The City of Fire

by Grace Livingston Hill

IX

After Billy had listened a long time he took a single step to relieve his cramped toes, which were numb with the tensity of his strained position. Stealthily as he could he moved his shoe, but it seemed to grind loudly upon the cement floor of the cellar, and he stopped frozen in tensity again to listen. After a second he heard a low growl as if someone outside the house were speaking. Then all was still. After a time he heard the steps again, cautiously, walking over his head, and his spine seemed to rise right up and lift him, as he stood trembling. He wasn't a bit superstitious, Billy wasn't. He knew there was no such thing as a ghost, and he wasn't going to be fooled by any noises whatsoever, but anybody would admit it was an unpleasant position to be in, pinned in a dark unfamiliar cellar without a flash light, and steps coming overhead, where only a dead man or a doped man was supposed to be. He cast one swift glance back at the cobwebby window through which he had so recently arrived, and longed to be back again, out in the open with the bells, the good bells sounding a call in his ears. If he were out wouldn't he run? Wouldn't he even leave his old bicycle to any fate and run? But no! He couldn't! He would have to come back inevitably. Whoever was upstairs in that house alone and in peril he must save. Suppose—!—His heart gave a great dry sob within him and he turned away from the dusty exit that looked so little now and so inadequate for sudden flight.

The steps went on overhead shuffling a little louder, as they seemed further off. They were climbing the stair he believed. They wore rubber heels! Link had worn rubber heels! And Shorty's shoes were covered with old overshoes! Had they come back, perhaps to hide from their pursuers? His heart sank. If that were so he must get out somehow and go after the police, but that should be his last resort. He didn't want to get any one else in this scrape until he knew exactly what sort of a scrape it was. It wasn't square to anybody—not square to the doped man, not square to himself, not even square to Pat and the other two, and—yes, he must own it,—not square to Cart. That was his first consideration, Cart! He must find Cart. But first he must find out somehow who that man was that had been kidnapped.

It seemed an age that he waited there in the cellar and everything so still. Once he heard a door far up open, and little shuffling noises, and by and by he could not stand it any longer. Getting down softly on all fours, he crept slowly, noiselessly over to the cellar stairs, and began climbing, stopping at every step to listen. His efforts were much hampered by the milk bottle which kept dragging down to one side and threatening to hit against the steps. But he felt that milk was essential to his mission. He dared not go without it. The tools were in his other pocket. They too kept catching in his sleeve as he moved cautiously. At last he drew himself to the top step. There was a crack of light under the door. Suppose it should be locked? He could saw out a panel, but that would make a noise, and he still had the feeling that someone was in that house. A cellar was not a nice place in which to be trapped. One bottle of milk wouldn't keep him alive very long. The haunted house was a great way from anywhere. Even the bells couldn't call him from there, once anybody chose to fasten him in the cellar, and find the loose window and fasten it up—!

Such thoughts poured a torrent of hot fire through his brain while his cold fingers gripped the door knob, and slowly, fiercely, compellingly, made it turn in its socket till its rusty old spring whined in complaint, and then he held his breath to listen again. It seemed an age before he dared put any weight upon that unlatched door to see if it would move, and then he did it so cautiously that he was not sure it was opening till a ray of light from a high little window shot into his eyes and blinded him. He held the knob like a vise, and it was another age before he dared slowly release the spring and relax his hand. Then he looked around. He found himself in a kind of narrow butler's pantry with a swinging door opposite him into the room at the back, and a narrow passage leading around the corner next the door. He peeked cautiously, blinkingly round the door jamb and saw the lower step of what must be back stairs. There were no back stairs in Aunt Saxon's house, but before his mother died Billy Gaston had lived in the city where they always had back stairs. That door before him likely led to the dining-room. He took a careful step, pushed the swing door half an inch and satisfied himself that was the kitchen at the back. No one there. Another step or two gave him the same assurance about the dining-room and no one there. He surveyed the distance to the foot of the back stairs. It seemed long. What he was afraid of was that light space at the foot of those stairs. He was almost sure there was a hall straight through to the front door, and he had a hunch that that front door was open. If he passed the steps and anyone was there they would see him, and yet he wanted to get up those stairs now, right away, before anything more happened. It was too still up there to suit him. With trembling fingers he untied his shoe strings, and slipped off his shoes, knotting the strings together and slinging the shoes around his neck. He was taking no chances. He gripped the revolver with one hand and stole out cautiously. When he reached the end of the dining-room wall he applied an eye toward the opening of light, and behold it was as he had suspected, a hall leading straight through to the front door, and Shorty, with his full length profile cut clear against the morning, standing on the upper step keeping lookout! He dodged back and caught his breath, then made a noiseless dart toward those stairs. If Shorty heard, or if he turned and saw anything he must have thought it was the reported ghost walking, so silently and like a breath passed Billy up the stair. But when he was come to the top, he held his breath again, for now he could distinctly hear steps walking about in the room close at hand, and peering up he saw the door was open part way. He paused again to reconnoitre and his heart set up an intolerable pounding in his breast.

He could dimly make out the back of a chair, and further against a patch of light where the back window must be he could see the foot board of a bed, the head of which must be against the opposite wall The door was open about a third of the way. There was a key in the lock. Did that mean that they locked the man in? It would be a great thing to get hold of that key!

A moan in the direction of the bed startled him, and prodded his weary mind. He gave a quick silent spring across in front of the door and flattened himself against the wall. He knew he had made a slight noise in his going, and he felt the stillness in the room behind the half open door. Link had heard him. It was a long time before he dared stir again.

Link seemed to lay down something on the floor that sounded like a dish and start toward the door. Billy felt the blood fly to the top of his head. If Link came out he was caught. Where could he fly? Not down stairs. Shorty was there, with a gun of course. Would it do to snap that door shut and lock Link in with the prisoner? No telling what he might do, and Shorty would come if there was an outcry. He waited in an agony of suspense, but Link did not come out yet. Instead he tiptoed back to the bed again, and seemed to be arranging some things out of a basket on a little stand by the bed. Billy applied an eye to the crack of the door and got a brief glimpse. Then cautiously he put out his stubby fingers and grasped that key, firmly, gently; turning, slipping, little by little, till he had it safe in his possession. Several times he thought Link turned and looked toward the door. Once he almost dropped the key as he was about to set it free from the lock, but his anxious fingers were true to their trust, and the key was at last drawn back and safely slid into Billy's pocket. Then he looked around for a place to hide. There were rooms on the front, and a door was open. He could slide in there and hide. It was dark, and there might be a closet. He cast one eye through the door crack and beheld in the dim light Link bending over the inert figure on the bed with a cup and spoon in his hand. Perhaps they were giving him more dope! If he only could stop it somehow! The man was doped enough, sleeping all that time! But now was the time for him and the key to make an exit.

Slowly, cautiously he backed away from the door, down the hall and into the next open door, groping his silent way toward a little half moon in the shutter. He made a quick calculation, glanced about, did some sleight of hand with the door till it swung noiselessly shut, and then slipping back to the window he examined the catches. There was a pane of glass gone, but it was not in the right place. If he only could manage to slide the sash down. He turned the catch and applied a pressure to the upper sash, but like most upper sashes it would not budge. If he strained harder he might be able to move it but that would make a noise and spoil his purpose. He looked wildly round the room, with a feeling that something must help him, and suddenly he discovered that the upper sash of the other window was pulled all the way down, and a sweet breath of wild grape blossoms was being wafted to his heated forehead. With a quick move he placed himself under this window, which he realized must be almost over Shorty's head. It was but the work of an instant to grasp Pat's gun and stick its nose well through the little half moon of an opening in the shutter, pointed straight over Shorty's head into the woods, and pull the trigger.

The report went rolling, reverberating down the valley from hill to hill like a whole barrage it seemed to Billy; and perhaps to Shorty waiting for his pard below, but at any rate before the echoes had ceased to roll Shorty was no longer on the door step. He had vanished and was far away, breaking through the underbrush, stumbling, and cutting himself, getting up to stumble again, he hurled himself away from that haunted spot. Ghosts were nothing to Shorty. He could match himself against a spirit any day, but ghosts that could shoot were another matter, and he made good his going without hesitation or needless waiting for his partner in crime. He was never quite sure where that shot came from, whether from high heaven or down beneath the earth.