UNDER the shaded light on his table, in his private sitting room in the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, John Bruce had been writing steadily for half an hour—but the sheets of paper over which his pen had traveled freely and swiftly were virgin white. He paused now, remained a moment in thought, and then added a line to the last sheet. No mark was left, but from the movement of the pen this appeared to be a signature.
He gathered the sheets together, folded them neatly, and slipped them into an envelope. He replaced the cap on the fountain pen he had been using, placed the pen in his vest pocket, and from another pocket took out another pen that was apparently identical with the first. With this second pen, in black ink, he addressed the envelope to one Gilbert Larmon in San Francisco. He sealed the envelope, stamped it, put it in his pocket, returned the second fountain pen to his vest pocket, lighted a cigarette leaned back in his chair, and frowned at the ascending spirals of smoke from the cigarette's tip.
The report which he had just written to Larmon, explaining his inaction during the past weeks, had been an effort—not physical, but mental. He had somehow, curiously, felt no personal regret for the enforced absence from his “work,” and he now felt no enthusiasm at the prospect of resuming it. He had had no right to tinge or color his letter to Larmon with these views; nor had he intended to do so. Perhaps he had not; perhaps he had. He did not know. The ink originated by the old Samoan Islander had its disadvantages as well as its advantages. He could not now read the letter over once it was written!
He flicked the ash irritably from his cigarette. He had been back here in the hotel now for two days and that feeling had been constantly growing upon him. Why? He did not know except that the cause seemed to insist on associating itself with his recent illness, his life in the one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza. But, logically, that did not hold water. Why should it? He had met a pawnbroker who roamed the streets at night in a fantastic motor car, driven by a drunkard; and he had fallen in love with a girl who was glad she was going to marry a dope-eating criminal. Good God, it was a spectacle to make——
John Bruce's fist crashed suddenly down on the desk beside him, and he rose from his chair and stood there staring unseeingly before him. That was not fair! What was uppermost now was the recrudescence of the bitterness that had possessed him two nights ago when he had returned from Paul Veniza's to the hotel here. Nor was it any more true than it was fair! What of the days and nights of nursing, of care, of the ungrudging and kindly hospitality they had given to an utter stranger? Yes, he knew! Only—only she had said she wasglad!
He began to pace the room. He had left Veniza's in bitterness. He had not seen Claire. It was a strange sort of love he boasted, little of unselfishness in it, much of impatience, and still more of intolerance! That it was a hopeless love in so far as he was concerned did not place him before himself in any better light. If he cared for her, if there was any depth of feeling in this love he claimed to have, then at least her happiness, her welfare and her future could not be extraneous and indifferent considerations to him. And on the spur of the moment, piqued, in spite of Paul Veniza's protestations, he had left that night without seeing Claire again!
He had been ashamed of himself. Yesterday, he had telephoned Claire. He had begged her forgiveness. He had not meant to say more—but he had! Something in her voice had—no, not invited; he could not say that—but had brought the passion, pleading almost, back into his own. It had seemed to him that she was in tears at the other end of the wire; at least, bravely as she had evidently tried to do so, she had been unable to keep her voice under control. But she had evaded an answer. There had been nothing to forgive, she had said. He had told her that he must see her, that he would see her again. And then almost hysterically, over and over again, she had begged him to attempt nothing of the sort, but instead to leave New York because she insisted that it was not safe for him to stay even in the city.
John Bruce hurled the butt of his cigarette in the direction of the cuspidor, and clenched his fist. Crang! Safe from Crang! He laughed aloud harshly. He asked nothing better than to meet Crang again. He would not be so weak the next time! And the sooner the better!
He gnawed at his under lip, as he continued to pace the room. To-day, he had telephoned Claire again—but he had not spoken to her this time. He had not been surprised at the news he had received, for he remembered that Hawkins had once told him that the old pawnbroker was in reality far from well. Some one, he did not know who, some neighbor probably, had answered the phone. Paul Veniza had been taken ill. Claire had been up with him all the previous night, and was then resting.
John Bruce paused abruptly before the desk at which he had been writing, and looked at his watch. It was a little after ten o'clock. He was going back to “work” again to-night. He smiled suddenly, and a little quizzically, as he caught sight of himself in a mirror. What would they say—the white-haired negro butler, and the exquisite Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, for instance—when the millionaire plunger, usually so immaculate in evening clothes, presented himself at their door in a suit of business tweeds?
He shrugged his shoulders. Down at Ratti's that night his apparel—it was a matter of viewpoint—had been a source of eminent displeasure, and as such had been very effectively disposed of. He had had no opportunity to be measured for new clothes.
The smile faded, and he stood staring at the desk. The millionaire plunger! It seemed to jar somehow on his sensibilities. Work! That was a queer way, too, to designate it. He was going to take up his work again to-night, pick up the threads of his life again where he had dropped them. A bit ragged those threads, weren't they? Frayed, as it were!
What the devil was the matter with him, anyway?
There was money in it, a princely existence. What more could any one ask? What did Claire, his love for a girl who was glad to marry some one else infinitely worse than he was, have to do with it? Ah, shedidhave something to do with it, then! Nonsense! It was absurd!
He took a key abruptly from his pocket, and unlocked one of the drawers of the desk. From the drawer he took out a large roll of bills. The hotel management had sent to the bank and cashed a check for him that afternoon. He had not forgotten that he would need money, and plenty of it, at the tables this evening. Well, he was quite ready to go now, and it was time; it would be halfpast ten before he got there, and——
“The devil!” said John Bruce savagely—and suddenly tossed the money back into the drawer, and locked the drawer. “If I don't feel like it to-night, why should I? I guess I'll just drop around for a little convalescent visit, and let it go at that.”
John Bruce put on a light overcoat, and left the room. In the lobby downstairs he posted his letter to Gilbert Larmon. He stepped out on the street, and from the rank in front of the hotel secured a taxi. Twenty minutes later he entered Gilbert Larmon's New York gambling hell.
Here he received a sort of rhapsodical welcome from the exquisite Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, which embraced poignant regret at the accident that had befallen him, and unspeakable joy at his so-splendid recovery. It was a delight so great to shake the hand of Mr. Bruce again that Monsieur Henri de Lavergne complained bitterly at the poverty of language which prevented an adequate expression of his true and sincere feelings. Also, Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, if he were not trespassing, would be flattered indeed with Mr. Bruce's confidence, if Mr. Bruce should see fit to honor him with an account of how the accident had happened. He would be desolated if in any way it could be attributable to any suggestion that he, Monsieur de Lavergne, on behalf of the house which he had the honor to represent as manager, had made to Mr. Bruce which might have induced——
“Not at all!” John Bruce assured him heartily. He smiled at Monsieur de Lavergne. The other knew nothing of Claire's presence in the car that night, and for Claire's sake it was necessary to set the man's mind so completely at rest that the subject would lack further interest. The only way to accomplish that was to appear whole-heartedly frank. John Bruce became egregiously frank. “It was just my own damned curiosity,” he said with a wry smile. “I got out of that ingenious contraption at the corner after going around the block, and, well, my curiosity, as I said, got the better of me. I followed the thing, and found out where Mr. Veniza lived. I started on my way back, but I didn't get very far. I got into trouble with a rather tough crowd just around the corner, who didn't like my shirt front, I believe they said. The fight ended by my being backed into a wine shop where I was stabbed, but from which I managed to escape into the lane. I was about all in, and the only chance I could see was a lighted window on the other side of a low fence. I crawled in the window, and flopped on the floor. It proved to be Mr. Veniza's house.”
“Pour l'amour du dieu!” exclaimed Monsieur Henri de Lavergne breathlessly.
“And which also accounts,” said John Bruce pleasantly, “for the apology I must offer you for my appearance this evening in these clothes. The mob in that respect was quite successful.”
“But that you are back!” Monsieur de Lavergne's hands were raised in protest. “That is alone what matters. Monsieur Bruce knows that in any attire it is the same here for monsieur as though he were at home.”
“Thank you!” said John Bruce cordially. “I have only dropped in through the urge of old habits, I guess. I'm hardly on my feet yet, and I thought I'd just watch the play for a little while to-night.”
“And that, too,” said Monsieur Henri de Lavergne with a bow, as John Bruce moved toward the staircase, “is entirely as monsieur desires.”
John Bruce mounted the stairs, and began a stroll through the roulette and card rooms. The croupiers and dealers nodded to him genially; those of the “guests” Whom he knew did likewise. He was treated with marked courtesy and consideration by every attendant in the establishment. Everything was exactly as it had been on his previous visits. There were the soft mellow lights; the siren pur of the roulette wheel, the musicalclickof the ball as it spun around on its little fateful orbit; the low, quiet voices of the croupiers and dealers; the well-dressed players grouped around the tables, the hilarious and the grim, the devil-may-care laugh from one, the thin smile from another. It was exactly the same, all exactly the same, even to the table in the supper room, free to all though laden with every wine and delicacy that money could procure; but somehow, even at the end of half an hour, where he was wont to be engrossed till daylight, John Bruce became excessively bored.
Perhaps it was because he was simply an on-looker, and not playing himself. He had drawn close to a group around a faro bank. The play was grim earnest and for high stakes. No, it wasn't that! He did not want to play. Somehow, rather, he knew a slight sense both of contempt and disgust at the eager clutch and grasp of hands, the hoarse, short laugh of victory, the snarl of defeat, the trembling fingers of the more timorous who staked with Chance and demanded that the god be charitable in its omnipotence and toss them crumbs!
Well, what was he caviling about? It was the life he had chosen. It was his life work. Wasn't he pleased with it? He had certainly liked it well enough in the old days to squander upon it the fair-sized fortune his father had left him. He decidedly had not gone into that infernal compact with Larmon blindfolded. Perhaps it was because in those days he played when he wanted to; and in these, and hereafter, he would play because he had to. Perhaps it was only that, to-night, there was upon him the feeling, which was natural enough, and which was immeasurably human too, that it was irksome to be a slave, to be fettered and shackled and bound to anything, even to what one, with one's freedom his own, was ordinarily out of choice most prone to do and delight in. Well, maybe! But that was not entirely a satisfactory or conclusive solution either.
He looked around him. There seemed to be something hollow to-night in these trappings of tinsel; and something not only hollow, but sardonic in his connection with them—that he should act as a monitor over the honesty of those who in turn acted as the agents of Larmon in an already illicit traffic.
“Oh, hell!” said John Bruce suddenly.
The dealer looked up from the table, surprise mingling with polite disapproval. Several of the players screwed around their heads.
“That's what I say!” snarled one of the latter with an added oath, as a large stack of chips was swept away from him.
Some one touched John Bruce on the elbow. He turned around. It was one of the attendants.
“You are being asked for downstairs, Mr. Bruce,” the man informed him.
John Bruce followed the attendant. In the hall below the white-haired negro doorkeeper came toward him.
“I done let him in, Mistuh Bruce, suh,” the old darky explained a little anxiously, “'cause he done say, Mistuh Bruce, that it was a case of most particular illness, suh, and——”
John Bruce did not wait for more. It was Veniza probably—a turn for the worse. He nodded, and passed hurriedly along the hall to where, near the door, a poorly dressed man, hat in hand and apparently somewhat ill at ease in his luxurious surroundings, stood waiting.
“I am Mr. Bruce,” he said quickly. “Some one is critically ill, you say? Is it Mr. Veniza?”
“No, sir,” the man answered. “I don't know anything about Mr. Veniza. It's Hawkins.”
“Hawkins!” ejaculated John Bruce.
“Yes, sir,” said the man. He shuffled his feet. “I—I guess you know, sir.”
John Bruce for a moment made no comment. Hawkins! Yes, he knew! Hawkins had even renounced his pledge, hadn't he? Not, perhaps, that that would have made any difference!
“Bad?” he asked tersely.
“I'm afraid so, sir,” the man replied. “I've seen a good bit of Hawkins off and on in the last two years, sir, because I room in the same house; but I've never seen him like this. He's been out of his head and clawing the air, sir, if you know what I mean. He's over that now, but that weak he had me scared once, sir, that he'd gone.”
“What does the doctor say?” John Bruce bit off his words.
The man shook his head.
“He wouldn't have one, sir. It's you he wants. You'll understand, sir, that he's been alone. I don't know how long ago he started on this spree. It was only by luck that I walked into his room to-night. I was for getting a doctor at once, of course, but he wouldn't have it; he wanted you. At times, sir, he was crying like a baby, only he hadn't the strength of one left. Knowing I could run her, me being a motortruck driver, he told me to take that car he drives and go to the hotel for you, and if you weren't there to try here—which I've done, sir, as you see, and I hope you'll come back with me. I don't know what to do, though I'm for picking up a doctor on the way back whether he wants one or not.”
John Bruce turned abruptly, secured his coat and hat, motioned the man to lead the way, and followed the other out of the house and down the steps to the sidewalk.
The traveling pawn-shop was at the curb. The man opened the door, and John Bruce stepped inside—and was instantly flung violently down upon a seat. The door closed. The car started forward. And in a sudden glare of light John Bruce stared into the muzzle of a revolver, and, behind the revolver, into a bruised and battered face, which was the face of Doctor Crang.
JOHN BRUCE stared for a moment longer at the revolver that held a steady bead between his eyes, and at the evil face of Crang that leered at him from the opposite seat; then he deliberately turned his head and stared at the face of still another occupant of the car—a man who sat on the seat beside him. He was trapped—and well trapped! He recognized the other to be the man known as Birdie, who had participated on a certain night in the robbery of Paul Veniza's safe. It was quite plain. The third man in that robbery, whose face he had not seen at the time, was undoubtedly the man who had brought the “message” a few minutes ago, and who was now, with almost equal certainty, engaged in driving the car. Thieving, at least, was in the trio's line! They must somehow or other have stolen the traveling pawn-shop from Hawkins!
He smiled grimly. If it had been Birdie now who had brought the message he would never have fallen into the trap! Crang had played in luck and won by a very narrow margin, for Crang was naturally in ignorance that he, John Bruce, had ever seen either of the men before. And then John Bruce thought of the bulky roll of bills which by an equally narrow margin wasnotin his pocket at that moment, and his smile deepened.
Crang spoke for the first time.
“Take his gun away from him, if he's got one!” he gnarled tersely.
“It's in the breast pocket of my coat,” said John Bruce imperturbably.
Birdie, beside John Bruce, reached over and secured the weapon.
John Bruce leaned back in his seat. The car was speeding rapidly along now.
The minutes passed. None of the three men spoke. Crang sat like some repulsive gargoyle, leering maliciously.
John Bruce half closed his eyes against the uncanny fascination of that round black muzzle which never wavered in its direction, and which was causing him to strain too intently upon it. What was the game? How far did Crang intend to go with his insane jealousy? How far would Crang dare to go? The man wasn't doped to-night. Perhaps he was even the more dangerous on that account. Instead of mouthing threats, there was something ominous now, it seemed, in the man's silence. John Bruce's lips drew together. He remembered Claire's insistence that Crang had meant what he said literally—and Claire had repeated that warning over the telephone. Well, if she were right, it meant—murder.
From under his half closed lids, John Bruce looked around the car. The curtains, as they always were, were closely drawn. The interior was lighted by that same soft central light, only the light was high up now near the roof of the car. Well, if it was to be murder, why notnow?The little velvet-topped table was not in place, and there was nothing between himself and that sneering, sallow face. Yes, why not now—and settle it!
He straightened almost imperceptibly in his seat, as impulse suddenly bade him fling himself forward upon Crang. Why not? The sound of a revolver shot would be heard in the street, and Crang might not even dare to fire at all. And then John Bruce's glance rested on the man beside him—and impulse gave way to common sense. He had no intention of submitting tamely and without a struggle to any fate, no matter what it might be, that Crang proposed for him, but that struggle would better come when there was at least a chance. There was no chance here. Birdie, on the seat beside him, held a deadlier and even more effective weapon than was Crang's revolver, a silent thing—a black-jack.
“Wait! Don't play the fool! You'll get a better chance than this!” the voice of what he took to be common sense whispered to him.
The car began to go slower. It swerved twice as though making sharp turns; and then, running still more slowly, began to bump over rough ground.
Crang spoke again.
“You can make all the noise you want to, if you think it will do you any good,” he said viciously; “but if you make a move you are not told to make you'll becarriedthe rest of the way! Understand?”
John Bruce did not answer.
The car stopped. Birdie opened the door on his side, and stepped to the ground. He was joined by the man who had driven the car, and who, as John Bruce now found he had correctly assumed, had acted as the decoy at the gambling house.
“Get out!” ordered Doctor Crang curtly.
John Bruce followed Birdie from the car. It was dark out here, exceedingly dark, but he could make out that the car had been driven into a narrow lane, and that they were close to the wall of a building of some sort. The two men gripped him by his arms. He felt the muzzle of Crang's revolver pressed into the small of his back.
“Mind your step!” cautioned Birdie gruffly.
It was evidently the entrance to a cellar. John Bruce found himself descending a few short steps; and then, on the level again, he was guided forward through what was now pitch blackness. A moment more and they had halted, but not before John Bruce's foot had come into contact with a wall or partition of some kind in front of him. One of the men who gripped his arms knocked twice with three short raps in quick succession.
A door opened in front of them, and for an instant John Bruce was blinded by a sudden glare of light; but the next instant, his eyes grown accustomed to the transition, he saw before him a large basement room, disreputable and filthy in appearance, where half a dozen men sat at tables drinking and playing cards.
A shove from the muzzle of Crang's revolver urged John Bruce forward into an atmosphere that was foul, hot and fetid, and thick with tobacco smoke that floated in heavy, sinuous layers in mid-air. He was led down the length of the room toward another door at the opposite end. The men at the tables, as he passed them, paid him little attention other than to leer curiously at him. They greeted Birdie and his companion with blasphemous familiarity; but their attitude toward Crang, it seemed to John Bruce, was one of cowed and abject respect.
John Bruce's teeth closed hard together. This was a nice place, an ominously nice place—a hidden den of the rats of the underworld, where Crang was obviously the leader. He was not so sure now that the promptings of so-called common sense had been common sense at all! His chances of escaping, practically hopeless as they had been in the car, would certainly have been worth trying in view of this! He began to regret his “common sense” bitterly now.
He was in front of the door toward which they had been heading now. It was opened by Birdie, and John Bruce was pushed into a small, dimly-lighted, cave-like place. Crang said something in a low voice to the two men, and, leaving them outside, entered himself, closing the door only partially behind him.
For a moment they faced each other, and then Crang laughed—tauntingly, in menace.
John Bruce's eyes, from Crang's sallow face, and from Crang's revolver, swept coolly over his surroundings. A mattress, a foul thing, lay on the ground in one corner. There was no flooring here in the cellar. A small incandescent bulb hung from the roof. There was one chair and a battered table—nothing else; not even a window.
“It was like stealing from a child!” sneered Crang suddenly. “You poor mark!”
“Quite so!” said John Bruce calmly. “And the more so since I was warned that you were quite capable of—murder. I suppose that is what I am here for.”
“Oh, you were warned, were you?” Crang took an abrupt step forward, his lips working. An angry purple clouded the pallor of his face. “More of that love stuff, eh? Well, by God, here's the end of it! I'll teach you with your damned sanctimonious airs to fool around the girl I'm going to marry! You snivelling hypocrite, you didn't tell her whoyouwere, did you?”
John Bruce stared blankly.
“Who I am?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
Crang for the moment was silent. He seemed to be waging a battle with himself to control his passion.
“I'm too clever a man to lose my temper, now I've got you!” he rasped finally. “That's about the size of your mentality! The sweet, naïve, innocent rôle! Yes, I said a snivelling hypocrite! You don't eat dope, but perhaps you've heard of a man named Larmon—Mr. Gilbert Larmon, of San Francisco!”
To John Bruce it seemed as though Crang's words in their effect were something like one of those blows the same man had dealt him on his wounded side in that fight of the other night. They seemed to jar him, and rob his mind of quick thinking and virility—and yet he was quite sure that not a muscle of his face had moved.
“You needn't answer,” Crang grinned mockingly. “If you haven't met him, you'll have the opportunity of doing so in a few hours. Mr. Larmon will arrive in New York to-night in response to the telegram you sent him.”
“I know you said you were clever,” said John Bruce shortly, “and I have no doubt this is the proof of it! But what is the idea? I did not send a telegram to any one.
“Oh, yes, you did!” Crang was chuckling evilly.
“It was something to the effect that Mr. Larmon's immediate presence in New York was imperative; that you were in serious difficulties. And in order that Mr. Larmon might have no suspicions or anxiety aroused as to his own personal safety, he was to go on his arrival to the Bayne-Miloy Hotel; but was, at the same time, to register under the name of R. L. Peters, and to make no effort to communicate with you until you gave him the cue. The answer to the telegram was to be sent to a—er—quite different address. And here's the answer.”
His revolver levelled, Crang laid a telegram on the table, and then backed away a few steps.
John Bruce picked up the message. It was dated from San Francisco several days before, and was authentic beyond question. It was addressed to John Bruce in the care of one William Anderson, at an address which he took to be somewhere over on the East Side. He read it quickly:
Leaving at once and will follow instructions. Arrive Wednesday night. Am exceedingly anxious.
Gilbert Larmon.
“This is Wednesday night,” sneered Crang.
John Bruce laid down the telegram. That Crang in some way had discovered his, John Bruce's connection with Larmon, was obvious. But how—and what did it mean? He smiled coldly. There was no use in playing the fool by denying any knowledge of Larmon. It was simply a question of exactly howmuchCrang knew.
“Well?” he inquired indifferently.
The door was pushed open, and Birdie came in. He carried pen and ink, a large sheet of paper, and an envelope.
Crang motioned toward the table.
“Put them down there—and get out!” he ordered curtly; and then as the man obeyed, he stared for an instant in malicious silence at John Bruce. “I guess we're wasting time!” he snapped. “I sent the telegram to Larmon a few days ago, and I know all about you and Larmon, and his ring of gambling houses. You talked your fool head off when you were delirious—understand? And——”
John Bruce, his face suddenly white, took a step forward—and stopped, and shrugged his shoulders. Crang's outflung revolver was on a level with his eyes. And then John Bruce turned his back deliberately, and walked to the far end of the little room.
Crang laughed wickedly.
“I am afraid I committed a breach of medical étiquette,” he said. “I sent to San Francisco and got the dope on the quiet about this Mr. Larmon. I found out that he is an enormously wealthy man; and I also found out that he poses as an immaculate pillar of society. It looks pretty good, doesn't it, Bruce—for me? Two birds with one stone; you for trying to get between me and Claire; and Larmon coughing up the dough to save your hide and save himself from being exposed for what he is!”
John Bruce made no answer. They were not so fanciful now, not so unreal and wandering, those dreams when he had been ill, those dreams in which there had been a man with a quill toothpick, and another with a sinister, loathsome face, whose head was always cocked in a listening attitude.
“Well, I guess you've got it now, all of it, haven't you?” Crang snarled. “It's lucky for you Larmon's got the coin, or I'd pass you out for what you did the other night. As it is you're getting out of it light. There's paper on the table. You write him a letter that will get him down here with a blank check in his pocket. I'll help you to word it.” Crang smiled unpleasantly. “He will be quite comfortable here while the check is going through the bank; for it would be most unfortunate, you know, if he had a chance to stop payment on it. And I might say that I am not worrying at all about any reprisals through the tracing of the check afterward, for if Mr. Larmon is paying me to keep my mouth shut there is no fear of his opening his own.”
John Bruce turned slowly around.
“And if I don't?” he asked quietly.
Crang studied the revolver in his hand for a moment. He looked up finally with a smile that was hideous in its malignancy.
“I'm not sure that I particularly care,” he said. “You are going to get out of my path in any case, though my personal inclination is to snuff you out, and”—his voice rose suddenly—“damn you, I'd like to see you dead; but on the other hand, my business sense tells me that I'd be better off with, say, a hundred thousand dollars in my pocket. Do you get the idea, my dear Mr. Bruce? I am sure you do. And as your medical advisor, for your health is still very much involved, I would strongly urge you to write the letter. But at the same time I want to be perfectly frank with you. There is a tail to it as far as you are concerned. I have a passage in my pocket—a first-class passage, in fact a stateroom where you can be secured so that I may make certain you do not leave the ship prematurely at the dock—for South America, on a steamer sailing to-morrow afternoon. The passage is made out in the name of John Bruce.”
“You seem to have taken it for granted that I would agree to your proposal,” said John Bruce pleasantly.
“I have,” Crang answered shortly. “I give you credit in some respects for not being altogether a fool.”
“In other words,” said John Bruce, still pleasantly, “if I will trap Mr. Larmon into coming here so that you will have him in your power, and can hold him until you have squeezed out of him what you consider the fair amount he should pay as blackmail, or do away with him perhaps, if he is obstinate, I am to go free and sail for South America to-morrow afternoon; failing this, I am to snuff out—I think you called it—at the hands of either yourself or this gentlemanly looking band of apaches you have gathered around you.”
“You haven't made any mistake so far!” said Crang evenly. He jerked his hand toward the table. “It's that piece of paper there, or your hide.”
“Yes,” said John Bruce slowly. He stared for an instant, set-faced, into Crang's eyes. “Well, then, go ahead!”
Crang's eyes narrowed.
“You mean,” his voice was hoarse with menace, “you mean——”
“Yes!” said John Bruce tersely. “My hide!”
Crang did not answer for a moment. The revolver in his hand seemed to edge a little nearer to John Bruce as though to make more certain of its aim. Crang's eyes were alight with passion.
John Bruce did not move. It was over—this second—or the next. Crang's threats wereliteral. Claire had said so. He knew it. It was in Crang's eyes—a sort of unholy joy, a madman's frenzy. Well, why didn't the man fire and have done with it?
And then suddenly Crang's shoulders lifted in a mocking shrug.
“Maybe you haven't got this—straight,” he said between closed teeth. “I guess I've paid you the compliment of crediting you with a quicker intelligence than you possess! I'll give you thirty minutes alone to think it over and figure out where you stand.”
Crang backed to the door.
The door closed. John Bruce heard the key turn in the lock. He stared about him at the miserable surroundings. Thirty minutes! He did not need thirty minutes, or thirty seconds, to realize his position. He was not even sure that he was thankful for the reprieve. It meant half an hour more of life, but——
Cornered like a rat! To go out at the hands of a degenerate dope fiend... the man had been cunning enough... Hawkins!
John Bruce paced his little section of the cellar. His footsteps made no sound on the soft earth. This was his condemned cell; his warders a batch of gunmen whose trade was murder.
Larmon! They had not been able to trick Larmon into their power so easily, because there wasn't any Hawkins. No, there was—John Bruce. John Bruce was the bait. Queer! Queer that he had ever met Larmon, and queer that the end should come like this.
Faustus hadn't had his fling yet. That quill toothpick with which he had signed——
John Bruce stood stock still—his eyes suddenly fastened on the piece of paper on the table.
“My God!” John Bruce whispered hoarsely.
He ran silently to the door and listened. He could hear nothing. He ran back to the table, threw himself into the chair, and snatching the sheet of paper toward him, took out a fountain pen from his pocket. Near the lower edge of the paper, and in a minutely small hand, he began to write rapidly.
At the end of a few minutes John Bruce stood up. There was neither sign nor mark upon the paper, save an almost invisible impression made by his thumb nail, which he had set as a sign post, as it were, to indicate where he had begun to write. It was a large sheet of unruled paper, foolscap in size, and there was but little likelihood of reaching so far down with the letter that Crang was so insistent upon having, but he did not propose in any event to superimpose anything over what he had just written. He could always turn the sheet and begin at the top on the other side! Again he began to pace up and down across the soft floor, but now there was a grim smile on his face. Behind Larmon and his enormous wealth lay Larmon's secret organization, that, once set in motion, would have little difficulty in laying a dozen Crangs, by the heels. And Crang was yellow. Let Crang but for an instant realize that his own skin was at stake, and he would squeal without hesitation—and what had narrowly escaped being tragedy would dissolve into opera bouffe. Also, it was very nice indeed of Crang to see that the message reached Larmon's hands!
And it was the way out for Claire, too! It was Crang who had mentioned something about two birds with one stone, wasn't it? Claire! John Bruce frowned. Was he so sure after all? There seemed to be something unfathomable between Claire and Crang; the bond between them one that no ordinary means would break.
His brain seemed to go around in cycles now—Claire, Larmon, Crang; Claire, Larmon, Crang.... He lost track of time—until suddenly he heard a key rattle in the lock. And then, quick and silent as a cat in his movements, he slipped across the earthen floor, and flung himself face down upon the mattress.
A moment more, and some one prodded him roughly. His hair was rumpled, his face anxious and dejected, as he raised himself on his elbow. Crang and two of his apaches were standing over him. One of the latter held an ugly looking stiletto.
“Stand him up!” ordered Crang.
John Bruce made no resistance as the two men jerked him unceremoniously to his feet.
Crang came and stared into his face.
“I guess from the look of you,” Crang leered, “you've put in those thirty minutes to good advantage. You're about ready to write that letter, aren't you?”
John Bruce looked around him miserably. He shook his head.
“No—no; I—I can't,” he said weakly. “For God's sake, Crang, you—you know I can't.”
“Sure—I know!” said Crang imperturbably. He nodded to the man with the stiletto. “He's more used to steel than bullets, and he likes it better. Don't keep him waiting.”
John Bruce felt the sudden prick of the weapon on his flesh—it went a little deeper.
“Wait! Stop!” he screamed out in a well-simulated paroxysm of terror. “I—I'll write it.”
“I thought so!” said Crang coolly. “Well, go over there to the table then, and sit down.” He turned to the two men. “Beat it!” he snapped—and the room empty again, save for himself and John Bruce, he tapped the sheet of paper with the muzzle of his revolver. “I'll dictate. Pick up that pen!”
John Bruce obeyed. He circled his lips with his tongue.
“You—you won't do Larmon any harm, will you?” he questioned abjectly. “I—my life's worth more than a little money, if it's only that, and—and, if that's all, I—I'm sure he'd rather pay.”
“Don't apologize!” sneered Crang. “Go on now, and write. Address him as you always do.”
John Bruce dipped the pen in the ink, and wrote in a small hand:
“Dear Mr. Larmon:—”
He looked up in a cowed way.
“All right!” grunted Crang. “I guess we'll kill another bird, too, while we're at it.” He smiled cryptically. “Go on again, and write!”
And John Bruce wrote as Crang dictated:
“I'm here in my rooms in the same hotel with you, but am closely watched. Our compact is known. I asked a girl to marry me, and in doing so felt she had the right to my full confidence. She did me in. She——”
John Bruce's pen had halted.
“Go on!” prompted Crang sharply. “It's got to sound right for Larmon—so that he will believe it. He's not a fool, is he?”
“No,” said John Bruce.
“Well, go on then!”
And John Bruce wrote:
“She was all the time engaged to the head of a gang of crooks.” Crang's malicious chuckle interrupted his dictation.
“I'm not sparing myself, you see. Go on!”
John Bruce continued his writing:
“They are after blackmail now, and threaten to expose you. I telegraphed you to come under an alias because we are up against it and you should be on the spot; but if they knew you were here they would only attach the more importance to it, and the price would go up. They believe you are still in San Francisco, and that I am communicating with you by mail. They are growing impatient. You can trust the bearer of this letter absolutely. Go with him. He will take you where we can meet without arousing any suspicion. I am leaving the hotel now. If possible we should not risk more than one conference together, so bring a blank check with you. There is no other way out. It is simply a question of the amount. I am bitterly sorry that this has happened through me. John Bruce.”
Crang, with his revolver pressed into the back of John Bruce's neck, leaned over John Bruce's shoulder and read the letter carefully.
“Fold it, and put it in that envelope without sealing it, and address the envelope to Mr. R. L. Peters at the Bayne-Miloy Hotel!” he instructed.
John Bruce folded the letter. As he did so, he noted that his signature was a good two or three inches above the thumb nail mark. He placed the letter in the envelope, and addressed the latter as Crang had directed.
Crang moved around to the other side of the table, tucked the envelope into his pocket, and grinned mockingly.
And then without a word John Bruce got up from his chair, and flung himself face down on the mattress again.