Kate plus 10
that the change had come in the nature of a shock. And there was a
change. Even her uncle had dropped his mask of good-nature and now
treated her as a child, and a child that needed to be disciplined.
“I have been thinking,” she said.
He grunted something and walked back with her to the office.
“This fellow, Michael Pretherston, has to be settled with. Do you
understand that?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“The cars will be on the road in half an hour and you and I will be
the first to leave.”
“Do you think so?”
“What do you mean?” he asked sharply. “I warn you, Kate, that I am not
going to stand any monkey tricks from you.”
To this she made no answer but pushed at the iron door that led to the
meeting place and entered. To her surprise, Michael was present. In
addition to his handcuffs his arms had been drawn back by the
insertion of a short stick and secured with ropes. Gregori was sitting
on the table and made no attempt to stand up, which was another piece
of evidence that the hold she thought she had over these men had gone,
if it had ever existed.
“Kate, you can use your persuasion on this fellow,” said Gregori
wearily; “it is his last chance. He has had a night to think it over
and he’s still obstinate.”
The girl walked up to the detective.
“Michael,” she said softly, “would nothing induce you to become--one
of us?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing that we could give you--that I could give you?”
He looked at her steadily.
“Nothing that I would take from you at that price,” he said quietly.
“Don’t you love your life?”
“‘As dearly as any alive,’” quoted Michael.
“Don’t you love anything in the world? Isn’t there a girl?” she asked
with a little break in her voice.
He nodded.
“There is a girl,” he said and looked past her.
It seemed as though an icy hand had gripped her heart and for a while
she could not frame the next question.
“Isn’t she worth it?” she said, recovering her balance at last.
“She is worth many things,” said Michael, “but not that.”
She looked down at the floor.
“Poor girl,” she said.
“Having tried sentiment,” sneered Gregori, “we will now try a little
practical argument--Pretherston you have got about an hour to live.”
“I shall die in very bad company,” said Michael with a wry face. “I
had hoped at the least that I might die at the hands of a lawful
hangman, as you will die. To be butchered by a cheap cutthroat
half-breed is not a pleasant prospect.”
“Damn you,” said Gregori with passion and struck him in the face.
He would have repeated the blow but the girl slipped between them.
“Michael, you shall die in good company,” she said in so matter of
fact a tone that none of them realized immediately what she was
saying; “that is, if you think I am good company.”
“What do you mean?” gasped the Colonel.
“Why, I think you will kill me, too,” she said with a serenity which
to Michael was wonderful, “because I have betrayed you all.”
Garon came flinging through the door.
“They haven’t turned up,” he screamed, “the wagons have gone.”
“Gone,” said Gregori huskily, “gone where?”
“I have just been on the ’phone,” gasped the doctor; “they went to
Lord Flanborough’s. He has got the stuff.”
There was a dead silence broken by the girl.
“They went to Lord Flanborough’s,” she repeated nodding her head. “I
know that. I sent them there.”
The tension was dreadful, no man spoke, then suddenly Gregori swung
round on the girl and his face was the face of a devil.
“You!” he grated and leaped at her throat.
In that one moment all the scattered atoms of race, of pride, of
kinship united in the distorted brain of Colonel Westhanger. His lean
arms shot out and Gregori fell headlong to the floor.
“Back, you dog!” roared the old man.
It was the last word he uttered. There was a stinging report from the
floor and Colonel Westhanger fell limply across the table with a
bullet through his heart.
The girl who was half fainting with terror shrank back against the
wall as Gregori rose, his still smoking pistol in his hand.
“You are a prophet,” he said harshly; “you said you would die with
Michael Pretherston and by God! you spoke the truth. Put them
together,” he said, “I want to think things out.”
CHAPTER XIX.
MICHAEL DEVELOPED A FONDNESS FOR THE
CRIMINAL CLASSES
The girl rose up from the chair where she had been sitting and
crossed to where Michael lay on the floor where they had thrown him.
He looked up and smiled.
“Why, Kate,” he said faintly, “always… meeting… you.”
She sat down at his side and lifting his head laid it upon her lap.
“That’s nice,” he murmured.
“Why is it nice?” she asked curiously, “because I make a softer pillow
than the stone?”
“That and something more,” he answered.
“What more?” she insisted.
“Oh--because it is you, I suppose,” he said vaguely.
Her lips twitched in amusement.
“But it would be just the same if it were any other person,” she said,
“wouldn’t it, Mike?”
He looked up at her.
“Put your hand on my forehead,” he said.
“Like this?”
She laid her soft palm against his throbbing head.
“What does that do?” she asked after a long interval of silence.
“It just makes my head better--don’t ask a lot of questions.”
Her fingers stole down his face and she gently pinched his nose.
“Oh, Kate,” he murmured sleepily, “I was just going to sleep.”
“Then don’t,” she said, “what is the use of dozing--you’ll be dead
soon and so will I.”
She said this very calmly, in the same matter-of-fact tone in which
she might have announced that there would be a roast chicken for
dinner.
“I hope they kill you first,” she said thoughtfully.
“You’re a bloodthirsty little beggar,” said Michael indignantly; “why
do you wish that?”
She shrugged her shoulders and went on pressing back the hair from his
forehead, never taking her eyes from his face.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, “only I want to make sure that
you’re gone and nobody else can have you--and then I shan’t care.”
He did not move; for a second she saw his eyelids quiver, but he lay
still staring past her to the dingy roof of the engine house.
“Say that again,” he whispered.
“Say what again? That I want you to be killed first?” she asked
innocently.
“Mike,” she said suddenly, “who was the girl?”
“Which girl?”
“You know,” she said, “the girl you--care about.”
“Why, you of course,” he said in surprise.
Her hands slipped down from his forehead covering his eyes.
“Say that again,” she mimicked.
“You,” he repeated. “You see I am more obliging than you were.”
“And you would not come in with us, not even for me?”
“Not even for you.”
She did not speak for some time.
“How did you know we were here?” she asked.
“I knew you could be nowhere else,” he said.
“You are an awfully arrogant young man, aren’t you? Do you know how it
was all done?”
He nodded.
“The train ran into the tunnel where you had a long motor-car mounted
with flanged wheels and having three green lamps on the front and two
red tail lamps behind. That was the ‘train’ which the signalman saw
dashing through the rain and you had a horrible siren.”
She laughed softly.
“It was terrible, wasn’t it?” she admitted. “Do you remember that day
you were in Crime Street? You heard it.”
He recalled the uncanny sound which had then excited his curiosity.
“When you got to the level crossing gates, the car was lifted off the
rail and went on to the road. It followed the tram lines for some
distance where it turned into a convenient garage, which I suppose you
had already arranged for?”
“That’s right,” she nodded.
“The train went no farther than the tunnel. It then backed on to a
side track. Gregori had his Italian workmen ready and fixed up the
buffer which had been dropped--you know the rest. The hole behind the
buffer and the green scum--that was your idea, I suppose.”
“It was cunning, wasn’t it, and did you see the rust I made?”
“It is a fortunate thing you are dying young, Kate,” he said; “you
have a criminal mind.”
“But I haven’t a criminal mind,” she protested; “it is a game, a sort
of highly complicated jigsaw puzzle. Do you ever read detective
stories?”
“Very seldom.”
“But you have read them?” she persisted.
“I have read one or two,” he confessed.
“Did the men who wrote those have criminal minds? It was a game to
them. It was a game to me. I know it is all wrong, horribly wrong, but
I never thought I should realize that much. I thought nothing would
turn me.”
“And what has turned you?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said shaking her head. “It is a curious
feeling that I get when I meet one man in the world. A feeling that
makes my heart turn to ice and makes me tremble. That is all it is,
Mike--how do you think they are going to do it?”
Her thoughts had gone back to the approaching end.
“Heaven knows,” said Michael. “I haven’t any time to think of it. I am
thinking of something else. Why do they keep the steam up in that
engine?” he asked.
“It was Gregori’s idea,” she said; “he had the hole filled in to-day
and the buffer taken down. He thought it might be useful to let the
engine run on to the main line and block it. That is, if we had word
that they were sending a lot of police down to search this part of the
country.”
“Here they are,” said Michael; “help me to sit up.”
She raised him to a sitting position as the door opened and a dim
figure appeared silhouetted against the dusk. It struck a match and
lit a candle and Dr. Garon was revealed. He placed the candle
carefully upon the floor just behind the half-closed door and passed
slowly over to where Michael lay.
“Well, my young sleuth,” he said pleasantly, “the best of friends must
part.”
“Fortunately,” said Michael, “I do not fall into the category of your
friends.”
The doctor hummed a little tune as he took a small leather case from
his pocket.
“You have seen a hypodermic syringe before, I suppose?” he held up the
tiny instrument. “I am going to give you a slight dope, which won’t
hurt you.”
“One moment,” said Michael, “do I understand that this dope
is--final?”
The doctor bowed. From his heightened colour and his unsteady hand
Michael guessed he had been drinking, either to give himself nerve for
his task or to drown the memory of his misfortune.
“Very good,” said Michael. He looked up at the girl and raised his
face and Kate stooped and kissed him on the lips.
“That is it, is it?” said the doctor unpleasantly. “Gregori will be
pleased.”
He caught the manacled wrists of the prisoner and pulled back his
sleeve and the girl’s heart almost ceased to beat.
It was at that moment that the light went out.
“Who is there?” said the doctor releasing his grip on Michael’s arm
and turning quickly.
He took a groping step forward through the darkness.
“Who’s there?” he said again and they heard a soft thud followed by
the sound that a body might make, when it struck the ground.
Michael caught his breath. Suddenly a beam of light danced in the room
and focused upon the prostrate figure of Dr. Garon.
“Got him,” said a well-satisfied voice.
“Barr,” whispered Michael, “where did you spring from?”
“I came through the door,” said the voice. “Did you see it open? That
is what knocked the candle over.”
He flashed the light on his superior.
“They have got the bracelets on you, sir,” he chuckled softly, took a
key from his pocket and with a few deft turns released the other. His
pocket knife finished the work.
Michael stretched his cramped limbs.
“I tried to get in last night but they had too many sentries--I
couldn’t come here or get back to a telephone. I have been lying on
that hillside all last night and all to-day,” said Detective-Sergeant