Her Forbidden Knight

by Rex Stout

  Three men burst into the room, the foremost exclaiming, “Here he is!” as he ran to Knowlton, who had fallen back several steps from the door.

  And then Knowlton understood Lila’s plan, simple and admirable. In an instant his brain cleared, and, realizing that Lila had taken the package of counterfeit money—the evidence—with her into the alcove, he decided on his own plan of action.

  Turning suddenly, just as the man nearest him was about to grasp him by the shoulder, he sprang aside with the swiftness and agility of a panther and disappeared into the room beyond, toward the rear. As he had foreseen, the three men, all of them, rushed after him and found him standing by a window looking out on the rear court, laughing gaily.

  “Why all the excitement?” he queried pleasantly. “Did you think I was trying to run away?”

  The leader of the detectives, a heavy, red-faced man with carroty hair, grunted.

  “Get him!” he said to his companions.

  Then Knowlton had need of all his composure. But he was not thinking of himself. As the two detectives grasped him roughly and handcuffed his wrists and led him back into the room in front, he was saying to himself. “She had plenty of time. But was that what she meant? It must have been. But where did she go?”

  He dared not glance at the alcove; he felt that his eyes would have burned a hole through the curtain.

  Then the detectives began a search of the rooms.

  “I’m sure the stuff is here,” said the red-faced man, “and we’ve got to find it. You might save us the trouble,” he added, turning to Knowlton. “What’s the use? The game’s up. Where is it?”

  Knowlton did not answer. He was leaning forward in an agony of anxiety, watching one of the detectives, who had just approached the alcove and grasped the curtain.

  He pulled the curtain aside, letting the gaslight stream into the alcove, and Knowlton barely suppressed a cry of joy. It was empty.

  Then he replied to the man who had spoken to him:

  “If you’ll tell me what you want I may be of some assistance. Everything I own is in that trunk and suitcase,” pointing to them.

  “Huh!” the red-faced man grunted. “Going to beat it, eh? Open ’em up, boys, while I look him over. Got a key for the trunk?”

  Knowlton drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and tossed it to one of the men, then submitted himself to be searched. The detective took several miscellaneous articles from the young man’s pockets, then a pocketbook. This he opened expectantly; but as he examined its contents there appeared on his face an expression of keen disappointment.

  “What the deuce!” he exclaimed. “Where do you keep it?”

  “I have said,” Knowlton replied, “that I have no idea what you are looking for. If you will tell me—”

  “Cut it!” said the other roughly. “I guess you’re a wise one, all right, but what’s the use? I tell you we’ve got enough on you already to send you up. You might as well talk straight.”

  Knowlton was silent. The red-faced man glared at him for a moment, then walked over to aid the others in their search of the trunk and suitcase.

  They pulled out clothing and toilet articles and books, and heaped them indiscriminately on the floor, while Knowlton looked on with a grim smile. Now and then oaths of disappointment came from the lips of the searchers.

  Suddenly one of them uttered a cry of triumph and drew forth a neatly wrapped brown paper parcel. The leader took a knife from his pocket, cut the string of the parcel, and tore away the wrapper with eager fingers, disclosing to view—a stack of real-estate contracts.

  “The deuce!” he ejaculated. “You’re a boob, Evans.”

  Again they set to work.

  Soon they finished with the trunk and suitcase and began on the rooms themselves. Nothing escaped them. They took the covers and mattress from the bed and shook each separately.

  The couch was turned upside down and examined with probes. The drawers in the bureaus and tables and wardrobes were removed, and the interiors of the articles subjected to a close scrutiny. They raked out the dust and rubbish from the fireplace, and lifted the bricks.

  The search lasted nearly an hour. They found nothing.

  The red-faced man, muttering an oath, turned to Knowlton:

  “Well, we’ve got you, anyway, my boy. I guess you’ll find out you can’t play with Uncle Sam.”

  Then he turned to his men:

  “Come on, Evans, we’ll take him down. You stay here, Corliss, and look the place over again and keep an eye out. Try the fire escape—we didn’t look out there—and the dumbwaiter. The stuff ought to be here somewhere. If you find anything let me know; if not, report at the office in the morning as usual. Come along, Knowlton.”

  “But where?” Knowlton stood up. “And on what authority? And for what?”

  “To the Ritz, for dinner,” said the red-faced man sarcastically, while the others grinned delightedly at the keen wit of their superior. “Where d’ye suppose? To the Tombs. I suppose next you’ll want to see the paper. Here it is.”

  He drew a stamped, official-looking document from his pocket and waved it about in front of Knowlton’s face.

  The young man said nothing further, but allowed himself to be led out of the rooms into the hall.

  “Is it necessary—must I wear these on the street?” he stammered, holding up his shackled hands.

  The red-faced man eyed him grimly.

  “I guess two of us can take care of you,” he said finally. “Take off the irons, Evans.”

  The other removed the handcuffs from Knowlton’s wrists, and they descended the stairs and passed out to the street, one on either side of the prisoner.

  Half an hour later Knowlton was pacing the floor of a narrow cell in the Tombs prison, with a heart full of remorse and bitterness and despair.

  Yet he had no thought of his own danger, but was possessed of a fearful anxiety for Lila. Where had she gone? What had she done? Alone on the street at night, and with such a burden—the burden of his own crime! He felt that the thought would drive him mad, and he bit his lips to keep himself from crying out.

  He thought of her magnificent courage in the awful scene at his rooms, and his eyes filled with tears. How brave and daring she had been! And how it must have hurt her innocence and proud womanhood to have been driven to such extremities for him—a criminal!

  He told himself that she would despise him.

  “She loves you,” said his heart; “do not insult her by doubting it.” Yes, but women sometimes despise the man they love. What a weak, blind fool he had been!

  He groaned aloud in unutterable anguish. Piercing, overpowering emotion caused him to tremble and shake as a man with the palsy. He threw himself on the floor of the cell by the prison cot and buried his face in his hands.

  He remained thus for an hour. Then he rose and seated himself on the edge of the cot.

  “After all,” he thought, “this, too, is weakness, and I must fight it. She has said that she loves me. Very well. I shall get out of this, and I have a lifetime to prove myself worthy of her. It is useless to waste time on vain regrets. Oh! She has given me strength. Every minute of my life belongs to her. And I said I didn’t want to lose my self-respect! If I ever regain it, it will be through her.”

  Finally, after many hours of alternate despair and anxiety and resolution, he threw himself face downward on the cot, utterly exhausted, and slept.

  We shall leave him there and return to Lila.

  Her plan, swiftly conceived and perfectly executed, had worked admirably.

  Her hiding place behind the curtain in the alcove exactly suited her purpose, for the curtain was flimsy and transparent, and, placed as it was between herself and the light, she was able to observe what took place in the room without any danger of being seen herself.

  She had trusted to Knowlton’s wit, and he had not failed her. As soon as the detectives had rushed to the rear of the apartment in pursuit of him she had quietly stepped forth f
rom her hiding place and gained the outer hall, closing the door softly behind her.

  There she hesitated. Her first impulse was to descend at once to the street. But what if some one had been left on guard below? Was it not likely that she would be stopped and questioned; and the telltale parcel examined?

  She stood for a few seconds trying to decide what to do; then, at the sound of returning footsteps in the room she had just left, fled in a sudden panic up the stairs to the landing above.

  She realized the thousand dangers of her position. What if a detective had been sent up to guard the roof and should return and find her? What if some tenant of the house, entering or leaving, should question her? What if one of the detectives below should happen to ascend the stairs?

  And yet, what could she do? Nothing. She must remain where she was and wait. To go either up or down might be fatal.

  She tried to think of some way to get rid of the parcel, which weighed on her arm with all the heaviness of fear. She hated it as though it were a human being. Fantastic schemes raced into her brain.

  Should she ring the bell of one of the apartments and hand in the parcel as though it were a delivery from some tradesman? Should she place it on the floor of the hall and set it afire?

  Suddenly the street door opened two flights below, and she heard footsteps entering and ascending the stairs. She quivered with terror, and felt a wild impulse to rush madly down and hurl the parcel into the street.

  Then, just in time to prevent her crying out, the footsteps halted on the landing below, and there came the sound of a key turning in a lock and a door opening and closing. Evidently the person who had entered had been the tenant on the same floor with Knowlton, across the hall. She sighed with unutterable relief.

  Many minutes passed, and each seemed to Lila an hour. What could the detectives be doing? Why did they not go, since they could have found nothing? For she thought, in her ignorance, that by her removal of the counterfeit money she had saved Knowlton from arrest. Her ideas of the manner of procedure of the law and its minions were extremely hazy, as those of a young girl should be. She was soon to be undeceived.

  She waited, it seemed to her, for years. She felt faint and dizzy from fatigue and anxiety, her body was limp and nerveless, and she was telling herself that she must soon succumb, when she heard a door open in the hall below. At last!

  There were footsteps, and Knowlton’s voice came up to her:

  “Is it necessary—must I wear these on the street?”

  Then came the reply of the detective, and the sound of clinking steel, and steps descending the stairs, and the opening and closing of the street door.

  Lila stood dumb with amazement. The meaning of what she had heard was clear to her: they had arrested him and were taking him to prison! But why? Was there something else of which she did not know? But she tossed that thought aside impatiently.

  Knowlton had told her his story in detail, and she trusted him. But—prison! She shuddered with horror, and felt herself unable to stand, grasping at the baluster for support.

  It was the necessity for action alone that sustained and roused her. To meet this new crisis she forgot her weakness of a moment before, and became again the courageous and daring woman she had been at the arrival of the detectives. She no longer hesitated or feared. She had something to do that must be done.

  Holding the parcel tightly under her arm, she descended the stairs. As she passed through the hall in front of Knowlton’s rooms the detective who had been left behind to complete the search for evidence looked out at her through the open door. Her heart beat madly, but she forced herself not to hasten her step as she descended the first flight of stairs to the outer door.

  Another moment and she was in the street—free.

  She glanced to the right and left, uncertain which way to turn. What should she do with the parcel? She wondered why it seemed so difficult to get rid of the thing. Surely nothing could be simpler than to dispose of an ordinary-looking parcel, a foot square.

  One could drop it in an ash can, or leave it on a bench in the park, or merely place it on a stoop—any stoop—anywhere. But somehow to do any of these things seemed fraught with horrible danger. She could have cried with exasperation at her hesitation over a difficulty apparently so simple.

  Suddenly she remembered what Knowlton had said: “It is best to be safe, and I shall take it to the river.” Of course! Why had she not thought of it before?

  She turned sharply, and as she turned noticed a man standing directly across the street gazing curiously at the house she had just left. At sight of him she started violently, and looked again. It was Sherman. There could be no doubt of it; the light from a streetlamp shone full on his face.

  The spot where Lila was standing was comparatively dark, and as Sherman remained motionless she was convinced that she had not been recognized. But she was seized with terror, and, fearing every moment to hear his footsteps behind her, but not daring to look round, she turned and moved rapidly in the direction of the Hudson.

  Ten minutes later she entered the ferry-house at the foot of West Twenty-third Street. A boat was in the slip and she boarded it and walked to the farther end.

  She leaned on the rail, gazing toward the bay, as the boat glided away from the shore, and almost forgot her anxiety and her errand in contemplating the fairyland before her eyes.

  The myriads of tiny twinkling lights with their background of mysterious half darkness, the skeletonlike forms of the massive buildings, barely revealed, and farther south, the towering outlines of the palaces of industry, were combined in a fantastic dream-picture of a modern monster.

  Lila looked up, startled to find that the ferryboat had already reached the middle of the river. She glanced round to make sure she was not observed—there were few passengers on the boat—then quickly lifted the parcel over the rail and let it fall into the dark water below.

  She could hardly realize that it was gone. Her arm was numb where it had been tightly pressed against the parcel, and it felt as though it still held its burden. She felt tired, and faint, and walked inside and seated herself.

  When the boat arrived at the Jersey City slip she did not land. A half hour later she left it at Twenty-third Street. Another half hour and she was ascending the stairs to her room uptown.

  Entering, she removed her hat and coat and threw them on a chair. She was tired, dead tired, in brain and body. She wanted to think: she told herself she had so much to think about.

  The face of her world had changed utterly in the past few hours. But thought was impossible. She felt only a dull, listless sense of despair.

  She had gained love, but what had she lost? Everything else had been given up in exchange for it. But how she loved him!

  But even that thought was torture. Her head seemed ready to burst. Tears would have been a relief, but they would not come.

  She dropped into a chair by the window, and, pressing her hands tightly against her throbbing temples, gazed out unseeing at the night.

  When the dawn came, eight hours later, she had not moved.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  The End of the Day

  WHEN BILLY SHERMAN HAD VISITED DETECTIVE Barrett—the red-faced man with carroty hair—and had heard him say, “We will get Mr. Knowlton tonight,” he knew that the thing was as good as done. Detective Barrett was a man to be depended upon.

  But Billy Sherman never depended upon anybody. He made the rather common mistake of judging humanity from the inside—of himself—and the result was that he had acquired a distorted opinion of human nature. His topsyturvy logic went something like this, though not exactly in this form: “I am a man. I am bad. Therefore, all men are bad.”

  And there is more of that sort of reasoning in the world than we are willing to admit.

  Sherman did not go so far as to distrust Detective Barrett, but he had an idea that he wanted to see the thing for himself. Accordingly, shortly after six o’clock in the evening he posted himse
lf in a doorway opposite Knowlton’s rooms on Thirtieth Street.

  He had been there but a few minutes when he was startled by the sight of Lila approaching and entering the house. This led to a long consideration of probabilities which ended in a grim smile. He thought: “If they get her, too, all the better. Barrett’s a good fellow, and I can do whatever I want with her.”

  Soon a light appeared in the windows of Knowlton’s rooms. The shades were drawn, but the man in the street could see two shadows thrown on them as the occupants moved about inside.

  Suddenly the two shadows melted into one, and Sherman found the thing no longer amusing. Cursing the detectives for their tardiness, he repaired to the corner for a bracer.

  He soon returned and resumed his position in the doorway.

  After another interminable wait he saw Detective Barrett arrive with his men, and with fierce exultation watched them enter.

  Another wait—this time nearly an hour—before two of the detectives emerged with Knowlton. This puzzled Sherman. “Where the deuce is Lila?” he muttered. Then he reflected that the other detective was probably waiting with her for a conveyance.

  And then, to his astonishment, he beheld Lila descending the stoop alone.

  She was half a block away before he recovered his wits sufficiently to follow her.

  On the ferryboat he mounted to the upper deck to escape observation, completely at a loss to account for Lila’s freedom, or for this night trip across the Hudson. Looking cautiously over the upper railing, he had observed her every movement as she stood almost directly beneath him.

  And then, as he saw her lift the parcel and drop it in the river, he had comprehended all in a flash. Stifling the exclamation that rose to his lips, he shrank back from the rail, muttering an imprecation.

  Somehow she had obtained possession of the evidence—the chief evidence—against Knowlton, and destroyed it! And he had calmly looked on, like a weak fool! Why had he not had sense enough to stop her when she had first left the house? These were the thoughts that whipped him into a frenzy of rage.