Part 19 (1/2)

Red Vallon did not answer.

The muzzle of Billy Kane's automatic lifted to a level with the gangster's eyes.

”Did you hear me?” The facetiousness was gone from Billy Kane now. His voice rasped suddenly. ”_Toss it over!_”

With an oath, Red Vallon flung the pocketbook over the table.

Billy Kane caught it deftly with his left hand.

”Thank you!” said Billy Kane politely. He tucked the chamois case into his pocket, and reached out for the doork.n.o.b. ”I think that is all-gentlemen,” he said softly; ”except to wish you-good-night!”

In a flash he had shut the door upon them, and, turning, was running across the outer room. But Red Vallon, too, was quick. Before Billy Kane reached the door leading into the hall, he heard the window of the front room flung up-and Red Vallon's voice:

”Quick, boys, come in! The man in the mask! Head him off! Jump for it!

He's going downstairs!”

Billy Kane's jaws clamped hard, as he swung through the door to the head of the stairs. It was true! He remembered that Red Vallon had said he had some of his gang with him. He could hear them now. They were running into the lower hall; and, though he was taking the stairs three and four at a time, they would meet on the lower staircase, if he kept on. His escape was cut off. There was only one chance-Peters' door-it was unlocked-Peters' door, before Red Vallon above opened the door of Savnak's flat and saw him.

It had been a matter of seconds, no more; but seconds that had seemed of interminable duration. He was at the foot of the stairs now. Came the pound of approaching feet from below. Red Vallon, whether because he had not had time, or because he was wary of a trap, had not opened the door into the hall above yet. Billy Kane, cautious of any sound, slipped through the door into Peters' flat, half drew back in sudden dismay-then grimly closed the door behind him softly, and, working with desperate haste now, and still silently, took out his skeleton keys and locked it.

He turned, then, with his automatic flung out in front of him-and faced toward the door that opened on his left. He knew it, of course! But it had been too late to turn back. He was doubly trapped! His lips, thinned, curved in a bitter smile. If there was any murder to be done here in this flat to-night, it was likely now to be his own-not Peters'!

_There was a light in that room!_ Peters must have come in while he, Billy Kane, was upstairs. He was between two fires. A cry, any alarm given by Peters, would bring Red Vallon and his blood-fanged pack bursting through that door behind him. Was Peters deaf? True, he, Billy Kane, had slipped as silently through the door as he could, and had locked it as silently as he could, but he must have made some noise!

Feet raced by in the hall, and went thumping up the stairs. It was strange that Peters had not heard him! It was stranger still that Peters did not hear the commotion now that Red Vallon's pack was making!

Billy Kane moved forward stealthily until he could see into the lighted room-and stood suddenly still. He felt the blood leave his face. He lifted his hand to his eyes in a queer, jerky, horrified motion; and then, with a low cry, he ran forward into the other room. The place was in confusion. It was a bedroom, and bureau drawers had been wrenched out and thrown around; every possible receptacle that might have concealed the smallest object had been ransacked and looted, and the contents strewn in wild disorder everywhere about-and on the floor a man lay sprawled, dead, murdered, a brutal wound in the side of his head from a blow that had apparently fractured the skull.

He knelt for a moment over the man. It was Peters. He rose, then, and stood there, fighting to rouse his brain from blunted torpor, to force it to resume its normal functions. Peters had been lying here dead, all the time that he, Billy Kane, had been waiting outside there in the hall! It must have taken quite a little while to have accomplished this murder and ransack the room. Peters, therefore, must have left the Ellsworth house earlier than usual, since the murderer, allowing for the length of time he would have required for his work, must have completed it and made his escape before he, Billy Kane, had arrived here at nine o'clock. It was very strange, horribly strange-to _find_ Peters murdered! Who was it, who had done it? Who was it, other than himself, who could have had any motive? What did it mean? What was it that Peters had had here, that had been the object of such a frantic search? Billy Kane drew his breath in suddenly, sharply. What could it be save _one_ thing! The Ellsworth rubies! That was it, wasn't it-_rubies_!

A sound from somewhere out in the hall brought surging back upon him a realization of his own imminent peril. There must be some way out, he must find a way. If he knew Red Vallon at all, he knew that he, Billy Kane, would never leave by the door! Well, a fire escape then, perhaps!

Quick now, every faculty alert, he ran noiselessly from room to room, and from window to window. He returned a moment later to the hall door, his face a little harder set and strained. There was no escape by the windows. There was nothing, except an increasing sound of disturbance that seemed to be affecting all parts of the house. Nothing, save Red Vallon's voice just outside the door, talking, evidently, to some of his men:

”He _ain't_ got out-and he ain't going to get out till we've searched every flat in the place! He's most likely on this floor, and Birdie and me'll tackle this door here first; but you go down there and tell those people below to shut up their row, and some of you look through their rooms. Beat it!”

Footsteps scurried away. The doork.n.o.b was tried. Billy Kane's lips were a thin line. There was no physical way of escape. Was there a way of wits? His wits against Red Vallon's! He stood there motionless, a queer, grim look creeping into his face, as the door now was shaken violently.

And then, suddenly, he jerked his mask from his face, and thrust it into his pocket. Yes, there was a way, but a way that held a something of ghastly, abysmal irony in it. He could prove an alibi-he had a witness to it.

The door quivered, but held, under a cras.h.i.+ng blow. Then Red Vallon's growling voice:

”Get out of the road, Birdie, and let me at it! I'll bust it in!”

And then Billy Kane spoke.

”Is that you, Red?” he demanded harshly.

There was a surprised gasp from the hall without, a second's tense silence, and then Red Vallon's voice again, heavy with perplexity and amazement:

”Who in h.e.l.l are you?”