The unknown seven A detective story
“Suppose you name the price you are willing to pay?”
There was a craning of necks, and nods and subdued whispers passed
around the circle. Evidently the seven construed his words as meaning
that he was yielding. The spokesman unlocked a drawer in front of him
and placed a small package on the table.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” he remarked impressively. “If you are
in doubt as to the amount, or if you suspect that I am handing you
stage money, you will be permitted to examine it in the light.”
He handed the package to Cole. “Remember that this is only your
retaining fee, so to speak. There will be lots more coming to you if
you decide to throw in your lot with us.”
Cole felt the crisp fiber of the bills. He did not doubt that the money
was genuine or that the package contained the exact amount mentioned
by the spokesman. Whatever else these men might do, he did not think
they would stoop to petty cheating. An odd sensation surged through him
as he weighed the currency in the palm of his hand. It was more money
than had ever before come within his reach. Of a sudden he remembered
some of the things he had been compelled to deny himself because of
his slender and uncertain income. Until this moment, when he held the
wherewithal in his hand, it had not occurred to him that he was missing
any of the good things in life. He had accepted his privations, as a
matter of course, with a smile or a shrug, according to his mood of the
moment.
For a few seconds longer he gave himself over to thrill of possession,
and then he tossed the bundle of currency down on the table. “It isn’t
enough,” he declared.
A chorus of murmurs went around the circular table. The veiled faces
strained forward a little. Once again Cole fancied the spokesman’s eyes
were twinkling through the orifices in the mask.
“Splendid, Mr. Cole,” said the man approvingly. “I didn’t think
twenty-five thousand would satisfy you, but I wanted to make sure. As a
matter of fact, if you had accepted such a paltry amount, we would have
broken off the negotiations instantly. We don’t want a man who holds
himself cheap. Here”—again he opened the drawer in front of him—“is
another twenty-five thousand. That makes fifty. Quite a neat sum for a
man whose income last year was only a trifle over four thousand.”
“How did you know that?”
“Income-tax reports,” said the man.
Cole took one bundle of currency in each hand. He was no longer
marveling at the surprising sources of information that seemed to be
open to these men. For the moment all his senses were centered on the
wealth that lay in his palms. A flash of self-revelation came to him,
and he was surprised and frightened by it. He had never known that mere
money could give him such a delectable sensation. In the past, as a
passive onlooker, he had smiled tolerantly at other men’s scramble for
wealth. With philosophic eyes he had watched the money-mad procession
sweep by him. Now he found that the sheer touch of the currency sent a
contagion through his veins, awakening strange emotions within him.
The sensation put an indefinable fear into him, fear of himself and
the weakness he had just discovered. Of a sudden the currency seemed
to scorch his palms. He shrugged, and the spell was broken. With an
inward paroxysm he flung the money down on the table. “Not even that is
enough,” he announced in slightly dazed tones, like one just awakening
from a dream.
The spokesman’s head came up a little. With a shrug and an indistinct
mutter he once more opened the drawer, but Cole laid a detaining hand
on his sleeve.
“Wait!” he said quietly. “You are going ahead on the idea that every
man has his price. You’re mistaken. There isn’t money enough in the
whole United States treasury to buy me.”
There came a hush, and then a ripple of commotion went around the
table. It died instantly as the spokesman raised a silencing hand. He
tilted his head back, and through the holes in the mask his eyes bored
into Cole’s face. For a time not a sound was heard in the room. Finally
the spokesman gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “I see,” he declared.
“You’re a weakling like most men. You’re a slave to the absurd thing we
call conscience. I had hoped that you were one of the rare exceptions.”
“Wrong again,” said Cole, smiling. “It isn’t conscience. Anyway, I
wouldn’t call it that. It is only pride, a foolish pride, perhaps. I
want to go through life knowing that I can look every man straight in
the eye and tell him to go to the devil if necessary. I couldn’t do
that if I were to sell myself. I should become a despicable thing in my
own eyes, and life wouldn’t be worth living after that. I don’t suppose
you understand, but that’s just how I feel.”
Seven pairs of eyes were leveled at Cole’s face as his short, crisp
sentences fell on the tense air. Then came silence, a long and oddly
vibrant silence during which Cole experienced an unaccountable feeling
that his life hung in the balance. He could neither understand it nor
trace it to its source, but the nameless sense of danger grew more
distinct with every moment.
By instinct his hand went to the hip pocket in which he always carried
a small, but reliable, pistol. Before his hands could touch the weapon
a strange thing happened. The spokesman’s arm described a slight
movement in the dusk, and in a twinkling utter darkness fell. Cole
stood in blackness so intense that it seemed as though he could touch
it.
His fingers found the handle of the pistol, but in the next instant his
hand fell to his side. In that impenetrable darkness the weapon was of
no more avail than a toy. He heard a faint scraping of chairs, then a
patter of feet. He groped for the chair where the spokesman had sat,
but it was empty. Gradually the faint sounds ceased, and then came an
engulfing silence. It was as if every manifestation of life had been
drained out of the blackness that surrounded him.
Silence—darkness—solitude. Cole, as he dropped into the spokesman’s
chair, felt as if the three words had suddenly acquired a new and more
powerful significance.
CHAPTER III
THE TEMPTRESS SPEAKS
Five minutes passed. Cole could no longer control his restlessness. He
got up from the chair and went gropingly across the heavily carpeted
floor. His footsteps made scarcely a sound, and he had a queer
sensation that the darkness and silence were insinuating themselves
into his very pores. It was as if a magic spell had fallen over him. He
could no longer trust his reason or his senses.
He stopped short as a faint whisper went through the dead silence. With
head thrown back and straining his ears, he listened. Again the whisper
came, trailing through the blackness like a disembodied breath. He
groped in the direction whence the sound came, and now he could hear it
quite distinctly.
“Mr. Cole!”
Tracing the sound vibrations, he crossed the floor and brought up
against the wall. Again his name was spoken, and now he had an
impression that the speaker was only a few feet away. He thought he
recognized the voice.
“Mr. Cole!”
His highly sensitized ears gauged and dissected each small fraction
of a syllable. He knew he was not mistaken. The voice belonged to the
woman who had introduced herself by the absurdly inappropriate name of
Miss Brown.
“Where are you?” he asked. He fumbled with his hands in the dark, but
found nothing but emptiness. He turned and ran his fingers up and
down the wall until he encountered a metallic object imbedded in the
paneling. Again his name was called, and he gave a short laugh as he
realized that the sounds were coming to him through the mouthpiece of a
speaking tube. The touch of the cold metal against his fingers seemed
to shatter an illusion. Simple though the contrivance was, it smacked
of up-to-dateness. A sense of reality broke the spell which the weird
events of the night had cast over him.
“Hello,” he spoke into the mouthpiece. “You, Miss Brown?”
A brief pause, and then her voice came to him in hurried tones that
bespoke intense excitement. “Yes, Mr. Cole. I must warn you. I feel
responsible for your predicament. Awful things will happen if you
persist in your headstrong course. You must abandon it and accept the
proposition that was made to you. Otherwise——”
Her voice quavered and broke. The suspended sentence and the words she
had left unspoken impressed Cole grimly. He could almost see her, white
and shuddering at the other end of the speaking tube. Though he knew
she was a clever actress, there was an earnestness in her tones that
gave him pause.
“You mean these men will kill me unless I accept their vile terms?” he
asked.
“Oh, they will do worse than that! They are terrible men, Mr. Cole,
and they are in a desperate temper. Death, a hundred deaths, would
be preferable to the thing they intend doing. Won’t you come to your
senses before it’s too late? Oh, please——”
Cole laughed into the mouthpiece. “Compose yourself, Miss Brown. Don’t
worry on my account. I’ve been in tight corners before, and I always
wriggled out of them somehow. I shall do so this time.”
A sob sounded at the other end, and then all was quiet. Cole drew away
from the speaking tube. It might have been only another bit of clever
acting, but Miss Brown’s warning had left him in a state of tingling
suspense. She had hinted at dire things that were to happen to him,
and Cole tried to tell himself that she had only been exercising
her imagination. Such things belonged in the realm of romance and
melodrama. It was laughable to think that they might happen on the top
floor of a skyscraper, located close to the world’s financial nerve
center. The incongruity of it struck Cole as quite amusing.
He chuckled, but in the next instant he sharply caught his breath. A
sound resembling that of a clicking lock reached his ears. He heard
nothing more, but he had a feeling that some one had entered the room,
that he was no longer alone. Instinctively he braced himself to resist
an attack. His ears were keyed to catch the slightest sound; every
muscle in his body had the tension of a cocked trigger.
He stood with his back against the wall, all his senses quiveringly
alert. He could neither hear nor see, but he knew some one was
steadily approaching from the farther end of the long room. Presently
he could hear sounds of breathing, but the prowler’s progress was
still muffled by the heavy carpet. Now a little thud signified that
the intruder had walked up against the circular table, so he could
be no more than a few feet from where Cole stood. The fact that he
could not see who it was that was coming toward him made the suspense
nerve-racking.
Suddenly he thought of matches. He searched his pockets, but the little
case in which he usually carried them was empty. Somewhere in the room
there must be an electric-light switch, but it was not likely he could
find it in the dark.
He peered sharply into the blackness. Now his ears caught a pawing
sound, like that of some one crawling on hands and knees. He bent
forward a little, shoulders squared, for he knew the prowler was only a
foot or two away. Evidently he hoped Cole was unaware of his entrance
and expected to take his victim by surprise.
A fumbling hand swept Cole’s knees, and he kicked out his foot with
great force, foiling the attempt to trip him. A startled yell testified
to the effectiveness of the kick, but in the next instant Cole knew
that his adversary had risen to his feet and was changing his tactics.
His fist struck out, but it landed on a body hard and firm as rock, and
the only apparent result of the blow was a stinging sensation in his
knuckles. He tried to strike again, but now his shoulders were seized