The door creaked under a sudden pressure; and as suddenly from the wall at the edge of the door, Billy Kane reached out and released the bolt. The door swung violently open, and two figures, their balance lost, sprawled and staggered into the room. And in a flash Billy Kane, as he leaped through the doorway, snatched at the door, slammed it shut, jabbed the crutch, as a lock-bar, through the iron loop of the door handle, its end extending well over the frame of the doorway—and sprinted across the yard.
There was a yell, and a battering thud on the door behind him, as he reached a fence at the end of the yard, swung himself to the top and dropped to the lane beyond. And then, as he ran, there came a crash of broken glass. They had evidently forsaken the door for the window!
For a hundred yards Billy Kane ran at top speed along the lane; and then, removing his mask, the bag concealed under his coat, he emerged into the intersecting street, and dropped into a casual and quiet stride.
He smiled queerly.
They would be looking for a cripple who, having sacrificed his crutch to save his life, could at best but limp and hobble painfully along!
[XX—THE CAT’S-PAW]
It was black with a blackness that seemed to possess tangible substance, as though it wrapped itself around and enveloped the body with a pall whose very texture could be felt. It was unknown ground, and the foot reached out uncertainly, wary of where next it might find lodgment, and the hands stretched out, as a blind man’s hands stretch out, feeling for hidden things through space. It was dank and musty, and in the nostrils was an earthy, cavernous smell; and there was a silence that seemed guarded by the very bowels of the earth itself. And in the silence and the darkness peril lurked—a peril that merged courage into foolhardiness for one who would invite it, and set the nerves on edge, and kept the muscles taut like tight-strung bow strings, and stimulated the senses into abnormal activity until the eyes peopled the darkness with phantoms that were not there, and the ears created sounds that did not exist.
Billy Kane’s face, under the mask, was drawn in hard, strained lines; he raised his right hand, that gripped his automatic, and drew the back of his hand across his forehead. Foolhardiness! Yes, that was it! He was a fool to come here, to take the risk! He knew Wong Yen’s by reputation as one of the most infamous Chinese underground dives in the Bad Lands; he remembered it concretely from that incident of a few nights ago when Laverto had had young Clancy drugged here. Was that only a few nights ago? He shook his head. Since those few nights ago he no longer measured the passing of time by normal standards; he had lived all his life since those few nights ago!
He moved forward through the blackness, cautiously, silently. Where was the next wall? Or was there any wall at all? His hands, reaching out as far as they could stretch, touched nothing. This was below the ordinary cellar level; it was a sub-cellar, a chain of sub-cellars. How many men had entered here, yes, and women too—and disappeared? A murder hole! And up above him somewhere was New York—millions of people, taxicabs, crowded sidewalks, theatres, and, yes, churches, places where people worshipped. Incredible!
He had heard of places like this, and so had the public; and the public smiled in self-sufficient tolerant amusement. Well, why not, where even the police were ignorant! Everybody admitted that the Chinese quarter was full of ridiculously imitated catacombs perhaps; but what did it matter if in a block of houses the inmates burrowed from cellar to cellar like rats, and built mysterious doors and passageways, and threw about everything the disguise of wicked and shuddering things—when it was only disguise! It was good for business. The gape-wagons and the slumming conductors profited and so did the Celestials; and the slummers, satiated with thrills, the women drawing their skirts closely around their silk-clad ankles, the men surreptitiously feeling in their pockets to assure themselves that their watches and valuables were still in their possession, got their money’s worth. Everybody was satisfied, and the public smiled.