Women's Wiles

by Joyce Harrington

  “In about a quarter of an hour a closed car with its windows down came along fairly slowly. Mr. Rapf was too concerned about his daughter’s safety even to risk memorizing the numerals on its license plates, which were plainly exposed to view. A truck going crosswise to it threatened to block it at the intersection, and it gave three blasts of its horn, two short ones and a long one. Mr. Rapf threw the cigar box in through its rear window and watched it pick up speed and drive away. He was too excited and overwrought to start back immediately, and in less than five minutes, while he was still there, a second car came along with its windows down and its license plates removed. It gave three blasts of its horn, without there being any obstruction ahead. He ran out toward it to try and explain, but only succeeded in frightening it off. It put on speed and got away from him. I don’t know whether it was actually a ghastly coincidence, or whether an unspeakable trick was perpetrated on him, to get twice the amount they had originally asked. Probably just a hideous coincidence, though, because he would have been just as willing to give them one hundred thousand from the beginning.

  “At any rate, what it succeeded in doing was to throw a hitch into the negotiations, make them nervous and skittish. They contacted him again several days later, refused to believe his explanation, and breathed dire threats against the girl. He pleaded with them for another chance, and asked for more time to raise a second fifty thousand. He’s been holding it in readiness for some time now, and they’re apparently suffering from a bad case of fright; they cancel each set of new instructions as fast as they issue them to him. Wait’ll I get through, please, will you, Murphy? It’s five days since Mr. Rapf last heard from them, and he is convinced that—” He didn’t finish it, out of consideration for the agonized man sitting there. Then he went ahead briskly: “Now here’s Miss Rapf’s description, and here’s what our first move is going to be. Twenty years old, weight so-and-so, height so-and-so, light-brown hair—”

  “She was wearing a pale-pink party dress and dancing shoes when she left the house,” Rapf supplied forlornly.

  “We don’t pin any reliance on items of apparel in matters of this kind,” the lieutenant explained to him in a kindly aside. “That’s for amnesia cases or straight disappearances. They almost invariably discard the victim’s clothes, to make accidental recognition harder. Some woman in the outfit will usually supply her with her own things.”

  “It’s too late, lieutenant; it’s too late,” the man who sat facing him murmured grief-strickenly. “I know it; I’m sure of it.”

  “We have no proof that it is,” the lieutenant replied reassuringly. “But if it is, Mr. Rapf, you have only yourself to blame for waiting this long to come to us. If you’d come to us sooner, you might have your daughter back by now—”

  He broke off short. “What’s the matter, Murphy?” he snapped. “What are you climbing halfway across the desk at me like that for?”

  “Will you let me get a word in and tell you, lieutenant?” Murphy exclaimed with a fine show of exasperated insubordination. “I been trying to for the last five minutes! That librarian, that Miss Roberts that came in here the other night—it was this thing she stumbled over accidentally then already. It must have been! It’s the same message.”

  The lieutenant’s jaw dropped well below his collar button. “Ho-ly smoke!” he exhaled. “Say, she’s a smart young woman all right!”

  “Yeah, she’s so smart we laughed her out of the place, book and all,” Murphy said bitterly. “She practically hands it to us on a silver platter, and you and me, both, we think it’s the funniest thing we ever heard of.”

  “Never mind that now! Go out and get hold of her! Bring her in here fast!”

  “She’s practically standing in front of you!” The door swung closed after Murphy.

  Miss Everett, the hatchet-faced librarian, felt called upon to interfere at the commotion that started up less than five minutes later at the usually placid new-membership desk, which happened to be closest to the front door.

  “Will you kindly keep your voice down, young man?” she said severely, sailing over. “This is a library, not a—”

  “I haven’t got time to keep my voice down! Where’s Prudence Roberts? She’s wanted at headquarters right away.”

  “She didn’t come to work this morning. It’s the first time she’s ever missed a day since she’s been with the library. What is it she’s wanted—”

  But there was just a rush of outgoing air where he’d been standing until then. Miss Everett looked startledly at the other librarian. “What was that he just said?”

  “It sounded to me like, ‘Skip it, toots.’”

  Miss Everett looked blankly over her shoulder to see if anyone else was standing there, but no one was.

  In a matter of minutes Murphy had burst in on them again, looking a good deal more harried than the first time. “Something’s happened to her. She hasn’t been at her rooming house all night either, and that’s the first time that happened too! Listen. There was a card went with that book she brought to us, showing who had it out and all that. Get it out quick; let me have it!”

  He couldn’t have remembered its name just then to save his life, and it might have taken them until closing time and after to wade through the library’s filing system. But no matter how much of a battle-ax this Miss Everett both looked and was, one thing must be said in her favor: she had an uncanny memory when it came to damaged library property. “The reference card on Manuela Gets Her Man, by Ollivant,” she snapped succinctly to her helpers. And in no time it was in his hands.

  His face lighted. He brought his fist down on the counter with a bang that brought every nose in the place up out of its book, and for once Miss Everett forgot to remonstrate or even frown. “Thank God for her methodical mind!” he exulted. “Trasker, check; Baumgarten, check; Turner, question mark. It’s as good as though she left full directions behind her!”

  “What was it he said that time?” puzzled Miss Everett, as the doors flapped hectically to and fro behind him.

  “It sounded to me like ‘Keep your fingers crossed.’ Only, I’m not sure if it was ‘fingers’ or—”

  “It’s getting dark again,” Virginia Rapf whimpered, dragging herself along the floor toward her fellow captive. “Each time night comes, I think they’re going to...you know! Maybe tonight they will.”

  Prudence Roberts was fully as frightened as the other girl, but simply because one of them had to keep the other’s courage up, she wouldn’t let herself show it. “No, they won’t; they wouldn’t dare!” she said with a confidence she was far from feeling.

  She went ahead tinkering futilely with the small padlock and chain that secured her to the foot of the bed. It was the same type used to fasten bicycles to something in the owner’s absence, only of course the chain had not been left in an open loop or she could simply have withdrawn her hand. It was fastened tight around her wrist by passing the clasp of the lock through two of the small links at once. It permitted her a radius of action of not more than three or four yards around the foot of the bed at most. Virginia Rapf was similarly attached to the opposite side.

  “In books you read,” Prudence remarked, “women prisoners always seem to be able to open anything from a strong box to a cell door with just a hairpin. I don’t seem to have the knack, somehow. This is the last one I have left.”

  “If you couldn’t do it before, while it was light, you’ll never be able to do it in the dark.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Prudence sighed. “There it goes, out of shape like all the rest, anyway.” She tossed it away with a little plink.

  “Oh, if you’d only moved away from under that window a minute sooner, they wouldn’t have seen you out there, you might have been able to—”

  “No use crying over spilt milk,” Prudence said briskly.

  Sounds reached them from outside presently, after they’d been lying silent on the floor for a while.

  “Listen,” Virginia Rapf breathed
. “There’s someone moving around down there, under the window. You can hear the ground crunch every once in a while.”

  Something crashed violently, and they both gave a start.

  “What was that, their car?” asked Virginia Rapf.

  “No, it sounded like a tin can of some kind; something he threw away.”

  A voice called out of the back door: “Have you got enough?”

  The answer seemed to come from around the side of the house. “No, gimme the other one too.”

  A few moments later a second tinny clash reached their tense ears. They waited, hearts pounding furiously under their ribs. A sense of impending danger assailed Prudence.

  “What’s that funny smell?” Virginia Rapf whispered fearfully. “Do you notice it? Like—”

  Prudence supplied the word before she realized its portent. “Gasoline.”

  The frightful implication hit the two of them at once. The other girl gave a sob of convulsive terror, cringed against her. Prudence threw her arms about her, tried to calm her. “Shh! Don’t be frightened. No, they wouldn’t do that, they couldn’t be that inhuman.” But her own terror was half-stifling her.

  One of their captors’ voices sounded directly under them, with a terrible clarity. “All right, get in the car, Flo. You too, Duke, I’m about ready.”

  They heard the woman answer him, and there was unmistakable horror even in her tones. “Oh, not that way, Eddie. You’re going to finish them first, aren’t you?”

  He laughed coarsely. “What’s the difference? The smoke’ll finish them in a minute or two; they won’t suffer none. All right, soft-hearted, have it your own way. I’ll go up and give ’em a clip on the head apiece, if it makes you feel any better.” His tread started up the rickety stairs.

  They were almost crazed with fear. Prudence fought to keep her presence of mind.

  “Get under the bed, quick!” she panted hoarsely.

  But the other girl gave a convulsive heave in her arms, then fell limp. She’d fainted dead away. The oncoming tread was halfway up the stairs now. He was taking his time, no hurry. Outside in the open she heard the woman’s voice once more, in sharp remonstrance.

  “Wait a minute, you dope; not yet! Wait’ll Eddie gets out first!”

  The man with her must have struck a match. “He can make it; let’s see him run for it,” he answered jeeringly. “I still owe him something for that hotfoot he gave me one time, remember?”

  Prudence had let the other girl roll lifelessly out of her arms, and squirmed under the bed herself, not to try to save her own skin but to do the little that could be done to try to save both of them, futile as she knew it to be. She twisted like a caterpillar, clawed at her own foot, got her right shoe off. She’d never gone in for these stylish featherweight sandals with spindly heels, and she was glad of that now. It was a good strong substantial Oxford, nearly as heavy as a man’s, with a club heel. She got a grasp on it by the toe, then twisted her body around so that her legs were toward the side the room door gave onto. She reared one at the knee, held it poised, backed up as far as the height of the bed would allow it to be.

  The door opened and he came in, lightless. He didn’t need a light for a simple little job like this—stunning two helpless girls chained to a bed. He started around toward the foot of it, evidently thinking they were crouched there hiding from him. Her left leg suddenly shot out between his two, like a spoke, tripping him neatly.

  He went floundering forward on his face with a muffled curse. She had hoped he might hit his head, be dazed by the impact if only for a second or two. He wasn’t; he must have broken the fall with his arm. She threshed her body madly around the other way again, to get her free arm in play with the shoe for a weapon. She began to rain blows on him with it, trying to get his head with the heel. That went wrong too. He’d fallen too far out along the floor, the chain wouldn’t let her come out any farther after him. She couldn’t reach any higher up than his muscular shoulders with the shoe, and its blows fell ineffectively there.

  Raucous laughter was coming from somewhere outside, topped by warning screams. “Eddie, hurry up and get out, you fool! Duke’s started it already!” They held no meaning for Prudence; she was too absorbed in this last despairing attempt to save herself and her fellow prisoner.

  But he must have heard and understood them. The room was no longer as inky black as before. A strange wan light was beginning to peer up below the window, like a satanic moonrise. He jumped to his feet with a snarl, turned and fired down point-blank at Prudence as she tried to writhe hastily back undercover. The bullet hit the iron rim of the bedstead directly over her eyes and glanced aside. He was too yellow to linger and try again. Spurred by the screamed warnings and the increasing brightness, he bolted from the room and went crashing down the stairs three at a time.

  A second shot went off just as he reached the back doorway, and she mistakenly thought he had fired at his fellow kidnapper in retaliation for the ghastly practical joke played on him. Then there was a whole volley of shots, more than just one gun could have fired. The car engine started up with an abortive flurry, then died down again where it was without moving. But her mind was too full of horror at the imminent doom that threatened to engulf both herself and Virginia Rapf to realize the meaning of anything she dimly heard going on below. Anything but that sullen hungry crackle, like bundles of twigs snapping, that kept growing louder from minute to minute. They had been left hopelessly chained, to be cremated alive!

  She screamed her lungs out, and at the same time knew screaming wasn’t going to save her or the other girl. She began to hammer futilely with her shoe at the chain holding her, so slender yet so strong, and knew that wasn’t going to save her either.

  Heavy steps pounded up the staircase again, and for a moment she thought he’d come back to finish the two of them after all, and was glad of it. Anything was better than being roasted alive. She wouldn’t try to hide this time.

  The figure that came tearing through the thickening smoke haze toward her was already bending down above her before she looked and saw that it was Murphy. She’d seen some beautiful pictures in art galleries in her time, but he was more beautiful to her eyes than a Rubens portrait.

  “All right, chin up, keep cool,” he said briefly, so she wouldn’t lose her head and impede him.

  “Get the key to these locks! The short dark one has them.”

  “He’s dead and there’s no time. Lean back. Stretch it out tight and lean out of the way!” He fired and the small chain snapped in two. “Jump! You can’t get down the stairs anymore.” His second shot, freeing Virginia Rapf, punctuated the order.

  Prudence flung up the window, climbed awkwardly across the sill, feet first, then clung there terrified as an intolerable haze of heat rose up under her from below. She glimpsed two men running up under her with a blanket or lap robe from the car stretched out between them.

  “I can’t; it’s...it’s right under me!”

  He gave her an unceremonious shove in the middle of the back and she went hurtling out into space with a screech. The two with the blanket got there just about the same time she did. Murphy hadn’t waited to make sure; a broken leg was preferable to being incinerated. She hit the ground through the lap robe and all, but at least it broke the direct force of the fall.

  They cleared it for the next arrival by rolling her out at one side, and by the time she had picked herself dazedly to her feet, Virginia Rapf was already lying in it, thrown there by him from above.

  “Hurry it up, Murph!” she heard one of them shout, and instinctively caught at the other girl, dragged her off it to clear the way for him. He crouched with both feet on the sill, came sailing down, and even before he’d hit the blanket, there was a dull roar behind him as the roof caved in, and a great gush of sparks went shooting straight up into the dark night sky.

  They were still too close; they all had to draw hurriedly back away from the unbearable heat beginning to radiate from it. Murphy came
last, as might have been expected, dragging a very dead kidnaper—the one called Eddie—along the ground after him by the collar of his coat. Prudence saw the other one, Duke, slumped inertly over the wheel of the car he had never had time to make his getaway in, either already dead or rapidly dying. A disheveled blond scarecrow that had been Florence Turner was apparently the only survivor of the trio. She kept whimpering placatingly, “I didn’t want to do that to them! I didn’t want to do that to them!” over and over, as though she still didn’t realize they had been saved in time.

  Virginia Rapf was coming out of her long faint. It was kinder, Prudence thought, that she had been spared those last few horrible moments; she had been through enough without that.

  “Rush her downtown with you, fellow!” Murphy said. “Her dad’s waiting for her; he doesn’t know yet. I shot out here so fast the minute I located that taxi driver outside the residence club, who remembered driving Miss Roberts out to this vicinity, that I didn’t even have time to notify headquarters, just picked up whoever I could on the way.”

  He came over to where Prudence was standing, staring at the fire with horrified fascination.

  “How do you feel? Are you O.K.?” he murmured, brow furrowed with a proprietary anxiety.

  “Strange as it may be,” she admitted in surprise, “I seem to feel perfectly all right; can’t find a thing the matter with me.”

  Back at the library the following day—and what a world away it seemed from the scenes of violence she had just lived through—the acidulous Miss Everett came up to her just before closing time with, of all things, a twinkle in her eyes. Either that or there was a flaw in her glasses.