Rich Crooks/Chapter 12
XII
I COULD have told him that Cora had been doing fine. I did tell him that without adding that she had been out for a ride in Jack's limousine the day before. I could have told him some other things that would have been of extreme importance, but when one has for so many years kept his own counsel and arranged his little affairs with an eye for the dramatic—perhaps for the melodramatic—one is likely to have no scruples about keeping from people things they have a right to know.
When Joseph Cornwall sent me word that he would meet me at the Treborne, I sent back as an answer that he would do nothing of the kind unless the cashier's check had been put into my hands. I was pretty sure that he would not send the money beforehand, though in that answer I conveyed that I had already got in touch with other interested parties out West. I wanted, however, to be sure to have Joseph at the hotel. I should have perferred to have had Daniel Cornwall, of course.
There are various ways of getting what one wants, and though many of my most carefully laid plans have been futile, I have occasionally been quite successful. For one thing, I have never hesitated in life or in the lesser gamble of games defined by Hoyle, to play with marked cards. That may seem a contemptible thing to admit, but I never saw an honest poker-player yet who wasn't eventually trimmed by cheaters.
Though, by way-of keeping my hand in with a revolver, I toss pennies into the air and hit them, yet I do not go about picking quarrels with quiet, honest folk, and, though I can do some very nearly unbelieveable things with cards, I have never yet cleaned out a man who played honestly. Understand me, for I have no desire to whitewash myself. If a man who can afford to lose gets into a game and he is no personal friend of mine and I happen to have some use for more money than I have, he is pretty likely to complain of his luck.
But to get back to my story: By Wednesday evening I had begun to feel a little impatient. As I had been doing every evening, I left the doors unlocked, the rear windows open and the screen unlatched. I drew the blinds and rigged out a kind of dummy that threw a passible silhouette against the shade, while Yang hovered in the shadows of the front porch, sheltered by vines, and I lurked patiently as an Indian in the pantry.
As usual, nothing came of our precautions, so about ten o'clock, with much care in case we were being watched, the dummy was dismantled. I took its place for a moment then arose and went into my bedroom and undressed. Then Yang turned out the lights.
Whoever has watched the night out, sleeplessly listening—I care not how strong his nerves—evokes a feeling of the eerie. With every sense strained to catch sounds, one hears much creaking and rustling, and it is very easy to believe in ghosts. Phantoms seem to flicker in the darkness before one's tense eyes, and the over-alert ears report all manner of faint, suspicious noises. I was alone in the house, not that being alone at all disturbed me, but even I, who am sometimes thought to be without emotion, am much more susceptible than I will admit to the startling effect of solitary and tense darkness. Each night after he turned out the lights, Yang left the house, and had any one taken the trouble to follow him, that person would have been convinced that he did not return until morning, for Yang was very subtle and elusive.
On that Wednesday night I was more tense than ever, for on previous nights I had very nearly exhausted my imagination by wondering what could and might have happened at the multiple appointments I planned at the Treborne. Besides, this was my last night before those appointments were to be kept and all whom I wanted to be present had not been invited.
Around one o'clock I heard something a little more marked than the usual inexplicable creaking that gave me many false thrills—the silence. My imagination had played a trick or, at least, I so accused it.
The sky was cloudy and there was neither moon nor stars. The room was inky but one's eyes grow vaguely accustomed to the thickest blackness. Again the creaking as of a cautious foot placed on the back porch, then silence—an interminable silence. I bent forward, ears strained, and for the briefest of moments I caught a vague streak of light that sifted beneath the door. Somebody was in the house. He had moved with infinite caution and silence. Again silence; the person was listening. I held my breath for a second or two, fearful that he might become alarmed and retreat.
Then I knew—I could not see, I scarcely heard—that the door into my bedroom was opening. It did not creak. I had oiled it with care and also taken the precaution of laying rugs and mats where it seemed they would be most likely to serve the intruder's purpose. After the door opened, the prowler stood for many minutes—silent, waiting, listening. He had the patience of a hunting animal.
Then came an almost noiseless step nearer to the bed—distinguished a little by the white spread. I could catch the faint creaks of the strained boards—there are few floors that do not creak a little. One may live in a house for years and never know it, but turn out the lights and try to move inaudibly across the room and the boards seem maliciously to squeak a warning, though it really may be impossible for one in the next room to hear.
Step by step, with a full minute or two after each short advance, the figure came nearer and nearer to. the bed. There was a pause as he stood at the foot; then he half crouched and came alongside, inch by inch. I am by nature rather unemotional, seldom nervous, but I felt a queer little chill pass along my back as I wondered whether he would strike with club or knife.
At last there flashed on the bed a blinding stream of light from an electric torch. With incredible swiftness the man brought down the uplifted, loaded cane against the pillow. There was a dull crunching, smashing sound, and the torch was shut off. The blow had shattered the little mannikin, and at that instant I switched on the light.
“Thank you,” I said with extreme politeness.
THE man looked like a preacher. Had the earth given way under his feet and landed him before the satanic throne he could not have been more stunned. I stood there, my hands empty, smiling, thanking him. His clothes were black and formal; he wore a stiff white shirt and a little black clerical tie; his rather leathery, flabby face wore side-whiskers; a parochial black hat was on his head; he was in his stocking feet. His mouth was open and his hands and arms were frozen into a gesture of recoil; amazement and terror burned in his widened eyes.
“Thank you,” I repeated, “for taking the trouble to prove to me precisely what I suspected. First there was Mrs. Ellis, then Cora, then my Chinaman and now myself. Each time all because of a little black box which no honest man would give ten cents for, and”
Wordless, he hurled himself at me, the loaded cane coming down. I stepped to one side, snatched at the holster fastened to the curtains behind which I had been standing and in the twinkling of a second had reminded him of the fate that befell Taggart when engaged on a similar errand some years before.
At my suggestion he dropped the cane to the floor; then he cursed me. When he paused I urged him to go on, explaining to him that I enjoyed listening to compliments. Naturally that made him more furious. In the awkward way that men have when unaccustomed to the use of guns, he pushed back his coat and tugged at his hip pocket. I had replaced my own in the holster and I did not take the trouble to reach for it. I sharply told him to put up his hands. Had he refused I probably would have killed him.
“Look here,” I began, business-like. “I don't want to hurt you. I'm not going to call the police. Now put your hands down and keep your fingers away from your hip pocket and let us talk things over like sensible men.”
My words and attitude were almost as bewildering a surprize as when I had turned on the light.
“Why do you suppose I've held up that box?” I demanded. “Hasn't it been very apparent that I needed money? Outside of some people like you and the governor of Utah, who is not rich, who would bid for it? I move off to an obscure little house and get the address put into the papers, so you could the more easily find it.”
“How did you know—” he began, his voice shaking.
“I knew you would come. You went to Mrs. Ellis, to Cora, to my Chinaman.”
“How did you know—” he began again, but I interrupted him.
“All that is of no importance. Let's talk of money. My price is now one hundred and thirty thousand' dollars for the box. Will you pay it?”
He protested that it would be impossible. Having got on to familiar ground—money matters—he became a bargainer. I told him that it would no doubt be inconvenient but not impossible. Anyway, for that sum I would put the box into his hands, unopened, and just as it was when he had seen it last. Otherwise it would be refused him.
We argued, or rather he did. I said he could fix up whatever explanation pleased him to satisfy his lawyers and bank, but I had to have the money, cash, by tomorrow, or rather by this afternoon. I told him he would have to be at Suite C of the Treborne Hotel at 2:50 promptly. How did he know it wasn't a trap? He knew it very well, I told him, because he could not imagine how I could possibly lay a better trap than the one in which he had just been caught: I explained that I knew very well he would come, for, since I was on to his secret, not even millions could save him from exposure unless he silenced me and got his box.
“You don't dare run off and hide and lose your identity altogether, for you are an old man—not in the best of health, either, are you? No, and you would be hounded out and couldn't touch your money without revealing your true identity and couldn't reveal that without being caught.”
As a matter of fact, the elusive and subtle Yang did return each night after his seeming departure, to patiently stand watch for the purpose of shadowing any one who left house. Yang could have shadowed a ghost, so I was not taking nearly the risk that I seemed to be in letting the clerical gentleman go his way.
“How did you know—” he began for the third time, as if obsessed with some peculiar desire for information. But again I cut the question short, half-maliciously.
“I know much more than most people give me credit for. For instance I know that you will be at the Treborne this afternoon with the money. Don't interrupt me. I know you will be there, for this evening I expect to have dinner with the governor of Utah. Yes, if you hadn't been too—I don't know whether to call it cunning or stingy—to have kept your private detectives in Salt Lake telegraphing news, you would have known that he left quietly for New York recently. Yes or no? Will you be there at 2:50, sharp? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” he said huskily.
Though he was a double-dyed liar and criminal, I felt sure that he would keep the appointment. Though he might not intend to keep it, I felt sure that he would be there. I like to plan little dramatic affairs and in this case I had taken certain precautions. Anyway, he promised.
He brought in his shoes from the back porch, put them on and left by the front door at about three o'clock.
I went to bed and sleep, very contented with myself and full of faith in the slim, wraith-like Chinaman who, though I had not seen or signaled to him, I knew was following the clerical figure and would follow no matter where or which way he went.