"Yes, yes, Jerry; I know. Vandeman turned out to be Clayte." Then, noticing my bewilderment, "You see, Jim let it slip that Barbara"s hurt.
Where is she?" And Edwards leaned around to explain.
"When we came past Capehart"s, and she wasn"t there, I--"
"Oh, that"s only a scratch," I hurried to a.s.sure the boy. "Barbara"ll be all right."
"So Jim said," he agreed soberly. "I"m afraid you"re both lying to me."
"All right," I climbed in beside him. "We"ll go and see. She"s up at your house--waiting for you."
As we headed away for the other end of town, he spoke again, half interrogatively,
"Vandeman shot her?" and when I nodded. "He"s on his way to jail. I"m out. But I"m the man that"s responsible for what"s happened to her.
Dragged her into this thing, in the first place. She hated those concentrating stunts; and I set her to do one at that woman"s table. To help play my game--I risked her life."
I listened in wonder; sidelong, in the dimness, I studied the carriage of head and shoulders: no diminution of power; but a new use of it. This was not the crude boy who would knock everybody"s plans to bits for a whim; Worth had found himself; and what a man!
"How does it look for recovering the money, Boyne?" Edwards questioned as we drove along.
I plunged into the hottest of that stuff Clayte-Vandeman had spilled, talked fascinatingly, as I thought, for three minutes, and paused to hear Worth say,
"Who"s with Barbara at my house?"
"Mrs. Bowman," I said in despair, and quit right there.
We came into Broad Street a little above the Vandeman bungalow which lay black and silent, the lights of Worth"s house showing beyond. As we turned the corner, a man jumped up from the shadow of the hedge where the Vandeman lawn joined the Gilbert place; there was a flash; the report of a gun; our watchers had flushed some one. I"d barely had time to say so to the others when there was a second sharp crack, then the whine of a ricochetting chunk of lead as it zipped from the asphalt to sing over our heads.
"Beat it!" I yelled. "Stop the car and get to cover!"
Edwards slowed. A moment Worth hung on the running board, peering in the direction of the sounds. I started to climb out after him. There came another shot from up ahead, and then a shout. As I tumbled to my feet in the dark road, Worth had started away on the jump. And I saw then, what I"d missed before, that the man who had burst from the hedge, was running zig-zag down the open roadway toward us. He was making his legs spin, and dodging from side to side as if to duck bullets. Worth headed straight for him, as though it wasn"t plain that some one out of sight somewhere was making a target of the runner.
Not the kind of a sc.r.a.p I care for; in a half light you can"t tell friend from foe; but Worth went to it--and what was there to do but follow? I shouted and blew my whistle, hoping our men would hear, heed, and let up shooting. At the moment of my doing so, Worth closed with the man, who dropped something he was carrying, and tackled low, lunging at the boy"s knees, aiming I could see to let Worth dive over and sc.r.a.pe up the pavement with his face.
No dodging that tackle; it caught Worth square; he even seemed to spring up for the dive; and somehow he carried his opponent with him to soften the fall. They came down together in the middle of the hard road with the shock of a railway collision; rolled over and over like dogs in a sc.r.a.p, only there wasn"t any growling or yelping. It was deadly quiet; not for an instant could you tell which was which, or whether the whirling, pelting tangle of arms and legs was man, beast or devil.
That"s why, even when I got near enough, I didn"t dare plant a large, thick-soled boot in the mess.
The fight was up to Worth; nothing else for it. Capehart came rolling from the hedge where I had seen the pistols flash; Eddie Hughes, inconceivable in pink puffings, bounded after; Jim Edwards chased up from his car; but all any of us could do was to run up and down as the struggle whirled about, and grunt when the blows landed. These sounded like a pile-driver hitting a redwood b.u.t.t. Out of the melee an arm would jerk, the fist at the end of it come back to land with a thud--on somebody"s meat.
"Who the devil is it?" I bellowed at Capehart, as the two grappled, afoot, then down, no knowing who was on top, spinning around in a struggle where neither boots nor knees were barred.
"He sneaked out of the bungalow just now," Capehart snorted. "We"d searched the place. Didn"t think there was room for a louse to be hid in it. Got by the boys. I stopped him at the hedge and drove him into the open. Now Worth"s got him. That is Worth, ain"t it? Fights like him."
"Yes," I said, "It"s Worth." But in my own mind I wasn"t sure whether Worth had the fugitive, or the fugitive had Worth. And Jim Edwards muttered anxiously, as we skipped and side-stepped along with the fight,
"That fellow may have a knife or a gun."
"Not where he can draw," I said, "or he"d have used it before now." And Capehart sung out,
"Sure. Leave "em go. Worth"ll fix him."
Edging in too close, I got a kick on the shin from a flying heel, and was dancing around on one foot nursing the other when I heard sounds of distress issue from the tangle in the road; somebody was getting breath in long, gaspy sighs that broke off in grunts when the thud of blows fell, and merged in the harsh nasal of blood violently dislodged from nose and throat. For a while they had been up, and swapping punches face to face, lightning swift. Sounds like boxing, perhaps, but there wasn"t any science about it. Feint? Parry? Footwork? Not on your life!
Each of these two was trying to slug the other into insensibility, working for any old kind of a knock-out.
I began to be a little nervous for fear the boy I was bringing home from jail as a peace offering to Barbara might arrive so defaced that she wouldn"t recognize him, when I saw one dark form pull away, leap back, an arm shoot out like a piston-rod, and with a jar that set my own teeth on edge, connect with the other man"s chin. He went down clawing the air, crumpled into a bunch of clothes at the side of the road.
"You wanted the c.h.i.n.k, didn"t you, Bill?" This was Worth, facing Jim Edwards"s torch, fumbling for his handkerchief. "I heard you, and I thought you wanted him."
"It"s Fong Ling!" bawled Capehart. "Sure we wanted him--and whatever that was he was carrying. Where is it? Did he drop it?"
"Sort of think he did," Worth was dabbing off his own face with a gingerly, respectful touch. "I know he dropped some teeth back there in the road. Saw him spit "em out. Maybe he left it with them. You might go and look."
The four of us drifted along the field of battle, Capehart"s a.s.sistant having taken charge of the unconscious Chinaman, whom he was frisking for weapons. Halfway back to the hedge Bill stumbled on something, picked it up, and dropped it again with a disgusted grunt.
"Nothing but a Chinaboy"s keister," he said contemptuously. "Not much to that. Why in blazes did he run so?"
"Because you were shooting him up, I"d say," Jim Edwards suggested.
"Naw. Commenced to run before we turned loose on him," Bill protested.
"h.e.l.lo!" I had pounced on the unbelievable thing, and called to Edwards for his light. "Worth, here"s your eight-hundred-thousand-dollar suitcase!"
"That!" he followed along, dusting himself off, trying out his joints.
"Oh, yes. I left it in my closet, and it disappeared. Told you of it at the time, didn"t I, Jerry?"
"You did not," I sputtered, down on my knees, working away at the catches. "You never told me anything that would be of any use to us. If this thing disappeared, I suppose Vandeman stole it to get a piece of evidence in the Clayte case out of the way."
"Likely." Worth turned, with no further interest, and started toward his own gate.
"Hi! Come back here," I yelled after him. For the lock gave at that moment; there, under the pale circle of the electric torch, lay Clayte-Vandeman"s loot!
"My gosh!" mumbled Capehart. "I didn"t suppose there was so much money in the known world."
Eddie Hughes, breathing hard; Jim Edwards, bending to hold the torch; Capehart, stooping, blunt hands spread on knees, goggle-eyed; my own fingers shaking as I dragged out my list and attempted to sort through the stuff--not one of us but felt the thrill of that great fortune tumbled down there in the open road in the empty night.
But Worth delayed reluctantly at the edge of the shadows, looking with impatience across his shoulder, eager to be on--to get to Barbara. Yet I wanted that suitcase to go into the house in his hand; wanted him to be able to tell his girl that she"d made him a winner in the gamble and the long chase. Roughly a.s.sured that only a few thousands had been used by Vandeman, I stuck the handles into his fist and trailed along after his quick strides. Edwards followed me. Laura Bowman opened the door to us; she stopped Edwards on the porch.
And then I saw my children meet. I hadn"t meant to; but after all, what matter? They didn"t know I was on earth. Creation had resolved itself, for them, into the one man, the one woman.
The suitcase thumped unregarded on the floor. She came to him with her hands out. He took them slowly, raised them to his shoulders, and her arms went round his neck.
THE END