Part 13

I made believe to come to life, hearing that, and hopping out touched my cap and opened the door.

Foxy frowned and held back. "What's the use?" he grumbled.

"Aw, come on," said English. "I ain't had an auto ride since I landed." His slightly foolish air was beautifully done.

Neither Jumbo nor Foxy liked the idea, but they liked less calling attention to themselves by a discussion in the street. So they all piled in. Jumbo gave me a number on Lexington avenue which would be about half a mile North of where we then were.

There was a hole in the front glass at my ear for the purpose of allowing fare to communicate with driver. With the noise of the engine, however, I could hear no more than the sound of their voices. It seemed to me that both Foxy and Jumbo were admonishing English not to drink so much if he couldn't carry it better.

I found my number on a smallish brown stone dwelling facing the great sunken railway yards, and drew up before it. It was one of a long row of houses, all exactly alike.

As my fares climbed out, English said to Jumbo: "How long will we be in here?"

"Not long," was the answer.

"Then wait," said English to me. A glance of intelligence passed between us.

"You must like to throw your money away," grumbled Foxy, as they mounted the steps.

They were admitted by a negro man-servant.

I examined the surroundings more particularly. The excavating of the great yards opposite has damaged the neighbourhood as a residential district and the tidy little houses were somewhat fallen from their genteel estate. Small, cheap shops had opened in one or two of the basements, and beauty parlours, or dry-cleaning establishments on the parlour floors. Only one or two houses of the row retained a self-respecting air, and of these the house I waited before was one. The stone stoop had been renovated, the door handles were brightly polished, and the windows cleaned. Simple, artistic curtains showed within. In fact it had all the earmarks of the dwelling of a well-to-do old-fashioned family which had refused to give up its old home when the first breath of disfavour fell upon the neighbourhood.

I should further explain that the houses were three story and basement structures with mansard roofs over the cornices. At the corner of the street, that is to say three doors from where my cab was standing, there was a new building four stories high, which contained a brightly lighted café on the street level and rooms above. In other words what New Yorkers call a Raines' Law Hotel.

The three men remained inside the house about forty-five minutes, I suppose. It seemed like three times that space to me, waiting. They appeared at last, talking in slightly heightened tones, which suggested that they had partaken of spirituous refreshment inside. Their talk as far as I could hear it was all in respectful praise of a lady they had just left. She was a "good fellow," a "wise one," "long-headed."

At the cab door they hesitated a moment as if in doubt of their next move.

"It's early," said Jumbo. "Let's go back to the Turtle Bay."

The others agreed.

English let them get in first. "Back to the Turtle Bay," he said to me. His lips added soundlessly: "She is here!"

When they got out again, English paid me off. His expressive eyes said clearly that he wished to speak to me further. The others stood close, and we dared not take any risk.

I thanked him, touching my cap. "Any time you want me, gen'lemen, call up Plaza 6771," I said.

They went inside.

I had given the first telephone number that came into my head. It was that of an artist friend of mine who had a studio apartment on Fifty-ninth street. I hastened up there in the car, and routed him out of bed. Artists are used to these interruptions. I had a little difficulty, however, in making myself known to a man half asleep. He was decent about it, though. He gave me tobacco, and telling me to make myself comfortable, went back to bed.

In an hour or so the telephone bell rang, and to my joy I heard English's voice on the wire.

"This you?" he said. We named no names.

"I get you," I said. "Fire away."

He plunged right into his story and though plainly labouring under excitement, was admirably clear and succinct.

"She is confined in that house. She was lured there this morning by a forged letter from you instructing her to go there for certain evidence. I did not see her. I understood from their talk that so far she is all right."

"The house is occupied by a woman they call Lorina or Mrs. Mansfield. Handsome, blonde woman of forty; great force of character. She is a member of the gang, perhaps the leader of it. Anyway, they all defer to her. She has a better head than either Jumbo or Foxy. I was taken there to-night for the purpose of having her size me up. Apparently she approved of me."

"I understood that the girl is safe until to-morrow morning. Then they plan"--his voice began to shake here--"to--to do away with her."

"Unless I come across with the paper they want?" I interrupted.

"Whether you do or not," he said grimly. "They have no intention of letting her go. They plan to get you, too, to-morrow."

"How?"

"I don't know. I was not consulted."

"Go on."

"The--the job they are trying to force on me," he faltered, "is to dispose of her body. They chose me because I am not suspected by you, not followed. I am to carry it out of the house piecemeal. Oh--! it's horrible!"

"Steady!" I said. "I promise you that won't be necessary. Any more

## particulars?"

"Mrs. Mansfield lives alone," he went on. "She has three coloured servants, two maids and a man."

"Did you find out where they slept?"

"Yes. The two maids on the top floor in the front room, the man somewhere in the basement."

"Are they in the gang?"

"No. They do not know that Miss Farrell is in the house. But the man, I understood, could be depended on absolutely. Which means that he is ready for any black deed. He is as ugly and strong as a gorilla."

"What about the other internal arrangements of the house?"

"On the first floor there is a parlour in front, dining-room and pantry behind. On the second floor the front room is a sitting-room or office. The telephone is here. Mrs. Mansfield sleeps in the rear room on this floor. Between her bedroom and the office there is an interior room, and that is where Miss Farrell is confined. This room can be entered only through Mrs. Mansfield's bedroom."

"Did you notice the locks on the doors?"

"No. There was nothing out of the common. On the front door a Yale lock of the ordinary pattern."

"Anything more?"

"One thing. Mrs. Mansfield goes armed. She has a small automatic pistol with a maxim silencer which is evidently her favourite toy. I hope I got what you wanted. They were at me every minute. I could not look around much."

"No one could have done better!" I said heartily.

"What do you want me to do now?"

"Where are you?"

"In my own boarding-house. The party at the Turtle Bay soon broke up. The telephone here is in the restaurant in the basement, and everybody sleeps upstairs."

"You had better stay at home until morning," I said, after thinking a moment. "It is very likely that they are having you watched to-night."

"But I must do something. I couldn't sleep."

"There is really nothing you can do now. Stay where you can hear the telephone and I'll call you if I need you. I'll call you anyway when I get her out safe. If you do not hear from me by say, three o'clock, go to police headquarters, tell them all the circumstances, and have the house surrounded and forced."

"I understand."

"To-morrow morning if all goes well, you must go to work as usual. I don't mean that we shall lose all our work so far if I can help it. They must not suspect you."

"Don't take too big a chance, Ben, the girl----"

"Don't worry. The girl is worth fifty cases to me. But I mean to save both."

21

I went home for some things I needed, and in less than half an hour after the telephone talk I was back in front of the Lexington avenue house, still at the wheel of my taxi. I had, however, changed my clothes in the meantime. I did not want the chauffeur's uniform I had worn earlier to figure in any description that might be circulated in the gang.

Passing the house slowly I surveyed it from pavement to roof. All the windows were dark. The basement windows were open, but were protected as is customary by heavy bars. The first floor and the second floor windows were closed. The two windows on the top floor which were above the cornice, stood open.

Turning the corner, I came to a stop outside the rear door of the saloon I have mentioned. It was after the legal closing hour, but they were serving drinks in the back room. I went in and ordered a beer. The desk and the hotel register were in this room. You entered from a narrow lobby from which rose the steep stairs. I paid for my drink and took it. Choosing a moment when the waiter was in the bar, I rose to leave. In the lobby I turned to the right instead of the left and mounted the stairs. There was no one to question me.

In one side pocket I carried a small but efficient kit of tools, in the other a bottle of chloroform and a roll of cotton. My pistol was in my hip pocket.

I went up the three flights without meeting any one, lighted by a red globe on each landing. There was a fourth flight ending at a closed door which I figured must give on the roof. It was bolted on the inside, of course, and I presently found myself out under the stars.

This building, you will remember, was half a story higher than the row of dwellings which adjoined it. It was therefore a drop of only six feet from the parapet of one roof to the parapet of the other. Easy enough to go; a little more difficult perhaps to return that way. From the parapet I stepped noiselessly to the roof of the first dwelling, and crossed the two intervening roofs to the house I meant to enter. I had nearly two hours before Mr. Dunsany would put the police in motion, ample time, I judged. Probably the first few minutes in the house would decide success or failure.

There was a flat scuttle in the roof which, as I expected, was fastened from within. I could have opened it with my tools, but it seemed to me quicker and safer to enter by one of the windows in the mansard. In any case I would have to deal with the maids on that floor, and it was likely they slept behind locked doors.

The cornice made a wide, flat ledge in front of these windows. It was a simple task to let myself down the sloping mansard to the ledge and creep to the window. Had I been seen from the pavement across the way it would have ruined all, but the street was deserted as far as I could see up and down. There were no houses opposite.

Pausing with my head inside the window I heard heavy breathing from the back of the room. I cautiously let myself in. Then I could distinguish two breathings side by side, and knew that both women were sleeping in the same bed. I got out my cotton and chloroform. Fortunately for me negroes are generally heavy sleepers. I let each woman breathe in the fumes before the cotton touched her face. They drifted away with scarcely a movement. I left the saturated cotton on their faces without any cone to retain the fumes. In this way they could not take any injury. The potency of the drug would soon be dissipated in the atmosphere.

It was a hot night and the door of their room stood open. I didn't see until too late, that a chair had been placed against the door to prevent the draft from the window slamming it. I stumbled over the chair. It made little noise, but the jar caused me to drop the precious bottle, and before I recovered it the contents was wasted. This was a serious loss.

I crept down the first flight of stairs. This landed me on the floor where the mistress slept. As I approached the door of her room a shrill yapping started up inside. I cursed the animal under my breath. English had not told me that the woman kept a dog. It made things twice as difficult. The noise sounded through the house loud enough, it seemed to me, to wake the dead. I heard somebody move inside the room, and I hastened down the next flight of stairs, and crouched at the back of the hall outside the dining-room door.

Over my head I heard the bedroom door unlocked, and presently the upper hall was flooded with light. I was safely out of reach of its rays. I offered up a silent prayer that the lady would not be moved to descend the stairs, for I pictured her carrying the automatic with the silencer. True, I had my own gun, but for obvious reasons I was averse to firing it.

She did not come down. The dog apparently was satisfied that all was well, and ceased his yapping. From his voice I judged the animal to be a Pomeranian. Mistress and dog finally returned to the bedroom and the door was locked again. With the dog and the lock on the door my problem was no easy one. I had to enter that way before I could reach my girl. She left the light burning in the upstairs hall.

Before attempting to deal with the mistress it seemed to me necessary to dispose of the negro in the basement. I went on downstairs not at all relishing the prospect. There were swing doors both at the top and the bottom of the basement stairs which had to be opened with infinite caution to avoid a squeak. On the stairs between it was as dark as Erebus. On every step I half expected to find the gorilla-like creature crouching in wait for me, but when I finally edged through the lower door I was reassured by the sound of a rumbling snore. The dog had not awakened him.

He slept in the front room. This had originally been the dining-room of the house. I cautiously opened the door and looked in. A certain amount of light came through the area windows from the street lamps. The negro's bed was against the wall between me and the windows. These were the windows which were heavily barred outside.

When I saw the bars and felt the door which was a heavy hardwood affair, and had a key in it, I thought it would be sufficient to lock the man in. You see I was pretty well assured that none of these people would care to make a racket. However, there was another door leading to the pantry, thence to the kitchen. This had no lock on it, and I was compelled to find another means of confining him.

Exploring the rear of the basement I came across a trunk in the back hall with a stout strap around it. This I softly removed and appropriated. Going on through the kitchen out into the yard I found stout clothesline stretched from side to side. I cut down several lengths of it.

While I was in the yard I made an important discovery respecting the lay of the back of the house. The lower story extended out some fifteen feet above the upper floors. The mistress' windows therefore opened on a flat extension roof. These windows were opened and unbarred. There was no light within the room.

I returned with the strap and the lengths of rope to the negro's sleeping-room. He was still snoring vociferously. He lay on his back with his brawny arms flung above his head like an infant, and his great chest rose like a billow with every inhalation. The bed was a small iron one with low head and foot. It looked strong, but I knew that these things were generally of flimsy construction.

First I laid my gun on the floor where I could snatch it up at need. Then with infinite care I passed my long trunk strap under the bed and over his ankles, and drew it close, but not tight. This was intended for a merely temporary entanglement. He never stirred. I made a noose out of one of the pieces of rope and passed it carefully, carefully over his two hands. During this he began to stir. The snores were interrupted. I passed the rope around the iron bar at the head of the bed, and as he came fully awake I gave it a sharp jerk binding his hands hard and fast. I knotted the rope.

I flung a pillow over his head, and sat on it to still any cries while I made a permanent job of trussing him up. His great frame heaved and plunged on the bed in a paroxysm of brutish terror, finding himself bound. You have seen a cat with a rope around it. Imagine a mad creature thirty times the bulk of a cat. But everything held. The bed rocked and bounced on the floor, but there were four closed doors between me and the woman sleeping up-stairs, and I hoped the sound might not carry.

It was all over in a moment or two. The ropes were ready to my hand. Every time he heaved up I passed a fresh turn under him. Presently I had him bound so tight he could not move a muscle. True to the character of his race, he gave up the struggle all at once and lay inert. There was a moment in which he might have cried out when I changed the pillow for a gag made out of the sheet, but by that time he was gasping for breath. I knotted the gag firmly between his teeth. Smothered groans issued from under it. I went over all the ropes twice to make sure nothing could slip. I expected, of course, that he would wriggle out in the end, but I only needed a little while.

Before proceeding further I gave my stretched nerves a moment or two to relax. The big task was still to come. Finally I stole up-stairs again. When I closed the doors behind me I could no longer hear the negro's smothered groans. The house was perfectly quiet. As I softly crept up on all fours stair to stair I was busily debating how to open the attack. Locked door, silent gun and dog made the odds heavy against me.

By the time I was half way up the main stairway I had made a plan. Rising to my feet I mounted the rest of the way with a firm tread. Instantly the little dog inside broke into a frantic barking. I heard his mistress spring out of bed. I hastily unscrewed the electric light bulb, and throwing a leg over the banisters slid noiselessly down to the first floor again. As before I sought the security of the back hall.

She unhesitatingly opened the door--she was a bold one. I heard her catch her breath to find the hall in darkness. Her hand shot out, I heard the click of the switch, but of course there was no light. Instantly she began shooting. The light "ping" of her weapon had an inexpressibly deadly sound. The bullets thudded viciously into wood and plaster. From the direction of the latter sounds, she was shooting along the upper hall and down the stairs.

I knew she had ten shots, not more, and I counted them. After the tenth, running forward in the hall, I set up a horrid groaning. She was silent above. I kept up the groaning, and threshed about on the floor alongside the stairs.

Suddenly she came running down. This was what I had prayed she might do. She reached the switch in the lower hall and light flared out. Instantly I sprang up the outside of the stairway, vaulted over the banisters and stood half way up the stairs, cutting her off, I hoped, from additional ammunition.

She stood at the foot of the stairs gun in hand, glaring up at me. I saw a large, handsome woman with a rope of coarse blonde hair as thick as my wrist hanging down her back and eyes like lambent blue flames. By her snarl I saw that I had the advantage for the moment, but her eyes never quailed. To give her her due she was as bold as a lion. I know of few other women of her age who would look handsome under the circumstances. She was wearing a pink negligee robe over her nightdress. Her feet were bare, they were pretty feet, too. The little dog sheltered himself behind her skirts barking madly. I saw the woman glance down the hall. No doubt she was wondering why the noise didn't bring the negro.

"What do you want?" she demanded in a high and mighty tone.

"Never mind what I want," I returned. "Do what I tell you."

"If you let me go to my room I'll give you what money I have," she said.

"And load up again," I said smiling.

"You can watch me. I have two hundred dollars in the house. It's all you get, anyway."

"That's not what I came for."

By that she knew me. She bared her fine white teeth and raised her gun.

"It's empty," I said laughing. "I counted the shots."

She swore with heartfelt bitterness like a man.

I drew my own gun. "This one is loaded," I said.

I descended a step or two to enforce my orders. I pointed the gun at her. "Open the front door!" I commanded. "Go into the vestibule and close it behind you."

My purpose was to lock her between the two sets of doors while I searched for Sadie. She scowled at me sullenly, and for a moment I thought I had her beaten; she seemed about to obey. But reflecting perhaps that I didn't want to bring in outsiders any more than she, she took a chance. Suddenly putting down her head she ran like a deer for the rear hall, the little dog whimpering in terror at her heels.

The door at the head of the basement stairs banged open and she plunged down, calling on her servant. I had to make a quick decision. The way was presumably open to Sadie, but there were plenty of knives in the kitchen and if she liberated the man I would have to fight my way out of the house against the two of them. I ran after her. A rough house in the basement followed, doors slamming, chairs overturned, and the ceaseless yelping of the dog.