FIVE minutes later, standing in another room—his own—the Hawk rapidly changed the light-grey suit he had been wearing for one of a darker material. From the pockets of the discarded suit he transferred to the pockets of the suit he had just put on, amongst other things, his automatic and his bunch of skeleton keys. He opened his trunk, removed the false tray, and smiled with a sort of grim complacency as his glance inventoried its unhallowed contents; and particularly he smiled, as, opening a little box, he allowed a stream of gleaming stones to trickle out into the palm of his hand—the twenty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds robbed from the Fast Mail three nights ago.
“Some haul!” observed the Hawk softly. “And, with any luck, there'll be something else there worth the whole outfit put together before to-night is over.” He replaced the diamonds in the box, the box in the tray, and spoke again, but now his smile was hard and twisted; not an article there but he had scooped from under the noses of the gang. “Yes, I guess I'd go out like you'd snuff a candle if they ever get me, and I guess they're getting—querulous!”
The Hawk, however, had not opened the trunk purely for the opportunity it afforded of inspecting these few mementos, interesting as they might be. It was an excellent safeguard to change his clothes, but it would avail him very little if—well, any one, say—were still permitted to recognise—his face! From the top of the tray, where it lay upon the packages of banknotes that had once reposed in the paymaster's safe, the Hawk picked up a mask and slipped it into his pocket. He fitted the false tray back into the lid of the trunk, closed the trunk, locked it, put on a wide-brimmed, soft felt hat, locked the door of his room behind him, descended the narrow staircase, and stepped out on the street.
His destination was the Corona Hotel, but there was no particular hurry. Undoubtedly from the moment the Frenchman had left the train some, or one, of the gang had fastened on the man's trail; but the companionship of the Selkirk physician guaranteed the Frenchman's immediate safety. His own plan, as far as it was matured, was very simple. He meant to “spot” if he could, should that particular member, or members, of the gang be unknown to him personally, the man, or men, selected by the Wire Devils to shadow the Frenchman—and then watch thegang!The Hawk had no intention whatever of making an attempt on the Frenchman's property with the gang watching him—that would have been little less than the act of a fool who was bent on suicide! Since, therefore, he had no choice in the matter, he was quite content to have the gang take the initiatory risk in relieving the Frenchman of the handbag! After that—the Hawk's old twisted smile was back on his lips as he walked along—after that it became his business to see that the bag did not get very far out of his sight!
He reached and crossed the city park upon which the Corona Hotel fronted, entered the hotel, and, sauntering leisurely through the lobby, approached the desk. He glanced casually over the register; then, lighting a cigar, he selected a chair near the front windows where he could command a general view of the lobby, and sat down.
Doctor Meunier's room was Number 106.
Once the Hawk's eyes lazily surveyed the lobby; thereafter they appeared to be intent on what was passing in the street. He was in luck! The first trick, at least, had gone to him. Lolling in a chair near the elevator doors, and apparently drowsy from a heavy luncheon, was—the Bantam. The Hawk smoked on. Half an hour went by. The Bantam appeared to awaken with a start, smiled sheepishly about him, went over to the news stand, bought a paper—and returned to his seat. The Hawk finished his cigar, rose, strolled to the main entrance, and went out. The Bantam could be safely trusted to see that Doctor Meunier did not vanish into thin air! He would do the like for the Bantam! He crossed over into the park.
The Hawk chose a bench—strategically. Sheltered by a row of trees, he had the corner upon which the hotel was built diagonally before him, and could see both the side entrance on the cross street and the front entrance on the main thoroughfare.
The Hawk's vigil, however, was not immediately rewarded. An hour passed—and yet another—and the greater portion of the afternoon. Five o'clock came. A newsboy passed, crying theEvening Journal. The Hawk bought one. A headline in heavy type on the front page instantly caught his eye:
And beneath this, still in assertive type:
Famous French Surgeon en route to Japan with Fortune in Radium Misses Connections Through Destruction of Railroad Bridge.
Offers Company Large Sum of Money for Special Train to the Coast.
“Yes,” observed the Hawk caustically, “and even if I hadn't known anything about it before, I'd have had a look-in thanks to this! Sting you, wouldn't it! The papers hand you a come-on—and then they wonder at crime!”
The “story” itself ran a column and a half. The Hawk began to read—or, rather, to divide his attention between the story and the hotel entrances. The reporter had certainly set out with the intention of overlooking no detail that could be turned to account. His meeting and conversation with the Frenchman in the car were breezily set forth; the member of a “prominent family” in Japan artfully disguised, or, perhaps better, disclosed no less august a personage than the Emperor himself; the value of radium, both intrinsically and scientifically, was interestingly dealt with; and the surgeon's black handbag, with its priceless contents, was minutely described and featured.
The Hawk had reached this point, when suddenly the newspaper and the reporter's version of the story lost interest for him. Doctor Meunier, gripping his little black handbag tenaciously, had stepped out through the main entrance of the hotel, and was walking briskly down the street. A moment later, the Bantam sauntered through the doorway and started in the same direction, a hundred yards behind the Frenchman. The Hawk, with a grim smile, folded his paper, stuffed it into his pocket, rose from the bench, crossed the street, and fell into the procession—a hundred yards behind the Bantam.
It was still light, though it was beginning to grow dusk—too light for any highway thuggery, and yet—the Hawk gradually closed the gap between himself and the Bantam to half the original distance.
The chase led on for a half dozen blocks, then turned into one of the crowded streets of the shopping district, and proceeded in a downtown direction. And then, abruptly, the Hawk dropped further behind the Bantam again, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk. It was perhaps only fancy, but intuitively he felt that he, too, in turn, was being followed. His hat brim, hiding his face, was pulled a little farther forward over his eyes, as he hurried now until he was abreast of the Frenchman. Intuition or not, it was quite possible and even likely that one of the gang might “cover” the Bantam.
The Hawk scowled. He could not be sure; and he dared not put it to more than a casual test, for he could not afford to lose sight of the Bantam. He paused, took a slip of paper from his pocket, and, as though having consulted it for an address, appeared to scan the signs and numbers on the stores in his immediate vicinity. The Frenchman had passed by; the Bantam was directly opposite to him now across the street. The Hawk's keen eyes searched the stream of pedestrians behind the Bantam. And then suddenly he shrugged his shoulders, and returned the paper to his pocket—a man, in a light suit and brown derby hat, had stepped out of the crowd, and was leisurely lighting a cigarette in a doorway just across from where he, the Hawk, stood.
The Hawk went on, but keeping in the rear of the Bantam now on the opposite side of the street. He was still not sure; but, in any case, neither could the man in the brown derby besurethat he, the Hawk, was following the Bantam. So far then, granted that hewasbeing followed, it was an even break!
At the next crossing the Frenchman accosted a policeman, and, as though he had received directions, at once turned down the cross street. The Hawk, as he followed, smiled grimly. The cross street automatically verified the suspicions of the man in the brown derby—if the man in the brown derby had any suspicions to verify; but, at one and the same time, it also answered the Hawk's own question.
The Hawk, in turn, made use of a doorway. He could afford to allow the Bantam, temporarily, the lead of an extra half block now, for there were fewer people on the cross street and he would still be able to keep the other in sight. A minute, two, elapsed—and then the Hawk picked up the Bantam's trail again. The man in the brown derby hat had passed by the corner and continued on along the main street.
And yet still the Hawk was not satisfied. And it was not until after he had repeated the same manouvre some four or five times, as the Frenchman, leading, turned into different streets, that he was finally convinced that neither the man in the brown derby hat, nor any one else, was interested in his movements.
The chase, since leaving the main street, had wound its way through the less populous wholesale district—it ended at the railway station. The Frenchman passed along the front of the building, and disappeared through the doorway leading upstairs to the divisional offices, his object being, it now appeared obvious, to obtain another interview with the superintendent; the Bantam disappeared inside the main entranceway of the station, evidently to await the Frenchman's reappearance; and the Hawk, on the far side of the street, slipped into the lane that had served him many times as a thoroughfare between the station and his room over the saloon two blocks away.
It was growing dark now. A half hour went by. Still the Hawk crouched in the shadow of the building that bordered the lane. The street lights went on. The six o'clock whistle blew from the shops over across the tracks. Either the Frenchman was a visitor not easy to get rid of, or Lanson was out and the other was awaiting the superintendent's return. But the Hawk's patience was infinite.
Another fifteen minutes dragged away; then the office door opened, the Frenchman emerged, and started back uptown. The Bantam appeared from the main entranceway, and started after him. The chase was on again. The Hawk followed.
The Frenchman, seemingly sticking to rule of thumb and following the directions he had received on the way down, took exactly the same route on the way back. But now the neighborhood presented an entirely different aspect. The wholesale houses were closed; the streets deserted, dark, and poorly lighted.
The Hawk hugged the shadows of the buildings craftily on the opposite side of the street. Was it coming now? Certainly the gang would go far before finding a more ideal opportunity, and the Bantam, if he had realised that fact, could easily have sent, or telephoned, a message from the station. He, the Hawk, had not cared to take the risk of following the Bantam inside—the Bantammightremember having seen him in the hotel lobby.
And then the Hawk's lips thinned. Yes—it was the old, old game! They were on the cross street, a little less than a block distant from the main street ahead. The Bantam began to close up on the Frenchman. The Hawk now, crouching low, slipped almost literally from doorway to doorway. Two men, apparently drunk and quarrelling, were coming down the block toward the Frenchman. The Bantam closed to within a few yards of his quarry. The brawl attained its height as the two men reached the Frenchman. One man struck the other. They clenched, and, smashing into the Frenchman knocked him down. His hat flew in one direction, the handbag in another. The brawlers curiously did not resume their quarrel, but lounged a few paces away—within call of the Bantam. The Hawk, squeezed in his doorway directly opposite the scene, kept his eyes on the Bantam. If the play had lacked originality before, it did not lack it now! The Bantam stooped, picked up the handbag, and, as he stooped again for the hat, slipped the handbag under his coat, and slipped another bag—evidently a carefully prepared duplicate—out from under his coat and into his hand. The Frenchman was rising dazedly to his feet. The Bantam stepped hurriedly forward, holding out hat and bag.
“I hope you're not hurt, sir,” the Hawk heard him say—and then the two moved on together toward the corner.
The Hawk shook his shoulders in a queer, almost self-apologetic sort of way, as he followed again. And then he smiled as queerly. The Bantam had the bag now, and, if he, the Hawk, were permitted to hazard an opinion, the Wire Devils had very kindly picked the fruit again for him to eat!
At the corner, the Bantam shook hands with the Frenchman, and, stepping out into the street, signalled an approaching car. Quick, alert on the instant, the Hawk, safe in the protection of the crowded sidewalk, moved swiftly along in the direction that the car would take, his eyes searching the street on both sides for a taxicab. The street car passed him, but stopped at the next corner, and he caught up with it again. And then, over his shoulder, he saw a taxi coming up behind him. He stepped from the curb, and stopped it.
“Sorry, sir,” said the chauffeur. “I'm going after a fare.”
“You've got one now—and a good one,” said the Hawk quietly. He had opened the door—a ten-dollar bill lay in the chauffeur's hand.
“Yes, but look here, sir,” said the chauffeur, a little dubiously, “I'll get into trouble for this, and——”
The Hawk had stepped inside, and lowered the window between himself and the chauffeur.
“Follow that car,” said the Hawk pleasantly. “And while we're on the crowded streets don't get so far behind it that you can't close up near enough to see who gets off every time it stops. And don't worry about your trouble—there's another ten coming on top of the regular fare. That's good enough, isn't it?”
“I guess I'm not kicking!” admitted the chauffeur. The taxi started forward. He looked back over his shoulder at the Hawk. “What's the lay? Fly-cop?”
“Maybe!” said the Hawk. “Mind yourself! It's stopping again. Keep where I can see both sides of the car.”
“I get you!” said the chauffeur. “Leave it to me!”
Block after block was passed, the street car stopping frequently. The Hawk, in the body of the taxi, knelt behind the chauffeur's back, his eyes held steadily on the street car ahead. The Bantam did not alight. The street car began to run out into the suburbs. The taxicab, with lights out now, risking the city ordinance, dropped back to a more respectful distance in the rear. The district became less settled, the houses farther apart; the street lights were single incandescents now, and these few and far between. There was one passenger left in the car—the Bantam.
The chauffeur spoke abruptly.
“We're pretty near the end of the line,” he said.
“All right,” the Hawk answered. “Stop when the car stops—keep about this distance, we're not likely to be noticed.” A moment later he stepped from the taxi. “Wait for me here!” he directed.
The Bantam, leaving the street car, had started off at a sharp pace past the end of the car line. It was little more than a country road now; only a house here and there. The Bantam, just discernible in the darkness, had a lead of perhaps a hundred yards, and the Hawk, moving stealthily, began to creep nearer, and still nearer, until the hundred yards were fifty—and then suddenly, with a low muttered exclamation, he threw himself flat on the ground. The Bantam, abreast of a house from which there showed a light in the side window, had turned in abruptly from the road. A glow of light spread out as the front door opened. The Hawk lay motionless. Then the Bantam entered, and the door was closed again. A little later, a form appeared at the side window, a hand reached up, and the shade was drawn.
“Nice respectable neighborhood, too!” observed the Hawk tersely. “Wonder if it'sthelair, and if the Master Spider's in there now?”
He was creeping forward now across a small lawn. He neared the side window; it was open, and the shade lacked a tiny, though inviting, space of reaching to the sill. A murmur of voices came from within. There was not a sound from the Hawk. And then, from beneath the window, which was low and not more than four feet from the ground, he raised himself up cautiously, and suddenly his dark eyes narrowed. It was not the Master Spider—it was the Butcher, whose treachery had nearly done for him that night in the paymaster's office, the man whom he had promised should one dayremember!
He could hear now, and he could see. It was a sitting room such as one might find anywhere in a house whose occupants were in comfortable circumstances. It was cosily and tastefully furnished. It bore no sign of criminal affiliation; it was, as it were, a sort of alibi in itself. A telephone stood on the table beside a pile of magazines, the latter flanked by an ornamental reading lamp; deep leather lounging chairs added to the inviting and homelike appearance of the room—the incongruity was in the Butcher's thin, hatchet-like face, and in the coarse, vicious features of the short, stocky Bantam, as they faced each other across the table.
“Where's the others, d'ye say?” demanded the Bantam.
“Out,” said the Butcher. “The chief called 'em an hour ago. I don't know what's up. I guess you and I keep house here to-night; he said you were to stay. Mouser and Jack were to report to Kirschell, weren't they?”
“Yes, that's what they said.”
“Well, all right!” The Butcher shrugged his shoulders. “That's none of our hunt. I suppose you got it, didn't you—or you wouldn't be here?”
“Sure, I got it!” answered the Bantam. “What d'ye think?”
“Let's have a look,” said the Butcher eagerly. “The chief says we can cash in on it for fifty thousand.”
“Fifty thousand!” The Bantam growled, as he unbuttoned his coat, and, taking out the bag, laid it on the table. “I thought it was worth a hundred thousand!”
“So it is.” The Butcher was opening the bag. “But it's no cinch to turn it into money without a big split—savvy?”
The Butcher opened the lead box, took out the lead cylinder, and balanced it speculatively in the palm of his hand.
The Bantam regarded it distrustfully.
“It don't look like fifty cents to me!” he commented finally.
“I know,” said the Butcher facetiously; “but your eyesight's bum, Bantam! Have any trouble?”
The Bantam grinned.
“Not what you'd notice! After the Mouser and Jack smashed into him, the poor old boob didn't know what had happened till I was handing him his hat and the other bag. I guess he bumped his bean kind of hard on the sidewalk.”
The Butcher nodded approvingly. He was still twisting the lead cylinder around and around in his hand.
“Say,” suggested the Bantam impatiently, after a moment, “when you've done chucking it under the chin, put it to bed somewhere, and if there's any grub in the house lead me to it. I'm hungry!”
“All right!” agreed the Butcher. He replaced the lead cylinder in its box, and the box in the bag, crossed the room, opened a little cupboard in the wall opposite the window, laid the bag inside, and closed the cupboard door again. “Come on!” he said.
THE two men left the room. The Hawk did not move. He was fingering in a curiously absent-minded sort of way the edges of the newspaper that still protruded from his pocket. It was very simple, very easy. The window was open, the cupboard was not locked, the room was empty, there were only the Bantam and the Butcher to look out for, and they were in another part of the house; he had only to lift aside the window shade, step in, steal across the room, and steal out again—with a hundred-thou-sand-dollar prize. It was very inviting. It seemed suddenly as though it were a pressing invitation to enter that room—and never leave it alive!
Flashing quick through the Hawk's brain now was a résumé of the afternoon, of each separate and individual occurrence since he had left the train. Had he, after all, been followed? If so—how? Had the Bantam been warned? He shook his head, as though impatient with himself. Even apart from that, what he had begun to suspect now would be thoroughly logical on the part of the gang. The newspaper supplied the key. He would unquestionably have seen the newspaper that afternoon, and he would, apart from being spared several aimless hours in the park, have done exactly as he had done, and just as unquestionably be where he was now at this precise moment even if he had not been with the Frenchman on the train. The newspaper placed him in possession of the same facts that the Wire Devils possessed. They must know that. They were therefore justified in assuming that he, quite as rabidly as themselves, would make an attempt to steal the bag. They knew, in that case, that he would have discovered that they were already at work; and they knew that, on a dozen occasions before, that had not prevented him from snatching the prize they had already counted within their grasp. Were they on their guard now—or a little more than on their guard! Were they offering him, on the chance or with the knowledge that he was here now, the opportunity to snatch another prize—and seeing to it that it was for thelasttime!
The Hawk edged back from the window; and, silent as a shadow now, began to circuit the house. And then suddenly his suspicion became a certainty. It was only a little thing—a slip—but it was enough. The Butcher had made a misplay! There was no light in any other window—and a man did not usually eat in the dark! It was fairly, even painfully, evident now that the Bantam and the Butcher were in, say, the adjoining room, waiting for him to enter through that window into their trap.
But there was still the little black bag—and one hundred thousand dollars! The Hawk's smile was more ominous than pleasant. There were other ways apart from a window—and even two men, especially if they were caught napping, had been known to be quite amenable to the influence of the muzzle of an automatic!
The Hawk found the back door entrance, found it locked—and used a skeleton key. He was perhaps five minutes in opening the door; but in those five minutes there was no click of lock as the handle turned by infinitesimal fractions of an inch, no creak of hinge as the door little by little swung back and was closed again.
The silence was almost uncanny. It was utter blackness. By feeling out with his hand he discovered he was in a passageway. He moved along, guiding himself by the sense of touch against the wall, his weight balanced and full upon one foot before he lifted the other for the next step.
It seemed a passage of interminable length, that led on and on through blackness and silence. In reality he had come possibly thirty feet, and had passed one door. And then he began to catch the sound of voices whispering. The whisperings grew more distinct and became low, guarded tones, as he moved forward—and now he could distinguish words. He flattened back against the side of the passage. Opposite to him was an open door; and within the room, instead of blackness now, was a sort of murky gloom which was created by a ray of light that seeped in through a partially open door at the far side of the room. The Hawk's fingers slipped into his pocket—and slipped his mask over his face. He had his bearings now. The room from which the light came was the baited trap; the room immediately in front of him was the room from which the trap was to be sprung! His hand went to his pocket again, and came out with his automatic. It was their move now. If, when they finally grew impatient, they went back into the lighted room, or turned on the light in the room where they were now waiting, they sprang the trap upon themselves.
Came the Bantam's low growl—and the twitching of the Hawk's jaw muscles.
“I don't like it, I tell you! Where is he? What's he waiting for? I know he followed me. You saw him yourself from the front room creeping across the lawn out there. 'Twouldn't take him all this time to get in through that window.”
“Aw, shut up!” snarled the Butcher. “You'd give any one the creeps!”
“That's all right,” whispered the Bantam hoarsely; “but I said from the start it was a fool game not to cover him close on the way back, and——”
“Yes—and scare him off!” sneered the Butcher. “There ain't but one guy that'd pick up that trail—and that's the Hawk. He's butted in enough, but he's butted in for the last time to-night! The two of us are aplenty, aren't we? Sure—cover him close on the way back—and scare him off! D'ye think he's a fool!”
“No, I don't, curse him!” retorted the Bantam. “And if I'd had my way, I'd have croaked him in broad daylight with a bullet through his bean, and finished him for keeps the minute Jack spotted him following me! Instead of that, Jack never even gets a look at his mug.”
“You're some bright guy!” grunted the Butcher. “We'd have had a hot chance making a dead man tell us where he'd planted those diamonds off the Fast Mail, not to speak of a few other little trifles the swine did us out of!”
“And you think——”
“You bet, I do!” the Butcher cut in viciously. “He'll talk to-night to save his life—and then I'll toss you, Bantam, if you like, to see who bumps him off!”
The Hawk's fingers played in a curious, caressing motion over the stock of the automatic in his hand; the twist on his lips grew a little harder, a little more merciless.
There was movement in the room now. One of the two, the Bantam undoubtedly, in growing uneasiness, was moving softly, erratically, up and down the room. It proved to be the Bantam.
“Well then, where the blazes is he!” he burst out nervously.
“Aw, shut up!” snarled the Butcher savagely for the second time.
The Bantam's shadow, as the man paced up and down, passed the doorway, repassed, and passed again.
“I tell you, I don't like it!” he flung out suddenly. “Something's wrong! If he's outside the house, he can't see, anyway. I'm going to take a chance, and——”
There was a click, the light in the passageway went on—then a yell from the Bantam in the doorway—a lightning spring from the Hawk, as the other jerked a weapon upward—and the Bantam went down in a heap, as the Hawk's clubbed weapon caught him on the head. It was quick, like the winking of an eye. From back in the room, the Butcher sprang forward for the doorway—and fired—and missed—and the Hawk's left hand, as they came upon each other, darting out, closed with the strength of a steel vise on the Butcher's right wrist, and with a terrific wrench twisted the other's arm halfway around. It was lighter now in the room—light enough to see. The two forms swayed strangely—a little apart—the Butcher's body bent over, as though queerly deformed. Slowly, remorselessly, the Hawk turned the other's arm in its socket. Sweat sprang to the Butcher's forehead, his face writhed with pain—and, with a scream of agony, his revolver clattered to the floor.
“You're breaking it—for God's sake, let go!” he moaned.
The Hawk kicked the revolver to the other side of the room.
“Take the Bantam by the shoulders and drag him into that lighted room!” The Hawk's tones were flat, unpleasant. “I don't think I hit him hard enough to take the chance of leaving him there alone!”
The Butcher obeyed—with the muzzle of the Hawk's automatic pressed persuasively against the small of his back. He left the Bantam in the middle of the sitting room floor, and himself accepted a chair—at the Hawk's invitation.
“You again—eh, Butcher?” The Hawk's voice had become a drawl. With his automatic covering the Butcher, he had backed to the cupboard, opened it, and was feeling inside with his left hand. “My grateful thanks, and you'll convey my compliments—the Hawk's, you know—to our friend—the chief.” He had slipped the little black bag under his arm, and now his hand was back in the cupboard again; he had felt a ball of heavy cord there. “Sorry I haven't a phony ten-spot with me—my card, you know—unpardonable breach of etiquette—really!” He smiled suddenly. The ball of cord was in his hand, as he advanced toward the Butcher's chair. He set the little black bag down on the table.
The Butcher seemed to have lost all his characteristic ferocity; the sharp little ferret eyes rested anywhere but on the Hawk, and on his face was a sickly grin.
“Stand up!” commanded the Hawk curtly—he was knotting the end of the cord into a noose. “Now—your hands behind your back—and together! Thank you!” He slipped the noose over the Butcher's hands, and began to wind the cord around the other's wrists.
The Butcher winced.
“I'm sorry,” said the Hawk apologetically; “but it's all I have. The cord is rather thin, and I'm afraid it may cut into you—not strong enough to allow you any play, you know. And, by the way, Butcher, I heard the Bantam say that I was spotted on the way down—I presume he meant on the way down to the station. I'll be honest and admit I'm disappointed in myself. Would you mind explaining, Butcher—I was quite convinced there was no one behind me.”
“There wasn't!” The Butcher risked a sneer. “Mabbe the French guy was heard telephoning to the station, and the Bantam passed on the word. Nobody had to follow behind. All there was to do, knowing where the Frenchy was going, was to dodge around the blocks ahead, and keep hidden down the different intersecting streets, and see if the same guy kept going by the corners after the Bantam.”
“Thank you, Butcher,” murmured the Hawk gratefully. “That lets me out a little, doesn't it?” He wound the cord again and again around the Butcher's wrists, knotted it, shoved the other unceremoniously back into the chair, and tied the Butcher's legs.
The Hawk then gave his attention to the Bantam. The Bantam was just beginning to regain consciousness. The Hawk knelt down, rolled the man over on his side, and secured him in the same manner as he had the Butcher. But with the Bantam he went a little farther. He transferred the Bantam's handkerchief from the Bantam's pocket to the Bantam's mouth—and tied it there.
He turned once more to the Butcher.
“I must apologise again,” he said softly. “I hate to do this”—he felt for, and obtained, the Butcher's handkerchief—“but the house is unfortunately close to the road, and you might inadvertently make yourself heard before I got decently away.”
The Butcher's reply was a shrug of the shoulders.
The Hawk, about to cram the handkerchief into the other's mouth, paused.
“Butcher,” said the Hawk, almost plaintively, “if you'll permit me to deal in mixed metaphors, you appear to have shed your spots—you're too awfully docile!”
“You got the goods,” muttered the Butcher sullenly. “What more do you——”
He stopped suddenly. His eyes met the Hawk's. The telephone on the table was ringing.
The Hawk hesitated. Into the Butcher's eyes, narrowed now, there seemed to have come a mocking gleam. The telephone rang again. And then the Hawk reached out abruptly, and took the receiver from the hook.
“Hello!” he said gruffly.
“Four X. Who's that?” responded a voice.
There was something familiar about the voice, but he could not on the instant place it. The Hawk's mind, even as he answered, was swiftly cataloguing every member of the gang known to him in an effort to identify it.
“The Bantam,” he said.
“All right,” replied the voice. “Give me the Butcher.”
“Hold the line,” answered the Hawk.
He placed his hand over the transmitter. The voice was still eluding him. He turned, and eyed the Butcher.
“Four X wants you, Butcher.” All the drawl, all the insouciance was gone now; his voice was hard with menace, cold as death. “And you're going to speak to him—but you're going to say what I tell you to say. But before you begin, I want you to remember the little account between us that's been hanging over since that night in the paymaster's office. If you make a break, if you try to frame me—I'll settle that account here to-night, while you sit in that chair. If you hesitate on a word, I'll fire—and not through my pocket, you yellow cur! Understand? Don't kid yourself on this, Butcher! If I nod my head, say 'yes'—and no more. Now!”
The Butcher had sunk back in his chair. There was fear in his face; it was white, and he circled his lips with his tongue.
Beneath the mask, the Hawk's lips were a straight line. He laid down his automatic on the table, placed the receiver to his own ear, and held the transmitter to the Butcher's lips.
“Go ahead!” ordered the Hawk. “Ask him what he wants.” His fingers, cupped and pressed over the transmitter, lifted.
“Hello!” said the Butcher. “What is it?”
“That you, Butcher? Everything all right?” inquired the voice.
The Hawk nodded.
“Yes,” said the Butcher.
“Well, open up a bit!” complained the voice. “Did you get him, and——”
The voice was speaking on. The Hawk's lips had set a little tighter. He had recognised the voice now. His fingers were pressed over the transmitter again.
“Tell him you laid me out cold,” instructed the Hawk; “and that I haven't regained consciousness, yet. Now!” The voice had ceased speaking; the Hawk's fingers lifted again.
“We beaned him,” said the Butcher morosely.. “He's still asleep.”
“Good!” chuckled the voice. “I'll be up there by and by, and——”
“Tell him to stay where he is, that it will be—safer.” The Hawk clipped off his words.
The Butcher delivered the message, the snarl in his voice entirely to the Hawk's liking.
“What?” questioned the voice. “I didn't get you.”
“Repeat!” whispered the Hawk.
The Butcher repeated.
“O. K.,” came back the answer. “Yes, I guess you're right. So long, Butcher.”
“Say 'good-night,'.rdquo; prompted the Hawk.
“'Night!” growled the Butcher.
The Hawk replaced the receiver on the hook, and the instrument on the table.
The Butcher's lips were livid.
The Hawk picked up his automatic and leaned forward, his eyes on a level with the Butcher's.
“What's that fellow's moniker, Butcher?”
The Butcher hesitated.
The automatic crept forward an inch.
“Parson Joe.” The Butcher's voice choked with mingled rage and fear.
“Parson Joe, eh?” repeated the Hawk ruminatingly. “Was he the chap who pulled that con game on the Riverdale Bank back in New York State about six years ago, and afterwards got cornered by the police in Ike Morrissey's gambling hell, and was caught because he nearly bled to death, with his wrist half off, trying to get through a broken window pane? He got four spaces. That him?”
“If you say so, it must have been!” There was a leer in the Butcher's voice.
“Was it?” The automatic touched the Butcher's breast.
“Yes,” said the Butcher.
“Thank you!” smiled the Hawk. “Now——!”
He gagged the Butcher with the handkerchief, tied it securely into place, stood up, picked up the little black bag, switched off the electric reading lamp, moved to the window, and drew aside the shade. “We'll let that account stand open for a little while longer, Butcher,” he said softly. “Just a little while longer—good-night!”
He swung out of the window, dropped to the ground, ran across the lawn, and gained the road. His mask and automatic were back in his pockets. His fingers felt and patted the little black bag under his coat.
“Always play your luck,” whispered the Hawk confidentially to himself. “It seems to me I saw a little loose change in Doctor Meunier's pocket-book, and I don't think he's opened the duplicate bag yet and stirred up a fuss. It isn't much compared with a hundred thousand, or even fifty, to quote the Butcher, but 'every little bit added to what you've got——'” He fell to whistling the tune pleasantly under his breath, as he hurried along the road.
A minute later he had regained the taxicab.
“Drop me a block this side of the Corona—and give her all she's got!” he directed crisply.
“D'ye get him?” demanded the chauffeur eagerly.
“My friend,” replied the Hawk gently, as he stepped into the taxi, “if you'll think it over, you'll come to the conclusion that you really don't want to know. Take it from me that the less you're wise about to-night the wiser you will be to-morrow. Now, cut her loose!”
It had taken a good thirty minutes on the trip up; it took less than half of that, by a more direct route, for the return journey. At the corner, a block from the hotel, the Hawk crumpled two generous bank-notes into the chauffeur's hand, and bade the man good-night. He traversed the block, entered the hotel lobby, and, ignoring the elevators, leisurely and nonchalantly ascended the staircase to the first floor. From the landing he noted the room numbers opposite to him, and with these as a guide passed on along the corridor to where it turned at right angles at the corner of the building, and halted before room No. 106. A light showing above the transom indicated that the Frenchman was within. He had passed one or two people. No one had paid any attention to him. Why should they! He glanced up and down. The corridor, for the moment, was empty. He tried the door gently—it was locked. His right hand, in his side pocket, closed over his automatic. He pressed close to the door, knocked gently with his left hand—and with his left hand reached quickly into his pocket for his mask.
“Who's there?” the Frenchman called out.
“Message for you, sir,” the Hawk answered.
Footsteps crossed the room, the key turned in the lock—and, in a flash, the Hawk, slipping on his mask, had pushed the door open, closed it behind him, and the Frenchman was staring into the muzzle of the automatic.
“Mon Dieu!” gasped the Frenchman faintly.
“That's right!” said the Hawk coolly, “Don't speak any louder than that, or——” He shrugged his shoulders significantly, as he locked the door.
The Frenchman, white-faced, was evidently fighting for his nerve.
“What—what is it?” he stammered. “What is it that you want?”
It was almost a reassuring smile that flickered on the Hawk's lips, and his voice did not belie it—it was purely conversational in its tones.
“I was reading in the paper this afternoon about the famous Doctor Meunier. I'm a bit of a scientist myself, in an amateur way, and I'm particularly interested in radium when there's enough of it to——”
“Ah! My radium! That is what you want!” cried out the Frenchman wildly. The duplicate bag lay on the bed. He ran for it, and snatched it up. “No! That you shall not have! You come to steal my radium, you——”
“You jump at conclusions, doctor,” said the Hawk patiently. “Since it is already stolen, I——”
“Stolen!” The Frenchman stared—and then with feverish fingers opened the bag. He looked inside. The bag dropped to the floor, his hands went up in the air. “It is empty—empty!” he cried distractedly. “It is gone—gone!Mon Dieu, my radium is gone! What shall I do!” His hands were rumpling through his hair like one demented. “What shall I do—it is gone!”
“Well,” suggested the Hawk suavely, “I thought perhaps you might like to buy it back again.”
“Buy it back! Are you crazy? Am I crazy?” The man appeared to be beside himself; he flung out his arms in mad gesticulation. “With what would I buy it back? It is worth a hundred thousands dollars—a half million francs!”
“You are excited, Doctor Meunier,” said the Hawk calmly. From where it bulged under his coat he drew out the black bag. “I said nothing about a hundred thousand dollars.”
The Frenchman reached out a shaking hand, pointing at the bag.
“It is you then, after all, who stole it—eh? The bags—they are identical!Mon Dieu, what does this mean? I am mad! I do not understand!”
There was a chair on each side of the small table near the bed.
“Sit down!” invited the Hawk, indicating one with the muzzle of his automatic. The Frenchman sat down with a helpless and abandoned gesture of despair. The Hawk took the other chair. He opened the bag, opened the lead box, and laid the lead capsule on the table. “Do you identify this?” he inquired pleasantly.
The Frenchman reached for it eagerly.
The Hawk drew it back.
“One moment, please, Doctor Meunier!” he murmured. “You recognise it? You are satisfied that it is your tube of radium?”
“Yes, yes—mon Dieu!But, yes!”
“And it is worth, you say, a hundred thousand dollars?”
“But, yes, I tell you!” cried the Frenchman. “A hundred thousand—certainly, it is worth that!”
“Quite so!” said the Hawk placidly. “Therefore, Doctor Meunier, a comparatively small sum—eh?—you would be willing to pay that—a sum, I might add, that would be quite within your means.”
“Quite within my means?” repeated the Frenchman a little dazedly.
“Yes,” said the Hawk sweetly. “And to be specific, let us say—whatever is in your pocketbook.” The Frenchman drew back in his chair. His face blanched.
“You—you mean to rob me!” he exclaimed hoarsely.
“I do not see it quite in that light.” The Hawk's voice was pained. “But we will not discuss the ethics involved—we probably should not agree. I did not steal your precious capsule from you, and I am returning it, not, I might say, without having incurred considerable personal risk in so doing. Perhaps we might better agree if we called it—a reward.”
“No!” said the Frenchman desperately.
The Hawk's automatic tapped the table top with a hint of petulance.
“And—and what guarantee have I,” the Frenchman burst out, “that you will give me the tube after you have taken my money?”
“My word,” said the Hawk evenly. “And—I am waiting, Doctor Meunier!”
The Frenchman hesitated, then, with an oath, flung his pocketbook upon the table. The Hawk opened it, extracted the wad of bills that he had seen exhibited in the superintendent's office, smiled as he fingered them, and put them in his pocket. He pushed the lead capsule across the table—and suddenly, as the other reached for it, the Hawk was on his feet, his automatic flung forward, his left hand grasping the other's sleeve.
They held that way for an instant, eying each other—the Hawk's left hand slowly pushing back the other's right-hand sleeve. And then the Hawk's eyes shifted—to a long, jagged, white scar on the bare forearm just above the wrist.
“Shall I introduce myself—Parson Joe?” purred the Hawk.
The other's face was a mottled red—it deepened to purple.
“No, blast you!” he said between his teeth. “I know you—but I didn't think you knew me. So you called the turn when the Bantam followed me—eh?”
The Hawk shook his head.
“I never saw you in my life before to-day,” he said grimly; “and, if it will do you any good to know it, I fell for that radium plant—until you telephoned the Butcher half an hour ago.”
“And how did you know me, then?” The other flung the question fiercely.
Again the Hawk shook his head. He had no desire that Parson Joe should know he had been on the Limited that morning—Parson Joe might possess an inconveniently retentive memory for faces, and he, the Hawk, did not always wear a mask.
“Maybe I guessed it, Parson!” he said insolently. “I must have—it was the only thing that wasn't in the paper! What encyclopedia did you get that 'Becquerel burn' dope out of? And was the reporter lying, or how did you work it to get him on the train?”
Parson Joe was leaning forward over the table, fingering the lead capsule. He suddenly crushed it with a blow of his fist, twisted it in two, and hurled the pieces across the floor.
“We got him up the line on a fake that didn't come off!” he snarled.
There was an instant's silence, then the Hawk spoke.
“Nice, amiable crowd, you are, Parson!” The Hawk's voice was silken. “I'm just beginning to appreciate you. Let's see! You had to pull a story that any newspaper would jump at andfeature, didn't you? And you had to have a big enough bait to make sure I'd rise to it. And you had to account for the celebrated Doctor Meunier's layover in Selkirk; and, not expecting I'd pick up the trail quite so quickly, say, not until after the paper had been out a little longer and you had made another baiting trip or two to Lanson's office, you had to account for the famous gentleman's enforced stay through the night if necessary; and it gave a big swing to the story, and let you work your stunt for the special train that you knew you couldn't get; and you figured I'd be even more sure to see it in the paper if it was connected with some pleasant little episode of yours—and so, on several counts, you blew up the bridge.”
The man's teeth were clamped together.
“Yes!” he choked. “And we'd blow a dozen more to get you!”
“You flatter me!” said the Hawk dryly. “I'm afraid I've put you to quite a little trouble—for nothing!”
Sullen, red, furious, Parson Joe's face twitched.
“You win to-night”—the heavy-lensed spectacles were off, and the black eyes, the pupils gone, burned on the Hawk—“but you're going out! As sure as God gave you breath, we'll get you yet, and——”
“The Butcher told me that, and so did the Cricket—some time ago,” said the Hawk wearily. “I'm—keep your hands above the table—I'm sure you mean well!” He was backing toward the door. “I won't bother to relieve you of your revolver; and I don't think you'll telephone down to the office. It might be awkward explaining to the police how Doctor Meunier lost his pocketbook—and got his medical degree! I shall, however, lock the door on the outside, as I shall require a minute or two to reach the street, and I cannot very well go through the hotel corridor with—this”—he jerked his hand toward his mask.
The other's hands were above the table, obediently in plain view—but they were clenching and unclenching now, the knuckles white.
The Hawk reached behind him, took the key from the lock, listened, opened the door slightly, and, still facing into the room, still covering the other with his automatic, reached around the door and fitted the key into the outside of the lock.
“When you get out,” said the Hawk, as though it were an afterthought, “I'm sure the Butcher will be glad to see you—I am afraid he is not as comfortable as he might be!”
The black eyes, with a devil's fury in them, had never left the Hawk's. And now the other lifted one of his clenched hands above his head.
“I'd give five years—five yearsof my life—for a look at your face!” he whispered hoarsely.
The Hawk was backing through the door.
“It's not enough, Parson,” he said softly. “Make it another—pocketbook.”