Читать книгу From Now On - Frank L. Packard - Страница 8

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DAVE HENDERSON lost no time on his return journey. Within some fifteen or twenty minutes after leaving the residence of Mr. Martin K. Tydeman, he slipped into the lane at the rear of the shabby house on the shabby street that he called his home, and, entering the shed, closed the door softly behind him. Here, it was but the work of an instant to take the sealed package of banknotes from the black hand-bag, reach up, slide the package in through the little door of the old pigeon-cote, push the package over into one corner, cover it with the chaff and old straw with which, relics of bygone days of occupancy, the bottom of the pigeon-cote was littered, and to close the little door again.

He stooped then, and, unlacing his shoes quickly, removed them. He had only one thing to guard against now, and his alibi was perfect, his possession of one hundred thousand dollars secure. Tooler must not hear him entering the house. Tooler must be morally convinced that he, Dave Henderson, had never left the house. As soon as he got back to his room again, he would put on his shoes, call up to Tooler that he was going, and, with the empty black hand-bag, get into his car—and drive up to Martin K. Tydeman's!

“Some uproar!” confided Dave Henderson to himself. “When I ask old Martin K. to fill the li'l old bag, and he goes for the cash, there'll be———”

His mental soliloquy ended abruptly. He had opened the door noiselessly that led into the house, and was creeping without a sound along the hallway toward the door of his room at the front of the house—and now suddenly he stood rigid and motionless. Was it fancy, his imagination playing tricks upon him, or had Tooler come down-stairs? It seemed as though he had caught the sound of a lowered voice; and it seemed as though it had come from his own room there along the hall.

And then he smiled sarcastically at himself, and began to creep forward again. He had complained of the whole thing being tame, and now he was getting an attack of nerves when it was all over! How could he have heard a lowered voice through the closed door of his room? It was a physical impossibility. And Tooler, in any case, was not in the habit of talking to himself Tooler never talked to any one if he could help it. The man always seemed to be nursing a perennial grudge that he hadn't been born a mute!

Dave Henderson's smile broadened at his little conceit—and the next instant vanished entirely, as his lips compressed suddenly into a hard, straight line. He had halted for the second time, hugged now close against the wall. The door of his room was not closed, and it was not Tooler—and it was not nerves. The door was slightly ajar; and the words came quite audibly; and the guarded voice had a haunting familiarity about it:

“Sure, I grabbed the train, an' Bookie stalled on being able to get old Tydeman on the long-distance until after the train—an' me on it—was on our way. Tumble?”

Dave Henderson did not move. Into his face there had come, set in a grayish-whiteness, a look that mingled stunned amazement and a gathering fury. He had recognized that voice now—and, in a flash, what that voice meant. It was Runty Mott, a miserable little red-haired rat of a race-course tout and hanger-on. Runty Mott—Bookie Skarvan! He remembered very well indeed that Bookie Skarvan could not get Tyde-man on the long distance until after the train was gone!

Another voice chuckled in malicious assent.

“Take it from me”—it was Runty Mott again—“Bookie Skarvan's got some head! Some head! He was wiped out all right, but I guess this puts him on Easy Street again. Fifty thousand for him, an' we split the rest. Bookie says to me, he says, 'If Dave goes an' gets that money, an' disappears afterwards,'-he says, 'it's a cinch, with the ragged reputation he's got, that he stole it, an' beat it for parts unknown, an' if them parts unknown,' he says, 'is a nice little mound of earth somewheres in the woods about six feet long an' four feet deep, due to Dave having collided with a blackjack, I guess the police'll be concluding after a while that Dave was smart enough to give 'em the slip, an' get away with the coin for keeps. You grab the train for 'Frisco, Runty,' he says, 'an' wise up Baldy Vickers to what I say. You got a good two hours,' he says, 'to set the stage up there before Dave blows in.'”

Came that malicious chuckle again.

“An' the poor boob went an' cracked the crib himself!” ejaculated Runty Mott's companion—and chuckled once more.

“Sure!” said Runty Mott. “Bookie called the turn all right on the guy's reputation—he was born a crook. Well, it makes it all the easier, don't it? It might have been harder to get him when we wanted him if he'd just gone up there an' got the money on the level. As it is now, he's ducking his nut, trying to play innocent, an' he comes back here to make a nice fresh start up to old Tydeman's again. Only he didn't reckon on any one trailing him from the minute he got out of his car! I guess we got him—good. Spike telephoned ten minutes ago that Dave was on his way back. If he comes in by the shed, the boys'll see he don't get out that way again; an' if he comes in by the front he'll get a peach of a welcome home! Tumble? This is where he croaks—an' no noise about it—an' you look out that you swing the lead so's you won't have to swing it twice. We can carry him out through the shed, an' get the mortal remains away in a car with no one the wiser.” Runty Mott was chuckling now quite as maliciously as his companion. “Can't you see the headlines in the papers! 'Promising Young Man Succumbs to Temptation.' Say, it's the safest thing that was ever pulled, an'———” He stopped suddenly. A low whistle sounded from the street in front. “Keep quiet!” cautioned Runty Mott. “He's coming in by the lane.”

It was silent in the house—only the silence began to pound and throb, and become a world of riot and dismay, and make confused noises of its own. Crouched against the wall, Dave Henderson raised his hand to his forehead—and drew his hand away damp with beads of moisture. There was an overmastering rage, a tigerish ferocity upon him; but his brain, most curiously, was deadly cold in its composure, and was working now swift as lightning flashes, keen, alert, shrewd, active. The words he had just heard meant—murder. His murder! The very callousness of the words but lent a hideous sincerity to them. Also he knew Baldy Vickers—if any further proof was needed. Baldy Vickers was a gangster to whom murder was a trade; and Baldy Vickers with stakes in the thousands, when he would have committed any crime in the decalogue with greedy haste for a hundred-dollar bill, meant—murder.

He was stooping now, silently, with the utmost caution, slipping on his shoes. And now from the rear there came a faint sound, a low creaking, like the stealthy rending of wood. He knew what it meant: They were forcing the shed door—to follow him in here—to cut off his escape, and to assist if necessary in the work those two were waiting to perform in his room, which he was expected to enter.

His face was set, drawn in lines as hard as chiselled marble. And yet he could have laughed—laughed out in the bitterest mockeries. The game was up—even if he saved his life. He would be “wanted” for the theft of one hundred thousand dollars. He could not cover that up now. If he escaped Baldy Vickers and his pack, he would still be a fugitive from the law. And, worse still, he would be a fugitive empty-handed, chased like a mangy dog who had risked his all for a bone—and had dropped the bone in his flight! God, if he could only get back there and get that money! But there were footsteps coming now—his straining ears could hear them—they were coming nearer and nearer to the door that opened from the shed into the rear of the house. Fury surged upon him again. Skarvan! Bookie Skarvan! It was Skarvan, not Baldy Vickers, not that miserable, red-headed rat of a tout in there, that he would have sold his soul at that instant to settle with. It was Skarvan, the dirty Judas, not the others, who, smug and safe, had planned his, Dave Henderson's, murder in deliberate, coldblooded hellishness! Well, if he, Dave Henderson, lived, Bookie Skarvan would pay... an eye for an eye... that was God's law, wasn't it?... well, as certainly as God lived, Bookie Skarvan would pay... it was another incentive for him, Dave Henderson, to live now....

The brain works with incredible speed. Those footsteps had not yet quite reached the door leading into the hall. His shoes were on now; and now his eyes fell upon the empty black hand-bag which, to facilitate his movements in putting on his shoes, he had set down on the floor beside him, and there came, flickering suddenly over the tight-pressed lips, a curious smile. He might not get through; there was only one way to get through—his car out there in front—a dash for it, though it was certain that there would be others of Baldy Vickers' crowd lurking out there, too; he might not get through, but if he did, there was a way, too, to save that hundred thousand dollars, or, at least, to keep it from Bookie Skarvan's claws!

Into the dark, narrowed eyes there came a glint of humor—but it was grim, deadly humor. They believed, of course, that he had the money in the bag, since he would be credited with no object for having already disposed of it, the natural presumption being that, with the money once in his possession, he would make a run for it—and they must continue to believe that—be given no reason to believe otherwise. It was dangerous, an added risk, but if he pretended to fall unwarily into their trap, pretended to be unconscious that there was, for instance, a blackjack waiting for him in his room, their suspicions would never be aroused—and neither they nor any one else would ever suspect for an instant that the money was not still in the bag as he dashed from the house.

He was creeping forward again silently toward the door of his room. That was logical. They would expect that. They would expect him to creep in silently and stealthily, on account of Tooler upstairs—or, if they did not exactly expect it, it would explain itself in that very logical way to them afterwards.

Behind him now the door leading into the hall was being opened cautiously, so cautiously that he would not have heard it if he had not been listening for it, expecting it. But he was just at the edge of the jamb of his own door now. He straightened up, his hand reached out for the door handle, and, still retaining his grasp upon the knob and standing in full view upon the threshold, he pushed the door open to the extent of his outstretched arm.

The slickest crook in the United States, they had said he would make! He would try and not disappoint them!

His eyes swept the interior in a flash. A burly figure was crouched low down against the wall within striking distance of the door, an ugly looking, leather-covered baton in his hand—Runty Mott was not in sight. It was for the fraction of a second that he stood there—no more—not long enough for that crouching figure to recover from its surprise.

“My God!” gasped Dave Henderson, in well-simulated dismay; and, leaping backward, pulled shut the door, and dashed for the door to the street.

There was a yell from the room; it was echoed by a shout, and the pound of racing feet from the rear of the hall. Dave Henderson wrenched the front door open—and slammed it behind him. A figure rose before him on the steps. His left hand, free, swung with all his body weight behind it, swung with a terrific blow to the point of a scrubby jaw that blocked his way—and the figure crumpled, and went down with a crash on the doorstep.

It was but a yard to the curb and his car. He threw himself into the driver's seat. Pandemonium seemed loosed now from the house. Up above, a second-story window was raised violently, and Tooler's head was thrust out; below, the front door was flung wide open, and, the red-headed little tout in the van, four men were racing down the steps. And then, over the chorus of unbridled blasphemy, there rose a shrill yell from Runty Mott, which was answered from somewhere down the street.

The car, like a mad thing stung into action, shot forward from the curb. A hand grasped at the car's side, and was torn loose, its owner spinning like a top and pitching to the sidewalk. Dave Henderson flung a glance over his shoulder—and his jaws clamped suddenly hard together. Of course! That shout of Runty Mott's! But he had not underestimated either Baldy Vickers' cunning, or Baldy Vickers' resourcefulness. He had rather expected it. A big, powerful gray car had swept around the corner of the first street behind him, and, slowing for an instant, was picking up Runty Mott and his companions.

And now Dave Henderson laughed a little in a sort of grim savagery. Well, the race was on—and on to a finish! He knew the men too well in that gray car behind him to delude himself for a moment with any other idea. They wanted that little black hand-bag, and they would get it if they could; and they would get him, if they could, at any cost. Again he laughed, and now with the laugh came that debonair lift to his shoulders. His brain was working in swift, lightning flashes. The only hope of shaking them off was in the open—if his car were the faster. And if it were not the faster? Well then, yes—there was still a chance—on a certain road he knew, the road he had traveled that afternoon—if he could make that road. It was a chance, a gambling chance, but the best chance—to win all—or lose all. There would be no hedging—it was all or nothing—win or lose. They would not dare use their revolvers here in the city streets, they could only cling close on his trail; and neither of them here in the city could put the respective speed of their cars to the test—but in the open, in the country——

He looked over his shoulder again. The big gray car, some fifty yards in the rear, held five passengers. He could distinguish the little red-haired tout in the front seat beside the man who was driving, a short, thick-set man, whose cap was pulled down over his eyes—Baldy Vickers. He nodded his head. His glance had measured something else. By leaning forward in his seat and crouching low over the wheel, the back of his car seemed high enough, not to afford him absolute immunity, but to afford him at least a fair chance of protection once he elected to invite the shots that would be fired from the car behind.

Then the thought came that by one of a dozen ways, by leaping from his car as he turned a corner, for instance, and darting into a building, he might give his pursuers the slip here in the city. But it was no good! The game was up! He was not only a fugitive from Baldy Vickers and his wolves, he was a fugitive now from the police. And if by some such means as that he managed to give Baldy Vickers the slip, there was still the police—and with a police drag-net out he cut his chances of escape by better than half if he remained in the city. It would not be long now before Tydeman, in view of his, Dave Henderson's, non-appearance, would become aware of the theft; and, granting that he eluded Baldy Vickers, the gangster, eager for revenge, would be the first to curry favor with the police—Baldy Vickers had only to state that one of his pals saw him, Dave Henderson, crawling out through Tydeman's library window. There was nothing to it! The game was up—even if he saved his life. Thanks to Bookie Skarvan! His jaws clamped again, and the knuckles of his hands stood out in white knobs as they clenched in sudden passion on the wheel. Thanks to Bookie Skarvan! By God, that alone was worth living for—to settle with Bookie Skarvan!

Like some sinister, ominous thing, silently, attracting no attention from the passers-by, the big gray car maintained its distance fifty yards behind. That grim humor, deadly in its cold composure, was upon Dave Henderson again. He meant to be taken by neither Baldy Vickers, nor by the police; nor did he intend that a certain package containing one hundred thousand dollars in cash should fall into the hands of either Baldy Vickers or the police! Some day, even yet, he might find use for that particular package himself!

Block after block was traversed, corner after corner was turned, as Dave Henderson threaded his way through the streets, heading steadily for the outskirts of the city, and the road on which he had already traveled ninety miles that day. And fifty yards behind came on that big gray car. They were well content, no doubt—the occupants of that car! He was playing their game for them! He was playing the fool! In the city their hands were tied! Out in the country they would be free to do something more than merely follow silently behind him! Well, that was all quite true—perhaps! But out in the country, if he got away from them, he would not at least jump from the pot into the fire and have the police at his heels the very next instant; and, besides, there was that hundred thousand dollars! The further away he got from 'Frisco the more inviolate became Mrs. Tooler's old pigeon-cote!

Fifty yards! He glanced behind him again. It was still fifty yards—start. Well, fifty yards was fifty yards, and he might as well take it now. He was well in the outskirts, the houses were becoming scattered, an open road was ahead, and——

He bent suddenly low over the wheel, and flung the throttle wide. The car leaped forward like a thoroughbred answering to the spur. There was a burst of yells from behind—and then silence, save for the rush of the wind, the creak of the swaying, lurching car, and the singing throb of the sixty horse-power engine, unleashed now, in full stride under the lash.

A mile, two miles—the speed was terrific. There was no sound from behind—just the roar of his own car in his ears. The houses were fewer now—it was the open country. Another mile! He was at his absolute maximum of speed now. He straightened up slightly, and shot a quick glance over his shoulder. The big gray car was fifty yards behind.

A shot rang out—and then a fusillade of them. He was low over the wheel again, his jaws set rigidly. Was it fifty yards? He was not sure, he was not sure but that it was less—he was only sure that it was not more.

The shots ceased for a moment. A car, coming in the opposite direction, had taken to the extreme edge of the road, half into the ditch. He had a flash of a woman's face, as he swept by—great dark eyes that stared out of a death-white face—a beautiful face even in its terror—it haunted him, that face.

A furious, sustained racketing, like a thousand echoes reverberating through a rocky, high-walled canon, stilled the roaring sweep of the wind, and the roaring of his car. He shot through the main street of a town like a meteor, and laughed out like a madman. A dog escaped by the fraction of an inch, and, tail down, scurried with a sharp yelp for the sidewalk; there was a dash for horses' heads at the curbs; people rushed to doorways and windows, peering out; women screamed; men yelled hoarsely; a fat woman, retreating wildly as she was about to cross the road, dropped a laden basket-to shake her fist in panic fury. It was kaleidoscopic—it was gone.

The shots came again. Another town was passed—still another. The big gray car was not fifty yards behind now—it was less than thirty—so near that now there came from time to time an exultant yell.

Dave Henderson's face was drawn, tense, its lines hard, sharp, strained; but in the dark eyes was still that smoldering light of grim, debonair humor. The race was almost at an end—he knew that now. He knew now that he could not shake off that gray streaking thing behind. It gained only by inches, they were well matched, the two cars, and it was a good race; but a few more miles would end it as those inches lengthened into feet and yards.

Well, then, since he could not escape this way, there was still the other way; and if that failed, too, in the last analysis he had a revolver in his pocket. But it was not likely to fail, that other way. He had banked on it almost from the moment he had made his escape from the Toolers' house. As between himself, Dave Henderson, and the hundred thousand dollars, Baldy Vickers, if Baldy Vickers could not get both, would very obviously and very earnestly prefer the hundred thousand dollars. His lips tightened in a sort of merciless irony. Well, Baldy Vickers would have a chance at least to exercise his preference! A few miles farther on, just a few miles, the road, in a wooded tract, made an abrupt, almost right-angled, turn. He remembered that turn—and he had banked on that, too, if by then speed alone should have failed him! He could hold out that much longer. The inches did not accumulate fast enough to overtake him before he reached that turn—he was not afraid of that—but every one of those inches made of him a better target.

He was motionless, like a figure carved in stone, as he hung over the wheel. The car rocked to the furious pace—but it did not swerve. A swerve meant the gift of another of those inches to that gray thing behind. He held the center of the road, driving with all the craft and cunning that he knew, his arms like steel bands, his fingers locked in an iron grip upon the wheel.

He did not look behind him now. It was useless. Nearer and nearer the gray car was creeping up, he was well aware of that; but, also, nearer and nearer came that wooded stretch ahead. He could see it now—a mile down the road. But a mile at this rate of speed did not take long to cover.

The shouts grew more exultant behind him; the shots came thicker. Murderers! The angry hum of a bullet past his ear roused a fury in his soul that was elemental, primal, and he cursed now under his breath. Murderers... six feet of earth... in cold blood... or if they winged him, the car, amuck, slanting from the road to up-end itself, would do their bloody work for them... Bookie Skarvan... some day, if he lived through this... Bookie Skarvan... it was strange that all their shots had missed... even if the back of his car was a protection... they wouldn't have many more chances... the woods and the turn of the road were just ahead now, and...

There was a crash, the splintering of glass, and a bullet shattered the wind-shield scarcely a hair's-breadth to the right of his head. A demoniacal yell of triumph went up from behind. They had him now—and, with him, one hundred thousand dollars! Again that grimace of merciless irony was twisting at Dave Henderson's lips. It was the psychological moment, not only because that wood was just ahead, but because, realizing that his chances were desperate now, he would logically be expected to sacrifice anything—even that hundred thousand dollars—to save himself.

Something, like the flick of a fiery lash, bringing a hot, burning sensation, was laid suddenly across his leg above the knee. It did not hurt very much—a bullet deflected probably from the rim of the steering wheel—but they had hit him at last. He laughed savagely—and snatched at the empty black hand-bag, and hurled it with all his might far out across the side of the road.

A chorused yell answered his act. He looked back—and laughed again. It had not failed! They were stopping. Wolves! Again he laughed. And like wolves with slavering fangs they were after their prey! It would give him a minute, perhaps two—but that was enough!

The car swept on, and rounded the turn, and the trees blotted out the view of the road behind. He jammed on the brakes, slewed the car half around, full across the road, and leaping from it, dashed in amongst the trees. The foliage was thick. He ran on. He was safe for the moment here in the woods; and presently it would be dark, and he would make across country to the railroad, and work his way East.

The roar of the gray car coming on again at full speed reached him. He laughed as he ran, harshly, without mirth. They wanted vengeance now—vengeance because he had not let them murder him! Well, he did not mean to disappoint them! He had disappointed them once—with an empty bag! He would not disappoint them again! It was perfectly logical that there should be—vengeance. There was hardly room to stop that car around the turn!

A wild cry, echoed by another, and still another, shrill in terror, rang out from the road over the roar of the speeding car—and then a terrific crash—a scream—silence.

He had stopped mechanically. The wolves wouldn't bother him any more. It wasn't Baldy Vickers now, that smash would have taken the fight out of Baldy Vickers, if it hadn't taken anything more—it was the police. He clenched his hands in sudden, passionate fury. He was safe from Baldy Vickers here in the woods, anyhow; but, for all that, he had played and lost. He was a hunted man now. He was not whining, he had played and lost—only he had played against stacked cards. The face of Bookie Skarvan rose before him, and his hands clenched the tighter. He swept a knotted fist fiercely across his eyes. What was the use of that—now! Not now! He had something else besides Bookie Skarvan to think of now; there was the police, and—yes—his leg! It was burning hot, and it hurt now. He glanced downward. His trouser-leg was soaked with blood. His teeth gritted together—and he plunged on again through the woods.