Doors of the Night Part 15

"What'll you have, Red?" inquired Billy Kane pleasantly.

Red Vallon waved the man away.

"Nix!" he said in a lowered voice. "I got to beat it-I got to meet Birdie Rose. There's something doing."

Billy Kane, even as he watched that trim figure make its way to a table near the wall on a line with his own, leaned abruptly, eagerly forward, toward Red Vallon. He felt his pulse throb and quicken. Luck seemed to be breaking wide open at last. If, coupled with his own clue, Red Vallon and Birdie Rose had unearthed another, this infernal masquerade that threatened his life at every turn was as good as ended.

"What is it?" he demanded sharply. "Have you spotted the stones?"

Red Vallon shook his head.

"Not them stones," he said a little uneasily. "Some others. I got orders."

Billy Kane's face hardened.

"Orders!" he echoed shortly. "Didn't I tell you last night that everything else was piker stuff? A half million in rubies, that's what we're after-to the limit! Understand? To the limit! Orders! Who gave you any orders except to stick to the game?"

"You know," said Red Vallon, and pushed a sheet of paper across the table. "Tear it up when you're through. It's no good to me any more. I just wanted to show it to you, so's you'd know I wasn't side-stepping on my own."

Billy Kane did not tear it up. His face, still set hard, showed no other signs of emotion, as his eyes studied the paper, but inwardly there came a sort of numbed dismay. It was a code message. It meant nothing to him in one sense, in another it meant a very great deal. He was _supposed_ to know what this jumble of letters signified. Red Vallon expected him to know. To arouse Red Vallon's suspicion for an instant was simply and literally equivalent to bringing down the underworld upon him-and the underworld would be as gentle and merciful as a pack of starving wolves!

The jumble of letters seemed to possess a diabolical leer all their own, as he stared at them.

zidu6vesfuu6fwefwjf8dfsuofnIIohjtopdteop8nbje3ofueobt8v piutsb7mmpez5bepun4psgnb9esfutnbf4wbiopjubIInspgoj3fiuf m4p2ntjho6jzbImbuo5bm2qpuu3fhnf4iuuih7jopuoff7xufcu5ih j3feobf4ojold6pmd3peobu6sfwjeopjd9jqtv2tpuf4np3tfopf4tm 3fov3sf4iufmp2npui5usb3fe4obflb3nn5jiih2vpdqv.

Was it a code that, with the key in one's possession, one could read at a glance? He did not know. Was it a code that required elaborate and painstaking effort to decipher? He did not know. Did Red Vallon, sitting there across the table watching him, expect him to give instant indication that the code message was plain and intelligible to him? He did not know. There was only one course to take-the middle course. He laid the paper on the table, and laid his clenched fist over the paper, as he leaned farther over, truculently, toward Red Vallon.

"I tell you again that everything else is piker stuff," he said angrily.

"Do you get me? What have you done, you and Birdie, and the rest? Have you got anywhere to-day? Do you know where that secretary guy, Billy Kane, is? Do you know where those rubies are?"

"No," said Red Vallon hurriedly, "we haven't turned anything up yet, but--"

"But you're going to-by nosing around after something else!" snapped Billy Kane. "Do you think I'm going to see the biggest thing that was ever pulled slip through my fingers? If you do, you've got another think coming! Things have changed since I've been away-eh? How long since there's been any monkeying with what I dope out?"

"Don't get sore, Bundy," said Red Vallon appeasingly. "It's nothing like that. You know how it was. Karlin's arrest last night queered everything. That cursed snitch with the mask on put everything on the rough. There wasn't any meeting. You know who sent that code there; well, _he_ didn't know about the other job, or that he was b.u.t.ting in on you. Tumble? There ain't nothing to be sore about, Bundy. Say, me and Birdie ain't going to be more'n an hour or two doing this trick, anyhow.

Someone of the Mole's gang must have leaked; or maybe one of our boys piped him off. I dunno. But we got him cold this trip. He's a slick one all right, and he's been getting away with the goods quite a lot lately, and giving us the laugh. You know all about that. Well, this is where he doesn't laugh-see? He's pulling a nice one to-night. Got it all fixed up to make it look like somebody else did it. Sure! Well, we're not kicking at that-so long as _we_ get the loot. Sure! We'll let him pull it, all right, all right, believe me!"

Billy Kane appeared to be unmoved. He studied the gangster coldly.

"And how does it happen that you and Birdie, out of all the rest, are picked for this?"

Red Vallon indulged in an ugly grin.

"'Cause we know the Mole down to the ground," he said; "but princ.i.p.ally because the Mole knows _us_! There won't be any fooling when we spring a show-down, he's wise to that, and he'll come across. And, besides, 'tain't only Birdie and me, I'm taking some of my own gang along as well."

Billy Kane scowled. It probably mattered very little indeed that Red Vallon's efforts were to be sidetracked for the next few hours, and should he, Billy Kane, during that time, be successful, it mattered not at all; but his play for the moment was to preserve his role in Red Vallon's eyes, to keep away from anything intimate concerning the purport of this cipher message that still lay beneath his clenched hand, and that might so easily betray his ignorance, and above all now to get rid of Red Vallon before any such awkward and dangerous _impa.s.se_ could arise. He shrugged his shoulders, but his voice was still sullen as he spoke.

"Well, go to it!" he growled. "Go and pick up your chicken feed! But you get this into your nut, Red, and let it soak there. After this"-he leaned far over the table, his face thrust almost into Red Vallon's-"you stay with the game every minute, or quit! It's the limit, or quit!

There's just one thing that counts-those rubies, or the man who pinched them. If we get the man, he'll cough-red-the stones, or blood. Do you think I'm going to let anything queer me on my share of half a million?

You don't seem to get what I mean when I say the limit. Look out I don't give you an object lesson!"

Red Vallon licked his lips, and drew back a little. There was something in Red Vallon's eyes that was not often there-fear.

"It's all right, Bundy," he said with nervous eagerness. "I'm with you.

Sure, I am! This thing must have broke loose quick, and there wasn't no idea of crabbing anything you'd started. I got ten of the best of 'em combing out the 'fences' for you right now."

"All right," responded Billy Kane gruffly. "Make a report to me on that before morning."

"Where'll you be?" Red Vallon was apparently relieved, for his voice had recovered its buoyancy.

"At my place-some time," said Billy Kane curtly. "You can wait for me there." He smiled suddenly with grim facetiousness. "My shoulder's a lot better-enough so that maybe I can sit in for a hand myself to-night."

"I hope you do," said Red Vallon fervently. "You always had the knock-out punch, Bundy, and it'll seem like old times." He half rose from his chair; then, looking furtively about him, bent forward over the table. "There's something else, Bundy, before I go-that snitch last night at Jerry's, the man in the mask. He's played h.e.l.l with the crowd.

There's no telling what'll tumble down behind Karlin. And it don't look like he's just stumbled on that deal by _accident_. It don't look good, Bundy. We got to get him, and get him quick, before he pulls anything more. The word's out to b.u.mp him off."

Billy Kane nodded.

"Well, don't lose your nerve over it, Red," he said coolly. "If it was by accident, he won't do us any more damage, and we've only got to settle with him for what he's done, providing we can ever find him; if it wasn't accident he'll show his hand again-won't he?"

"Yes," said Red Vallon.

Billy Kane's smile was unpleasant.

"Well, you'll know what to do with him then, won't you?" he inquired softly.

The gangster's red-rimmed eyes narrowed to slits.

"Yes, I'll know!" said Red Vallon coa.r.s.ely. He made an ugly motion toward his throat. "Well, so long, Bundy!"

Billy Kane nodded again by way of answer. He watched Red Vallon thread his way back among the tables, and pa.s.s out through the front door. With the gangster out of the way, he picked up the sheet of paper upon which the code message was written, studied it for a moment, then thrust it into his pocket-and his glance travelled to the table opposite to him and against the wall, where that slim little figure in black was seated.

She appeared to be quite indifferent to his presence, and quite intent upon the consumption of a gla.s.s of milk and the sandwich on the plate before her.

Billy Kane smiled with grim comprehension. The frugality of the meal was not without its object. It was fairly obvious that she could dispose of what was before her in short order, and leave the place at an instant's notice without inviting undesirable attention to an unfinished meal-if she so desired! It was his move. She had followed Red Vallon in, but she had not followed Red Vallon out-she was waiting for him, Billy Kane. The seat she had chosen had been in plain view of Red Vallon, therefore she was evidently free from any fear of recognition on the part of the gangster, and, as a logical corollary, from probably anybody else in the room. That she gave no sign now therefore could mean but one thing. It was his move. If he cared to cross swords with her here, he was at liberty to do so; if he had reasons of his own for preferring a less public meeting, he had only to leave the place-and she would undoubtedly follow.

In one sense she was most solicitous of his welfare! She would do nothing to hamper or hinder him in protecting himself, as long as he continued to double-cross and render abortive the crimes of that inner circle of the underworld in which she believed him to be a leader; failing that, as she had already made it quite clear, she proposed, as near as he could solve the riddle, to expose some past crime of the Rat's to the police, and end his career via the death chair in Sing Sing. Also she had made her personal feelings toward him equally clear-she held for him a hatred that was as deep-seated as it was merciless and deadly.

He shrugged his shoulders. He, by proxy, stood in the shoes of one who, seemingly, had done her some irreparable wrong, and since she would dog him all night until she had had the interview that she evidently proposed to have, it might as well be here as anywhere. It mattered very little to him, as the Rat, that he should be observed by those in the room to get up from his table and walk over to hers. He was not being watched in the sense that anyone held surveillance over him, and, in any case, the conventions here in the heart of the underworld were of too elastic a character to have it cause even comment; and, besides, in a few hours from now, if luck were with him, he would be through with all this, done with this miserable role of super-crook, which, though it brought a new and greater peril at every move he made, was the one thing that, for the present, he was dependent upon for his life.

He rose, crossed the room nonchalantly, and dropped as nonchalantly into the chair at the end of her table, his back to the door.

She greeted him with a smile-but it was a smile of the lips only. The dark eyes, under the long lashes, studied him in a cold, uncompromising stare; and there was mockery in their depths, but deeper than the mockery there was contempt and disdain.

A cigarette, pulled lazily from his pocket and lighted, preserved his appearance of unconcern. In spite of himself, in spite of the fact that that contemptuous stare was his only through a d.a.m.nable and abhorrent proxy, he felt suddenly ill at ease. He had never seen her as closely as this before. He had only seen her twice before-once in the dark; and once with the width of the Rat's den separating them. He had been conscious then that she was attractive, beautiful, with her cl.u.s.tering ma.s.ses of brown hair, and the dainty poise of her head, and the pure whiteness of her full throat; but he was conscious now that beyond the mere beauty of features lay steadfastness and strength, that in the sweetness of the face there was, too, a wistfulness, do what she would to hide it, and that there was strain there, and weariness. And he was suddenly conscious, too, that he disliked the role of the Rat more than he had ever disliked it, and that the loathing in those eyes, which never left his face, was responsible for this added distaste of the fact that nature had, through some cursed and perverted sense of humor or malevolence, seen fit to make him the counterpart of a wanton rogue, and, worse still, seen fit to force upon him the enactment of that role.

He could not tell her that he was not the Rat, could he?-that he was Billy Kane! Would the loathing in those eyes have grown the less at that? Billy Kane-the thief, the Judas a.s.sa.s.sin, whose name was a byword throughout the length and breadth of the land at that moment, whose name was a synonym for everything that was vile and hideous and depraved! He was the Rat-until to-night was over! After that-well, after that, who knew? Now, he was the Rat, and he must play the Rat's part.

She broke the silence, her voice cool and even:

"I left it entirely to you as to whether you would come over to this table here or not."