The Black Box Part 28

"Well," he said, "if I can keep out of my friend French's way for a few hours longer, I think I can promise you that I shall be a free man when I return from Bethel. I'm off now, Professor. Wish me good luck!"

"My friend," the Professor replied, "I wish you the best of luck, but more than anything else in the world," he added, a little peevishly, "I hope you may bring me back my servant Craig, and leave us both in peace."

Quest stepped off the cars at Bethel a little before noon that morning.

The Sheriff met him at the depot and greeted him cordially but with obvious surprise.

"Say, Mr. Quest," he exclaimed, as they turned away, "I know these men are wanted on your charge, but I thought--you'll excuse my saying so--that you were in some trouble yourself."

Quest nodded.

"I'm out of that--came out yesterday."

"Very glad to hear it," the Sheriff a.s.sured him heartily. "I never thought that they'd be able to hold you."

"They hadn't a chance," Quest admitted. "Things turned out a little awkwardly at first, but this affair is going to put me on my feet again.

The moment my car is identified and Red Gallagher and his mate arrested, every sc.r.a.p of evidence against me goes."

"Well, here's the garage and the man who bought the car," the Sheriff remarked, "and there's the car itself in the road. It's for you to say whether it can be identified."

Quest drew a sigh of relief.

"That's mine, right enough," he declared. "Now for the men."

"Say, I want to tell you something," the Sheriff began dubiously. "These two are real thugs. They ain't going to take it lying down."

"Where are they?" Quest demanded.

"In the worst saloon here," the Sheriff replied. "They've been there pretty well all night, drinking, and they're there again this morning, hard at it. They've both got firearms, and though I ain't exactly a nervous man, Mr. Quest--"

"You leave it to me," Quest interrupted. "This is my job and I want to take the men myself."

"You'll never do it," the Sheriff declared.

"Look here," Quest explained, "if I let you and your men go in, there will be a free fight, and as likely as not you will kill one, if not both of the men. I want them alive."

"Well, it's your show," the Sheriff admitted, stopping before a disreputable-looking building. "This is the saloon. They've turned the place upside down since they've been here. You can hear the row they're making now. Free drinks to all the toughs in the town! They're pouring the stuff down all the time."

"Well," Quest decided, "I'm going in and I'm going in unarmed. You can bring your men in later, if I call for help or if you hear any shooting."

"You're asking for trouble," the Sheriff warned him.

"I've got to do this my own way," Quest insisted. "Stand by now."

He pushed open the door of the saloon. There were a dozen men drinking around the bar and in the centre of them Red Gallagher and his mate. They seemed to be all shouting together, and the air was thick with tobacco smoke. Quest walked right up to the two men.

"Gallagher," he said, "you're my prisoner. Are you coming quietly?"

Gallagher's mate, who was half drunk, swung round and fired a wild shot in Quest's direction. The result was a general stampede. Red Gallagher alone remained motionless. Grim and dangerously silent, he held a pistol within a few inches of Quest's forehead.

"If my number's up," he exclaimed ferociously, "it won't be you who'll take me."

"I think it will," Quest answered. "Put that gun away."

Gallagher hesitated. Quest's influence over him was indomitable.

"Put it away," Quest repeated firmly. "You know you daren't use it. Your account's pretty full up, as it is."

Gallagher's hand wavered. From outside came the shouts of the Sheriff and his men, struggling to fight their way in through the little crowd who were rus.h.i.+ng for safety. Suddenly Quest backed, jerked the pistol up with his right elbow, and with almost the same movement struck Red Gallagher under the jaw. The man went over with a crash. His mate, who had been staggering about, cursing viciously, fired another wild shot at Quest, who swayed and fell forward.

"I've done him!" the man shouted. "Get up, Red! I've done him all right!

Finish yer drink. We'll get out of this!"

He bent unsteadily over Quest. Suddenly the latter sprang up, seized him by the leg and sent him sprawling. The gun fell from his hand. Quest picked it up and held it firmly out, covering both men. Gallagher was on his knees, groping for his own weapon.

"Get the handcuffs on them," Quest directed the Sheriff, who with his men had at last succeeded in forcing his way into the saloon.

The Sheriff wasted no words till the two thugs, now nerveless and cowed, were handcuffed. Then he turned to Quest. There was a note of genuine admiration in his tone.

"Mr. Quest," he declared, "you've got the biggest nerve of any man I have ever known."

The criminologist smiled.

"This sort of bully is always a coward when it comes to the pinch," he remarked.

Crouching in her chair, her pale, terror-stricken face supported between her hands, Lenora, her eyes filled with hopeless misery, gazed at the dumb instrument upon the table. Her last gleam of hope seemed to be pa.s.sing.

Her little friend was silent. Once more her weary fingers spelt out a final, despairing message.

"What has happened to you? I am waiting to hear all the time. Has Craig told you where I am? I am afraid!"

There was still no reply. Her head sank a little lower on to her folded arms. Even the luxury of tears seemed denied her. Fear, the fear which dwelt with her day and night, had her in its grip. Suddenly she leaped, screaming, from her place. Splinters of gla.s.s fell all around her. Her first wild thought was of release; she gazed upwards at the broken pane.

Then very faintly from the street below she heard the shout of a boy's angry voice.

"You've done it now, Jimmy! You're a fine pitcher, ain't you? Lost it, that's what you've gone and done!"

The thoughts formed themselves mechanically in her mind. Her eyes sought the ball which had come cras.h.i.+ng into the room. There was life once more in her pulses. She found a sc.r.a.p of paper and a pencil in her pocket. With trembling fingers she wrote a few words:

"Police head-quarters. I am Sanford Quest's a.s.sistant, abducted and imprisoned here in the room where the ball has fallen. Help!

I am going mad!"

She twisted the paper, looked around the room vainly for string, and finally tore a thin piece of ribbon from her dress. She tied the message around the ball, set her teeth, and threw it at the empty skylight. The first time she was not successful and the ball came back. The second time it pa.s.sed through the centre of the opening. She heard it strike the sound portion of the gla.s.s outside, heard it rumble down the roof. A few seconds of breathless silence! Her heart almost stopped beating. Had it rested in some ledge, or fallen into the street below? Then she heard the boy's voice.

"Gee! Here's the ball come back again!"

A new light shone into the room. She seemed to be breathing a different atmosphere--the atmosphere of hope. She listened no longer with horror for a creaking upon the stairs. She walked back and forth until she was exhausted.... Curiously enough, when the end came she was asleep, crouched upon the bed and dreaming wildly. She sprang up to find Inspector French, with a policeman behind him, standing upon the threshold.

"Inspector!" she cried, rus.h.i.+ng towards him. "Mr. French! Oh, thank G.o.d!"