“It is a long way down there. It would seem long if one should fall. Moments would seem like hours. To a falling man, all the past events of his life flash through his mind.”
The doctor’s hand gripped Burke’s elbow, and the newspaperman stepped back from the rail in alarm.
Palermo smiled broadly, and Burke saw that smile in the light from the Oriental room.
He noticed the ugly expression that came to the corners of the physician’s mouth. Burke shuddered instinctively.
“Come!”
THEY went back into the penthouse. Hassan arrived with two small glasses, containing a browning liqueur, that shone with specks of glistening gold. Burke took one glass, the doctor the other.
When Palermo raised the glass to his lips. Burke did likewise. The drink was new to him. It had a potency that he had never before experienced.
“Regarding Chatham,” said Doctor Palermo suddenly. “I regret very much that I did not have time to study his case. Had I done so, I would have possibly prevented a murder. I expected him to return at a later date.”
“Did you notice anything peculiar about his actions?” ventured Burke.
“In what way?”
“Did he — did he seem like himself? Or did he, perhaps, seem to have assumed a different personality?”
Doctor Palermo’s eyes narrowed, and Burke could almost feel their scrutiny. He regretted his question.
Perhaps it had been too leading.
“You mean,” asked Palermo, “you mean — was I sure that he was Horace Chatham?”
“No, no,” came Burke’s hasty reply. “Of course it was Horace Chatham. His actions have been thoroughly traced by many witnesses who saw him. I just thought he might have seemed well, different, that evening.”
“He was nervous,” said Doctor Palermo thoughtfully. “Outside of that, he was his usual self.”
Burke was feeling the effects of his drink. He seemed to have a new boldness that led him to press the issue. His cautiousness was in conflict with his usual good judgment.
“Did Chatham”—Burke’s voice was slightly agitated—”did Chatham mention anything about a — a—purple sapphire?”
“A purple sapphire?” The doctor’s voice registered slight surprise. “Why, no! I thought all sapphires were purple.”
“They’re a deep blue,” said Burke. He swayed slightly in his chair. “This one was — a deeper blue. It was — purple. It belonged to a man named Harriman— Lloyd Harriman — friend of Chatham’s.
“Harriman died in Florida — suicide. The purple sapphire was bad luck. Perhaps — perhaps Chatham got that sapphire. Bad luck, you know. I wondered—”
The evil grin spread slowly over Doctor Palermo’s face. Clyde Burke saw it, as one might see a phantom in a dream. He seemed to be living through a nightmare, now. He tried to speak again, but words refused to reach his lips.
“The purple sapphire.” Doctor Palermo’s words seemed to come slowly, as from a distance. “Was it valuable?”
“Very — very — valuable,” murmured Burke thickly.
“I must consider this—” said Doctor Palermo. “You must come again, and tell me more. But tonight — you do not seem well. Hassan!”
THE Arab entered softly. Doctor Palermo pointed to Burke, now sagging limply in his chair. Hassan left the room and returned with a glass of water. Doctor Palermo then left the room.
Burke did not see him go. He was drinking the water with Hassan’s aid. When the physician returned, Burke was sitting upright in his chair, looking like a man who had recovered from a daze.
“Ah! You feel better?” The physician’s voice expressed concern. Burke nodded, and grinned.
“That drink was a bit stiff,” he said sheepishly. “What were we saying?”
Doctor Palermo smiled mildly. This time there was no malice in his expression. He impressed Burke with his kindliness.
“It is too late to talk now,” he said. “You seem tired. Call the apartment tomorrow, and I shall arrange another appointment for you. I have just been telephoning. I have called a cab to take you home. I thought you were unwell.”
“Never mind the cab,” protested Burke. “I take the subway home — up to Ninety-sixth Street.”
Doctor Palermo shook his head.
“The cab is paid for,” he said. “It would be best for you to ride in it. Besides”—he pointed to Hassan, who was closing the doors to the roof—”it is raining now. I have made all the arrangements. Come!”
Burke followed the physician down the spiral staircase. He felt steady now. The door at the bottom was open; a minute later they were standing by the elevator.
“The hallman will show you to the cab,” said Doctor Palermo, as the elevator arrived.
“Thanks,” replied Burke.
The elevator door closed, and the newspaperman began his downward trip.
Doctor Palermo turned, went back into his apartment, and up the spiral staircase to his Oriental room.
There he rested in his thronelike chair, for all the world like an Eastern potentate.
“There are big fish,” observed Doctor Palermo softly, “and there are little fish. Big nets for the big. Little nets for the little. This one was little. Perhaps there is a big fish, also.”
Hassan appeared with another glass of the gold-flaked liqueur. Doctor Palermo drained the fluid in one swallow.
Then, with the glass still in his hand, he looked straight across the room, and his lips spread to form a demoniacal smile — a smile that betokened evil satisfaction.
CHAPTER VI. THE SHADOW STRIKES!
THE cab was speeding up Broadway. The bright lights of the White Way were reflected in the puddles that were forming on the street, for the downpour had increased shortly after Clyde Burke had left the Marimba Apartments.
Now, in the back of the cab, Burke felt strangely weak. It must have been the trip down on the elevator, he thought; for he had been quite alert when he had entered the cab, and had given his address to the driver.
Now he experienced a tired sensation in the back of his head. The driver had closed the windows of the cab, including the partition between the front and the back. Perhaps that accounted for this weakness.
He reached to one window and tried to open it, but the knob would not turn. He tried the other window, with no result. He reached forward to tap on the partition; then dizziness seized him, and he sank back in the seat.
He heard the motor coughing. The driver must have choked it too much, Burke decided. Then he began to think of his interview with Doctor Palermo, and his mind became a curious medley of jumbled thoughts.
The cab pulled up at a traffic light. A coupe ran alongside of it, almost jamming the fender. Burke could see the taxi driver glare at the coupe; then the light changed.
The cab swung suddenly to the right. Burke heard the screaming of brakes, and managed to look back in time to see the coupe make a sudden swerve in the center of the street. It seemed to avoid two other cars almost miraculously; then it followed in the wake of the cab.
After that, Burke became indifferent to what went on. The cab darted into a side street and sped at reckless speed. Behind it loomed the lights of the coupe.
The cab passed a light as it turned from green to red. Thirty feet behind it came the coupe, ignoring the red light. The shrill sound of a policeman’s whistle reached Burke’s ears, but he did not open his eyes.
Had he done so, he would have seen the cab driver lean out and stare down the street in back of him.
The coupe was coming on. The police whistle had failed to stop it.
Now the driver of the cab was using every trick he knew to dodge away from the car that sought to overtake him. He knew that the man in the coupe was pursuing the passenger within the cab, and he was determined to prevent the capture.
IT was a thrilling race through the city streets, zigzagging along the brightly lighted thoroughfares toward the more secluded roads of Central Park. In his efforts to get there, the cab driver virtually doubled on his tracks.
Through it all, Burke was drowsing in the back seat, totally indifferent to his surroundings — utterly oblivious of his fate. If great danger threatened him, he did not know and did not care.
At last the taxi driver gained his opportunity. He shot recklessly between an automobile and a trolley car.
The coupe, close in the rear, was stopped short by the trolley. Before the slow moving barrier was gone, the taxi had turned down a side street.
Two minutes later, it reached Central Park.
The driver was more careful now. He looked through the glass partition and grinned as he saw his passenger resting in the corner of the seat, apparently asleep.
There was no sign of the coupe. It had been lost in traffic.
The cab whirled along a less traveled road. The driver laughed softly to himself.
But as he made a sharp turn that led into another road, a sudden exclamation came from his lips.
Swinging along in the same direction was a car that looked very much like the coupe he had just eluded!
The chase began again, and now it was a chase on the straightaway, with the cab at a hopeless disadvantage.
No cars were coming in the opposite direction. The coupe gained rapidly. It shot up alongside of the taxi, and the driver of the coupe relentlessly bore to the right.
He was driving the cab to the curb. The chase seemed ended.
Then came a cry of triumph from the man at the wheel of the cab. Just as his front wheels were mounting the curb, he saw a road to the right. With a quick turn of the wheel, he took the curve, nearly overturning the cab in the effort.
He could not have succeeded had the turn been sharp; but the angle was oblique, and he made it with an effort. The coupe stopped too late to make the turn.
The driver of the cab thrust his head from the side, and laughed in new triumph as he saw the coupe halt.
Then came a sudden end to his momentary victory.
Three shots sounded from the coupe. The hands of the cab driver became nerveless. His foot sought the brake pedal, but it slipped, helpless, before any pressure was exerted.
The taxi left the road and crashed among the trees, the driver hanging from the side of the front seat.
One side of the cab was tipped. Burke, completely oblivious, slipped to that side. The motor’s rhythm ceased.
The coupe turned and came up alongside the wrecked taxicab. The driver of the pursuing car leaped to the road, and yanked at the door of the cab. It yielded to his efforts.
He seized the inert form of Clyde Burke and dragged it from the cab. Lifting the man with ease, he placed him beside the driver’s seat in the coupe.
Burke gasped, and his eyelids flickered. The man who had carried him smiled grimly. He first made sure that Burke was resting easily, with his head beside the open window. Then he went back to the taxicab, where he lifted the face of the driver, and stared at the man’s features. He seemed to recognize the face.
“Dead,” he said softly. “One less gunman in New York.”
The speaker went to the back of the cab, and turned on the interior light. He noticed something beneath the back seat. Reaching in, his hand encountered an opening.
“From the exhaust,” he murmured. “Carbon monoxide. A few minutes more—”
The chugging of a motor cycle reached his ears. Then came the raucous sound of a police horn.
The man walked away from the taxi, and crossed the road in front of the coupe. As he came into the glare of the lights, his figure was revealed — a tall form, garbed in a black cloak and broad-brimmed black hat.
The man seemed like a monstrous creature of the night, a phantom shape that had emerged from nothingness.
The motor cycle was coming closer. The sounds of the cylinders indicated that it was turning into the side road.
The coupe moved away without a sound. The driver was back at the wheel, coasting the car down the slight hill that lay ahead.