Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

He moved silently forward now farther into the lane, keeping close to the wall in the darker shadows of the house. The old Hollander and his crony were obviously in the back room. He glanced sharply up and down the length of the building. He could see nothing. It was intensely dark. The wall of the house was blank. There were no windows opening on the lane.

An expression, grimly quizzical, settled on his face. It was a queer setting for a robbery, this unpretentious, even tumble-down, little shop, with its back-room living quarters! But the unpretentiousness of the old Hollander’s surroundings in no way argued poverty! He had known of Vetter by reputation, quite apart even from any connection with the East Side. The man had a clientele among the best in the city. He was an authority on diamonds. He dealt only in the choicest stones, and he was absolutely reliable and honest. The world of fashion had made a path to Vetter’s door, not he to theirs. In this ten-thousand-dollar consignment, for instance, there would probably not be more than fifty or sixty stones, not enough to make a small handful, but not one of them, probably, would be worth less than a hundred dollars, and most of them would be worth a great deal more.

Billy Kane reached the end of the building, and found that a board fence, some seven or eight feet high, continued on down the lane, obviously enclosing the back yard of the place. The violin throbbed on. The notes came clear and sweet, entirely unmuffled now, as though from an open window. He stood there for a moment listening. The playing was exquisite. It was some plaintive, haunting melody given life by a master touch. He remembered Whitie Jack’s description of the expatriated musician. Without question Savnak could “fiddle”; the man, in spite of having come a moral cropper, was, if he, Billy Kane, were any judge, little short of a genius.

Glancing sharply about him once more, Billy Kane, with a lithe spring, caught the top of the fence, and drew himself cautiously up until he could peer over. He hung there motionless for a moment. A few yards away from him, in a slightly diagonal direction, and between himself and the back door, was the window of the rear room; and, as he had suspected, the window was open. He could see inside; that is, in a restricted sense. A man, it was Savnak of course, chin on his violin, standing, was swaying gently to and fro on his feet to the tempo of the music, his back to the window; and at the table, side face to the window, but with his back toward Billy Kane, Vetter, the old Hollander, white-haired, sat rapt in attention, staring at the violinist.

Billy Kane drew himself further up, and straddled the fence. The position of the two men rendered him safe from observation. The notes of the violin, in a tremolo, died softly away. The old Hollander dug his knuckles across his eyes; and his words, spoken in perfect English, evidently the language common to the two men of diverse nationalities, reached Billy Kane distinctly:

“You are wonderful, my old friend Savnak. It is divine. My friend, you are wonderful.”

The violinist shrugged his shoulders.

“Once,” he said, “I could really play. Yes, I tell you, you who will believe me, that I could sway the people, that I could do with them as I would, that I——” He stopped abruptly, and shrugged his shoulders again. “But what is the use of memories? Memories! They are bad! They leave a bad taste! Let us forget them! You were to show me the great purchase that arrived to-day.”

“These!” The old Hollander took from his pocket what looked like a soft, pliable, chamois-skin pocketbook, which he opened and laid on the table, disclosing a cluster of gems that, nesting on a snowy bed of wadding, sparkled and scintillated as the rays of the gas jet above the table fell upon them; and then, impulsively closing the pocketbook again, he pushed it a little away from him. “They can wait!” he said. “By and by, we will look at them one by one. But they do not feed the soul, my Savnak, like your music. Play some more. They are not worth one of your notes.”

“Are they not?” Savnak’s voice seemed tinged with bitterness. “The soul may be well fed, Vetter, but that does not keep one often enough from tightening the belt! I think I would be fortunate to make the exchange—my gift, such as it is, for your diamonds.”