon dat de stunt is to be pulled to-night, I
sends fer her as soon as he gets out of de way, an’ she
comes on de run. She don't suspect nothing, 'cause wid
two weeks' acquaintance she—"
“Can dat!” interrupted the Cherub politely. “We all
knows dat fer two weeks youse an' me has been gettin'
acquainted wid her, an’ feedin' on her jellies, an’ dat I’m de
errin' child dat's taken a shine to her an’ dat mabbe can be
influenced fer good—if she tried hard enough. Wot did she
say when she comes here dis evening?”
“Wot did she say?” repeated Shaky Liz, with a sudden
and malicious grin. “Why, she falls fer it, of course! Wot
d'ye expect? Me, I was lyin' dere on de bed when she
blows in. She asks me how I was, an' I says I ain't no
worse dan usual, but dat it's me young grandson dat's
troublin' me, an' how I ain't got no one to tell it to except
her, an’ how I dunno as I durst tell even her. An' den
she says I oughter know well enough dat I can trust her,
an’ dat she won't say nothin', an’ den I gives her de spiel.
I says I ain't slept all de last night thinkin’ about it. I tells
her it wouldn't do no good me talkin' to youse, 'cause I
ain't got any influence wid youse an' she has, an' besides dat
I was afraid of Gypsy an' Clarkie if dey got wise to me.
An' I tells her wot a good boy youse are, too, Cherub, an’
how though mabbe youse might be better it ain't all yer
fault 'cause youse're easily led by bad company, but dat
youse have stood by yer old grandmother. Savvy?”


THE RENDEZVOUS 265
goin’ to do it. An' I says I am. An’ she asks me where he
is, an' I says I don't know, an’ dat I don't know where
to find him; dat he went out just before I sent fer her, an’
dat he says he won't be back till late to-night, an’ dat's wot
makes me sure he's goin’ to do it. Sure, I was cryin' good
an' hard den—savvy?
“An' I says he's a good boy, an’ if I tells de police dat'll
finish him; an' I says I’m sick an’ can't walk, an’ can't go
down dere myself, an’ dat she's de only one I dares trust,
an' besides dat she's got a lot of influence wid de boy, an’
dat I knows she can persuade him not to fall fer it, an' den
nobody'll know anything about it. An’ she says: ‘Yes, of
course—I’ll do anything. But where is he? Where can I
find him?’ An' I says dere ain't only one place I knows, an’
dat's down to Kegler's, an’ dat he'll be all alone dere, an’
dat if she gets dere before ten o'clock she'll be in time to
try an' stop him. An’ she bends over me, an' pats me
hands, she does, an’ she says: “Don’t youse worry, Mrs.
Cox, she says. “I’ll go.” An' I says: ‘An' youse won't tell
nobody, nor take nobody down dere, so’s anybody'd know
about me little lad's disgrace?' An’ she says: ‘No, I'll go
alone; an' I'm sure I can promise youse it'll be all right.”
An' den she goes away. Dat's all!” Shaky Liz was fum-
bling with the bodice of her dress again, and suddenly pulled
out a black, square-faced bottle. “Dat's all!” she announced
with a cackle. “An' I guess I gotta right to dis if I wants
it—ain't I?”
“Youse can bet yer life youse have?” agreed Gypsy Joe
with fervent heartiness—and reached for the bottle.
In a flash the Cherub was up from the bed, and between
them.
“Nix on dat, Gypsy” he said sharply. “Shaky's end is
all right, I guess; but we ain't through yet. Nix on dat—
get me!” He stepped closer to both Clarkie Munn and
Gypsy Joe. “Now, den,” he said briskly, “since we’re satis-
fied wid Shaky, we'll get down to tacks—eh? Everybody
makes sure dey knows dere own play, an' we don't make no
renigs. I goes down dere, an' youse two are trailin’ out of


266 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
sight behind, an’ she buttonholes me, an' I gets her inside
widout youse if I can, but anyway we gets her inside widout
any noise, an' de trap-door where dey shoots de sweepings
from de warehouse into de water under de dock does de
trick. If dere's enough weight on her she'll be dere for-
ever. An' dere's one thing more. Nix on de easy-fingered
stuff wid any safe business, or anything loose lying around
dat looks like meat! Savvy? To-morrow morning de place
looks like it did when dey left it to-night. De girl's dis-
appeared, dat's all—an' dere's nothing to show dat Kegler's
dock had anything to do wid it. Get me? Dey’ll never
find her, an’ dat's wot's wanted, an’ why we're gettin' two
hundred apiece more.”
Gypsy Joe removed the cigarette from his mouth, watched
the blue spiral of smoke from its tip curl upward for a mo-
ment, and pursed his lips in a ruminative pucker.
“I wonder wot de Rat had it in fer her fer as hard as
dat?” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “She must
have 32
The-Ratt She-the girl they were talking about! The
room seemed suddenly to swirl before Billy Kane's eyes, the
figures inside to become but blurred, jerky objects—and
then it was black around him. Automatically he was step-
ping backward with a catlike tread; automatically he was
feeling his way along the black hallway. And then the cool
evening air fanned his face, and he was in the street.


268 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
of self-protection. She expected the Cherub to go alone,
but if by any chance his pals went too, those pals were
Clarkie Munn and Gypsy Joe—and he, Billy Kane, in that
case, would be on their heels. And he understood, too, why
she had not been more explicit over the telephone. She
had not actually anticipated trouble, and she had respected
her promise to the old hag to keep the Cherub's name out
of it.
He was running now, making across town in the direction
of the East River. He did not know where Kegler's dock
or warehouse was, but Kegler was evidently a rather large
dealer in sand, and any directory in the first drug store he
passed would supply that information.
His mind worked on—curiously self-explanatory of his
own actions. It had seemed pure impulse at the time that
had prompted him to retreat so precipitately from the tene-
ment; but he realized now that it was his brain subcon-
sciously, but logically, at work. He, as the Rat, could not
call in the police to raid that room where the inmates would
denounce him as the author and instigator of the very crime
for which he demanded their arrest; and to have gone into
the room alone himself and have attempted to hold them
up at the point of his pistol, while it might have been spec-
tacular and dramatic, would have been little less than the
act of a fool. It was not so easy for one man to hold up
three others, to say nothing of a woman who was quite
as abandoned, and certainly as full of trickery, and cunning,
and resource as her male companions. There would have
been, then, only one other alternative—to have gone in
there coolly as the Rat, and call off the game that he was
supposed to have started. But he had already learned that
they had no love for the Rat, even though he was their
employer in the present instance, and that secretly they were
asking for nothing better than just such a favorable chance
as that would be to “get” him, and to get, too, the large
amount of cash that they credited him with having on his
person.
His lips were tight, as he ran. He was conscious that he


270 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
the lighted window of a little grocery store. A few steps
more, and he saw that the car was empty. Billy Kane's lips
broadened in a hard smile. It might be reprehensible to
steal a car for a few hours; but, as between a car and a
human life that he knew depended on him alone, he experi-
enced no pangs of conscience. It was the way out!
He edged over to the curb as he approached the machine,
and, close to the car now, glanced around. In through the
store window he could see a man, back turned, evidently
the car's owner, leaning over the counter, talking to the
proprietor of the store. Billy Kane, wary of attracting
premature notice from the pedestrians here and there along
the street, reached out calmly, opened the door without
haste, and with a deliberate air of proprietorship slipped into
the driver's seat—but in the next instant he had thrown in
the gears, and the machine shot from the curb like a mad
animal stung to frenzy.
A yell went up behind him; there came to him the glimpse
of a man's figure rushing wildly out through the store door
into the street; and then another yell, that was echoed from
different directions along the street. The car took the first
corner on little better than two wheels. The yells died away
behind. At the next intersecting street Billy Kane turned
again, and thereafter for a few blocks zigzagged his course,
until, satisfied that he had thrown any immediate pursuers
off his track, he headed again over toward the East River.
And now as he drove more quietly, confident that he
need no longer fear the element of time, his mind harked
back again to that scene in the old hag's room, and there
came a puzzled frown furrowing his forehead, and a queer
strained look into his face. It was not so clear after all!
The picture in the large was there. The patient, cold-blooded
winning of her confidence in order to lure her without sus-
picion or hesitation to her death was clear enough, as was
also the hideous betrayal of that confidence, a betrayal that
plumbed the depths of human infamy, and whose unscrupu-
lous ingenuity and vile cunning was so typical of the Rat;
but the details, examined more critically, seemed somehow


276 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
It was the one way now. It might fail, but it would gain
him access inside that dark, looming building across the
open stretch of brick-and-sand-strewn yard where he was
running now; and once inside, if it were not already too
late, there must be some way out for her. And if it were
too late—well then, the Cherub, and Gypsy Joe, and Clarkie
Munn would not have to press the Rat for payment for their
work!
Again the distorted smile flickered on his lips. He had
his bearings now, both literally and mentally. He ran with-
out caution, making almost unnecessary noise, and reached
the door of the building; a building that, he could discern
now, made the shore end of a long dock, and which, accord-
ing to the old watchman's directions, was obviously Kegler's
place.
The building was in utter and complete darkness. He
dismissed the possibility that she was still anywhere with-
out, still waiting for the Cherub's arrival, as too improbable
to warrant the waste of even a second, and making still
more noise at the door now, he tried it, found it unlocked,
pushed it open, stepped inside and closed it behind him. A
quick, startled exclamation, from a long way off, it seemed,
reached him, and then a sibilant whisper:
“Who’s dat?”
“Clarkie—Gypsy” Billy Kane called softly. “Are you
there?”
“Gawd!” a voice ejaculated hoarsely.
A light went on somewhere over Billy Kane's head. He
was in a short passage that was flanked on either side by
what were evidently the business offices of the concern, and
at the end of this passage now a door was suddenly swung
open. Gypsy Joe was standing in the doorway.
“De Rat!” he exclaimed in heavy amazement, and
mechanically fell back as Billy Kane advanced.


278 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
to leap through his veins in a great surging tide, and upon
him was the sense of a mighty uplift. It was not too late!
It was not too late! His brain seemed to seize upon those
words and reiterate them in a sing-song way. A woman's
form lay upon the floor, and she was bound and gagged;
but dark eyes met his, and in the eyes was a softer light
than he had ever seen there before when they had been
fixed on him. “For once,” they seemed to say, “you have
not failed. I told you to watch Gypsy Joe and Clarkie
Munn, and you are just in time.”
The Cherub laughed suddenly and a little noisily, as from
unstrung nerves.
“Say, youse gave us a jolt!” he said. “Wot's de idea? I
suppose youse came along to make sure dat we earned yer
money, eh, an’ dat dere wouldn't be no fluke about her bein’
bumped off fer keeps? Well, if youse had been about a
minute an' a half later youse'd have missed de trap-door
scene, 'cause it'd have been all over.”
Billy Kane's eyes had met the girl's again. The soft
light in them had gone, and in its place had come a horror,
and sudden accusation, and a bitter misery; and her face,
already deathly white as she lay there, seemed now to tinge
with gray. -
Billy Kane shook his head in response to the Cherub,
as he turned and faced the three men. They were edging a
little closer to him. He caught a surreptitious nudge that
passed between Gypsy Joe and Clarkie Munn. He moved
back a step—but it was a step that brought him nearer to
the girl. If he could hold them in a state of puzzled sus-
pense with its consequent indecision for a moment, that was
all he asked. And he was counting on a sort of frank
audaciousness for that.
“Well?” prompted the Cherub, a sudden, curious silkiness
in his tones. “Did I call de turn?”
“Maybe he's come down to pay us off,” suggested Gypsy
Joe smoothly. “Dere's nothin' slow about de Rat.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Billy Kane quietly. He took his
knife from his pocket, and coolly opened it; then non-


280 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
out of here she knows too much, an' we got to fade away
outer New York anyway, whether de bulls are on now or
not. An’ dat takes de coin—all de coin we can get. Well,
de Rat always carries a wad, but if we pinches it an’ lets de
Rat loose afterwards he's got a bunch behind him dat’ll
nose us out where de bulls couldn't, an' we'll get ours. Dat’s
de size of it. Do we play fer table stakes, or hedge de
bets?”
It was coming now, as Billy Kane had known inevitably
that it would come. There was no answer needed from
either Clarkie Munn or Gypsy Joe. It was written in the
ugly menace in their faces, and had been from the moment
they had recovered their startled surprise at his entry into
the place.
Billy Kane flung a quick glance around him. The girl
was a little behind him, close to those electric-light switches,
her way clear to the front door, save for the peril of that
lighted passage down which she must run. In front of him,
just out of arm's reach, the Cherub's bland eyes smiled into
his with a sort of hideous serenity; while over the Cherub's
shoulders, one on each side, showed the vicious faces of the
other two—and, under cover of the Cherub's body, Clarkie
Munn's hand seemed to be stealing in the direction of his
hip pocket.
Billy Kane seemed suddenly to go to pieces and to lose his
nerve. His tongue circled his lips with nervous repetition.
He put out his hands in an imploring attitude, and stumbled
a step forward toward the Cherub, and caught a glint of
light on a revolver barrel in Clarkie Munn's hand, as it came
stealing now from the latter's pocket.
“Wait—wait a minute, Cherubſ” Billy Kane whispered
thickly, and licked at his lips again, and stumbled forward
another step. “Wait!” he whispered—and then, swift as
the winking of an eye, Billy Kane flung his body forward
with all his weight upon the Cherub, hurling the Cherub
back upon Clarkie Munn, and whirling, whipped a lightning
left full into Gypsy Joe's face on the other side. There
was a flash, the deafening roar of a report, as the Cherub


THE OLD WAREHOUSE 281
reeled into Clarkie Munn's revolver; then a scream of agony,
and the Cherub, grasping at his leg with both hands, went
to the floor.
“The switches there—beside you!” Billy Kane shouted at
the girl. “Put out the lights—both switches! Quick! Run
for it !”
Gypsy Joe, recovering his balance, and with a bellow like
a maddened bull was charging forward; Clarkie Munn's
hand had swung upward again—and then the place was in
darkness. A second late, Clarkie Munn's revolver cut a
vicious flame-tongue through the black, but Billy Kane had
flattened himself out on the floor, and was wriggling rapidly
backward toward the door and the now dark passageway.
There was a moan, then a shrill scream in the Cherub's
voice, and coincidentally a torrent of blasphemy from Gypsy
Joe, as the latter, quite obviously, in his rush and in the
blackness now, had stumbled none too gently into the
wounded man.
“Youse fool! Curse youse, youse fool!” shrieked the
Cherub. “Ain’t youse got a pocket torch? Ain't either of
youse got a torch? Flash a torch on him, an’—”
Billy Kane was across the threshold now; and now, rising
to his knees, he groped out for the edge of the door, found
it, and, as he slammed it shut, it seemed to cut in two, as a
knife might cut it, the sudden, white, piercing ray of a
flashlight that leaped out from the interior of the ware-
house. And then in another second he had shot the bolt
Home in its grooves, and, in the darkness, leaning heavily
for an instant against the door to recover himself, he stared
down the black passage for the girl, and could see
nothing.
There came an abortive rush against the door; snarls and
oaths came muffled from within. He moved a step forward
along the passage. They were a negligible quantity in
there now. The door would hold, and when they succeeded
in getting out and making their way along the side of the
dock perhaps, they would be more concerned in getting to
cover themselves than anything else; and besides they would


282 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
have a wounded man to hamper their movements. It was
she now, the Woman in Black, that concerned him.
“Where are you?” he called quickly. “Where are you?”
A draft of air touched his face. The front door at the
farther end of the passage was being opened.
“I am here, Bundy.”
It was her voice, but there was something of cold, merci-
less forbidding in it. He halted instinctively. He did not
quite understand.
“Bundy, are you listening?” came the level tones again.
“This is the end, absolutely and finally the end to-night.
You have saved my life, but I owe you no thanks for that.
You saved it, after hiring thugs to take it, you thing of
loathing, because you dared do nothing else, since you say
you believe the police got wind enough of this thing to-
night to scare you off. Very well, Bundy—but there is
more, isn't there, that the police do not know? Well,
they will know it, and certain secrets in that den of yours,
the moment I can reach them. I have warned you often
enough. I am through, Bundy, this is the end of the Rat
to-night, nothing shall stop that—but I am still a fool. I
am still giving you warning of what I mean to do now. I
am still giving you a chance to save yourself if you can;
the rather slim chance that the police will not be able to run
the man who was known as the Rat to earth! And I am
giving you that chance because—well because, even in spite
of yourself, I am still alive.”
“No!” he cried. “You do not understand. Wait!” He
was groping down the black passage, as he heard the front
door shut quickly, and heard a footstep running, receding,
outside. “Wait!” he cried again. “For God's sake, wait!”
There was no answer. He knew there would be none.
He had heard her running away out there, hadn't he? He
reached the door, and looked out—and hung there hesitant
—and called again—and there was no answer. He listened.
He could not hear her footsteps any more. There was no
sound from anywhere, not even from that warehouse door
behind him. They weren't hammering on that any more.


THE OLD WAREHOUSE 283
And then Billy Kane laughed in a short, bitter, mirthless
way, and started, running at top speed, in the direction in
which he had left his purloined and dilapidated car. The
end | The end of the Rat! He laughed again in the same
bitter mirth, as he ran. It was the end of more than that!
It was the end of hope—of her—of that love that had come
to him upon the thresholds of these strange doors of the
night. It was the end of Billy Kane! And whether as
the Rat now, or as Billy Kane, the police would be equally
hard upon his trail. He stood in far worse case now than on
the night of David Ellsworth's murder, for now the under-
world, that would be combed for the Rat, and where the
Rat was too well known to have it offer the slightest hope of
escaping detection, was closed to him as a refuge. He knew
what she meant to do—to tell her story to the police, to ex-
pose all the criminal acts and affiliations of the bona fide Rat,
and to lead them to the Rat's den, and expose the secrets
that she had so often hinted were hidden there.
He clenched his hands as he ran. The end | No! Not
yet! Not until they had him, and they had not got him
yet! He did not know which way to turn; but while he still
had his freedom there was still the hope of running down
the murderer of David Ellsworth—and there were the pro-
ceeds of that robbery now, most of them, in the Rat's den.
That was what seemed to stand out as immediately vital
now—to get those things—that money and those rubies.
He had staked everything on the hope that some day he
could hand over to justice both the proceeds of that crime
and the murderer as well—hand them over together, as a
complete vindication of his own name—and even now, in
this hour that seemed blackest of all, he still dared to cling
to that hope. He knew who the murderer was, and he had
already recovered a large share of what had been stolen.
He still hoped to find the murderer, and he still hoped to
find the remainder of those rubies, and so carry out his
original plan. His jaws locked. His mind was made up.
He would go! And, yes, he had far better than an even
chance of getting there in time. She would take longer to


284 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
reach the police and lead them to the den than it would
take him to reach it—thanks to the car that, grim irony!
he had stolen on her account. Afterward his position would
be desperate enough; but now, without an instant's loss of
time, he had to gain the den and get away again before they
trapped him there.
He reached the car. The old night watchman had evi-
dently retired inside the building again, for there was no
sign of the man. He experienced a certain sense of relief
at this, as he cranked the obsolete machine; and then he
was in the driver's seat again, and the car was roaring
along the road. He drove fast, with mad haste, with reck-
less disregard for the ill-lighted road. There could be no
accident comparable in disaster to his failure to put the
miles behind him swiftly enough to insure him the few
minutes leeway he asked for in the den.
He bent over the wheel, tense, rigid, strained. The min-
utes sped away. A glimmer of hope came to him for that
“afterward.” He could use the car again; get out of the
city again before the chase got too hot. He could certainly
hide in that way during the night, and that would give him
the night in which to think. He had not time to think now
—only that as he drew in toward the centre of the city he
must keep as much as possible to the unfrequented streets,
both because he must ignore such a thing as speed laws, and
because he was driving a stolen car.


286 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
out warning—in which case, should the contents be seen by
anyone, and they could not help but be seen if such an
accident should occur in the presence of anyone within
eyeshot, it would be likely to prove, not only awkward, but
disastrous for the possessor of the bag. His frown cleared.
There was still room in the bag for, say, a shirt; and, than
a shirt there was nothing better to disguise the contents
underneath.
He walked over to the old bureau, that was flanked on
one side by the secret door to the den, and on the other by
the cretonne hanging that, stretched diagonally across the
corner of the room, served the Rat as a wardrobe. There
was the shirt that he had worn on the night when he had
first come here, the night he had been wounded by the police.
Whitie Jack had washed the blood stains out, and had
shoved it in the top bureau drawer.
He pulled the drawer open, bent over it, reached in for
the shirt, straightened up—and the shirt dropped from his
fingers. He did not move. Something cold, and round,
and hard was pressed none too gently against the nape of
his neck. His eyes had lifted to the mirror in front of him
mechanically, and he stood there staring into it now like
a man dazed and numbed. An arm was stretched out from
behind the cretonne curtains, and a hand held a revolver
against his head. It was like some uncanny moving picture
that he was watching. For now the cretonne hanging
moved; and now a figure moved out from behind the
hanging, and stood behind him, Billy Kane, and stared,
too, into the mirror, over his, Billy Kane's, shoulder.
There were two faces in the glass now, two faces that in
form and features seemed identical—or else it was some
strange mirage that caused a double reflection of his own
face. And then one of the faces smiled malevolently, leer-
ingly. It wasn't his own face that smiled. He wasn't
smiling—though his lips moved.
“The Rat!” he said, below his breath.
He felt a hand slip into his pocket, and remove his auto-
matic. And then the other spoke:


THE LAST PORTAL 291
The door! Had it moved inward a bare fraction of an
inch, as it had that other night? There would have been
time by now, just time, for her and the police to have got
here. Was that a widening crack along that panel there—
or only a shadow flung with taunting malice by the murky
light? No-it moved now! He was sure of it. It moved 1
He forced himself to laugh in a short, nervous way.
“I don't see how that lets you out,” he mumbled. “What's
to become of you if the Rat's found dead?”
The Rat was moving back from the table to the side
wall of the den.
“I’ll show you,” said the Rat, with an ugly grin. “And
don't move—you understand? I'm a dead shot, and I’m not
risking anything by being a few feet farther away. You'd
only go out a little sooner, and miss something that'll maybe
sweeten your last moments—see?” His revolver still cov-
ering Billy Kane, he raised his left hand and pressed against
the wall. A small panel door swung outward. “There's
nothing in there!” mocked the Rat. “That's the secret she
was forever talking about having discovered, and that's
the place she looted all right, and where she got the dope
about a lot of our plans, and kept me from wising up the
crowd about it in order to save my own skin. But there's
a thing or two she didn't know.” His hand crept farther
along the wall, and pressed suddenly against it again, and
now a full board-length of the panelling slid away. Some-
thing metallic fell with a thud to the floor—and then Billy
Kane was on his feet, clinging with a fierce, unconscious
grip to the table.
He had forgotten the police and that secret door at the
far end of the room, forgotten the peril in which he stood,
forgotten that ugly black muzzle of a revolver in the other's
hand. His mind and brain seemed to be reeling. Some
inhuman devil's trick was being played upon him. That was
one of those iron crutch shafts, painted to resemble grained
wood, that the Rat was picking up—yes, and fitting it now
with deft, accustomed fingers to the armpiece! The Rat—
the Man with the Crutch—the murderer of David Ells-


292 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
worth—the man whose very rôle he had taken upon himself
and played
“You!” he cried, and swayed at the table. And then pas-
sion seized him. “You hound of hell!” he shouted hoarsely.
“The Man with the Crutch—it was you who killed David
Ellsworth !”
“Sit down!” The Rat's lips were thinned, merciless;
the revolver edged forward. “Well, what about it! Why
don't you say Peters, too? You stuck your nose pretty deep
into that!”
Billy Kane mechanically sank back in his chair.
“So you've got it, have you?” jeered the Rat. “Sure, the
Man with the Crutch was me! And you, you fool, through
your cursed interference with Red Vallon, put the police
on my trail for Peters' murder. Well, I'm going to
let you be the Man with the Crutch too—as well as the
Rat. That'll let me out on both counts?” He stood the
crutch up against the wall, and from the opening drew forth
some clothes and flung them down beside the crutch. “Get
the idea? This is the costume that goes with the crutch—
sort of reserve stock. Understand? It wasn't always con-
venient to come here as the Rat, or leave here as the Man
with the Crutch—or the other way around, if you like. I'll
leave the stuff there where it'll show up, and the police
can put two and two together the same as you have. And
that answers your question as to what is to become of me.
I am a gentleman of several parts, and I can spare two
of them. What's left is none of your business, and anyway
I’m getting tired of this, and I'm pretty near ready to go.
But there's one thing more—there were some rubies you
were looking for, weren't there, besides the ones you've
been taking charge of and so kindly placed in that bag
there a few minutes ago without giving me the trouble of
making you hand them over?” Again his left hand, thrust
back of him, sought the interior of the opening, and came
out with a number of small plush trays piled one on top of
another, the topmost flashing and scintillating now with its
score of fiery, blood-red stones. “You were looking for


THE LAST PORTAL 293
these, weren't you?” prodded the Rat, with a chuckle.
“Well, you had 'em here with you all the time!”
Billy Kane was fighting desperately for self-control.
Could they hear outside there? The man was condemning
himself out of his own mouth ! God, could they hear out
there—did they understand that this man had murdered
David Ellsworth, and that Billy Kane was clear! He met
the Rat's eyes with deliberate defiance now. More!
Everything! The man must be led into telling everything—
he had not told enough yet to make it sure—and perhaps
they had not heard it all.
“And Peters,” he rasped out. “You killed Peters, too—
Peters, who helped you kill David Ellsworth ! Weren't you
satisfied with your share, that you had to steal his?”
The Rat had advanced to the table, and, setting down the
trays, always with his revolver covering Billy Kane, had
begun to pour the contents of one tray at a time into the
open hand bag. He stopped now, and stared at Billy Kane
in a sort of contemptuous surprise.
“So that's the way you doped it out, is it?” he said, and
laughed raucously. “And you're kind to Peters, aren't you?
Peters, who wouldn't harm a fly! I killed Peters because
his evidence at the inquest finished Billy Kane for fair,
and I didn't want that evidence changed. It was me Peters
saw coming down the back stairs and entering the library
that night—only he thought it was you. Do you take me
for a fool? I knew you'd see the report in the papers, and
that, knowing there was something wrong about Peters’
story, you'd hunt Peters out and have a show-down, and
that between you there was a chance of you getting at
more of the truth than I wanted, and that Peters would
then retract his evidence. Get me?
“I wasn't for letting you out. I’d been banking on you to
do a lot for me. The only guy that was in with me on that
deal was Jackson—and he's dead—just as the Rat is going
to be. I spotted you long ago when you used to nose
around here for that old fool who pitched his money away.
I watched you quite a while before I was dead sure I


294 DOORS OF THE NIGHT
could pass for you—and then I warmed up to Jackson.
The rest was easy. We croaked old Ellsworth, and planted
you. That gave me the coin I wanted to do what I was
getting ready for—to pull out of this Rat's game forever.
It was getting too fierce with that cursed woman on my
heels. So before I pulled the Ellsworth trick, I set things
going to get her too, and passed the word around that I
was going away for a while, so’s there'd be no chance of
her tumbling to anything—and I stood pat as the Man with
the Crutch. And then you acted like a Christmas tree
shaking itself in my lap. There were a lot of things com-
ing along with certain friends of mine, and with you play-
ing the Rat and getting away with it, and with you there to
stand for it if anything broke wrong, it looked like a cinch
to nose them out at the tape on the little deals I'd started
for them, and that would let me get away with the whole
wad myself. See?”
The Rat was pouring the rubies from the trays into the
hand bag again, his eyes glinting with a curious rapacious
craftiness; and then, coming to one of the trays whose cor-
ner had been cut off, he laughed outright in a sort of self-
complacent mirth.
“Do you remember this?” he taunted. “The night I
croaked old Ellsworth I beat it for here on the quiet the
minute I left the house, and I put the trays and half of the
stones into that hiding place there, and then I changed my
clothes and wore my crutch over to where I lived when I
wasn’t at home here, and hid the rest of the stuff there.
You know that, all right! Blast you, you got it, and you
nearly queered me! The Rat was supposed to be away
then—see? Well, that night when I was limping around
with my crutch, I was told the Rat was back—and it didn't
take me long to find out your game. It looked like a piece
of luck that was too good to be true! It suited me—I was
for it hard. The only thing I was afraid of was that you
might quit, so I left that ruby and the piece of tray for you
on the table. I thought I knew you. It would give you a
start, all right—but it would look as though this was where


THE LAST PORTAL 295
you were going to get the clue you needed, and you'd stick
for fair.”
The Rat attempted to close the bag, and snarled at the
bent catches. He finally fastened one of them partially,
tossed the bag on the floor behind him, and, his face sud-
denly working again, flung his revolver arm out toward
Billy Kane.
“If you've got anything to say before you go out—say
it!” He was biting off his words. “Don’t think that be-
cause I’ve been talking a lot to you that I'm bluffing. I
wouldn't have opened up if I’d been bluffing, would I? And,
besides, there's another count on which you're due to snuff
out. The game's up all around. I stalled on ringing down
the curtain on the girl and on you as long as I thought
there was a chance of my getting something out of those
schemes that you kept butting in on. But you queered that,
too, away back on the night you put Karlin in bad, and the
police got him. Karlin's begun to weaken and talk a little.
That's the finish of the gang, and any more pickings for me.
Sooner or later Karlin’ll spill everything he knows, and he
knows a lot, to save himself; and then they'll be looking for
the Rat on several other counts. So I passed the word to
put the game with the girl through for to-night—while I
took care of you.”
Billy Kane felt his face whiten. He knew that round,
black muzzle would spit its tongue-flame in a moment.
With the Rat's hand around it, it seemed curiously like the
head of a snake that was coiled to strike. Had they heard
out there? Here was the bag that contained everything,
all that had been taken from David Ellsworth's vault, and
here was the murderer, self-confessed. Had they heard?
Had she heard? Would they remember, would she remem-
ber that Billy Kane's name was cleared? And if they were
out there, why didn't they come in? Were they going to
stand there and see him shot down—see another murder
committed? No! He understood. The slightest sound
from the direction of that secret door would be but the
signal for the Rat to fire. It was up to him—somehow—