The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

“Presently—when I have thrown you out”—Raymond was calmly tucking up the skirts of his soutane. “And”—the flat of his hand landed with a stinging blow across the other's cheek—“you see that I do not take even you off your guard.”

The man reeled back—and then, with a bull-like roar of rage, head down, rushed at Raymond.

It was not Monsieur le Curé now—it was Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie, cold, contained, quick and lithe as a panther, and with a panther's strength. A crash—a lightning right whipped to the point of Bourget's jaw—and Bourget's head jolted back quivering on his shoulders like a tuning fork. And like a flash, before the other could recover, a left and right smashed full again into Bourget's face.

With a scream, Mother Blondin crawled and scuttled into the doorway of the inner room. The man, bellowing with mad dismay, his hands outstretched, his fingers crooked to tear at Raymond's flesh if they could but reach it, rushed again.

And now Raymond, wary of the other's strength and bulk, gave ground; and now he side-stepped and swung, battering his blows into Bourget's face; and now he ran craftily from the other. Chairs and table crashed to the floor; their heels crunched in the splinters of the broken bottle. The man's face began to bleed profusely from both nose and a cut lip. They were not tactics that Bourget understood. He clawed, he kept his head down, he rushed in blind clumsiness—and always Raymond was just beyond his reach.

Again and again they circled the room, Bourget, big, lumbering, awkward, futilely expending his strength, screaming oaths with gasping breath. And again and again, springing aside as the man charged blindly by, Raymond with a grim fury rained in his blows. It was something like that other night—here in Mother Blon-din's. She was shrieking again now from the doorway:

“Kill him! The misérable! Hah, Jacques Bourget, are you a jack-in-the-box only to bob your head backward every time you are hit! I did not bring the priest here! Sacré nom, you cannot blame me! I had nothing to do with it! Sacré nom—sacré nom—sacré nom—kill him!”

Kill who? Who did she mean—the man or himself? Raymond did not know. She was just a blurred object of rage and tumbled hair dancing in a frenzy up and down there in the doorway. He ran again. Bourget, like a stunned fool, was covering his face with his arms as he dashed forward. Ah, yes, Bourget was trying to crush him back into the corner there, and—no!—the maniacal rush had faltered, the man was swaying on his feet. And then Raymond, crouched to elude the man, sprang instead at the other's throat, his hands closed like a vise, and with the impact of his body both lurched back against the wall by the rear doorway.

“My son,” panted Raymond, “you remember—an eye for an eye”—he smashed the man's head back against the wall—and then, gathering all his strength, flung the other from him out through the open door.

The fight was out of the man. For a moment he lay sprawled on the grass. Then he raised himself up, and got upon his knees. His face was bruised and blood-stained almost beyond recognition. He shook both fists at Raymond.