The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  Instantly he was in a dense darkness. For five stories above him the two buildings towered, shutting out the starlight. Looking straight up he found only a faint reflection of the glow of the city lights in the sky.

  At last he found a cellar window. He tried it and found it locked, but a little maneuvering with his knife enabled him to turn the catch at the top of the lower sash. Then he raised it slowly and leaned into the blackness. Something incredibly soft, tenuous, clinging, pressed at once against his face. He started back with a shudder and brushed away the remnants of a big spider web.

  Then he leaned in again. It was an intense blackness. The moment his head was in the opening the sense of listening, which is ever in a house, came to him. There were the strange, musty, underground odors which go with cellars and make men think of death.

  However, he must not stay here indefinitely. To be seen leaning in at this window was as bad as to be seen in the house itself. He slipped through the opening at once, and beneath his feet there was a soft crunching of coal. He had come directly into the bin. Turning, he closed the window, for that would be a definite clue to any one who might pass down the alley.

  As he stood surrounded by that hostile silence, that evil darkness, he grew somewhat accustomed to the dimness, and he could make out not definite objects, but ghostly outlines. Presently he took out the small electric torch which he carried and examined his surroundings.

  The bin had not yet received the supply of winter coal and was almost empty. He stepped out of it into a part of the basement which had been used apparently for storing articles not worth keeping, but too good to be thrown away—an American habit of thrift. Several decrepit chairs and rickety cabinets and old console tables were piled together in a tangled mass. Ronicky looked at them with an unaccountable shudder, as if he read in them the history of the ruin and fall and death of many an old inhabitant of this house. It seemed to his excited imagination that the man with the sneer had been the cause of all the destruction and would be the cause of more.

  He passed back through the basement quickly, eager to be out of the musty odors and his gloomy thoughts. He found the storerooms, reached the kitchen stairs and ascended at once. Halfway up the stairs, the door above him suddenly opened and light poured down at him. He saw the flying figure of a cat, a broom behind it, a woman behind the broom.

  “Whisht! Out of here, dirty beast!”

  The cat thudded against Ronicky’s knee, screeched and disappeared below; the woman of the broom shaded her eyes and peered down the steps. “A queer cat!” she muttered, then slammed the door.

  It seemed certain to Ronicky that she must have seen him, yet he knew that the blackness of the cellar had probably half blinded her. Besides, he had drawn as far as possible to one side of the steps, and in this way she might easily have overlooked him.

  In the meantime it seemed that this way of entering the house was definitely blocked. He paused a moment to consider other plans, but, while he stayed there in thought, he heard the rattle of pans. It decided him to stay a while longer. Apparently she was washing the cooking utensils, and that meant that she was near the close of her work for the evening. In fact, the rim of light, which showed between the door frame and the door, suddenly snapped out, and he heard her footsteps retreating.

  Still he delayed a moment or two, for fear she might return to take something which she had forgotten. But the silence deepened above him, and voices were faintly audible toward the front of the house.

  That decided Ronicky. He opened the door, blessing the well-oiled hinges which kept it from making any noise, and let a shaft from his pocket lantern flicker across the kitchen floor. The light glimmered on the newly scrubbed surface and showed him a door to his right, opening into the main part of the house.

  He passed through it at once and sighed with relief when his foot touched the carpet on the hall beyond. He noted, too, that there was no sign of a creak from the boards beneath his tread. However old that house might be, he was a noble carpenter who laid the flooring, Ronicky thought, as he slipped through the semi-gloom. For there was a small hall light toward the front, and it gave him an uncertain illumination, even at the rear of the passage.

  Now that he was definitely committed to the adventure he wondered more and more what he could possibly gain by it. But still he went on, and, in spite of the danger, it is doubtful if Ronicky would have willingly changed places with any man in the world at that moment.

  At least there was not the slightest sense in remaining on the lower floor of the house. He slipped down the shadow of the main stairs, swiftly circled through the danger of the light of the lower hall lamp and started his ascent. Still the carpet muffled every sound which he made in climbing, and the solid construction of the house did not betray him with a single creaking noise.

  He reached the first hall. This, beyond doubt, was where he would find the room of the man who sneered—the archenemy, as Ronicky Doone was beginning to think of him. A shiver passed through his lithe, muscular body at the thought of that meeting.

  He opened the first door to his left. It was a small closet for brooms and dust cloths and such things. Determining to be methodical he went to the extreme end of the hall and tried that door. It was locked, but, while his hand was still on the knob, turning it in disappointment, a door, higher up in the house, opened and a hum of voices passed out to him. They grew louder, they turned to the staircase from the floor above and commenced to descend at a running pace. Three or four men at least, there must be, by the sound, and perhaps more!

  Ronicky started for the head of the stairs to make his retreat, but, just as he reached there, the party turned into the hall and confronted him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mistaken Identity

  To flee down the stairs now would be rank folly. If there happened to be among these fellows a man of the type of him who sneered, a bullet would catch the fugitive long before he reached the bottom of the staircase. And, since he could not retreat, Ronicky went slowly and steadily ahead, for, certainly, if he stood still, he would be spoken to. He would have to rely now on the very dim light in this hall and the shadow of his cap obscuring his face. If these were roomers, perhaps he would be taken for some newcomer.

  But he was hailed at once, and a hand was laid on his shoulder.

  “Hello, Pete. What’s the dope?”

  Ronicky shrugged the hand away and went on.

  “Won’t talk, curse him. That’s because the plant went fluey.”

  “Maybe not; Pete don’t talk much, except to the old man.”

  “Lemme get at him,” said a third voice. “Beat it down to Rooney’s. I’m going up with Pete and get what he knows.”

  And, as Ronicky turned onto the next flight of the stairway, he was overtaken by hurrying feet. The other two had already scurried down toward the front door of the house.

  “I got some stuff in my room, Pete,” said the friendly fellow who had overtaken him. “Come up and have a jolt, and we can have a talk. ‘Lefty’ and Monahan think you went flop on the job, but I know better, eh? The old man always picks you for these singles; he never gives me a shot at ’em.” Then he added: “Here we are!” And, opening a door in the first hall, he stepped to the center of the room and fumbled at a chain that broke loose and tinkled against glass; eventually he snapped on an electric light. Ronicky Doone saw a powerfully built, bull-necked man, with a soft hat pulled far down on his head. Then the man turned.

  It was much against the grain for Ronicky Doone to attack a man by surprise, but necessity is a stern ruler. And the necessity which made him strike made him hit with the speed of a snapping whiplash and the weight of a sledge hammer. Before the other was fully turned that iron-hard set of knuckles crashed against the base of his jaw.

  He fell without a murmur, without a struggle, Ronicky catching him in his arms to break the weight of the fall. It was a complete knock-out. The dull eyes, which looked up from the floor, saw nothing. The square, rathe
r brutal, face was relaxed as if in sleep, but here was the type of man who would recuperate with great speed.

  Ronicky set about the obvious task which lay before him, as fast as he could. In the man’s coat pocket he found a handkerchief which, hard knotted, would serve as a gag. The window curtain was drawn with a stout, thick cord. Ronicky slashed off a convenient length of it and secured the hands and feet of his victim, before he turned the fellow on his face.

  Next he went through the pockets of the unconscious man who was only now beginning to stir slightly, as life returned after that stunning blow.

  It was beginning to come to Ronicky that there was a strange relation between the men of this house. Here were three who apparently started out to work at night, and yet they were certainly not at all the type of night clerks or night-shift engineers or mechanics. He turned over the hand of the man he had struck down. The palm was as soft as his own.

  No, certainly not a laborer. But they were all employed by “the old man.” Who was he? And was there some relation between all of these and the man who sneered?

  At least Ronicky determined to learn all that could be read in the pockets of his victim. There was only one thing. That was a stub-nosed, heavy automatic.

  It was enough to make Ronicky Doone sigh with relief. At least he had not struck some peaceful, law-abiding fellow. Any man might carry a gun—Ronicky himself would have been uncomfortable without some sort of weapon about him but there are guns and guns. This big, ugly automatic seemed specially designed to kill swiftly and surely.

  He was considering these deductions when a tap came on the door. Ronicky groaned. Had they come already to find out what kept the senseless victim so long?

  “Morgan, oh, Harry Morgan!” called a girl’s voice.

  Ronicky Doone started. Perhaps—who could tell—this might be Caroline Smith herself, come to tap at the door when he was on the very verge of abandoning the adventure. Suppose it were someone else?

  If he ventured out expecting to find Gregg’s lady and found instead quite another person—well, women screamed at the slightest provocation, and, if a woman screamed in this house, it seemed exceedingly likely that she would rouse a number of men carrying just such short-nosed, ugly automatics as that which he had just taken from the pocket of Harry Morgan.

  In the meantime he must answer something. He could not pretend that the room was empty, for the light must be showing around the door.

  “Harry!” called the voice of the girl again. “Do you hear me? Come out! The chief wants you!” And she rattled the door.

  Fear that she might open it and, stepping in, see the senseless figure on the floor, alarmed Ronicky. He came close to the door.

  “Well?” he demanded, keeping his voice deep, like the voice of Harry Morgan, as well as he could remember it.

  “Hurry! The chief, I tell you!”

  He snapped out the light and turned resolutely to the door. He felt his faithful Colt, and the feel of the butt was like the touch of a friendly hand before he opened the door.

  She was dressed in white and made a glimmering figure in the darkness of the hall, and her hair glimmered, also, almost as if it possessed a light and a life of its own. Ronicky Doone saw that she was a very pretty girl, indeed. Yes, it must be Caroline Smith. The very perfume of young girlhood breathed from her, and very sharply and suddenly he wondered why he should be here to fight the battle of Bill Gregg in this matter—Bill Gregg who slept peacefully and stupidly in the room across the street!

  She had turned away, giving him only a side glance, as he came out. “I don’t know what’s on, something big. The chief’s going to give you your big chance—with me.”

  Ronicky Doone grunted.

  “Don’t do that,” exclaimed the girl impatiently. “I know you think Pete is the top of the world, but that doesn’t mean that you can make a good imitation of him. Don’t do it, Harry. You’ll pass by yourself. You don’t need a make-up, and not Pete’s on a bet.”

  They reached the head of the stairs, and Ronicky Doone paused. To go down was to face the mysterious chief whom he had no doubt was the old man to whom Harry Morgan had already referred. In the meantime the conviction grew that this was indeed Caroline Smith. Her free-and-easy way of talk was exactly that of a girl who might become interested in a man whom she had never seen, merely by letters.

  “I want to talk to you,” said Ronicky, muffling his voice. “I want to talk to you alone.”

  “To me?” asked the girl, turning toward him. The light from the hall lamp below gave Ronicky the faintest hint of her profile.

  “Yes.”

  “But the chief?”

  “He can wait.”

  She hesitated, apparently drawn by curiosity in one direction, but stopped by another thought. “I suppose he can wait, but, if he gets stirred up about it—oh, we’ll, I’ll talk to you—but nothing foolish, Harry. Promise me that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Slip into my room for a minute.” She led the way a few steps down the hall, and he followed her through the door, working his mind frantically in an effort to find words with which to open his speech before she should see that he was not Harry Morgan and cry out to alarm the house. What should he say? Something about Bill Gregg at once, of course. That was the thing.

  The electric light snapped on at the far side of the room. He saw a dressing table, an Empire bed covered with green-figured silk, a pleasant rug on the floor, and, just as he had gathered an impression of delightful femininity from these furnishings, the girl turned from the lamp on the dressing table, and he saw—not Caroline Smith, but a bronze-haired beauty, as different from Bill Gregg’s lady as day is from night.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Cross-Examination

  He was conscious then only of green-blue eyes, very wide, very bright, and lips that parted on a word and froze there in silence. The heart of Ronicky Doone leaped with joy; he had passed the crisis in safety. She had not cried out.

  “You’re not—” he had said in the first moment.

  “I am not who?” asked the girl with amazing steadiness. But he saw her hand go back to the dressing table and open, with incredible deftness and speed, the little top drawer behind her.

  “Don’t do that!” said Ronicky softly, but sharply. “Keep your hand off that table, lady, if you don’t mind.”

  She hesitated a fraction of a second. In that moment she seemed to see that he was in earnest, and that it would be foolish to tamper with him.

  “Stand away from that table; sit down yonder.”

  Again she obeyed without a word. Her eyes, to be sure, flickered here and there about the room, as though they sought some means of sending a warning to her friends, or finding some escape for herself. Then her glance returned to Ronicky Doone.

  “Well,” she said, as she settled in the chair. “Well?”

  A world of meaning in those two small words—a world of dread controlled. He merely stared at her thoughtfully.

  “I hit the wrong trail, lady,” he said quietly. “I was looking for somebody else.”

  She started. “You were after—” She stopped.

  “That’s right, I guess,” he admitted.

  “How many of you are there?” she asked curiously, so curiously that she seemed to be forgetting the danger. “Poor Carry Smith with a mob—” She stopped suddenly again. “What did you do to Harry Morgan?”

  “I left him safe and quiet,” said Ronicky Doone.

  The girl’s face hardened strangely. “What you are, and what your game is I don’t know,” she said. “But I’ll tell you this: I’m letting you play as if you had all the cards in the deck. But you haven’t. I’ve got one ace that’ll take all your trumps. Suppose I call once what’ll happen to you, pal?”

  “You don’t dare call,” he said.

  “Don’t dare me,” said the girl angrily. “I hate a dare worse than anything in the world, almost.” For a moment her green-blue eyes were pools of light flashing
angrily at him.

  Into the hand of Ronicky Doone, with that magic speed and grace for which his fame was growing so great in the mountain desert, came the long, glimmering body of the revolver, and, holding it at the hip, he threatened her.

  She shrank back at that, gasping. For there was an utter surety about this man’s handling of the weapon. The heavy gun balanced and steadied in his slim fingers, as if it were no more than a feather’s weight.

  “I’m talking straight, lady,” said Ronicky Doone. “Sit down—pronto!”

  In the very act of obedience she straightened again. “It’s bluff,” she said. “I’m going through that door!” Straight for the door she went, and Ronicky Doone set his teeth.

  “Go back!” he commanded. He glided to the door and blocked her way, but the gun hung futile in his hand.

  “It’s easy to pull a gun, eh?” said the girl, with something of a sneer. “But it takes nerve to use it. Let me through this door!”

  “Not in a thousand years,” said Ronicky.

  She laid her hand on the door and drew it back—it struck his shoulder—and Ronicky gave way with a groan and stood with his head bowed. Inwardly he cursed himself. Doubtless she was used to men who bullied her, as if she were another man of an inferior sort. Doubtless she despised him for his weakness. But, though he gritted his teeth, he could not make himself firm. Those old lessons which sink into a man’s soul in the West came back to him and held him. In the helpless rage which possessed him he wanted battle above all things in the world. If half a dozen men had poured through the doorway he would have rejoiced. But this one girl was enough to make him helpless.

  He looked up in amazement. She had not gone; in fact, she had closed the door slowly and stood with her back against it, staring at him in a speechless bewilderment.

  “What sort of a man are you?” asked the girl at last.

  “A fool,” said Ronicky slowly. “Go out and round up your friends; I can’t stop you.”