There was only a moment to notice these details, for Traub had begun to gasp for breath, and the detective had scarcely time to bind arms and ankles with strips of his shirt before the eyes opened. Traub tried to get up, found he was bound, and lay back, shaking his head to clear away the mists of unconsciousness.
“You damn, lucky flatfoot,” he whispered. “Got me, have you?” The thin lips twisted in a bitter grin.
“You’d never have done it if Voticelli hadn’t been a rat. He was scared to let me at the girl until the jack was in his hand, and went into a blue funk when you came in!
“Shut up!” snapped Doyle. “The memory of the shot in the back which had killed the gangster was too vivid.”
“He’d have squealed,” Traub persisted. “If crooks like him only had nerve they could run the country if they wanted to. There’s more of them than there are police, and their organization is as good.”
“Yeah,” Doyle grunted.
The cold eyes stared at him with an expression that made him uneasy.
“I had you licked twice,” Traub whispered. “Once when I waited outside the window with the bomb in my hand to find out how much you guessed. Once again when I lay in the dark here with my gun pointed down the ladder, waiting for you to climb up and touch it. You were dumb, flatfoot — too damn dumb to be scared. Nerve and persistence. That’s all your kind have!”
“Yeah,” Doyle grunted. For a moment he had forgotten the poison bombs. Traub wore nothing but a pair of trousers. The detective cautiously felt the pockets, but found nothing. At his shrug a contemptuous smile crossed the killer’s face.
“Dumb — and lucky,” he repeated. “And what’ll it get you? Nothing!”
“Say, are you trying to bribe me?” Doyle snapped.
“No. I can size up men,” retorted Traub almost as sharply. “I’ll be pinched and convicted. You’ve got me — and it’s going to do you no good. But if you’d been yellow I could have been the biggest crook this country ever saw. I could have ruled it, flatfoot! I had the nerve and the science. I had the money.”
The thin lips drew together, and Traub shrugged. “To hell with that. I failed,” he remarked conversationally. “I don’t mind dying, but I hate to be laughed at. Photographed and jawed at by stupid fools. Interviewed by sob sisters, used by a lawyer to make himself Governor, and psychoanalyzed by college professors hunting publicity. I’m not licked yet, flatfoot. Give me a break and I’ll do you a favor. I want to die, understand? Here and now. Let me roll through that trap and drown. Before I go I’ll tell you where the rest of the mail is. The truth.”
“Nix,” said Doyle. “Your tracks are plain enough in the dust.”
“Suit yourself. I had nothing against you,” Traub whispered. “You’d have been a great detective, too. You’re just smart enough, and dumb enough. But suit yourself.”
The killer’s jaw set. He closed his eyes and threw himself back on the dusty floor. He did not mean to speak again.
A shiver went down Doyle’s back. He dragged Traub away from the trapdoor and stood staring around the shed. This murderer was cold as a king cobra. Hate was as foreign to him as mercy. He was a machine for getting what he wanted — and he was threatening.
Traub was not bluffing. Thus far Doyle had won. Whether by nerve or luck he cared little, but he sensed that the end was not yet. He was tired, and the salt water made the wound on his face smart intolerably. Even his senses were dull. He couldn’t seem to use his head at all. A child could follow those footprints.
Doyle whipped his brain into action. The trail on the floor was too obvious, but what of the footprints by the door? The killer had had no time to waste. He had been forced to move around in the dark, and yet he had paused too far from the trap to listen for Doyle, and had even brought back one sack of mail. For Voticelli? No. For a lure? That was more probable, but as a temptation to do what?
Seeing one bag, the natural impulse of a detective would be to rush ahead to locate the rest. Doyle decided he was not going to hurry, anyhow. On the contrary, he stepped onto the wet patch and examined the door inch by inch. Nothing was unusual, except that near the door jamb and as high up as he could reach, there was a bit of string projecting through a crack into the room beyond. Doyle glanced at Traub. The latter’s eyes were tight shut. The detective took the string in his fingers and pulled.
Nothing happened. The string was attached to a weight in the other room which moved about a foot. About a foot from the hole where the string disappeared through the partition was a rusty nail. Doyle twisted the string around this.
Maybe he’d found Traub’s secret. Maybe not. Doyle drew a deep breath and thrust the door open.
On the floor before his eyes lay the balance of the stolen mail sacks. He hardly saw them. The room into which he looked was like that in which he stood, and directly opposite was a door that led to the street. From the lintel of this door hung a brick, and behind it, pinned to the door itself, was something white.
Doyle stepped behind the door he had just pushed open. Here was another brick, but by pulling the string he had lifted this clear of the swing of the door. In a handkerchief pinned to the door panel was a bulge half the size of his fist. Carefully he felt behind the cloth and took out a thin glass sphere filled with a yellowish liquid.
Had he opened the door carelessly he would have broken the poison bomb.
“Found it, have you?” snarled Traub unexpectedly. “Damn you, flatfoot, you think! All right, send for the wagon. You’ll go far, flatfoot, and mind this: Most men are dumb! Treat them so, and use them, because the fools can’t help it!”
“Yeah?” Doyle answered.
He removed the poison bomb that guarded the outer door, caught up a stick, and beat a tattoo on the sidewalk to summon the nearest patrolman. A police whistle replied, not far away, and with a sigh of content Doyle leaned back against the shed wall. In a few minutes now the wagon would arrive, in a few more he would be at the Hongkong. The doctors might have brought Myra around by this time... Wollson would probably be there, too.
All Doyle’s desire to humiliate the lieutenant had vanished. He was in a position to crow. Wollson would have crowed if the circumstances had been reversed, yet in the reaction from the excitement and strain of the last six hours Doyle realized that he would accomplish nothing by indulging in a cheap, personal triumph. For some time yet Wollson would continue to be a lieutenant. On the next case he would do the obvious thing again. In the interim he would continue to use his authority to chase Doyle out into the rain on useless errands.
Therefore it happened that when the patrol wagon arrived Doyle was silent during the ride to the Hongkong. The vision of a girl with hair of bright gold rode with him, and when the wagon stopped before the café he leaped out, forgetful of his bleeding face in his eagerness.
Wollson caught him by the arm.
“Is Myra all right?” Doyle snapped, “I... I mean, Miss Freeman?”
“Sure. She’s sitting up asking about you,” growled the lieutenant. “Forget the dame, Slats. She ain’t important. She saw nothin’. How’d you get this Traub guy?”
Gently Doyle slipped out of the lieutenant’s grip. He answered in such a low tone that only Wollson heard.
“By going ahead — and by using my bean,” he whispered. “You might try that last the next time you wait. This case is up to the district attorney now, so get out of my way. Myra Freeman is mighty important to me.”