CHAPTER XXIII

THE TRAPPED RAT

With the breath wheezing noisily through his parted lips, which were twisted back so that his clenched teeth were bared, Don Haskins leaned tensely against the wall of the storeroom on the third floor of the Gilmore house. Grim and desperate terror held him in its grip.

"They've got me--they've got me now!" he groaned. "Caught like a rat in a trap!"

Half the night and all of the morning he had tried in vain to slip out of the house--somewhere, anywhere. Each effort had been frustrated by the danger of discovery; at each attempt there had been voices or footsteps in the hall, or floating warningly up the stairs. Then the coming of daylight had made the contemplated dash all the more hazardous.

He had about made up his mind to wait for another coming of darkness, when he had heard the arrival of a car, and, peering down from the narrow dormer window, he had seen the arrival of Detective Sergeant Tish. The coming of Tish naturally filled him with wild terror, for that could mean but one thing--the New York detective had trailed him to Greenacres!

So, after several minutes of tortured indecision, he had crept down the inclosed stairs, determined to make a break for it.

He could not put up a fight, for he had no weapon. While he had crouched at the foot of the stairs, ears straining in an effort to catch any sound of warning from the other side of the panel, Mrs. Bogart had turned the knob, and Haskins had seized it from the inside, holding the door fast. Then she had yanked it again, the eyes of the two met through the narrow crack, and the woman had screamed.

For Don Haskins there had been but one choice, that was to hurry back to the storeroom and wait. There was no bolt on the door, but he barricaded it with a packing box filled with non-descript odds and ends, such as people relegate to the garret. There was no means of escape except the stairs; the dormer window mocked him with its deep, unbroken drop downward. And no weapon; even the clutter of stuff that half filled the storeroom offered him nothing that would serve as a cudgel. So, helpless, defenseless, muttering curses between his locked teeth, he waited. He wondered why it was so long, why the New York copper did not come pounding up the stairs to get him. His eyes were upon the door, his gaze intent upon the knob--watching for it to turn. And then he got an idea!

The knob was held in place by a screw, and, for lack of a screw driver, he went to the task with his finger nail. The screw was set fast, and the nail tore down to the quick, but he did not notice the twinge of pain, merely attacked the screw with the thumb nail of the other hand. At last it turned, and the heavy metal knob was free.

Haskins, that his shoes might make no alarming sound upon the bare boards of the storeroom, was in his stockings. Hastily he tore one of his socks free from his foot, dropped the doorknob into it and he had a deadly slung shot that he could swing with telling effect. Not much of a weapon, perhaps, but vastly better than no weapon at all. He put on both shoes, the one over a bare foot, and again waited with tense, twitching nervousness.

It must have been another five minutes--to Haskins the minutes dragged into the length of hours--before he heard a voice raised to a bellow and the tramp of heavy feet upon the stairs. He flattened his body even closer to the wall, at a point where he would be behind the door when it opened, as he took a tighter grip about the weighted sock.

There may have been some doubts as to Constable Griggs' nimbleness of mind, but there could be no doubt as to his personal courage, as, yards ahead of Sergeant Tish, he dashed, two and three steps at a time, to the third floor.

"Come on outta there an' surrender!" roared Ham Griggs. "Dead or alive, Haskins--that goes for you!"

But Don Haskins did not come out to surrender. He made not the slightest sound. Griggs again shouted, but still there was no response, and he began to share Tish's doubts of the wanted man being in the house. Perhaps Mrs. Bogart's story had been purely a figment of the imagination.

Without, however, relaxing the vigilant position of his gun, he reached forward and tried the door. It moved back a little, and he met the obstruction of the barricading packing box. The constable applied the pressure of his shoulder, and his free hand cautiously cocked the hammer of the revolver. The door was forced back another few inches.

The barred door, of course, was proof that the storeroom was occupied; he paused a moment to peer through the narrow opening. No signs of Haskins.

"He's here," he yelled down the stairs to Tish, who was looking up from the bottom. "He's got the door blocked. I'm goin' in, and I'm goin' in a-shootin'." Again his body battered against the door.

Don Haskins, his mouth parted into a terrible grimace, swung back his arm. As the constable's head and shoulders appeared at the edge of the door, the sock, the metal knob stuffed wickedly in the toe, described a swift arc and caught Griggs a heavy blow on the skull.

With a grunt he pitched forward to the floor in a senseless heap; the convulsion of his body pulled the trigger of the revolver, and its roaring, angry voice thundered through the upper part of the house. The gun slid across the boards and bumped against the leg of the discarded couch.

Haskins dropped his improvised weapon and leaped for the gun; his body had scarcely straightened when Sergeant Tish came pounding and panting up the steps, drawn automatic in his hand. As Haskins whirled, he again faced this Nemesis who had trapped him at Eighth Avenue Annie's. No word was spoken; both knew it was one or the other.

Haskins fired first, but only by the difference of a split second; the two shots rang out almost as one. Sergeant Tish's shoulder became suddenly numb, a searing numbness, as hot lead bored the flesh. His arm dropped limply helpless to his side, and a sickening nausea paled the chubby roundness of his cheeks.

The other man reeled on his feet and steadied himself against the wall. A gasping gurgle, that trailed off into a curse, burst through his hideously parted lips, and his left hand, pressing to his waist, became red with a trickle of crimson.

But Haskins did not fire again; there was no need. Sergeant Tish's fingers had lost all their strength, and the automatic clumped to the floor. He could offer no resistance when Haskins stumbled forward, cleared the body of the unconscious constable, and went plunging down the stairs. In the doorway at the foot of the steps Wiggly Price and Doctor Bushnell were staring upward. Haskins lifted the revolver menacingly.

"Get outta my way!" he gritted. "I'll kill the first man that tries to stop me."

It would have been a foolhardy thing to have opposed the flight of this armed, desperate man, wanted for murder, trying to beat the electric chair. Doctor Bushnell, clutching Wiggly Price's arm, made haste to get out of Haskins' path. Mrs. Bogart screamed shrilly and dashed wildly for the first door. She hurled herself into the room and braced her body against the panel.

Haskins, as he reached the second floor, was reeling like a drunken man. His left hand, still clutching his body near the top of his trousers was hot and sticky with his own blood. He reached the top of the second stairway which led down to the first floor--and what? Even in his desperately chaotic state of mind, he knew that the odds were against him. But anything was better than the chair, and it was that--or this. He felt his strength swiftly ebbing from his body, slipping away from him through that hot, burning hole in his abdomen.

Downstairs, Bates, the butler, had heard the double shot and for a moment was incapable of movement. It was only with supreme effort that he got his frail old legs in motion and propelled himself toward the stairs. Halfway up he faced Haskins, who held weavingly to the bannister rail.

"Out--out of my way!" ordered Haskins, but his voice was thick, hoarsely unsteady. The revolver wabbled with the lurching of his body. Before Bates, petrified with terror at the menace of the pointing gun, could obey, the wounded man at the top of the stairs sagged forward and went crashing down, sliding, bumping, clawing, and his body came to a halt on the first landing at Bates' feet. He had just enough strength to lift himself weakly to his elbow.

"That dirty dick--got me--good!" he muttered. "I--I hope I croaked--him. Curse the cops! The cops and the skirts--to hell with both of 'em!" He coughed chokingly. "I'm dyin'," he screeched. "I'm bleedin' to death--inside."

His distorted mouth was flecked with red.