Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

“Those boards are thin! Come out into the room with your hands up before I count three, or I’ll put a bullet through. One—two——”

There was a laugh, undisguised in its mockery, but low and musical. The door, bizarre and grotesque in its zigzag projections, due to its ingenious adherence to the natural joints in the wall boards, swung open wide, and a woman stood in the room.

“I was only waiting for your friends to go, Bundy,” she said coolly.

The revolver sagged a little in Billy Kane’s hand. He could not see her face very well, the single incandescent dangling from the ceiling was miserably inadequate, but dark eyes flashed at him out of an oval face, and the chin thrown up gave a glimpse of the contour of a full throat, ivory white—and all this was merged in the background of a slender figure clothed and cloaked in some dark material, unrelieved by a single vistage of color.

She spoke again.

“I don’t think you are quite as badly hurt as you pretend, Bundy,” she said, with a sort of icy composure. “You were out last night when I came here, and if you could prowl around the streets, I think perhaps you could manage now to get from the bed over to the door there and back again without doing yourself any serious injury. The door has been unlocked since Red Vallon went out, and it might be safer—locked.”

Billy Kane did not answer her. He got up, crossed to the door, locked it, and, returning, sat down on the edge of the bed. She had not moved from her position near the far end of the room. He became conscious that he was still holding his revolver in his hand, and he thrust the weapon quietly now into his pocket. A grim smile came and hovered on his lips. This complication, another of the ramifications of his stolen identity, he did not understand at all—except that it promised him no good. She was the author of last night’s note—she had just said as much—and the wording of that note was not reassuring as to her attitude toward him, nor was the mockery in her laugh, nor was the self-contained, almost contemptuous note of command with which she had just spoken. Who was she? What was she to the Rat, that she knew the secret of that underground tunnel, and the secret of that door?

He jerked his hand toward the chair Red Vallon had vacated.

“Sit down, won’t you?” There was a tingle of irony in his voice. His invitation was at least safe ground.

She came forward toward the table, a subtle, supple grace in her movements. Subconsciously he noted that she made no sound as she crossed the room. She was like a cat—but a very beautiful cat. He could see her face better now. The eyes were hard and unfriendly, but they were great, brown, steady eyes of unfathomable depths.