by Frank Cobb
CHAPTER IX
As Smith and Brown closed the door gently behind them, the four menlistened to the receding footsteps, then the three turned with oneimpulse and stared at the man lying bound and gagged on the cot.Although they studied him curiously, they found not a sign of flinchingor of fear in the bright, steady eyes that looked at them over thebandage. Instead, he wriggled his shoulders in a derisive way.
"I must say," said the man who had lost at cards, "this job is not atall to my taste. I have killed before, but to bump a man off in coldblood and sit around waiting for it to come three o'clock to do it, Idon't relish!"
"No other way out," said the short man. "Smith fixed that when he toldhim everything he knew. Now we can't let him go and save our own skins.He is too wise. I don't care, anyhow. Let him pass along! What's it tous?" He stared insolently at O'Brien, and the eyes smiled at him.
The third man, who had not spoken, shivered a little. "Let's have adrink," he suggested, going over to the table.
The fallen plaster puffed up under his feet as he went.
"You know Mr. Smith forbade it," said one of the others.
"I don't care!" said the first speaker. "How is he to know whether wehave a drink or not? He was afraid of us getting full." He held up thebottle. "There is only enough for three good drinks in there, and I amcold." Again he looked at O'Brien and shivered. It was evident that thejob of killing did not appeal to his taste. O'Brien held his eyes with awild, revengeful look. Then again he moved his shoulders.
"What's the matter with him?" demanded the man. "Do you want to talk?"
"Don't ungag him," said the one they called John hastily. "One yip, andsomebody would be up here."
"That's not what he wants," said the other, watching O'Brien. "The ropehurts him."
"What if it does?" demanded John. "It won't hurt him any after threeo'clock. Leave him alone!"
"I am going to loosen that rope," said the other. "If _I_ was going todie at three I would just as soon take a little comfort while I waited."
"Well, don't take the gag out," counseled John. "Here, I will fix him."He loosened the cord that held O'Brien's hands tightly bound behind hisback, bent them in front of him and fastened them in such a way thatthey were free unless he tried to reach his face. He could not quitetouch the gag.
"Come on, let's have a drink," said the man who had advised it before.
"You heard!" warned John.
"I don't care _what_ I heard!" said the man, almost whining. "I want adrink and I am going to _have_ a drink! Didn't Smith tell us to put theempty bottle in his pocket?" He uncorked the bottle and gave it a littleshake. The fumes were strong.
O'Brien, hoping, praying, watching, could see that the men, used tostiffening their grit with liquor, smelled the fiery stuff and weakened.Hoping, praying, watching, yet seemingly with nothing in his eyes butapprehension, O'Brien watched the three draw up to the table andcommence to smoke. In the center between them the bottle sat, its corkout and the empty glass beside it.
"Well, if you are going to disobey orders," said John suddenly, "it isas well that we should be on the same boat. Are there any more glasses?"
"On the shelf there," replied another man, pointing. He grinned happily."Smith is a fool. A glass apiece couldn't hurt a flea. Not a flea!And I am cold. I say we give him a little too." He nodded towardO'Brien.
O'Brien turned chilly himself. With his life hanging on the merestthread, he did not want to get a dose of drugged whiskey! But he noddedhis head violently, and looked as wistful as he could.
"There is not enough for four," said John coldly. "Perhaps where he isgoing there will be a drink ready for him."
He set the grimy glasses in a row and with great care poured out aportion for each. The division filled the glasses pretty well, andO'Brien wondered if there would be _four_ dead men before the nightended.
One of the men looked at his watch.
"Two o'clock," he said. "What's the use of waiting? Let's give him theshot and take him down. I want to go to bed."
"_Bed?_ What are you talking about?" demanded the other. "You have gotto catch that four o'clock train for the dirigible."
"We have an alarm clock. We can get a little snooze. That is why I wantto get this job done."
"That is why Smith told you to wait 'til three," said John. "Come, takeyour drink and have a smoke, and then it will soon be time to put ourguest on his homeward way." He laughed evilly and lifted his glass.O'Brien noted with delight that his was the largest share. Drops ofperspiration stood like beads on O'Brien's forehead as he lay therebound and gagged, waiting to see if the powder in the whiskey was goingto work. What if it should taste and rouse suspicion in the breasts ofthe three villains? But the three drank down their several potionswithout a blink. They did not follow it with water, but let the fieryliquid run down their leathern throats as though it was milk.
Then filling their pipes, they settled back in their chairs to await thehour set for O'Brien's death. For fifteen minutes they talked andlaughed and quarrelled about the exact time of administering the poison.But John stood firm. Smith had said three o'clock, and not one momentearlier would he hear to. He yawned as he spoke, and yawns from theothers answered him. Suddenly he looked up with a queer look of surpriseon his face.
"I feel funny," he said. "Funny!"
The others sat staring at him.
John tipped forward in his chair. The others, still staring, slidbackward and at once, it seemed, three heavy bodies swayed in theirseats and slid to the floor. For a few moments the air seemed full ofthe sound of breathing rough and irregular; then slowly the breathinggrew slower, deeper and more regular. It sounded like three greatanimals breathing together. They lay almost as they had fallen.
Painfully O'Brien raised himself to his elbow. He sat up. He could do nomore as his feet were bound together. After a moment's thought, he layback across the cot and commenced to slide toward the front edge. Whenhis body was well off the edge he stiffened his neck and, carefullysliding along, went to the floor without a thump. Sitting there, hewondered what he would do next. If there was one thing he wanted, it wasto avoid making a noise that might alarm the people who were cheerfullyquarreling in the flat below. Not yet was his own head out of the noose,and he wanted to get help so that he could have the three unconsciousmen arrested. But there he was, still bound and, worse still, gagged! Atany moment Smith might return to see that his orders were being carriedout. O'Brien knew Smith too well to hope that he would leave anything asimportant as his, O'Brien's, execution to an underling. Haste was of thegreatest importance. O'Brien knew that his life would not be worth apenny if Smith should drop in on the group now assembled on the floor.
But O'Brien's arms were bound at the elbows and the gag covered all ofhis face except the twinkling eyes. Suddenly he had a thought. BesideJohn on the floor lay a box of safety matches where they had droppedwhen the owner fell from his chair. Reaching them with a series ofwriggles, he succeeded in getting a match in his hand and striking it onthe box. As the match flared up, he bent far back and held the flameclose to the rope that bound his ankles and legs. Twisting his headpainfully around, he saw that the scheme was working. The little flamefor a moment bit into the strands of the rope. Another and anotherO'Brien lighted and carefully guided to the rope. Once in awhile thematch went out, and as O'Brien saw the supply giving out, his anxietybecame more intense. Time was flying. It was almost three o'clock. Therewere still three matches. In the silence the breathing of the three mensounded loud and ominous.
Two matches burned out. For the twentieth time O'Brien strained at hisbonds. He lighted the last match, held it close to the rope until itburned his fingers. Then he strained on the rope. Alas, it did not give!He jerked and twisted, and it seemed as though he could feel the fibresgiving, yet they held. As he paused to rest, he saw a single match stillclasped in John's fingers. Rolling over and over, with the empty box inhis hand, he secured the match, lighted it,
and held it carefully to therope. It singed his ankle and burned his finger. Then once more hestrained mightily. Once, and twice; at the third struggle the ropeparted so suddenly that it unwrapped and spun out straight before him.His feet were free!
The loosening of the ropes around his ankles loosened one end of therope that bound his elbows. A series of twists and wriggles and heslipped out of the coils and stood a free man once more. Tearing the gagfrom his mouth, he swallowed, and rubbed his bruised lips.
He was free! Free! And ten minutes before he had been as good as a deadman, his sentence pronounced, his doom lying on the table. Hastilypocketing the hypodermic needle he picked up his hat and hurried out ofthe back door, locking it as he went. Carefully and noiselessly heslipped down the black, narrow stairs, feeling his way and not daring touse his flashlight. Every few steps he would stop and listen. He wasshaken by the narrow escape he had just had, in spite of his coolnessand courage. It was not pleasant to lie bound and gagged with whatseemed to be certain death staring him brutally in the face. O'Brien wasbraver than most, but it had shaken him. As he collected himself, he wasfilled with a cold, still rage: rage against the men lying senselessabove him, rage against the arch-plotter who called himself Smith. AndO'Brien, thinking of the man and of the position he had seen himoccupying for the past months, grew colder and more furious still.
Reaching the street, he hurried over to the nearest call box and sent ina demand for a patrol wagon and a half dozen officers. There was astation near, and almost immediately the wagon came tearing up. O'Brienwas ready for them. Three senseless forms were hurriedly bundled intothe wagon, a couple of officers were left to watch the entrance of thebuilding, and O'Brien, taking a last look at the room to see that it wasin the order that it would naturally be left in if the men hadaccomplished their purpose with him, hurried off.
It was four o'clock. O'Brien commenced to realize that he was verytired. But his papers had been stolen, and the two most dangerousmembers of the gang were still at large. A hasty telephone to the houseof Mr. Ridgeway was answered by one of the servants, who said that Mr.Ridgeway and his guest were not at home. The man could not or would notsay more. O'Brien called the Aviation Field and learned from the nightwatchman that one of the planes was gone.
That was all he wanted to know. Hurriedly he secured a taxi and brokethe speed laws in a mad dash for the Field. Arousing a couple of thebest men, he opened the hangar where the dirigible, once more fit forany flight, swung lazily.
The men manoeuvered it into the open, O'Brien selected the two whom hewanted, and almost before they realized what they were doing, the bigcar rose into the inky blackness of the morning sky. O'Brien, at thewheel, steered a straight course for the hiding place of the dirigibleSmith intended to use.
There was a glow in the sky as they approached, and as they paused overthe field, they looked down on a burning mass of tumbled timbers thathad been the hangar. O'Brien would have liked to know whether thedirigible had sailed up in the sky or gone up in smoke. He sped on,however, reaching Barnegat as the first streaks of day showed in theeast.
There the hangar doors swung open; the dirigible had gone. O'Brienstraightened up and gave a quick glance over his big car. He knew thatit was in the pink of condition, and his heart was glad, for he knewthat the chase was on; a chase possibly to the death.
Somewhere ahead of him, out over the waste of waters that tossed andtumbled far below, the dirigible carrying Mr. Ridgeway, Lawrence, thestate papers and the crown jewels, sailed swiftly. And behind it,instead of the guardian dirigible from their own Field and driven byO'Brien, another machine followed--a machine its very twin in looks andspeed, but bearing a cutthroat crew.
O'Brien pressed a lever, shoving it far to the front, and the bigmachine answered with a burst of speed. His men, moving carefully about,were looking over every nut and screw and brake, and finding all inperfect condition.
O'Brien wondered how much of a start the other cars had. He did notthink that he was far behind, so he settled to a good rate, and kept it,as mile after mile was left behind.
As the sun came up O'Brien was more and more conscious of an intensefatigue. Finally deciding that he would be needed most at the close ofthe race, he called one of his men, and directing him to keep up thespeed and the direction indicated, he went back, and lying down on thefloor of the tiny cabin went instantly to sleep. His jaw was sore, andevery muscle ached. In his sleep he twitched and tossed and muttered sothat one of the men covered him with his own sheepskin coat, and at lasthe quieted down until the lines in his face smoothed out and he relaxed.
"It would be worth listening to, to hear what O'Brien has been doingthese last few hours," said one of the airmen as they watched theirchief.
"Some scrap, I'll bet!" said the other. "See his face? No bruises like ablow, but those two red welts stretching out from each corner of hismouth. I never saw that but once before, and that was on a man who hadbeen gagged all night."
"They don't look pretty, do they? I'll bet he has been in some closecorner. I'll bet he has been gagged."
"Well, Billy, I bet so too, so there are no takers," said the otherairman.
"Well," said Billy, "if I had your pull with O'Brien, Hank, I would sortof bring the conversation around to scraps and gags and things of thatsort when he wakes up, and see what he says."
"You don't know O'Brien very well, do you, Billy?" asked Hank. "Well,_I_ do, and I can tell you that the first question some gazaboo putsabout O'Brien's own private affairs, there will be another gaggingepisode and O'Brien won't be the one to worry about who is going to comeand untie him. Not much!"
"Oh, I wasn't goin' to _ast_ him anything," said Billy hastily.
