Chapter 11

BURGLARY UNDER ARMS

And there P. Sybarite stood, near the middle of a fence-enclosed area of earth and flagstones; winded and weary; looking up and all around him in distressed perplexity; in a stolen coat (to be honest about it) and with six months' income from a million dollars unlawfully procured and secreted upon his person; wanted for resisting arrest and assaulting the minions of the law; hounded by a vengeful and determined posse; unacquainted with his whereabouts, ignorant of any way of escape from that hollow square, round whose sides window after excitable window was lighting up in his honour; all in all, as distressful a figure of a fugitive from justice as ever was on land or sea....

Conceiving the block as a well a-brim with blackness and clamorous with violent sound, studded on high with inaccessible, yellow-bright loopholes wherefrom hostile eyes spied upon his every secret movement, and haunted below by vicious perils both animate and still: he found himself possessed of an overpowering desire to go away from there quickly.

But--short of further dabbling in crime--how?

To break his way to the street through one of those houses would he not only to invite apprehension: it would be downright burglary.

To continue his headlong career of the fugitive backyards tom-cat was out of the question, entirely too much like hard work, painful into the bargain--witness scratched and abraded palms and agonised shins. Sooner or later his strength must fail, some one would surely espy him and cry on the chase, he must be surrounded and overwhelmed: while to hide behind some ash-barrel was not only ignoble but downright fatuous: faith the most sublime in his Kismet couldn't excuse any hope that, eventually, he wouldn't be discovered and ignominiously routed out.

Very well, then! So be it! Calmly P. Sybarite elected to venture another and deeper dive into amateurish malfeasance; and gravely he studied the inoffensive building whose back premises he was then infesting.

It seemed to offer at least the negative invitation of desuetude. It showed no lights; had not an open window--so far as could be determined by straining sight aided only by a faint reflection from the livid skies. One felt warranted in assuming the premises to be vacant. Encouraging surmise! If such were in fact the case, he might hope soon to be counting his spoils in the privacy of his top-floor-hall-bedroom, back....

At the same time, to one ignorant of the primary principles of house-breaking, the problem of negotiating an entrance was of formidable proportions.

To break a basement window was feasible, certainly--but highly inadvisable for a number of obvious reasons.

To force a window-latch required (if memory served) a long flat-bladed knife--a kitchen knife; and P. Sybarite happened to have no such implement about him.

Similarly, to pry open the back door would require the services of a jimmy (whatever that might be).

Moreover, there were such things as burglar alarms--inventions of the devil!

On the other hand, unless his senses deceived him, there were police officers in plenty only a fence or two away; and the back of this house boasted a fire-escape. By inverting a convenient ash-can and standing on it, an active man might possibly, if sufficiently desperate, manage to jump a vertical yard (more or less), catch the lowermost grating of the fire-escape, and draw himself up.

In a thought P. Sybarite turned the galvanised iron cylinder bottom-up, clambered upon it, and on tiptoe sought to gauge the exact distance of the requisite leap. But now the grating seemed to have receded at least three feet from its position as first judged--to be hopelessly removed from the grasp of his yearning fingers.

Yet that mad attempt must be made. Why die fighting when a broken neck would serve as well?

Gathering his slight person together, P. Sybarite crouched, quivered, jumped for glory and the Saints--and all but brained himself on that impish and trickish grating. Clutching it and kicking footloose, he was stunned by the wonder of many brilliant new-born constellations swirling round his poor head to the thunderous music of the spheres, as rendered by the ash-can which, displaced by the vigour of his acrobatics, had toppled over and was rolling and clattering hideously on the flagging.

In his terrified bosom P. Sybarite felt the heart of him turn to cold and clammy stone.

No clamour more infernal could well have been improvised, given similar circumstances and facilities as rude. It seemed hours, rather than instants, that the damned thing wallowed and bellowed beneath him, raising a din to disturb all Christendom. While, the moment it was still, the cries of the police pack belled clear and near at hand:

"This way, b'ys!"

"There he is, the--"

"Got 'im now--"

"Halt or--!"

Another pistol shot!...

Glancing over shoulder, the hunted man caught a glimpse of uncouth shapes wriggling along a fence ridge several rods away. No more than the barest glimpse, it served: with a mighty heave and wriggle he breasted the lower platform, shifted a hand to the top of its railing, heaved himself up to a foothold, and swarmed up the iron ladder with an agility an ape might have envied.

But as he mounted, it grew momentarily more evident that the stage thunder manufactured by that wretched galvanised iron cylinder had, in fact, served him far from ill; reverberating from wall to wall within the hollow of the block, its dozen echoes diverted pursuit to as many quarters, luring the limbs of the law every way but the right one. Nobody, it appeared, was alert enough to espy that fugacious shadow on the fire-ladder. And in less than a brace of minutes P. Sybarite, at the top, was pulling himself gingerly over the lip of a stone coping.

Surmising that he had gained not the roof of the house but that of a two-story rear extension, he found himself in what seemed a small roof-garden, made private by awnings and Venetian blinds. Between his soles and the stone flooring he could feel the yielding texture of a grass mat, and he could not only dimly discern but also smell the perfume of green things in pots here and there. And his first step forward brought him into soft collision with a wicker basket-chair.

He paused and took thought in perturbation.

A most disappointing and deceptive sort of a house--inhabited, after all: its sombre and quiet aspect masking Heaven alone knew what pitfalls!...

Not a glint of light, not a sound....

When he moved again, it was with scrupulous caution.

Stealing softly on, the darkness seemed to thicken round him. He was sensible of suspense and qualms, of creeping flesh and an almost irresistible inclination to hold his breath. Uncanny business, this--penetrating unknown fastnesses of a dark and silent house at dead of night: a trespasser unable to surmise when the righteous householder, lurking on familiar ground and vigilant under arms, might not open fire....

Nevertheless, the police behind him were a menace of known calibre. With whatever shrinkings and dire misgivings, P. Sybarite went on.

Without misadventure he gained the main wall of the house, and there found open windows and (upon further cautious investigation) a doorway, likewise wide to the bland night air. Hesitant on the threshold of this last he sought with impotent senses to probe impenetrable obscurity--listening, every nerve taut and vibrant, for some sound significant of human tenancy, and detecting never an one. In spite of this, it was without the least confidence that presently he plucked up heart to proceed....

Three steps on into darkness, and his knee found a chair that might have poised itself on one leg, in malicious ambush, so promptly did it go over--and with what a racket.

Incontinently something rustled quite near at hand; followed a click--blinding light--a shrill, excited voice:

"Hands up!"

With a jerk, up went his hands high above his head. Blinking furiously in the glare, he comprehended his plight.

The lights he found so dazzling blazed from sconces round the walls of a bedroom more handsome than any he had thought ever to see--unless perhaps upon a stage. The voice belonged to a young woman sitting up in bed and coolly covering him with the yawning muzzle of a peculiarly poisonous-looking automatic pistol.

It was astonishingly evident that she wasn't at all frightened. The arm that levelled the weapon (a round and shapely arm, bare to the shoulder) was admirably steady; the rich colouring of her distinctly handsome face showed not a trace of pallor; and the fire that flickered in her large and darkly beautiful eyes was of indignation rather than of fear.

Abruptly she dropped her weapon and sat up yet straighter in her huddled bed-clothing, mouth and eyes widening with astonishment.

"Well!" she said quite simply--"I'll be damned if it ain't a cop!"

P. Sybarite immediately took occasion to lower his hands to a more comfortable position.

Fright inspired his latent histrionic genius; momentarily he became almost a good actor.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently. "You're the one woman in a thousand who knows enough to look before she shoots! Phwew!"

Quite naturally he drew a braided blue cuff across a beaded forehead.

"That's all very well," the woman took him up sharply--"but be careful I don't shoot after looking. Cop or no cop, you--what the devil do you want in my bedroom at this hour of the night?"

"Madam," P. Sybarite expostulated, aggrieved yet with an air of the utmost candour--"my duty, of course!"

"Duty!" she echoed. "What do you think you mean by that?"

"Perhaps," he countered blandly, "you're not aware a burglar has passed through this room?"

"A burglar? What rot!"

"Pardon me, madam," P. Sybarite lied nonchalantly, "but five minutes ago I was called in by the people in Two-thirty-three Forty-fifth Street, to nab a burglar who'd broken in there. They thought they had him locked up safe enough in one of the rooms, but when they came to open the door and let me at him--the bird had flown! He'd taken a long chance--swung himself from the window-ledge to a fire-escape five feet away--don't ask me how he did it! I got to the window just in time to see him go over the back fence. You heard me take a shot at him? No?"

"No, I didn't," said the woman in a manner eloquent of positive incredulity.

"Well, anyway," P. Sybarite went on with elaborate ease, "I saw this man climb your fire-escape and so I came after him."

The woman frowned as she weighed this likely story; and P. Sybarite was at pains to conceal any exultation he may have felt over the prompt response of his vivid imagination to the call of exigence.

Would she or wouldn't she accept that wildly fanciful yarn of his? For moments that, brief though they must have been, seemed intolerably protracted, he awaited her verdict in the extremest anxiety--not, however, neglecting to employ the respite thus afforded him to make another quick survey of the room and a second and more shrewd appraisal of its admirably self-possessed tenant.

A bit too florid and ornate--he concluded--woman and lodgings alike were somewhat overdone. A superabundance of gilt and pink marred the colour scheme of the apartment; and there was ostentatious evidence of wealth lavishly expended on its furnishings. An overpowering voluptuousness of silken clothing dressed the bed itself.

But if her setting were luxurious, the woman outshone it tenfold with the dark splendour of her animal beauty. As comely and as able-bodied as a young pantheress, she was (one judged) little less dangerous--as vital, as self-centred, as deadly. Sitting up in bed, openly careless of charms hardly concealed by nightwear of sheer silk lace and cr�pe de Chine, she looked P. Sybarite up and down with wide eyes overwise in the ways of life, shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the phraseology of convention--swearing without the least affectation, slanging heartily when slang best suited her humour....

"Maybe you're telling the truth, at that," she announced suddenly, eyes coldly unprepossessed. "You sound fishy as all-hell, and God knows you're the sickest-looking cop I ever laid eyes on; but there are less unlikely things than that a second-story man should try this route for his getaway.... Well!" she demanded urgently--"what're you standing there for, like a stone man?"

"My dear lady--!" expostulated the dismayed P. Sybarite.

"Can the fond stuff and get busy. What're you going to do?"

"What am I--? What--ah--do you wish me to do?"

"If you're a cop, go to it--cop somebody," she replied with a brusque laugh--"and then clear out. I can use the room and time you're occupying. Besides, while you stand there staring as if you'd never seen a good-looking woman in a nightgown before, you're slipping the said burglar a fine young chance to make the front door--unless he's under the bed."

"Under the bed?" stammered the masquerader.

"You said something then," the woman snapped. "Why not look?"

Mechanically obedient to her suggestion, down P. Sybarite plumped on his knees, lifted the silken valance at the foot of the bed, and pretended to explore the darkness thereunder--finding precisely what he had anticipated, that is to say, nothing.

While thus occupied (and badgering his addled wits to invent some plausible way to elude this Amazon) he was at once startled and still further dismayed to hear the bed-springs creak, a light double thump as two bare feet found the floor, and again the woman's voice flavoured with acid sarcasm.

"You seem to find it interesting down there. Is it the view? Or are you trying to hypnotise your burglar by the well-known power of the human eye?"

"It's pure and simple reverence for the proprieties," P. Sybarite replied without stirring, "keeps me emulating the fatuous ostrich. I don't pretend it's comfortable, but I, believe me, madam, am a plain man, of modest tastes, unaccustomed to--"

"Get up!" the lady interrupted peremptorily. "I guess your regard for the proprieties won't suffer any more than my fair name. Come out of that and hunt burglars like a good little cop."

"But who am I," pleaded the little man, "to gaze unblinded upon the sun?"

"That," said the lady, smothering a giggle, "will be about all from you. Get up--or I'll call in a sure-enough cop to search your title to that uniform."

Hastily P. Sybarite withdrew his head and rose. An embarrassed glance askance comforted him measurably: the lady had thrown an exquisite negligee over her nightdress and had thrust her pretty feet into extravagantly pretty silken mules.

"Now," said she tersely, "we'll comb the premises for this burglar of yours: and if we don't find him"--her lips tightened, her brows clouded ominously--"I promise you an interesting time of it!"

"I'm vastly diverted as it is--truly I am!" protested P. Sybarite, ruefully eyeing the lady's pistol. "But there 's really no need to disturb yourself: I'm quite competent to take care of any housebreaker--"

"That," she broke in, "is something you'll have to show me.... Where's your nightstick?"

"My--er--what?"

"Your nightstick. What've you done with it?"

With consternation P. Sybarite investigated the vacant loop at his side.

"Must've dropped out while I was shinning over the back fence," he surmised vaguely. "However, I shan't need it. This"--with a bright and confident smile displaying Penfield's revolver--"will do just as well--better, in fact."

"That?" she questioned. "That's not a Police Department gun. Where'd you--"

"Oh, yes, it is. It's the new pattern--recently adopted. They've just begun to issue 'em. I got mine to-day--"

The lady's lips curled. "Very well," she concluded curtly. "I don't believe a word you say, but we'll see. Lead the way--show me one solitary sign that a burglar has been here--"

"Perhaps you'd prefer me to withdraw from the case?" the little man suggested with offended dignity. "After all, I may be mistaken--"

"You'd better not be. I warn you, find me a burglar--or"--she added with unmistakable significance--"I'll find one myself."

Interpreting the level challenge of her glance, P. Sybarite's heart quaked, his soul curdled, his stomach for picaresque adventure failed him entirely: anatomically, in short, he was hopelessly disqualified for his chosen r�le of favourite of Kismet, protagonist of this Day of Days. Withal, there was no use offering resistance to the demands of this masterful woman; she was patently one to be humoured against a more auspicious turn of affairs.

He shrugged, gave in with a gesture. Her imperative arm, uplifted, indicated an inner door.

"Find that burglar!"

"Swell chance I've got to get away with that proposition," he grumbled. "You've delayed me long enough to let any burglar get clean away!"

"And you hang back, giving him more time," she cut in. "Lead the way, now!"

Awed, P. Sybarite grasped his revolver and strode to the door with much dramatic manner, but paused with a hand on the knob to look over his shoulder.

The woman was there, not a foot distant, her countenance a mask of suspicious determination.

"Go on!" she commanded in menacing accents.

He pulled the door open, flung out into the hallway, paused again at the mouth of the back pit of the stairway.

Behind him the woman snapped a switch; an electric bulb glared out of the darkness. And P. Sybarite, peering down, started back with a gasp of amazement that was echoed in his ear.

On the stairs, halfway down, a man was crouching in a posture of frozen consternation: a small electric pocket-lamp burning brilliantly in one hand, the other, lifted, grasping a weapon of some curious sort, in the eyes of P. Sybarite more than anything else like, a small black cannon: a hatless man in evening clothes, his face half blotted out by a black mask that, enhancing the brightness of startled eyes gleaming through its peepholes, left uncovered only his angular muscular jaw and ugly, twisted mouth.

For a full minute (it seemed) not one of the three so much as drew breath; while through the haze of dumfounderment in P. Sybarite's brain there loomed the fact that once again Kismet had played into his hands to save his face in thus lending material body and substance to the burglar of his desperate invention.

And then, as if from a heart of agony, the woman at his side breathed a broken and tortured cry:

"You dog! So it's come to murder, has it?"

As if electrified by that ejaculation, P. Sybarite whipped up Penfield's revolver and levelled it at the man on the stairs.

"Hands up!" he snapped. "Drop that gun!"

The answer was a singular sound--half a choking cough, half a smothered bark--accompanied by a jet of fire from the strange weapon, and coincident with the tinkling of a splintered electric bulb.

Instantly the hall was again drenched in darkness but little mitigated by the light from the bedroom.

Heedless of consequences, in his excitement, P. Sybarite pulled trigger. The hammer fell on an empty chamber, rose and fell half a dozen times without educing any response other than the click of metal against metal: demonstrating beyond question that the revolver was unloaded.

From the hand of the marauder another tongue of flame licked out, to the sound of the same dull, bronchial cough; and a bullet thumped heavily into the wall beside P. Sybarite.

Enraged beyond measure, he drew back his worthless weapon and threw it with all his might. And Kismet winged the missile to the firing arm of the assassin. With a cry of pain and anger, this last involuntarily relaxed his grasp and, dropping his own pistol, stumbled and half fell, half threw himself down to the next floor.

As this happened, a white arm was levelled over the shoulder of P. Sybarite.

The woman took deliberate aim, fired--and missed.