“Why did you do that?”
“I was going to thrust it through a window to attract attention. It was too heavy.”
This explanation was within bounds of reason. It is possible that Karlov—who had merely come up with a fresh candle—would have departed but for a peculiarly grim burst of humour on the part of Fate.
Tap—tap—tap? inquired the unsuspecting man on the roof—exactly to Kitty like some innocent, inquisitive child embarrassing the family before company.
Karlov flung her aside roughly, stepped under the trap, and cupped an ear. He required no explanations from Kitty, who shrank to the wall and remained pinned there by terror. Karlov's intuition was keen. Men on the roof held but one significance. The house was surrounded by Federal agents. For a space he wavered between two desires, the political and the private vengeance.
A call down the stairs, and five minutes afterward there would be nothing on the spot but a jumble of smoking wood and brick. But not to see them die!
His subsequent acts, cold and methodical, fascinated Kitty. He took a step toward her. The scream died in her throat. But he did not go beyond that step. The picture of her terror decided his future actions. He would see them die, here, with the girl looking on. A full measure. Well enough he knew who were digging away the cement of the trap. What gave lodgment to this conviction he did not bother to analyze. The man he had not yet seen, who had balked him, now here, now there, from that first night; and who but the last of that branch of the hated house should be with him? To rend, batter, crush, kill! If he were bound for hell, to go there with the satisfaction of knowing that his private vengeance had been cancelled. The full reckoning for Anna's degradation: Stefani Gregor, broken and dying, and all the others dead!
He would shoot them as they dropped through the trap. Not to kill, but to maim, render helpless; then he would taunt them and grind his heels in their faces. Up there, the two he most hated of all living men!
First he restored Kitty's barricade—to keep assistance from entering before his work was completed. The butt of the first plank he pushed under the door knob. The other planks he laid flat, end to end, with the butt of the last snug against the brick chimney. The door would never give as a whole; it would have to be smashed in by axes. He then set the candle on the floor, backed by an up-ended soapbox. His enemies would drop into a pool of light, while they would not be able to see him at once. The girl would not matter. Her terror would hold her for some time. These manoeuvres completed, he answered the signal, sat down on another box and waited, reminding Kitty of some grotesque Mongolian idol.
Kitty saw the inevitable. Thereupon her terror ceased to bind her. As Cutty flung back the trap she would cry out a warning. Karlov might—and probably would—kill her. Her share in this night's work—her incredible folly—required full payment. Having decided to die with Cutty, all her courage returned. This is the normal result of any sublime resolve. But with the return of her courage she evolved another plan. She measured the distance between herself and Karlov, calculating there would be three strides. As Cutty dropped she would fling herself upon the madman. The act would at least give Cutty something like equal terms. What became of Kitty Conover thereafter was of no importance to the world.