Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

“Do you remember this?” he taunted. “The night I croaked old Ellsworth I beat it for here on the quiet the minute I left the house, and I put the trays and half of the stones into that hiding place there, and then I changed my clothes and wore my crutch over to where I lived when I wasn’t at home here, and hid the rest of the stuff there. You know that, all right! Blast you, you got it, and you nearly queered me! The Rat was supposed to be away then—see? Well, that night when I was limping around with my crutch, I was told the Rat was back—and it didn’t take me long to find out your game. It looked like a piece of luck that was too good to be true! It suited me—I was for it hard. The only thing I was afraid of was that you might quit, so I left that ruby and the piece of tray for you on the table. I thought I knew you. It would give you a start, all right—but it would look as though this was where you were going to get the clue you needed, and you’d stick for fair.”

The Rat attempted to close the bag, and snarled at the bent catches. He finally fastened one of them partially, tossed the bag on the floor behind him, and, his face suddenly working again, flung his revolver arm out toward Billy Kane.

“If you’ve got anything to say before you go out—say it!” He was biting off his words. “Don’t think that because I’ve been talking a lot to you that I’m bluffing. I wouldn’t have opened up if I’d been bluffing, would I? And, besides, there’s another count on which you’re due to snuff out. The game’s up all around. I stalled on ringing down the curtain on the girl and on you as long as I thought there was a chance of my getting something out of those schemes that you kept butting in on. But you queered that, too, away back on the night you put Karlin in bad, and the police got him. Karlin’s begun to weaken and talk a little. That’s the finish of the gang, and any more pickings for me. Sooner or later Karlin’ll spill everything he knows, and he knows a lot, to save himself; and then they’ll be looking for the Rat on several other counts. So I passed the word to put the game with the girl through for to-night—while I took care of you.”

Billy Kane felt his face whiten. He knew that round, black muzzle would spit its tongue-flame in a moment. With the Rat’s hand around it, it seemed curiously like the head of a snake that was coiled to strike. Had they heard out there? Here was the bag that contained everything, all that had been taken from David Ellsworth’s vault, and here was the murderer, self-confessed. Had they heard? Had she heard? Would they remember, would she remember that Billy Kane’s name was cleared? And if they were out there, why didn’t they come in? Were they going to stand there and see him shot down—see another murder committed? No! He understood. The slightest sound from the direction of that secret door would be but the signal for the Rat to fire. It was up to him—somehow—some way—to give them a chance to act. It was up to him in some way to beat the Rat to that first shot, that would not be delayed many seconds now.

He eyed the Rat for a moment steadily; appraised again the cold-blooded, callous implacability in the other’s face—and then Billy Kane squared his shoulders, and his hands on the table slid back a little until the thumbs extended over the edge, and he laughed coolly.

“It’s the limit, is it, Bundy?” he said quietly. “Well, then, I’ll take it standing up, you cur, if you don’t mind.”

The Rat nodded indifferently.

It seemed as though Billy Kane, for all his apparent coolness and composure, was not equal to his self-appointed task. He half rose to his feet, and sank back heavily in his chair again, and his hands, as though to steady himself, clutched with seemingly desperate energy farther over the table’s edge—and then, in a flash, the table was in mid-air between the two men, and, as it hurtled forward, Billy Kane, crouched low, leaped for the other, as the Rat, with an oath, sprang to one side to avoid the table.

A red flame blinded Billy Kane’s eyes, an acrid smell filled his nostrils, and seemed to stifle him, and make his head swim dizzily, and his left side seemed curiously numb and dead, but his hands had reached their mark, and had closed like steel vises around the Rat’s throat. And he hung there, hung there because a fury and a seething passion gave him superhuman strength—hung there as cries resounded through the room, and there came the rush of feet—hung there as he crashed downward to the floor dragging the Rat with him—hung there as an utter blackness came and settled upon him.

————