The trap was up and I spotted the light. There — perhaps fifty feet to the back — a wavering, jumping light. And I saw the shadow of a partly open door. The light was shining from behind that open door.
I braced myself, crawled up the little ladder effect at the top of the stairs and stood on the floor above.
Voices from that room where the light had ceased to waver and had become steady. Mumbled, incoherent, yet threatening words, I thought. And again, clearly, the muffled groan.
One quick pencil of light from my flash across the floor almost to that door — then darkness, and I was on my way. I’m a good judge of distance. Ten steps forward, a little move to the right, and I passed the huge packing box that had stood for a moment in the light of my flash. Then straight forward, a slight trip over some sacking — which helped deaden the fall of my feet rather than accentuate them, and I was close to the little door and the tiny streamer of light.
I bent my head slightly and looked into that room. The glare of the light threw into bold relief a rusty iron support that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Standing with his back against that pillar of iron was a man. He was a weazened little, weather-beaten fellow with broad shoulders, thick lips, bulgy eyes and a matted shock of sandy hair. His face! There were deep gashes across it — fresh gashes. For as I watched, the blood ran down and trickled over his hanging lower lip. And then I noticed why the man stood so stiff and straight. His hands were behind his back, his wrists bound to that iron upright.
Then he spoke, addressing his words to a figure hidden by the door frame from where I stood.
“If you go to murder, the bloke downstairs will tell. He’ll know. You can’t tell — he might be listening now.”
“He didn’t get a look at me.” A metallic voice came out of the darkness. “He was picked to do this job, but he’ll never know my voice, for he’ll never hear it again. You asked me when we came up why I talk like I do. Now you know why. No one—”
The man in the light cut in.
“A’fore Gawd, Governor, I wouldn’t blow on ya. And I didn’t. I come, like you said, to have a little talk and tell ya you was safe in my hands.”
“You came,” this from the lad who sounded as if he were talking through the wrong end of a fish horn, “to blackmail me to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars. You came because you thought there would be more from me than from the girl. Now — what did you tell her?”
I saw a white hand stretch out of the darkness and caught the sharp glitter of the knife it held as it pierced the circle of light.
Raising my gun, I waited. I could have shot that hand off, but the knife paused a safe distance from the bound man’s throat.
“Wacco,” said the voice behind the knife, again, “how much did you tell Rita? Oh, I know you told her about Carl Fisher, and Hulbert Clovelly — but what else?”
“Nothing else. I swear it. I never knew till she told me. I never had any idea you were Farron Bronson. She told me that. Don’t! Not the knife again. I wouldn’t squeak on a’ old lag. Not Wacco, Governor. I— Not the knife again!” And the terrified little figure tried to draw back.
“Wacco,” said the voice again, “I believe you. You need have no fear. You shan’t feel the knife again. My secret, which I would not trust to any man, is safe with you. I know that.”
“That’s right, Governor.” The little twisted, cut face raised now, the pop eyes flashed a bit and a tongue licked shrewdly at dry lips. “I’ll go back to England, like I promised.”
“You won’t have to do that, Wacco. It isn’t necessary. I can be assured of your silence without—”
The voice stopped. No white hand stretched out of the darkness now. Just a moment of silence — then the sudden roar of a gun; an orange blue streak of flame, and the face that had been Wacco’s was— But we won’t go into the horrible. Wacco simply gave at the knees, hung limp from his bound wrists and slid to the floor.
The thing was so sudden — so unexpected and so brutal that it stunned even me. And I want to tell you, that’s something. Not that it unnerved me. For I acted at once. Kicked the door further open and looked for the hidden figure. And I didn’t see him. A door closed softly; just the swish of wind and the creak of hinges, and my own flash was out — sweeping the room that was empty. Empty of life, I mean.
Then I spotted the door and dashed to it. The man called Bronson was gone, and the door was locked behind him. That was my mistake — running to that door. I should have gone around the open space from the doorway I came in. But I could not have known that, and there’s no use crying over spilt gin.
I didn’t know who Wacco was, nor what part he played in the game. But I did know that Wacco was dead and I didn’t want to be mixed up in the thing.
3
When I started to leave I went down those old steps in a hurry, pausing at the door only long enough to observe that the lad I had knocked out had walked, or was carted away. Anyhow, he wasn’t there.
I reached the dirty little restaurant and went in. It was deserted but for two men at a table in the rear. One of them was Hulbert Clovelly. Now, I can’t be sure — and it may have been on my mind that he looked like a sleigh-rider — but it did seem to me that he jabbed something in his arm and pulled down his sleeve quickly as I entered. The other man at the table was not looking at him, but watching the door and me.
He was somewhere in his thirties; blond, clear blue eyes and a pleasant, honest face — if an honest face means anything today. He was drinking coffee and eating a piece of cake.
“Sit down,” he said. “You’re Mr. Williams and I’m Lu McNab, Mr. Clovelly’s assistant and friend.”
“Oh—” I said. “The lad who was chased into the warehouse.”
“No.” He smiled, but it was a rather serious smile. “Mr. Clovelly thought that, but I went down the side street. We saw someone Mr. Clovelly had cause to fear, and I believe he went into the warehouse. I hope nothing happened there.”
“No—” I lit a butt easily, paused a moment and looked at Clovelly. Then I said: “Only — a man called Wacco was shot to death. Do you gentlemen want to know who—”
And Clovelly cut in.
“Wacco. Killed! I knew it. I... I should have prevented it, and—”
McNab leaned over and took him by the arm.
“We were here to prevent it, Hulbert,” he said. “I think if you had told Mr. Williams the truth he might have gotten there in time. But you were late in telephoning him. You did nothing until you missed me. You—” And as Hulbert Clovelly suddenly buried his head in his hands: “There — it isn’t necessary to question him, Mr. Williams. It was through my advice that he wired you,” and looking up as the greasy proprietor came in: “Will you get a taxi, Mr. Williams? We can’t talk here — and I don’t like to leave Mr. Clovelly.”
I don’t like to be ordered about, but the request was a natural one. I got up and left them.
It was a punk section of town and I had trouble getting a cab. But I did get one finally.
My hysterical client had calmed down a bit. His face was a whitish yellow in the darkness, but his lips were set tightly and he was fairly steady as he climbed into the taxi. The husky assistant and friend, McNab, held his arm to steady him.
“The Park View,” McNab told the driver, and we were off — Clovelly and I in the rear seat and McNab facing me, his back to the driver.