The Collected Dashiell Hammett

Action Stories, November 1923; (aka: When Luck’s Running Good, 1962)

A shriek, unmistakably feminine, and throbbing with terror, pierced the fog. Phil Truax, hurrying up Washington street, halted in the middle of a stride, and became as motionless as the stone apartment buildings that flanked the street. The shriek swelled, with something violin-like in it, and ended with a rising inflection. Half a block away the headlights of two automobiles, stationary and oddly huddled together, glowed in the mist. Silence, a guttural grunt, and the shriek again! But now it held more anger than fear, and broke off suddenly.

Phil remained motionless. Whatever was happening ahead was none of his business, and he was a meddler in other peoples affairs only when assured of profit therefrom. And, too, he was not armed. Then he thought of the four hundred dollars in his pocket: his winnings in the poker game he had just left. He had been lucky thus far tonight; mightn’t his luck carry him a little further if he gave it the opportunity? He pulled his hat down firmly on his head and ran towards the lights.

The fog aided the headlights in concealing from him whatever was happening in the machines as he approached them, but he noticed that the engine of at least one was running. Then he skirted one of them, a roadster, cheeking his momentum by catching hold of a mudguard. For a fraction of a second he hung there, while dark eyes burned into his from a white face half hidden under a brawny hand.

Phil hurled himself on the back of the man to whom the hand belonged; his fingers closed around a sinewy throat. A white flame seared his eyeballs; the ground went soft and billowy under his feet, as if it were part of the fog. Everything — the burning eyes, the brawny hand, the curtains of the automobile-rushed toward him—

Phil sat up on the wet paving and felt his head. His fingers found a sore, swelling area running from above the left ear nearly to the crown. Both automobiles were gone. No pedestrians were in sight. Lights were shining through a few windows; forms were at many windows; and curious voices were calling questions into the fog. Mastering his nausea, he got unsteadily to his feet, though his desire was to lie down again on the cool, damp street. Hunting for his hat. he found a small handbag and thrust it into his pocket. He recovered his hat from the gutter, tilted it to spare the bruise, and set out for home, ignoring the queries of the pajamaed spectators.

Dressed for bed, and satisfied that the injury to his head was superficial, Phil turned his attention to the souvenir of his adventure. It was a small bag of black silk, trimmed with silver beads, and still damp from its contact with the street. He dumped its contents out on the bed. and a bundle of paper money caught his eye. He counted the bills and found they aggregated three hundred and fifty-five dollars. Pushing the bills into the pocket of his bath-robe, he grinned. “Four hundred I win and three hundred and fifty I get for a tap on the head — a pretty good night!”

He picked up the other articles, looked at them, and returned them to the bag. A gold pencil, a gold ring with an opal set in it, a woman’s handkerchief with a gray border and an unrecognizable design in one corner, a powder-box, a small mirror, a lip-stick, some hairpins, and a rumpled sheet of note-paper covered with strange, exotic characters. He smoothed out the paper and examined it closely, but could make nothing out of it. Some Asiatic language, perhaps. He took the ring from the bag again and tried to estimate its value. His knowledge of gems was small, but he decided that the ring could not be worth much — not more than fifty dollars at the most. Still, fifty dollars is fifty dollars. He put the ring with the money, lit a cigarette, and went to bed.

Chapter II The Mysterious Advertisement

Phil awoke at noon. His head was still tender to the touch, but the swelling had gone. He walked downtown, bought early editions of the afternoon papers, and read them while he ate breakfast. He found no mention of the struggle on Washington street, and the Lost and Found columns held nothing pertaining to the bag. That night be played poker until daylight and won two hundred and forty-some dollars. In an all-night lunch-room he read the morning papers. Still nothing of the struggle, but in the classified section of the Chronicle:

He grinned, then frowned, and stared speculatively at the advertisement. It had a queer look to it, this offer! The ring couldn’t be worth three hundred dollars. He took it from his pocket, shielding it with his hand from the chance look of anyone in the lunch-room. No; fifty dollars would be a big price. The pencil, powder-box, and lip-stick case were of gold; but a hundred and fifty dollars, say, would more than replace everything in the bag. The undecipherable letter remained — that must be some important item! A struggle between a woman and some men at four in the morning, nothing about it in the newspapers, a lost bag containing a paper covered with foreign characters, and then this generous offer — it might mean almost anything! Of course, the wisest plan would be either to disregard the advertisement and keep what he had found, or to accept this offer and send everything but the money to the Chronicle. Either way would be playing it safe; but when a man’s luck is running good he should crowd it to the limit. Times come, as every gambler knows, when a man gets into a streak of luck, when everything he touches proves fruitful; and his play then is to push his luck to a fare-you-well — make a killing while the fickle goddess is smiling. He thought of the men he had known who had paid for their timidity in the face of Chance’s favor — men who had won dollars where they might have won thousands, men who were condemned to be pikers all their lives through lack of courage to force their luck when it ran strong, an inability to rise with their stars. “And my luck’s running good,” he whispered to the ring in his hand. “A thousand smacks in two days, after the long dry spell I’ve been through.”

He returned the ring to his pocket and reviewed the chain of incidents leading up to the advertisement. Two facts that had lurked in his subconsciousness came out to face him: the shrieking voice had been musical even in its terror, and the eyes that had burned into his had been very beautiful, though he did not know what their owners other features might be like. Two influencing elements; but the question at hand was whether the monetary reward in keeping with any danger that might ensue could be expected. He made up his mind as he finished his coffee.

“I’ll sit in this racket, whatever it is, for a little while, anyway; and see what I can get myself.”

Chapter III Matching Wits

At ten o’clock that morning Phil telephoned the office of the Chronicle, told the girl to whom he talked that he had found the bag but would return it to no One but its owner, and went back to bed. At two o’clock he got up and dressed. He returned the ring to the bag, with everything except the money, and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. He usually went out for his meals, but today he wanted to be sure that he would not miss whoever might telephone or call. He had scarcely finished his meal then the door-bell rang.

“Mr. Truax?”

Phil nodded and invited the caller in. The man who entered the flat was about forty years old, nearly as tall as Phil, and perhaps twenty-five pounds heavier. He was fastidiously groomed in clothes of a European cut, and a walking-stick was crooked over one arm.

He accepted a chair with a polite smile, and said, “I shall take but a moment of your time. It is about the bag that I have come. The newspaper informed me you had found it. He betrayed his foreignness more by the precision of his enunciation than by any accent.

“It is your bag?”

The caller’s red lips parted in a smile, baring twin rows of even white teeth.

“It is my niece’s, but I can describe it. A black silk bag of about this size” — indicating with his small, shapely hands — “trimmed with silver, and holding between three and four hundred dollars, a gold pencil, a ring — an opal ring — a letter written in Russian, and the powder and rouge accessories that one would expect to find in a young woman’s bag. Perhaps a handkerchief with her initial in Russian on it. That is the one you found?”

“It might be, Mr.—”

“Pardon me, sir!” The visitor extended a card. “Kapaloff, Boris Kapaloff.”

Phil took the card and pretended to scrutinize it while he marshaled his thoughts. He was far from certain that he cared to force himself into this man’s affairs. The man’s whole appearance — the broad forehead slanting down from the roots of the crisp black hair to bulge a little just above the brows; the narrow, widely spaced eves of cold hazel; the aquiline nose with a pronounced flare to the nostrils; the firm, too-red lips; the hard line of chin and jaw — evidenced a nature both able and willing to hold its own in any field. And while Phil considered himself second to no man in guile, he knew that his intrigues had heretofore been confined to the world of tin-horn gamblers, ward-heelers, and such small fry. Small schooling for a game with this man whose voice, appearance and poise proclaimed a denizen of a greater, more subtle world. Of course, if some decided advantage could be gained at the very outset...

“Where was the bag lost?” Phil asked.

The Russian’s poise remained undisturbed.

“That would be most difficult to say,” he replied in his cultured. musical voice. “My niece had been to a dance, and she carried several friends to their homes before returning to hers. The bag may have dropped from the car anywhere along the way.” A temptation to speak of the struggle on Washington street came to Phil but he put it aside. Kapaloff might have been present that morning but it was obvious that he did not recognize Phil. The bag could have been found by someone who passed the spot later. Phil decided to leave Kapaloff in doubt on that point for as long as possible, in hope that some advantage would come out of it; and he was further urged to postpone the clash that might ensure by a faint fear of coming to a show-down with this suave Russian. Nothing would be lost by waiting...

Kapaloff allowed a gentle impatience to tinge his manner. “Now about the bag?”

“The three hundred and fifty-five dollars is reward?” Phil asked.

Kapaloff sighed ruefully.

“I am sorry to say it is. Ridiculous, of course, but perhaps you know something of young women. My niece was very fond of the opal ring — a trinket, worth but little. Yet no sooner did she discover her loss than she telephoned the newspaper office and offered the money as reward. Ridiculous! A hundred dollars would be an exaggerated value to place upon everything in the bag. But having made the offer, we shall have to abide by it.”

Phil nodded dumbly. Kapaloff was lying — no doubt of that — but he wasn’t the sort that one baldly denounces. Phil fidgeted and found himself avoiding his visitor’s eyes. Then a wave of self-disgust flooded him. “Here I am,” be thought, “letting this guy bluff me in my own flat, just because be has a classy front.” He looked into Kapaloff’s hazel eyes and asked with perfect casualness, keeping every sign of what was going on in his brain out of his poker-player’s face: “And how did the scrap in the automobiles come out? I didn’t see the end of it.”

“I am so glad you said that!” Kapaloff cried, bis face alight with joyous relief. “So very glad! Now I can offer my apologies for my childish attempts at deception. You see, I wasn’t sure that you had seen the unfortunate occurrence — you could have found the bag later — although I was told that someone had tried to interfere. You were not injured seriously?” His voice was weighted with solicitude.

None of the bewilderment, chagrin, recognition of defeat that raged in Phil’s brain showed in his face. He tried to match the other’s blandness. “Not at all. A slight headache next morning, a sore spot for a few hours. Nothing to speak of!”

“Splendid!” Kapaloff exclaimed. “Splendid! And I want to thank you for your attempt to assist my niece, even though I must assure you it was most fortunate you were unsuccessful. We certainly owe you an explanation — my niece and I — and if you will bear with me I shall try not to take up too much of your time with it. We are Russians — my niece and I — and when the tsar’s government collapsed our place in our native land was gone. Kapaloff was not our name then; but what is a title after the dynasty upon which it depends and the holdings accruing to it are gone? What we endured between the beginning of the revolution and our escape from Russia I pray may never come to another!” A cloud touched his face with anguish, but he brushed it away with a gesture of one delicate hand. “My niece saw her father and her fiance struck down within ten minutes. For months after that the real world did not exist for her. She lived in a nightmare. We watched her night and day for fear that she would succeed in her constant efforts to destroy herself. Then, gradually, she came back to us. For six months she has been, we thought, well. The alienists assured us that she was permanently cured. And then, late Monday night, she found between the pages of an old book a photograph of Kondra — he was her betrothed — and the poor child’s mind snapped again. She fled from the house, crying that she must go back to Petrograd, to Kondra. I was out, but my valet and my secretary followed her, caught her somewhere in the city, and returned with her. The roughness with which your gallantry was met — for that I must beg your forgiveness. Serge and Mikhail have not yet learned to temper their zeal. To them I am still ‘His Excellency,’ in whose service anything may be done.”

Kapaloff stopped, as if waiting for Phil’s comment, but Phil was silent. His brain was telling him, over and over, “This bird has got you licked! The generosity of the reward isn’t accounted for by this tale, but it will be before he’s through. This bird has got you licked!”

His genial eyes still on Phil’s, Kapaloff fulfilled the prophesy. “After my niece was safely home and I heard what had happened, I had the advertisement put in the paper. It seemed the most promising way of learning the extent of the injury to the man who had tried to aid my niece. If he were unhurt and had found the bag, he would turn it over to the Chronicle, and the three hundred and fifty dollars would be little enough reward for his trouble. On the other hand, if he were seriously injured he would use the advertisement to get in touch with me and I could take further steps to provide for him. If the bag were found by someone else I would remain in ignorance; but you will readily understand that I had no desire to have my niece’s distressing plight paraded before the public in the newspapers.”

He paused, waiting again.

When the pause had become awkward Phil shifted in his chair and asked, “And your niece — how is she now?”

“Apparently well again. I called a physician as soon as she returned, she was given an opiate and awoke that afternoon as if nothing unusual had happened. It may be that she will never be troubled again.”

Phil started to get up from his chair to get the bag. There seemed to be no tangible reason for doubting the Russian’s story — except that be did not want to believe it. But was the story flawless? He relaxed in the chair again. If the tale were true, would Kapaloff have dictated the advertisement so that the bag would be delivered to the Chronicle? Wouldn’t he have wanted to interview the finder? The Russian was waiting for Phil to speak, and Phil had nothing to say. He wanted time to think this affair over carefully, away from the glances of the hazel eyes that were lancet-keen for all their blandness.

“Mr. Kapaloff,” he said, hesitantly, “here is how all this stands with me: I saw the bag’s owner and found it under — well — funny circumstances. Not,” he interjected quickly, as Kapaloff’s eyebrows rose coldly, “that your explanation is hard to believe; but I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing. So I’ll have to ask you either to let me deliver the bag to your niece, or to go to the police, tell our stories, and let them straighten it out.”

Kapaloff appeared to turn the offers over in his mind. Then he objected: “Neither alternative is inviting. The first would subject my niece to an embarrassing interview, and so soon after her trouble. The second — you should appreciate my distaste for the publicity that would follow the police’s entry into the affair.”

“I’m sorry, but—” Phil began, but Kapaloff cut him short by rising to his feet, smiling genially, with out-stretched hand.

“Not at all, Mr. Truax. You arc a man of judgment. In your position I should probably act in like manner. Can you accompany to call upon my niece now?”

Phil stood up and grasped the dainty hand extended to him, and though the Russian’s grip was light enough Phil could feel the swell of powerful muscles under the soft skin.

“I’m sorry,” Phil lied, “but I have an engagement within half an hour. Perhaps you and your niece will be in the neighborhood within a few days and will find it convenient to call for it?” He did not intend dealing with this man on alien ground.

“That will do nicely. Shall we say, at three tomorrow?”

Phil repeated, “At three tomorrow,” and Kapaloff bowed himself out.

Alone, Phil sat down and tried to torture his brain into giving him the solution of this puzzle; but he made little headway. Except in two minor instances the Russian’s story had been impregnable. And those two details — the fact that he did not want the police dragged into the affair, and that he had worded the advertisement so as to retain his anonymity behind the screen of the newspaper — were not, upon close examination, very conclusive. On the other hand, insanity was notorious as a mask for villainy. How many crimes had been committed by use of the pretext that the victim, or the witnesses, were insane! Kapaloff’s manner had been candid enough; and his poise had survived every twist of the situation, but... It was upon this last that Phil hung his doubts. “If that bird had contradicted me just once I’d believe him, maybe; but he was too damned agreeable!”

Chapter IV Unwelcomed Visitors

Phil returned home early that night. The cards had failed to hold him, now that his mind was occupied with what threatened to be a larger, more intricate game. He puzzled over the letter in Russian, but its characters meant nothing to his eyes. He tried to think of someone who could translate it tor him; but the only Russian he knew was not a man to be trusted under any circumstances. He tried to read a magazine, but soon gave it up and crawled into bed, to toss about, smoke numerous cigarettes, and finally drop off to sleep.

The least expert of burglars would have laughed at the difficulty and resultant noise with which the two men opened the door of Phil’s flat; but not the most desperate of criminals would have found anything laughable in their obvious determination. They were bent upon getting into the flat, and the racket incidental to their bungling attacks on the lock disconcerted them not at all. It was evident they would force an entrance even if it were necessary to batter the door down. Finally the lock succumbed, but by that time Phil was flattened behind his bath-room door, with a pistol in his hand and a confident grin on his face. The crudeness of the work on the lock precluded whatever doubts of his ability to take care of himself be might ordinarily have had.

The outer door swung open but no light came through. The hall light had been extinguished. The hinges creaked a little, but Phil, peering through the slit between the bathroom door and the jamb, could see nothing. A whisper and an answer told him that there were at least two burglars. However noisy the men had been with the door, they were silent enough now. A slight rustling and then silence. Not knowing where the men were, Phil did not move. A faint click sounded in the bedroom, and a weak, brief reflection from a flash-light showed an empty passage-way. Phil moved soundlessly toward the bedroom. As he reached the door the flash-light went on again and stayed on, its beam fixed upon the empty bed. Phil snapped on the lights.

The two men standing beside the bed, one on either side, wheeled in unison and took a step forward, to halt before the menace of the weapon in Phil’s hand. The men were very similar in appearance; the same bullet beads, the same green eyes under tangled brows, the same sullen mouths and high, broad cheek-bones. But the one who held a blackjack in a still uplifted hand was heavier and broader than the other, and the bridge of his nose was dented by a dark scar that ran from cheek to cheek, just under his eyes. For perhaps two seconds the men stood thus. Then the larger man shrugged his enormous shoulders and grunted a syllable to his companion. The momentary confusion left their faces, to be replaced by mated looks of resolve as they advanced toward Phil.

His brain was racing. Kapaloff’s “secretary and valet,” of course; and as their indifference to the noises they had made at the door testified to their determination to do what they had come to do at any cost, so now did their indifference to the pistol in Phil’s hand. Close upon him as they were, he could hardly expect to drop both of them; but even if he did — the whole story would be bound to come out in the police investigation that must follow, and his chance of getting greater profit out of the affair would be blasted.

As the two men, working together like twin parts of a machine, contracted their muscles to spring, Phil hit on a way out. He leaped backward through the bedroom door, whirled, and jumped into the hall, shouting: “Help! Police!”

There was a snarling at the door, a scuffling, and the noise of two men running through the dark hall toward the front door. The laughter that welled up in Phil’s throat silenced his shouts; he fired his pistol into the floor and returned to his bedroom. He laid a chair gently on its side and swept some books and papers from the table to the floor. Then he turned with a wide-eyed semblance of excitement to welcome the callers in various degrees of negligee who came in answer to his bellowing. After a while a policeman came and Phil told his story.

“A noise woke me up and I saw a man in the room. I grabbed my gun and yelled at him, but I forgot to take the safety catch off the gun.” With sham sheepishness: “I guess I was kind of scared. He ran out in the hall with me after him. I remembered the safety, then, and took a shot at him, but it was too dark to see whether I hit him. I looked through my stuff and don’t think he got anything, so I guess no harm’s done.”

After the last question had been answered and the last caller had gone, Phil bolted the door and shook hands with himself. “Well, that fixes Mr. Kapaloff’s story. And you’ve got him faded to date, my boy, so don’t let me catch you letting him run a bluff on you again.”

Chapter V Forcing His Luck

At five minutes past three Thursday afternoon the Kapaloffs arrived. Romaine Kapaloff acknowledged her uncle’s introduction in easy and faultless English, and thanked Phil warmly for his efforts in her behalf Tuesday morning. Phil found himself holding her hand and straining his self-possession to the utmost to keep from gaping and stammering. The girl — she couldn’t have been more than nineteen — was looking up through brown eyes that glowed now with friendliness and gratitude into Phil’s grey ones, and asking: “And you really weren’t hurt?”

To Phil she seemed the loveliest creature he had ever seen. His attempts at extortion seemed mean and sordid. Because he was bitterly ashamed of his attempt to wring profits from her uncle, and was badly rattled, he answered almost gruffly; and in his effort to keep the chaos within him from his face he made it a mask of stupidity.

“Not at all. Really! It was nothing.”

Kapaloff stood watching them with the smile of one who sees his difficulties dissipated. Finally their hands fell apart and they sought chairs. There was an awkward pause. Phil knew that though they sat there until nightfall he could not bring up the question of the girl’s sanity, demand the corroboration of her uncle’s story, which was the excuse for the meeting. Kapaloff said nothing, sat smiling benignly upon girl and boy. The girl glanced at her uncle, as if expecting him to open the conversation, but when he ignored her silent appeal she turned impulsively to Phil, putting out her hand.

“Uncle Boris told you about my — about the trouble?”

Phil nodded, started to reach for the extended hand, thought better of it, and twined his fingers together between his knees.

“Then you know how fortunate it was that your gallantry wasn’t successful. I can’t understand why you didn’t laugh at Uncle Boris’ story — it must have sounded fantastic to you. But— Oh, it is horrible! I can never trust myself again, no matter what the doctors say!”

Phil found that he was holding her hand, after all. He looked at Kapaloff, who was smiling sympathetically. Phil and the girl stood up, and for an instant her eyes held a baffling undertone of pleading. Then it was gone, and she was turning to her uncle. Phil had but one idea in his mind now: to hand over the bag, get rid of these people, and be alone with his shame and disgust. He moved toward the door. “I’ll get the bag,” he said in a tired, weak voice.

A silver purse that dangled from the girl’s wrist clattered to the floor. As Phil turned his head at the sound, Kapaloff bent to pick up the purse, and Romaine Kapaloff’s eyes met Phil’s. For an infinitesimal part of a second her eyes burned into his as they had Tuesday morning, and stark terror wiped out the smooth young beauty of her face. Then her uncle was holding out the purse, her face was composed again, and Phil was walking toward his bedroom door with blood pounding in his temples. He sat on the top of his trunk, gnawed a thumb-nail, and thought desperately. Then he took the bag from the trunk and thrust it under his coat and returned to his guests.

“It is gone.”

Kapaloff’s urbanity seemed about to desert him. His face darkened and he took a swift step forward. Then he was master of himself again, and was asking pleasantly, “Are you positive?”

“You may look it you like.”

Phil went to the telephone and a few seconds later was talking to the desk sergeant at the district police station.

“A burglar got in here last night. One of your men was in afterward, and I told him I hadn’t missed anything. Now I find that a lady’s handbag is gone. All right.”

He turned from the telephone to the Kapaloffs.

“I woke up some time this morning and found two burglars in the room. They escaped, and I thought everything was safe. I forgot about the bag, and didn’t look to see if it was still here. I am sorry.”

Neither of the Kapaloffs gave any indication of previous knowledge of the burglary. Boris Kapaloff said evenly, “Very unfortunate, but the bag and its contents were not so valuable that we should worry unduly over the loss.”

“I am going to the police station this afternoon to give a description of the bag. Shall I tell them that it is your property and have them turn it over to you?”

“If you will be so kind. Our address is, La Jolla Avenue, Burlingame.”

Conversation lagged. Several times Kapaloff seemed about to speak, but each time he restrained himself. The girl’s eyes, when Phil met them, held a question which he made no attempt to answer. The Kapaloffs departed. Phil shook hands with both of them, answering the girl’s unspoken question with a quick pressure.

When they were gone, he withdrew the bag from under his vest, counted three hundred and fifty-five dollars from the bills in his pocket, and put the money in the bag. Then he drew a deep breath. That was the end of three years of searching for an “easy living.” Since his discharge from the army he had been drifting, finding himself at odds with the world, gambling, doing chores for political factors — never doing anything very vicious, perhaps, but steadily becoming more and more enmeshed in the underworld. As he looked back now, with the memory of his shame and self-disgust of a few minutes ago still fresh, he thought that he would not feel quite so worthless if there had been some outstanding crime in his past, instead of a legion of petty deeds. Well, that was past! After this tangle came to an end he would get a job and go back to the ways he had known before the war interrupted his aspirations.

He wrapped the bag in heavy paper, tied it, and sealed it securely. Then he took it downtown and turned it over to the friendly proprietor of a poolroom to be put in the safe.

For two days Phil kept to his rooms — days in which he sprang to the telephone at the first tingling of the bell. He tried to reach Romaine Kapaloff by telephone, got her house, and was told by a harsh voice in broken English that she was not at home. Three times he tried it, but the results were the same. Then he tried to talk to her uncle, and got the same answer. On the second night he slept hardly at all. He would doze and then spring into wakefulness, imagining that the bell had sounded, race to the telephone, to be asked, “What number are you calling?”

Then he decided to wait no longer. When a man’s luck is running good he should force the issue — not wait in idleness until his fortunes turn.

Chapter VI “Flashing, Dripping Jaws”

In Burlingame Phil easily found the Kapaloffs’ house. At the first garage where he inquired, the name was unknown, but they knew where “the Russians” lived. Even in the dark he had no difficulty in recognizing the house from the garage-man’s description. He drove past it, left his borrowed car in the darkest shadow he could find, and returned afoot. The building loomed immense in the night, a great gray structure set in a park, ringed about by a tall iron fence overgrown with hedging. The nearest house was at least half a mile away.

No light came from the house, and Phil found the front gate locked. He crossed the road and squatted under a tree some two hundred feet away. His plan involved nothing further than waiting in the vicinity until he saw Romaine, found some means of communicating with her, or found an avenue through which his luck could carry him toward a solution of whatever mystery existed in the house across the road. The chances were that Romaine was a prisoner; otherwise she would have got word to him before this. His watch registered 10:15.

He waited.

When his watch said 1:30 his youth and his faith in his luck overcame his patience. A man might as well be home in bed as sitting out here waiting for something to turn up. When a man’s luck is running good... He skirted the hedge-grown fence until he found a tree with a branch that grew over the barrier. He climbed the tree, crawled out on the overhanging limb, swung for a minute, and dropped. He landed on hands and knees in soft, moist loam. Carefully he moved forward, keeping a cluster of bushes between himself and the house. When he reached the bushes he halted. Nothing that might serve to conceal him was between the bushes and the building, and he was afraid to trust himself out in the pale starlight. He sat on his heels and waited.

Three-quarters of an hour passed, and then he heard the sound of metal scraping against wood. He could see nothing. The sound came again and he identified it: someone was opening a shutter, cautiously, stopping at each sound the bolt made. A babel of dogs’ voices broke out at the rear of the house, and around the corner swept a pack of great hounds, to throw themselves frenziedly against one of the lower windows. Phil heard the shutter slam sharply. In the wake of the dogs a man stumbled. The shutter opened and Kapaloff leaned out to speak to the man in the yard. Above the men’s words Phil heard Romaine Kapaloff’s voice, raised in anger. In the rectangle of light shining from the window six wolfhounds were twisting and leaping — not the sedate, finely bred borzois of my lady’s promenade; but great, shaggy wolf-killers of the steppes, over half a man’s height from ground to shoulder, and more than a hundred pounds each of fighting machinery. Phil held his breath, shrunk behind his screen, and prayed that what he had heard somewhere of these wolfhounds hunting by sight and not by scent be true, that his presence escape their noses. Kapaloff withdrew his head and closed the shutter. The man in the yard shouted at the dogs. They followed him to the rear of the house. A door closed, shutting off the dogs’ voices. Phil was damp with perspiration, but he knew that the dogs were kept indoors.

From an upper story came a muffled scream and a sound of something falling against a shutter. Then silence. The sound had come from the front of the house, Phil decided; the corner room on the third floor, at a guess.

For a moment Phil was tempted to leave the place and enlist the services of the police; but he was not used to allying himself with the police — on the few occasions when he had had dealings with the law he had found it on the other side. Then, too, would not the glib Kapaloff have the advantage of his aristocratic manner, his standing as a property holder, and his seemingly secure position in the world? Against all this Phil would have but his bare word and a vague story, backed by three years of living without what the police call “visible means of support.” He could imagine what the outcome would be. He would have to play this hand out alone. Well, then...

He left the protecting bush and crept to the front of the house. Around the corner he paused to scan the building. So far as he could determine in the dark every window was fitted with a shutter. He was afraid to try the shutters on the first floor; but it was unlikely that one of them would have been left unbolted, anyway. The upper windows held out the best promise of an entrance. He crept up on the porch, removed his shoes, and stuck them in his hip pockets. Mounting the porch-rail, he encircled a pillar with arms and legs and pulled himself up until his fingers Caught the edge of the porch-roof. Silently he drew himself up and lay face down on the shingles. No sound came from house or grounds. On hands and knees he went to each of the four windows and tried the shutters. All were securely fastened.

He sat up and studied the third-story windows. The window on the extreme left should open into the room from which the last noises had come — Romaine Kapaloff’s room, if his reasoning was correct. A rainspout ran up the corner of the house, within arm’s length of the window. If the spout would support him, he could reach the window and risk a signal to the girl. He crawled over and inspected the spout, testing it with his hands. It shook a little but he decided to risk it.

He found a niche for the stockinged toes of one foot, drew himself up, reached for a higher hold on the spout with his hands, and felt for a support for the other foot. There was a tearing noise, a rattle of tin, and Phil thumped to the roof of the porch with a length of pipe in his hands. He rolled over, let go the spout, and caught at the roof in time to keep from going over the edge. The released piece of tin hit the roof with a clang and rolled over the edge to clatter madly on the paved walk.

The night was suddenly filled with the snarling of hounds. The pack careened around the corner, flung themselves against the porch, tore up and down the yard — lithe, evil shapes in the starlight, with flashing, dripping jaws. Peeping over the edge of the roof, Phil saw a man following the dogs, a gleam of metal in his hands.

A sound came from behind Phil. A second-story shutter was being opened. He wormed his way to it and lay on his back under it, close to the wall. The shutter swung open and a man leaned out — the man with the scarred face. Phil lay motionless, not breathing, his body tense, a forefinger tight around the trigger of his pistol, the pistol’s muzzle not six inches from the body slanting over him. The man called a question to the one in the yard. The front door opened, and Kapaloff’s easy voice sounded. The man at the window and the man in the yard called to Kapaloff in Russian; he answered. Then the man at the window withdrew, his footsteps receded, and a door closed within the room. The window remained open. Phil was over the sill in an instant, and in the dark room. As his feet touched the floor he sensed something amiss, heard a grunt, and lunged blindly forward. The room filled with dancing lights, and there was a roaring in his ears...

Chapter VII The Third Degree

Phil awoke with his nostrils stinging from ammonia administered by the man with the scarred face. Phil tried to push the bottle away, but his hands were lashed. His feet, too, were tied. He looked around, turning his head from side to side. He was lying on a bed in a luxuriously furnished chamber, fully clothed except for coat and shoes. Kapaloff stood across the room, looking on with a smile of mild mockery. On one side of the bed stood the man with the scar; on the opposite side, the other man who had entered Phil’s flat. At a word from Kapaloff this man assisted Phil to a sitting position.

Phil’s head ached cruelly and his stomach felt queerly empty, but taking his cue from Kapaloff, he tried to keep his face composed, as if he found nothing disconcerting in his position. Kapaloff came over to the bed and asked solicitously: “You are not seriously injured this time either, I trust?”

“I don’t think so. But if these hired men of yours keep it up they’ll wear my head away,” Phil said lightly.

Kapaloff exhibited his teeth in an affable smile. “You are the fortunate possessor of a tough head. But I hope it will not prove as little amenable to persuasion as it has been to force.”

Phil said nothing. Every iota of his will was needed to keep his face calm. The pain in his head was unbearable. Kapaloff went on talking, his voice a mixture of friendliness and banter.

“Your tenacity in clinging to the bag would, under other circumstances, be admirable; but really it must be terminated. I must insist that you tell me where it is.”

“Suppose my head stays tough on the inside, too?” Phil suggested.

“That would be most unfortunate. But you are going to be reasonable, aren’t you? When you stumbled into this affair you saw, or suspected, much that did not appear on the surface-being an extremely perspicacious young man — and thought you could unearth whatever was hidden and exact a little — well — not blackmail, perhaps, though a crude intellect might call it that. Now, you must see that I have the advantage; and assuredly you are enough the sportsman to acknowledge defeat, and make what terms you can.”

“And what are the terms?”

“Turn the bag over to me and sign a few papers.”

“Papers for what?”

“Oh! the papers are unimportant. Merely a precaution. You will not know what they contain exactly — just a few statements supposedly made by you: confessions to certain crimes, perhaps — to insure me that you will not trouble the police afterward. I am frank. I do not know where you have put the bag. After you so obligingly entered the window that Mikhail left open for you, Mikhail and Serge visited your rooms again. They found nothing. So I offer terms. The bag, your signature, and you receive five hundred dollars, exclusive of the money that was in the bag.”

“Suppose I don’t like the terms?”

“That would be most unfortunate,” Kapaloff protested. “Serge” — motioning toward the man who had helped Phil sit up — “is remarkably adept with a heated knife; and remembering the ludicrous manner in which you put him and Mikhail to rout. I fancy he would relish having you as a subject for his play.”

Phil turned his head and pretended to look at Serge, but he scarcely saw the man. He was trying to convince himself that this threat was a bluff, that Kapaloff would not dare resort to torture; but his success was slight. If his ability to read men was of any value at all then this Russian was one who would stop at nothing to attain his ends. Phil decided he would not submit to any excruciating pain to save the bag. In the first place, he did not know how valuable the paper might be; secondly, he seemed to be the girl’s only ally, and he flattered himself that he was more valuable an aid than a letter could be. However, he would fight to the last inch — bluff until the final moment.

“I can’t make terms until I talk with your niece.”

Kapaloff expostulated gently but firmly. “That is not possible. I am sorry, but you must understand that my position is very delicate, and I cannot permit it to become more complicated.”

“No talk, no terms,” Phil said flatly.

Kapaloff let his distress furrow his brow. “Think it over. You must know that I shall not be pleased by the necessity of making you suffer. In fact” — with a whimsical smile — “Serge will be the only participant who enjoys it.”

“Bring on the knife,” Phil said coolly. “No talk, no terms.”

Kapaloff nodded to Serge, who left the room.

“There is no hurry — a few minutes’ delay doesn’t matter,” Kapaloff urged. “Consider your position. Think! Under Serge’s skilled hands you will tell — do not doubt it — but then you lose the extra five hundred dollars, besides causing me no little anguish — to say nothing of your own plight.”

Phil’s smile matched Kapaloff’s for affability. “It would be just wasting time. If I can’t see Miss Kapaloff I’ll stand pat.”

Serge returned with an alcohol-lamp and a small poniard. He set the lamp on the table, lit it, and held the blade in the flame. Phil watched the preparations with a face that was tranquil. He noticed, suddenly, that the hand holding the poniard trembled, and, raising his eyes, he saw tiny globules of moisture glistening on Serge’s forehead. His face was haggard, with white lines around the mouth. Mikhail put Phil down on the bed again, gripping his ankles firmly. Phil said nothing. He was beginning to enjoy himself — knowing that he could stop the whole thing with a word. Serge’s knees were trembling noticeably now; and Mikhail’s fingers around Phil’s ankles jerked and were moist with perspiration.

Phil grinned and spoke banteringly to Kapaloff: “You should rehearse these men of yours. I bet their torturing is not better than their burglary.”

Kapaloff chuckled good-naturedly. “But you must consider that a bungling torturer may obtain effects that are beyond a skilled one.”

Then Serge came to the bed, the poniard glowing in his shaking hand.

Phil spoke casually: “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit up and watch this.”

“Certainly!” Kapaloff assisted him to a sitting position. “Is there anything else I can do to make it more bearable?”

“Thanks, no. I can manage nicely now.”

Serge was extending the heated dagger toward the soles of Phil’s feet, from which Mikhail had removed the stockings. The blade was wavering in the man’s nervous hands; his eves were bulging, and his face was wet with perspiration. Mikhail’s fingers were pressing into Phil’s ankles, grinding the flesh painfully; both of Kapaloff’s assistants were breathing hoarsely. Phil forced himself to disregard the pain of Mikhail’s grip, and smiled derisively. The point of the poniard was within an inch of his feet. Then Serge let it fall to the floor, and shrank back from the bed. Kapaloff spoke to him. Slowly Serge stooped for the poniard, and went to the lamp to reheat it, his body quivering as with ague.

He came to the bed again, his teeth clenched behind taut, bloodless lips. He bent over the bed, and Phil felt the heat of the approaching blade. Lazily he glanced at Kapaloff, carrying his acting to its pinnacle just before surrendering. Then, with a choking cry, Serge flung the poniard from him and dropped on his knees before Kapaloff, pleading pitifully. Kapaloff answered with exaggerated gentleness, as one would speak to an infant. Serge got to his feet slowly, and backed away, his head hanging. One of Kapaloff’s hands came out of his pocket, holding a pistol. The pistol spat flame. Serge caught both hands to his body, and crumpled to the floor.

Kapaloff walked unhurriedly to where the man had fallen, put the toe of one trim shoe under Serge’s shoulder, and turned him over on his back. Then, the pistol hanging loosely at his side, he sent four bullets into Serge’s face, wiping out the features in a red smear.

Kapaloff turned and looked, with eyes that held nothing but polite expectation, at Mikhail. Mikhail had released Phil’s ankles at the first shot, and now stood erect, his hands at his sides. His chest was moving jerkily and the scar across his face was crimson; but his eyes were fixed upon the wall and his face was wooden. For a full minute Kapaloff looked at Mikhail, and then turned hack to the figure at his feet. A drop of blood glistened on the toe of the shoe with which he had turned the man over. Carefully he rubbed the foot against the dead man’s side until the blood was gone. Then he spoke to Mikhail, who lifted the lifeless form in his powerful arms and left the room.

Kapaloff pocketed his pistol, and a courteously apologetic smile appeared on his face; as if he were a housewife who had been compelled to rebuke a maid in the presence of a guest. Phil was sick and giddy with horror, but he forced himself to accept the challenge of the smile, and said with a fair semblance of amusement: “You shouldn’t have misinformed me about Serge’s love for the hot knife.”

Kapaloff chuckled. “The persuasion is postponed until tomorrow. I am afraid I shall have to leave you bound. Ordinarily I should simply leave Mikhail to guard you; but I am not sure that I can trust him now. Serge was his brother.”

He picked up the lamp and the poniard.

“The distressing scene you have just seen should at least convince you of my earnestness.” Then he left the room and the key turned in the lock.

Chapter VIII Double-Crossed

Phil rolled over and buried his face in the bed; giving away to the sickness he had fought down in Kapaloff’s presence. He lay there and sobbed, not thinking, weak and miserable. But he was too young for this to last long; and his first thought was a buoying one: the torturing had been interrupted at the last moment, almost miraculously! His luck held!

He worked himself into a sitting position and attempted to loosen the cords around his wrists and ankles. But he only drove them deeper into the flesh, so he gave it up. He wormed his way to the floor and slowly, laboriously went over the room in the dark, hunting for something that would serve to free him, but he found nothing. The shutters were bolted and padlocked; the door was massive, He returned to the bed.

Time passed — hours he had no means of counting — and then the door opened and Mikhail came in, with a tray of food in his hands, followed by Kapaloff who went to a window and stood with his back to it while Mikhail set the tray on the table and untied Phil.

Kapaloff gestured toward the table. “I am sorry I cannot offer you greater hospitality, but my household is disorganized. I trust you will find my humble best not too uninviting.”

Phil drew a chair to the table and ate. His appetite was poor, but he forced himself to eat with every appearance of enjoyment. When the food was disposed of he lighted one of the cigarettes on the tray and smiled his thanks.

“Unless you have reconsidered,” the Russian said, “I regret that you will have to sleep tied. I am sorry, but I find myself in a position where I must not let my regard for you and my sense of what is due a guest outweigh the necessity of protecting my interests.”

Phil shrugged. The food had heartened him, and he was too young not to meet the challenge of his captors manner.

“I’m tough. Mind if I stretch my legs first?”

“No, no! I want you to be as comfortable as may be. Walk about the room and smoke. You will sleep the better for it.”

Phil left the table and slowly paced up and down the room, turning over in his mind the latest development in this game. Kapaloff had entered the room behind Mikhail, had kept his right hand in his jacket pocket, and had not allowed his servant to get out of the range of his vision for an instant. If Kapaloff couldn’t trust Mikhail, perhaps Phil could. The man was standing across the room from Kapaloff. His face showed nothing.

Kapaloff was asking: “You are still obdurate, then; and will not make terms?”

“I’m willing to make terms; but not to accept the ones you have made.”

Passing the table, Phil’s glance fell on the knife with which he had cut his meat. It was silver, and of little value as a weapon, but it would serve to cut the cords with which he had been bound. He reached the wall and turned. The cigarette between his lips was but a stub now. He went to the table and selected a fresh cigarette. Reaching for a match, he placed his body between Kapaloff and the tray. Mikhail, on the other side of the room, could see every movement of Phil’s hands. Fumbling with the matches, he picked up the knife with his left hand and slid it up his sleeve. Mikhail’s face was expressionless. Phil turned with the lighted cigarette in his mouth and resumed his pacing, thrusting his hands in his trouser pockets and allowing the knife to slide down into one of them. He reached the end of the room and started to turn. His elbows were seized, and he looked over his shoulder into Mikhail’s stolid face. Mikhail drew the knife from the pocket, returned it to the tray, and went back to his post by the wall.

Kapaloff spoke approvingly to Mikhail in Russian, and then said to Phil: “I did not see you get it. But, behold, you cannot put faith even in the disloyalty of my servitors!”

Phil felt tired and spent — he had counted on the scarred man’s help. He went to the bed and Mikhail bound him. Then the lights were turned off and he was left alone.

Chapter IX A Break for Freedom

The sound of a key being turned slowly, cautiously, in the door awakened Phil from the fitful sleep into which he had fallen. The noise stopped. He could see nothing. Something touched the sole of one bare foot and he jumped convulsively, shaking the bed.

“Sh-h-h!”

A cool, soft hand touched his cheek, and he whispered: “Romaine?”

“Yes. Be still while I cut the cords.”

Her hands passed down his arms, and his hands were freed. A little more fumbling in the dark and his feet were loose. He sat up suddenly and their faces bumped in the dark, and quite without thought he kissed her. For an instant she clung to him. Then she retreated a few inches, and said: “But first we must hurry.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “What do we do next?”

“Go downstairs to the front of the house, and wait until we hear the dogs in the rear. Mikhail will call them back there under some pretext, and hold them until we get out of the yard.”

She pressed a heavy revolver into Phil’s hand.

“But aren’t the dogs kept locked up?”

“No.”

“They were last night,” Phil insisted, “or I never would have made it.”

“Oh, yes! Uncle Boris expected you, and kept them in the garage until after you arrived.”

“Oh!” So he had done what was expected of him! “Well, if Mikhail’s with us, why not slip down and grab your uncle and wind this thing up?”

“No! Mikhail wouldn’t help us do that. Even when his brother was killed before his eyes he would do nothing. For generations his people have been serfs, slaves, of uncle’s — and he hasn’t the courage to defy him. If he’s to help at all it must he secretly. If it comes to a point where he must choose, he will be with uncle.”

“All right, let’s go!” His bare feet touched the floor and he laughed. “I haven’t seen my shoes since I came through the window. I’m going to have a lot of fun running around on my naked tootsies!”

She took his hand and led him to the door. They listened but heard nothing. They crept out into the hall and toward the stairs. An electric light over the stairs gave a dim glow. They halted while Phil mounted the balustrade and unscrewed the bulb, shrouding the steps into darkness. At the foot of the flight they halted again, and Phil darkened the light there. Then she guided him toward the front door.

Somewhere in the night behind them a door opened. A noise of something sliding across the floor. Kapaloff’s mellow tones:

“Children, you had best return to your rooms. There really is nothing else to do. If you move toward the door, you will show up in the moonlight that is shining through there. On the other hand, I have thoughtfully pushed a chair a little way down the hall from where I am, so that even if you could creep silently upon me you must inevitably collide with the chair and give me an inkling of where to send my bullets. So there is really nothing else to do but return to your rooms.”

Huddled against the wall, Phil and Romaine said nothing, hut in the hearts of each a desperate hope was born. Kapaloff chuckled and he killed their hopes.

“You need expect nothing from Mikhail. Your escape meant nothing to him, but he trusted you to exact the vengeance that he is too much the serf to take himself. So he supplied you with a weapon, I suppose, and sent you down into the hall. Then he pretended to hear a noise — thinking that I would rush out here to fall before your bullets. Happily, I know something of the peasant mind. So when he started and pretended to hear something that my keener ears missed I knocked him down with my pistol, and came out here knowing about what to expect. Now I must ask that you return to your rooms.”

Phil pressed the girl down until she lay flat on the floor, close to the wall. He stretched out in front of her, his eyes trying to dissolve the darkness. Kapaloff was lying on the floor somewhere ahead; but which wall was he clinging to? In a room something of his position could have been learned from his voice, but in this narrow passage all sense of direction was lost. The sounds simply came out of the night.

The Russian’s cultured voice reached them again. “You know, we are on the verge of making ourselves ridiculous. This reclining in the dark would be well enough except that I fancy we are both exceptionally patient beings. Hence, it is likely to be prolonged to an absurd length.”

With the hand that was not occupied with the revolver Phil felt in his pockets. In a vest pocket he found several coins. He tossed one of them down the hall; it hit a wall and fell to the floor.

Kapaloff laughed. “I was thinking of that, too; but it isn’t easy to imitate the sound of a person in motion.”

Phil cursed under his breath. “ There must be some way out of this hole!” Toward the front the hall was too light, as Kapaloff had said; and there seemed to be no other exits except by the stairs, or past the Russian. He might chance a volley — but there was the girl to consider. He never questioned that Kapaloff would shoot. Romaine crawled to his side.

“If we go upstairs,” she whispered, “we are trapped.”

“Can you think of anything?”

“No!” And then she added naively: “But here with you I am not afraid.” She clutched his arm. “I believe he has gone. It feels as if no one else was here.”

“What would that mean?”

“The dogs, maybe!”

He thought of the sinewy bodies and dripping jaws he had seen in the yard, and shuddered.

“You wait here,” he ordered, and started crawling silently toward the rear of the hall. After it seemed that he must have gone a hundred feet his hand touched the chair of which Kapaloff had spoken. He moved it aside carefully, and went on. His fingers touched a door-frame — the end of the hall.

He whispered to the girl, “He’s gone,” and she joined him.

“Shall we make a break for it?” he asked.

“Yes. Better try the back.”

She pushed past him, took his hand, and led him through the room beyond.

Chapter X “My Hands Will Be Steady”

Three steps they took into the darkness, and then the lights clicked on and Phil found himself helpless, his arms pinned in Mikhail’s powerful embrace. Kapaloff plucked the revolver from Phil’s hand and smiled into his face.

“The variable Mikhail — whom you see allied with me again — has a tough head, and I feared that my blow would not quiet him for long. You can imagine in what an unenviable position I found myself out in the hall: with you ahead and my erratic compatriot behind. When I could stand it no longer I came back and resuscitated him, enlisting him on my side again.”

Mikhail released Phil and stepped back. Kapaloff went on, with a gay mockery of plaintiveness:

“You will readily understand, Mr. Truax, that I cannot go on this way. A few more days of this and I shall be a wreck. I am a simple soul and cannot bear this distraction. You have seen Romaine. Do you accept my terms?”

Phil shook off the feeling of disgust with himself for having been so easily recaptured; and decided to play the same game he had played before: bluff until the actual pain came. He smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ll never agree.”

Kapaloff sighed. “I shall attend to the rites myself this time; so do not expect an outburst of tenderness to halt them. Though my heart bleeds for you my hands will be steads.”

Then the girl spoke. Her voice was tense, vibrant. Both men turned toward her. She was speaking to Mikhail, in Russian. Her voice gradually sank lower and lower until it was but a murmur, and took on an urgent, pleading tone. Mikhail’s lips were pressing together with increasing tension, and his carriage became rigid. His eves fixed on a spot on the opposite wall. Phil shot a puzzled look at Kapaloff and saw that he was watching his niece and servant with dancing eves. The girl’s voice crooned on, and the moisture came out on Mikhail’s face. His mouth was a thin, straight line, now, and the skin over the knuckles of his clenched hands seemed about to split from the strain. Still Romaine talked and, as she mentioned Serge’s name, suddenly it came to Phil what was happening. She was making an open appeal to Mikhail, reminding him of his brother’s death, goading him into desperation! The man’s eves were distended and the scar across his nose was a vivid gash — it might have been made yesterday. The muscles of his forehead, jaws, and neck stood out like welts; his breath hissed through quivering nostrils. Still the girl’s voice went on. Phil looked at Kapaloff again. A sardonic smile of amused expectancy was on his face. He spoke softly, mockingly, a few words, but neither the girl nor Mikhail heeded him. Her voice droned on: a monotonous chant now. Mikhail’s great fists opened and drops of blood ran down his fingers from where his nails had bitten into the palms. Slowly he turned and met his master’s eyes. For a second the eyes held, but Mikhail’s heritage of servility was too strong within him. His eyes dropped and he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

The girl gave him no rest. The syllables came from her lips in a torrent, and her voice went abruptly high and sharp. Despite his unfamiliarity with the language, Phil felt his pulse drumming under the beat of her tone. Mikhail’s shoulders swayed slowly and a white froth appeared in the corners of his mouth. Then his face lost every human quality. A metallic snarl rasped from deep in his chest. Without turning, without looking, he sprang upon the man who had killed his brother. There was no interval the eye could discern. He was standing, swaying, looking at the floor with bulging, bloodshot eyes. Then he was upon Kapaloff and they were rolling on the floor. There was no appreciable passage!

Kapaloff discharged his pistol once, hut Phil could not see where the bullet hit. Over and over they rolled — Mikhail a brute gone mad, blindly fumbling for a grip on his enemy’s throat; Kapaloff fighting with every trick in his cool head, and as little disturbed as if it were a game. His eyes met Phil’s over Mikhail’s shoulder, and he made a grimace of distaste. Then Kapaloff twisted free, whirled to his feet, dashed a foot into the face of his rising assailant, and vanished into the dark of the hall. The kick carried Mikhail over backward, but he was up immediately, bellowing and plunging after Kapaloff.

Phil picked up the weapon Kapaloff had dropped — the revolver he had taken from Phil — and turned to the girl. Her hands were over her face and she was trembling violently. He shook her.

“Where’s the phone?”

She tried twice, and finally spoke: “In the next room.”

He patted her cheek. “You phone the police and wait for me here.”

She clung to him protestingly for a moment, then pulled herself together, smiled with a great show of courage, and went into the next room.

Phil moved to the hall door and listened. A scuffling sound and Kapaloff’s mocking chuckle came from somewhere on the stairs. A shot thundered. Mikhail bellowed. Phil felt his way to the foot of the stairs and started up. From above came the noise of a struggle, and Mikhail’s rasping breath. Two shots. A body fell, sliding down the steps. Phil had gained the second floor and was climbing toward the third. The sliding body came toward him. He recognized it as Mikhail by the gibbering snarls it emitted. Kapaloff’s laugh came from the head of the stairs. As he braced his legs to halt Mikhail’s descent, Phil raised his revolver and fired into the darkness above. Streaks of orange flame darted down at him; a bullet burned his cheek; others hit around him. Then the man at his feet was dragging him down with grim fingers that felt for his throat. He screamed into Mikhail’s ear, trying to bring comprehension to the man that his enemy was above, that he was attacking an ally. But the crushing fingers felt their way higher and higher up Phil’s chest, closed about his throat. He felt his breath going. With a desperate summoning of his failing strength he drove his pistol into the face he could not see in the dark, and wrenched himself away. The fingers slipped, clutched at him, missed, and Phil was stumbling up the steps ahead of something that had been a man, but was now a rabid thing clambering through the night, with death in its heart and no understanding of the difference between friend and enemy.

Phil reached the top of the stairs and, not knowing it in the dark, reached for the next step, stumbled, and fell forward in the hall. As he fell Kapaloff’s pistol spat, bringing down a shower of plaster. At the head of the stairs Mikhail was snarling. Phil rolled, jerking himself to one side, and pressed against the wainscoting, just in time to let the madman charge past. Two more shots rang out, but Mikhail’s broad body held all but a feeble reflection of the flashes from Phil. Then a bestial voice rose in a bellow of insane triumph, a scuffle, a groan so faint that it might have been a sigh, heavy bodies falling... silence.

Phil got to his feet and advanced warily up the hall. His legs touched a body. Something liquid, warm and sticky, was under his bare feet. He stumbled on and opened the first door he reached. He found the light button and pressed it. Then he turned and looked down the hall in the light that came through the open doorway...

He closed his eyes and groped his way to the stairs, down to the room where he had left the girl.

Chapter XI The Death Letter

The girl ran to him. “Your face! You are hurt!”

“Just a scratch. I had forgotten it.”

She drew his head down and dabbed at this torn cheek with a handkerchief.

“The others?” she asked.

“Dead! Did you get the police?”

She said, “Yes,” and then could no longer withstand the weakness that tugged at her. She drooped into his arms, sobbing. He carried her to a couch and knelt beside her, stroking her hands and soothing her.

When she had mastered her weakness sufficiently to sit up, he asked her, more to take her mind from the gruesome termination of the affair than because his curiosity was so pressing, “Now, what’s this all about?”

As she talked she gradually regained her composure, and the dread that the night’s events had stirred within her subsided. Her voice grew steadier, her words more coherent, and some measure of color returned to her cheeks.

Her father had been a Russian nobleman, her mother an American woman. Her mother had died when she was still a child. Later the little girl had been sent to a convent in the United States, in accordance with her mother’s desire. When the war broke out in Europe she had returned to Russia, despite her father’s orders, with the childish thought that she would be near him. She had seen him twice before his death. He was reported “killed in action” shortly before the revolution. His brother Boris had been appointed her guardian and administrator of the estate. Then the revolution came. Her uncle had foreseen the uprising and had converted much of the girl’s wealth — he had no personal means — into money, which he had deposited in English and French banks. When they were forced to leave their native land they had considerable wealth at their disposal. For the next few years they had moved from place to place. Her uncle had seemed filled with a strange uneasiness, and would seldom stay long in one city or country. He had taken the name of Kapaloff and had persuaded the girl to do likewise, though he had given no reason for the change. Finally they came to the United States, lived in various cities, and then came to Burlingame. Since their departure from Russia her uncle had been withdrawing more and more from society, and frowning upon Romaine’s desire for friends. In the United States she had made no new acquaintances. He had selected the most isolated house he could find in Burlingame and had had the windows fitted with heavy shutters, and massive doors and bolts installed. She had wondered at the change in him but had never questioned him. His manner toward her was, as always, affectionate, protecting and generous. Except in the matter of making new acquaintances — and he was not crudely insistent there — he allowed her to indulge every whim.

Then, late the preceding Monday night, she had found the letter that was in the bag. She had found it on the library floor, had picked it up carelessly to lay it on the table, from which she supposed it had blown. Her eyes had fallen upon the word murder, in Russian, heavily underscored. She had read the next few words, and then feverishly read the letter from beginning to end. It had been written to her uncle by someone who apparently had been very intimate with him in Russia, and boldly threatened that unless Boris paid the money he had promised the truth about his brothers murder would be published.

She could not miss the import of the letter. It could mean but one thing: that Boris, whose own means had been dissipated, had had his brother killed that he might gain control of the estate until the child became of age. Dazed and bewildered, she went to her room, carrying the letter with her, and threw herself across the bed. But she had something to do. She knew of but one person to whom she could turn: a prominent Los Angeles attorney, the father of one of her schoolmates. She took what money she had, left the house, got in her roadster, and started for the city, intending to take the first train to Los Angeles. But she had wasted too much time. Her uncle had missed the letter and, fearing the worst, had gone to her room. Not finding her there, he had come downstairs just as she drove away. He had sent Mikhail and Serge in another machine to bring her back. They had done so, but the bag had been lost in the scuffle on Washington Street.

She had been imprisoned in her room until the afternoon, when she was taken to call on Phil. Her uncle had coached her carefully and she feared him too much to risk open defiance, but she had mastered her fright sufficiently to drop her purse and signal Phil. Then she had been brought back to the house and locked in. She had made one attempt to escape but had been caught at the window.

Phil tried to keep his mind on her story but he missed great stretches of it, watching her face, which, with youthful resilience, was regaining its bloom. The shadows that lingered under the eyes enhanced their beauty.

When she had finished they were silent for a moment. Phil wondered how much of the story he had missed. He cleared his throat and said, “You’ll probably have to stay in Burlingame for a day or two until the police get through with their investigating. But if you’ll give me that fellow’s address — the Los Angeles lawyer — I’ll wire him to come up if he can and take you back with him when it’s all over.”

She looked puzzled. “But everything is all right now. I won’t have to bother him.”

“You’ll need him. There’ll be lots of trouble straightening out your affairs and your uncle’s; and you’ll have to have somebody to take care of you.”

“But you are—” She stopped and the blood flooded her face.

Phil shook his head emphatically. “Listen! I would—” He stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. “We are going to do this different. You arc going to have this lawyer made your legal guardian. If you don’t, the courts will probably appoint some old bum who happens to be a friend of the judge’s. Then I’m going to convince him that I’m — that I’m not too tough an egg. And then we’ll see.”

A strange speech for one whose creed was: When your luck runs good, force it!

The girl frowned. “But—”

“Now don’t argue! I haven’t got what you might call a spotless record. Nothing so terrible, maybe, but plenty that’s bad enough. And another thing: you’ve got money, and I — well, when the cards run right I have enough to eat regular; when they run wrong... Anyway, we’ll see. I’ll do my talking to this lawyer fellow after he’s made your guardian.”

The doorbell forestalled the girl’s answer. Phil went to the door, where four uniformed policemen stood, using their nightsticks to keep the hounds at bay. Phil led them back to the room where the girl was waiting and told his story briefly. The grizzled sergeant in charge stared with round eyes from the girl to the youth with bloodstained bare feet, but he made no comment. Leaving one man with Phil and Romaine, he led the others upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later he returned.

“I thought you said the dead men were in the hall?”

“That’s right,” Phil said.

The sergeant shook his head. “They’re both dead, all right; and one of ’em is in the hall with half a dozen bullets in him. But we found the other one in one of the rooms — all mangled up — leaning over a sort of desk, with this under his arm.”

He held out a sheet of notepaper to Phil. In a small, firm, regular handwriting, but thickly besmeared with blood, was written: