Part 27 (1/2)

”You are wrong, my big friend. You can have your liberty--qualified liberty--this minute if you wish. All you have to do is swear to me, on your honor as a Christian and a gentleman, that you will never mention this little adventure to a living person. You must invent some story for Rayton and set out for New York to-night. You must drop this feeble idea of yours of playing the detective. In short, you must swear to mind your own business in the future and leave me and mine alone.”

”I'll see you in h.e.l.l first!” cried the sportsman. ”I am on your trail, and I'll stick to it. You'll pay heavily for this.”

Wigmore chuckled. ”Pay?” he said. ”Pay? You forget, you big slob, that I am banker in this game--and I am not the kind of banker that pays.”

”What do you think you are going to do with me?” asked Banks, with outward calm.

”Lots of things,” replied Wigmore. ”I will reduce your flesh, for one thing; and your fat pride for another. I'll make you whimper and crawl 'round on your knees. But just now I'll request you to come downstairs.

Since you have broken the door of that room, I must give you another.”

”I hope the other room will be an improvement on this.”

”Yes. A very comfortable room.”

”And what about breakfast?”

”You will have a cup of tea in half an hour--if you behave yourself in the meantime.”

Banks laughed uncertainly.

”See here, captain, don't you think this joke has gone far enough?” he asked.

”Not at all,” replied Wigmore. ”My joke has just begun. Yours ended very quickly, on the floor of my sitting room--but that was your own fault.

You are a blundering joker, Banks. You should have made sure that I was not at home before you went round shaking all the doors, and then crawled through the window. But that is a thing of the past, now, and so beyond mending. I hope you will derive more entertainment from my joke than you did from your own.”

Banks had no answer to make to that. He fisted his big hands and breathed heavily.

”I must ask you now to step back to the farther wall of your room,” said Wigmore.

Banks hesitated for a moment, then backed across the threshold and across the little room until his shoulders touched the farther wall.

”Stay there until I give you the word,” said the old man.

Then face and rifle barrel vanished, and, at the same instant, Banks moved forward noiselessly and swiftly, lifted the couch in his strong hands, and dropped it down the dark well of the staircase. It crashed and banged against the wooden steps and the plaster walls; and before its clattering had ceased the big sportsman himself was halfway down the stairs. Halfway--and then he halted and recoiled, clutching at the cold walls! The couch had been a second too slow in following Wigmore, and Banks a second too slow in following the couch. The captain stood at the bottom of the stairs, a foot beyond the wreckage of the couch, laughing sardonically and presenting the muzzle of the rifle fair at his captive's waist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THEN HE HALTED AND RECOILED, CLUTCHING AT THE COLD WALLS!”]

”That was a false start,” he said. ”But I was expecting it, fortunately.”

Banks sat down on a dusty step, trembling violently. He felt sick--actually sick at his stomach--with rage, chagrin, and terror of that ready rifle and the sinister face behind it. The eyes of the old man were more terrifying than the menacing black eye of the weapon. The gleam at their depths was scarcely human.

”Well?” asked Banks, at last, weakly. He pa.s.sed a gloved hand across his forehead. ”Well? What are you going to do?”

”That depends on you,” said the captain. ”If you throw furniture at me every time I turn my back, I'll be forced to knock you out again and tie you up. I can't risk being killed by you, for my life is valuable.”

”Do you intend to hit me again with the sandbag?” asked the New Yorker thickly.

”No, I don't mean to take that risk again,” replied the other. ”Another crack like that might kill you--and I don't want to kill you just yet, unless I have to. Perhaps I won't kill you at all, my dear fellow. I may--of course; but I don't think so at the moment. I am whimsical, however--a man of quick and innumerable moods. However, I do not expect to thump you again with the sandbag. I have this rifle--for serious work--and this queer-looking little pistol for the joking. It is a chemical pistol--quite a new invention. I have tested it, and found it to be all the manufacturers claim for it. Don't move! You can see and hear perfectly well where you are! If I discharge it in your face, at a range of twenty feet, or under, it will stun you, and leave you stunned for an hour or more, without tearing the flesh or breaking any bones.

The thing that hits you is gas--I forget just what kind. It is pretty potent, anyway--and I don't suppose you are particular as to what variety of gas you are shot with. It is a fine invention, and works like a charm. I am quite eager to test it again.”

”Don't! Don't! Great heavens, man, have you gone mad?” cried Mr. Banks.