We're not burglars and you know it! Why did you try to kill us in the Brentwood
Hotel?"
"I - I don't know what you're talking about!"
"No? You thought you were smart, didn't you? Had a bell hop dope our drinks. Let yourself in with a duplicate key when we were so dazed we couldn't hold you off. Tied us up with ropes and lit your damned sulphur candle. Left us
to croak from the fumes before anybody in the hotel got wise and broke down the
door. No - you don't know anything!"
Sweat appeared in drops on the pale forehead of the lawyer.
"Gentlemen, you're mistaken! I made no attempt to kill you. Are you actually claiming that you saw me in your hotel room?"
"You bet! You had a fake brown beard on. You were wise enough not to do any talking. But we know it was you. It couldn't have been any one else. Dixon put you up to it. As his lawyer, you had to keep the whole thing quiet; you didn't dare to go to the cops and spill the old man's secret.
"So you paste on that damned brown beard - the same disguise you had on when you almost killed us the night before outside Dixon's library window -
and
you figure you'll make a clean, quiet murder of it at the hotel!"
Timothy tried to make his laughter sound amused, but it was strident. A thin bleat of fear.
"I couldn't have been the man in the brown beard," he pointed out, tremulously. "Look at my bandaged foot. Gentlemen, it would be agony for me to try to walk, let alone attack you in a hotel room and murder you. I've got arthritis. My foot is so swollen that I can hardly place it on the floor without excruciating pain."
JOE SNAPER'S reply was immediate. He kicked viciously at the bandaged ankle. Timothy screamed, fell from the chair. He lay there, writhing, his face twisted with pain.
"It's an act," Snaper scowled. "Rip off that bandage, Bert. Take a look at
it."
Hooley nodded. While Snaper watched the doorway to make sure that no one had heard Timothy's cry of pain, his partner unwound the bandage with brutal haste.
The flesh was exposed. Hooley cursed as he looked at it. Snaper muttered a
disappointed snarl. There was no farce about the lawyer's alibi. The skin was stretched tight over the pink, swollen flesh of Timothy's foot and ankle. It was obvious, even to the suspicious crooks, that he had spoken the truth.
Hooley said, harshly, "Okay, wise guy. You win! Lucky for you, too!"
His bald head jutted threateningly at the moaning victim.
"If you want to go on living, pal, keep your mouth shut about all this.
We
made a mistake, so let it go at that. The guy we want is Arnold Dixon himself.
He musta hired the lad in the brown beard."
"You're mad!" Timothy gasped. "Arnold Dixon would never deliberately connive at murder. You're making a horrible mistake!"
The two crooks backed cautiously from the sunlit room. They moved like ghosts, without sound. Timothy lay on the rug where he had fallen, afraid to move or to cry out.
After a long time, he managed to get back into the chair. The fear on his face ebbed away. Color came back into his cheeks. His jaw hardened.
With a quick gesture, he reached for the near-by telephone. He called the number of his personal physician, said he needed immediate treatment for his leg, that he must get on his feet again as soon as possible.
Tenderly, he moved the aching foot. He gritted his teeth and bit off the groan the motion caused him.
"Very well," he said grimly to himself. "We'll see, Snaper and Hooley, whether you're going to get away with this or not. My guess is that you're not!"
CHAPTER VII
CHEMICAL FIREFLIES
ARNOLD DIXON was standing alone in the front hallway of his mansion, fully
dressed in overcoat and hat. He was reading a note, and the expression on his face was ghastly. The note was in red ink; printed in sprawling capitals, it was unsigned.
It was a peremptory demand that the millionaire come alone to a certain road in Pelham that led to a rocky and deserted part of Long Island Sound. His orders were to drive until he came to a deserted house with blue shutters. The house would be further identified by a white handkerchief tied to the doorknob.
That was all the note said. Arnold Dixon shivered. He guessed who had sent
it and he was afraid.
A step in the dim hallway caused Dixon to turn his back hastily and shove the paper into his overcoat pocket. The figure was Charles, the butler. He was just in time to see the note vanish. He stared at the overcoat and hat.
"Are you going out, sir? It's rather late."
"Yes, I know. Bring the small car around to the front."
"Are you sure Mr. Bruce would like that, sir? He told me to be sure not to
allow you to go out alone after nightfall. Believe me, sir, I don't wish to be impertinent, but -"
"You are impertinent," Dixon replied, shortly. "Where is Bruce? In town?"
"Yes, sir. He's at the apartment of Miss Edith Allen. I believe he has an appointment to take her to the theater to-night."
"Well, keep this to yourself. I don't want Bruce bothered. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Charles replied, quietly. He watched Dixon draw a handkerchief
from his overcoat pocket and dab nervously at his perspiring forehead. A scrap of paper fell to the floor under the console table, but in his excitement the old man didn't notice his loss.
"Your coat, sir?" Charles said, eagerly. "It's all awry. Let me help you adjust it."
He stepped behind his employer, pretended to be busily engaged in helping him with his collar and muffler. But his body bent as he tugged at the bottom hem of the coat. His deft fingers closed over the note that lay on the floor.
Charles's smile was tight with cunning triumph, as he said, "I'll get the small car at once."
FIVE minutes later, Arnold Dixon was driving down the winding gravel road and out the gate of his estate. He drove with unaccustomed speed. His worry seemed to communicate itself to the machine. In twenty minutes, he had reached the turn indicated in the directions in the note. He took the shore road and presently the black darkness of Long Island Sound came into view.
Arnold shuddered. Something about the cold inky water filled him with forebodings of death.
The road ran along the edge of rocky shore for a quarter mile or so, then curved inward through a desolate region of stunted pine and spruce. Suddenly, Dixon saw the house. It was impossible to miss it. Blue shutters, a handkerchief tied to the knob of the front door. The place looked old and tenantless.
Arnold Dixon turned the knob, discovered that the door was unlocked. He opened it and peered in. A kerosene lamp was standing on the bare floor of the entry. It cast a weird yellow light that threw Arnold's shadow on the dirty plaster of the wall like a gaunt bird.
"Okay, pal," a voice said dryly from an inner room. "Shut that door and get in here!"
The voice was Bert Hooley's. Slowly, Dixon obeyed.
He found himself in an empty, musty room, lighted with a kerosene lamp also. Joe Snaper was there, too. He moved behind Dixon, blocking his escape.
Hooley advanced grimly toward the frightened caller.
"What - what do these threats mean?" Dixon faltered. "I've tried to play fair with you. I've paid you a thousand dollars twice a month and I'm willing to continue to pay. Yet you've threatened me with death. Why?"
"Because you're a dirty double-crosser!" Snaper snarled, jamming the muzzle of his gun into Dixon's flinching stomach.
"Lemme handle this," Hooley said.
His hands tightened themselves on Dixon's throat. He squeezed remorselessly until the millionaire's tongue jutted from his wide-open mouth.
Then he threw the millionaire staggering away with a contemptuous shove.
"Make the rat talk!" Snaper suggested.