Dawson entered a car. The moment he disappeared Clyde did the same, three cars down the train. Instead of taking a seat, he strode swiftly back to the last car. He sat hunched in a side seat, watching the platform.
The train got under way. As it swept onward into the black tunnel, Clyde saw what he had expected: Dawson had left the train an instant before the doors closed. He was striding toward the exit stairs that led to the street.
The swift whoosh of the train sucked the station backward out of sight.
Clyde leaped from his seat and in two swift jumps was at the rear platform.
A woman, who saw what his intent was, screamed shrilly. She thought she was witnessing a suicide. But Clyde had no intention of killing himself. He had wasted barely a second in reaching the rear vestibule and swinging over the chains. The train had not yet reached maximum speed. Before it could do so, Clyde was hanging recklessly by his hands over the racing ties below his feet.
Thunder roared in his ears; a gale tore at his clothing.
He let go instantly. Running as hard as he could, he tried to keep upright. The speed was too great. He tripped, swerved, fell headlong to the roadbed. But he swerved away from the danger of the third rail.
That was his most desperate peril; it had been grimly in his mind from the moment he entered the train. He felt his forehead strike against the outer track, felt the warm trickle of blood on his bruised skin; but he was up in a second, racing back toward the station he had just left.
A SMALL flight of wooden steps gave access to the south end of the platform. To his grim relief, there were no pa.s.sengers in sight. The few who had been waiting had all boarded the local.
Moving at a slower pace, Clyde went up the stairs to the street. There was, as he fully expected, no sign of the clever Jimmy Dawson. Nor was there any trace of Moe Shrevnitz and his taxicab. The latter fact brought relief toClyde"s strained face. For it meant that Moe was trailing Dawson.
Clyde Burke dabbed with his handkerchief at the thin streak of blood on his forehead. He waited. Twenty minutes later, a raspy voice called: "Cab, mister?" and Clyde stepped into Moe"s taxi.
It picked up speed instantly. Moe wasted no time in reporting. He had scooped up Dawson by cutting boldly in front of a rival cab. He had driven the gunman south and west to an apartment house in a quiet, middle-cla.s.s neighborhood. He had discovered not only the house in which Dawson was hiding, but also the apartment itself.
The latter feat was a cinch to a hacker with the resourcefulness of Moe.
He had pretended he was short-changed, had followed his fare upstairs in the automatic elevator. Arguing stubbornly, he kept at Dawson"s side until the gunman reached his apartment door. Then he discovered the "lost" coin in his pocket, apologized profusely and beat a retreat from his angry patron.
The apartment, he reported to Clyde, was on the left side of the building.
There was a narrow, paved alley and a set of rusted fire escapes. The rest was up to Clyde.
The cab halted presently at a busy corner of the West Side. Clyde walked slowly down the avenue to the apartment house that Moe had tabbed. The taxi rolled away.
FIVE minutes later, Clyde was in a narrow, paved alley, staring upward.
The side of the building in which he was interested was coveted with deep shadow. The building opposite was bathed in afternoon sunlight to a line two floors below the roof. The shades on that sunny side were all drawn.
With a quick upward leap, Clyde caught the lowest rung of the suspended ladder and drew himself to the first platform. He managed to ascend to the fifth floor without being seen. He peered inward, his body flattened prudently against the brick wall beyond the window.
He saw Jimmy Dawson - and another man whose appearance drew a wordless gasp of surprise from the reporter. The second man was Alonzo Kelsea, the suave and high-priced criminal lawyer whose efforts had saved Dawson from the electric chair.
Dawson"s face was frightened. Kelsea, on the contrary, seemed to be in a poisonous rage. His florid countenance was brick-red. He caught the cringing gunman by the shoulder and shook him ruthlessly. To Clyde"s surprise, Dawson squealed with fright.
The window was open an inch or two at the bottom. The gunman"s words came clearly to the ears of the spying reporter.
"I swear I don"t know a thing about that fifty grand!"
"You lie!" Kelsea grated. "You stole it!"
"I tell you -"
"Shut up! I"ll tell you! The day before I took your case, I was sent
fifty.
grand in a locked suitcase. Cash - get it? Delivered to me by a messenger boy.
A.
note inside telling me to defend you and giving me complete directions about the alibi stunt."
Dawson looked as if he didn"t believe this, but he didn"t reply.
"And what happened?" Kelsea growled, harshly. "I didn"t dare deposit the money. You can"t bank fifty grand in cash without having to answer a lot of questions. So I kept the stuff, figuring I"d get rid of it in dribs and drabs.
And this morning, when I opened the bag to examine it, it was stuffed with newspapers! Get that, you rotten double-crosser?"
"If you"re accusin" me of stealin" the dough," Dawson whined, "you"recrazy! You"re pullin" a wise stunt, but you can"t kid me. I"m no fall guy, and don"t you forget it!"
To Clyde, outside the window, the rage of the lawyer seemed distinctly phony. Kelsea was putting on an act no doubt of that. But why?
Dawson, his face white, asked a strange question in a shaking voice: "Are you - Foxhound?"
The lawyer instantly got very quiet.
For a second, neither of them spoke. Then: "If I am, you"re in a bad spot, don"t you think?" Kelsea said.
His furious gesture struck the pleading hands of the gunman aside. He turned toward the apartment door.
"I"ll give you three hours to find that fifty grand and return it to me!
Think it over!"
"But I - I swear -" Dawson was babbling with fright, his words tumbling over one another.
Kelsea gave him a dreadful, bloodless grin.
"Or else!" he added, in a voice that crackled like thin ice.
He walked to the door, let himself out. In the room, Dawson clenched his fists helplessly at his sides. He was a picture of panic.
Amazed, Clyde watched him from the iron platform outside. He knew Dawson to be a professional gunman, a thug and killer of long standing. Yet the man"s abject terror was real. He had gasped out the word "Foxhound," and Kelsea had not denied that he might be this mysterious personage.
Was Foxhound the moving force behind the double murder that had occurred at the pier of the America-Gaul Line? If so, could Foxhound be Kelsea himself?
Or was the shrewd lawyer using a grim bluff to further his own criminal plans?
That he was a criminal, Clyde Burke no longer doubted for an instant.
He was slipping backward toward the slant of the fire escape steps when he was frozen motionless by the shrill scream of a woman across the narrow court.
"Burglar! Help! Police!"
The woman had raised the shade of her window directly opposite. She had seen Clyde crouched outside Dawson"s apartment. She mistook him for a thief and was yelling at the top of her lungs.
Clyde knew it was hopeless to rea.s.sure her. His only chance was to beat a hasty retreat before the murderous Dawson - He heard Dawson"s window fly upward behind him and knew he was trapped before he turned. The gunman was standing grimly at the open window, his right hand concealed by the folds of a curtain. The muzzle of a gun protruded from the cloth covering.
"One move and I"ll blast you!" Dawson whispered.
There was death in his slitted eyes.
"Keep still, mug, and let me do the talkin"."
CHAPTER V.
FLAME UNDER WATER.
JIMMY DAWSON"S mouth widened into a fake grin for the benefit of the staring woman across the airshaft.
"It"s okay, lady," he called, cheerily. "This feller ain"t no burglar.
He"s my brother, Joe. He forgot his keys and thought there was no one home."
The woman sniffed. "It"s a pity your brother can"t remember his keys, is all I gotta say. Scaring a person half out of her wits, sneaking up a fire escape like that!"
But she closed her own window and drew down the shade.
Clyde Burke, obedient to the menace of the gun hidden by the folds of the curtain, had stepped across the sill of Dawson"s window, and was standingmotionless in the spot where a quick jerk of the weapon had directed him. He couldn"t be seen now from outside. A curt order sent his hands stiffly upward above his head.
He said in a hard, flat voice: "You got me right, pal, I"m a crook. I thought no one was home. I -"
Dawson"s chuckle sounded as nasty as an oath.
"Quit lying, mug. You"re no crook. What are you - a private d.i.c.k?"
"You got me wrong."
"Yeah? You"re the guy that tailed me down Madison Avenue and across to the subway!" He frowned grimly. "How did you find this dump so d.a.m.ned quick? Even if you jumped off the train, you still didn"t have time -"
His voice broke off suddenly.
"Now I got it! You and that d.a.m.ned taxi driver! The two of you in cahoots, huh? I take his cab and he reports back to you where I scrammed. That argument of his about the fare was phony. That"s how he found out the apartment suite, huh?
Clyde didn"t answer.
"What"s the racket?" the low, deadly voice whispered. "A double cross to wipe me out because I know too much? You working for Kelsea - or maybe for Stoner?"
"I give you my word, I don"t know anybody named Stoner."
"But you saw Kelsea here, though, didn"t you? Maybe you even heard what we were talking about."
Clyde didn"t reply. To talk would be only to make his situation more precarious. He was wondering who Stoner was.
"Turn around!" the gunman snapped, suddenly.
CLYDE obeyed. He faced the wall, his palms flat against the surface of the wallpaper. There was a framed picture hanging just above the tips of his extended fingers. He tensed himself, rising slightly on his toes so that he could whirl about the minute he jerked the heavy frame from the nail that suspended it.
It was a grim chance, but Clyde took it. The picture jerked free in his quick grasp. He whirled - a fraction of a second too late. Dawson had seen the heave of his shoulder muscles and had stepped closer with a short, chopping motion of his forearm.
The b.u.t.t of his pistol struck Clyde on the temple as he turned. The picture fell from the reporter"s nerveless hands, bouncing on the floor with a faint jangle of broken gla.s.s. Clyde"s knees bent and he dropped, face-downward.
The blow had paralyzed him. An instant later, he felt the quick looping of tightly drawn cords around his wrists and arms. His legs, too, were trussed.
He could see Dawson grinning down at him. The gunman"s face and body seemed to swing back and forth like a bloated pendulum. Clyde groaned, gritted his teeth and the dizzy swaying stopped.
His skull ached like raw flame where the gun b.u.t.t had struck him. But his wits were clearer, now.
He said, in a perfectly steady voice, "You can"t get away with this."
"That"s what you think, pal."
Dawson bent, caught the reporter"s trussed feet in both hands and dragged his victim along the floor on his back.
Clyde"s trailing head b.u.mped across a wooden sill and he saw aporcelain-topped table, tub covers, a sink and a gas range. He was in the kitchen of the apartment. The shade was tightly drawn on the window. His heart sank as he saw a shining bread knife on the table.
Snickering, Jimmy Dawson ripped a newspaper into shreds and began swiftly, to wad the stuff in the cracks that outlined the sash of the closed window.
Gas!
He was planning to kill Clyde the easy, noiseless way! Time for him to get away and establish an alibi if it were necessary. Murder by asphyxiation!
DAWSON swung open the door of the oven in the gas range. Grunting, cursing under his breath, he dragged the writhing prisoner closer, jammed his head inside the oven. He upset the heavy table, and pinned Clyde"s hips and legs to the floor. His hand turned gas c.o.c.ks.
Instantly, Clyde smelled the heavy, overpowering fumes of illuminating gas. It blew into his mouth and nostrils like a noxious wave. He closed his mouth, tried to breathe in short, quick breaths, his lips pressed to the metal bottom of the oven. Behind him, the kitchen door had slammed. He heard the rustle of paper being jammed in the narrow crack at the bottom. Then there was a faint patter of receding feet.
Clyde"s throat began to burn with a queer, raw weakness. He knew he was choking now, inhaling the gas in helpless gulps. He fought against the sense of drowsy well-being that began to flood through his limbs and body. He wanted to sleep, sleep - Dawson closed the outer door of the apartment furtively. He glanced down the hall toward the staircase. Then he hurried to the automatic elevator and descended from sight toward the street level.