Part 10 (1/2)
”I was only waiting for your friends to go, Bundy,” she said coolly.
The revolver sagged a little in Billy Kane's hand. He could not see her face very well, the single incandescent dangling from the ceiling was miserably inadequate, but dark eyes flashed at him out of an oval face, and the chin thrown up gave a glimpse of the contour of a full throat, ivory white-and all this was merged in the background of a slender figure clothed and cloaked in some dark material, unrelieved by a single vistage of color.
She spoke again.
”I don't think you are quite as badly hurt as you pretend, Bundy,” she said, with a sort of icy composure. ”You were out last night when I came here, and if you could prowl around the streets, I think perhaps you could manage now to get from the bed over to the door there and back again without doing yourself any serious injury. The door has been unlocked since Red Vallon went out, and it might be safer-locked.”
Billy Kane did not answer her. He got up, crossed to the door, locked it, and, returning, sat down on the edge of the bed. She had not moved from her position near the far end of the room. He became conscious that he was still holding his revolver in his hand, and he thrust the weapon quietly now into his pocket. A grim smile came and hovered on his lips.
This complication, another of the ramifications of his stolen ident.i.ty, he did not understand at all-except that it promised him no good. She was the author of last night's note-she had just said as much-and the wording of that note was not rea.s.suring as to her att.i.tude toward him, nor was the mockery in her laugh, nor was the self-contained, almost contemptuous note of command with which she had just spoken. Who was she? What was she to the Rat, that she knew the secret of that underground tunnel, and the secret of that door?
He jerked his hand toward the chair Red Vallon had vacated.
”Sit down, won't you?” There was a tingle of irony in his voice. His invitation was at least safe ground.
She came forward toward the table, a subtle, supple grace in her movements. Subconsciously he noted that she made no sound as she crossed the room. She was like a cat-but a very beautiful cat. He could see her face better now. The eyes were hard and unfriendly, but they were great, brown, steady eyes of unfathomable depths.
She leaned against the table.
”I prefer to stand.” There was a challenge in her tones. ”What I have to say will not take long.”
Billy Kane waited. The initiative was with her. He meant it to remain so. Her small white hand, ungloved, clenched suddenly at her side until its knuckles stood out like little chalky k.n.o.bs.
”You look sleeker about the face, clearer about the eyes-you beast!”
There was a studied deliberation in her voice that gave the words the sting of a curling whip lash. ”Perhaps you've been--”
”You were listening there at the door?” suggested Billy Kane imperturbably, as he reached into his pocket for a cigarette.
There was a mocking little lift to her shoulders.
”Of course! That is what I came for. I followed Red Vallon here. I supposed that you would meet at the old place, now that you are back; but since you are an invalid--” Again the shoulders lifted.
”I am afraid it hardly paid you for the trouble-to listen,” Billy Kane murmured caustically. ”I'm sorry! I rather fancied I saw the door move, and you see, my illness has affected my voice, and at times I can scarcely speak above a whisper, otherwise you might have overheard--”
”I overheard enough!” She took a sudden step toward him. Her eyes were flas.h.i.+ng now; there was a flush, angry red, mounting from the white throat, suffusing her cheeks. She raised her clenched hands. ”You will die with insolence and bravado on your lips, I believe!” she cried out pa.s.sionately. ”How I _hate_ you! But I've got you-like _that_”-she flung out an arm toward him, and the small clenched hand opened and then closed again, slowly, as though in its grip it were remorselessly crus.h.i.+ng and exterminating some abhorrent thing. And then her hand was raised again, and was brushed across her eyes, and a little quiver ran through her form, and she spoke more calmly. ”I overheard enough. I thought this Merxler affair would be worked to-night, and I came to tell you that you are to stop it. I came to tell you to-_remember_! I promise, before G.o.d, that if there is murder done to-night you will be in the hands of the police within an hour. And it's not very far from the Tombs to the death chair in Sing Sing-Bundy Morgan.”
Billy Kane's eyes were hidden by drooped lids. His eyes were studying with curious abstraction the pattern of the faded, greasy, threadbare strip of carpet on the floor beside the bed. Murder! The word had come with a shock that for a moment unnerved him. He had not a.s.sociated anything that Red Vallon or Karlin had said with murder. They had spoken so lightly, referred to it in so humdrum a way. Murder! There was something ghastly in that lightness now. A tightness came to his lips, a horror was creeping into his soul. He was only on the verge of things, of hidden and abominable things, here in this shadow land, this night land of skulking shapes, this sordid realm of the underworld. He pulled himself together. He was the Rat-he had a part to play. He was conscious that those brown, fearless eyes were fixed on him contemptuously.
”What have I to do with it?” he muttered sullenly.
”Do with it! _You!_” Her voice rose, as though suddenly out of control.
”You dare ask that! You, with your devil's brains-you, who planned it all before you went away!”
The cigarette that he had lighted had gone out. He sucked at it, circling it around his lips. He was fencing now with unb.u.t.toned foils.
”Well, you've said it!” There was a snarl creeping into his voice. ”I've been away. I don't know what they've done since I've been away.”
”You know about the will, and the sealed envelope in Merxler's safe, and you know the combination to the safe,” she said levelly. ”And that's all you need to know to stop this from going any further.”
He laughed out shortly.