Yes, a very good joke on the old woman. And she had died in abject poverty. That was the way that sort of thing went, Louie realized. One was really a fool to do anything for anyone but one’s self.
A sound came through the half-open window of Colonel Knight’s suite—and again Louie Martin grinned. The master crook, who had stolen the jewels from the “Mother of the Friendless,” was now about to pass them on—only he didn’t know it!
Louie brought the metal barrel over under the window and set it, bottom up, so as to form a secure means of approach to the room beyond. He had thrown off his depression now. But he must work fast.
Cautiously, he stepped upon the barrel and raised his hands to the bottom bar. Twisting it slowly and at the same time pulling, he drew both bar and bolts from their sockets and tossed them to the ground. He wanted to laugh! So this was the wisdom of a Chinaman? He might have known!
There was a stone coping a couple of feet above the top of the thing on which he stood. Louie rested his foot on this coping and laid his hands on the sill. Lightly he drew himself up against the face of the wall.
He paused to listen. The man within was breathing heavily and regularly.
Louie thrust his head through the opening—nothing in sight to alarm him. Then, with a quick spring, he threw his weight upon the sill and was halfway through the window—
Half-way, but no farther; for as his weight descended fully upon the sill, the upper sash crashed down like the lever of a great engine. The thief cried out once, a hideous, choking cry that echoed through the room and on into the house of Ah Wing.
Then he was silent, drooping there like one who has been broken on the wheel. Blood dripped from his mouth and nostrils, and he had ceased to breathe. He was caught like a huge rat in a trap!
_CHAPTER SEVEN_
THE DEAD MAN SPEAKS
Somewhere beyond the mist-enshrouded marshes the whistle of a grain ship boomed, to be answered a moment later by the metallic scream of a siren. Vague and mysterious filaments of sound drifted in with the eddying night wind.
“Damn such a country!” the “Kid” snarled, as he turned from the door and tramped back into the house. “How long you going to keep us rusticating out here, Chief? I’m fed up on nature!”
Monte Jerome scowled at his assistant.
“We’re going to stay here till we get what we came for!” he replied. “If Martin doesn’t show up by morning, we got to decide what he’s up to!”
An uncanny silence gripped the four Wolves. Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since Louie Martin went on duty, and nothing had been heard from him. An uncomfortable idea was developing in the minds of the various members of the “mob.”
Suddenly the “Kid” voiced this general suspicion. With a snarl, he pointed accusingly at Monte.
“Fact is, Louie ain’t coming back, Chief, and you know it! He’s grabbed something—maybe the sparklers—and he’s beat it. Don’t blame him a damn bit, neither. We’re going to set around here with our mouths open till the dicks get after us. But Louie ain’t coming back, and you just put that down in your note-book!”
Monte turned toward the speaker.
“Is that your opinion, you lump-head? Well, keep it till I ask you for it. The trouble with you is you’ve been thinking of cutting loose, yourself. Louie will show up all right. Don’t you worry about him.”
“Hell of a lot you know about it!” mumbled the “Kid” angrily.
Monte walked slowly toward him, his eyes blazing.
“Trying to start something?” he demanded. “If you are—”
The Strangler intervened at this critical moment. He and the “Kid” had had a disagreement earlier in the evening when the latter moved into the room left vacant by Louie Martin’s unexplained absence. This was a ground-floor room with an abundance of light and sun, and the “Kid,” with a loose-lipped grin, announced that his doctor had told him he ought to have it. The Strangler had protested; but the “Kid” had possession, and made it plain that he meant to hang on.
Now the Strangler sided maliciously with Monte.
“You’re always belly-aching about something, Kid,” he declared. “You better lay off and give us a rest. The Chief knows what he is doing!”
Monte paused, thankful for this opportune intervention. He had made up his mind to square account with the “Kid” just as soon as the real business which held them together was finished, but a show-down now would be dangerous to the success of the larger affair.
“Let’s cut it all out, boys!” he suggested pacifically. “I’ll go on duty up to two o’clock. Doc, you set the alarm. You’ll relieve me. I’ll try to find out something—that Chink may have grabbed Louie. We ought to know what has happened before we pull anything!”
He nodded to the others and left the house. The three crooks settled down to their usual evening: the “Kid” got out a deck of cards and began to play a one-handed game of his own devising; Billy the Strangler drew his chair over in front of the fireplace and adjusted his feet on the mantle—in this position he would smoke and stare into the coals till he grew sleepy—and “Doc” took from the table an illustrated magazine and turned to the serial he was reading. Occasionally he glanced covertly at one of his companions: “Doc” sensed the coming battle between these two gunmen, and had no intention of being caught within the firing lines.
The wind freshened, and they could hear it wailing around the house and through the upper windows. The window in the “Kid’s” room rattled and banged, and he looked abstractedly up.
“Hell of a night!” he mumbled. “Sounds like all the dead men in this neck of the woods was hanging around outside, wheezing to be took in by the fire! Listen to that window rattle!”
The Strangler smoked on imperturbably.
From somewhere in the house above there came a sound—low and uncertain at first, then rising to a sort of scream. The “Kid” threw down his cards and staggered to his feet. The Strangler hauled his long legs down from the mantle and reached under his coat for the handle of his automatic. “Doc” turned pale—he was too sophisticated to be superstitious, but this unearthly cry was a fact rather than a theory.
“What the devil was that?” the “Kid” demanded hoarsely. “Say, if that was one of them birds—”
“That must have been it!” “Doc” decided aloud. “A night heron, blown against the chimney! What a night to be out in!”
He shivered and picked up his magazine, but the zest had gone out of his reading. From the corners of his eyes he observed that the “Kid” was gathering up his cards, and that Billy had not again elevated his feet to the mantle.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going to _my_ room,” the “Kid” drawled presently, emphasizing the possessive pronoun to tantalize the Strangler. “Kind of feel like a little snooze would take the wrinkles out of my brains. This place sure does give me the willies!”
He slouched into the hall communicating with the back rooms—a kitchen and his bedroom—and they heard him shuffling through the darkness. Following a moment of silence, his voice sounded in a steady mumble. Then it was raised in expostulation.
“Who the hell has been fooling with my light? It won’t turn on!”
Another brief interval of silence, then a bellow of rage and fear from the man in the back bedroom.
“Who’s there? Go way from me! Damn—”
They leaped up at the sound of the “Kid’s” stumbling gallop. He burst into the room, and they saw that his face was the color of ashes.
“For God’s sake, who’s in that room—my room?” he cried, staring at them through straining, glassy eyes. “Come on, you fellows! Here, I’ll take a flashlight—the globe must be burned out!”
He snatched up an electric torch and led the way back through the hall, the Strangler at his shoulder, “Doc” some distance behind.
“Someone let out a groan when I went inside the door,” the “Kid” was explaining. “And then he says right in my ear, ‘This ain’t your room, Kid!’ Listen!”
They were within five feet of the bedroom door when the “Kid” paused and held up a trembling hand. He was directing the light of the torch upon the doorway. And at that moment there came from it a groan, followed by a muttered protest.
“_My room!_” a voice within the room said distinctly.
“Holy Mother!” whispered the Strangler. “That sounds like Louie! He must be hurt!”
“How in hell would he get in there?” protested the “Kid.” “Come on—let’s see!”
They stepped inside the room, and the ray of the flashlight began to circle it. Suddenly the circling beam came to a stop.
“In the bed!” gasped the “Kid.” “He’s there, covered up!”
Slowly and unwillingly, an inch at a time as if drawn by some irresistible force, the three Wolves crossed the room and approached the bed. They could all see the huddled form lying there, covered even to the face. There was something about it—an utter absence of motion—that terrified them. But they could not turn back.
The “Kid” reached the bedside and for a long moment stood glaring down. Then, with shaking fingers, he caught the edge of the bedding and threw it back.
In the concentrated light of the lantern, there stared up at them the livid face of Louie Martin. His glazed eyes protruded, and there was a trickle of blood running from his nostril to the left corner of his mouth. And in his face was an expression of frozen horror which stopped the hearts even of the hardened crooks who looked down in momentary paralysis.