Icy-Eyes heaved himself into at chair at the desk, picked up the double-locked bag, which had been placed on the plate glass top, and reached inside, taking out the jewel cases, spreading them over the desk, preparing to take an inventory with pencil and paper at his side. He was methodical, this huge bulk of a man with ice-cold eyes, and the red scratches which dripped blood upon his collar.
I reached out to grip the gun behind me, ready to change all of my plans, to get Icy-Eyes covered, and, from my point of vantage, dictate my terms.
Instead of touching the gun, my hands encountered the body of a man, a man who had taken advantage of my preoccupation to creep silently up the steep steps, and was ready to spring upon me.
Desperately I threw myself around. Luck, which had played so nicely into my hands that night, seemed on the verge of playing me false. Apparently this was some new member of the gang who had crawled up the stairs, ignorant of the struggle which had been waged in the other room, seeking, perhaps a word with the watcher on duty. Instead he had seen my outline silhouetted against the light of the grille as I watched what was going on below, and he had stolen up behind me ready to strike.
He flung himself back, and I could see the gleam of light on steel as he threw around a revolver. I had pocketed my own gun when I had reached back for the shotgun, and that bit of carelessness seemed likely to cost me my life. It was my own fault, too. I had often claimed that a man should have his wits about him all the time, and here I had allowed my attention to become distracted by the unexpected sight of a struggle in the room below.
He had me covered, and that was all there was to it. There was no use making a senseless martyr of myself. He was ready to shoot and I saw it in his eyes, so I stepped back, my hands up, knowing that Icy-Eyes would decree my death, that it was now only a matter of minutes unless I could find some method of turning the tables.
Silently, he motioned me to descend the steps, reaching for the shotgun in the corner. Apparently Icy-Eyes had instructed his men to never speak a word while they were on that watching platform. At all costs he must keep the men whom he did not trust from finding out the secret of that hidden platform.
I started down the steps, ready to grab the man who was covering me by the leg if the opportunity arose, and jerk him from the platform, ready to jump back if necessary, whip out my gun and shoot it out — and then I noticed a second man standing in the room below, covering me with another one of those sawed-off shotguns and I knew the jig was up.
Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, cornered at last, murdered in a crook’s dive and his body thrown out in an alley. How the police would chuckle to themselves! And all because of one moment’s carelessness at a time when I could least afford to be careless.
After I had descended the ladder, the two men engaged in a brief, whispered conversation, searched me for weapons, taking my automatic from me, and then prepared to escort me into the main office where Icy-Eyes held forth. The men did not recognize me. Their whispered comments showed that they had no inkling who I was, or the unholy glee it would give their chief to get me in his power.
Having relieved me of weapons, the two seemed more at their ease, and led me into the corridor, one walking behind me, one ahead.
“Don’t interrupt the Chief until he gets the other matter over with,” cautioned one of the men in a whisper.
I turned on him, resolved to run a big bluff in the hope I could at least partially distract their attention.
“Ain’t you guys dicks?” I asked, a well-simulated look of surprise coming over my face.
They looked at one another blankly.
“Hell, I thought the joint was pinched,” I said. “The Chief had t’ call the other guy down to help him with the skirt, an’ he asked me to take a trick up there on the platform. I was keepin’ guard when youse guys threw down on me, an’ I figured it was a pinch.”
They scowled, and the spokesman seemed to waver a bit.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
I laughed.
“I’m the guy that worked out the whole dope on that Russian trick at Kemper’s. I got the dope on this here grand duke and told the Chief how he could work it.”
“The hell you did!” exclaimed the man, thrusting his face closer to mine. “I thought it was Lefty did that.”
I laughed, a sneering, chuckling laugh.
“Shucks, you don’t know nothin’. Here, I got the whole dope right here in my shoe, also my written pass from the Chief. I always keep ’em under the linin’ of my shoe. A bull will never think of lookin’ there on a frisk.”
With that I raised my shoe as though to untie it.
The men were puzzled. It was plain to be seen that they were fearful of making a mistake, either one way or the other. Apparently the Chief did not care for bunglers.
Taking advantage of their preoccupation, I had raised my right foot as though to take out some papers from my shoe. Instead I crashed it back in a terrific kick, leaning forward as I did so, and grasping the barrel of the gun which the man in front of me was holding.
My foot caught the man behind in the pit of the stomach, and he slumped to the floor an inert mass, unconscious. The blow had been terrific. The man who had been in front of me was taken by surprise, and I had the gun half out of his hands before he could tighten his muscles. Using the gun barrel as a lever, I pulled him over toward me, and, at the same time butted my head at his chin.
The impact dazed him, and I promptly released the gun and swung my fist to the angle of his jaw with all my weight behind it. He staggered, his knees wobbled, and he sank backward, the gun still in his hands; and I turned. They would expect me to take advantage of the occasion to make my escape, and I counted strongly on that. The one who had been hit the last would open his eyes, would be on his feet in a matter of seconds. Seeing the corridor before him he would conclude that I had dashed out into the night. He would hardly think of looking for me back on the platform.
It was with this in mind that I jumped back into the dark room and closed the door behind me. Once more I was up on the platform, but this time I was unarmed. In the necessity of returning to this place before I was seen there had been no time to recover my pistol, and, in plain truth, so urgent was my haste, that for once it had slipped my mind. I cursed my stupidity. In the game I play one cannot relax one’s vigilance for a moment, regardless of the reason.
Old Icy-Eyes had been entirely oblivious of the struggle in the hall. I had hoped that I would see him when he made his inventory of the jewels, but, apparently, he had sidetracked the jewels for other more important matters.
He was sitting on the couch beside the girl with the mole, and in his hand was a small bottle and a fine camel’s hair brush. His face was absolutely immobile, devoid of any expression. His eyes were cold and hard, and when he spoke his voice had the same toneless quality I had noticed before. It was as though he spoke almost mechanically, without expression. If the man had any feelings at all he certainly kept them from showing in his voice.
“You have sought to betray me, Maude, and you shall pay the price,” he said in that even, almost monotonous voice. “Heretofore two or three men have crossed me, and you know what has happened to them. With a woman it is different. One would be foolish to kill a woman when there are so many more effective methods of inflicting punishment.