Kapaloff appeared to turn the offers over in his mind. Then he objected: “Neither alternative is inviting. The first would subject my niece to an embarrassing interview, and so soon after her trouble. The second — you should appreciate my distaste for the publicity that would follow the police’s entry into the affair.”
“I’m sorry, but—” Phil began, but Kapaloff cut him short by rising to his feet, smiling genially, with out-stretched hand.
“Not at all, Mr. Truax. You arc a man of judgment. In your position I should probably act in like manner. Can you accompany to call upon my niece now?”
Phil stood up and grasped the dainty hand extended to him, and though the Russian’s grip was light enough Phil could feel the swell of powerful muscles under the soft skin.
“I’m sorry,” Phil lied, “but I have an engagement within half an hour. Perhaps you and your niece will be in the neighborhood within a few days and will find it convenient to call for it?” He did not intend dealing with this man on alien ground.
“That will do nicely. Shall we say, at three tomorrow?”
Phil repeated, “At three tomorrow,” and Kapaloff bowed himself out.
Alone, Phil sat down and tried to torture his brain into giving him the solution of this puzzle; but he made little headway. Except in two minor instances the Russian’s story had been impregnable. And those two details — the fact that he did not want the police dragged into the affair, and that he had worded the advertisement so as to retain his anonymity behind the screen of the newspaper — were not, upon close examination, very conclusive. On the other hand, insanity was notorious as a mask for villainy. How many crimes had been committed by use of the pretext that the victim, or the witnesses, were insane! Kapaloff’s manner had been candid enough; and his poise had survived every twist of the situation, but... It was upon this last that Phil hung his doubts. “If that bird had contradicted me just once I’d believe him, maybe; but he was too damned agreeable!”
Chapter IV
Unwelcomed Visitors
Phil returned home early that night. The cards had failed to hold him, now that his mind was occupied with what threatened to be a larger, more intricate game. He puzzled over the letter in Russian, but its characters meant nothing to his eyes. He tried to think of someone who could translate it tor him; but the only Russian he knew was not a man to be trusted under any circumstances. He tried to read a magazine, but soon gave it up and crawled into bed, to toss about, smoke numerous cigarettes, and finally drop off to sleep.
The least expert of burglars would have laughed at the difficulty and resultant noise with which the two men opened the door of Phil’s flat; but not the most desperate of criminals would have found anything laughable in their obvious determination. They were bent upon getting into the flat, and the racket incidental to their bungling attacks on the lock disconcerted them not at all. It was evident they would force an entrance even if it were necessary to batter the door down. Finally the lock succumbed, but by that time Phil was flattened behind his bath-room door, with a pistol in his hand and a confident grin on his face. The crudeness of the work on the lock precluded whatever doubts of his ability to take care of himself be might ordinarily have had.
The outer door swung open but no light came through. The hall light had been extinguished. The hinges creaked a little, but Phil, peering through the slit between the bathroom door and the jamb, could see nothing. A whisper and an answer told him that there were at least two burglars. However noisy the men had been with the door, they were silent enough now. A slight rustling and then silence. Not knowing where the men were, Phil did not move. A faint click sounded in the bedroom, and a weak, brief reflection from a flash-light showed an empty passage-way. Phil moved soundlessly toward the bedroom. As he reached the door the flash-light went on again and stayed on, its beam fixed upon the empty bed. Phil snapped on the lights.
The two men standing beside the bed, one on either side, wheeled in unison and took a step forward, to halt before the menace of the weapon in Phil’s hand. The men were very similar in appearance; the same bullet beads, the same green eyes under tangled brows, the same sullen mouths and high, broad cheek-bones. But the one who held a blackjack in a still uplifted hand was heavier and broader than the other, and the bridge of his nose was dented by a dark scar that ran from cheek to cheek, just under his eyes. For perhaps two seconds the men stood thus. Then the larger man shrugged his enormous shoulders and grunted a syllable to his companion. The momentary confusion left their faces, to be replaced by mated looks of resolve as they advanced toward Phil.
His brain was racing. Kapaloff’s “secretary and valet,” of course; and as their indifference to the noises they had made at the door testified to their determination to do what they had come to do at any cost, so now did their indifference to the pistol in Phil’s hand. Close upon him as they were, he could hardly expect to drop both of them; but even if he did — the whole story would be bound to come out in the police investigation that must follow, and his chance of getting greater profit out of the affair would be blasted.
As the two men, working together like twin parts of a machine, contracted their muscles to spring, Phil hit on a way out. He leaped backward through the bedroom door, whirled, and jumped into the hall, shouting: “Help! Police!”
There was a snarling at the door, a scuffling, and the noise of two men running through the dark hall toward the front door. The laughter that welled up in Phil’s throat silenced his shouts; he fired his pistol into the floor and returned to his bedroom. He laid a chair gently on its side and swept some books and papers from the table to the floor. Then he turned with a wide-eyed semblance of excitement to welcome the callers in various degrees of negligee who came in answer to his bellowing. After a while a policeman came and Phil told his story.
“A noise woke me up and I saw a man in the room. I grabbed my gun and yelled at him, but I forgot to take the safety catch off the gun.” With sham sheepishness: “I guess I was kind of scared. He ran out in the hall with me after him. I remembered the safety, then, and took a shot at him, but it was too dark to see whether I hit him. I looked through my stuff and don’t think he got anything, so I guess no harm’s done.”
After the last question had been answered and the last caller had gone, Phil bolted the door and shook hands with himself. “Well, that fixes Mr. Kapaloff’s story. And you’ve got him faded to date, my boy, so don’t let me catch you letting him run a bluff on you again.”
Chapter V
Forcing His Luck
At five minutes past three Thursday afternoon the Kapaloffs arrived. Romaine Kapaloff acknowledged her uncle’s introduction in easy and faultless English, and thanked Phil warmly for his efforts in her behalf Tuesday morning. Phil found himself holding her hand and straining his self-possession to the utmost to keep from gaping and stammering. The girl — she couldn’t have been more than nineteen — was looking up through brown eyes that glowed now with friendliness and gratitude into Phil’s grey ones, and asking: “And you really weren’t hurt?”
To Phil she seemed the loveliest creature he had ever seen. His attempts at extortion seemed mean and sordid. Because he was bitterly ashamed of his attempt to wring profits from her uncle, and was badly rattled, he answered almost gruffly; and in his effort to keep the chaos within him from his face he made it a mask of stupidity.
“Not at all. Really! It was nothing.”