The Drums of Jeopardy Part 44

"They were taken away the police."

"So I thought. What became of the wallet?"

"I found it hidden on the back of my stove."

"I never thought to look there," said Karlov, musingly. "Who has the drums?"

"The emeralds? You haven't them!" cried Kitty, becoming her mother's daughter, though her heart never beat so thunderously as now. "We thought you had them!"

Karlov stared at her, moodily. "What is that b.u.t.ton for, at the side of your bed?"

Kitty comprehended the working of the mind that formulated this question. If she answered truthfully he would accept her statements. "It rings an alarm in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

Karlov nodded. "You are truthful and sensible I haven't the emeralds."

"Perhaps one of your men betrayed you."

"I have thought of that. But if he had betrayed me the drums would have been discovered by the police.... d.a.m.n them to h.e.l.l!" Kitty wondered whether he meant the police or the emeralds.

"Later, food and a blanket will be brought to you. If your ransom does not appear by midnight you will be taken away. If you struggle we may have to handle you roughly. That is as you please."

Karlov went out, locking the door.

Oh, the blind little fool she had been! All those constant warnings, and she had not heeded! Cutty had warned her repeatedly, so had Bernini; and she had deliberately walked into this trap. As if this cold, murderous madman would risk showing himself without some grim and terrible purpose. She had written either Cutty's or Johnny Two-Hawks' death warrant. She covered her eyes. It was horrible.

Perhaps not Cutty, but a.s.suredly Two-hawks. His life for her liberty.

"And he will come!" she whispered. She knew it. How, was not to be a.n.a.lyzed. She just knew that he would come. What if he had smiled like that! The European point of view and her own monumental folly. He would come quietly, without protest, and give himself up.

"G.o.d forgive me! What can I do? What can I do?"

She slid to the floor and rocked her body. Her fault! He would come--even as Cutty would have come had he been the man demanded. And Karlov would kill him--because he was an error in chronology! She sensed also that the anarchist would not look upon his act as murder. He would be removing an obstacle from the path of his sick dreams.

Comparisons! She saw how much alike the two were. Cutty was only Johnny Two-Hawks at fifty-two--fearless and whimsical. Had Cutty gone through life without looking at some woman as, last night, Two-Hawks had looked at her? All the rest of her life she would see Two-Hawks' eyes.

Abysmal fool, to pit her wits against such men as Karlov! Because she had been successful to a certain extent, she had overrated her cleverness, with this tragic result... He had fiddled the soul out of her. But death!

She sprang up. It was maddening to sit still, to feel the approach of the tragedy without being able to prevent it. She investigated the windows. No hope in this direction. It was rapidly growing dark outside.

What time was it?

The door opened. A man she had not seen before came in with a blanket, a pitcher of water, and some graham crackers. His fingers were stained a brilliant yellow and a peculiar odour emanated from his clothes. He did not speak to her, but set the articles on the floor and departed.

Kitty did not stir. An hour pa.s.sed; she sat as one in a trance. The tallow dip was sinking. By and by she became conscious of a faint sound, a tapping. Whence it came she could not tell. She moved about cautiously, endeavouring to locate it. When she finally did the blood drummed in her ears. The trap! Someone was trying to get in through the trap!

Cutty! Thus soon! Who else could it be? She hunted for a piece of lumber light enough to raise to the trap. She tapped three times, and waited.

Silence. She repeated the signal. This time it was answered. Cutty! In a little while she would be free, and Two-Hawks would not have to pay for her folly with his life. Terror and remorse departed forthwith.

She took the plank to the door and pushed one end under the door k.n.o.b.

Then she piled the other planks against the b.u.t.t. The moment she heard steps on the stairs she would stand on the planks. It would be difficult to open that door. She sat down on the planks to wait. From time to time she built up the falling tallow. Cutty must have light. The tapping on the trap went on. They were breaking away the cement. Perhaps an hour pa.s.sed. At least it seemed a very long time.

Steps on the stairs! She stood up, facing the door, the roots of her hair tingling. She heard the key turn in the lock; and then as in a nightmare she felt the planks under her feet stir slightly but with sinister persistence. She presently saw the toe of a boot insert, itself between the door and the jamb. The pressure increased; the s.p.a.ce between the door and the jamb widened. Suddenly the boot vanished, the door closed, and the plank fell. Immediately thereafter Karlov stood inside the room, scowling suspiciously.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Cutty arrived at the apartment in time to share dinner with Hawksley.

He had wisely decided to say nothing about the escapade of Hawksley and Kitty Conover, since it had terminated fortunately. Bernini had telegraphed the gist of the adventure. He could readily understand Hawksley's part; but Kitty's wasn't reducible to ordinary terms of expression. The young chap had run wild because his head still wobbled on his shoulders and because his isolation was beginning to scratch his nerves. But for Kitty to run wild with him offered a blank wall to speculation. (As if he could solve the riddle when Kitty herself could not!) So he determined to shut himself up in his study and shuffle the chrysoprase. Something might come of it. Looking backward, he recognized the salient, at no time had he been quite sure of Kitty. She seemed to be a combination of shallows and unfathomable deeps.

From the Pennsylvania Station he had called up the office. Kitty had gone. Bernini informed him that Kitty was dining at a cafe on the way home. Cutty was thorough. He telephoned the restaurant and was advised that Miss Conover had reserved a table. He had forgotten to send down the operative who guarded Kitty at that end. But the distance from the office to the Subway was so insignificant!

"You are looking fit," he said across the table.

"Ought to be off your hands by Monday. But what about Stefani Gregor? I can't stir, leaving him hanging on a peg."

"I am going into the study shortly to decide that. Head bother you?"

"Occasionally."

"Ryan easy to get along with?"

"Rather a good sort. I say, you know, you've seen a good deal of life. Which do you consider the stronger, the inherited traits or environment?"

"Environment. That is the true mould. There is good and bad in all of us. It is brought into prominence by the way we live. An angel cannot touch pitch without becoming defiled. On the other hand, the worst gutter rats in the world saved France. Do you suppose that thought will not always be tugging at and uplifting those who returned from the first Marne?"

"There is hope, then, for me!"

"Hope?"

"Yes. You know that my father, my uncle, and my grandfather were fine scoundrels."

"Under their influence you would have been one, too. But no man could live with Stefani Gregor and not absorb his qualities. Your environment has been Anglo-Saxon, where the first block in the picture is fair play. You have been constantly under the tutelage of a fine and lofty personality, Gregor's. Whatever evil traits you may have inherited, they have become subject to the influences that have surrounded you. Take me, for instance. I was born in a rather puritanical atmosphere. My environments have always been good. Yet there lurks in me the taint of Macaire. Given the wrong environment, I should now have my picture in the Rogues' Gallery."

"You?"

"Yes."

Hawksley played with his fork. "If you had a daughter would you trust me with her?"

"Yes. Any man who can weep unashamed over the portrait of his mother may be trusted. Once you are out there in Montana you'll forget all about your paternal forbears."

Handsome beggar, thought Cutty; but evidently born under the opal. An inexplicable resentment against his guest stirred his heart. He resented his youth, his ease of manner, his fluency in the common tongue. He was theoretically a Britisher; he thought British; approached subjects from a British point of view. A Britisher--except when he had that fiddle tucked under his chin. Then Cutty admitted he did not know what he was.

Devil take him!

There must have been something electrical in Cutty's resentment, for the object of it felt it subtly, and it fired his own. He resented the freedom of action that had always been denied him, resented his host's mental and physical superiority. Did Cutty care for the girl, or was he playing the game as it had been suggested to him? Money and freedom. But then, it was in no sense a barter; she would be giving nothing, and the old beggar would be asking nothing. His suggestion! He laughed.

"What's the joke?" asked Cutty, looking up from his coffee, which he was stirring with unnecessary vigour.