Fallen Sparrow

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  Content said, “No.”

  He was infuriated. “Always I must coax you for this. You will do the little things but this—the masterpiece I have teach you—you say ‘No.’” He mimicked sullenly, “‘No.’” He twisted his shoulders. “‘No. No.’”

  Kit spoke with clarity above the argument. The fear went out of him with the words, only the cold sureness remained. “Yes, Content. Tsigane. For Dr. Skaas.”

  Her eyes met his, the eyes of an innocent condemned to be an instrument of destruction. He couldn’t reassure her by the least flicker of understanding. There was no way to inform her that this requiem was not for him.

  “Joost this one favor for the old man.” The lips were thick, not the lips of an old man. The voice was like the eyes; somewhere beneath the treacle there was amusement, an unclean and brutal amusement.

  Content’s shining head drooped. Tonelessly she began the chant. Kit waited, tensed, the electric coldness moving surely through his veins. It tingled in the tips of his fingers. He didn’t wait long. Toni’s ghost fingers touched his shoulder. Silently he followed her out of the shadowed room, through the darkness of the dining-room into the small kitchen. Content might have felt him move; she couldn’t watch, she had been maneuvered out of position or she had turned that she might not view this ultimate defeat.

  Toni whispered, “Up these stairs. It is the back apartment. I have left the door on the latch.” No warmth came from her; she blew cold as shadow. In the half-light thrown from the tower windows of the apartment off the drive, he could see the glow of the moonstone between her breasts.

  He demanded from her the lie, “It’s safe now?” She gave it. “Yes, it is safe.” He hesitated, and then he kissed her quietly, raising the pale blur of her face. She didn’t withdraw but her lips were no more warm than they had ever been to him. He heard beneath her breath, “God go with you,” as he slid silently into the darkness of the back stairs. He didn’t use the flash; he went softly, feeling his way against the wall. He didn’t know when he might meet the prelude to death; it might be waiting at the head of the stairs; he wouldn’t show a light for flame to spurt at. The back door moved sibilantly to his touch. Within he closed and fastened it. He repeated the Scottish ghoul’s cackle, “Now we’re locked in together.” Better this than to be surprised from the rear. He showed the torch, covering it with the red glow of his hand.

  Without sound, his ear drums strained with listening for breath, he crept through the mean rooms, even poorer than the apartment below. The front was the study. He lifted his warm fingers from the eye of the torch, circled it. The place was empty. He made a light then, the small lamp on the old-fashioned secretary. The torch he replaced in his pocket. There were papers sprawled on the desk. There was a limp black leather brief case containing others. He emptied it, laid it on the floor. He could take his time; he must take his time, give the plan its opportunity to materialize.

  His breath caught at the importance of the first few sentences he read. Prince Felix must be certain of success to allow Kit to lay eyes on these. They branded these refugees as more than part of the plan to obtain the Babylon goblets, that was a mere sideline; this information was smeared with the worst treachery of an enemy spy. Here were names, meetings, full data on the projected destruction of American defense strongholds.

  He stiffened to sound. A thump; then silence save for the wild echoes of the Tsigane from the rooms below. He kept his back turned to the door; he wouldn’t be shot down, he was of no value dead. To win he must play his part, seem unaware until the man appeared, then behold the amazed light when he, the weak prey, became the strong. He waited.

  Sound. Awareness stifled him. No hireling had been sent. He could hear the deformed slither, reaching the head of the stairs, attempting to traverse the corridor without giving warning. Cautiously his head turned. He waited, his teeth set, his fingers cramped on the butt of the gun. He knew he was afraid; he didn’t attempt to cover over his fear with braggadocio now; he was afraid as he’d been afraid in prison; he was quivering and there was sickness in the pit of his stomach. His fingers were in a painful clutch on the gun. He could shoot without drawing, the way the old Westerner had taught him. Thud … silence … the dragging foot. … Shoot to kill.

  The front door swung open soundlessly. Christian Skaas stood there, the sirupy smile evil on his face.

  Kit hadn’t known. He’d been a fool not to have known but he hadn’t; he’d been the fool. He had been so certain it would be the old and decadent one; he had strengthened his hand with reasons why the Prince should die, the uselessness of age in a new useful order, the enslavement of Toni. Momentarily his certainty was thrown off balance. Why should Dr. Skaas be his victim? Sanity returned. No matter what the shell; this was the Wobblefoot. He had not planned to kill a man out of personal grudge; his death was ordered for what he threatened.

  The man wobbled forward painfully, closed the door behind him. He said, “You are interested in what is in my desk, yes?” His voice was soft as the belly of a snake.

  Shoot now—to kill.

  “It is too bad—yes?—that you will not be allowed to tell your friends in Washington these things what interest you?”

  He couldn’t do it. His fingers uncramped slowly in his pocket. Skaas knew he couldn’t do it. His hand came out, empty. Within him he was scalded with the shame of weakness, the helplessness of civilization. He couldn’t kill a man in cold blood. Not even this man.

  He watched Dr. Skaas lay down one foot and another with that nauseous lurch. Skaas said, “You have a gun, yes?”

  Kit didn’t answer. He had a gun, yes, and he couldn’t use it. He wasn’t gun shy; he hadn’t lost nerve. It was something he could never explain to this man; something he wouldn’t have had to explain to Louie, to Ab. He couldn’t shoot down a man as he would a wild beast. Even if the hairline of difference was so slight as to be negligible, he couldn’t do it. He must wait his chance, make the break from here; the agencies of the government must do the rest. It wasn’t in him.

  Skaas said, “You do not reach for it, no. Joost be most careful you do not reach for it. This ring on my finger, see?” He held up his thick fingers, not on the hand of an old man. The large forefinger ring was translucent. “I have release the safety catch. Before you draw the gun I give a touch and the gas comes. A most deadly gas, my friend, Mr. McKittrick. Most deadly. You will not be able to shoot me if it is release. It is not a gas you know of. The Dr. Skaas whose name I take can not as yet manufacture it in quantity for the war. But the samples we have—most deadly they are.” He smiled. “Me, I will not suffer by it.” He raised pinched forefinger and thumb to his nostrils. “Here I wear the filter what protects me. When you fall; I put on the gas mask.” From the table drawer he removed one, dangled it on the arm of the chair. “Thus I am safe.”

  Kit said slowly, “You don’t dare kill me.”

  The shrug wriggled from shoulders to uplifted palms. “You will wish I kill you if this gas is release.”

  The cold lump throbbed within Kit. The Luger in his pocket. The little gun under his arm. The power mechanized in his fingers. The refusal in his soul.

  Dr. Skaas smiled as if they understood each other. “Now we have the little talk, yes?” He lurched into the chair and looked towards the fireplace. He shivered a little. “It is cold in this room. You will light the fire for me? It is laid, you see. You put the match to the paper and soon it will be comfortable for us.”

  Kit was afraid to move, afraid that there was more in Skaas’ request than the wish for fire warmth. But the room was chill. And he wouldn’t be shot down, not yet.

  The man said, “It is not easy for me to stoop to it.”

  Kit walked catlike to the hearth, struck the match, bent quickly and tipped the flame to the crumpled newspapers. Quickly he returned to the desk, sat across the room facing Skaas.

  “You are very kind. I thank you.”

  Kit didn’t like the unctuous smile.

 
; “You were surprise to see me, I think. You did not know I could climb these stairs and find you here.”

  “I didn’t know you were the Wobblefoot.” He spoke aloud but to himself.

  The color of dark blood momentarily pocked the round face. But the man spoke without feeling as if he’d trained himself to remember it in that way. “It is done to me when I am young—more young than you. The Turks do not wish me to escape from them. I am a Serb. They flay my feet. You know what that means, yes?”

  Kit looked away abruptly. “Yes.”

  “I escape. On my hands and knees like a dog.” Dr. Skaas ended this. “You will tell me now what you look for in my desk.”

  Kit stated flatly, “I was looking for many things. I was looking for proof of who killed my friend, Louie Lepetino.”

  “How could I do this?” If a hyena could look innocent, so could this man.

  Kit said, “You ordered his death.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Anger shook Kit’s voice. “Who killed him?”

  The dripping smile was amused. “It was that Otto. He does pretty well at what he is told. There is no imagination, you understand. But at following the plans pretty well he does.”

  He could have throttled this man with his bare hands but the ring of lethal gas was a warning. He jammed his hands into his pockets, felt the Luger stiff against his palm. And he could not pull the trigger. He asked, “Ab Hamilton. Why did you kill Ab Hamilton?”

  The false eyebrows beetled. “He try to find out who is this Dr. Skaas. Too near he come to the facts. My agents intercept the message. He must be kill before he learn the truth of who I am, what I do here. My usefulness is at an end if he make the discovery. This cannot be. I do not wish to return to the headsman—or the prison camp. I must not fail.”

  Kit’s smile was secret. Skaas was too willing to waste time in talk. He was waiting, waiting the arrival of his strongarm man. He didn’t know Otto was safe in Washington. Kit was willing to talk, to learn the truth before—until he figured the safe way out of this room.

  He asked, “How did Otto kill Hamilton?”

  “He did not.” The man sighed. “This girl—he is young and she is rich and beautiful. He say wait. He do it tomorrow perhaps. First he ski. I know we must not wait. I take care of it myself.” He looked at his watch and he sighed again.

  “You followed him to Washington?”

  “Yes.”

  Kit started to the slight plop. But it wasn’t someone outside. A log stirring in the fireplace. The room was already stuffy. Christian Skaas oozed in it like a bloated salamander.

  “The arrangements they have been made for me. I knock at the door. I have heard he is in the hotel and I am so please to see my young friend. He is suspicious but he pretend not. I bring out my gun. ‘Give me the papers,’ I demand. He is craven. He gives them to me. I shoot him.”

  In cold blood, shoot to kill. Return—by private plane, by motor?—pass the word to José: it is accomplished. The Spaniard, the educated one, prepares the cabled report. Skaas had Ab’s fresh blood on his hands when Kit followed him into Content’s apartment house that night.

  Another plop but Kit didn’t stir to it now. The room was unbearably hot. He said, “Ab knew nothing of the Babylon goblets.”

  “No?”

  “He distrusted you only because of Otto, because he didn’t want Barby Taviton mixed up with suspicious persons.”

  Skaas blinked comfortably. “He should not have been suspicious.”

  Kit let it pass. The heat was too uncomfortable to pursue it further. If it were not for turning his back on Skaas, he’d ask to open a window. But he didn’t want to let the man out of sight for an instant now. He asked, “What do you expect to get out of me? Don’t you know by now I don’t have the cups?”

  “You know where they are.”

  “I’ll never break. You must have realized that when you let me escape. Even if you could take me back again, do you think I’d tell you, whatever you did to me?”

  The fingers spread apologetically. “That was mistake before. It was crude, yes. Stupid. By now we are wise. They have listen to me. I fail before—this time I do not fail. There are drugs. Scopolamine, yes. The truth serum. Our scientists—even better ones they have. You will talk.”

  Kit’s eyes drooped in terror. Unless he got away now … It could be done. Yes. And after he talked, he would be killed. By what torture he couldn’t envisage. He had thwarted them too long. Even in this suffocating heat, he rallied spirit.

  “What makes you think I’ll sit here and let you stick a hypodermic in me? You needn’t look at your watch, Skaas, or whatever your name is. Your gunsel isn’t coming tonight. He’s gone to Washington with that girl. He’s waiting for me there.”

  Skaas smiled. “That is not why I look at my watch, my friend, Mr. McKittrick. I think it is about time the gas affect you, yes? Oh, not the ring what is so deadly. But the cylinders I place in the fire wood today. All have melted by now, I believe. This anesthesia will grow stronger. Already your eyes are heavy. You are too warm. I have these filters to protect. Soon you are quiet and I put on my mask. A hypodermic. You are safe to remove to a place for this test. Perhaps it take time before you talk.” The faraway eyes were cruel as a spider’s. “But this time you talk.”

  The horror was a creeping paralysis through Kit’s nerves. It was true. His eyes were heavy; his head had begun to swim; his muscles were growing soft. He willed the last shreds of clarity to a focus. He pushed himself to unsteady feet. The man’s head was a bulbous floating mass as he leaned forward, on his upturned lips the smirk of evil triumphant over good. Kit didn’t draw. He shot and killed Christian Skaas.

  2.

  His chair was thunderous in its overturn. He hadn’t the strength to open the window, his shoulders shattered the glass, and he gulped at the icy air of the night. Only when his head had cleared sufficiently did he lift high the sash, slide quickly past the desk to the next one, throw it open.

  He breathed cleanness, his head thrust out into the night. He didn’t have to hurry. There was time for everything now. He didn’t look at Skaas until it was safe again to turn into the room.

  He took up the sheaf of papers, the ones that had betrayed Louie, tempted Ab. Even if they were forgeries, they were dynamite. There were too many to wad into his pocket. He lifted the worn brief case, opened it, laid the white sheets inside. He could borrow this. Skaas wouldn’t need it again.

  The man lay face down in a widening stain of blood. The end of an unknown man. He hadn’t been hard to kill; half-drugged as Kit was, the pale hairless head had shone, a target. The bullet must have entered the mean brain; the reflex attempt to rise had thrown him to the floor. He hadn’t had a chance to use the ring if it were anything but glass. It had probably been a lying bluff. Kit didn’t investigate. He took the Luger from his pocket; laid it on the desk. He didn’t want it now; it was a killer. But he smeared the fingerprints with the sweat of his palms, dried the butt on his handkerchief; he did not want the police after him until he was ready to give himself up.

  The fire was dying; the room was almost cold. The opened windows would hasten rigor mortis; the time of death couldn’t be definitely established. The small gun he removed from the unfamiliar shoulder holster, placed it in his pocket again. He took up the brief case, locked the room behind him.

  He descended the front stairs now, easily, with certainty. The Prince’s door was ajar. He pushed it quietly, quietly framed himself in the entrance to the candlelit room. Det had escaped; she stood in defense by Toni’s chair. There was a lump in her hand bag. All were silent, they were a frieze with José nervously plucking the strings of his violin. Content saw him first, her eyes disbelieved their sight, and then they closed. She must have made a faint sound as she relaxed limply in the chair, for the others turned, heightened with disbelief, with unknown fear. They had heard the shot; they could not conceive this quickly that it was the wrong man who lay dead.

  D
et’s bag was open, her fingers inthrust.

  “You don’t need that. I’m leaving.” His voice was loud. “I’ll have to run to make that plane to Washington.” He held the brief case in full view, arrogantly clutched. He flung brazen words into the stark silence. “Content, bring my hat and coat.” She slid swiftly from the chair. He couldn’t leave her here. “I can drop you at the club.”

  The Spaniard rose as quickly. “You will drop me too?” he squealed. His face was dark and distraught.

  Toni did not speak.

  Content shivered beside him in her crimson cloak. He took coat and hat without relinquishing the case, one hand free to reach for the little gun. He didn’t know when Prince Felix might materialize. He said, “I’ll be back, Toni. It will be late.”

  He could scarcely catch her reply. She didn’t look at him. “I will be waiting.”

  “Alone.”

  Det’s face was a death mask. She had not moved.

  He was grateful for the silence in the cab, for Duck at the wheel. He didn’t want questions now. Nor did either of his companions ask them; for separate reasons, they were afraid of answers. He entered the club with them, ignoring the disturbance torturing them. He didn’t explain. He waited until they disappeared towards the dressing-rooms and he went to Jake’s office.

  He handed over the brief case. “Take care of this. Put your hoods on it if you must but don’t let anyone but me touch it.”

  Jake’s face tightened with triumph. “O.K., Kit.” If Kit didn’t return no one would ever see those papers. He would return. He wasn’t tempting success with counter orders.

  “Will you call Shannon to be ready for me?”

  Jake nodded.

  Kit wet his lips. “Don’t let anything happen to Content tonight. Don’t let her—get hurt.”

  A tremor touched the man.

  “After the show, put José on ice. Don’t let anyone get to him.”

  Jake assured him quietly, “It is done, Kit.”

  He said, “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.” He went away.