Doors of the Night

by Frank L. Packard

Billy Kane was creeping forward, and mounting the stairs step by step with infinite caution. They had disappeared now into Savnak’s room, presumably.

He had no choice, had he? The man-handling they would give Savnak would be little short of murder. Murder! His lips tightened. There was to have been murder in that room below there—wasn’t there? But that was different—one man was guilty, the other innocent. Much as it meant to him to settle with Peters, he had no choice but to let that go to-night now, if necessary—to let it go, if necessary, until to-morrow, or until he could formulate some other plan, for it was not likely that he could frustrate Red Vallon now, and still be left quietly to return to a reckoning with Peters.

His fingers closed in a sudden spasmodic clutch over the stock of his automatic. He had passed Peters’ door, and left it unlocked, and Peters might come in the meantime. Well, it didn’t matter now! His own luck was out! The night had done nothing but toss him hither and thither like a shuttlecock in mockery and sport. And at the last fate had played him this most scurvy trick of all. He could not stand aside and see an innocent man left to the mercy of a devil like Red Vallon, and so, instead of playing Billy Kane to Peters, he was playing the man in the mask to Red Vallon and Birdie Rose! And that jeering horde of imps out of the darkness were shrieking in his ears again!

He slid his mask over his face. He had reached the door over Peters’ flat, which Whitie Jack had described as Savnak’s. Red Vallon had failed to close it tightly behind him—perhaps unwilling to risk the chance of any additional sound. It was slightly ajar. A dull glow of light, as though from an inner room, seeped through the aperture. Came a sharp, startled exclamation, and then Red Vallon’s voice, snarling viciously:

“Come on! Come across! And come—quick!”

Billy Kane pushed the door open inch by inch, and suddenly slipped into the room. He was quite safe, providing he made no noise that would betray his presence. Across from him, at an angle that kept him out of the line of light, was the open door of what was obviously the front room of the apartment. Savnak had evidently been flung violently down into a chair; Birdie Rose’s fingers were crooked, claw-like, within an inch of the violinist’s throat; and Red Vallon, leaning on a table in front of the two, was leering at Savnak in ugly menace. Savnak was speaking, low and earnestly, but Billy Kane could not catch the man’s words. Red Vallon interrupted the other with scant ceremony.

“Can that!” he snarled. “It don’t go! That stagehand of yours ain’t got the goods—you got ’em. We’re wise to your game. We know you, Birdie and me, and you know we know it. How long you been cultivating the old Dutchman, and waiting for something worth while like to-night to break loose? Pinochle and a violin! Pretty nifty, that violin stunt! It helped a lot—we got in the same as that boob of yours did—while you was making enough noise fiddling to let an army in without being heard. Sure, you got a tricky nut on your shoulders, all right! It’s too bad, though, you don’t know enough not to stack up against a better crowd! And the guy turned out the gas to help him in his get-away, did he? Yes, he did—like hell! That’s where he slipped you the sparklers, old bucko! Well, we’ve got your number, ain’t we? We hung around after that to give you a chance to finish out the play. We’re with you there! Nothing suits us better than to have the police chasing some guy they don’t know, and that ain’t got the white ones anyhow! Come on now, come across!”

Billy Kane, like a man bewildered, mentally stunned, stood there motionless. A singsong refrain repeated itself crazily over and over again in his brain: “Savnak was the Mole! Savnak was the Mole!” He lifted his hand and swept it across his eyes. Savnak’s face in there in that room was working in a sort of livid fury. Yes, of course—Savnak was the Mole. It was quite clear now, quite plain—and the Mole was not lacking quite so much after all in craft and cunning! So Red Vallon had been in Vetter’s, too, had he? There came a sudden, grim set to Billy Kane’s lips. Well, at least, the diamonds were here now!

Savnak was speaking again.

“Who put you wise to this?” he demanded sullenly.