The Man Who Couldn't Sleep Part 14

"Get back against that wall," he commanded. "Then throw up your hands.

Get 'em up quick!"

I had allowed her to trap me after all! I had even let myself half-believe that pleasant myth of the slumbering husband in the next room. And all the while she was guarding this unsavory-looking confederate who, ten to one, had been slinking about and working his way into a wall-safe even while I was wasting time with diverting but costly talk.

And with that gun-barrel blinking at me I had no choice in the matter--I was compelled to a.s.sume the impotent and undignified att.i.tude of a man supplicating the unanswering heavens. The woman turned and contemplated the newcomer, contemplated him with a fine pretense of surprise.

"_Hobbs,_" she cried, "_how did you get here?_"

"You shut up!" he retorted over his shoulder.

"What are you doing in this house?" she repeated, with a sustained show of amazement.

"Oh, I'll get round to _you_, all right, all right," was his second rejoinder.

Hobbs' left hand, in the meanwhile, had lifted my watch from its pocket and with one quick jerk tore watch and chain away from its waistcoat anchorage.

"You're a sweet pair, you two!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, for that watch was rather a decent one and I hated to see it ill-treated.

"Shut up!" said Hobbs, as his hand went down in my breast-pocket in search of a wallet. I knew, with that gun-barrel pressed close against my body, that it would be nothing short of suicidal to try to have it out with him then and there. I had to submit to that odious pawing and prodding about my body. But if my turn ever came, I told myself, it would be a sorry day for Hobbs--and an equally sorry one for that smooth-tongued confederate of his.

"You're a sweet pair!" I repeated, hot to the bone, as that insolent hand went down into still another pocket.

But it did not stay there. I saw a sudden change creep over the man's face. He looked up with a quick and bird-like side-movement of the head. It was not until he wheeled about that I realized the reason of the movement.

The actual motive behind the thing I could not fathom. The real significance of the tableau was beyond my reach. But as I looked up I saw that the woman had crept noiselessly to the hall door, and with a sudden movement had thrust out her hand and tried to open this door.

But as I had already locked it, and still carried the key in my pocket, her effort was a useless one. Just why it should enrage her confederate was more than I could understand. He ignored me for the time being, crossing the room at a run and flinging the woman in black away from the door-k.n.o.b. She, in turn, was making a pretense to resent that a.s.sault. Why she should do this I did not wait to ask. I saw my chance and took it.

Half-a-dozen quick steps brought me to the bathroom door, one turn of the k.n.o.b threw it open, and another step put me through it and brought the door closed after me. There was, I found, a key in the lock.

Another second of time saw that key turned. A quick pad or two about the cool marble wall brought my hand in contact with the light-switch.

The moment the light came on I darted to the inner door and tried it.

But this, to my dismay, was locked, although I could catch sight of no key in it. I ran back for the key of the first door, tried it, and found it useless. At any moment, I knew, a shot might come splintering through those thin panels. And at any moment, should they decide on that move, the two of them might have their own door into the hallway forced open and be scampering for the street.

I reached over and wrenched a nickeled towel-bar away from the wall opposite me. One end of this I deliberately jabbed into the white-leaded wood between the frame and the jam of the second door. I was about to pry with all my force, when the sound of yet another voice came from the room before me. It was a disturbed yet sleepy voice, m.u.f.fled, apparently, by a second portiere hung on the outside of the second door.

"Is that you, Simmonds?" demanded this voice.

I continued to pry, for I felt like a rat in a corner, in that bald little bathroom, and I wanted s.p.a.ce about me, even though that meant fresh danger. The mysteries were now more than I could decipher. I no longer gave thought to them. The first thing I wanted was liberation, escape. But my rod-end bent under the pressure to which I subjected it, and I had to reverse it and try for a fresh hold.

I could hear, as I did so, the sudden sound of feet crossing a floor, the click of a light-switch, and then the rattle of the portiere-rings on the rod above the door at which I stood.

"Who locked this door?" demanded the startled voice on the other side.

For answer, I threw my weight on the rod and forced the lock. I still kept the metal rod in my hand, for a possible weapon, as I half-stumbled out into the larger room.

Before me I saw a man in pajamas. He was blond and big and his hair was rumpled--that was all I knew about him, beyond the fact that his pajamas were a rather foolish tint of baby-blue. We stood there, for a second or two, staring at each other. We were each plainly afraid of the other, just as we were each a little rea.s.sured, I imagine, at the sight of the other.

"For the love of G.o.d," he gasped, wide-eyed, "who are you?"

"Quick," I cried, "is this your house?"

"Of course it's my house," he cried back, retreating as I advanced. He suddenly side-stepped and planted his thumb on a call-bell.

"Good!" I said. "Get your servants here quick. We'll need them!"

"Who'll need them? What's wrong? What's up?"

"I've got two burglars locked in that room."

"Burglars?"

"Yes, and they'll have a nice haul if they get away. Have you got a revolver?"

"Yes," he answered, jerking open a drawer. I saw that his firearm was an automatic.

"Where's the telephone?" I demanded, crossing the room to the door that opened into the hall.

"On the floor below," he answered. He pulled on a brown blanket dressing-gown, drawing the girdle tight at the waist.

"You can get to it quicker than I can," I told him. "Give me the gun, and throw on the lights as you go down. Then get the police here as soon as you can."

"What'll you do?" he demanded.

"I'll guard the door," I answered as I all but pushed him into that hallway. Then I swung-to the door after me, and locked it from the outside. "Quick, the gun," I said. There was no fear on his face now, yet it was natural enough that he should hesitate.

"What are you? An officer?"

There was no time for an explanation.

"Plain-clothes man," was my glib enough answer, as I caught the pistol from his hand. He switched on the hall lights.

He was half-way to the top of the stairs when a woman's scream, high pitched and horrible, echoed out of the room where I had the two confederates trapped. It was repeated, shrill and sharp. The face of the big blond man went as white as chalk.

"_Who is that!_" he demanded, with staring eyes, facing the locked door of the second room. Then he backed off from the door.

I flung a cry of warning at him, but it did not stop his charge. His great shoulder went against the paneled wood like a battering-ram.

Under the weight of that huge body the entire frame-facing gave way; he went lunging and staggering from sight into the dimly-lit inner room.

I waited there, with my gun at half-arm, feeling the room would suddenly erupt its two prisoners. Then, at a cry from the man, I stepped quickly in after him.

I had fortified myself for the unexpected, but the strangeness of the scene took my breath away. For there I beheld the man called Hobbs engaged in the absurd and extraordinary and altogether brutal occupation of trying to beat in his confederate's head with the b.u.t.t of his heavy revolver. He must have struck her more than once, even before the man in the hairy brown dressing-gown and the blue pajamas could leap for him and catch the uplifted arm as it was about to strike again.

The woman, protected by her hat and veil and a great ma.s.s of thick hair, still showed no signs of collapse. But the moment she was free she sat back, white and panting, in the same high-armed _fauteuil_ which I myself had occupied a half-hour before. I made a leap for her companion's fallen revolver, before she could get it, though I noticed that she now seemed indifferent to both the loss of it and the outcome of the struggle which was taking place in the center of that pink and white abode of femininity.

And as I kept one eye on the woman and one on the gun in my hand, I, too, caught fleeting glimpses of that strange struggle. It seemed more like a combat between wildcats than a fight between two human beings.

It took place on the floor, for neither man was any longer on his feet, and it wavered from one side of the room to the other, leaving a swath of destruction where it went. A table went over, a fragile-limbed chair was crushed, the great cheval-gla.s.s was shattered, the writing-desk collapsed with a leg snapped off, a shower of toilet articles littered the rugs, a reading-lamp was overturned and went the way of the other things. But still the fight went on.

I no longer thought of the woman. All my attention went to the two men struggling and panting about the floor. The fury of the man in the s.h.a.ggy and bear-like dressing-gown was more than I could understand.

The madness of his onslaught seemed incomprehensible. This, I felt, was the way a tigress might fight for her brood, the way a cave-man might battle for his threatened mate. Nor did that fight end until the big blond form towered triumphant above the darker clad figure.