Suddenly, in the darkness, he became aware of a hand on his arm and a voice in his ear.
“Hal!” came the whisper again.
The fog that lay over his senses lifted and cleared.
“Dan! How did you get here? Have you brought the police?”
“Police nothing. There wasn’t time.”
“Can you get out again? If you can, go for help! McHenry is the murderer. He’s Wallace. He’s mad as a hatter. Find Morgan and McCoy and bring them — bring plenty of men—”
“Think I’ll leave you here?” whispered Dan savagely. “I saw what you got! Gawd knows how long that monster had been at it—”
“You’re wasting time! Go for help!”
“I can’t, Hal! I came in your car. It’s out of gas. Dunno where I am. By the time I get back you might be — I got it! I came in the window. I can climb out and haul you after me! Can you stand on your feet?”
“Maybe I can, but I won’t. The man’s mad, Dan! He’s got some scheme to revenge himself on Dorothy Hearn. If he plans to abduct her, he will. He’s infernally clever. He’ll bring her here. I can’t leave her to be tortured without a friend in the place! Go for help and you can save us.”
“I’ve told you I can’t go and get back in time. No gas. The car’s way off on a side road, Lord knows where.”
Hal felt ready to burst with exasperation.
“Have you got a gun?” he hissed furiously.
“I just had time to follow you! Thought it was fishy the way McHenry hung around without doing anything. Saw him look at you once, when you weren’t looking—”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“No use. You wouldn’t have taken no stock in it! But I knew you wouldn’t shoot a man and then run. So I left the lobby and hung around outside. Didn’t know what to think.”
“Nor how to think, either!” said Hal.
“Yeah? Well, when that wheel chair came out right after the murder I did some thinking! I looked at the trunk and saw the air holes along the top of it. I did some thinking then, when I guessed you were in that trunk! You would of thought it was a rabbit — and not been so far out, either—”
“How did we get here, and where the hell are we?”
“I got your car started. When the taxi pulled away, I followed. Going up through the park it was stopped all of a sudden; I guess by the party inside. There was a big car near and I saw that thing in the taxi get out. The taxi went on and they took the trunk away from the road.
“After a while the driver of the big car and whoever it was in the taxi came back with you between them. They left the trunk, I guess. But they lifted you in the big car and got in themselves, and drove away—”
“You never thought of picking up a policeman and having him stop the car?” whispered Hal with sarcasm.
“I was too far away to be sure the figure they carried was you! And if I tried anything like that they might of got away. That car was faster than yours. Wonder you wouldn’t keep yours with gas in!”
“Go on,” whispered Hal.
“I followed that car way uptown and around for a while, and then clear back down again. It was a big, blue car. Guess it was the one that Brooks got your mother in. It stopped on a corner and McHenry got in. I was way behind, luckily. Then the car beat it out toward Yonkers.
“Once past Harlem it stuck to side roads for miles. I had to dim the lights and I sure bumped around, trailing their tail light. It crossed the main Hudson road. Then I ran out of gas and had to stop.”
“That’s funny — that you had to stop!”
“Is it? Well, I left the car pointing the way I had come, hoping the police would find it. I ran ahead a while and there was the river in front and no side road and no car! I galloped around in bigger circles, over fences and through bushes until l saw a light. It was this window. I crawled up to it in time to see that guy pasting you with that rope—”
“All right,” whispered Hal. “Now, for the last time, will you get out of here and go for help?”
“Not without you,” retorted Dan obstinately. “Think I’ll leave you here alone to get beaten up again?”
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Hal, “give me strength to deal with this dumb egg! All right, then, stay here and get shot for your pains! If any one comes, roll under the bed. If it’s the black man you lie still. He’d break you in two. If it’s McHenry alone, I’ll jump him and you grab his feet when I whistle. Maybe he carries a gun. We’ll have to get that away from him—”
“I’ll handle him if I can get my hands—”
At that moment, from a distant part of the cellar, came despairing cries that rose steadily until they became broken screams. Both Hal and Dan felt a coldness along their spines. The voice was that of a man beside himself with pain and terror.
They listened until the shrieks died away, listened still, in awed silence, until, faint at first, but growing louder, they heard the shuffle and check of footsteps upon stone. Almost without a sound, Dan rolled under the cot. Some one fumbled at the door. Then the light flashed on.
Hal turned his head slowly. Wallace and Nimbo were in the room and approaching him. Wallace was empty handed. The Nubian carried a tray with two dishes of gold and a thin-stemmed wine glass. He set them on the table within easy reach of Hal. One plate bore a piece of dirty bacon rind, the other some moldy crusts of bread. The glass was full of muddy water.
Wallace seated himself on the end of the table. Nimbo stood at his side.
“I’ve brought you the sort of banquet my daughter enjoyed for eighteen years,” explained Wallace evenly. “You were whipped to-night as she was whipped. She is dying, so Nimbo took toll of revenge for her. The debt is a heavy one and will take some time to pay, Evans.”
“It won’t take long on this sort of food,” said Hal. “Who else have you been torturing just now?”
“I told you that my daughter Gloria is dying. It is only a matter of hours. I think Papaniotis has satisfied himself of her approaching dissolution and therefore of his own, because when she dies I will kill him. Though Nimbo has beaten him almost every day, he seems to cling to life. But Gloria does not. He has not made life attractive to her.”
Again Hal sensed an abyss of suffering beneath the pitiless voice. Despite his own wrongs, he felt a certain respect for this broken-hearted madman with his iron self-control.
“That’s — pretty tough,” he admitted. “Even if my visit here hasn’t been particularly entertaining, I’m glad my father had no hand in your troubles.”
Wallace lifted one eyebrow in ironical disbelief as he glanced about the room.
Suddenly his regard grew fixed, then flashed back upon his prisoner. Hal guessed that he had seen the cellar window hanging open a little from the top. Hal returned his stare blankly, but Wallace was not deceived.
He drew a revolver and laid it across his knees, at the same time motioning toward the window.
“That should have been nailed up,” he rasped. “Our guest is not as weak as he looks. See to it!”
Grinning anxiously, the Nubian rolled his eyes at the revolver and hurried out of the cell. Soon he was back again with a hammer and a dozen long nails which he drove in the sash.
Lacking leverage from the inside, it would be impossible now to open the window, even if the glass was broken. The panes were too narrow for the passage of a man’s body through the space they occupied.
And Wallace had two prisoners instead of one, though he did not know it.
Nimbo returned to his master’s side. To attack Wallace during the black’s absence had been out of the question because of that ready revolver.