Doors of the Night Part 19

Red Vallon did not answer.

The muzzle of Billy Kane's automatic lifted to a level with the gangster's eyes.

"Did you hear me?" The facetiousness was gone from Billy Kane now. His voice rasped suddenly. "_Toss it over!_"

With an oath, Red Vallon flung the pocketbook over the table.

Billy Kane caught it deftly with his left hand.

"Thank you!" said Billy Kane politely. He tucked the chamois case into his pocket, and reached out for the doork.n.o.b. "I think that is all-gentlemen," he said softly; "except to wish you-good-night!"

In a flash he had shut the door upon them, and, turning, was running across the outer room. But Red Vallon, too, was quick. Before Billy Kane reached the door leading into the hall, he heard the window of the front room flung up-and Red Vallon's voice:

"Quick, boys, come in! The man in the mask! Head him off! Jump for it!

He's going downstairs!"

Billy Kane's jaws clamped hard, as he swung through the door to the head of the stairs. It was true! He remembered that Red Vallon had said he had some of his gang with him. He could hear them now. They were running into the lower hall; and, though he was taking the stairs three and four at a time, they would meet on the lower staircase, if he kept on. His escape was cut off. There was only one chance-Peters' door-it was unlocked-Peters' door, before Red Vallon above opened the door of Savnak's flat and saw him.

It had been a matter of seconds, no more; but seconds that had seemed of interminable duration. He was at the foot of the stairs now. Came the pound of approaching feet from below. Red Vallon, whether because he had not had time, or because he was wary of a trap, had not opened the door into the hall above yet. Billy Kane, cautious of any sound, slipped through the door into Peters' flat, half drew back in sudden dismay-then grimly closed the door behind him softly, and, working with desperate haste now, and still silently, took out his skeleton keys and locked it.

He turned, then, with his automatic flung out in front of him-and faced toward the door that opened on his left. He knew it, of course! But it had been too late to turn back. He was doubly trapped! His lips, thinned, curved in a bitter smile. If there was any murder to be done here in this flat to-night, it was likely now to be his own-not Peters'!

_There was a light in that room!_ Peters must have come in while he, Billy Kane, was upstairs. He was between two fires. A cry, any alarm given by Peters, would bring Red Vallon and his blood-fanged pack bursting through that door behind him. Was Peters deaf? True, he, Billy Kane, had slipped as silently through the door as he could, and had locked it as silently as he could, but he must have made some noise!

Feet raced by in the hall, and went thumping up the stairs. It was strange that Peters had not heard him! It was stranger still that Peters did not hear the commotion now that Red Vallon's pack was making!

Billy Kane moved forward stealthily until he could see into the lighted room-and stood suddenly still. He felt the blood leave his face. He lifted his hand to his eyes in a queer, jerky, horrified motion; and then, with a low cry, he ran forward into the other room. The place was in confusion. It was a bedroom, and bureau drawers had been wrenched out and thrown around; every possible receptacle that might have concealed the smallest object had been ransacked and looted, and the contents strewn in wild disorder everywhere about-and on the floor a man lay sprawled, dead, murdered, a brutal wound in the side of his head from a blow that had apparently fractured the skull.

He knelt for a moment over the man. It was Peters. He rose, then, and stood there, fighting to rouse his brain from blunted torpor, to force it to resume its normal functions. Peters had been lying here dead, all the time that he, Billy Kane, had been waiting outside there in the hall! It must have taken quite a little while to have accomplished this murder and ransack the room. Peters, therefore, must have left the Ellsworth house earlier than usual, since the murderer, allowing for the length of time he would have required for his work, must have completed it and made his escape before he, Billy Kane, had arrived here at nine o'clock. It was very strange, horribly strange-to _find_ Peters murdered! Who was it, who had done it? Who was it, other than himself, who could have had any motive? What did it mean? What was it that Peters had had here, that had been the object of such a frantic search? Billy Kane drew his breath in suddenly, sharply. What could it be save _one_ thing! The Ellsworth rubies! That was it, wasn't it-_rubies_!

A sound from somewhere out in the hall brought surging back upon him a realization of his own imminent peril. There must be some way out, he must find a way. If he knew Red Vallon at all, he knew that he, Billy Kane, would never leave by the door! Well, a fire escape then, perhaps!

Quick now, every faculty alert, he ran noiselessly from room to room, and from window to window. He returned a moment later to the hall door, his face a little harder set and strained. There was no escape by the windows. There was nothing, except an increasing sound of disturbance that seemed to be affecting all parts of the house. Nothing, save Red Vallon's voice just outside the door, talking, evidently, to some of his men:

"He _ain't_ got out-and he ain't going to get out till we've searched every flat in the place! He's most likely on this floor, and Birdie and me'll tackle this door here first; but you go down there and tell those people below to shut up their row, and some of you look through their rooms. Beat it!"

Footsteps scurried away. The doork.n.o.b was tried. Billy Kane's lips were a thin line. There was no physical way of escape. Was there a way of wits? His wits against Red Vallon's! He stood there motionless, a queer, grim look creeping into his face, as the door now was shaken violently.

And then, suddenly, he jerked his mask from his face, and thrust it into his pocket. Yes, there was a way, but a way that held a something of ghastly, abysmal irony in it. He could prove an alibi-he had a witness to it.

The door quivered, but held, under a cras.h.i.+ng blow. Then Red Vallon's growling voice:

"Get out of the road, Birdie, and let me at it! I'll bust it in!"

And then Billy Kane spoke.

"Is that you, Red?" he demanded harshly.

There was a surprised gasp from the hall without, a second's tense silence, and then Red Vallon's voice again, heavy with perplexity and amazement:

"Who in h.e.l.l are you?"

Billy Kane unlocked the door, flung it open, and stepped back. The hall had been lighted now, evidently to facilitate Red Vallon's search, and the light fell full upon Billy Kane through the doorway.

"The Rat!" The gangster's little red-rimmed eyes blinked helplessly-then suddenly narrowed. "What are you doing here?"

"You fool!" snarled Billy Kane angrily. "I thought I recognized your voice! You gave me a scare! What are you doing here? What's all this cursed noise about?"

"What's it about?" repeated Red Vallon mechanically. He spoke automatically, as though through force of habit at the Rat's command.

"The Mole lives upstairs. He got those diamonds from Vetter; then Birdie and me took 'em from him, and not five minutes ago that blasted man in the mask turned the trick on us, and"-his voice changed with a jerk, and became suddenly truculent-"it's _d.a.m.ned_ funny where he got to!"

"Come in here, both of you!" ordered Billy Kane peremptorily. "Come in here, and shut that door! Now"-as they obeyed him-"that's the story, is it, Red? Well, listen to mine!" His voice grew raucous, menacing, unpleasant. "This is the second time to-night you've run foul of my plans with your infernal diamonds and your piker hunts, and if trouble comes from this, look out for yourself! Five minutes ago, you said.

Well, I wish he'd beaned you while he was at it! You've put an _hour's_ work of mine to the bad! How long do you think this disturbance is going on, before the police b.u.t.t in? Take a look in that room, there!"

The two men took a step forward, and shrank suddenly back. Birdie Rose's face had gone gray. He looked wildly at Billy Kane.

"My Gawd!" whispered Red Vallon.

"I said something to you to-night about needing an object lesson, so that it would sink into you that when I said the limit I meant it," said Billy Kane evenly. "Well, you've got it now! Do you know who that man is?"

Red Vallon shook his head. Birdie Rose was nervously plucking at a package of cigarette papers that he had drawn from his pocket.

"His name is Peters," said Billy Kane curtly. "Peters was the butler at Ellsworth's. Jackson's pal. Get me? I found this"-the ruby, from his vest pocket, was lying now in the open palm of Billy Kane's hand. "Do you understand what 'limit' means now, Red? I found this. He wouldn't talk, and so--" Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders coolly, and his hand jerked forward, pointing to the disordered room. "I hadn't found any more of them when you messed it up with your noise."

Red Vallon circled his lips with his tongue.

"Let's get out of here!" he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"We'll have to now, thanks to you!" snapped Billy Kane shortly. "That's the only room that's been searched, and you've queered any chance of doing anything more now." He whirled impetuously on Red Vallon, and shook his fist in the gangster's face. "You see what you've done! Even if the police haven't got wise to the row, those people in the apartments downstairs will call them in the minute they get a chance.

Yes, we've got to beat it! You and your diamonds are likely to give us a ride by the juice route up in that little armchair in Sing Sing. If your man gets away it's a small matter now. Anybody that's caught here will have to stand for-_this_. You go first, Birdie, and call the crowd off, and _scatter_ the minute you're outside the house. I don't want it published in the papers that I was with Peters in his expiring moments!

Tumble? I can trust you two, because"-Billy Kane's smile was unhappy-"if anything leaks, I'll know _where_ it leaked from! Get the idea? Now, beat it, Birdie! We'll give you a couple of minutes ahead of us."

The man went out. Billy Kane walked coolly to the door, took the skeleton key from the inside of the lock, and fitted it again to the outside.

"Come on, Red!" he said.

He locked the door, and put the bunch of keys in his pocket. It was comparatively quiet in the house now. A door of one of the lower apartments opened cautiously, but closed instantly again, as Billy Kane, with the gangster beside him, went down the stairs. In another moment they were out on the street, and had turned the first corner.

The gangster was muttering to himself:

"There's Birdie and me. But Savnak won't dare let a peep out of him, 'cause he was in on the diamond pinch himself. I'll get that guy with the mask yet, if I swing for it. Spilled every blasted bean in the bag-that's me!" His voice took on a sudden, half cringing, half deferential note. "It wasn't my fault, Bundy-honest! You know that! You ain't sore, are you, Bundy?"

Billy Kane pushed his hat to the back of his head. The night air was cool, even crisp, but his hatband was wringing wet. He brushed his damp hair back from his forehead. It was strange that he should have murdered Peters, after all!

He answered gruffly.

"Forget it!" said Billy Kane, alias the Rat.

XVI-TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER