There came the sound of voices from the front room, and I picked out the tones of Charles Colby. He was talking in a low, strained voice, as though he himself was interloping, which he was.
“Now remember, when he runs, shoot. Don’t take any chances, and don’t wait. Shoot. I’ll see that he gets stampeded.”
The reply was a grunt. Evidently the other fellow was one of those who are strong on action, but weak on conversation.
Again there was silence, broken by the creaking of a chair as it rocked back and forth. “We’ll take him right upstairs to the study,” went on rat-face nervously. “As soon as we get him in, we’ll start the action, and then you get ready.”
That gave me the clue I wanted. I slipped up the stairway, and finally located a sort of study on the northwest corner of the house; a long, gloomy corridor stretched the length of the upper floor, and the study was the last room on the north to open from it.
The room was in a half-light, a small fire in the fireplace making things cheery without throwing out too much warmth. A big chair was before the fire, and at first I thought it was empty. There were great bookcases on the walls, heavy rugs on the floor, some elaborate ornaments of various kinds, including statuary and paintings.
There was a slight movement from the chair, and then I saw that it was occupied. A small man with muttonchop whiskers was reclining before the fire, his toes stretched out, his head thrown back, resting. I stepped up to the chair, an idea forming in my mind.
It wasn’t until my weight rested on the arm of the chair that the man opened his eyes with a start. I was looming in the dark above him.
“Not a sound,” I said.
He sized me up, his sharp, steely eyes going over me from head to foot, but there was no sign of nervousness, no quick intake of the breath that would mean he was getting ready to scream. This lawyer was an old campaigner, one who had seen much of life, and considerable of death. He wasn’t to be stampeded. I heaved a sigh of relief. I had hoped he’d be like that.
“Thank God you can control your nerves and listen to reason,” I told him. “Listen, I’m Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, you’ve probably heard of me or read of me, and I’m here to do you a favor.”
He nodded, placed his finger to his lips and began to whisper.
“I have been warned that you were going to try and kill me. A detective agency told me they had the inside tip on what your plans were, and that they wanted to send out a couple of men to guard me. I’m in your power if you mean evil. If you don’t, tell me what you are here for. I’m an old man, and I don’t care greatly when I die, but I like to know what’s going on about me.”
While he was talking he was adjusting himself in his chair, moving his arms and hips as though to get a better view of me. He was so quiet, and so careful to speak in a whisper that he nearly had me fooled. As it was, I grabbed the gun he was twisting around from under his coat just before he had the drop on me.
I grinned at him, and he smiled back. He was an old war-horse, and he accepted the fortunes of war as they fell.
“Now listen,” I said, jabbing the gun in his ribs to impress upon him the fact that I was in earnest. “I don’t give a damn about you. You’re nothing in my young life, but there’s a plot on to get you out of the way and to get me killed. They’ll murder you and claim that I did the job. Get me?”
He still smiled wanly.
“That should interest me, but why should anyone want to kill me?”
I handed it to him straight, sticking the gun against his ribs from time to time, just reminding him that he wasn’t in any position to start anything.
“You and Rupert signed a will as witnesses. Rupert is dead — that’s one witness gone. You’ll be the next. Then a forged will can be probated.”
He chuckled outright. I really believe the shrivelled-up old campaigner was enjoying the situation.
“That sounds all right, only the genuine will would be in my safe, and they’d never get it out. That safe is absolutely and positively burglar-proof.”
“Yeah,” I explained, wearily. “They all are. This one of yours opens when you turn the small knob five times to the right to forty-six, the big one three times to the left to fifty, then the small knob four times to the left to thirty-one, the big one twice to the right to ten, the little one three times to the right to seventy, and the big one once to the left to ninety, then slip the little knob to the left until it reaches nineteen, turn the big knob to the right until it stops, and open the door.”
That got him. His eyes got as wide as half-dollars.
“There’s no one on earth that knows the combination of that safe but myself,” he whispered, more to himself than to me.
“And me,” I reminded him. “Now who have you got an appointment with at nine o’clock?”
“With a Mr. DeLamar, the head of the detective agency,” he answered, readily enough.
I smiled. That was all I wanted to know.
“All right,” I told him. “That man is really myself. I am to be brought into this room, and then you are to be murdered while I am here, and probably by someone whom you trust. They wouldn’t have trusted you with a pistol if it hadn’t been intended that the murder was to be pulled while you thought everything was all right. Now do you know a man with plastered, oily, perfumed black hair, little, blue-gray watery eyes, and a big red nose?”
He nodded, studying my face.
“He is in the house visiting my butler. I believe he is the father of the butler, or some relation, an uncle perhaps. I haven’t paid much attention to him.”
I nodded.
“Well, I’ll be going. When I come back just keep silent, no matter what happens. You trust me, and don’t make any noise when I start the fireworks.”
Again he sized me up.
“How do I know that I can trust you? By your own admission you are a crook.”
I got up off the arm of the easy-chair and tossed him his gun. “Don’t trust me. Shoot me if I make a move against you, but don’t interfere otherwise as you value your life.”
He smiled at that.
“Spoken like a man, Jenkins,” he said, “and since you’ve been so frank with me, I’ll tell you something. This man you have described, who is going under the name of Colby, is an impostor. He is a shyster attorney who has offices here in the city, and I saw him once years ago. I have a photographic memory for faces, and I am positive of my identification. When he showed up here under an assumed name, and supposedly as a relation of the butler, I fancied he was up to some deviltry. That’s why I kept the revolver handy. I wanted him to show his hand.”
I patted the little fellow on the shoulder. I sure liked him. He was a man after my own heart, and I only hoped I’d be like him when I got to be his age.
“See you later,” I said, and, with the words, slipped out of the door, hugged the shadows down the corridor, picked a porch window, and dropped into the night.
Five minutes later, on the stroke of nine, I came up the front steps, and rang the bell twice.
“Mr. Colby,” I told the man who appeared at the door.
He was a heavyset fellow, this bird, and he sized me up in a way I didn’t like. It occurred to me that he might be the one to kill Daniels as soon as I got in the room, and I didn’t propose to take any chances with him. His face was coarse, brutal, the face of a killer, and beyond doubt he was in on the death plan, otherwise he would not have introduced Colby as his father.
“Right this way, sir. Mr. Colby is expectin’ you.”