Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

Billy Kane nodded again by way of answer. He watched Red Vallon thread his way back among the tables, and pass out through the front door. With the gangster out of the way, he picked up the sheet of paper upon which the code message was written, studied it for a moment, then thrust it into his pocket—and his glance travelled to the table opposite to him and against the wall, where that slim little figure in black was seated. She appeared to be quite indifferent to his presence, and quite intent upon the consumption of a glass of milk and the sandwich on the plate before her.

Billy Kane smiled with grim comprehension. The frugality of the meal was not without its object. It was fairly obvious that she could dispose of what was before her in short order, and leave the place at an instant’s notice without inviting undesirable attention to an unfinished meal—if she so desired! It was his move. She had followed Red Vallon in, but she had not followed Red Vallon out—she was waiting for him, Billy Kane. The seat she had chosen had been in plain view of Red Vallon, therefore she was evidently free from any fear of recognition on the part of the gangster, and, as a logical corollary, from probably anybody else in the room. That she gave no sign now therefore could mean but one thing. It was his move. If he cared to cross swords with her here, he was at liberty to do so; if he had reasons of his own for preferring a less public meeting, he had only to leave the place—and she would undoubtedly follow.

In one sense she was most solicitous of his welfare! She would do nothing to hamper or hinder him in protecting himself, as long as he continued to double-cross and render abortive the crimes of that inner circle of the underworld in which she believed him to be a leader; failing that, as she had already made it quite clear, she proposed, as near as he could solve the riddle, to expose some past crime of the Rat’s to the police, and end his career via the death chair in Sing Sing. Also she had made her personal feelings toward him equally clear—she held for him a hatred that was as deep-seated as it was merciless and deadly.

He shrugged his shoulders. He, by proxy, stood in the shoes of one who, seemingly, had done her some irreparable wrong, and since she would dog him all night until she had had the interview that she evidently proposed to have, it might as well be here as anywhere. It mattered very little to him, as the Rat, that he should be observed by those in the room to get up from his table and walk over to hers. He was not being watched in the sense that anyone held surveillance over him, and, in any case, the conventions here in the heart of the underworld were of too elastic a character to have it cause even comment; and, besides, in a few hours from now, if luck were with him, he would be through with all this, done with this miserable rôle of super-crook, which, though it brought a new and greater peril at every move he made, was the one thing that, for the present, he was dependent upon for his life.

He rose, crossed the room nonchalantly, and dropped as nonchalantly into the chair at the end of her table, his back to the door.

She greeted him with a smile—but it was a smile of the lips only. The dark eyes, under the long lashes, studied him in a cold, uncompromising stare; and there was mockery in their depths, but deeper than the mockery there was contempt and disdain.

A cigarette, pulled lazily from his pocket and lighted, preserved his appearance of unconcern. In spite of himself, in spite of the fact that that contemptuous stare was his only through a damnable and abhorrent proxy, he felt suddenly ill at ease. He had never seen her as closely as this before. He had only seen her twice before—once in the dark; and once with the width of the Rat’s den separating them. He had been conscious then that she was attractive, beautiful, with her clustering masses of brown hair, and the dainty poise of her head, and the pure whiteness of her full throat; but he was conscious now that beyond the mere beauty of features lay steadfastness and strength, that in the sweetness of the face there was, too, a wistfulness, do what she would to hide it, and that there was strain there, and weariness. And he was suddenly conscious, too, that he disliked the rôle of the Rat more than he had ever disliked it, and that the loathing in those eyes, which never left his face, was responsible for this added distaste of the fact that nature had, through some cursed and perverted sense of humor or malevolence, seen fit to make him the counterpart of a wanton rogue, and, worse still, seen fit to force upon him the enactment of that rôle.

He could not tell her that he was not the Rat, could he?—that he was Billy Kane! Would the loathing in those eyes have grown the less at that? Billy Kane—the thief, the Judas assassin, whose name was a byword throughout the length and breadth of the land at that moment, whose name was a synonym for everything that was vile and hideous and depraved! He was the Rat—until to-night was over! After that—well, after that, who knew? Now, he was the Rat, and he must play the Rat’s part.

She broke the silence, her voice cool and even:

“I left it entirely to you as to whether you would come over to this table here or not.”