Chapter 21

THE SORTIE

At pains not to stir across the threshold, with quick glances P. Sybarite reviewed scrupulously the scene of November's crime.

Eventually his nod indicated a contemptuous conclusion: that it should not prove difficult to convict November on the evidence afforded by the condition of the apartment alone. A most superficial inspection ought to convince anybody, even one prone to precipitate conclusions, that Bayard Shaynon had never died by his own hand.

If November, in depositing the instrument of his crime close to the hand of its victim, had meant to mislead, to create an inference of felo de se, he had ordered all his other actions with a carelessness arguing one of three things: cynical indifference to the actual outcome of his false clue; sublime faith in the stupidity of the police; or a stupidity of his own as crass as that said to be characteristic of the average criminal in all ages.

The rooms, in short, had been most thoroughly if hastily ransacked--in search, P. Sybarite didn't for an instant doubt, of evidence as to the relations between Shaynon and Mrs. Inche calculated to prove incriminating at an inquest; though the little man entertained even less doubt that lust for loot had likewise been a potent motive influencing November.

He found proof enough of this in the turned-out pockets of the murdered man; in the abstraction from the bosom of his shirt of pearl studs which P. Sybarite had noticed there within the hour; in the abraded knuckles of a finger from which a conspicuous solitaire diamond in massive antique setting was missing; in a pigskin bill-fold, empty, ripped, turned inside out, and thrown upon the floor not far from the corpse.

Then, too, in one corner stood a fine old mahogany desk of quaint design and many drawers and pigeonholes, one and all sacked, their contents turned out to litter the floor. In another corner, a curio cabinet had fared as ill. Even bookcases had not been overlooked, and stood with open doors and disordered shelves.

Not, however, with any notion of concerning himself with the assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there--a torn and crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened out and apart from it.

This last he snatched up, but the envelope he didn't touch, having been quick to remark the print upon it of a dirty thumb whose counterpart decorated the face of the message as well.

"And a hundred more of 'em, probably," P. Sybarite surmised as to the number of finger marks left by November: "enough to hang him ten times over ... which I hope and pray they don't before I finish with him!"

As for the dead man, he read his epitaph in a phrase, accompanied by a meaning nod toward the disfigured and insentient head.

"It was coming to you--and you got it," said P. Sybarite callously, with never a qualm of shame for the apathy with which he contemplated this second tragedy in the house of Shaynon.

Too much, too long, had he suffered at its hands....

With a shrug, he turned back to the hall door, listened an instant, gently opened it--with his handkerchief wrapped round the polished brass door-knob to guard against clues calculated to involve himself, whether as imputed principal or casual witness after the fact. For he felt no desire to report the crime to the police: let them find it out at their leisure, investigate and take what action they would; P. Sybarite had lost no love for the force that night, and meant to use it only at a pinch--as when, perchance, its services might promise to elicit the information presumably possessed by Red November in regard to the fate of Marian Blessington....

The public hall was empty, dim with the light of a single electric bulb, and still as the chamber of death that lay behind.

Never a shadow moved more silently or more swiftly than P. Sybarite, when he had closed the door, up the steps to Peter Kenny's rooms. Hardly a conceivable sound could be more circumspect than that which his knuckles drummed on the panels of Peter's door. And Peter earned a heartfelt, instant, and ungrudged blessing by opening without delay.

"Well?" he asked, when P. Sybarite--with a gesture enforcing temporary silence--had himself shut the door without making a sound. "Good Lord, man! You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

On the verge of agitated speech P. Sybarite checked to shake an aggrieved head.

"Bromides are grand for the nerves," he observed cuttingly, "but you're too young to need 'em--and I want none now.... Listen to me."

Briefly he told his story.

"Well, but the telegram?" Peter insisted. "Does it help--tell you anything? It's maddening--to think Marian may be in the power of that bloodthirsty--!"

"There you go again!" P. Sybarite complained--"and not two minutes ago I warned you about that habit. Wait: I've had time only to run an eye through this: let me get the sense of it."

Peter peering over his shoulder, the two conned the message in silence:

BAYARD SHAYNON
Monastery Apts., W. 43rd, N.Y.C.

Your wire received all preparations made send patient in charge as indicated at convenience legal formalities can wait as you suggest.

HAYNES PRIVATE SANATORIUM.

Blankly Peter Kenny looked at his cousin; with eyes in which deepening understanding mingled with anger as deep, and with profound misgivings as well, P. Sybarite returned his stare.

"It's as plain as the face on you, Peter Kenny. Why, all along I've had an indefinite notion that something of the sort was what they were brewing! Don't you see--'private sanatorium'? What more proof do you need of a plot to railroad Marian to a private institution for the insane? 'Legal formalities can wait as you suggest'--of course! They hadn't had time to cook up the necessary papers, to suborn medical certificates and purchase a commitment paper of some corrupt judge. But what of that?" P. Sybarite demanded, slapping the message furiously. "She was in the way--at large--liable at any time to do something that would put her money forever out of their reach. Therefore she must be put away at once, pending 'legal formalities' to ensure her permanent incarceration!"

"The dogs!" Peter Kenny growled.

"But consider how they've been served out--thunderbolts--justice from the very skies! All except one, and," said P. Sybarite solemnly, "God do so to me and more also if he's alive or outside bars before this sun sets!"

"Who?"

"November!"

"What can you do to him?"

"To begin with, beat him to that damned asylum. Fetch me the suburban telephone directory."

"Telephone directory?"

"Yes!" P. Sybarite raved. "What else? Where is it? And where are your wits?"

"Why, here--"

Turning, Peter took the designated volume from its hook beneath the wall instrument at the very elbow of P. Sybarite.

"I thought," he commented mildly, "you had all your wits about you and could see it."

"Don't be impudent," grumbled P. Sybarite, rapidly thumbing the pages. "Westchester," he muttered, adding: "Oscahana--H--Ha--H-a-d--"

"Are you dotty?"

"Look at that telegram. It's dated from Oscahana: that's somewhere in Westchester, if I'm not mistaken. Yes; here we are: H-a-y--Haynes Private Sanatorium--number, Oscahana one-nine. You call 'em."

"What shall I say?"

"Where the devil's that cartridge clip you took away from me?... Give it here.... And I want my money."

"But," Peter protested in a daze, handing over the clip and watching P. Sybarite rummage in the buffet drawer wherein he had banked his fortune before setting out for the Bizarre--"but what do you want me to--"

"Call up that sanatorium--find out if Marian has arrived. If she has, threaten fire and sword and--all that sort of thing--if they don't release her--hand her over to me on demand. If she hasn't, make 'em understand I'll dynamite the place if they let November bring her there and get away before I show up. Tell 'em to call in the police and pinch November on sight. And then get a lawyer and send him up there after me. And then--set the police after November--tell 'em you heard the shot and went down the fire-escape to investigate.... I'm off."

The door slammed on Peter as Bewilderment.

In the hall, savagely punching the elevator bell, P. Sybarite employed the first part of an enforced wait to return the clip of cartridges to its chamber in the butt of Mrs. Inche's pistol....

He punched the bell again....

He put his thumb upon the button and held it there....

From the bottom of the twelve-story well a faint, shrill tintinnabulation echoed up to him. But that was all. The car itself never stirred.

Infuriated, he left off that profitless employment and threw himself down the stairs, descending in great bounds from landing to landing, more like a tennis ball than a fairly intelligent specimen of mature humanity in control of his own actions.

Expecting to be met by the ascending car before halfway to the bottom, he came to the final flight not only breathless but in a towering rage--contemplating nothing less than a murderous assault as soon as he might be able to lay hands upon the hallboys--hoping to find them together that he might batter their heads one against the other.

But he gained the ground-floor lobby to find it as empty as his own astonishment--its doors wide to the cold air of dawn, its lights dimmed to the likeness of smouldering embers by the stark refulgence of day; but nowhere a sign of a hallboy or anything else in human guise.

As he paused to make sure of the reality of this phenomenon, and incidentally to regain his breath, there sounded from a distance down the street a noise the like of which he had never before heard: a noise resembling more than anything else the almost simultaneous detonations of something like half a dozen firecrackers of sub-cannon calibre.

Without understanding this or even being aware that he had willed his limbs to action, P. Sybarite found himself in the street.

At the curb his hired car waited, its motor purring sweetly but its chauffeur missing.

Subjectively he was aware that the sun was up and high enough to throw a sanguinary glare upon the upper stories of the row of garages across the street--those same from whose number he had chartered his touring car. And momentarily he surmised that perhaps the chauffeur had strolled over to the garage on some idle errand.

But no sooner had this thought enhanced his irritation than he had its refutation in the discovery of the chauffeur affectionately embracing a lamp-post three or four doors away, toward Sixth Avenue; and so singular seemed this sight that P. Sybarite wondered if, by any chance, the fellow had found time to get drunk during so brief a wait.

At once, blind to all else, and goaded intolerably by his knowledge that the time was short if he were to forestall November at the asylum in Oscahana, he pelted hot-foot after the delinquent; came up with him in a trice; tapped him smartly on the shoulder.

"Here!" he cried indignantly--"what the deuce's the matter with you?"

The man showed him a face pale with excitement; recognised his employer; but made no offer to stir.

"Come!" P. Sybarite insisted irascibly. "I've no time to waste. Get a move on you, man!"

But as he spoke his accents were blotted out by a repetition of that portentous noise which had saluted him in the lobby of the Monastery, a moment since.

His eyes, veering inevitably toward the source of that uproar, found it quickly enough to see short, vicious jets of flame licking out against the gloom of an open garage doorway, nearly opposite the Hippodrome stage entrance--something like a hundred feet down the street.

"What," he cried, "in Hades--!"

"Gang fight," his chauffeur informed him briefly: "fly-cops cornered a bunch of 'em in November's garage--"

"Whose garage--?"

"Red November's! Guess you've heard of him," the man pursued eagerly. "That's right--he runs his own garage--taxis for Dutch House souses, yunno--"

"Wait!" P. Sybarite interrupted. "Let me get this straight."

Stimulated by this news, his wits comprehended the situation at a glance.

At the side of his chauffeur, he found himself in line with a number of that spontaneous class which at the first hint of sensation springs up from nowhere in the streets of Manhattan. Early as was the hour, they were already quite fifty strong; and every minute brought re-enforcements straggling up from Fifth Avenue.

But the lamp-post--still a mute, insensate recipient of the chauffeur's amorous clasp--marked a boundary beyond which curiosity failed to allure.

Similarly at Sixth Avenue, a rabble was collecting, blocking the roadway and backing up to the Elevated pillars and surface-car tracks--but to a man balking at an invisible line drawn from corner to corner.

Midway, the dark open doorway to November's garage yawned forbiddingly; and in all the space that separated these two gatherings of spectators, there were visible just three human figures: a uniformed patrolman, and two plain-clothes men--the former at a discreet distance, the two latter more boldly stationed and holding revolvers ready for instant employment.

"Fly-cops," the chauffeur named the two in citizen's clothing: "I piped 'em stickin' round while you was inside, an' was wonderin' what they was after, when all of a sudden I sees November duck up from the basement next door to the Monastery, and they tries to jump him. That ain't two minutes ago. November dodges, pulls a gun, and fights 'em off until he can back into the garage--"

A hand holding an automatic edged into sight round the corner of the garage door--and the pistol sang like a locust. Instantly one of the detectives fired. The pistol clattered to the walk as the hand disappeared. One shot at least had told for law and order.

"Anybody hurt yet?" P. Sybarite asked.

"Not that I know anythin' about."

"But what do you suppose makes 'em keep that door open? You'd think--"

"The way I figure it," the chauffeur cut in, "Red's plannin' to make his getaway in a car. He's just waitin' till the goin' looks good, and then he'll sail outa there like a streak of greased lightnin'. Yuh wanta be ready to duck, too, 'cause he'll come this way, an' keep guns goin' to prevent anybody from hinderin' him."

"Why this way? Sixth Avenue's nearer."

"Sure it is, but that way he'd have them L pillars to duck, to say nothin' of the crowd, and no tellin' but what a surface-car might block him. Yuh watch an' see 'f I ain't doped it out right."

From the dark interior of the besieged garage another automatic fluttered briskly; across the street a window fell in....

"Look here--you come with me," said P. Sybarite suddenly, plucking his chauffeur by the sleeve.

With a reluctant backward glance, the man suffered himself to be drawn apart from the crowd.

"How much nerve have you got?" the little Irishman demanded.

"Who--me? Why?"

"I want to stop this getaway--"

"Not for mine, friend." The chauffeur laughed scornfully. "I ain't lost no Red November!"

"Will a thousand dollars make you change your mind?"

The chauffeur's eyes narrowed.

"Whatcha drivin' at? Me--why--I'd take a lotta chances for a thousand."

"Help me--do as I say--and it's yours."

"Lead me to the coin," was the prompt decision.

"Here, then!"

P. Sybarite delved hastily into a trousers pocket and produced a handful of bills of large denominations.

"There's a five hundred dollar bill to start with," he rattled, stripping off the first that fell to his fingers--"and here's a hundred--no, here's another five instead."

"In the mitt," the chauffeur stipulated simply, extending his palm. "Either you're crazy or I am--but in the mitt, friend, and I'll run the car right into that garage, 'f you say so."

"Nothing so foolish as that." P. Sybarite handed over the two bills and put away the rest of his wealth. "Just jump into that car and be ready to swing across the street and block 'em as they come."

"You're on!" agreed the chauffeur with emotion--carefully putting his money away.

"And a thousand more"--his courage wrung this tribute from P. Sybarite's admiration--"if you're hurt--"

"You're on there, too--and don't think for a minute I'll letcha fergit, neither."

The chauffeur turned to his car, jumped into the driver's seat, and advanced the spark. The purr of the motor deepened to a leonine growl.

"Hello!" he exclaimed in surprise, real or feigned, to see P. Sybarite take the seat by his side. "What t'ell? Who's payin' you to be a God-forsaken ass?"

"Did you think I'd ask you to run a risk that frightened me?"

"Dunno's I thought much about it, but 'f yuh wanta know what I think now, I think you oughta get a rebate outa whatcha give me--if you live to apply for it. And I don't mind tellin' you, if you do, you won't get it."

Again the spiteful drumming of the automatic: P. Sybarite swung round in time to see one of the plain-clothes men return the fire with several brisk shots, then abruptly drop his revolver, clap a hand to his bosom, wheel about-face, and fall prone.

A cry shrilled up from the bystanders, only to be drowned out by another, but fortunately more harmless, fusillade from the garage.

"Tunin' up!" commented the chauffeur grimly. "Sounds to me like they was about ready to commence!"

P. Sybarite shut his teeth on a nervous tremor and lost a shade or two of colour.

"Ready?" he said with difficulty.

The chauffeur's reply was muffled by another volley; on the echoes of which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and pause once again....

"They're coming!" he cried wildly. "Stand by, quick!"

The alarm was taken up and repeated by two-score throats, while those dotting the street and sidewalks near by broke in swift panic and began madly to scuttle to shelter within doorways and down basement steps....

Like an arrow from the string, November's car broke cover at an angle. Ignoring the slanting way from threshold to gutter, it took the bump of the curb apparently at full tilt, and skidded to the northern curb before it could be brought under control and its course shaped eastward.

With a shiver P. Sybarite recognised that car.

It was not the taxicab that he had been led to expect, but the same maroon-coloured limousine into which he had assisted Marian Blessington at the Bizarre.

On its front seats were two men--Red November himself at the driver's side, a revolver in either hand. And the body of the car contained one passenger, at least, if P. Sybarite might trust to an impression gained in one hasty glance through the forward windows as the car bore down upon them--November's weapons spitting fire....

He could not say who that one passenger might be; but he could guess; and guessing, knew the automatic in his grasp to be useless; he dared not fire at the gangster for fear of loosing a wild bullet into the body of the car....

Now they were within fifty feet of one another. By contrast with the apparent slowness of the touring car to get in motion, the limousine seemed already to have attained locomotive speed.

A yell and a shot from one of November's revolvers (P. Sybarite saw the bullet score the asphalt not two feet from the forward wheel) warned them to clear the way as the gang leader's car swerved wide to pass them.

And on this the touring car seemed to get out of control, swinging across the street. Immediately the other, crowded to the gutter, attempted to take the curb, but, the wheels meeting it at an angle not sufficiently acute, the manoeuvre failed. To a chorus of yells November's driver shut down the brakes not a thought too soon--not soon enough, indeed, to avoid a collision that crumpled a mudguard as though it had been a thing of pasteboard.

Simultaneously P. Sybarite's chauffeur set the brakes, and with the agility of a hounded rabbit seeking its burrow, dived from his seat to the side of the car farthest from the gangsters.

In an instant he was underneath it.

P. Sybarite, on the other hand, had leaped before the accident.

Staggering a pace or two--and all the time under fire--he at length found his feet not six feet from the limousine. It had stopped broadside on. In this position he commanded the front seats without great danger of sending a shot through the body.

His weapon rose mechanically and quite deliberately he took aim--making assurance doubly sure throughout what seemed an age made sibilant by the singing past his head of the infuriated gangster's bullets.

But his finger never tightened upon the trigger.

November had ceased firing and was plucking nervously at the slide of his automatic. His driver had jumped down from his seat and was scuttling madly up the street.

In a breath P. Sybarite realised what was the matter: as automatics will, when hot with fast firing, November's had choked on an empty shell.

With a sob of excitement the little man lowered his weapon and flung himself upon the gang leader.

November rose to meet him, reversing his pistol and aiming at P. Sybarite's head a murderous blow. This, however, the little man was alert to dodge. November came bodily into his arms. Grappling, the two reeled and went down, P. Sybarite's fingers closing on the throat of the assassin just as the latter's head struck the pavement with brutal force.

The man shivered, grunted, and lay still.

P. Sybarite disengaged and got up on his feet.