Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

The ex-croupier opened the door, and was instantly continental in both manner and speech. He bowed profoundly, as a young man entered.

“Ah, Monsieur Merxler—a great pleasure! I was telling Monsieur Karlin that——”

Billy Kane had drawn slightly back from the window. His lips were thinned, compressed. The fiendishness of it all had got him now—Karlin with his suave, oily, Judas smile, preening at his Vandyke beard—and Merxler, for all that he had played the fool for several years now, still with a frank and boyish face, his broad shoulders squared back as he laughed a pleasant greeting. There was a whiteness in Billy Kane’s face, a whiteness that was like to the fury, no longer cold, that was white-hot in his soul. Murder! Well, perhaps—but it would not be Merxler’s murder! He whipped his mask from his pocket, and adjusted it swiftly over his face. His fingers automatically tested the mechanism of his revolver, as he again looked in through the window. The ex-croupier was bowing himself out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Quick and silent now in every movement, Billy Kane crept around the corner of the house, and crouched before the shuttered French doors. He had a minute, perhaps two at the outside, in which to act before Karlin’s confederates entered the room. He tapped softly with his revolver on the shutters—three raps, a single rap, two raps; he repeated it—three raps, a single rap, two raps.

From within a step came hurriedly across the floor, there was the faint clashing of the curtain rings again as the portières were drawn aside, and through the interstices of the shutters came little gleams of light. Billy Kane shifted his grip upon his revolver—to the muzzle end. The doors opened a few inches cautiously. And then Karlin’s voice:

“Who’s there? What—”

But Billy Kane was in action now, and the words ended in a wild shout of alarm. His left hand shot forward like a flash into the opening, wrenching the doors wide apart; and, lithe as a panther in its spring, he launched himself forward, and struck with the butt of his revolver, struck as he would have struck at a mad dog, full on Karlin’s head.

There was a crash as the man went limply, senseless, to the floor, and another cry, from Merxler now, and then, dazing Billy Kane for an instant by the sudden and unexpected onslaught, Merxler had sprung and locked his arms around him in a grip of steel. They crashed against the table, upsetting it.

“Let go!” Billy Kane panted frantically. “The hall door—lock it! You don’t understand!”

There was no answer from Merxler, save another hoarse shout for help. The boy was fighting like a demon. Here and there about the room they lurched, staggered, reeled, but Billy Kane was the stronger. It seemed only by inches, but still by inches they were nearing the hall door. There was something of ghastly irony in this frenzied effort of the boy to bar his own road to safety; but there was something fine in it too, something that, even as he fought, found recognition in Billy Kane’s mind. The boy, spendthrift though he might be, a fool with his money though he might be, was game to the core in standing by a man whom he believed to be his friend.