Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

The chauffeur yawned, and shook his head.

“I’m waitin’ for a party in there.” He jerked his hand toward the restaurant. “I got a fare.”

“I know you have,” said Billy Kane coolly. “You’ve got me.” He extended a ten-dollar bill. “There’s another one just like this, perhaps more than one, coming later—on top of the fare.”

The chauffeur grinned, pocketed the banknote, and, leaning out, opened the door. His grin broadened.

“What did you say the address was?” he inquired.

“The one I gave you will do for the present,” Billy Kane answered quietly. “I’ll let you know where to stop. Get up there as fast as you can. I’m paying for speed to-night. Get the idea?”

“Leave it to me!” said the chauffeur. “Hop in!”

Billy Kane settled back in the seat. The car swung out of the line, shot forward, and took the first corner on little better than two wheels. Billy Kane smiled grimly. Between here and that purposely vague address in the Nineties which he had given, the chauffeur could very obviously be depended upon to do his part! In the meanwhile, and for the first time, he, Billy Kane, had an opportunity to study those scattered pieces of the puzzle in detail.

He lighted a cigarette. That there should be a will in Merxler’s safe at all had a nasty look—unless it were Merxler’s own will, which was altogether too highly improbable a supposition to be entertained seriously. And besides, in that case, what was Karlin’s, and Red Vallon’s, and the underworld’s interest in the matter? He shook his head decisively. The existence of a will did not tend to place young Merxler in an enviable light.

Merxler’s uncle, a man by the name of Theodore Rodgers, who had died some few months before, had been quite an intimate friend of David Ellsworth—that was where his, Billy Kane’s, personal knowledge of Merxler came from. He had met Rodgers several times at the old millionaire’s home; and once he had met the nephew there as well. The two did not get on very well together. Young Merxler was a notorious “high-roller.” Left a large fortune by his father two years ago, he had squandered it to the last copper. Theodore Rodgers, his uncle, had time and again, both privately and publicly, stated that he would have nothing more to do with the boy. That was the gist of it. It had occasioned some surprise then that, when Rodgers had died, it was found that he had taken no steps to keep his money, what he had of it, some sixty or seventy thousand dollars, out of the young spendthrift’s hands. But no will had been found. Rodgers was a bachelor; young Clayton Merxler was a dead sister’s only son—and Merxler had inherited as next of kin, and had promptly moved his family—he was married—into his late uncle’s residence.