The Whisper on the Stair/Chapter 20
All that long afternoon, between longing for a drink and frowning upon the clamor of his stomach, Val pondered the matter at issue. Would Teck actually carry out his threats? Was he bluffing? What would he really do when he became convinced that Val would not make the desired promises?
Everything hinged on that. If Teck was bluffing—and Val was a little inclined to the belief that he was, it would be humiliating to Val not to call that bluff. If, on the other hand, he was in deadly earnest, Val stood to lose his life for a theory—the theory that Jessica Pomeroy wanted him to assist her—the theory that, perhaps, he would personally prove interesting enough to her to cause her to feel toward him the affection he already felt toward her. In other words, it was theoretically possible, Val thought, that he could teach her to love him.
If he was wrong it was not of consequence at this moment, anyway, because life without her—he already knew—would not be worth the effort; it would simply be a waste of good years, empty and tasteless. If he promised what Ignace Teck wished him to promise, he would have to step out of her life for good; he would be bound, in honor, not to approach her again.
But would he really be bound? Val turned this over in his mind for a long time. Is a man bound by a promise obtained under threat of losing his life? Val did not think so—and yet, to him a promise was a sacred thing, something to be upheld at all costs, whatever the circumstances surrounding the giving of it. He could not lightly make up his mind to violate his word, though he knew Teck was a scoundrel who meant no good to Jessica, a man towards whom it was not necessary to he honorable.
Was there such a thing as being comparatively honorable? Were there shades of honor? Val had never thought so before. Either a thing was honorable—either it was the sort of thing a gentleman could do—or it was not. That was all there was to it. But now he was face to face with another phase of honor; he discovered that, perhaps, there might be extenuating circumstances to accompany the breaking of a man’s word.
It took a long time to get Val to this frame of mind, but he finally decided to stick it out as long as possible, and then, when he actually perceived that Teck or his associates really meant to put an end to his existence, to give in. He considered that such a promise was not binding; a promise of that sort made to a murderer and a scoundrel for the furtherance of his own nefarious plans, under threat of murder, was not the kind that a gentleman could be expected to keep. But he meant to wait until the last possible minute.
Night was falling when Teck returned. With him came O’Hara, the horsefaced one. He bustled into the room, indicating that he had not a moment to waste. A glance at the couch sufficed to show him that Val was still there, and that he was awake.
“Light up, O’Hara,” directed Teck, and in obedience the man addressed lighted one of the gas jets.
“All right; wait in the next room with Rat until I need you,” Teck told him, and with a look of malevolent hatred at the recumbent figure of Val, O’Hara withdrew to the next room, where he could be heard in low voice converse with Rat.
Teck turned his attention to Val.
“Let’s end this for good,” he said. “I’m leaving town to-night, and there are things I have to do before making my train, so I have only a few minutes to stay with you—much as I enjoy your company,” he said with, heavy sarcasm.
“Oh, Iggy, don’t go,” implored Val. “Stay and play with me for a little while. Tuck me in before you go, anyway.”
Teck frowned. Evidently this man before him did not realize the seriousness of his position; he could not realize that he stood on the brink of the grave—an unknown grave.
“Listen,” he said angrily. “I’ve had enough of this damned foolishness. Never mind the compliments—let’s get down to business.”
“Let’s,” answered Val, a trifle wearily. He felt the need of food and he would have given much for a few drops of water. He stored it all up in his mind for future reference; some day he would make this man pay for his discomfort.
“I want to ask you, once and for all, whether you will do as I ask. No—don’t answer yet—wait till you hear what I have to say before you answer, because it’s going to be the last time. If your answer is no, I intend to leave at once—I am in a hurry. You will be left in the hands of O’Hara and Rat, both of whom would just as soon kill you as look at you—sooner, perhaps. They are to give you an hour of grace; if during that hour you make the promises I wish from you, they will free you; if not, you will be—er—put away permanently at the end of the hour. I will be gone, so there will be no alternative. Either you say yes or you die.
“Your stand in the matter is a very foolish one. You can have no real personal interest in these things; I understand you never saw Miss Pomeroy until a very few days ago; you have only spoken twice to her. You are interfering in matters that really don’t concern you at all—and a continuance of such interference will cost you your life; in fact, a statement that you intend to continue your interference will cost you your life. I have plans of very great importance, things that mean more to me than you can imagine, and I will take no chances of any upset occurring through the interference of a romantic young fool like you—that is my reason for being so insistent. You have already seriously interfered with me several times, and I’ll take no further chances for the reason that the next time you butt in it might be fatal to my own plans. Now, think carefully before you answer, because I can hardly impress upon you too strongly that I am in deadly earnest—I mean every word I say. You are a young man, you have millions, you have everything to live for; take my advice, then, promise what I want, and go home and forget all about the matter.”
“Pretty speech, Iggy. Do it some more,” commented Val softly.
“Don’t get funny,” flashed Teck angrily back at him. “You’ll find out in a few minutes that there is nothing funny about it.”
“I’ve told you my answer before this, Teck,” replied Val. “I haven’t changed my mind. Your mother must certainly have loved children, to bring you up,” he said irrelevantly. He had made up his mind to stick it out to the last minute, and evidently this was not yet the last minute. He still had an hour with Rat and O’Hara. Although he had made up his mind to break any promise he might make to Teck, yet he shrank from making any promise at all until there was absolutely no way out of it. Only in that way could he reconcile the thing with his inconvenient conscience.
Teck flushed, the scar on his cheek glowing redly against his face.
“Is that final?” he asked needlessly. He knew that, so far as he was concerned, it was final.
“It’s damned final,” said Val. “Can’t you understand English?”
Teck hesitated for a brief moment, his greenish eyes shining evilly at Val. Then his moment of hesitation was over. His decision was made. He turned to the door.
“Rat! O’Hara!” he called.
These two worthies appeared promptly.
“I have to get along, boys. Give this man an hour more to promise to do what I want. If he promises, let him go. If not⸺” he accompanied this with a meaningful look, pregnant with wickedness—“you know.”
“All right, boss,” replied O’Hara. “We gotcha.”
“I’m off, said Teck, and the three withdrew to the next room without a backward look at their quarry. There they had a whispered conversation of which Val could make out nothing except one phrase—“Old Point Comfort.” This he heard repeated several times.
He decided that probably Teck was on his way down to Virginia—and that Jessica Pomeroy was either down there already or on her way. Old Point Comfort is very close to Norfolk and Hampton, near where Peter Pomeroy’s estate was. Undoubtedly Teck had information that led him to believe that the treasure was down there—perhaps hidden on the grounds of the Pomeroy property.
In a few minutes there was the slamming of a door, and he knew that Teck was gone. The two guards consulted with each other in a whisper in the adjoining room, and it was not long before they seemed to come to some decision, because they entered Val’s room together, on business bent.
It was O’Hara who spoke first.
“Sorry you kinnot make that there promise, ole kid,” he said, almost jocularly, his one good eye gleaming wickedly, in humorous contradistinction to the tightly closed, swollen blue optic that accompanied it. “Because we gotta date, me’n Rat, so we’ll hafter hurry t’ings along er little.”
“I didn’t tell you I wouldn’t promise, Horseface,” retorted Val. He intended to make the promise, but he intended to wait the full hour before doing it.
“Oh, sure yer did, old millionbucks.” O’Hara assured him. “Me’n me pal decided yer did. Yer too good ter live, anyway. Me’n Rat, here, we don’t like yer face, see! So we’re goin’ ter put it where it won’t bother us none. We gotta date. Open yer trap,” he directed.
“What for?” asked Val.
“Well, th’ proceedings is about ter begin—an’ we don’t want no holler outta you, so I’m goin’ ter stick something inter yer mout’ that’ll stop th’ noise,” answered O’Hara. “But look here, do you really mean to go on with this?” answered Val, alarmed for the first time. It occurred to him that these men had no wish to exact a promise from him. They simply wanted to kill him and get done with the affair. It might seem that the black eye he had given O’Hara was not sufficient cause for such vengeance as the horsefaced one intended to exact, but these things are merely relative. To a man of O’Hara’s disposition a black eye was provocative to murder. That was his code, and as long as he was in power there was no one to say him nay. This flashed across Val’s mind, and he saw that he was on distinctly dangerous ground. It would be well to give in at once.
“You don’t really mean⸺” his speech was shut off by O’Hara’s thumb on his windpipe, pressing until things were almost black in front of Val’s eyes. He opened his mouth, gasping for breath.
“That’s it, kid,” said O’Hara, popping a gag into his mouth and tying it around the back of his head tightly.
Trussed hand and foot, and gagged, Val looked up at the pair helplessly.
“Pretty little t’ing, ain’t he?” asked Rat.
“Yeah. Too bad he’s gotta shuffle off so young. Well, it’s ther way of all flesh in dis here vale er tears.”
The world went black in front of Val’s eyes for a moment. This was something he had not looked for. This pair of scoundrels actually intended to put an end to his life at once. Up to now it had been more or less of a game to Val, because he knew that he had but to say the word, and he would be released. But things had suddenly got out of hand even more than Teck himself had intended. These two men did not mean to give him a chance to promise anything. They simply intended to finish him and be done with it.
For the first time a twinge of fear passed through Val. It was one thing to get killed in the trenches, and he had seen many die on all sides of him; it was still another thing to be murdered in cold blood by a pair of murderers who seemed to look upon the matter as a joke.
“Say yer prayers, dearie,” mocked O’Hara, “Window closed?” he asked Rat.
“Yep. Door closes tight enough, I guess.”
“Sure t’ing. Only takes a few minnits to put dis bird outta his misery.”
Val looked up at them impotently. So this was to be the end for him. He could hardly believe it, and yet—it did not seem as though there was any way out. Black despair edged into his heart, and shaded its way across his face. He was helpless; he was theirs to do with as they pleased. He tried to look at things stoically, but it was hard. He felt that he could die easily, fighting, but this way, a rat in a trap—it was too much to expect a man to bear that stoically.
Momentarily terror struck its way deep into his soul; it was a fearsome way to die—to die thus deliberately and slowly, conscious that he was dying, yet with no kind of a chance of saving himself. He surmised the method of execution—illuminating gas. An eternity went by as he lay there watching them in this last moment, yet in reality it was but a few seconds.
“All set?” queried O’Hara. The other nodded. “Let’s go.”
He reached up and turned on the cock of the unlighted gas jet. He turned out the lighted one and turned that on again. To Val’s strained ears came a slight hissing, faintly like escaping steam.
“Good night, pretty boy,” mocked O’Hara.
They went out and closed the door tightly.
A pungent, sweetish odor, the odor of illuminating gas, came to Val’s nostrils. With the closing of the door the first thought that came to Valentine Morley was that he was dying. He was young, healthy, in full possession of his senses, yet in a few moments this body of which he was so conscious would be a senseless piece of clay, unfeeling and cold. He was dying. With each breath he came closer and closer to death and yet he could not stop breathing.
In sudden moments like this, hopeless moments, it has been said that all a man’s past life is reviewed by him swiftly, kaleidoscopically. Yet it was not so with Val.
One thought only was in his mind, and that is the thought that he was dying, while in the next room two men waited to enter and drag out his body when all was over. He felt himself getting weaker and weaker, and he knew it was but a question of minutes. This was the end of Valentine Morley, the man who had wanted to marry Jessica Pomeroy. It was the end of a man who had held life lightly, only to find at the last that he desired life above all things.
His mind was remarkably clear, he thought, and he found it curious that he did not lose consciousness. Yet he knew he was dying. He seemed to be falling, falling, falling . . . swiftly, as in a dream. Down . . . down . . . down. . . .
He came to himself with a jerk. Against the window pane opposite his couch a dark form pressed . . . a face that peered in. He longed to shout, but his gag prevented him. So he was not yet dead! He wondered why—he should be, by now, he decided. He looked at the window pane again.
The face was still there. Quietly the figure outside the window put forth an arm and raised the window, softly, noiselessly. Just as noiselessly he let himself into the room, moving like a ghost. He flashed his pocket flashlight on the figure of Val on the couch.
“All right, Mr. Morley,” he whispered softly, and a great pean of thanksgiving burst out in the heart of Val. It was the voice of Eddie Hughes!
Eddie whipped out his knife and cut the gag. “The gas, Eddie!” whispered Val sibilantly. “It’s on!”
Swiftly Eddie turned off the two jets.
There was a stirring in the next room. A hand was laid on the door. Like a shadow Eddie leaped to the door, standing behind it. The door opened, letting a stream of light into the room.
“Oughtta be all over by now,” came the voice of O’Hara as he and the Rat stepped in. “I don’t smell no⸺”
With a groan he slumped down on the floor in a heap, dead to a heedless world. The butt of Eddie’s automatic had found its mark. The other whirled only to look down the barrel of Eddie’s gun.
“Stick ’em up!” grated Eddie.
The other’s hands shot toward the ceiling.
“Attaboy!” applauded Val from his couch. “Cut me loose, will you, Eddie. I’m tired of staying here.”
“Just a sec, Mr. Morley,” said Eddie. “Hey, you,” he said to his prisoner, “untie those cords—an’ don’t try nothing funny, either—or it’ll be your last joke.”
Impelled by the ominous blue black automatic, the Rat did as he was bid. Awkwardly Val arose and stretched himself. There was almost no feeling in his right leg, and he felt weak and wobbly.
“Funny I’m not dead?” he said. “I must’ve inhaled enough gas to kill half a dozen men. And yet—there didn’t seem to be so much gas at that, Eddie. Wait a minute.” He took a match out of his pocket and attempted to light the gas jet over his head.
It did not light. He tried the other. That did not light, either.
“That’s funny,” he mused. “Here, let’s have the gat, Eddie—I’ll cover him and you tie him up.”
This was done, and, tightly gagged, the Rat was laid on the couch, mystified and hardly yet understanding what had happened.
“Queer about that gas,” remarked Val. “Yet, I don’t smell much of it in the room⸺”
“Nothing funny about it at all,” remarked Eddie, pointing to a meter. “Do you see that?” Val nodded.
“That’s a quarter meter,” Eddie enlightened him. “You put in a quarter and when it is used up the gas goes out and stays out until you put in another quarter. Probably these two rooms used to be rented separately, so they have separate meters.”
“Well, I’ll be. . . . burst out Val. His life had been saved by the fact that nobody had thought about putting a quarter into the meter—and the last quarter had been about used up. Evidently the supply of gas had given out almost immediately after the cock was turned on.
“How did you⸺” Val began, turning to Eddie.
“Never mind that now,” said Eddie. “Let’s get out of here first. Follow me.”
He led the way through the outer room to the hall. “Can’t go down-stairs, because there’s a couple of them on duty there. Can’t get out the way I came in—by the waterpipe. Sure to get caught. Let’s try upstairs—the roof.”
Quietly they made their way through the dark halls till they came to a ladder that led to the roof. Eddie mounted it first and pushed up the door.
“O. K.,” he announced. “Come on.”
•••••••
Ignace Teck, feeling in rather good humor with himself and the world, watched the train pull out of the station from the smoking room of the Pullman, where he sat, hands in his pockets, his mind at rest. He need no longer worry about Valentine Morley—he was out of it for good now, one way or the other. Since Morley had come into the affair, Jessica’s resistance to him, passive before and not very strong, had stiffened a great deal.
He made no bones about the fact that he was afraid of what Morley could do; Morley, a good natured meddler, seemingly afraid of nothing, could knock all of his plans into a cocked hat. But that was over. Valentine Morley was put out of the way—either by his promise or by Teck’s two henchmen. Teck knew them; they were not the kind to balk at murder, and it had seemed to him that they rather fancied the idea of this job. They had no love for Valentine Morley.
Well, that was over. He was on his way to Virginia, where Jessica was, and where, perhaps. . . . A pleased smile curved its way across his dark countenance as he thought about what he could do with all that money . . . and Jessica . . . she was worth while in herself. A few more days of Morley, he admitted good naturedly, and he might not have felt so sure of her.
As he gazed out of the window a man came into the smoking compartment and sat down next to Teck.
“Hello, Iggy! S’prise!” said a pleasant voice.
Teck whirled swiftly. Next to him sat Valentine Morley.