“Your skin, for instance — I have noticed what excellent care you have taken of your skin. See how soft and white it is. Beyond doubt you are a beautiful woman, and you pride yourself on your beauty… In this little bottle I have an acid. A few strokes of this brush and your beauty will be ruined. You will be forced to go through life with a body that is finely formed, a skin that is lovely, and a face that will repel all men, all save the most bestial.
“Also I will place a drop in one eye. Not in both. I will want you to have partial sight so that you can see what a spectacle you have become. When I have finished with you your name will be a byword in criminal circles, and the woman who takes your place will remember what happens to women who seek to betray me.”
There seemed to be no gloating in his voice, no rage, but merely the cold, dispassionate tones of one who is without emotion, who experiences emotional reactions, but has them entirely in the control of the intellect, who gives no expression of feelings or passion.
With that he dipped the brush in the bottle, carefully pressing it against the side of the phial to squeeze out all of the surplus acid, to enable him to make a workmanlike job of it.
The girl was gagged and could not scream. Her arms were bound and the big hulk had part of his weight resting on her so that she could not squirm. Her legs were free, and they alone registered her panic. They kicked, twisted, writhed, and gleamed in the light of the huge incandescent in the ceiling. He had spoken but the truth when he had said that she had a pretty skin, when he had said there were more terrible ways to punish a woman than by death alone.
The man who had been fighting for her, he whose face had been so battered, struggled and strained at his bonds in a very frenzy of desperate energy. Over in the corner three of Icy-Eyes’ henchmen stood, grinning their enjoyment. There is a perverted something about men of that ilk which makes them enjoy torture.
Here was another development I had not counted on. I could not sit by and let Icy-Eyes carry out his intention. The woman with the mole had actually helped me once or twice. True she was a member of his gang, but it might well be that her present predicament was because she had sought to save me. Of course I had been prejudiced against her because of the warning the Weasel had given me, and what had immediately followed.
I sucked in a deep breath, preparing to run a bluff, to call out that I had the man covered from his secret tower, ordering him to release the girl or I would shoot. It might have worked, or might not. For all he knew I had the shotgun up there.
I never gave the shout, however, for, of a sudden there sounded another voice, a voice coming from the hallway, and then my heart stood still. The voice was that of Helen Chadwick!
I have faced death often for myself, and have faced it with an inner tranquillity, a calm smile; but here was something infinitely worse, a something I could not control, yet which caused me to break out in a cold sweat. Helen in the power of this brute.
He looked up.
“I have come to surrender, to meet your terms,” she said, as she entered the room, and there was almost a note of levity in her voice. To all appearance she was merely a carefree, brainless flapper with painted, smiling lips, steady eyes and modish clothes. It was only because I had come to know her, to appreciate the real character of the girl that I could detect the underlying heartbreak in her voice.
Icy Eyes sat down the bottle and looked at her.
“Helen Chadwick?” he asked.
She nodded.
He heaved himself to his feet and retired behind his desk. His face was smiling. It was the first time I had ever seen any expression on his countenance, and it was terrible, a gloating, triumphant, malign smile.
“You wrote me once that if I was ready to surrender, a certain man would take me to you provided I came alone and that no one sought to follow or knew where I was going. I give you my word that I have complied with those conditions.”
He nodded.
“And your reason?”
This time emotion showed in her eyes, her forehead flushed, her lips parted and she leaned forward.
“That Ed Jenkins be left alone. He got in this for my sake, and I know that he is in danger. I will acknowledge the power you have over me, and I will do as you suggest. Either I will give you money, if it is money you want, or if you desire to use me and my position I will carry out your orders.”
His eyes were as cold and frosty as twin icebergs, and he let her have it straight from the shoulder.
“Bah, you fool! Do you think I would give up Ed Jenkins for a hundred of you? But it is well. He loves you. I shall get money for the evidence I hold, and I shall get my revenge. Indeed, yes. There is a resort in Mexico which would give me real money for a girl of your beauty… and how that would torture Ed Jenkins. Think of it! I would be paid for selling you… Hah… Hah… Hah!”
It was a laugh, the first laugh I had ever heard from the man, and it was a laugh which caused cold chills to run up and down my spine. It was the laugh of a something within him, a demon, a streak of insanity, a lost soul — whatever you will — it was not a human laugh.
And then Helen caught his drift, realized the significance of the grinning men behind her, the half-naked girl lying bound and gagged on the couch.
And she smiled, a slow smile of perfect poise.
Then I knew that she was aware of her danger, of how foolish she had been to seek to sacrifice herself for me, of how futile her attempt had been, and I knew also that she was going to play the game through, to play into his hands for the sake of getting a chance to kill him.
“Well if I’m going to be sold as merchandise I’d better be looking my prettiest,” she said after the manner of an empty-headed, vain flapper; and crossed her knees, opened her vanity box, and took out a compact.
The men watched her, spellbound. Even Icy-Eyes himself was at a loss. This little slip of a girl with her casual coolness held every eye in the room. She was unarmed; of course, she would be. I had hoped desperately that there would have been a gun in that vanity case… but no, she was, as I was, merely armed with her wits, depending upon her poise, her quickness of perception to carry her through.
And then I saw something else.
The bare legs of the girl with the mole were moving, and they were moving to some purpose. While Icy-Eyes had been talking to Helen, the girl with the mole had worked her bare feet over to the little stand, behind the desk, upon which stood a telephone. Her well-formed feet seemed as graceful as hands, her toes as sentient as fingers. Despite the danger of the moment, the knowledge that I must presently venture down into that hell-pit below, I could not help thrilling at the sheer beauty of those well-formed limbs and the sure skill of the motions.
She had lifted the receiver with the toes of one foot. It was clever, ingenious — and, more than either, it was a last, desperate chance.
And then I thrilled with pride for Helen Chadwick, game little campaigner that she was. Her eyes had seen the feet of the girl with the mole, as well. While Icy-Eyes was watching her, trying to break through her calm mask of jaunty indifference, she had seen what the girl with the mole was doing, and had suddenly changed her conduct accordingly.
Abruptly her self-possession left her. Her hand trembled, her lips worked, her eyes grew wide, and she leaned a trifle forward, over toward the face of old Icy-Eyes — incidentally, nearer by inches to the telephone.
“No! NO! Not that!” she screamed. “Save me! Help! Not that!”
Almost there was a glimmer of satisfaction upon the expressionless face of the man who sat behind that desk, his pudgy fingers gripping the top, his cold eyes fastened on the girl before him. His face was heavy, sagging, but held rigidly immobile, and the great scratches gave it a peculiar, striped look, as though the soul was walled into the fleshy covering by bars of blood which stretched down his face.