Then, all of a sudden, things exploded.
There came the crash of a volley from the machine, and I could see the waxen figure spouting dust as I took a bamboo pole and pushed it out, face downward on the sidewalk. Bill Peavey jumped from the death car, a smoking gun in his hand and started on the run for the dummy, after that ten thousand. It was only a few feet from the machine, and he’d watched his chance and waited until the street was pretty well deserted. The Chinks were scurrying like rats for their holes, and he ordinarily would have had easy sailing.
Suddenly there was the sound of a police whistle, the bark of a gun, and Bill stopped in mid-stride, looked up the street, cursed, fired his revolver, dove into the black interior of the car and was whisked away, the wax figure lying face down on the sidewalk. Half a block away a plainclothesman was writhing and flopping around on the pavement. Bill was a good shot.
We dragged the wax figure back into the rooming house, and my friends the Chinks took charge of him. The machine speeded away and turned the corner with screeching wheels, and then there came the bark of a motorcycle, the wail of a siren, and a fusillade of shots.
Chuckling, I sneaked out of the back door and went to John Lambert’s informal dinner.
I was a few minutes late in getting there, and I could see there had been a scene. Lois was red of face, but her crimson lips were set in a firm line. Lambert looked flushed and indignant. Mrs. Lambert was the same as ever. If there was anything going on behind those keen eyes I couldn’t tell it. Ogden Sly had evidently been the center of the rumpus. His parrot mouth was working under his beak-like nose, and his great arms were writhing and twisting.
I gave my hat to the butler and stood in the doorway surveying them.
“A cheap crook,” mouthed Ogden Sly, his hands working, arms twisting. “I said it behind his back and I’ll say it to his face. Your daughter, sir, picked him up in a cabaret, and brought him home without knowing who he was. He has imposed upon you all. See, here I have his police record, his photographs. I challenge him to deny that he is the Ed Jenkins of newspaper notoriety, known to the police of the world as the phantom crook, a criminal of international reputation. I challenge him, I dare him to deny it.”
One of his hairy hands writhed into his breast pocket and extracted a bunch of photographs.
Lois looked helplessly at me.
“Deny it,” she said.
I grinned around at the circle of faces.
“Deny it nothing. It’s true. I’m proud of it,” I said. “When do we eat?”
John Lambert arose and pointed his finger at me.
“You don’t eat again, you scoundrel! Not in this house. Get out!”
Ogden Sly’s parrot mouth twisted into a grin.
“As the fiancé of the daughter of the house I felt that it was my right to speak. Jenkins, you should be ashamed of yourself. Get out!”
Mrs. Lambert looked at her daughter, and then spoke. Right then I knew what her red hair was for.
“Not at all. Mr. Jenkins, you will be welcome for dinner. Stay right here.”
All of a sudden the expressionless look was gone from her face and she was standing there, chin up, head thrown back, looking over the crowd of us, queen of the situation.
“Mr. Jenkins is here as my guest,” she finished, “and he is much better company than a blackmailer… no, John, don’t deny that you have been the victim of a gang of blackmailers. Both Lois and I know it, and…”
She never finished. There came a rush of steps on the porch, a pounding at the door, and a squad of uniformed men flung into the room.
Ogden Sly sneered.
“Ah, Jenkins, I perceive that you have been pulling something else. Here are your friends. Perhaps if you would not accept my invitation to leave this house, you will accept theirs.”
The grim-faced man in charge shook his head.
“I don’t know this man, but I do know you, Ogden Sly. It’s you we want.”
Sly’s face went white while his restless arms moved one of the hairy hands to his forehead.
“Me? You want me? Want me bad enough to come and interrupt me at a social evening in the house of my friend John Lambert! What should you want me for?”
“For the murder of Henry Roberts,” said the grim-faced policeman.
“Henry Roberts?” repeated Sly, a look of relief coming over his face. “I never even heard of the man.”
“He was a plainclothesman that your assistant Bill Peavey killed tonight in trying to murder C. W. Kinsington in accordance with your instructions, Sly. Also we want you for the murder of Wild Andy Caruthers. You see, Sly, Bill Peavey has made a complete statement. He’s given us all the dope, also he’s said something about a blackmailing scheme. Anything you say will be used against you at the trial. Come on!”
Dazed, protesting, frightened, they led him away, led him to confront Bill Peavey who had squealed to save his neck. It would be a great race between Sly and Peavey to see which one could implicate the other first and hardest.
When they had left, Mrs. Lambert turned to me and would have spoken, but I beat her to it.
“Mr. Lambert, go into your safe and get out the Kinsington letters and burn them before the police get here. They’ll probably be around asking you questions, and when they do come, remember that you’re a man of family with a daughter to think of, and lie like a gentleman.”
He blinked his eyes. “The Kinsington letters?”
I nodded. “Don’t play innocent. I’ve seen ’em. Ogden Sly forged all of those letters. The real Kinsington is dead, and your secret is reasonably safe. There may be some letters in Ogden Sly’s possession, but my best bet is that they’re hidden where the police will never get hold of them. What’s more, if Ogden Sly ever admits any connection with Kinsington or you, he’ll be playing into Bill Peavey’s hands and establishing a motive for the murder of the real Kinsington, and both Peavey and Sly think they murdered him. What they don’t realize is that they shot up a wax dummy I planted for ’em to practice on.
“Now I guess that about covers everything. I made a slight fee for my services by using my brain, and I’m satisfied if everybody is. Lois, you used me for a tool or tried to, but I just want to let you know that I understand you were fighting for your father and that I haven’t any hard feelings.”
She gulped once and then spilled it.
“At fist that’s the way I played it,” she admitted. “I thought that I could make you crazy about me and that then Ogden Sly would interfere with you in some way and you’d kill him. I read about what a desperate criminal you were and I thought that you’d be sure to murder Sly.”
I laughed at that.
“Oh gosh! You flappers,” I said. “You have an idea that the world runs according to story books.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Well, I’m sorry, folks, but I’m not remaining to dinner. Mr. Lambert, you’ve made one mistake. Don’t make a lot more of them trying to cover up that one.”
The old man’s hand came, reaching out for mine, and there were tears in his eyes.
“I don’t understand it all as yet, Jenkins. I had thought that my secret was safe from those I loved most and it was that feeling which made me such an easy victim.”
“Don’t try kiddin’ the women folks,” I told him as I made for the door. “I hate to be seeming to hurry, but there’s a chance my name may come into this thing some way, and I’d just as soon be where the police can’t locate me any too readily. They’ll want to ask me some questions, and then the newspaper reporters will get my photograph in the papers all over again and I’ll be besieged by flappers who want me to pull chestnuts out of the fire for them.”