Ronicky Doone (1921) (10 page)

Other voices answered far away; footfalls began to sound. Ronicky Doone knew that Harry Morgan, his victim, had at last recovered and managed to work the cords off his feet or hands, or both.

Ronicky stepped back close to the door of the closet and waited. It would mean a search, probably, this discovery that Morgan had been struck down in his own room by an unknown intruder. And a search certainly would be started at once. First there was confusion, and then a clear, musical man's voice began to give orders: "Harrison, take the cellar. Lefty, go up to the roof. The rest of you take the rooms one by one."

The search was on.

"Don't ask questions," was the last instruction. "When you see someone you don't know, shoot on sight, and shoot to kill. I'll do the explaining to the police you know that. Now scatter, and the man who brings him down I'll remember. Quick!"

There was a new scurry of footfalls. Ronicky Doone heard them approach the door of the girl's room, and he slipped into the closet. At once a cloud of soft, cool silks brushed about him, and he worked back until his shoulders had touched the wall at the back of the closet. Luckily the enclosure was deep, and the clothes were hanging thickly from the racks. It was sufficient to conceal him from any careless searcher, but it would do no good if any one probed; and certainly these men were not the ones to search carelessly.

In the meantime it was a position which made Ronicky grind his teeth. To be found skulking among woman's clothes in a closet to be dragged out and stuck in the back, no doubt, like a rat, and thrown into the river, that was an end for Ronicky Doone indeed!

He was on the verge of slipping out and making a mad break for the door of the house and trying to escape by taking the men by surprise, when he heard the door of the girl's room open.

"Some ex-pugilist," he heard a man's voice saying, and he recognized it at once as belonging to him who had given the orders. He recognized, also, that it must be the man with the sneer.

"You think he was an amateur robber and an expert prize fighter?" asked Ruth Tolliver.

It seemed to Ronicky Doone that her voice was perfectly controlled and calm. Perhaps it was her face that betrayed emotion, for after a moment of silence, the man answered.

"What's the matter? You're as nervous as a child tonight, Ruth?"

"Isn't there reason enough to make me nervous?" she demanded. "A robber Heaven knows what running at large in the house?"

"H'm!" murmured the man. "Devilish queer that you should get so excited all at once. No, it's something else. I've trained you too well for you to go to pieces like this over nothing. What is it, Ruth?"

There was no answer. Then the voice began again, silken-smooth and gentle, so gentle and kindly that Ronicky Doone started. "In the old days you used to keep nothing from me; we were companions, Ruth. That was when you were a child. Now that you are a woman, when you feel more, think more, see more, when our companionship should be like a running stream, continually bringing new things into my life, I find barriers between us. Why is it, my dear?"

Still there was no answer. The pulse of Ronicky Doone began to quicken, as though the question had been asked him, as though he himself were fumbling for the answer.

"Let us talk more freely," went on the man. "Try to open your mind to me. There are things which you dislike in me; I know it. Just what those things are I cannot tell, but we must break down these foolish little barriers which are appearing more and more every day. Not that I mean to intrude myself on you every moment of your life. You understand that, of course?"

"Of course," said the girl faintly.

"And I understand perfectly that you have passed out of childhood into young womanhood, and that is a dreamy time for a girl. Her body is formed at last, but her mind is only half formed. There is a pleasant mist over it. Very well, I don't wish to brush the mist away. If I did that I would take half that charm away from you that elusive incompleteness which Fragonard and Watteau tried to imitate, Heaven knows with how little success. No, I shall always let you live your own life. All that I ask for, my dear, are certain meeting places. Let us establish them before it is too late, or you will find one day that you have married an old man, and we shall have silent dinners. There is nothing more wretched than that. If it should come about, then you will begin to look on me as a jailer. And "

"Don't!"

"Ah," said he very tenderly, "I knew that I was feeling toward the truth. You are shrinking from me, Ruth, because you feel that I am too old."

"No, no!"

Here a hand pounded heavily on the door.

"The idiots have found something," said the man of the sneer. "And now they have come to talk about their cleverness, like a rooster crowing over a grain of corn." He raised his voice. "Come in!"

And Ronicky Doone heard a panting voice a moment later exclaim: "We've got him!"

Chapter
Twelve. The Strange Bargain
.

Ronicky drew his gun and waited. "Good," said the man of the sneer. "Go ahead."

"It was down in the cellar that we found the first tracks. He came in through the side window and closed it after him."

"That dropped him into the coal bin. Did he get coal dust on his shoes?"

"Right; and he didn't have sense enough to wipe it off."

"An amateur a rank amateur! I told you!" said the man of the sneer, with satisfaction. "You followed his trail?"

"Up the stairs to the kitchen and down the hall and up to Harry's room."

"We already knew he'd gone there."

"But he left that room again and came down the hall."

"Yes. The coal dust was pretty well wiped off by that time, but we held a light close to the carpet and got the signs of it."

"And where did it lead?"

"Right to this room!"

Ronicky stepped from among the smooth silks and pressed close to the door of the closet, his hand on the knob. The time had almost come for one desperate attempt to escape, and he was ready to shoot to kill.

A moment of pause had come, a pause which, in the imagination of Ronicky, was filled with the approach of both the men toward the door of the closet.

Then the man of the sneer said: "That's a likely story!"

"I can show you the tracks."

"H'm! You fool, they simply grew dim when they got to this door. I've been here for some time. Go back and tell them to hunt some more. Go up to the attic and search there. That's the place an amateur would most likely hide."

The man growled some retort and left, closing the door heavily behind him, while Ronicky Doone breathed freely again for the first time.

"Now," said the man of the sneer, "tell me the whole of it, Ruth."

Ronicky set his teeth. Had the clever devil guessed at the truth so easily? Had he sent his follower away, merely to avoid having it known that a man had taken shelter in the room of the girl he loved?

"Go on," the leader was repeating. "Let me hear the whole truth."

"I I " stammered the girl, and she could say no more.

The man of the sneer laughed unpleasantly. "Let me help you. It was somebody you met somewhere on the train, perhaps, and you couldn't help smiling at him, eh? You smiled so much, in fact, that he followed you and found that you had come here. The only way he could get in was by stealth. Is that right? So he came in exactly that way, like a robber, but really only to keep a tryst with his lady love? A pretty story, a true romance! I begin to see why you find me such a dull fellow, my dear girl."

"John " began Ruth Tolliver, her voice shaking.

"Tush," he broke in as smoothly as ever. "Let me tell the story for you and spare your blushes. When I sent you for Harry Morgan you found Lochinvar in the very act of slugging the poor fellow. You helped him tie Morgan; then you took him here to your room; although you were glad to see him, you warned him that it was dangerous to play with fire fire being me. Do I gather the drift of the story fairly well? Finally you have him worked up to the right pitch. He is convinced that a retreat would be advantageous, if possible. You show him that it is possible. You point out the ledge under your window and the easy way of working to the ground. Eh?"

"Yes," said the girl unevenly. "That is "

"Ah!" murmured the man of the sneer. "You seem rather relieved that I have guessed he left the house. In that case "

Ronicky Doone had held the latch of the door turned back for some time. Now he pushed it open and stepped out. He was only barely in time, for the man of the sneer was turning quickly in his direction, since there was only one hiding place in the room.

He was brought up with a shock by the sight of Ronicky's big Colt, held at the hip and covering him with absolute certainty. Ruth Tolliver did not cry out, but every muscle in her face and body seemed to contract, as if she were preparing herself for the explosion.

"You don't have to put up your hands," said Ronicky Doone, wondering at the familiarity of the face of the man of the sneer. He had brooded on it so often in the past few days that it was like the face of an old acquaintance. He knew every line in that sharp profile.

"Thank you," responded the leader, and, turning to the girl, he said coldly: "I congratulate you on your good taste. A regular Apollo, my dear Ruth."

He turned back to Ronicky Doone. "And I suppose you have overhead our entire conversation?"

"The whole lot of it," said Ronicky, "though I wasn't playing my hand at eavesdropping. I couldn't help hearing you, partner."

The man of the sneer looked him over leisurely. "Western," he said at last, "decidedly Western. Are you staying long in the East, my friend?"

"I dunno," said Ronicky Doone, smiling faintly at the coolness of the other. "What do you think about it?"

"Meaning that I'm liable to put an end to your stay?"

"Maybe!"

"Tush, tush! I suppose Ruth has filled your head with a lot of rot about what a terrible fellow I am. But I don't use poison, and I don't kill with mysterious X-rays. I am, as you see, a very quiet and ordinary sort."

Ronicky Doone smiled again. "You just oblige me, partner," he replied in his own soft voice. "Just stay away from the walls of the room don't even sit down. Stand right where you are."

"You'd murder me if I took another step?" asked the man of the sneer, and a contemptuous and sardonic expression flitted across his face for the first time.

"I'd sure blow you full of lead," said Ronicky fervently. "I'd kill you like a snake, stranger, which I mostly think you are. So step light, and step quick when I talk."

"Certainly," said the other, bowing. "I am entirely at your service." He turned a little to Ruth. "I see that you have a most determined cavalier. I suppose he'll instantly abduct you and sweep you away from beneath my eyes?"

She made a vague gesture of denial.

"Go ahead," said the leader. "By the way, my name is John Mark."

"I'm Doone some call me Ronicky Doone."

"I'm glad to know you, Ronicky Doone. I imagine that name fits you. Now tell me the story of why you came to this house; of course it wasn't to see a girl!"

"You're wrong! It was."

"Ah?" In spite of himself the face of John Mark wrinkled with pain and suspicious rage.

"I came to see a girl, and her name, I figure, is Caroline Smith."

Relief, wonder, and even a gleam of outright happiness shot into the eyes of John Mark. "Caroline? You came for that?" Suddenly he laughed heartily, but there was a tremor of emotion in that laughter. The perfect torture, which had been wringing the soul of the man of the sneer, projected through the laughter.

"I ask your pardon, my dear," said John Mark to Ruth. "I should have guessed. You found him; he confessed why he was here; you took pity on him and " He brushed a hand across his forehead and was instantly himself, calm and cool.

"Very well, then. It seems I've made an ass of myself, but I'll try to make up for it. Now what about Caroline? There seems to be a whole host of you Westerners annoying her."

"Only one: I'm acting as his agent."

"And what do you expect?"

"I expect that you will send for her and tell her that she is free to go down with me leave this house and take a ride or a walk with me."

"As much as that? If you have to talk to her, why not do the talking here?"

"I dunno," replied Ronicky Doone. "I figure she'd think too much about you all the time."

"The basilisk, eh?" asked John Mark. "Well, you are going to persuade her to go to Bill Gregg?"

"You know the name, eh?"

"Yes, I have a curious stock of useless information."

"Well, you're right; I'm going to try to get her back for Bill."

"But you can't expect me to assent to that?"

"I sure do."

"And why? This Caroline Smith may be a person of great value to me."

"I have no doubt she is, but I got a good argument."

"What is it?"

"The gun, partner."