The Wire Devils. Frank L. Packard

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Don’t try that game!” cautioned MacVightie grimly. “And don’t lie! He had to come up these stairs, your door was partly open, and he couldn’t have passed without you knowing it.”

      “That’s what I’m saying,” agreed the Hawk, even more earnestly. “That’s why I’m saying you must have got the wrong dope. Of course, he couldn’t have got by without me hearing him! That’s a cinch! And, I’m telling you straight, he didn’t.”

      “Didn’t he?” MacVightie’s smile was thin. “Then he came in here—into this room.”

      “In here?” echoed the Hawk weakly. His gaze wandered helplessly around the room. “Well, all you’ve got to do is look.”

      “I’m going to!” announced MacVightie curtly—and with a sudden jerk he yanked the single bed out from the wall. He peered behind and beneath it; then, stepping over to a cretonne curtain in the corner that served as wardrobe, he pulled it roughly aside.

      There were no other places of possible concealment. MacVightie chewed at his under lip, and eyed the Hawk speculatively.

      The Hawk’s eyes were still travelling bewilderedly about the room, as though he still expected to find something.

      “Are you dead sure he came into this house,” he inquired heavily, as though the problem were entirely beyond him.

      MacVightie hesitated.

      “Well—no,” he acknowledged, after a moment. “I guess you’re straight all right, and I’ll admit I didn’t see him come in; but I’d have pretty near taken an oath on it.”

      “Then I guess he must have ducked somewhere else,” submitted the Hawk sapiently. “There wasn’t no one went by that door—I’m giving it to you on the level.”

      MacVightie’s reluctant smile was a wry grimace.

      “Yes, I reckon it’s my mistake.” His voice lost its snarl, and his fingers groped down into his vest pocket. “Here, have a cigar,” he invited placatingly.

      “Why, say—thanks”—the Hawk beamed radiantly. “Say, I——”

      “All right, young fellow”—with a wave of his hand, MacVightie moved to the door. “All right, young fellow. No harm done, eh? Good-night!”

      The door closed. The footsteps without grew fainter, and died away.

      The Hawk, staring at the door, apostrophised the doorknob.

      “Well, say, what do you know about that!” he said numbly. “I wonder what’s up?”

      He rose from his chair after a moment as though moved by a sort of subconscious impulse, mechanically pushed his bed back against the wall, and returned to his chair.

      He dug out his pipe abstractedly, filled it, and lighted it. He gathered up the cards, shuffled them, and began to lay them out again on the table—and paused, and drummed with his fingers on the table top.

      “They’re after some guy that’s ducked his nut somewhere around here,” he decided aloud. “I wonder what’s up?”

      The Hawk spread out his remaining cards—and swept them away from him into an indiscriminate heap.

      “Aw, to blazes with cards!” he ejaculated impatiently.

      He put his feet up on the table, and sucked steadily at his pipe.

      “It’s a cinch he never went by that door,” the Hawk assured the toe of his boot. “I guess he handed that ‘bull’ one, all right, all right.”

      The minutes passed. The Hawk, engrossed, continued to suck on his pipe. Then from far down the stairs there came a faint creak, and an instant later the outer door closed softly.

      The Hawk’s feet came down from the table, and the Hawk smiled—grimly.

      “Tut, tut!” chided the Hawk. “That treadmill diminuendo on the top step and the keyhole stunt is pretty raw, Mr. MacVightie—pretty raw! You forgot the front door, Mr. MacVightie—I don’t seem to remember having heard it open or close until just now!”

      The back of the Hawk’s chair, as he pushed it well away from the table and stood up, curiously enough now intercepted itself between the keyhole and the interior of the room. He stepped to the door, and slipped the bolt quietly into place; then, going to the window, he reached out, and, from where it hung upon a nail driven into the sill, picked up the pay bag.

      “That’s a pretty old gag, too,” observed the Hawk almost apologetically. “I was lucky to get by with it.”

      The Hawk’s attention was now directed to his trunk, that was between the table and the foot of the bed. He lifted the lid back against the wall, and removed an ingeniously fashioned false top, in the shape of a tray, that fitted innocently into the curvature of the lid. The Hawk stared at a magnificent diamond necklace that glittered and gleamed on the bottom of the tray, as its thousand facets caught the light—and grinned.

      “If you’d only known, eh—Mr. MacVightie!” he murmured.

      From the pay bag the Hawk took out the packages of banknotes, the flashlight, the mask, the two pistols, and packed them neatly away in the tray. The only article left in the bag was his pocketbook. He opened this, disclosing a number of crisp, new ten-dollar bills. He held one of them up to the light for a moment, studying it admiringly.

      “I guess these won’t be much more good around here, according to that little conversation between MacVightie and the superintendent,” he muttered—and, with a shrug of his shoulders, tossed the entire number into the tray.

      He fitted the false top back into the lid, and closed the trunk. There remained the empty pay bag. He frowned at it for an instant; then, picking it up, he tucked it under the mattress of his bed.

      “I’ll get rid of that in the morning”—he nodded his head, as he turned down the bed covers.

      The Hawk began to undress, and at intervals voiced snatches of his thoughts aloud.

      “Pretty close shave,” said the Hawk, “pretty close.... Ten thousand dollars is some haul.... All right as long as they don’t find out I’ve got the key to their cipher.... And so Butcher Rose is one of the gang, eh?... Number One—Butcher Rose.... Guess he got away all right—from MacVightie.... He nearly did me.... Pretty close shave....”

      The Hawk turned out the light, and got into bed.

      “I guess I played in luck to-night,” said the Hawk softly, and for the second time that night. “Yes, I guess I did.”

      IV.

       At Bald Creek Station

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      It was twenty-four hours later. A half mile away, along a road that showed like a grey thread in the night, twinkled a few lights from the little cluster of houses that made the town СКАЧАТЬ