CHAPTER XI.—A MYSTERY TO SOLVE.
Frank realized that some of the clothing from the bed had been torn off and flung over his head. He attempted to cast it aside, but it became tangled so he could not accomplish his purpose as readily as he wished, although he was not long in doing so.
Retreating, he was prepared for an assault, for it seemed that the masked unknown would follow up the advantage he had gained.
No assault came.
Frank paused and listened, and, to his amazement, he could hear no sound in the room. Still, he felt that the man must be there, awaiting for an opportunity to carry out the deadly purpose which had brought him into his apartment at that hour.
It was not pleasant to stand there in the darkness, half expecting to feel a knife buried between his shoulders at any instant.
Gradually Frank’s eyes became accustomed to the semi-gloom of the room. Still, he could see nothing that lived and moved. Beyond him was the window, standing open as he had left it, the light wind gently moving the draperies.
“Well,” thought Merry, “I wonder how long the fellow will keep still. He’ll have to make a move sometime.”
He backed up against the door and stood there, facing the window. Placing a hand behind him, he took hold of the knob of the door, which he found was still locked securely. This assured him that the intruder had not escaped in that direction.
Merry felt certain that the man was close at hand. He knew he could unlock and unbolt the door and leap out quickly. He could slam the door behind him and lock it, thus penning the man in there. Then he could descend to the office and inform the clerk that he had captured a burglar.
Somehow, he did not feel like doing that; that seemed too much as if he were running away. He did not fancy doing anything that seemed in the least cowardly, even though it might be discreet.
Further than that, however, it was by no means certain that, even though he locked and secured the door behind him after leaping out of the room, he could hold the intruder captive.
In some manner the man had entered that room without disturbing the lock or bolt on the door.
How had he entered?
Frank looked toward the open window, but he knew it opened upon the face of the hotel, four stories from the level of the street, and that settled in his mind all doubts about the window, for he instantly decided that it had not been possible for the masked unknown to get into the room that way.
Had he been in some old colonial house he would have fancied the fellow had gained admittance by means of a panel in the wall and a secret passage; but he was in a modern hotel, and it was beyond the range of probability that there were secret passages or moving wall panels in the structure.
These thoughts flitted through his mind swiftly as he stood there, trying to hear some sound that would tell him where the intruder was in the room.
All was still.
Below in the street a cab rattled and rumbled along.
The silence was even more nerve-racking than the unexpected appearance of the masked man had been. The mystery of the whole affair was beginning to impress Merry, and a mystery always aroused his curiosity to the highest pitch.
“Take your time, sir,” he thought, as he leaned against the door and waited. “I believe I can stand it as long as you can.”
Near at hand the door of another room swiftly opened and closed. The sound of hurried footsteps passed the door of Merriwell’s room.
Frank was tempted to fling open his door and call to the man, but he hesitated about that till it was too late.
“Let him go,” he thought. “Perhaps he would have been frightened to death had I called him in here.”
The push button by which he could call assistance from the office was in the alcove. At this time of night it was not likely there would be anything but a tardy answer to his call should he make it.
But the electric button which turned on and ignited the gas was also in the alcove.
Frank longed to reach that button. He longed to light the gas in order to look around for the intruder.
Of course he could have lighted it with a match; but he realized that such a thing might be just what the unknown hoped for and expected. The man might be waiting for him to strike a match.
The minutes fled.
“Something must be done,” Merry at last decided.
Then he resolved to leave the door, move slowly along the wall, reach the button and light the gas—if possible.
With the silence of a creeping cat, he inched along. Every sense was on the alert.
It took him a long time to come to the foot of the bed at the opening of the alcove, but he reached it at last. Was the masked man waiting for him in the darkness of the alcove? It seemed certain that he could be nowhere else in the room.
Frank hesitated, nerving himself for what might come. Surely it required courage to enter that alcove.
He listened, wondering if he could hear the breathing of the man crouching in the alcove.
He heard nothing.
Then every nerve and muscle seemed to grow taut in Merriwell’s body, and, with one panther-like spring, he landed on the bed. In the twinkling of an eye he was at the head of the bed, and his fingers found the push button.
Snap!—the gas came on, with a flare.
It showed him standing straight up on the bed, his hands clinched, ready for anything that might follow.
Nothing followed.
Frank began to feel puzzled.
“Why in the name of everything peculiar doesn’t he get into gear and do something—if he’s going to do anything at all?” thought the youth on the bed.
Again a bound carried him over the footboard and out into the middle of the room, where he whirled to face the alcove, his eyes flashing round the place.
The bed covering which had been flung over his head lay in the middle of the floor, where he had cast it aside.
Nothing stirred in the room. On a chair near at hand Frank could hear his watch ticking in his pocket.
Then the intruder had not taken the watch, which was valuable.
Frank glanced toward his clothes. He had carefully placed them in a certain position when he undressed, and there they lay, as if they had not been touched or disturbed in the least.
“Queer burglar,” meditated Merry. “Should have thought he’d gone through my clothes first thing.”
But where was the fellow? There seemed but one place for him, and Frank stopped to look beneath the bed.
There was no one under the bed. The wardrobe door stood slightly ajar.
“Ah!” thought Frank. “At last! He must be in there, for there is no other place in this room where he could hide.”
Without hesitation, Frank flung open the door of the wardrobe, saying:
“Come out, sir!”
But the wardrobe was empty, save of such clothing and things as Frank had placed there with his own hands.
Merriwell fell back, beginning to feel very queer. He looked all around the room, walking over to a sofa across a corner and looking behind that. In the middle of the floor he stopped.
“This beats anything I ever came against!” he exclaimed. “Was it a spook?”
Then the pain in his throat, where those iron hands had threatened to crush his windpipe, told him that it was no “spook.”
“And it could not have been a dream,” he decided. “I know there was a living man in this room. How did he escape? That is one question. When it is answered, I shall know how he obtained admittance. And why did he come here?”
Frank examined his clothes to make sure that nothing had been taken. He soon discovered that his watch, money and such valuables as he carried about with him every day, were there, not a thing having been disturbed. That settled one point in Frank’s mind. The man had not entered that room for the purpose of robbery.
If not for robbery, what then?
It must have been for the purpose of wreaking some injury on Merriwell as he slept.
“I was warned by my feelings,” Frank decided. “I was in deadly peril; there is no doubt of that.”
Frank went to the window and looked out. It seemed a foolish thing to do, for he had looked out and seen that there was not even a fire escape to aid a person in gaining admittance to his room. The fire escape, he had been told, was at the end of the corridor.
It was a night without a moon, but the electric lights shone in the street below. Something caused Merry to turn his head and look to his left.
What was that?
Close against the face of the outer wall something dangled.
A sudden eagerness seized him. He leaned far out of the window, doing so at no small risk, and reached along the wall toward the object. With the tip of his fingers he grasped it and drew it toward him.
It was a rope!
“The mystery is solved!” muttered Frank, with satisfaction. “This explains how the fellow entered my room.”
He shook the rope and looked upward. He could see that it ran over the sill of a window two stories above.
“Did he come down from there? Should have thought he would have selected a window directly over this. And did he climb back up this swaying, loosely dangling rope?”
Frank wondered not a little. And then, as he was leaning out of his window, the light of the street lamps showed him that a window beyond the dangling rope, on a level with his, was standing open.
The sight gave Merry a new idea.
“I believe I understand how the trick was worked,” he muttered.
“That must explain how the fellow was able to vanish so swiftly while my head was covered by the bedclothes. With the aid of this rope, he swung out from his window and into mine. He could do it easily and noiselessly. While my head was covered, he plunged out of the window, caught the rope, and swung back. That’s it!”
Frank drew his head in quickly, but he still clung to the end of the rope. This he drew in and lay over the sill.
“Yes,” he decided, “that is the way the fellow escaped. He had the rope right here, so that he could catch it in a moment, and, grasping it, he plunged outward through the window. His momentum carried him right across and into the other window. It was a reckless thing to do, but perfectly practical.”
Then he remembered how he had heard, while standing with his back against his own door, the door of an adjoining room open and close, followed by the sound of swift footsteps passing outside.
“That was when he left his room,” Merry decided.
It did not take Frank long to resolve to explore that room—to seek for some clew to the identity of the masked intruder.
With the aid of the rope, he could swing into the open window; with its aid he could swing back to his own room.
He would do it.
Of course, Merry realized what a rash thing he was about to do. Of course he understood that he might be rushing to the waiting arms of his late antagonist.
Still he was not deterred. All his curiosity was aroused, and he was bent on discovering the identity of the man, if such a thing were possible.
He grasped the rope and climbed upon the window sill. Looking out, he carefully calculated the distance to the next window and the momentum he would require to take him there. Having decided this, he prepared to make the swing.
And then, just at the very instant that he swung off from the window sill, he heard a hoarse, triumphant laugh above.
He looked up.
Out of the window from which ran the rope, a man was leaning. In his hand was something on which the light from the street lamps glinted.
It was a knife!
With that knife the wretch, whose face was covered by a mask, gave a slash at the rope, just as Merry swung off from the sill.
With a twang, the rope parted!
It was sixty feet to the street below.
Frank fell.