Part 5

“I would have paid Marakof,” said Calhoun, in a low voice; “and I'll pay you as fast as I can. You know what I'm up against—I told you when you first got after me, as soon as you got that note. My brother got into trouble back East. What would you have done? That five hundred kept him out of the 'pen.' He's only a kid. Damn it, don't play the shark! Marakof renewed the note—why can't you?”

“Because I don't do business that way,” said Kir-schell curtly.

Calhoun's voice grew hard.

“How much did you pay for that note, anyway?”

Kirschell shrugged his shoulders.

“I didn't say I wasn't taking any risk with you,” he replied tersely. “That's the profit on my risk. And as far as you are concerned—it's none of your business!”

Calhoun shrugged his shoulders in turn, and, taking a small roll of bills from his pocket, smoothed them out between his fingers.

“I got a wife, and I got kids,” said Calhoun slowly. “And I'm doing the best I can. Do you want this forty, or not?”

“It depends,” said Kirschell, tapping again with his paper cutter. “How about the rest?”

“I'll pay you what I can every month,” Calhoun answered.

“How much?”—bluntly.

“What I can!” returned Calhoun defiantly.

The two men eyed each other for a moment—and then Kirschell tossed the paper cutter down on the desk.

“Well, all right!” he decided ungraciously. “I'll take a chance for a month—and see how you live up to it. Hand it over, and I'll give you a receipt.”

Calhoun shook his head.

“I don't trust the man who don't trust me,” he said gruffly. “I don't want that kind of a receipt. You'll indorse the payment on the back of the note, Mr. Kirschell, if you want this forty.”

“What?” inquired Kirschell, staring.

“You heard what I said,” said Calhoun coolly. “I'm in the hands of a shark, and I know it. That's plain talk, isn't it?”

“But,” Kirschell flared up angrily, “I——”

Calhoun calmly returned the money to his pocket.

“Suit yourself!” he suggested indifferently. “I ain't asking for anything more than I have a right to.”

“Very well, my man!” said Kirschell icily. “If our dealings are to be on this basis, I hope you will remember that the basis is of your own choosing.” He swung around in his chair, and, rising, walked over to the safe.

And then, for the first time, the Hawk moved. He edged silently back along the floor until far enough away from the doorway to be fully protected by the darkness of the room, and stood up. Kirschell was swinging the heavy door of the safe open. The cash box was to be produced! Lying down, the Hawk could not hope to see its contents if it were opened on the desk; standing up, he might be able to form a very good idea of how tempting its contents would prove to be.

Kirschell took a black-enamelled steel box from the safe, and returned to the desk. He opened this with a key, threw back the cover—and the Hawk stuck his tongue in his cheek. A few papers lay on the top—otherwise it was crammed to overflowing with banknotes. Kirschell selected one of the papers, and picked up a pen in frigid silence.

But the Hawk was no longer watching the scene. His head was cocked to one side, in a curious, bird-like, listening attitude. He could have sworn he had heard the outer office door being stealthily opened. And now Calhoun was speaking—rapidly, his voice raised noticeably in a louder tone than any he had previously employed.

“I ain't looking for trouble, Mr. Kirschell,” he stated Hurriedly, as though relenting, “and I don't want you to think I am, but——”

There was a sharp cry from Kirschell. The room was in darkness. Came a quick step running in from the outer office, no longer stealthy now—the crash of a toppling chair—a gasping moan in Kirschell's voice—the thud of a falling body—a tense whisper: “All right, I've got it!”—then the steps running back across the outer office—the closing of the corridor door—and silence.

The Hawk, grim-lipped, had backed up against the wall of the room.

Calhoun's voice rose hoarsely:

“Good God, what's happened! Where's the electric-light switch?”

Kirschell answered him faintly:

“At—at the side of the door—just—outside the partition.”

The lights went on again, and the Hawk leaned intently forward. Calhoun was standing now in the doorway between the outer and the private office, his eyes fixed on Kirschell. The swivel chair had been overturned; and Kirschell, a great crimson stream running down his cheek from above his temple, was struggling to his knees, clutching at the edge of the desk for support. The cash box was gone.

Kirschell's eyes swept the top of the desk haggardly, as though hoping against hope. He gained his feet, lurching unsteadily. A crimson drop splashed to the desk.

“My chair!” he cried out weakly. “Help me!”

Calhoun stepped forward mechanically, and picked up the chair. Kirschell dropped into it.

“You're hurt!” Calhoun said huskily. “You're badly hurt!”

“Yes,” Kirschell answered; “but it—can wait. The police first—there was—three thousand dollars—in my cash box.” With an effort he reached out across the desk for the telephone, pulled it toward him—and, on the point of lifting the receiver from the hook, slowly drew back his hand. A strange look settled on his face, a sort of dawning, though puzzled comprehension; and then, swaying in his chair, his lips thinned. He drew his hand still further back until it hovered over the handle of the desk's middle drawer. His eyes, on Calhoun, were narrowing.

“You devil!” he rasped out suddenly. “This is your work! I was a fool that I did not see it at first!”

Calhoun's face went white.

“What do you mean?” he said thickly.

“What I say!” Kirschell's voice was ominously clear now, though he sat none too steadily in his chair.

“Then you lie!” said Calhoun fiercely. “You lie—and if you weren't hurt, I'd——”

“No, you wouldn't!”—Kirschell had whipped the drawer open, and, snatching out a revolver, was covering Calhoun. He laughed a little—bitterly. “I'm not so bad that I can't take care of myself. It was pretty clever, I'll give you credit for that. You almost fooled me.”

“Damn you!” snarled Calhoun. “Do you mean to say I've got your cash box?”

“Oh, no,” said Kirschell. “I can see you haven't. I don't even know which of you two struck me. But I do know that you and the man who has my cash box worked up this plant together.”

Calhoun stepped forward threateningly—only to retreat again before the lifted muzzle of the revolver.

“You're a fool!” he snarled. “You've nothing on me!”

“That's for the police to decide,” returned Kirschell evenly. “It would have been a pleasant way of disposing of that note, wouldn't it—if you hadn't under-rated me! And your pal for his share, I daresay, was to take his chance on whatever there might be in the cash box! Why did you say you couldn't come until night, when I gave you until to-day as the last day in which to settle? Why did you insist on my indorsing the payment on the note, which necessitated my opening the safe and taking out the cash box in which you knew the note was kept, for you saw me put it there a week ago, when you first came here? And just after I was knocked down I heard your accomplice whisper: 'All right, I've got it.”

“It's possible the police might form the same opinion I have as to whom those words were addressed!” Calhoun's face had grown whiter.

“It's a lie!” he said scarcely above a whisper. “It's a lie! I had nothing to do with it!”

“I want my three thousand dollars!” Kirschell's lips were set. He held a red-stained handkerchief to his cheek. “If I call the police now they'll get you—but it's your accomplice that's got my money. And it's my money that I want! I'll give you half an hour to go to him, and bring the money back here—and leave the police out of it. If you're not here in that time, I put it up to the police. Half an hour is time enough for you to find your pal; and it's not time enough for you to attempt to leave the city—and get very far!” Kirschell laid his watch on the desk. “You'd better go—I mean half an hour from now.”

Calhoun hung hesitant for a moment, staring at the muzzle of Kirschell's revolver. He made as though to say something—and instead, abruptly, with a short, jarring laugh, turned on his heel, and passed out of the room.

The Hawk was already edging his way along the wall toward the corridor door.

“Three thousand dollars!”—the Hawk rolled the words like so many dainty morsels on his tongue, as he communed with himself. “I guess it's my play to stick to Mr. Calhoun!”

VI—SOME OF THE LITTLE SPIDERS

THE Hawk reached the door, as Calhoun stepped into the corridor from the general office and passed by outside, evidently making for the main entrance of the building. He opened the door cautiously the width of a crack—and held it in that position. A man's voice, low, guarded, from the corridor, but from the opposite direction to that taken by Calhoun, reached him.

“Here! Calhoun! Here!”

Calhoun halted. There was silence for an instant, then Calhoun retraced his steps and passed by the door again. There were a few hurried words in a whisper, which the Hawk could not catch; and then the footsteps of both men retreated along the corridor.

The Hawk opened the door wider, and peered out. The two men were well down the corridor now; and now, as they passed the single incandescent that lighted that end of the hall, Calhoun's companion reached up and turned it out.

“Why, say—-thanks!” murmured the Hawk, and stepped out into the corridor himself.

It was now quite dark at that end, and the men had disappeared. The Hawk moved silently and swiftly along, keeping close to the wall. Presently he caught the sound of their voices again, and nodded to himself. He remembered that in going out this way yesterday he had noticed that the corridor, for some architectural reason, made a sharp, right-angled jut just before it gave on the side-street entrance. He stepped now across to the other side of the corridor, and stole forward to a position where he could look diagonally past the projecting angle of the jut. The two men, standing there, showed plainly in the light from a street arc that shone into the entranceway through the large plate-glass square over the door. The Hawk, quite secure from observation, nestled back against the wall—and an ominous smile settled on the Hawk's lips. The face of Calhoun's companion was covered with a mask.

“There's nothing to be leery about here,” the man was saying. “There's no one goes out or comes in this way at night. Well, it's a nice mess, eh? So the old Shylock called the turn on you, did he?”

There seemed to be a helpless note in Calhoun's voice. He passed his hand heavily across his eyes.

“What's the meaning of this?” he cried out. “What do you know about what happened in there?”

“Nothing much,” said the other coolly. “Except that I'm the guy that pinched the swag, and hit Kirschell that welt on the head.”

“You!” Calhoun involuntarily stepped back. “Yes, sure—me!” The man shrugged his shoulders. “Me and a pal who was outside. He's away now putting the cash box where it won't come to any harm—savvy? He'll be back pretty soon.”

The Hawk's lips moved.

“Number Three and Number Seven,” whispered the Hawk gently.

“I—I don't understand,” said Calhoun dazedly. “Then why are you telling me this. And why are you staying here? And how did you know that Kirschell accused me of being in it?”

“That's another one that's easy,” announced the man evenly. “Because it was part of the game to make him think so.”

Calhoun seemed to stiffen up.

“What! You mean, you——”

“You're getting it!” said the other shortly. “But you'd better wait until you get it all before you start spitting your teeth out! Mabbe you've heard of a little interference with the telegraph wires, and a few small jobs pulled off around here where some innocent parties accidentally got croaked? Ah—you have, eh! Well, that's where you come in, Calhoun. We want you—and when we want anything, we get it! See? We knew about that note, and we've been expecting the railroad crowd to wake up some time, and we had you picked out to place our bets on against them. They woke up to-day and began to nose over the line. It ain't likely to do them much good, but there's a chance—and we ain't taking chances. We don't want much from you, Calhoun, just a little thing, and it'll bring you more money than you ever saw in your life before and without you running any risk. All you've got to do is stand for anything in the shape of a splice or tap on the line that they're suspicious of—you can say it's a repair job of your own, see?”

An angry flush was tinging Calhoun's cheeks.

“Is that all?” he burst out passionately. “Well, I'll see you damned first!”

“Will you?” returned the other calmly. “All right, my bucko! It's your funeral. Take your choice. That—or twenty years in the penitentiary. You're in cold on this. Think it over a bit. For instance, how did you come to make the break of wanting Kirschell to indorse the payment on the back of the note, which made him open his safe?”

“How do you know I did?” Calhoun flashed back sharply.

“Mabbe I'm only guessing at it,” said the man nonchalantly; “and mabbe I was back in the outside room when you did. But, say, you don't happen to remember, do you, a little talk you had with a stranger up the line to-day? And how the conversation got around to loan sharks, and how he told about a trick they had of giving receipts that were phony, and how he beat one of them to it by making the shark indorse on the paper itself? Kind of sunk in, and you bit—eh, Calhoun? We don't do things by halves. We happen to need you. And what do you think I made the break of whispering so Kirschell would hear me for?”

The color was ebbing from Calhoun's face.

“It's not proof!” The defiant ring in his voice was forced. “I——”

“It's enough to make Kirschell believe it, and that's all we wanted for a starter. We'll take care of the rest!” stated the man grimly. “What did he say to you?”

Calhoun answered mechanically:

“He said if I didn't return in half an hour with the cash box, he'd notify the police.”

“Oh, ho!” The man's lips widened in a grin under the edge of his mask. “So he's going to wait here, eh? Well, so much the better! It'll save us a trip to his house. Now, see here, Calhoun, let this sink in!” He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a slip of paper. “Here's your note. It was on the desk where Kirschell was writing on it, and I pinched it when I pinched the cash box. We didn't figure we were going to make the haul we did to-night—we were after you. But there's some money in that cash box, as you saw for yourself. Here's the idea: Kirschell's read a thing or two about what's going on around here—enough to make him know that there ain't much our gang'll stop at. If you say you're with us, me and my pal 'll go in there and throw the fear of God into him. Do you get it? He'll think himself lucky to get off by keeping his mouth shut about to-night when he finds out who he's up against. Also you get the note back, and a share of the cash—and more to come later on.”

“No!” Calhoun cried out. “No! I'm no thief!”

“All right!” agreed the other indifferently.

“That's one side of it. Here's the other: Kirschell certainly believes you took it. He's a shark all right, and he thinks more of his money than he does of anything else, or he wouldn't have given you the chance he did. But when you don't show back there with the coin, he'll take the only other hope he's got of getting his money and turn on the police tap—see? What are you going to do then? Make a break for it, or let 'em get you? Well, it doesn't matter which. This note and a chunk of the cash gets mailed to-night—and the police get tipped off to watch your mail in the morning. Kind of reasonable, isn't it? Your pal, not being able to find you, and not tumbling to the fact that the police have got you until too late, comes across with your share like an honest little man! I think you said something about proof, Calhoun? And I think I told you before that we didn't do things by halves. How about that on top of Kirschell's story—do you think it would cinch a jury, or do you think they'd believe any little fairy story you might tell them, say, about meeting me? Does it look any more like twenty years than it did?”

There was a sudden agony in Calhoun's face.

“My God!” he whispered. “You—you wouldn't do that?”

The man made no answer. He still held the note-in his hand—but in the other now he carelessly dangled a revolver.

“You wouldn't! You wouldn't!” Calhoun's voice was broken now. “I've a wife and children, and—my God, what am I to do!”

“That half-hour Kirschell gave you is slipping along,” suggested the other uncompromisingly. “Here's the note, and there's easy money waiting for you.”

Calhoun turned on the other like a man demented.

“Do you think I'd touch that cash! Or touch that note—I owe it! I may not have been able to pay it—but I owe it!”

“Oh, well, suit yourself as to that, too!” said the man cynically. “It's the other thing we want. What's the wife and the kids you're talking about going to do if you go up for twenty years?”

Calhoun, with a miserable cry, buried his face in his hands.

There was silence—a minute dragged by.

“Well?” prompted the man curtly.

Calhoun dropped his hands, met the other's eyes for an instant—and turned his head away.

“Ah, I thought you would!” said the man calmly. “My pal ought to be back by now, and as soon as he comes we'll go in there and hand Kirschell his little jolt, and——” He stopped. There was a light rapping on the entrance door. “Here he is now! We'll——”

The Hawk was retreating back along the corridor. Again he opened the door of what he had designated to himself as the secretary's office, and for the second time that night stepped silently into the room, closing the door behind him. The sound of running water came from Kirschell's private office, but there was no other sound—the Hawk made none as he once more gained his place of vantage behind the desk. Kirschell was bending over the washbowl, his back turned, bathing his temple and face, and now, straightening up, he bound a towel tightly around his head.

The Hawk watched the proceedings impassively, his head, in that bird-like, listening attitude, cocked on one shoulder toward the outer door. Steps were coming along the corridor. But this time Kirschell, too, heard them—for he turned, and, as the corridor door opened, started toward his desk. He reached it and sat down, as Calhoun entered the room.

“Ah, ha!” snapped Kirschell triumphantly. “So you've thought better of it, have you? I imagined you would! Well, where's the——” The words seemed to freeze on his lips; there was a sudden terror in his face. “What—what does this mean?” he faltered.

Two masked men, the one who had been with Calhoun in the corridor, and a taller, more heavily built man, had stepped in behind Calhoun, and were advancing toward the desk.

The short man pointed a revolver at Kirschell's head.

“Calhoun says he keeps a gun in the middle drawer of the desk,” he grunted to his companion. “Get it!”

The other, leaning over, pulled the drawer open, and, appropriating Kirschell's revolver, stuck it in his pocket.

Kirschell's tongue circled his lips. He looked wildly from one to the other.

“We just dropped in to make a confession, Mr. Kirschell,” said the short man, with an ugly jeer. “We don't like to see an innocent man suffer—understand? I'm the one that lifted your cash box, you measly shark—me and my pal there. I heard you trying to stick it on Calhoun. We ain't asking any favours for ourselves, and when we get through with you, you can tell the police it was us, and that we're part of the crowd that's been making things lively around these parts—you've been reading the papers, ain't you?—but you open your mouth about Calhoun, you put him in bad when he had nothing to do with it, and inside of twenty-four hours you'll be found in a dark alley somewhere with a bullet through you! Get me? You know who you're up against now, and you've got fair warning!”

Kirschell was huddled in his chair. His little black eyes were no longer restless—they were fixed in a sort of terrified fascination on the speaker.

“Yes.” He licked his lips again. “Yes, I—I understand,” he mumbled.

From his pocket the Hawk took a mask, which he slipped over his face; and from his pocket he took his automatic.

“I don't think he believes you,” sneered the second masked man, with a wicked grin. “Perhaps mabbe we'd better twist his windpipe a little, just to show him in a friendly way that there ain't any mistake about it—eh?”

“No, no!” Kirschel's voice was full of fear. “No, no! I believe—I——” His words ended in a choked scream.

The man's hands had shot swiftly out, and closed on Kirschell's throat. He was shaking, twisting, and turning Kirschell's head from side to side. His companion laughed brutally. Came a series of guttural moans from Kirschell—and Kirschel's body began to slip limply down in his chair.

Calhoun had gone white to the lips.

“Stop it! My God, stop it!” he burst out frantically. “You promised me you wouldn't do him any harm.”

“You mind your own business!” snarled the man with the revolver. “We know how to handle his breed. Give him enough to hold him for a while Jim! We——”

“Drop that revolver! Drop it!” The Hawk was standing in the doorway.

There was a startled oath from the leader of the two men as he whirled around, a gasp as he faced the Hawk's automatic—and his weapon clattered to the floor. The other, in a stunned way, still hung over Kirschell, but his hands had relaxed their hold on Kirschel's throat.

“Thank you!” drawled the Hawk. “I must say I agree with Mr. Calhoun. It's not a pleasant sight to watch a man being throttled.” His voice rang suddenly cold. “You, there!” His automatic indicated the man beside Kirschell. “Stand back at the end of the desk, and put up your hands!”

Calhoun had not moved. He was staring numbly at the Hawk. Kirschell, making guttural sounds, was clawing at his throat.

“Mr. Calhoun,” requested the Hawk coolly, “as I happen to know that you have little reason to love either of these two gentlemen, will you be good enough to pick up that revolver and hand it to me?” Calhoun stooped mechanically, and extended it to the Hawk.

“And now our friend over there with his hands up, Mr. Calhoun,” purred the Hawk. “You will find two in his pockets—his own, and Mr. Kirschell's. Mr. Kirschell, I am sure, is already fairly well convinced that you are in no way connected with the robbery of his cash box, and I am equally sure that in no way could you better dispel any lingering doubts he might still entertain than by helping to draw these gentlemen's teeth.”

Calhoun laughed a little grimly now.

“I don't know who you are,” he said, his lips set, as he started toward the man; “but I guess you're right. I'd like to see them get what's coming to them.”

“Quite so!” said the Hawk pleasantly. He accepted the two remaining revolvers from Calhoun; and from his pocket produced his skeleton keys. He handed them to Calhoun, designating one of the keys on the ring. “One more request, Mr. Calhoun,” he said. “I entered by the door that opens on the corridor from this other office here. Will you please lock it; and, on your way back, also lock this connecting door through which I have just come in—the key of the latter, I noticed, is in the lock.”

Calhoun nodded, took the keys, and stepped quickly from the room. Kirschell, evidently not seriously hurt from the handling he had received, though still choking a little and clearing his throat with short coughs, was regarding the Hawk with a questioning stare. The eyes of the other two men were on the Hawk's revolver. The shorter of the two suddenly raised a clenched fist.