The Deaves Affair Part 51

Charley rode clear to the end of the line at Featherbed lane. Evan, by lingering to ask the motorman a question as to his supposed direction, let him get away from the car. Eight people got off at this point.

Five waited at the transverse tracks for the Yonkers car, while three, of whom Evan and Charley were two, crossed the tracks and kept on heading North by the automobile highway. They were at the extreme edge of the town in this direction. The last electric lights were behind them; only a house or two remained alongside the road, then tall woods and darkness.

There was no sidewalk; they proceeded up the middle of the road, first Charley, then the suburbanite, then Evan. Charley frequently looked over his shoulder, the pale patch of his face revealed in the receding lights. But Evan kept on boldly, confident that he could not be recognised with the lights at his back. The suburbanite turned in at one of the houses; Charley was presently swallowed by the shadow of the woods. Evan made believe to turn in at the last house, but dropped in the ditch, and crept along until he, too, gained the woods.

Running in the soft stuff at the side, pausing to listen, and running ahead again, Evan continued to follow Charley by the sound of his nervous steps on the hard road. The road turned slightly, and the lights behind them pa.s.sed out of sight. The tall trees pressed close on either hand, and it was as dark below as in a cavern.

The steps ceased. Evan paused, listening. Had Charley stopped, or had he, too, taken to the soft stuff? They re-commenced, grew louder, he was coming back! Evan hastily withdrew close under the bushes at the side. Charley pa.s.sed him at five yards distance. In the stillness Evan could even hear his agitated breathing. In a queer way Evan felt for him. It was no joke to fancy one's self followed on such a road at such an hour. He showed pluck in thus boldly venturing back.

Evan was obliged to take into account the possibility that this whole excursion up the dark road might be a feint. He dared not let Charley out of sight and hearing. He followed him back to the turn in the road, still creeping in the soft stuff. From this point Charley's figure was outlined against the twinkling lights of the trolley terminus, and Evan waited to see what he would do.

Charley went back to the edge of the woods: stopped, listened, walked back and forth a few times, then returned towards Evan, but now, like the other man, taking care to m.u.f.fle his steps in the gra.s.s alongside.

Evan could only see him at moments now. He was on Evan's side of the road. Evan drew back under a thick bush.

Charley came creeping along, bent almost double with the primordial instinct of concealment. He paused to listen so close to Evan that the latter, squatting under his bush, could have reached out and touched Charley's foot. Evan breathed from the top of his lungs, wondering that the beating of his heart did not betray him. He heard Charley's breath come in uneven little jerks.

For seconds Charley stood there. Was it possible he knew an enemy was near? Evan could make out his head turning this way and that. The tension was hard on nerves. Though he lay as still as a snake it seemed incredible to Evan that Charley did not feel his nearness.

Finally he went on, and a soft, blessed breath of relief escaped Evan.

He gave him ten yards and started to follow. Charley was on the alert now; very well, he must be twice as alert and beat him at his own game.

Evan followed him by the swish of his feet in the gra.s.s, by the soft brus.h.i.+ng of leaves against his clothes, by the crackle of an occasional twig under foot, at the same time taking care to betray no similar sounds himself. The advantage was greatly with the one who followed, for he knew the other man was there, while the one in front only feared.

Evan's patient stalking was interrupted by the pa.s.sage of an automobile. He was obliged to seek cover from the rays of its headlights. It bowled up the road with a gay party, laughing and talking, all unsuspecting of the drama being enacted beside the road.

Before it was well by Evan was out again. For a second he had a glimpse of Charley running like a deer up the road. Then he plunged into the bushes. Whatever the automobile party thought of this apparition, they did not stop to investigate.

Evan hastened to the vicinity of the spot where he had seen Charley disappear. Lying low, he concentrated all the power of his will on the act of hearing. He was rewarded by the faintest whisper of a sound from within the woods to the left of the road. It was repeated.

Someone was creeping away in that direction. Charley had left the road. A sharp anxiety attacked Evan, for his difficulties were now redoubled.

But when he sought to feel a way into the woods, he discovered a place near by where it was comparatively open. There was no underbrush. In fact a road was suggested, a former road perhaps, for it was rough and tangled underfoot. Evan's heart bounded. Could this be the track that led direct to the abandoned house? He lost all sound of Charley, but continued to press forward full of hope.

At intervals he paused to listen, but no sound such as he wished to hear reached his ears; only the whisper of the night breeze among the leaves, and the faint far-off hum of the living world. A hundred feet or so from the highway the wood-track made a turn, and the trees hemmed him all about. The darkness of the road outside was as twilight to the blackness that surrounded him here.

Suddenly a sixth sense warned Evan of danger from behind. He whirled around only to receive the impact of a leaping figure which bore him to the earth. Dazed by the fall, for a moment he was at a hopeless disadvantage. The whole weight of the other man was on his chest.

Evan struck up at him ineffectually.

Charley's voice whispered hoa.r.s.ely: "I'm armed. Give up, or I'll shoot you like a dog! Will you give up?"

"Never!" muttered Evan.

The effect was surprising. "Evan! You! Oh, my G.o.d!" whispered Charley. The tense body slackened for a moment. Evan, gathering his strength, heaved up and threw him off.

But Charley was quick too. When Evan reached for him he was not there.

Evan, grinding his teeth with rage, scrambled for him on hands and knees. The other kept just beyond his reach. Both were confused by the utter darkness. Each time one succeeded in getting to his feet, he promptly crashed over a branch again. Evan clutched at Charley's clothes, and Charley wrenched himself free. Charley, seeking to escape Evan, collided with him and recoiled gasping. Meanwhile he never ceased imploring him in a desperate whisper. But it was something more than the note of personal fear that actuated his pleading.

"Evan, hold up! You don't know what you're doing! Evan, listen! Let me talk to you quietly! I swear I'm on the square! Evan, for G.o.d's sake hold up, or I swear I'll have to shoot you!"

But Evan was past listening. "Throw your gun away, and stand up to me like a man!" he said thickly.

In the mad, blind scramble, Charley finally got his bearing and started to run back towards the highway. Evan plunged after him. Charley tripped and fell headlong, and Evan came down on top of him.

Charley was helpless then, for in strength he was no match for Evan.

Yet he still struggled desperately. Not to escape though. His hand was in his pocket. Not for his gun, because that was already out. He managed to get the hand to his lips, and then Evan understood. The warning whistle! As Charley drew breath to blow, Evan s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his hand and flung it into the bush.

While Charley still implored him, Evan shook out a handkerchief in his teeth, and gagged him. With the other handkerchiefs that he had brought against such a contingency, he tied his hands behind his back, and tied his ankles. He then possessed himself of Charley's pocket searchlight, and with its aid found the revolver which had flown from Charley's hand upon his fall.

With his antagonist bound and helpless at his feet, Evan cooled down.

He rapidly considered what he must do next. He had no means of knowing how well the old house might be barricaded, and it would be the height of foolhardiness to attempt to storm it single-handed. On the other hand, if he took the time to go for the police, the chief of the gang, warned of danger by Charley's non-arrival, might make his getaway.

Perhaps he could commandeer an automobile. Late as it was, an occasional car still pa.s.sed on the highway. Evan hastened back.

As he turned the bend in the road he saw the lights of a car standing in the main road with engine softly running. Evan prudently slowed down. The occupants could not possibly see him yet. They were talking. Evan listened.

One said: "Well, it's all over now, anyway."

Another replied. "Come on in, and let's see what was the matter?"

"Into that black hole? Not on your life!"

"We have flashlights."

"Yes, and a nice mark they'd make for bullets!"

This was sufficiently rea.s.suring. Evan showed himself. He saw an expensive runabout with two young fellows in it. They burst out simultaneously:

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, I had a fight with a crook in there," said Evan. "They have a hang-out in an old abandoned house."

"Do you want any help?"

"No thanks. I've got him tied up. But I wish you'd go for the police if you don't mind."

"Sure thing! The nearest station's in Tremont, five miles over bad roads. We'll bring 'em back in half an hour!"

In his excitement the young fellow threw his clutch in, and the big car leaped down the road before Evan could give him any further particulars.

On his way back Evan felt certain compunctions at the sight of Charley lying bound in the road. After all, Charley had been his friend for many a year. He wouldn't mind saving him from the consequences of his own folly if he could. That the police might not discover him when they came, Evan dragged him out of the road, and under a thick leafy bush to one side. Charley made imploring sounds through the gag. Evan continued along the rough track. He had the pocket flash to help him over the rough places now. In a quarter of a mile or more from the highway he came upon the dark ma.s.s of the old house rising against the night sky. It stood on a little rise in the midst of its clearing, which could scarcely be called a clearing now, for except in a small s.p.a.ce immediately around the building the young trees were rising thickly.

It was a square block of a design somewhat freakish for a country residence, since the princ.i.p.al storey was above the entrance floor.

There was a row of tall windows here, and above these windows an attic in the style of the eighteenth century. The tall windows evidently lighted the great room where Evan had suffered his ordeal at the hands of the Ikunahkatsi. It was in one of the back rooms on the same floor that the chief had his sanctum, he told himself. All the windows of the house were dark, but this did not prove that people were not within and awake, for Evan remembered the heavy shutters inside the windows.

He waited for a minute or two, and then began to get restless. In fact he itched for the glory of taking the chief single-handed. The letter of instructions had suggested that the chief would be alone in the building to-night, except for the old negress and the prisoner. And Evan was armed now. If he could find some way to make an entrance without giving an alarm, he believed it could be done.

He stole up to the front door on all fours. It was locked of course.

He went around to the back; there were two doors here, both locked. He went from window to window. All of them had panes missing, but within each window the heavy shutters were closed and barred. He thought of cellar windows, sometimes they were forgotten. In certain places thick clumps of sumach had sprung up close to the house. Pus.h.i.+ng behind one such clump, he stumbled on an old stone stair leading down. Once it had been closed by inclined doors, but these had rotted and fallen in.

The steps led him into the cellar.

With the aid of his light he picked his way over the piles of rubbish and around the brick piers. Immense brick arches supported the chimneys of the house. They built more generously in those days. The rats scuttled out of his way. In the centre of the s.p.a.ce there was a steep stair leading up. It looked sound. Pocketing his light, he crept up step by step and with infinite care tried the door at the top.

It yielded! He was in!