He halted at the door of his chambers—shrugged—inserted the key in the lock. The heavy, sound-proof door swung wide—r-then, following his entrance, slammed shut behind him with a muffled clang.
There came a blow at the base of his brain like the impact of a mighty hand — he staggered, stumbled, fell prone into a struggling, choking hell which took him by the throat, a rising tide engulfing him with an acrid and intolerable stench. His gun barked, once, at the convulsive pressure of his finger. But it was a dead man who fired the shot.
III
Officer Williamson, passing on his beat through Varick Street, halted a moment before No. 32, a puzzled look on his broad, good-humored countenance, For a brief instant, head in air, he sniffed upward, like a pointer—then, his face gray, he reeled abruptly against an area gate, his hand at his throat, coughing like a man in a fit.
His side-partner, turning the corner, as it chanced, at the sight of Williamson doubled over the area-gate, came on at a run, unslinging his pistol.
“What’s up, Jack?” he called; then he, too, halted in mid-career, falling to a stiff-legged walk, as an acrid stench smote him in the face in a blinding, overpowering flood. With his last remaining glimmer of sense his fist crashed into the glass of a fire-box — then he slumped into oblivion. After a moment cries echoed down the street, followed by the clang and rattle of the patrol. Men came up at a run, halted, turned back—then, out of the confusion there arose the cry of “Gas!”
But it was not until the arrival of the Rescue Squad that some order was obtained out of the chaos, when, following the arrival of the police and fire companies, the sufferers were treated with a vaporized solution of milk of magnesia,[1] and Williamson and his partner removed to the nearest hospital.
But as for Detective Sergeant Sinsabaugh—he was beyond their ministrations.
Gunson, Sinsabaugh’s partner and friend, was stubborn in his belief that it was not altogether an accident which had been responsible for the death of Sinsabaugh.
“It was an accident, all right—but it was planned, I tell you, Chief,” he was insisting to Inspector Murchison, his immediate superior.
“If you’re thinking of Masterman; Dave, you’re all wrong, boy,” replied Old Dan. “He’s not in on this? — how could he be? Anyway, you know what it was—th’ gas-tank exploded in Thompson’s warehouse next door, and—”
“Well—that’s all right, Chief, but how do you account for the fact—”
“—That it got into Sinsabaugh’s rooms first? Why — that it smashed through the party wall—it is only, a few inches thick there, you know—and Sinsabaugh’s rooms were right up against it.”
“Sure, Inspector—but this is what I believe—” Gunson leaned forward earnestly, tapping his knee with a blunt forefinger. “I believe that someone — Masterman, for a good guess — made that hole in the wall, pushed the tank through, and then smashed it open in Sinsabaugh’s rooms, just a little while before poor Jim came home—to die.” He paused. “Masterman knew all about tanks and gas—he was an expert—before he turned yegg—an oxy-acetylene blowpipe would have done it—easy — for him.”
The inspector grunted.
“That’s all very well, Dave,” he made answer, “but there’s one little thing you’ve overlooked—there’s one flaw in your argument: we’ll suppose Masterman, or whoever it was got into the warehouse—breached the wall—rolled in the tank—and let out the gas with a blowpipe. Well and good. Then, how do you account for the fact that the murderer—if there was a murderer — was not himself gassed? You know what chlorine is, Dave — no—it was just an accident—that’s all there is to it.” Gunson’s jaw set stubbornly. “I can’t answer that, Inspector,” he said — “I’m not going to try—just now—but as sure as—as Duster Joe Masterman came out of stir when his time was up — Jim Sinsabaugh was murdered—and you can’t make me believe anything else.”
He rose, his face grim with purpose. “You’ll give me a week—working alone?” he questioned. “That’s all I’ll ask—a week—no more.”
By way of answer the grizzled inspector bowed his head. Sinsabaugh had been one of his best men. He liked Gunson.
“Go to it, my boy,” he said heavily, “and—good luck.”
Gunson took his leave. But there was one thing he had neglected to mention to Inspector Murchison; a small thing, if you will—but a clue which had furnished him with an idea—a something he had observed at the house on Varick Street on the day of the explosion as the firemen had issued from that house of death. This he had kept to himself, but time was precious. A day might be too little—or too much.
IV
Chicken-Foot Darragh reclined against the bar at Gaspipe Looie’s. At Looie’s you can still purchase a pretty fair quality of hooch for four bits even now, and the snowbird brigade makes it a headquarters, too.
Darragh, his head wagging foolishly, his loose lips mouthing his words, retailed a story for the twentieth time, half to himself, half to a saturnine individual with a predatory nose and a straight gash for a mouth who had for some reason, bought Darragh a drink.
“Here’s luck,” said Darragh. “Well — as I was sayin’... I seen this ghost, or whatever it was, as I was goin’ in th’ basement door. It looked like—it looked like—”
He paused—shivered—drained his glass.
“Yes?” prompted his new friend. “Like what, bo?”
He spoke in a friendly tone, yet like velvet over steel, but if Darragh could have seen his face—the look in the deep-set, implacable eyes—his whistling breath might have ended in a sudden gasp.
But he did not.
“Why—why—like a dog—a pig, Mister,” he replied. “I seen it—sure—but—I dunno.”
His head wagged, his eyes glassy with his potations. He fumbled again with his loose lips, muttering inarticulately. The stranger cleared his throat — then he spoke in a carrying voice!
“You had ’em sure, bo,” he asserted. “Th’ jimmies — you’ll be seeing pink monkeys and green elephants next if you don’t keep your feet down—I’ll say so.”
He glanced about the room. “Guess you’re right, mister,” mumbled the derelict, without offence. “I had ’em bad, sure enough.” And then, with an abrupt, drunken stubbornness: “ ’Twuz Dago red wine—I ain’t never seen things with Dago red wine, Mister—it was there... I seen’ it—it moved—right under th’ gas—it moved... sure... well—g’night—g’night.”
He turned, swayed, lurched out into the night, a grotesque, shambling figure, misshapen, formless as the long, wavering shadow which fled ahead, cast by the sputtering arc at the corner. And behind him, behind, he did not see that other Shadow, quick, stealthy, furtive, for all of its bulk—a shadow with predatory eyes and a traplike mouth, moving like a great, grim cat in the darkness...
The shadow was nearer now, and a little wind, pattering in the dust like the feet of an invisible army of the dead, stole forward on the wings of the night, whispering, ending with a quick shriek and a sudden hush. A storm was brewing in the west...
Like figures in a dream, pursuer and pursued entered a broad belt of darkness like a deep well of night. The clump-clump of the derelict’s heavy brogans echoed for a moment across the cobbles at the intersection of an alley, beyond it the revealing radiance of a street lamp.
He saw it—and that was all. For, while the brooding blackness held there came the snick of steel—a choked gurgle—a muffled cry, like the quick squeak of a mouse in the wainscot—a thud... silence.
Chicken-Foot Darragh had passed on — into the dark.
V
Gunson, earlier in the evening, had paused a moment in his search for Masterman before the window of a store which had caused him to suck in his breath in the sheer surprise of a discovery which he was certain dovetailed with the other clue which he had turned up at No. 32. He had heard the story of Darragh at second-hand, and now, as he stared through the dingy pane of the old curiosity shop a sudden inspiration took him by the throat.