VI
Whatever Mr. Neuburg felt he hid it with the cold, enigmatic mirthlessness of his smile. But Clement knew that the great brute must be at a loss. Obviously, he appreciated the fact that if his opponent was here and not in Montreal, he must know far too much about Arthur Newman and his doings.
Clement realized this and meant to make the most of it. He must play for time. The three men in the canoe must have a chance to get to them, for, of course, they would have heard the pistol shot.
Mr. Neuburg said, “Sophie, take his pistol.”
The woman came behind the young Englishman and took the pistol from his injured hand. She pressed the muzzle of her own small weapon into his spine, just to show what any attempt to fight might mean. Then she stood aside. Henry Gunning stood up and away from the detective, who lay prostrate. He looked swiftly at the silent Neuburg, and then as swiftly turned his eyes away. He stared at Clement. He seemed to be puzzling over Clement. Siwash Mike left the window when Clement was disarmed. He came round into the room. He bent over the detective, his pistol held ready; but, satisfied that the little man was stunned, he picked up the automatic that had fallen to the floor and dropped it into his pocket. To make sure that Gatineau was not shamming, he kicked him sharply and savagely in the body. The prone man did not stir or groan.
Neuburg, after a speculative stare at Clement said, “You have blundered in on me again. You are clever, my exteriorly ingenuous young man. But not quite clever enough. However, clever enough to know that this is a very awkward situation for you.”
He waited for Clement to answer. Clement did not answer.
“Have you anything to say for yourself?” He wanted Clement to show his hand either by defiance or an attempt to temporize.
Clement unsatisfyingly said, “Nothing at all.”
Mr. Neuburg blinked at the invisible thing across Clement’s shoulder.
“I am afraid I want you to say something,” said Mr. Neuburg with his smooth suavity. “Yes, I think I must ask you to give me a few explanations.” He waited. Again Clement did not answer. “Mr. Seadon, you are a worldly-wise young man; you are no fool. You will, I think, understand my position. There are certain facts I must have. I mean to have them.”
Clement did not answer.
“I think you had better say something,” said Mr. Neuburg. His voice took on a curious purr.
“I am not a man who finds stubbornness agreeable. I will have those facts. Now, how and why are you here? Answer, you dog!”
“Oh, no,” said Clement. “I’m not going to answer.”
As he spoke, the woman—perhaps something still feminine in her revolted against the horrors she thought bound to come—stepped to the table and picked up the paper Clement had put upon it. Neuburg read it through.
“A confession. Our bright Henry was to sign it, the girl Heloise was to read it, and all would be well. An ingenious plan, Seadon. A well-considered plan. You would have terrorized our backboneless Henry with threats. Perhaps you would have carried it through, for Henry is a cur. But you did not. I intervened. So far, then, that was your idea. But before——”
Clement, who had been watching Gunning’s face, observing the perplexity on it, said evenly, “That certainly was my plan. But I changed it at the last moment. I was about to change it, that is, when you arrived. I found an unexpected ignorance in Henry Gunning. I found he knew nothing about—Nachbar.”
The big man’s hand moved upwards towards his breast in a startled and curious gesture. It was an instinctive defense against an unexpected blow. His breath came in a sudden sharp hiss. His eyes flickered to Clement’s face with a movement and with a light, startled, yet unfathomable. And no other sign did he give. Presently, “What is this talk about Nachbar?” he said, in a quiet, even voice.
Gunning said explosively, “This fellow said something about this Nachbar—and about murder. I don’t know what is meant.”
“They mean the same thing,” said Clement evenly, his attention keenly on the alert for any movement from the mountainous man, or Siwash, or the woman. “Nachbar—Albrecht Nachbar—is a murderer, Gunning.”
“I was speaking to Adolf,” said Gunning, snarling at Clement.
“Albrecht,” said Clement evenly.
Gunning gasped, his eyes became wild. “What—who is this Nachbar?” he cried.
“You are speaking to him now,” said Clement. “Adolf Neuburg is Albrecht Nachbar—murderer.”
“A murderer!” cried Gunning. He shrank away from Neuburg, his face pale and working. “A murderer.” There was real disgust and horror in his tone. He was a real bad hat, but somehow that had touched to horror and disgust a clean streak in him. Then with a genuine anger he swung round on the big man. “Give him the lie, Adolf,” he shouted. “Fling the lie in his dirty face.”
Neuburg, or rather Nachbar, stood passive, his great face in an awful inscrutability. Only his right hand moved. It lifted, and its fingers caressed the flap of his coat pocket, caressed as if eager to get at something that lay in that pocket. Only when Gunning shouted once more, “Go on, Adolf, fling the lie in his face,” did he say, “Stop that, Gunning. Go on, Seadon. Go on.—Don’t stop at that. Let’s have all of it.”
He wanted to find out all Clement knew. He ignored Gunning’s horror and disgust. He was, no doubt, entirely confident of his supremacy over Gunning.
Clement, conscious of the play of that eager hand over the pistol pocket, said evenly: “Gunning, for reasons of his own, for reasons connected with Heloise Reys, this man has thought best to keep you ignorant of his real nature. He is Albrecht Nachbar who is wanted by the Oregon police for murder. He is careful not to deny it.”
“God!” breathed Gunning, his eyes fixed in horror on Nachbar. “God—but you lie, he will deny it.”
“Go on,” said Nachbar with a deadly evenness. “Go on, Seadon.”
“He won’t deny it,” said Clement, shooting at venture. “He won’t deny it—because he feels that, since I have unmasked him, it will be best for you to know what he intends to do to that girl, Heloise Reys.”
“Murder her! No—no; we aren’t going to do that. It’s a lie!” cried Gunning, shrinking in loathing.
“You are a clever young man,” said Nachbar to Clement. “Too clever. Go on.”
“You think he doesn’t mean murder? Ask him. Ask him if he hasn’t made up his mind to rob a rich young girl, as he made up his mind to rob the rich young man, Roberts of Oregon. Ask him if he didn’t plan to lure her to the wilds, just as he lured Roberts into the wilds. Ask him if, having planned to secure all her money through Landor at Revelstoke, as he secured all Roberts’s money in Oregon, he does not mean to kill her—kill her so that his robbery can be covered up, just as the killing of Roberts covered up that robbery.”
“Kill her—murder Heloise,” said Gunning in a whisper.
“It won’t look like murder. It’ll look like an accident. Just as Roberts’s death looked like an accident. A burst gun barrel while hunting, Gunning—only Nachbar had seen to it that it would burst.”
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” shouted Gunning.
“Ask him.”
“It’s a lie! How could they kill her! How would they murder her?”
Clement had a sudden flashing intuition. “Ask him about the motor boat, Gunning?”
And the shot in the dark struck home.
Siwash Mike loosed an oath. The mountain of a man started as if stung. His mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. He made a step towards Clement. His right hand jerked to his pocket. The effect on Gunning was startling. That chance shot had exploded a definite fact in his mind.
“Motor boat,” he shouted. “That’s why you wouldn’t let me help.—Mending a perfectly sound motor boat. You liar! You—you Nachbar!”
He jumped forward and faced the big man.
“Out of the way, you dog. Out of the way!” snarled Nachbar, with a twisted mouth. His hand had flashed out of his pocket, and in it was a pistol. “Out of the way, you sot!”
Gunning flung himself upon him.
There was chaos in that flimsy shack.
At the first hint of violence Clement had dropped flat to the ground. The woman’s pistol snapped as he did so, and her bullet struck the planking where his chest had been. Nachbar and Gunning staggered in a wild tangle. The shoulders of the huge man struck Siwash as, pistol ready, he jumped round to get at Clement. He was flung back. Even as he swayed under the impact, the little detective Gatineau, prone and overlooked on the floor, suddenly came to life. He became abruptly conscious. His arms went out and plucked at the half-breed’s ankles. Siwash went down with a bang. As he went down, Gatineau heaved himself up and forward with an astonishing strength and flung himself on the fallen man. Siwash screamed as Gatineau twisted his wounded arm, and his pistol clattered to the ground. Gatineau snatched at that pistol, and got it.
Gunning and the mountain of a man went in a long, wild stagger, across the shack. The table crashed as their writhing bodies smashed into it. They tripped and thudded into the wall. They stamped and wrestled clear, went in a writhe across the floor again. The woman failed to get out of the way. The fighting bodies struck her and she was knocked across the room. Then Gunning screamed. A huge, fat thumb was pressing, pressing with monstrous power, up under his jaw-bone beneath his ear. He screamed and wriggled to break away. Nachbar with his incredible mobility slipped clear. In the same movement his pistol flickered towards Gunning’s chest. A report and a scream sounded together, and Gunning tumbled forward into the arms of the man who had shot him.
With his immense strength Nachbar flung the limp man from him and swept round to deal with Clement. Clement was ready. As the huge body bunched and the pistol hand jerked forward, Clement struck at it. As Clement had risen to his feet, he had grabbed the chair again, and that was what he struck with. The solid wood of the seat caught Nachbar’s wrist and arm, and with such force that the pistol was sent flying across the room. Nachbar bellowed and leaped to finish the young Englishman with his great hands. Clement dropped the chair in front of him.
His shins caught the flimsy structure as his huge body stumbled forward, and at the same time Clement landed with all his force on the big face. He struck again on the mouth, and then in the excitement strove to swing to the swaying chin with his injured right. He reached his mark, but the pain that shot through his arm was so exquisite that it both robbed the blow of its power and caused Clement to writhe. In that moment of suspension Nachbar, shaking himself like some giant beast that had been stung to rage by an insect, leaped on Clement.
They went down with a crash. Nachbar’s body caught the surface of the capsized table, and it split and broke under the fierce impact. Nachbar was on top. Clement strove to twist him off with a Japanese wrestling throw, but the sheer weight of the man bore him down. His great legs were upon the Englishman’s body, his great knee was grinding down the injured right arm. A pair of huge hands were tearing away the Englishman’s left, were clutching at the throat.
Clement’s head was forced back and back until he felt his spine would snap. There was a cruel pressure on his gullet, and his blood was roaring in his ears. He felt that his body was slipping away into a deep and terrible abyss, and that as it slipped his strength was dropping swiftly away from him. The great body on him was grinding him down, crushing him down.
There was a thumping of heavy boots on the planking of the porch. Men were running and shouting. A great voice from the window yelled, “You—the elephant—shove your hands up—lively.”
“I’ll get hit if he fires,” Clement’s mind registered.
More stampings. A voice shouted in the door, “Don’t shoot, Paul—t’ feller underneath.—That’s it, the butt.”
Nachbar jerked round and looked up. A man was upon him, his hand up, a pistol swinging by its barrel poised to strike. With his astonishing mobility, the mountain of a man was on his feet. His arm shot out and the threatening man thudded into a corner. The murderer was round at once, springing in shack-shaking leaps of bewildering agility for the door that lead to the inner room. He reached the door, grabbed at the handle.
A Winchester banged from the window. Nachbar’s shoulders struck the door, burst it open. A rifle barked again, and the door crashed to in an echo of the shot.
There was a rush of feet across the room; the strong shoulders of two of the men from the canoe jammed together in its narrow length before they burst it open. Both men stopped dead, wheeled about.
“Gone!” yelled one of them. “Jumped clean through that window.” The three made for the door of the shack.
“One of you stay,” yelled Gatineau. “There’s the man an’ the woman to look to. The other two go after him, and shoot on sight.”
In a minute they heard the two crashing through the spruce on the trail of Mr. Neuburg.