“It’ll break your heart, Karlin, won’t it, to think I spent two thousand five hundred dollars of your money! That’s the joke, Karlin! It’s rich, isn’t it? And I just want to tell you, too, that you had the will in your own hands once—and overlooked the bet! That’s where you slipped up, Karlin. It was the day my uncle died, and we were going over the papers together. It was in a plain, unsealed envelope—and didn’t look like anything. You tossed it on a heap of other stuff to be looked into later—all you could think of was counting stocks and bonds, getting your fingers into money—that you didn’t know was yours—some of it, anyway! I was looking for something else—and found it. I only had to read about two words and see that it was in my uncle’s handwriting, and—well, since you’re the executor, you’ll find it enclosed herewith!
Clayton Merxler.”
Billy Kane refolded the papers, returned them to the envelope, restored the envelope and flashlight to his pockets, and leaned back in his seat. The taxi lurched and swayed along at a pace that gave small deference or heed to speed laws. Billy Kane stared out of the window.
The letter was viciously facetious, callous and unscrupulous. The boy was a self-confessed and blatantly unrepentant thief. In that at least his first supposition had evidently been justified, and it was quite clear now why Merxler had not destroyed the will—but otherwise the whole affair had now assumed an entirely different aspect. Instead of Karlin being in league with Merxler, Karlin, unknown to Merxler, it now appeared, was aware of the existence of the will—and Karlin, if she had not exaggerated, meant murder. And, since no one else was involved, meant Merxler’s murder.
Billy Kane’s face hardened in perplexity. But why? What could Karlin hope to gain thereby? Certainly it was not on account of the little legacy of two thousand five hundred dollars—Karlin had only to expose the fact that the will existed to obtain that. And that applied equally to the executorship. And what good could the executorship do Karlin? With the stocks and bonds there open to inspection and their value known, Karlin’s executorship could afford no opportunity for crooked work—he could simply turn the securities into cash, turn the cash over to the various charities, and the cash must correspond with the valuation of the estate’s schedule of assets. Why, then—murder? Personal enmity? No; Red Vallon and the underworld were interested in this, and the enmity that had caused Merxler to preserve the will, an enmity that no doubt was fully returned by Karlin, had nothing to do with Red Vallon and the rest.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by. The taxi reached the lower section of the city. Billy Kane still stared from the window, his face still hard in perplexity. Murder! No, he did not understand. But there was still the “back room at Jerry’s”—where he was going now! Did the answer lie there? Jerry’s, safely entrenched in one of the most abandoned neighborhoods of the city, was a gambling hell that yet boasted a certain exclusiveness—and its patrons quite made good the boast. It was an open secret that men whose names ranked high in the city’s commercial and professional world went there for their fling. Jerry, it was said, was an ex-croupier from Monte Carlo, and had brought the spirit of Monte Carlo with him. He, Billy Kane, had heard of the place often enough—the entertainment was lavish, the play unlimited. Did the answer lie there—in the back room at Jerry’s? He shrugged his shoulders philosophically now, and a grim little smile came and flickered across his lips. Well, if there were any means by which an uninvited guest could gain access to that back room, he would know within a very few minutes now!
[XI—THE BACK ROOM AT JERRY’S]
The taxi drew up to the curb. Billy Kane’s hat was far over his eyes as he stepped out. He stood an instant debating with himself, then handed the chauffeur another bill. What might happen at Jerry’s he did not know—he was going it blind again. But as a means of retreat, a taxi waiting around the corner would at least add to his chances, if necessity arose. And a chauffeur well paid was a guarantee of fidelity than which there was none better.
“You’ve struck a gold mine to-night,” he said coolly. “I may be gone half an hour, or I may be gone an hour—wait for me.”
“You bet your life, I’ll wait!” said the chauffeur fervently. “I——”
Billy Kane was hurrying down the street. He turned the first corner, and headed along the intersecting street, that was dark, narrow and deserted. He passed another cross street, and thereafter counted the houses as he went along. Here tenements and the old-fashioned dwellings of New York’s early days incongruously rubbed shoulders with one another. Jerry’s, he found, was the fifth house from the cross street. There was no mistaking Jerry’s. It was one of the old private dwellings, and it had been pointed out to him more than once. He returned to the cross street, turned down it, slipped into the lane that passed in the rear of the houses he had just inspected from the front, and, guardedly now, making his way silently along, he again counted the buildings that here in the darkness loomed up like black, uncouth shapes against the sky line. He stopped in the rear of the fifth house. Here and there a thread of light showed from a window, but it was a stealthy light, a light that played truant through the interstices of closed shutters, or seeped perhaps through the folds of curtains hanging inadvertently awry. It was abnormally dark, and in the darkness there seemed to lurk a somber secrecy, like a pall, cloaking evil things.