THE LITTLE CAT AND THE BIG MOUSE
The light was stronger, though still gray and thin. It was the light of an unsunlit November day filtered through a small square of snow-drifted glass into a chilly garret. The light alone was enough to drop a man's heart to the depths; but it was not the only thing that depressed Harvey P. Banks. He was anxious, cold, and hungry. He was sickened with disgust of himself and hate of Captain Wigmore. His head ached, his neck and shoulders were sore. To add to all this he could now see the face and eyes of his jailer by the cheerless light. The sight was not one calculated to dispel his anxiety or warm his blood. The eyes gleamed balefully up from the gloom of the stairway, with a green gleam in them like the eyes of a cat watching its helpless prey. In front of the eyes showed the black barrel of the rifle.
"How long do you intend to keep up this farce?" inquired Banks.
"I can stand it as long as you can," was the crisp reply.
"Very likely; but I don't see that I have any say in the matter just now."
"You are wrong, my big friend. You can have your liberty—qualified liberty—this minute if you wish. All you have to do is swear to me, on your honor as a Christian and a gentleman, that you will never mention this little adventure to a living person. You must invent some story for Rayton and set out for New York to-night. You must drop this feeble idea of yours of playing the detective. In short, you must swear to mind your own business in the future and leave me and mine alone."
"I'll see you in hell first!" cried the sportsman. "I am on your trail, and I'll stick to it. You'll pay heavily for this."
Wigmore chuckled. "Pay?" he said. "Pay? You forget, you big slob, that I am banker in this game—and I am not the kind of banker that pays."
"What do you think you are going to do with me?" asked Banks, with outward calm.
"Lots of things," replied Wigmore. "I will reduce your flesh, for one thing; and your fat pride for another. I'll make you whimper and crawl 'round on your knees. But just now I'll request you to come downstairs. Since you have broken the door of that room, I must give you another."
"I hope the other room will be an improvement on this."
"Yes. A very comfortable room."
"And what about breakfast?"
"You will have a cup of tea in half an hour—if you behave yourself in the meantime."
Banks laughed uncertainly.
"See here, captain, don't you think this joke has gone far enough?" he asked.
"Not at all," replied Wigmore. "My joke has just begun. Yours ended very quickly, on the floor of my sitting room—but that was your own fault. You are a blundering joker, Banks. You should have made sure that I was not at home before you went round shaking all the doors, and then crawled through the window. But that is a thing of the past, now, and so beyond mending. I hope you will derive more entertainment from my joke than you did from your own."
Banks had no answer to make to that. He fisted his big hands and breathed heavily.
"I must ask you now to step back to the farther wall of your room," said Wigmore.
Banks hesitated for a moment, then backed across the threshold and across the little room until his shoulders touched the farther wall.
"Stay there until I give you the word," said the old man.
Then face and rifle barrel vanished, and, at the same instant, Banks moved forward noiselessly and swiftly, lifted the couch in his strong hands, and dropped it down the dark well of the staircase. It crashed and banged against the wooden steps and the plaster walls; and before its clattering had ceased the big sportsman himself was halfway down the stairs. Halfway—and then he halted and recoiled, clutching at the cold walls! The couch had been a second too slow in following Wigmore, and Banks a second too slow in following the couch. The captain stood at the bottom of the stairs, a foot beyond the wreckage of the couch, laughing sardonically and presenting the muzzle of the rifle fair at his captive's waist.
