The Whisper on the Stair/Chapter 30
Like two shadows, creatures of the night, Val and Eddie crept along the balcony of the hotel. With the exception of one or two rooms, that side of the house was in complete darkness. One room, far down towards the end of the balcony, was lighted, the yellow shaft of light cutting across the gloom of the black balcony sharply.
A cold breeze blew from Chesapeake Bay, and the men inwardly were grateful that they had thought to put on their hats. They could not tell how long they would have to stand outside the French windows of Teck’s room, which was next to the lighted one, on the extreme end of the balcony. Far in the distance was the great arc light of Willoughby Spit, a tiny star in the tenebrous immensity that lay, like a somber cloak, over the bay. Over towards Hampton Roads were the riding lights of a couple of battleships, and a few electric lights gleamed over Fortress Monroe, leaving in black relief the motionless figure of a sentry who had stopped, momentarily, high up on one of the bastions of the twelve-inch guns.
“Two on and four off,” murmured Eddie, noticing the sentinel. “Glad I’m off that stuff.”
“S-s-sh’-h!” cautioned his employer, warningly.
At last they stopped outside the windows of Teck’s room. All was dark inside. For a full minute they paused there, at one side, so as not to present a target if by some chance the room was inhabited. They could hear nothing, though the window was slightly open and they would have been able to distinguish the sound of regular breathing had someone been sleeping within.
“O.K., I guess, Eddie,” whispered Val.
“Yes, sir,” replied Eddie, sibilantly. “Shall we go in, sir?”
Val nodded. Cautiously he pushed the window open and stepped in over the low sill. Eddie followed him. The room was still as the grave. It was not possible to see anything.
“Got the flash, sir?” inquired Eddie.
“Here it is,” said Val, producing it, and pressing the button. “Oh, the devil!” he exclaimed in exasperation, as no beam of light rewarded his efforts.
“Hang it all!” he whispered. “The battery’s dead.”
“‘Wait a minute,” said Eddie. “I’ll pull down the shades, and we can switch on the lights. We’ll be out of here in a moment, anyway, sir—long before old boy Teck ever gets back.”
“Go ahead,” consented Val. It seemed safe enough. Eddie pulled the shades down carefully, first closing the windows tightly. In an instant the room was flooded with a glare of electric light.
They looked around them cautiously, silently, though there seemed no particular need for silence. The books were not in evidence, but that was to be expected, of course.
“Here, let’s try this suitcase,” said Val. He opened it. It was full of clothing. He tried another. It was locked.
“Eddie, the chisel,” he directed.
Eddie pried open the suitcase with his cold chisel, utterly ruining the lock. They opened it on the bed, pouring out the books thereon. They crowded close, bending over the books.
“Here it is,” announced Eddie triumphantly, producing the Bible, a small, compact book bound in the conventional black.
“Now I wonder⸺” he scratched his head contemplatively, laying his hat on the bed in order that the scratching process might be efficient. “I wonder what⸺”
The door of the adjoining room opened quietly, but not so quietly that they did not hear it. Both whirled on the instant, taken utterly by surprise. It had not occurred to either of them that Teck might have both rooms. It was so simple that they had just not thought of it.
Framed in the doorway were Horseface and Rat, automatic in hand, looking just as brutally dangerous, as efficient, as when Val had seen them last, in Teck’s rooms on the East Side of New York.
“If yuh’ll kindly stick up them dere fins a’ yourn,” suggested Horseface, “we won’t have ter perforate yuh. An’ be dam’ quick. Git me!”
The hands of Val and Eddie went up slowly. It was a trap, and a simple one—one that they had absolutely overlooked. Val knew that these men were to meet Teck down here, in Virginia, but he had, somehow, forgotten the fact. Evidently they had followed on the next train.
“Dishere looks like boiglary ter me,” suggested Rat, leering. “Breakin’ open er sootcase an’⸺”
“I’ll excuse you from the definition of burglary, Rat,” broke in Val. “Both you and Horseface, I’ll take it for granted, are well acquainted with exactly what constitutes burglary. Not that burglary, in itself, is not one of the fine arts—far from that. Simply, at the moment, I don’t think I care for any expert instruction⸺”
“Aw, close yer trap!” snapped Horseface, “before I lets dishere gat go off, carelesslike. Sit down dere on de bed, both a’ yer, an’ don’t make no suspicious moves, neither; I’m a nervous guy, an’ when I gits nervous I presses triggers.”
Val and Eddie sat down as requested.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” inquired Val, politely; he appeared calm, even in good spirits, the while Eddie sat next to him raging inwardly at the childish stupidity of having been trapped so easily.
“We’re just havin’ a little visit wid yer, that’s all,” said the Rat. “We likes yer comp’ny, see! Us an’ youse, we’ll just have one a’ dem dere feast a’ reasons an’ flow a’ souls, dat’s what. Chawmed t’ meetcha, ’msure,” he mocked, waving careless circles in the air with his ugly blue black automatic.
“I trust we’re not keeping you awake?” inquired Val courteously. “Because if you’d care to go to sleep⸺”
“Naw, dat’s a’ ri’,” said Rat. “We is just as li’ble ter put youse ter sleep, if it comes ter dat.”
Val rose. “If it’s all the same to you⸺”
“Sit down!” snapped Rat, his gun barrel becoming steady instantly.
Val sat down. “What do you intend to do about it?” asked Val. Next to him sat Eddie, his eyes black and hard, his mouth a single straight line. He was almost burning up with rage.
“About wot?” queried Horseface. “Youse? Oh, dat’s a’ ri’, kid,” he assured him. “De boss’ll be here in a few minits; he’ll tell us. Dis time, if ya gits bumped off, ya’ll git bumped off permanent. Git me? Me, I gotta wallop on de bean dat I won’t fergit in a hurry—an’ youse has ter pay fer dat. In de meantime, don’t make no move if yer don’t want ter pay fer it right erway, dassall I gotta say.”
They sat in utter silence for awhile, Horseface and Rat with their deadly looking weapons in their hands, Val chipper and contented, and Eddie disconsolate and plainly angry. It was Val who broke the silence at last, irrepressible.
“You people should go into business—just imagine your sign,” he chattered. “Plain and fancy assassination done here. Victims called for and delivered. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!’ There should be big money in it, Horseface. There must be lots of people who really deserve killing⸺”
The door opened and Teck entered, taking in the situation at a glance.
“Good evening,” he said courteously. “Still engaged in—er—breaking and entering, I see,” he remarked. “Well, well. It’s a bad habit that you really ought to break yourself of, Mr. Morley. If you had had the proper upbringing⸺”
“Well, we’re not all gifted in the same direction, Iggy,” came back Val. “Some can commit burglary successfully, by instinct, like some who shall here be nameless⸺” he looked at him significantly, “and some have to study very hard before they master the knack of it. We really ought to study at your feet—Maestro!”
Teck shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Well, it wouldn’t do you much harm—your technique is all wrong, anyway. You know, Morley, one of these days you’re really going to get hurt—I’ll begin to play with you for keeps; you won’t have a marble left by the time I get done with you, if I ever start that.”
Val laughed. “You know, Iggy,” he said, “you’re the most refreshing blackguard it has ever been my good fortune to meet. Really, outside of musical comedy, I never would have believed you existed.”
Teck bowed as though pleased. “You honor me, my friend. We strive to please. But this is not musical comedy—the villain wins, Morley.” His face hardened, and the fun went out of it. He was business again—a scoundrel engaged in his profession. The scar that slashed across his countenance throbbed and grew livid.
“All I have to do,” he said, “is to call the office on the phone and explain to them that I found you two in my room, rifling my suitcases⸺”
Val laughed loudly. “Swell chance!” he exclaimed. “I have a life-sized picture of you explaining that to the hotel detective—giving him the books as Exhibit A, say!” He paused and looked at the books with meaning.
“Honest, Teck,” he said, “do you expect me to swallow that?”
Teck was angry. “Then how about shooting you and your—er—your friend down, caught in the act of burglarizing my room?” he asked grimly. “They don’t have to see the books⸺”
“I don’t think you will, Iggy,” remarked Val lightly. “You see, you’re in no position to bear investigation just at present. In fact, I think we’ll go, Eddie,” he said to the man seated beside him. “This man can’t stop us.”
“All right, sir,” said Eddie, putting on his hat with care and deliberation, and standing up.
“I was just about to suggest it,” came from Teck, amazingly. He stood in the center of the room, his hands characteristically in his pockets, lounging nonchalantly in front of them. “Understand me, Morley—if I had any particular reason for detaining you you would stay just as long as I wish you to stay—but you’re out of this game for good, anyway—and if you’ll take a little friendly advice, you’ll leave for the North the first thing in the morning.”
“I’m out of the game for good!” echoed Val. “Why, how did you get any such fool idea?” He stared at him in wonderment.
The other gave him back look for look, and for a moment neither spoke in words, but there was much that lay between them that was said in their eyes, in the lines around their mouths, and in their attitudes. It was Teck who spoke first.
“Miss Pomeroy has finally sent you away. You told me yourself that you would be here until she sent you away—and she has done so. That should be sufficient⸺”
“It would be sufficient, Iggy,” came back Val, and his voice was flinty. “It would be sufficient—if she had. But it was not she who sent me away—it was you. It was you, speaking with her lips⸺”
Teck interrupted him with a laugh of mirth. “Oh, my Lord!” he said in evident enjoyment. “The kindergarten class in mesmerism will please stand up! Is that your regular line of nonsense, Morley—or do you reserve it for special occasions, like this?”
“Laugh if you like, Iggy—but you won’t be laughing long. I’m in this game for keeps—and if I go it will be feet first. You can tell that to Horseface and Rat, here, if you want to—because I’m going now, unless you or they care to stop me.”
He turned with Eddie to the window and threw it open.
“Whaddya say, boss?” queried Rat. *‘Do we give ’im de woiks—or does de boob git away wit’ it onct more?” He punctuated his remarks with his auto¬ matic, the while Val turned insolently, poised in the sill.
“Tell him to shoot—if you dare, Iggy,” he said lightly.
The eyes of the two men met and held; it was Teck who turned his gaze away first.
“All right, Eddie,” said Val, and turned to Teck for a last parting shot. “And Iggy—stay away from the Pomeroy place—that’s my last word to you.” His expression was without emotion, but his intonation was stony.
Ignace Teck said nothing. They went through the window, and closed it carefully behind them.