Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

Billy Kane dropped suddenly from a run into a slow, even nonchalant walk. A short distance ahead of him, a small, and apparently, an old and second-hand car was coughing and chugging laboriously at the curb in front of the lighted window of a little grocery store. A few steps more, and he saw that the car was empty. Billy Kane’s lips broadened in a hard smile. It might be reprehensible to steal a car for a few hours; but, as between a car and a human life that he knew depended on him alone, he experienced no pangs of conscience. It was the way out!

He edged over to the curb as he approached the machine, and, close to the car now, glanced around. In through the store window he could see a man, back turned, evidently the car’s owner, leaning over the counter, talking to the proprietor of the store. Billy Kane, wary of attracting premature notice from the pedestrians here and there along the street, reached out calmly, opened the door without haste, and with a deliberate air of proprietorship slipped into the driver’s seat—but in the next instant he had thrown in the gears, and the machine shot from the curb like a mad animal stung to frenzy.

A yell went up behind him; there came to him the glimpse of a man’s figure rushing wildly out through the store door into the street; and then another yell, that was echoed from different directions along the street. The car took the first corner on little better than two wheels. The yells died away behind. At the next intersecting street Billy Kane turned again, and thereafter for a few blocks zigzagged his course, until, satisfied that he had thrown any immediate pursuers off his track, he headed again over toward the East River.

And now as he drove more quietly, confident that he need no longer fear the element of time, his mind harked back again to that scene in the old hag’s room, and there came a puzzled frown furrowing his forehead, and a queer strained look into his face. It was not so clear after all! The picture in the large was there. The patient, cold-blooded winning of her confidence in order to lure her without suspicion or hesitation to her death was clear enough, as was also the hideous betrayal of that confidence, a betrayal that plumbed the depths of human infamy, and whose unscrupulous ingenuity and vile cunning was so typical of the Rat; but the details, examined more critically, seemed somehow foggy and obscured, and seemed to hint at something he did not quite understand. It was not that it was evidence of the Rat’s return. That thought did not trouble him, for certainly he, of all others, who had so unceremoniously possessed himself of the Rat’s den and all the Rat’s belongings, should be the first to know of it if the other had put in an appearance again; and the fact that the plot had reached its consummation to-night he did not consider to have any bearing on that point either. Many of the Rat’s plans, begun in the past, as he, Billy Kane, had only too good reason to know, had reached their climax since the Rat himself had been away. This was probably one of them. Certainly it had been begun more than two weeks ago, as both Shaky Liz and the Cherub had said, and that was before he, Billy Kane, had assumed the Rat’s rôle, and, therefore, quite logically it seemed, before the Rat had gone away. It was not that—once started, the unholy quartet to whom the Rat had entrusted his dirty work was quite capable of carrying it through to its detestable conclusion—but it seemed strange that, adventurous as the Rat was and much as he undoubtedly desired to get the Woman in Black out of his way, he would have dared to do this. What she held over the Rat’s head, he, Billy Kane, did not know; but he knew the Rat was well aware that, in event of her disappearance, certain evidence would be forthcoming against him within twenty-four hours. That had been her protection, a protection with which she had appeared to be thoroughly satisfied, and she had taken occasion more than once to give that warning to him, Billy Kane, in the belief that she was warning the Rat himself. There seemed to be only one answer then to this move on the Rat’s part. In some way, unknown to her, he must have come into possession of that evidence, or in some way have rendered abortive the means by which, in event of her disappearance, it would be brought to light.

The car rattled and jangled along. It was a miserable contraption, seedy, and badly down at the heels, but so that its engine functioned he asked nothing better. He was near the river front now, and in the region of warehouses and buildings that, remote from the bridges and the regular trend of traffic, showed no lights at night, and where the streets were utterly deserted, and where occasionally he caught glimpses of the river itself like a silver thread under the moonlight. He ran still more slowly now, studying his location with all possible care. Kegler’s dock, according to the directory, was still farther on, of course, but he realized that, well as he knew his New York, this was somewhat out of the ordinary radius, and that it would be all too easy to miss his way.

He shook his head a little in perplexity. There was another thing—one of the little details. Shaky Liz, Gypsy Joe, Clarkie Munn and the Cherub were not in the ranks of the Crime Trust as Red Vallon, and the Cadger, and Vannet, for instance, were, and where the Rat might naturally be expected to work upon a basis of mutual trust. It seemed strange that the Rat, in executing a plan like this, would give, not one, but four outsiders a hold on him, for if their tongues were ever loosened it meant the death house in Sing Sing for the Rat to a certainty. Nor did the fact that they themselves were accomplices wholly justify this seeming lapse from cunning on the Rat’s part. Accomplices before now had been known to turn State’s evidence! It was queer! The Rat probably had a very good reason—only it seemed a little queer!

Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders. Enough of that! He was peering out of the car now with growing anxiety, and with the realization forcing itself upon him that, if he had not actually lost his way, he at best had a very confused knowledge of his exact whereabouts. His lips tightened. It was growing late, too; it must be getting perilously near ten o’clock. He had had no doubt but that, from the address in the directory, he could easily find the place, and he was still sure it was farther on; but the quarter here was outrageously dark, and a plethora of turnings, that seemed to be nothing more than private trafficways for various wharfs and warehouses, made an exceedingly nasty complication. He nosed the machine along, his face growing more set and anxious every moment. It was black here—black—nothing but a cursed blackness. If there were only someone about—someone from whom he could ask directions! But there was nothing, no one, only the black, looming shapes of buildings, and even these were becoming more scattered now; and the only signs of life were the whistles and churnings of passing craft on the river.

The minutes passed. A sense of helplessness, of impotency, that brought a cold chill to his heart, was upon him now. Down here on the river front he was hopelessly lost. There was no light in the ramshackle car that he had appropriated—it wasn’t equipped with anything that even approached a modern device. He stopped the car, lighted a match, and looked at his watch.

Ten minutes of ten!

Ten minutes! There were ten minutes left! He started the car again mechanically. There were ten minutes between her and a trap-door that opened into the silvery streak of water out there, whose shimmering now had lost its beauty and seemed like the hideous, insinuating, silky movement of some ghastly reptile. Ten minutes stood between her and that trap-door; and he, fool that he was, had lost his way! And yet he could hardly blame himself; the East River front at night was—but what did it matter whether he blamed himself or not!