Another click, and the cavern was a blaze of light from a dozen or more electric bulbs suspended from the ceiling. The floor was of clean, white sand, while the walls, as my later observation showed, were of the peculiar sandstone out of which the cave was hewed.
A dark-faced man, asleep on an army cot in a distant corner, leaped to his feet, rubbing his eyes. From around a projection in one of the walls stepped a rough-looking fellow armed with a modern rifle. Recognizing the man in the mask, he stopped short and allowed the weapon to slide slowly through his fingers until the butt rested on the floor, gating at me quizzically.
“This the chap who was doing the snooping around, guv’nor?” he inquired.
“One of them,” snapped the masked man. “The other is—lying outside in the gully.”
“Did you kill him?”
The leader snarled like an angry dog. “It’s none of your business! You ought to know by this time, Snell, that when people interfere with me, they get into trouble. Get me?”
“ ’S’all right. ’S’all right, guv’nor. You’re boss. Only when you took us on you said there would be no killing in the job.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, he stepped back a pace and sat down in one of the camp-chairs which were scattered about the cavern.
The masked man replaced his weapon in his pocket and turned to me with an almost feminine gesture towards one of the chairs at the nearby table.
“Captain Larson,” he said easily, “sit down and let’s talk matters over. Will you have a cigar?”
He passed a box of perfectos from a nearby table. I selected one to my liking, the masked man declining, however, as I returned the box to him.
“Hang it, Captain!” he exclaimed. “It does me good to see you take matters so nicely. You and I are going to get along famously. It would be a pleasure to work with a man like you — but of course, as you realize, that is an impossibility. You are worth money to me—all kinds of it. Grimes and his bunch ought to be willing to put up at least ten thousand ransom for you. Meanwhile, will you give me your parole—your liberty inside the cave with certain restrictions — or won’t you?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“What’s the alternative?” I asked.
“Your ankle chained to the wall.”
“But how do you know that I’ll keep my parole?”
Another chuckle from behind the mask. “I know you by reputation. You are a man of your word. Give it to me and I know you’ll keep it. Honestly, I hate to think of chaining you up like a wild beast—but you understand it’s necessary — under certain conditions. What’s your decision?”
“I accept. I’ll-give you my word to make no attempt to escape. I reserve the right, however, to change my decision at any time by notifying you. May I ask questions?”
“As many as you like and about what you like. I won’t promise to answer them all, though!”
“Who are you?”
An almost silvery laugh came from behind the mask. “Who I am cuts no figure,” he responded. “What I am is different. I am a man with a mission. That mission is to extract money from the rich.”
“I. W. W. or Bolsheviki?”
“The Man in the Black Mask” chuckled again. “Neither. I have gathered this little band about me to carry out my ideals. After all necessary expenses are paid, the remainder of the money which I extort from the rich will be divided among, the poor. Later, I will move on to some new field of endeavor. There you have the story in a nutshell. You will probably call me insane. I am not. I am an idealist.”
“But this cave?”
“Merely a part of the workings of an old stone quarry. I discovered it quite by accident. It is large and roomy and has been made thoroughly comfortable for my men and myself. I light it by tapping one of the wires leading from the power plant. The power company is rich and will never miss the electricity I use. We depend on it for cooking, also. The smoke from a fire might betray us, you know!”
“I surmise that you used some sort of silencer when you fired upon the tower?”
“Merely an enlargement of the Maxim attached to a one pounder. I got the gun here by express, in parts, as I did all of my other equipment. We are prepared to withstand almost any ordinary attack, for we have several machine guns and a large quantity of ammunition. Food we have in plenty. There is a spring of fresh water bubbling out of the ground at the other end of the cave.
“My men are all experts. Although I must confess that Pedro, my gunner — he was trained in the Italian army and is an artist in his line—miscalculated slightly and hit the tower a trifle too low. Really, it was inexcusable, for he had the range down to inches.”
He arose and stretched himself. “I must leave you now, Captain. I trust there is no necessity for reminding you again of your parole?”
“May I ask one more question?”
“Certainly.”
“You spoke of holding me for ransom. Suppose we—that is, my friends and myself—decide to pay immediately? Will I then be released or held here?”
“You will be kept here, until our plans are matured whether you pay now or later.”
“And in case we refuse?”
There was no hesitation on the part of the man as he replied in a voice of icy coldness:
“Let us not talk of unpleasant things. You will be killed—murdered in cold blood—as a warning that it is not wise to fight ‘The Man in the Black Mask!’ ”
He turned upon his heel and disappeared around a corner of the wall.
Chapter VIII
As “The Man in the Black Mask” left me, I sat down and took an inventory of the affair as it stood up to date. As a first-class detective I had proven myself a success—with a vengeance. Speaking from the standpoint of a military strategist I had attained my objective. But the devil of it was that I couldn’t let loose of it, now that I had it.
I had succeeded in running the mysterious blackmailer to his lair and he had proved to be a boomerang, for the probabilities were extremely strong that I would remain there for considerable time after he had departed. For there was little likelihood that the board of directors would put up any large ransom to get me out of the hole into which I had succeeded in burying myself. I might succeed in raising the amount myself were I at liberty, but in my present circumstances things looked hopeless.
Was I wrong in having given my parole, and thus preventing myself from attempting to escape? Of course, I could always retract it, but there was a cold manner about the masked leader which led me to believe that he would not hesitate a second in carrying out his threat to chain me to the wall the minute I did so. And, chained to the wall, I would be worse off than I now was. On the other hand, I might break my word, of course — but even detectives respect their honor, and I have always found that, in the long run, it pays to be square, even with criminals.
I was aroused from my reverie by the re-entrance of the object of my thoughts. He held aside the curtain which covered the entrance to the rear of the cave through which he had gone shortly before, and gazed at me for a second, his eyes burning brightly through the holes in his mask.
“Did I, or did I not, warn you not to come past this spot?” he asked.
I shook my head in the negative.
“Then let me do so now. This blanket marks the entrance to the exit of the cave proper. It is what was formerly one of the tunnels leading off from the quarry. Scattered here and there, along its length are deep—almost bottomless—water-filled pits into which you might stumble in the darkness. A fall into one of them would mean your death. Aside from that, I do not wish to have you prying about. There are things I do not care to have you see. You understand?”
I was about to make reply, but evidently taking my silence as consent, with another curt nod, he turned on his heel and again disappeared down the passageway.