The Black Dog Mystery (20 page)

He grinned mockingly, and Djuna could see the two gangsters redden and writhe in their seats.

“Aw, chee, have a heart, boss!” pleaded Torn-Pants, mopping his forehead.

“Sure, lay off it, lay off it,” muttered Scar-Thumb, glancing furtively at his companion. “We was only kiddin’. Just quit pointin’ that banjo at me, will yuh?” His voice rose shrilly. “Quit it, will yuh?”

Morrison laughed. “You don’t like music?” he jeered. “There’s nothing more soothing to the mind, I assure you. I’ll admit, however, that it makes a difference who holds the instrument. Is it all settled, then? You agree to divide the money as I suggest?”

Djuna could see Joe and Al glance at each other, and the merest flicker of a wink passed over Al’s eye. “Okay, huh, Joe?” said Al softly. Torn-Pants nodded.

They faced Morrison. “Okay, boss,” said Al, shrugging his shoulders. “Have it your way. Put down that Tommy-gun an’ well shake on it.”

Mr. Morrison smiled. “Oh, it’s hardly necessary to shake hands,” he sneered. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just take your word for it. I’ll stay where I am, thank you.”

Djuna waited to hear no more. Noiselessly he dropped to his knees, and began crawling away, inch by inch, until at last his fingers felt the beaten earth of the path that would lead him back to safety. To get back, to get back and give the alarm—that was what he must do at once! He jumped to his feet and started down the path for home, intending to begin running as soon as he was at a little safer distance from the shack. Champ? He couldn’t think of Champ now! There was not a minute to lose!

But just then, from far off in the woods behind him, came a sound that froze him to the spot. It was a moan, a wail, a pitiful whine that rose and fell like the moaning of a tortured spirit. Djuna stiffened in dread. What could it be?
Who
could it be? Again the unearthly moaning came through the darkness. It came from the direction of the haunted house.

A third time came the low wail, and Djuna hesitated no longer. This time, he was sure that it was the moaning of a dog—
his
dog! Champ was there, there in the haunted house, and he could not go until he had done his best to rescue him! He turned and, keeping to the path as best he could, began creeping toward the haunted house.

For fifty yards the path sloped gently downwards, fringed on each side by bushes, so that whenever he stumbled from the path the branches brushing against his face warned him back again. He came to the end of the hedge. The blacker shadow of the haunted house suddenly loomed up in front of him, outlined against the starry sky. The moaning had ceased. A thin line of light showed beneath the bottom of a door. Someone must be in the place! Djuna stole closer, his heart beating furiously. Slowly, step by step, he came closer to the dark wall of the house.

One more step he took, and an unseen hand suddenly shot out and seized him by the wrist with a grip of iron. Djuna shrieked.

A flashlight flicked on, and the beam struck him full in the face. Blinded, he could not see his captor. But a voice said mockingly, “Look who’s here!”

The light flicked out again and, while Djuna struggled uselessly to escape from the hand that gripped him, his captor gave two shrill whistles. They were instantly answered from Les’ Sedd’s shack. Djuna heard the slam of a door, and then the sound of footsteps running toward them, while flashlights danced along the path he had just taken. The man holding him twisted his wrist sharply, and Djuna moaned with pain. “Keep quiet, punk!” his captor grunted. “Want me t’ bust yuh?”

I
N ANOTHER
moment the men from the other house were around them, and Djuna gave up struggling. Flashlights swept him from head to foot, and he heard Morrison’s mocking laugh.

“How perfectly delightful!” laughed Morrison. “We were talking about you just a moment ago! This is indeed pleasant! Take him inside, Willie. Light another lamp, somebody.”

The man named Willie tightened his grip on Djuna’s arms and half pushed, half carried him into the house, while Torn-Pants held the door open and Scar-Thumb lighted another oil lamp in the room. Morrison was the last to come in, and Djuna saw he was still carrying his guitar, holding it poised alertly.

“A couple of you fellows had better stay outside and keep watch,” grunted Morrison. “We should have done this before. How did you happen to catch this mouse, Willie?”

“Aw, I was just settin’ on duh front steps, mindin’ my business,” the man answered, as the two others trooped out. He was a short, broad-shouldered ape, with eyes that seemed always watering and a mouth that drooped mournfully at the corners. “I hear dis kid comin’ along in duh dark, an’ at foist I t’inks it’s one of youse guys, so I sets quiet, an’ he walks right up to me, so I grabs him. Dere ain’t nuttin’ to it.”

Morrison laughed. “Nice work, Willie!” he said. “I’ll tip you a couple of hundred extra for this.” Holding his guitar with one arm, he stepped up close to Djuna. Djuna could see the thing clearly now. The guitar was merely a mask for a light machine-gun—a Tommy-gun, whose barrel was concealed by the instrument’s long neck, while a circular hole in the bottom of the body permitted the hand to reach the trigger inside.

With his free hand, Morrison seized Djuna by the throat. “Now, then, speak up!” he growled, dropping all his mocking politeness like a mask. “What are you sneaking around here for? Answer me!”

“You coward!” panted Djuna. “Let go of me!”

Morrison laughed and dropped his hand. “Hang on to him, Willie,” he ordered. “We’ll give him a little time to think things over.”

He moved toward the door, but Djuna noticed that he did not stand in such a position that the men outside could see him outlined against the lamplight.

“Joe!” called Morrison. “Come in and give Willie a hand! We’ll put this kid with his friend down cellar.”

Djuna threw a desperate glance about the room. It was bare-floored and bare-walled, the floor boards blackened with age; and the plaster of the walls had crumbled away in great spots, showing the ancient laths below. The room was empty of furniture, except for three cots built of old pieces of lumber, on which straw mattresses, old potato sacks, and dirty blankets were heaped. There was no glass left in any window, and the windows had been closely boarded up. Evidently, until Morrison had sent his three gangsters to sleep there, the house had been deserted for years. Through the doorway which opened into an adjoining room, Djuna caught a glimpse of fallen plaster which had heaped itself upon a sagging floor.

Scar-Thumb came in from outside. “Hold the flash, Joe, while Willie takes our young friend down cellar,” Morrison ordered him. “We’ll let him cool off a little.”

Scar-Thumb picked up a coil of rope which lay in a corner. “Use dis?” he asked carelessly.

“Why not?” returned Mr. Morrison, with equal carelessness. “Give him the bed next to the old man’s.”

Djuna had not spoken a word since his one burst of hysterical defiance of the silken-voiced leader of the bandits. It was useless, he knew, to ask where Champ was. Perhaps that last moan he had heard had been Champ’s dying moan. He bit his lips fiercely to keep them from trembling. Where were they taking him? Was he to die, too?

The gorilla-like Willie, holding both Djuna’s arms pinioned in his huge paws, lifted him till his toes barely touched the floor and pushed him forward. Scar-Thumb walked behind, holding his flashlight over Willie’s shoulder, so that it lit up the way. They passed through the doorway into the adjoining room. The dancing circle of light rested for a moment on an old fashioned fireplace and a refuse-littered floor whose planks had rotted through. It had been the kitchen of the old house. The flashlight flickered over its smoke-darkened wall, danced across a rafter that had given way, picked out the gaping hole in the ceiling through which winter snows and summer rains had dripped upon the floor, and then descended, lighting up a second doorway that framed a square of blackness at their very feet. A breath of chill damp air floated up from below, and Djuna shuddered.

“Hold it on the stairs, Joe,” grunted Willie, “so’s I c’n see where t’ put me feet.”

He swung Djuna around, and began cautiously to descend the cellar stairs, which were of stone, glancing over his shoulder to make sure of his footing. Joe followed, the beam of his searchlight showing the way.

They reached the bottom step, and Djuna felt the slippery surface of a hard-packed earthen floor beneath his feet. The circle of light shot past his shoulder as Willie swung him around to face the center of the pitch-dark room. It lighted up two upright posts, at the foot of one of which was huddled a motionless body. Djuna screamed.

It was the body of Mr. Boots.

But at the scream, the old man lifted his head. Terror shone in the distended eyes on which the circle of light had come to a stop.

The light shone on his old bald head, the fringe of white beard beneath his chin, the leathery cheeks from which all color had been drained.

An upturned wooden keg supported his heavy body, and his back was pressed against the post. He sat strangely erect, and Djuna saw, with a pang of horror, the reason for the unnatural attitude. Mr. Boots’s arms had been pressed backward and, behind the post, his wrists had been lashed together. Loops of a light strong rope, a clothes-line, passed around his chest, under his armpits, and around the post. His ankles were lashed together and additional loops of the thin rope were drawn tightly around the keg and the post, the ends knotted behind the post.

A strangled cry of horror and pity burst from Djuna’s lips, and he struggled frantically to tear himself free. “Mr. Boots!” he shouted, and then Willie’s huge hand clamped firmly over his mouth and chin, forcing his head backward, and his shout died into a gurgle.

The light flickered away from Mr. Boots and came back to rest upon the struggling boy and his captor. Djuna heard Mr. Boots give a hollow moan. “Djuna!” the old man cried in bitter anguish. And then his voice rose in helpless pleading.
“Don’t
hurt the boy, mister!” he babbled. “Don’t fight ’em, Djuna! It ain’t no use!”

“Git de oil-lamp, Joe,” growled Willie. “Dat flash ain’t wort’ nuttin’.”

For a long minute there was pitch darkness in the cellar while Scar-Thumb climbed the stairs again, to fetch the lamp. Djuna stood panting, exhausted from his futile struggle, his ribs pressed in by the man’s mighty arms until he could scarcely breathe. Then the dim but steady glow of the oil-lamp drove away the shadows, as Joe returned, and he began to distinguish the outlines of the cavern to which he had been dragged.

The cellar was a small room, scarcely ten feet wide and a dozen feet long, and walled with stone. Its ceiling, the floor of the kitchen overhead, was low, a scanty six feet above the earthen floor. Joists of oak timber, hand-hewn, with the marks of the woodsman’s axe still scarring their rough sides, supported the floor overhead; and the two central beams, six feet apart, were in turn supported by the two upright posts of cedar saplings, from which the bark had never been trimmed. On one side of the room, against the wall, were the rotting remains of wooden shelves and, beneath them, bins in which vegetables had been stored. Spiders’ webs hung in gray festoons in every corner and from the sagging beams overhead. Blotches of black and yellow fungus spotted the mortar which held the stones of the walls together. At the corner opposite the stairs by which they had descended, steps of stone led upward to what had once been the yard outside the kitchen door. The outer cellar door had long since rotted away, its remnants littering the stone slabs which formed the steps. Weeds grew in the crevices between the slabs.

“Park de lamp an’ gimme a hand,” the ape man ordered. “Pull over dat keg.”

A small wooden keg, blackened with age, lay among some other rubbish on the floor. Scar-Thumb placed the lamp on the ground, picked up the keg, carried it to the post next to the one to which Mr. Boots was tied, and placed it carefully on end, at the foot of the post. Straightening up, he waited, an evil grin upon his face.

“Okay, toots,” he snickered. “Yer bed’s ready fer yuh, Bright Boy.”

A hoarse cry of rage burst from Mr. Boots, and he tugged at the ropes that bound him, until the muscles of his neck stood out. “Let the boy go!” he panted. “Kill
me
, if you want to, but have mercy on him!”

“Pipe down, Grampa,” snarled Willie. “We ain’t hurtin’ him none.”

As easily as if Djuna weighed no more than a sack of meal, he lifted him off his feet suddenly, carried him to the post, and thrust him down upon the upturned keg.

“Come on wit’ de rope, Joe,” he grunted. “Git busy.”

Djuna tried to squirm away from the post, but the man pushed his shoulders firmly against it, while Scar-Thumb wound the clothes-line quickly around him, until the coils held him to the post. They tied his wrists together, behind the post. They tied his ankles. With the last length of line, they encircled his legs, the keg, and the post, then stood up and examined their work.

“Okay, baby, run home to yer mudder any time yuh wanna,” sneered Scar-Thumb, grinning.

Unable to move, scarcely able to breathe, with the cords knotted tightly around his chest, Djuna made no answer.

“Are you ready, boys?” It was Morrison’s voice, coming from the room above. “It’s about time we got some sleep!”

“Okay, boss!” the men answered hastily. They picked up their lamp, took a last look at Mr. Boots’s fastenings, to make sure that the knots remained firm, and climbed the stairs slowly. The dim light vanished from the cellar as they went, and inky darkness followed. Djuna turned his head. Outside, framed by the narrow rectangle of the cellar doorway, was visible a tiny patch of night sky, and in it one star was gleaming.

In the utter blackness of the room, his tense nerves jumped as he heard a cautious whisper from Mr. Boots.

“Djuna!” the old man whispered. “Hev they hurt ye, boy?” There was agonized anxiety in his quavering voice.

“No, I’m all right,” whispered Djuna. “Are you all right, Mr. Boots?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” whispered the old man bravely. “Don’t be skeered, boy! Somebody’s bound to come and git us, ’fore long! But say, child, how did these devils ketch ye? Did they break into your house? Did they hurt Miss Annie? Tell me quick!”