Bunched Knuckles

Chapter IV Two Prisoners

Jax Bowman regained consciousness to the tune of a throbbing motor which pulsed through his aching head as though the explosions were taking place within the interior of his brain instead of within the cylinders of the motor.

Gradually, he managed to fit events into a coherent whole, to find himself bound about the wrists and ankles, lying on the floor of a single-motored cabin plane. He was jammed against one end of the cabin in such a position that it was difficult for him to move. His head was under a chair. Such view of the interior of the cabin as he was able to get was through the rungs of the chair. He could see a very neat pair of ankles, terminating in well-shod feet, and bitterness assailed him as he realized he had no sooner finished warning Big Jim Grood against falling for a pretty face than he himself had walked into the trap against which he had warned his partner.

Bowman had no means of knowing how long he had been unconscious, or how far from San Francisco the plane had traveled. He tried to observe the splotches of sunlight on the floor of the plane for the purpose of determining direction. He had tentatively decided the plane was flying slightly east of north when the motor was throttled down. The plane inclined sharply downward toward a landing.

Bowman, his flying senses functioning automatically, estimated the rate of descent, and decided that the plane had been traveling very high — something over ten thousand feet. As the wheels jolted to a landing, he decided that the pilot was not particularly expert.

Then the jolting of the plane as it taxied toward a hangar sent a series of pains through his aching head which kept him from thinking at all. He lay on the floor of the cabin in agony, and heaved a great sigh of relief as the plane swung in a circle and the motor stopped. The cabin door opened. A man’s voice said, “You shouldn’t have made that report over the telephone, Howard.”

The man who had been piloting the plane said, in a sulky voice, “How the hell was I to let you know? Did you want me to try telepathy?”

It was the voice of the man who had posed as the lawyer.

The first man had no answer to that. He spoke to the girl. “You put it over all right, Lottie.”

“I’ll say I put it over,” she said. And Bowman noticed once more that lilting note of reckless youth in her voice.

Hands grasped his ankles. He was pulled out from the corner of the cabin.

“Get a blindfold,” someone said. And Bowman saw hands with a bandage. But before the bandage shut out his vision, he saw the face of the first speaker — a lean, bony face, with a prominent jaw, high cheek bones and a long, thin nose, with pinched nostrils. The eyes were close-set and alert. Then the bandage shut out Bowman’s vision.

A knife cut the ropes around his ankles. He tried to walk, but his feet were numb. After the first few staggering steps circulation started to return with an agony of sensation as might have been caused had his legs been used as pin cushions.

“Give him a kick, Howard,” the man with the bony face said.

“Aw, give him a break, Harry,” the girl interposed. “He’s a good scout.”

“Good scout, is he?” Harry retorted. “Then what the hell was he doing horning into our game?”

The girl had no answer ready.

“Well,” remarked Howard, he who had posed as the attorney, “he’s just what I wanted Santa Claus to bring me for Christmas. He’s worth so many millions he can’t count ’em. We can make a million-dollar ransom on this—”

“Shut up,” interrupted Harry. “We’re not going to mix into any kidnaping racket. It’s too damn dangerous. We can get away with murder if we don’t try a shake-down. Remember, he’s seen our faces.”

“Anyone can see my face for a million bucks any time,” grumbled the aviator.

“All right, shut up!” Harry ordered. “We’ll talk it over later. This guy’s ears are open, even if his eyes are covered.”

“We could seal up his mouth too — after we got the million,” Howard said.

Bowman was walking with less difficulty now. He felt a hand grasp his elbow, “Going up steps,” Howard’s voice said.

He climbed three steps, crossed a wooden porch. A door slammed shut behind him. He smelled the musty interior of a house, apparently one which had been unoccupied for some time. Then he was pushed into a room. He felt hands fumbling at the knot in the blindfold. Then the bandage was whipped off. A door closed. A bolt shot home.

Bowman’s eyes surveyed a darkened room. Boards were nailed over the windows. Light came from cracks in the boards. The air of the room was stuffy, ventilation being furnished only by wooden shutters in a peaked gable at the far end. There was no ceiling in the room and it was unplastered. Cobwebbed rafters showed dimly. The walls consisted of bare boards, to which clung occasional remnants of what had once been wall paper. The floor was rough. At one time it had been painted, a drab slate color; but the paint had, for the most part, worn through. A table, two chairs, and an iron bed were in the room. The bed had once been enameled white. Now the enamel was chipped and blackened. A sagging spring was covered with a mattress.

A young woman, seated in one of the chairs, stared at Bowman with wide blue eyes from behind businesslike tortoise-shell spectacles. Her face was filled with character, but too bony to be called beautiful. Her chin was prominent, her lips full, yet shapely.

She struggled to her feet Bowman saw that her wrists were tied in front of her.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The name,” he said, “is Bowman. And you, I suppose, are Phyllis Proctor?”

She nodded. “You came to rescue me?” she asked.

He smiled bitterly.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, when she had realized the eloquent significance of his smile.

“Two days.”

“Do you,” he asked, “know what their plans are?”

It was a cruel question, but one which it was necessary for him to ask.

She shook her head. “I haven’t any idea. They can’t hold me for ransom because I haven’t anything, and I haven’t any relatives.”

“How did they get you here?”

“I answered an ad in the paper, an ad asking for a young woman with stenographic qualifications which were almost identical with my own. The ad might have been written with me in mind.”

“It probably was,” he told her dryly. “Do you know where you are?”

“No.”

“How were you taken here, by plane or automobile?”

“In an automobile.”

“Do you know where it is — what direction from San Francisco?”

“No. I was blindfolded.”

Jax Bowman turned to stare about the room. He wanted to make his further questions as few as possible, lest his very questions should show her the hopelessness of their situation and the ultimate fate which awaited them.

“They give you any liberty at all?” he asked.

“Once every three or four hours they come in, untie me, let me walk around. They seem to be waiting for something. I don’t know what it is.”

Bowman walked to the windows. They were boarded up on the inside. The boards were held in place with nails hammered into the wood with the neat precision of professional carpentering.

“Have you any idea what it is they’re waiting for?” Phyllis Proctor asked.

Bowman shook his head and said “Pity they wouldn’t loosen up and give us a deck of cards and free our hands. There’s no damage we could do in here. We couldn’t rip those boards off with our bare hands.”

“I was thinking,” she said, “that a person might be able to swing a chair and smash those boards in.”

Bowman nodded moodily, and said, “But I don’t know what good it would do. They’d hear the crash of glass and the splintering boards. The place looks to me to be rather isolated. It’s far enough removed from all neighbors so that the landing and departure of planes doesn’t attract attention. They — seem to have things all their own way.”

He suddenly thought of something, moved over toward her. “You can manipulate your fingers a little bit,” he said. “See if you can feel in my left hip pocket. There’s a jack-knife there — unless they’ve taken it from me.”

She explored his pockets, each in turn, shaking her head moodily after each pocket had been searched.

“I’m afraid they’ve taken everything,” she said. “No, wait a minute, I can hear the ticking of a watch. Here’s your watch. They left that.”

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Twenty minutes past two.”

Bowman frowned thoughtfully. Regardless of what these men had been waiting for originally, he felt certain they were now waiting only for one thing — darkness.

Bowman walked to the door. He placed his ear against the thin panels and could hear voices on the other side. He turned to flash the girl a warning glance, then dropped to his knees, placed his ear to the keyhole. He was able to overhear snatches of conversation.

“Acid on the control wires... leave the plane out there... try to escape in it... Then we start pursuit... he’ll start doing stunts... Plane crash... both bodies can be identified... nothing to show plane tampered with.”

“No. That’s... too many chances. Nix on the plane stuff... automobile accident... not so much danger of fire... over a cliff... high speed... curves... block the road...”

A chair scraped. Feet came toward the door. Jax Bowman moved hastily away, was seated on the edge of the bed when the bolt shot back and Howard’s grinning face appeared in the doorway.

“How you coming, buddy?” he asked.

“How about some, playing cards?” Bowman inquired. “We’d like to pass the time. And what do you intend to do with us?”

“Just want to keep you out of mischief. Nix on the playing cards. You can’t play cards with your hands tied.”

“You mean you’re going to keep our hands tied all the time?”

“And how.”

“But I’ve got to have my arms free some of the time. I can’t...”

“Oh, you’ll be given a little chance to walk around when the time comes. I hope you like canned beans. That’s going to be your chow tonight. Come on, sister, we’re going to take you out for a little walk.”

He crossed the room to the girl, took her arm and piloted her from the room. Bowman found that by lying on the bed on his face he was able to relieve the tension of the rope on his wrists. Slumber overtook him, a slumber which was not so much the result of fatigue as a partial unconsciousness, an after-effect of the blows he had received on his head.

Bowman awoke late in the afternoon. Phyllis Proctor, her wrists bound as before, was seated in the chair watching him.

“Feel rested?” she asked.

Bowman struggled to a sitting position, wanted to rub his eyes and couldn’t. He made tasting noises with his mouth. His tongue felt thick and coated. He knew that his eyes were swollen and bloodshot. His head felt dull, but the splitting headache was gone.

He tried a smile. “Learn anything new?” he asked.

She said calmly, “Yes, they’re planning to kill us tonight.”

Bowman stared at her. “How do you know?” he asked.

“I’ve been listening at the door, the same as you did.”

She was silent for a moment, and, through the panels of the door, Jax Bowman could hear the steady clack of a typewriter. Was this, he wondered, the portable machine on which the death messages had been typed? And, if so, was it now engaged in chattering out some note which was to be found upon his body?

“Scared?” the girl asked.

Bowman laughed. “How about you?” he inquired.

“I can take it,” she said, “and take it with a grin — if I have to.”

He studied her in silent admiration.

“They searched your baggage in the hotel,” she went on, “and found a mask with white rings around the eyes. That frightened the aviator to death. He’s Howard Ashe, an ex-convict. It seems that crooks have been hunted down by people wearing these white-ringed masks. I picked up quite a bit from their conversation.”

Bowman made no comment, surveyed the gathering twilight of the room.

“Do you suppose,” he asked, “you could get the watch out of my pocket once more and see what time it is? Your wrists are tied in front of you, mine behind my back.”

She came to him. Her bound wrists were pressed against his vest as her fingers worked the watch from his pocket.

“Five thirty,” Bowman said, and then suddenly, as he stared at the watch, he laughed.

“What’s the joke?” she inquired.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “I’ve been rather stupid. I could have had you out of here before this.”

Her raised eyebrows asked a silent question.

“Put the watch down on the floor,” Bowman said.