“I must have left it that way when I scooted out,” Carol said quickly.
Did that mean Frank had gotten back yet? But if he had, there was no light showing to indicate it. Maybe it had actually been that way ever since she and Frank had left the last time. Or maybe someone else had found their way in.
They thrust her inside between them. She’d played the game through to the end. And this was the end, now. Once they closed this door on her, every second was going to count. If Frank came back even five minutes from now, he’d be too late; he’d find her there — like Gadsby was. And if he came back now, it would only mean the two of them, instead of just one. They were armed and he wasn’t.
The darkness inside the house was as impenetrable as ever. Rose said the same thing Carol herself had the time before:
“Don’t light the lights until we get up there.”
He lit a match instead; dwarfed it in the depths of his two hands to an orange-red pinpoint. He led the way with it. Carol came at his heels, her hands still bound, coat still loose around her shoulders, prodded on by the gun. The Beacon woman came last. The silence around them was overpowering.
Suppose Frank was waiting up there in the room, with the lights out? Suppose he heard them, came forward now, saying, “Carol, is that you?” She would be bringing death on him. And if he wasn’t up there, then she had brought death on herself.
What was the difference either way? It was too late now; they’d missed the bus. The city was the real victor.
The opening to the death room loomed black and empty before them in the tiny rays of Joe’s match. He whipped it out and for a moment there was nothing. Then he lit the room lights, and they shoved her in there with the dead man. Into the emptiness where there was no Frank to offer help.
Joe said: “All right, now hurry up and get it. Let’s do what we have to, and get out of here fast!”
Rose Beacon scanned the floor, turned on Carol menacingly. “Well, where is it? I don’t see it. Where’d you find it?” She was still holding the gun in her hand.
The man said, with the calm voice of murder: “All right, give me the gun; I’ll use it. No one heard the shot the first time; no one’ll hear it this time, either.” He raised the gun, steadied it on Carol in readiness.
It took a second or two, but her thoughts took hours. Frank wasn’t here. He wasn’t in the house. He hadn’t got back yet. She was going to die now. The clock said—
Chapter Five
That was the last thing she saw. She closed her eyes as she turned back to face the winged steel death. Gadsby was lying over to her left. Joe was standing midway between her and the unlighted bedroom door, with his back to it. Rose was crouched somewhere behind her, still in quest of the errant hotel bill, looking under tables and behind chairs. Carol closed her eyes and waited.
The roar of the gun, when it came, was louder than she’d thought it would be. The pain was less — there wasn’t any. Her eyelids sprang open, and the gun, still tracing a smoky line through the air, was zig-zagging crazily upward in Joe’s hand. Another hand had his collared by the wrist, was hoisting it from behind. And the crook of an arm was wrapped around his neck, elbow pointing toward her.
Joe’s face was contorted, suffused with red, in the throes of the struggle. And another face behind his, glimpsed briefly over his shoulder, was equally contorted, equally blood-darkened. But not too much so as to be recognizable. The boy next door, fighting for the two of them — the way the boy next door should.
Rose flashed by her from the rear, an andiron she’d snatched from before the fireplace upraised high above her head. But a small-town girl can be as quick as a city girl. Carol’s hands were tied; she couldn’t reach out and grab her. She slithered one leg out until it was almost calf-low to the floor, deftly spoked it between the two scampering feet.
Rose went down face-first in a rocking-horse fall, and the andiron went looping harmlessly through the air. Carol flung herself down across her, knelt on her with both knees at once, pinning her flat. Every time Rose tried to squirm free and throw her off, Carol brought up one knee and slammed it down again with redoubled force.
Meanwhile the two men had toppled over to the floor. Joe was on top, but facing the wrong way. Frank still had the half-nelson around his neck from underneath, and was still choking off the gun-hand at the wrist. They suddenly rolled over. Frank let go the half-nelson, drew back that arm, shot it forward again against the side of his head. He had to do it a second time, and then he stood up and brought the gun up with him.
“I’ll be right with you, Carol,” he said. He stood watchfully over Joe for a second. Joe twitched a little, raised a dazed hand to the side of his head, but stayed flat.
Frank picked up something from Gadsby’s desk, came around behind her, sawed her hands free. Both of them were still breathing too fast to talk.
“I saw them bringing you in, from one of the front windows on this floor. Something about the way you were walking told me they had a gun on you. I backed up into the bedroom and laid low.”
She wasn’t wasting any time; she was already taking her own severed bonds, reknitting them and fastening Rose’s wrists with them.
“Do that to him, too,” she suggested.
Frank came back with sheets and pillow cases from the bedroom, went to work. “I’d only gotten back a minute before, myself,” he told her. “Holmes didn’t do it. He was here earlier tonight and he was in hot water about that check, just like we figured; but I could tell by the way he acted he’d left Gadsby still alive. He nearly went crazy with fear when I told him Gadsby was dead; he thought Gadsby still had his bad check and he’d be accused of it.” He stood up, surveyed their handiwork. “No need to gag them.”
“Well, there they are,” she agreed, “but it’s too late to do us any good now.” She pointed. “Two past six.”
“Let’s try for it, anyway. It will be too late if we just stand here.” He caught her by the hand, pulled her out after him. “I’ll use the downstairs phone; it’s nearer to the door.” He waited until she’d retrieved the valise she’d stood against the wall the first time they came in, opened the front door, and poised herself for flight out in the vestibule.
“Ready?” he called. He picked up the phone. “Get on your mark! Get set!... Hello, gimme the police. You’ll find Stephen Gadsby murdered on the second floor of his house.” He gave the number on East 70th Street. “It was done by the two people that you’ll find tied up in the room with him. Oh — and you’ll find the gun they used under the doormat in the vestibule. No, this isn’t a rib. Never mind who I am—” He flung the instrument away from him without even bothering to rehook it. “Go!” he shouted to her.
She went flying out through the glass doors, scampering down the stoop, made for their captives’ car, and jumped in. He came dashing out after her a moment later, slammed the car door after him, and swerved it out into the middle of the road.
They’d hardly rounded the corner when they could hear the keen of the approaching cruise-car coming up from the other direction. They went tearing down Madison Avenue, almost empty of traffic at that hour. There weren’t any stop lights on yet.
“We’ll never make it, Frank.”
The buildings kept shooting up taller ahead of them all the time. The sky kept getting lighter in the east. At 59th he shot across town to Seventh, took that the rest of the way down to the Thirties. Broadway came racing diagonally across their path.
“Frank, look! The clock on the Paramount says only five-to-six now!”