He took a short step toward her. “I think I hear someone at the front door,” he hissed. “Let’s get out of here. No; I’ll not go alone. You must come, too, Lola. I’ll care for you. I’ll—”
“No. It is impossible... You were right. There is someone below. Hurry!”
“You—”
“Oh, if I only might! But I cannot. I feel those invisible ties and they’re — too strong—for me. Go now, please.”
The closing of the vestibule door reached them distinctly. There was need of haste. Knibbs cast one last pleading look at the girl, saw the uselessness of petitioning her further, and, determining to return later with the police department at his back, stooped and kissed her full upon the lips. Then he threw open the door and stepped into the hall.
He had delayed a bit too long. He stepped squarely in the path of the two canvasmen.
VI.
And then Knibbs had his hands full. He met Jim—the lean fellow affecting the Chaplin mustache—with a crashing blow in the face that sent him reeling back against his companion. And he followed this up, launching himself like a tiger at the other’s throat. He made the silk stock his target, hoping, incidentally, that the force of his attack would carry them both to the floor. But unfortunately Belden had braced himself against the balustrade, which caused the whole tide of battle to turn. Jim met his leap squarely, and shortly both were on him.
There was a crash, a great tangle of flashing arms and legs on the floor, the sound of blows, and at intervals above it all the awakened paralytic’s voice calling to Lola. .
Knibbs was putting up the fight of his life. And the fact that, glorified his efforts was that he was not fighting for himself alone. It wasn’t only that he defended himself against kidnapping or resisted being-trussed again on that cot. It was something bigger and finer. Substantially, he was fighting for the woman he loved.
But it was a losing fight. Belden, being a bred-in-the-bone pug, and lean Jim having been thoroughly educated in toughness—an education incomplete without a working knowledge of the fistic art—Knibbs’ chances were on the short end. Already his nose was bleeding and his chin gashed.
Then they piled upon him as in a football game, crushing out his breath; and he felt his surroundings slipping away, when the unexpected happened.
To Fleming Metcalf Knibbs, prone on the hall floor with the two ex-circus men belaboring him, the events which transpired now appeared more than ever dream-like. The rickety front door was thrust inward and an avalanche of rushing footsteps came to his ears. The pressure on his throat and chest was suddenly relieved, and as he moved his head weakly he saw Simeon Dreer, of the murder squad, looking down at him through his ridiculously large green spectacles, while all around swarmed blue-coated and brass-buttoned forms.
“Hoo-ray!” cheered Knibbs weakly, staring back at Dreer with a silly smile. He felt that he ought to get up and welcome his rescuers, but for the life of him he couldn’t move a muscle.
At an order from Dreer, an officer got him under the arms; and then he found himself standing on shaking, uncertain legs, one hand on the balustrade post, the other moving across his forehead. Slowly his faculties revived.
Out of the little room came Officer Yensen, holding Lola tightly by the arm.
Knibbs saw red.
“Release that lady,” he bellowed, or tried to bellow, for he was still too weak to achieve the real thing. Yensen looked uncertainly first at Knibbs then at Simeon Dreer.
Simeon smiled tolerantly. “Do as the gentleman requests, Yensen,” he said.
It was done; whereat those remaining in the hall proceeded to the rear room where the discomfited ruffians and their leader were under guard.
“A charming gathering,” commented Dreer. “At what hour is tea served?”
“Sir, your sarcasm is anything but appropriate,” said the paralytic from among his pillows, pretending righteous indignation, though his face was livid with wrath. “By what right do you force your way into my home—at this very moment a house of death?”
Dreer maintained his nonchalance. “If it were not a house of death I should not be here,” he replied, “though it appears fortunate for Mr. Knibbs that I happened along when I did. However, his rescue was incidental and secondary. I have come after the murderer of John Ulrich!”
“The murderer of Ulrich! What do you mean?”
“My English is clear, I believe. I’m sure you understand me, De Brunner. If not, I shall be more harshly explicit. There’s an ambulance waiting outside to take you away. There’s a police patrol, too; and I might add, if I may be so indelicate, that were you not bedridden, you’d ride in the latter.”
“You charge me—”
“Sure. With the murder of John Ulrich.”
“Ridiculous.” De Brunner’s eyes narrowed to pin points.
“Not altogether,” continued Simeon, calmly. “You won’t deny, I take it, that you were once a circus performer — a versatile person, as clever on the trapeze as at knife throwing!—”
He paused impressively.
The paralytic’s face blanched.
“I see you’re on,” he snarled. “How you did it I don’t know and don’t care. You’re a clever devil yourself. But neither you nor the commonwealth shall have the satisfaction of administering—my—punishment—”
It was over in a trice. They saw his hand move quickly, convulsively, under the sheet. A spasm of pain crossed his face. His head jerked up. The muscles of his neck and shoulders tensed. For a moment great physical strain was apparent there. Then he relaxed and his head rolled to one side.
Dreer leaped forward and threw back the covers. Evidence of Bastian De Brunner’s act was sickeningly apparent. A dagger—the very one Ulrich was reputed to have brought from India—was plunged to the hilt in his side. Quickly removing it, he drew the sheet up over the still form.
“The state is satisfied,” he said.
“But how—?” began Fleming Metcalf Knibbs for the hundredth time.
They were in Dreer’s cluttered apartment. Lola Langlois was seated in one of the spacious chairs, with Fleming draped over its arm, gazing longingly down upon her. He had looked up just long enough to put his question to Dreer.
The little man tinkered with his green spectacles a moment before replying.
“I hardly know whether to tell you or not,” he said. “The truth is I shall probably sacrifice my professional reputation in your eyes by doing so. For the whole thing was so absurdly simple. You see, young Knibbs, after you left this morning I made a second careful examination of De Brunner’s letter from Cassius Wynn and found the envelope not torn open but carefully cut. That implied one thing, didn’t it—that De Brunner opened his mail with a knife? Of course, to do that, he has had at times a knife in bed with him. Suggestive, eh? But not complete. Doctor Collier’s statement now returned to me: that although paralyzed De Brunner’s arms were free. Further illumination came when I learned upon inquiry that Smith & Townsend was not the name of a mercantile house but of a traveling circus. Some showmen in town supplied me with final details. They remembered Bastian De Brunner and his knife-throwing act. What more would the densest sleuth require? Immediately a picture of John Ulrich disputing De Brunner’s power suggested itself. Perhaps Ulrich threatened to expose him to the police. At any rate a lost temper and a hurtling knife terminated the incident in tragedy. It was Ulrich’s death cry, not a call for help from De Brunner, that brought the police. And there you have it. You, young Knibbs, supplied equally as important information as I, however, in learning of this strange fellow’s criminal intentions.”
Dreer arose abruptly and. went to the phonograph and shortly the strains of Les Millions D’Arlequin filled the room. Sitting raptly by the instrument he drank in every note.