His Sacred Promise

by Johnston McCulley

His Sacred Promise

by Walter Pierson
Author of “Sleuth of the Rail,” etc.

Pollard half turned from the door of the safe, and extinguished his electric torch. He strained his ears to catch a repetition of the sound he was sure that he had heard. And again it came, soft yet sibilant—one word, his own first name.

“Bill!”

Pollard moved swiftly away from the safe and over to the mouth of the office ventilating shaft. That shaft had been very convenient. Bill Pollard, doing his work in the office above, could have his old pal, Sam Howell, on guard three floors below, where he could watch the night watchman, the elevators, the stairway. And a whispered word up the ventilating shaft would carry as well as a shout, give secret warning where any other method might bring disaster to them both.

“Bill?” the word came again.

Pollard was across the office and at the mouth of the shaft now. He stretched himself so that his face was opposite it.

“Yes?” he whispered in reply.

“They're on us, Bill—the elevator's down, stairs guarded, and men outside. Watchman must have given an alarm, or else we've touched off some hidden signal.”

“Take care of yourself!” Bill Pollard commanded,

He meant that Sam Howell was to make his own get-away, and leave Pollard to do the same. Pollard darted away from the ventilating shaft, silently, cautiously, listening for sounds in the hallway that would tell him of the near presence of his foes. At the safe again, he closed its door, made sure that all scattered papers were tossed into a convenient wastebasket, and stuffed into the pockets of his coat the packages of currency which he had removed from the strong box.

He even stopped long enough to pick up his tools and put them in the special pockets in the lining of his coat, and he removed the thin rubber gloves with which his hands had been covered while he worked, folded them, and put them into the hip pocket of his trousers. His movements were swift, yet exact. He betrayed no fear, no nervousness, yet all the time he was listening intently.

Then Bill Pollard started for the door that opened into the outer office of the suite. He stopped long enough to put a chair back where it belonged; and, passing through the door, he closed it softly behind him. A quick glance at that inner office now would not reveal the fact that a burglar had been at work there, and so pursuit might be delayed for a time.

Polland did not worry about Sam Howell. In the twenty years they had worked together, Bill Pollard had learned that Howell could care for himself in an emergency. Howell would make his escape from the building in some manner and retreat to their rendezvous. It remained for Pollard to do as much for himself.

He had half a dozen ways of escape planned. Bill Pollard never worked in a strange building until it had ceased to be strange—until he had learned it thoroughly and knew all the possible exits.

In the outer office, he stopped again to listen, but could hear nothing. He began wondering whether Howell had made a mistake, whether he had been frightened unduly; but upon reflection he told himself that Sam Howell did not make mistakes of that sort. He was not the man to give an alarm unless it was necessary.

Pollard crept to the hall door, listened again, and then turned the knob and opened the door a couple of inches. A night light was burning in the corridor, and a glance showed Pollard that nobody was in sight, neither friend nor foe. He darted through the door and closed it after him, and hurried silently to the stairs beside the elevator well.

It seemed that he could hear voices far below him, but he was not sure. He continued watching over the stairs, and after a time he saw a shadow two floors below, a shadow that soon resolved itself into an officer in uniform, revolver held ready. Pollard guessed what that meant; they were searching the building carefully from the ground floor, hoping to creep upon a criminal at work. That meant that they did not know the exact office where Pollard had been laboring.

It was but a step to the window at the end of the corridor, and this window opened upon a fire escape that ran to the alley below; it was one of Pollard's contemplated methods of escape. He darted to the window, which already was open leaned out, glanced down. There were officers in the alley. Escape that way was impossible.

Pollard hurried back to the stairs and looked down again. There was more than one dark form now. And they had reached the floor below. It was time to be moving. Pollard knew that the police would overlook no possible hiding place. He would have to escape from the building to be safe.

He had planned an excellent get-away from the roof, and now he determined to use it. He crouched on the stairs, so he could not be seen from below, and began climbing swiftly and silently. He had three stories to go, and then an iron ladderway to the roof, The trapdoor at the top of the ladderway was unfastened and ready. It was a heavy trapdoor that could be bolted from the roof as well as from the inside. Pollard knew that, once on the roof and that door fastened, he would have ample time for escape before his foes could force the door.

On the next floor he stopped to peer down again. He heard a shout, the explosion of a shot, officers crying to one another. Heavy, pounding steps sounded on the flight of stairs below him. Hoarse commands, and a fusillade of shots rang out.

Pollard darted to the next floor. The pounding steps seemed to be gaining on him now. He whipped out his automatic and held it ready. He did not intend to be taken. He knew that he could escape if he reached the roof, and, once free, the police would have a difficult time fastening the crime upon him. Twenty years had taught Pollard many things concerning an alibi.

He reached the next floor and turned to look again. Up the stairs after him plunged a form far ahead of the others. A bullet whistled past his head from far below, and he dodged back from the staircase. He raised his automatic—and dropped it again.

He had almost fired at Sam Howell. Pollard guessed instantly that Howell had failed to escape as he intended. The officers had driven him up and up in the building, and finally had flushed him out of hiding.

“Here!” Pollard cried.

Sam Howell, gasping, almost spent, was beside him.

“They—blocked me!”

“To the roof! Get the door shut and we're safe!” said Pollard, gripping the other by the arm.

They fled on up the stairs. They had but one more flight now, and then the steel ladder; but their foes were but a flight behind. Pollard stopped long enough to empty his automatic toward the pursuing officers, and then he ran on.

They reached the upper floor, fled quickly along the hall, and came to the ladder.

“Go ahead,” Howell commanded. “You know the way.”

Pollard already was on the steel ladder, climbing as rapidly as possible. Howell was but a couple of rungs behind him. Now the officers were on the top floor and charging along the hall, trying to keep close to the walls in the shadows. Howell fired at them.

A fusillade came in reply. Bill Pollard gave a scream of pain as he came to the trapdoor. A drop of blood fell downward and splashed on Howell's hand.

Howell pressed up, against Pollard. He glanced upward and saw that Pollard was thrusting back the door. Howell fired at the officers below again, and again the fire was answered and bullets crashed into the ceiling about the top of the ladder.

And then the door was open, and Pollard sprawled out on the roof. Howell was close behind him. Snarling in fear and hatred, he whirled and threw the trapdoor into place, worked frantically to secure it with the heavy bolts. And then he stood back a couple of feet, his chest heaving.

“Almost—got us,” he said.

He turned toward Pollard. But Pollard was not leading the way across the roof. Pollard was stretched almost at his feet, clutching at his breast, his breathing labored.

“Bill!”

“They got me,” Pollard said, with a gasp. “Be on—your way!”

“Hold to yourself, Bill,” Howell ordered. “It's just the shock. You're all right——”

“No, they've got me, I say.”

“I'll help you——”

“No use! Listen, Sam. We're—pals?”

“We sure are, Bill.”

“You know—about Sergeant Calhoun?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Your sacred word, Sam! If you ever meet—Sergeant Calhoun—do all you can—for him.”

“Sure, Bill! But you're not goin' to lie here and cash in. I'll help you up; we can get away——”

“No use,” Pollard declared. “I'm goin'—fast! Make your own get-away——”

“I won't leave you to the wolves, old pal. We've been together twenty years; met right after the Spanish War. If I have to, I'll stay and fight 'em——”

“You must go! You've got to take care of Bessie——”

“I'll stay and fight!”

“Please, Sam. Last thing I'll ever ask. Take care of Bessie—and remember about Sergeant Calhoun.”

“I'll—I'1l do it, Bill!”

“Better go now. They're at the door!”

“Old pal, I——”

“No use, Sam! I know when I've got it. I been shot twice before. Through my back—and a lung! It's—it's beginnin' to hurt, Sam. Red-hot needles——”

“Bill!”

“Remember—Sergeant Calhoun! Your—sacred promise——”

“My sacred promise, old pal,” Sam Howell repeated, his eyes moist. “But I think——”

“Use—air shaft——” Pollard said, gasping hard. He seemed to stiffen for an instant, and then to go limp.

“Bill! Bill!” Sam Howell cried.

But Bill did not answer his call. Bill Pollard had gone “west.”

Sam Howell sprang to his feet. The officers were pounding at the trapdoor with something, trying to batter loose the heavy bolts. Sam Howell looked down at the body of his friend again, and remembered Bessie, and Sergeant Calhoun.

“I can't do anything here, old pal,” he whispered. “But I'll sure remember my promise. I'll remember about Calhoun, and I'll take care of Bessie.”

Again he shook his fist toward the bolted door, and then brushed the back of one hand across his eyes in an ineffectual attempt to wipe away the moisture that trickled from them, and staggered toward the air shaft. With almost his last breath, Bill Pollard had pointed out the way of escape.

Howell tore away the protecting screen from the mouth of the shaft and tossed it over the parapet to the roof of the building adjoining; and then he flashed his electric torch, and saw nothing but the square shaft disappearing into the darkness below.

He knew nothing at all about the shaft—he would have to trust to Bill Pollard. Perhaps it was a safe way out—and perhaps his body would glide swiftly downward until it came to a turn, and there wedge, and Sam Howell would suffocate, die slowly and terribly where no man would think of looking for him.

Once more he looked back at Bill Pollard's body stretched on the roof, the moonlight playing across the features. He shook his fist toward the door again, and saw that the bolts were commencing to give beneath the blows of the police. Then he got into the air shaft feet first, hesitated a moment, and let himself go!

II

The air shaft was of such size that Howell could brace himself in it with his knees and his palms. Down he slipped, slowly at first; and then he seemed to lose the power to check his progress, and the speed of his descent increased. The shaft was dusty, the air was stifling. The upward rush of air almost took his breath. His palms were blistered, the knees of his trousers were scorched,

On he fell, through the pitch blackness. Howell always had had a horror of suffocation, and it gripped him now, It seemed that the four walls of the shaft were closing in upon him, to smother him, crush him, exterminate him!

He would have shrieked, except that he found it an impossibility. Some obstruction struck against his back and seemed to smash his spine. And then there came a crash, and he was still.

For a moment, half conscious, he breathed heavily, not moving, fearing he had been caught in a trap. He was half sensible of the pain in his hands and knees. And then he staggered to his feet, and felt of the sides of his prison. Two feet in any direction, and his hand struck against a metal wall.

Gasping with terror, Howell took out his electric torch, and found that by some miracle it had not been smashed. He flashed it, and the glare came back to him from metal. Then he fought to control his fear, and inspected his prison carefully. On one side was a little door.

Howell gave a gasp of relief and snapped out the torch. He put his hand against the door and pressed, and it yielded. It swung open; the cool, fresh air rushed in.

His fear was gone now; caution took its place. He listened, and then opened the little door wider and looked out. He saw that the opening was to the roof of a little one-story building that adjoined the skyscraper, one of those eyesores so frequently found in cities, where an estate in litigation prevents improvements.

The door scarcely gave him room enough. But he managed in time to get through, and to close the door after him. And then he crouched in the darkness next to the wall, getting his bearings, thinking of the horror on the roof, trying to force himself to forget it for the instant and think only of escape.

For escape was the thing now. There was Bessie Pollard to consider, for instance. And there was a greater thing—venegeance for the death of his pal, with whom he had been associated for a score of years.

Keeping to the shadows, he crept across the roof of the one-story building until he reached the opposite side. There was danger in the alley, he knew, and perhaps in the street in front. The side street might not be guarded.

Howell reached the side and peered over. Near him was a waterpipe that ran to within ten feet of the walk below. No pedestrian was in sight, no vehicle. Without hesitation, Howell let himself over the edge and started down the pipe. He came to the end, and dropped. He darted across the street, and walked briskly away.

Each instant he expected to hear some officer call to him to halt, but he escaped unseen. Six blocks away, he came to the avenue and a car line, and a night car was just coming along. Howell boarded it and went toward the other side of the city.

He could think now, for he felt safe from pursuit. He could think of Pollard stretched on the roof, of his dying words. He would have vengeance for his death. He would ascertain who had fired the fatal shot, if possible, and the guilty man should not escape. And he would take care of Bessie, as Pollard had urged him; and, if he ever met Sergeant Calhoun, he would do all in the world he could for him, as he had given Pollard his sacred promise to do.

Howell left the car and walked for a dozen blocks more. It was almost dawn when he came to the cheap lodging house that he called home. He hesitated a moment before the entrance.

Bessie would be up and waiting, as she always was when Pollard and Howell went out to “turn a trick.” She would want to know what success they had encountered. Success! Sam Howell scarcely knew how to face her now, but he knew that it was something that had to be done. He went up the steps like a man with leaden shoes on his feet, opened the door, and slipped into the poorly lighted and evil-smelling hall.

They lived on the third floor, and Howell went upstairs slowly. He was thinking of those other stairs up which he had raced with Bill Pollard so short a time before. He reached the floor, turned down the hall there, and went into his own room, which adjoined the suite Pollard rented for himself and Bessie.

The door closed and locked, Howell struck a match and lighted the gas. He tossed hat and coat on the bed, stood with hands against hips, breathing deeply. There came a soft knock on the communicating door.

So Bessie had heard him come in. She would want to know how things had gone, and one could not put Bessie off. Sometimes he was the first home; and ofttimes Pollard had been; and whenever Howell was first Bessie demanded information without waiting for Pollard.

Howell sighed again, stepped across the room, and opened the door. Bessie stood just inside it, smiling up at him. Howell took another step, into her room, and the light struck fairly upon his face. Bessie read disaster there.

“What—what has happened?” she asked, with a sharp intake of her breath.

Howell walked on into the room and sat down on the sofa, burying his face in his hands. The girl threw herself beside him, pulling at his arms, trying to see his face.

“Tell me, Sam! What is the trouble?” she begged.

“It—it's happened, Bessie, girl!”

“You mean the cops got him?”

Howell groaned. “It's worse than that.”

“But what—— Sam, tell me!”

“Hush, Bessie, not so loud! Grief isn't safe—with us.”

“What do you mean? Has uncle——”

“It's going to be a shock, girl, but you must stand it? We both have to stand it! They got him!”

“And you couldn't help?”

“No. I tried to——”

“Did they get him with the goods? Does it look bad?”

“You don't understand,” Howell said, putting an arm around her. “I said—it would be a shock.”

“But if they didn't get him——?”

“Not that way, Bessie. Bill wasn't caught. He's—he's gone, Bessie.”

“Gone?” She looked at him vacantly.

“Can't you understand, girl? They got us in the building, and we tried for the roof. And, while we were on the ladder, they began firing at us——?”

“You mean—you mean that uncle is—dead?”

“He's—he's gone, girl.”

“Oh, Sam!”

“Hush, Bessie! We can't even grieve aloud, remember! Nobody must ever know. You'd be in danger——”

She was sobbing against his shoulder. Sam Howell held her in his arms, and looked over her head at the wall, unseeing.

“Hush, girl, hush,” he said.

“I—I can't stand it, Sam!”

“I guess we've got to stand it, girl, I—he talked to me before he died. We were on the roof, the trapdoor locked, and he had time. He asked me to look out for you, girl, and I'll do that. And he told me, if ever I met Sergeant Calhoun——”

“Yes, he would remember that,” she said.

Again she wept, and again Howell looked over her shoulder at the opposite wall. It was an old story about Sergeant Calhoun. Pollard had been a private in the Spanish War, and this Sergeant Calhoun had been of his company. And that day on the slope of San Juan, Sergeant Calhoun, cut off with his squad, had stood over the wounded Bill Pollard and fought off the foe, though wounded himself, until help had come. And then he had bound up Pollard's wound, which was serious, thereby saving his life, and then had toppled over himself.

Pollard had come from the hospital to find that there was no trace of Sergeant Calhoun. He had been in a hospital himself, had been discharged and sent back to the States. And Bill Pollard always sought Sergeant Bert Calhoun, the big man who had saved his life at the risk of his own. He had wanted to pay the debt.

“If ever I meet Calhoun I'll pay Bill's debt for him,” Howell said, now. “I gave him my sacred promise, girl. I gave it to him as he was dying in my arms. And there's another promise that I've made to myself: If I find out the name of the man who shot Bill Pollard, that man is going to die. He's an officer, I suppose, and had the right, but he's going to die just the same!”

“Yes,” she agreed; “yes!”

“I was Bill's pal for twenty years, Bessie, girl. We got together soon after the Spanish War. We've been lawbreakers, but we've been true men to each other. And we hadn't been working together more than five years, girl, when he came to me one day and said that his brother was dead, and had left a girl ten years old. He took you, and he's been like a father to you. And I promised him I'd look out for you. You're twenty-five, girl, and able to look out for yourself, but I'll take Bill's place as long as you'll let me.”

“I know it, Sam!”

“I'm amost fifty. Id enough to be your father, girl, You can trust me?”

“Of course, Sam!”

“We'll just have to go on in the old way, but without Bill.”

Again she wept against his shoulder, and he tried to comfort her. Sam Howell worshiped Bessie Pollard; she was like a daughter to him. He adored her for herself, and because she was the niece of Bill Pollard, his old pal. He'd guard her as well as he could!

“What are we going to do?” she asked, after a time. “I suppose there'll be an inquest.”

“Yes,” Howell said. “And if I can learn who got him——”

“And when can we get the—the body?”

Howell bit his lip and looked away from her.

“That's the hard part, Bessie. We can't.”

A gasp escaped her. “We can't get uncle's body?”

“Can't you see, girl? If you claim the body they will investigate you. And we can't have that.”

“But they needn't know that I knew,” she protested. “I can say that he was my uncle, and prove it. I can pretend that I thought he was a watchman, and worked nights. Anything, Sam, anything to get the body and give uncle the right kind of a burial. Oh, it'd be awful, Sam, not to do that!”

“I know, girl, but it's dangerous! They might take you for investigation. They haven't your mug or prints, but it'd be dangerous just the same. And they'd investigate here. They'd investigate me; a dozen people know the three of us were associated. They know that some other man was with Bill, and they'd land me quick!”

“Oh, Sam!”

“It isn't that I care much; but if they did, I couldn't take care of you. If I run away, and they come, it'll look bad, and they'll suspect and trouble you. If I stay here, it'll be worse. It's dangerous, girl, to step in and say that we know him.”

“But I can't stand it, Sam! He was so good to me.”

“I know, girl. We'll think it over. You'd better get to bed now, hadn't you? Is there anything you want—anything that I can do?”

“Nothing, Sam, thanks. I'll—I'll go to bed—and think. I can't believe it yet.”

“I'll not be asleep, girl. You call me if you want anything!”

Howell kissed her, for the first time in his life, and went back to his own room. He closed the door softly, turned out the gas, threw up the window shade, and looked out over a tiny court and foul alley at the coming of the dawn.

A sob clutched at his throat, and tears filled his eyes for an instant. And then he was a man again—a determined, deadly, hatred-charged man with a purpose. His narrowed eyes looked into the face of the rising sun, his fists were clenched at his sides, his teeth ground together.

“When I find the man who killed Bill Pollard,” he promised himself again, “that man is going to die. Nothing in all the world can keep me from killing him!”

III.

They lived in a house where few questions were asked as long as rent was paid in advance, and Bill Pollard had often been absent for days at a time; so his absence now was scarcely noticed, and not at all commented on.

Sam Howell remained before the window that morning until the blazing day was at hand. Bessie had cried herself to exhaustion, and was sleeping. Howell scrawled a note saying that he was going out to learn what. he could, and left the place.

He met casual acquaintances, he smiled as if nothing wrong had happened, and he jested about ordinary things when he wanted to shriek his sorrow and hatred to the world; it was one of the penalties of his mode of life. As he had told Bessie early that morning, they could not even openly indulge in grief without running into danger.

Howell got away from the district and purchased the morning newspapers, and then he went to a little park and sat down to read. Any man watching him would judge at once that he was a laborer out of work and consulting the want-ad columns.

The later editions had the story, and once more Howell ground his teeth in rage. It appeared the newspaper editors did not see anything of great importance in the violent passing of a true pal of a score of years. A few lines sufficed to say that a man, name unknown, had been detected in an attempt to rob an office safe, that the police had chased him through the building and to the roof, and that there he had been mortally wounded by a bullet. He had a companion, who had made good his escape.

Howell could read between the lines. He knew that the police were looking for the “companion.” Bill Pollard had been carrying the loot, and it had been recovered by the officers, of course. And Pollard always had been careful to have nothing on his person by which his identity could be established. The tools in the lining of his coat would stamp him the professional burglar, but there the police would run up against a wall, for no department headquarters had Bill Pollard's photo or fingerprints.

A man, name unknown, shot in the act of committing a crime—that was all. That was the official end of William Pollard, who had fought his country's battles, who tenderly had reared a motherless and fatherless niece, who had stood by a pal for twenty years, who had sought for two decades to find a man and repay him for an act of bravery.

Sam Howell, choking back a sob, folded the newspapers and put them into his coat pocket, for he knew that Bessie would want to read about it. He made his way to another part of the city, populated for the greater part by men and women of nefarious pursuits, Here information could be obtained, if a man knew where to look for it. Howell and Pollard had not been in the city long, yet they were known, and Howell knew where to ask questions.

He entered a cheap resort and sat at a table far in the rear, smoking his pipe, waiting. Now and then a man glanced in his direction, but made no effort to speak to him. And, after a time, “Weasel” Burton entered.

The Weasel was far from being the king of the underworld, or even a duke of the blood royal, yet he had his uses. He was not the court jester, at least. He was a little man of uncertain age, with shifting eyes and furtive manner. And he had wisdom of a sort: his brain was a storehouse of facts concerning crime and criminals, officers and laws.

The Weasel sat down across from Sam Howell and spoke from the corner of his mouth.

“They got Pollard, did they?”

“Yes.”

“You were with him?”

“Yes,” said Howell. “They plugged him while we were getting up the ladder to the roof. I got the door locked, but Bill was done for. I got down an air shaft.”

“Good! The bulls wondered how Pollard's pal got away—blind as usual.”

Weasel Burton waited. Howell spoke, finally. “And I'm after the man that plugged Bill Pollard.”

“I supposed so. They held a rush inquest this morning. I can name the man.”

“Half a dozen officers shot.”

“I know that,” said Burton. “And, at the inquest, one of them told how, after the volley, he had deliberately picked off the man at the top of the ladder; said he knew he had plugged him. The coroner's jury exonerated him, of course. They commended him.”

“And who is he?” Howell asked, licking his lips.

“Jim Kelly!” Howell drew in his breath with a hiss.

Burton continued: “We've had about enough of Kelly. You ain't the only man that wants to square accounts with that dick.”

“I'll be man enough!”

“Why not let some of the rest of us in on it? Shootin' Kelly in the back won't be bad enough. We'd ought to torture the fiend. He's sent up a dozen good men.”

“You leave Kelly to me,” Howell said.

“It'd be safer if a lot of us were in on it. Kelly sent up my pal. And there's Lefty Simms. He wants a crack at Jim Kelly. It was Kelly nabbed Lefty's girl.”

“I'll think about it,” Howell said. “What are they going to do with Bill?”

“Unnamed grave in the poor lot, of course.”

Howell bowed his head again, Weasel Burton looked at him for a moment, and then got up.

“Better lay low for a time and take it easy,” he advised. “Kelly knows Bill Pollard had a pal, of course. If he nabs you now, you won't have any revenge, I reckon.”

“I'll be careful,” Howell said. “And thanks, Weasel. I'll see you about this later.”

He got up and swung through the front door and walked slowly down the street, passing men who knew the story but forbore speaking to him, even to offer sympathy. This was a peculiar thing, and a delicate situation. It was well known that Pollard had worked for twenty years without being nabbed except on a charge of vagrancy. In that time he had done only six months in stir, and then only for not having visible means of support. And to be killed at the first sign of bad luck—that was misfortune indeed!

Howell walked the streets for a couple of hours more, and then went toward home. He supposed that Bessie would be up by now, and waiting for him to bring news. He began thinking that perhaps it would be better if men other than himself were concerned in the death of Jim Kelly. It might prove safer, and Howell had to think of Bessie; he had promised the dying Bill Pollard to care for her.

He came to the cheap lodging house and went slowly up to the third floor. Safe in his own room, he knocked on the communicating door, and received no answer. He knocked again, without result, and then opened the door and entered.

Bessie was gone. Howell could tell by a glance at the closet that she had put on the little blue serge suit and the small black hat that she wore when she wished to appear inconspicuous. He searched the rooms for a note of some sort, but found nothing.

Howell went into the kitchen and cooked eggs and bacon, made coffee, and devoured his breakfast. This finished, he sat down on the sofa, puffing at his pipe, thinking.

So Kelly had done Bill Pollard to death, and had boasted of it at the coroner's inquest, had he? There was no torture too bad for Detective Jim Kelly. Howell would wait until the danger period was at an end, wait and plan. And he would have perfect plans. He would plan as he never had planned before.

He would work with Weasel Burton and Lefty Simms, and together they would get Kelly. Face to face with Kelly they'd stand, and tell him why his day had come. And they would devise some cruel method for Kelly's taking off—something that would strike terror to the hearts of officers of the law.

Howell filled his pipe again, lighted it, smoked on, and thought. It was two hours later when Bessie returned.

“I—I just couldn't stay here,” she said. “I went out and got the papers. And I took the money uncle and I had saved, and sent it to an undertaker with an unsigned note. I told him to claim the body of the burglar who had been shot, buy a lot in the cemetery, and give the body a good burial. And I told him that, if he did not, he would suffer for it.”

“That was dangerous, Bessie.”

“I don't think so, Sam; Who'll ever know I sent the money and the note? We can watch, and be sure that it is done. I couldn't have uncle buried in any other way, Sam.”

“I—I guess it'll be all right.”

“There's no danger, Sam. And we'd better move, I think, in a few days, for somebody around here might notice that uncle isn't around any more.”

“I'll try to find the right kind of a place, Bessie.”

“Did you—find out——”

“Yes.”

“Who did it?” she demanded.

“Detective Jim Kelly did it, Bessie. He admitted it at the coroner's inquest. He boasted of it.”

“Jim Kelly! Oh, how I hate him!”

“And think how I hate him, girl! But we'll do for Jim Kelly. There are others who want to get him. Just forget it now, girl. When the time comes, we'll handle Jim Kelly, and it'll be a lesson to all bulls, I guess!”

Howell went forth the day following to seek new quarters. He was wise about it. He engaged a room for Bessie in a lodging house where the majority of tenants were shopgirls, and he got a room for himself in another building across the street. They did not have any difficulty in moving; they had hand baggage and three small trunks, including the one that had belonged to Bill Pollard, and they moved in taxicabs.

Settled in their new quarters, Bessie gave way to grief, and Sam Howell went out to gather information concerning the habits of Detective Jim Kelly. Three days later, Bessie telephoned the undertaker from a booth in a drug store.

“I have carried out your wishes,” the undertaker said. “I expended every cent you sent me. I purchased a nice lot, prepared the body properly, and placed it in a worthy casket. There was a service, and flowers.”

“Tell me the location of the grave,” Bessie said.

The undertaker told her, and explained how it was marked. She could not miss it, he said, if she wished to visit it.

She waited several days more, and then one afternoon she went from her room, purchased a bouquet, and rode on a surface car to the cemetery. She found the grave without much difficulty, and for a moment knelt there; and then she put her bouquet upon the new mound and hurried away.

Detective Jim Kelly followed at a distance.

Kelly had been informed, of course, that an undertaker had claimed the body. He had interviewed the undertaker to no purpose. The undertaker explained how he had received the money, and showed Kelly the note that had accompanied it.

Kelly guessed that either Pollard's pal or one of his relatives had ordered the burial. And Jim Kelly never did things by halves. He had ended Bill Pollard's nefarious existence, but he wanted to get the other man.

And so Kelly began watching that new grave. He saw Bessie kneel beside it and put her bouquet upon it, and he shadowed her to her room. He made inquiries of the landlady, after threatening dire things if she mentioned his visit, but elicited no information except that the young woman had been there only a few days.

And Jim Kelly continued to watch, from a distance. It happened that Sam Howell was out of the city for a few days, aiding another criminal in a bit of work, and so Kelly did not witness a meeting between Howell and Bessie.

Bessie found that she had very little money left. For ten years she had aided her uncle and Howell in their criminal pursuits. She was a peer among shoplifters, and she knew how to replenish her funds now.

On a certain afternoon prior to Sam Howell's return, she dressed in the blue suit and little black hat and left the house. Kelly took up the trail. Bessie Pollard made her way to one of the great department stores and purchased a few articles at different counters, articles that cost only nominal sums, and which a girl in her station of life would be expected to buy.

And then she managed to get in a jam before a bargain counter, and fought her way to the end of it. The bargain counter adjoined the jewelry department. As she intended, Bessie found herself rubbing elbows with a woman of wealth who was looking at some jewelry, intending to make a purchase.

Bessie Pollard scarcely glanced at the woman. She half turned away and began examining some hosiery that the store was offering at a sacrifice. She waited until the woman beside her looked down the counter, until the saleswoman was taking another tray from a showcase. In that instant, Bessie's hand darted forth, she acquired a bracelet and a necklace that could be marketed through a fence for a good sum, and slipped back into the crowd.

Once more she fought her way through the throng in the aisle, and came to a cross aisle that led to the side entrance of the store. A hand touched her on the shoulder.

“I want you, young woman. I saw you get that jewelry!”

Bessie saw a shield, saw a red, heavy face that held eyes that glittered malevolently. She realized that she was caught, for she had not had time to dispose of her loot properly.

“Just come along to the office with me!”

Kelly clutched her arm and urged her forward, picking up the store detective on the way. They went to the office, into the private office of the manager, where Kelly stated the facts.

Then Bessie Pollard began to act, as she had acted before several times in her career. The tears flowed from her blue eyes, her body shook with sobs.

“I didn't want to steal,” she said, “But I can't get work, and I've got to live, pay rent, and eat——”

“I want to talk to this young woman alone,” said Kelly, and the others left the office.

Bessie continued her sobbing. Kelly stood before her, a sneer on his lips.

“Just cut out the melodrama and listen to me,” Jim Kelly said. “That stuff may get by sometimes, but not at present.”

“I—I was hungry——”

“Bunk! You've got your room rent paid in advance, and you have plenty to eat. I know a few things about you, young woman, and I want to know more. Come through with some information, and you may get off easy for this little trick.'

“T—I don't know what you mean!”

“Don't you?” Kelly asked. “Tell me who you are, for instance. And tell me, what is the dead burglar to you—the one who had such a good funeral?”

Bessie glanced up, terrified.

“That calls for a little attention on your part, does it?” Kelly said. “I watched you at the grave, saw you leave flowers there. In that grave is the body of an unknown burglar. He had a pal with him when he was shot. You seem to know all about it.”

“I—I don't know anything

“Bunk! Who was that burglar?” Kelly demanded. “What was he to you? Was he your father? And who was his pal? Who was the man who rented your present room for you? Answer a few of those!”

“T—I haven't anything to say,” she said, stammering.

“No? You'd better talk, young woman. You'll get five years for shoplifting if you don't talk, and maybe more.”

Bessie shuddered. She imagined what a term in prison would mean to her. But she couldn't betray Sam Howell. She would as soon have betrayed her uncle, had he been alive.

“Talk!” Kelly commanded, again.

“I have nothing to say.”

“Very well. We'll take a little ride to jail, then. Maybe you will talk after you've spent a night in a cell.”

Detective Jim Kelly telephoned headquarters, and then grasped her by the arm and took her down to the street, Half an hour later she had given an assumed name to the desk sergeant, had been searched by a matron, and was sitting in a cell, her face buried in her hands, weeping.

And Sam Howell, having returned from his trip outside the city, was searching for her—frightened, frantic, fearing the worst.

IV.

It was Weasel Burton who gave him the news.

“Kelly nicked her in a department store where she'd pinched some jewelry,” the Weasel said. “I got it straight from a friend that has a friend in headquarters. Kelly watched Pollard's grave, and it seems he saw the girl there and followed her home. Good thing you were out of town. He said he'd make it light for her if she'd tell who you were. He wants to catch Bill Pollard's pal.”

“Then I'll go down and tell him myself,” Howell declared.

“Don't play the fool,” Burton warned him. “Think it'd make any difference with Jim Kelly? He'd have you then, and he'd be just as hard on the girl. Probably he'd show that she belonged to a gang of crooks, and get her a heavier sentence.”

“But I can't stand aside and let 'em send her up!”

“You stand aside, and you've got Kelly up in the air,” Burton told him. “And she's a smooth girl. She'll go into court and turn on the weeps and say she stole to keep from starvin'. That always goes with a jury. And Kelly will tell about the grave and the unknown pal of Bill Pollard; but he won't be able to produce the pal, and the story will sound thin. She'll be acquitted,”

“I've got to help her. I promised Bill——”

“Well, it wouldn't be helpin' her to go down there and hand yourself over. You'd both get railroaded to the pen then, and she'd probably get out before you; and you wouldn't be here to give her a hand. Stand fast, old-timer, and she'll either be acquitted or get a short term in jail. And you can go ahead with your plans of gettin' Jim Kelly, and be on hand to help the girl.”

That appeared to be the sensible thing to do, and Sam Howell decided to do it. But things did not turn out as he anticipated. In the first place, Bessie, fearful of betraying Howell, went into court and entered an immediate plea of guilty. The judge heard Detective Jim Kelly's story, and gave her three years.

Howell heard of it that night, and almost turned madman, It was too late to do anything now. Bessie Pollard had been taken to prison to begin her term. But Kelly remained!

How Howell hated Jim Kelly! His face turned white when the man's name was mentioned. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth when he thought of the detective. Jim Kelly, who had murdered Bill Pollard, and had sent Bessie to prison for three years!

There came a night when Howell met Weasel Burton and Lefty Simms. They were to decide on the fate of Kelly. They had gathered certain information, and their plans were made. They parted before dawn, each exulting in his heart. Word was flashed through underworld that a gang was out to get Kelly, to do for him, to remove him forever as a menace to crooks.

It was four o'clock the following afternoon when Jim Kelly, at headquarters, was called to the telephone.

“That you, Kelly?” a voice asked.

It was Sam Howell speaking, and he was imitating the voice of a stool pigeon who worked for Kelly. He had studied the stool pigeon, and the voice, well.

“Yes,” said Kelly.

“I've got a line on the dead burglar's pal. He was mixed up with that skirt you sent up the river.”

“Good work!”

“He's plannin' another trick, and I think he's plannin' to get you.”

“He is, is he?” queried Kelly.

“I can tell you how and where to nab him, if you can gather two or three more men and——”

“I'll gather nobody! I'll handle him myself. Just give me your information, and never mind about the advice. Steer me right, and I'll see that you get a nice little present.”

“Know that big warehouse below Pier Number Ten?” asked Howell, in the voice of the stool pigeon.

“Yes.”

“This bird and some of his friends meet under the warehouse. There is a hole in the foundation on the river side, and they're mighty comfortable under there. To-night he'll be there about nine o'clock, to meet another crook; they're plannin' somethin'. I'll meet you at the northwest corner of the warehouse at nine. Better bring a man or two with you.”

“I'll be there at nine—and I won't need any help,” Kelly replied.

Sam Howell smiled grimly as he hung up the telephone receiver.

“He fell for it,” he told Burton. “He'll be there at nine, and he'll come alone.”

“We can't slip up on this,” the Weasel said. “It's curtains for us if we make a break.”

“There'll be no break,” Howell said. “We can get him into the shack easy, and into the back room. And you remember that I'm handling this. You and Lefty Simms can get in your little abuse, but I've got the biggest grievance. I'm thinking of Bill Pollard and Bessie!”

At nine o'clock that night Detective Jim Kelly, one hand gripping the butt of an automatic pistol carried in a coat pocket, slipped through the darkness to the corner of the big, vacant warehouse. When he reached the building, he stopped, listened, heard nothing save the lapping of the river waves against the near-by pier.

He glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch, and saw that he had arrived exactly on the hour. The stool pigeon, he supposed, would appear in a minute or so, when he was sure that the coast was clear. Leaning against the building, Kelly chewed at an unlighted cigar and thought of the glory he would get at headquarters if he brought in, alone, the dead burglar's pal.

A soft hiss came to him out of the darkness. Kelly turned toward it and answered. There was a swish in the air behind him, and before he could dodge or turn again there came a crash against the back of his head, and he toppled forward.

Sam Howell and Lefty Simms caught the detective's falling body and eased it to the ground.

“I gave him a good one. He'll be asleep for some time,” Howell said. “Let's be going.”

They carried the unconscious man to the edge of the river, where the Weasel was waiting with a rowboat. They put Jim Kelly into the bottom of the craft, Simms seized the second pair of oars, and the boat was rowed swiftly down the river with the current while Sam Howell sat at the prisoner's head, his revolver held ready.

In time the craft swung toward the opposite shore and grated on the beach. Jim Kelly, still unconscious, was lifted out and carried through the darkness to a fisherman's shack. The shack had two rooms, and good windows with curtains drawn tightly, and strong doors.

Candles were lighted, Detective Jim Kelly was propped up in an old chair and lashed there, and gagged. And then the Weasel dashed water into his face until his eyes fluttered and he groaned and returned to consciousness.

Kelly blinked his eyes at the candle on a box beside him. His vision cleared, and he looked around. He saw the three men before him, sneering at him, their faces expressive of deep hatred. Kelly knew the Weasel and Lefty Simms. But he did not know the third man.

“My name's Howell,” this third man said. “Sam Howell! I'm not afraid to tell it, you see. The dead burglar was named Bill Pollard, and I was his pal for twenty years. You killed him, Kelly, and bragged about being a good shot. And then you caught his niece mourning at his grave, shadowed her, arrested her, sent her up the river. I've got those things to settle with you, Jim Kelly!”

“I've got a few things of my own,” the Weasel said. He strode forward and struck the defenseless Kelly in the face.

“We've got you here, Kelly,” Howell continued. “We've brought you here to do for you. Understand? You've made your last arrest, caught your last woman, killed your last man! You're about done, Kelly! You're going to know what torture is. And then we're going to pile kindling around you and drench it with oil. And we're going to fire this shack. Do you understand now?”

Kelly glared at him, and then bobbed his head.

“Take off that gag and let the hound talk,” Howell ordered. “I can't trust to touch him, I'd kill him at once—quick!—and I want to know that he suffered.”

The Weasel removed the gag, and Jim Kelly stretched his jaws.

“So your name's Howell, and you were Pollard's pal, eh?” he said. And you've brought me here to kill me?”

“Just that, Kelly!”

“No hope, I suppose?”

“None! We're in a shack on the little island below town. Nobody followed us here, and nobody will come to interfere. We've planned this thing well.”

“Killing me for doing my duty, are you?”

“Because we hate you,” Howell said. “You have done more than your duty. You've said a thousand times that you hate crooks. You've called us dogs, and every chance you get you use a shooting iron, even when it isn't necessary. You're an officer, but you're a fiend as well. And your time has come! You'll burn to death here in this shack, and everybody will wonder where Detective Kelly has gone.”

Kelly looked Howell straight in the eyes. He looked at Lefty Simms and at the Weasel.

“You may kill me, but you'll go to the chair for it,” he said.

“No chance. We'll turn up with the finest kinds of alibis. There are a hundred ready to help us, if we bump you off. And, if I did go to the chair, it'd be worth it to know that you'd gone out in a worse way. This isn't play, Kelly. You're within a few minutes of death!”

Kelly realized it. His face turned white, and then flushed, as momentary fear, and then shame for it, were depicted in his countenance. He tried his bonds, and found that they held—while the three stood before him and sneered.

“Well, I suppose you've got me,” Kelly said. “But you'll never get away with it.”

“We'll risk all that,” Howell told him.

“If you'd just use a revolver on me——”

“Too easy,” Howell declared. “You burn!”

Kelly looked at all of them in turn. He saw only hatred; no mercy, no compassion, no pity. He knew the sort of men he faced; and he realized that Sam Howell was dominated by a great hatred, a hatred that would stoop to anything.

“I've got one favor to ask,” Kelly said.

“You haven't been liberal grantin' em,” the Weasel reminded him, sternly.

“This isn't so much for me, boys. But I've got an old mother; she's over seventy. And I'd hate to pass out without a word to her.”

“Tryin' to tip off somethin', are you?”

“No. I just want to write a note to my old mother, and I want one of you to promise to mail it for me. I—I just want to tell her good-by. I'm her only son, and I've never married. I'd hate to go on the long journey without telling her good-by.”

“You may be a fiend, but you're a man, too,” Howell said. “We'll let you write the note, and I'll swear to mail it myself. And while you're writin' it, we'll stand ready. If you make a break, we'll shoot, but not to kill, Kelly. We'll just bring you down, and you'll burn the same!”

“I'll not make a break,” Kelly said.

The Weasel unbound one of Kelly's arms, and took from the detective's pocket a notebook and a pencil.

“Write on a sheet of that, and hand it to me,” Howell directed. “And don't write anything about where you are, or anything you know we'll not let pass.”

“I'm on the square about this,” Kelly said.

The Weasel held the notebook steady, and Kelly wrote. Now and then he seemed to be thinking. Presently he signed what he had written, sighed, sat back, handed the note to Sam Howell. When Kelly's hand was bound behind the chair again, Howell read the note:

Dear Mother: Some foes of mine have me, and they have decided to take my life. We often have talked over such a possibility, and so I do not want you to grieve too much. Just remember that I did my duty. I always was a fighter. Remember how, when the Spanish War came, and you wouldn't let me go because I wasn't of age? And how I ran away and enlisted under the name of Bert Calhoun, and came home a sergeant?

It is a proper end, mother, and I'm not afraid to go. Pray for me, but don't grieve. I'll be waiting for you. Jim.

Howell felt a shock as he read the note. He glared wildly at Kelly, looked at the others, showed the note to them. And then he wet his lips and spoke.

“Go into the other room, boys, and leave me alone with this skunk! Oh, don't be afraid, I'll not kill him. We'll follow the program. But I want to say a few words to him, just to let them sink in.”

They went into the other room. Howell was going to torture Jim Kelly, they supposed, and it was his right. They closed the communicating door and whispered together, and Sam Howell drew a box up before Jim Kelly and sat down.

“You were in the Spanish War?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And enlisted under the name of Bert Calhoun?”

“I did.”

“At San Juan?”

“Of course—wounded there.”

“Remember anything that happened?”

“I stood over a boy in my squad and kept the Spaniards off,” Kelly said, modestly. “They gave me a medal for it.”

Howell's eyes burned into his, and he sank his teeth into his lower lip.

“The man whose life you saved tried to find you after he got out of the hospital,” Howell said. “He's always sworn by you, Jim Kelly. He always raved about Bert Calhoun, and how he wished he could do something for him, And he never found you—until the last.”

“You mean—that you're the man?”

“No. The man was Bill Pollard, the man you shot, my pal for a score of years. On that roof, Kelly, with his dying breath, he made me give a sacred promise. Part of it was to care for his niece, Bessie, the girl you just sent up the river. The other part of it was that, if ever I met Sergeant Bert Calhoun, I'd do everything I could for him. And you, the man who killed my pal, the man who sent his niece up the river—you are Sergeant Bert Calhoun! And I gave a sacred promise to a dying man!”

Sam Howell got up and walked to the front of the shack. His hatred was fighting against his promise to Bill Pollard, given as he lay dying on the roof. He had sworn to kill Jim Kelly, and now his promise balked him. And, if he did not kill Jim Kelly, he would have to fight for him to save him from the others, and he'd be a marked man henceforth. He would have broken faith with those of the underworld.

“You see how it is?” he asked, facing Jim Kelly again. “And what am I to do?”

Kelly waited, silent, his heart pounding at his ribs.

“If I help you out of this, they'll all be against me,” Howell went on. “They'll say I sold them out! They'd never understand. And Bill is dead, and Bessie, the girl I promised to watch over, is in the big house up the river. And I know you, Kelly. You'd be on my trail in an hour, and you'd send me up——”

“I don't think you need fear that,” Kelly said, quietly. “You've got to decide this your own way, Howell. But I swear to you, by my old mother's name, that if you let me go I'll never bother you for anything in the past. Of course, if I catch you in anything new——”

“I understand that.”

“And I can have the girl's sentence commuted. I can have her out in six months at the most.”

“That's what you say.”

“I may be a brute at times, but I always keep my word, Howell!”

“I'd have to leave town—and stay away. And I'd be a marked man.”

“Leave town. Go somewhere and turn straight!”

Howell turned back to the wall again. Black hatred of Kelly was in his heart, but in his heart also was knowledge of the promise he had made to Bill Pollard. His old pal had asked him, unknowing, to do all he could for the man who had ended his life!

“Hurry up there, Howell,” the Weasel called from the other room.

“In a minute,” Sam Howell answered.

He stepped briskly to Kelly's side. He slashed at Kelly's bonds with his knife, slipped Kelly's own weapon into his hand.

“Out the door and to the shore,” he whispered. “We row across to town. Only one boat on the island. We part when we reach the other side. I'll go away, Kelly—to Chicago. I'll be waiting there for Bessie. I'll wait six months and two weeks, and if she doesn't come then——”

“She'll come!” Kelly promised.

Sam Howell blew out the candle. Together, they slipped to the door.