Doors of the Night Part 6

"It's not true! I tell you it's not true! The boy never did it!"

"So!" It was a man's voice now, caustic and unrelenting. "Well, where is he now, then?"

"I don't know," the woman replied. "I haven't seen him since supper. But that's got nothing to do with it. That doesn't prove anything."

"So!" It was the man again. "Well, maybe not! But I am not to be fooled!

I am a poor man. I cannot afford to lose my money. So, it has nothing to do with it, eh? You say that because you are his mother, eh? But did he tell you at supper that I had discharged him this afternoon? Eh? Answer me that!"

"N-no." The answer seemed to come reluctantly.

Billy Kane pushed the outer door a little wider open and slipped through. Keeping close to the wall, he edged forward until he could see into the back room through its open door. A frown came and knitted his brows in hard furrows. He was frankly puzzled now. The woman, a tall, powerful, muscular woman of middle age, but curiously frail now in obvious fear and emotion, was Mrs. Clancy, who kept the little notion shop next door on the corner; and the other, bent-shouldered, in long, greasy black coat, with long, untrimmed and dirty white beard, whose eyes were distorted behind the heavy lenses of his steel-bowed spectacles, was Marco, the proprietor of the second-hand store. Marco was apparently in a state of equal distress and excitement. He alternatively wrung his hands together and gesticulated furiously.

"Eight hundred dollars!" he cried out wildly. "Do you hear, you, the mother of that brat? Eight hundred dollars! All I have on earth! And it is gone! Stolen by that cursed young prison bird of yours! So he did not tell you, eh, that I discharged him this afternoon because I was sure he was making little stealings from me all the time? But you are not surprised, eh? Maybe he has stolen from you, too, eh?"

The woman did not answer. She seemed to shiver suddenly, and then sank down heavily in the chair before the table, near which she had been standing.

Marco paced up and down the room, back and forth, from the table to where the floor was littered with the erstwhile contents of the rifled safe.

Billy Kane's puzzled frown grew deeper. Evidently there _had_ been money in the safe, but in some way Laverto had got it before he had set Whitie Jack at work upon a stall, and it was obvious that Laverto had maneuvered to plant the crime on the shoulders of this woman's son. But what then had been Laverto's object in bringing Whitie Jack into it at all? It did not somehow seem to fit, or dovetail, or appear logical, or-- And then, with a sudden start, Billy Kane leaned tensely forward, his eyes fixed narrowly on Marco. Yes, it _did_ dovetail! He had it now-all of it-all of the d.a.m.nable, unscrupulous ingenuity of the plot that had been hatched in Laverto's cunning brain. The frown was hidden now by the mask which Billy Kane slipped quickly over his face, but his lips just showing beneath the edge of the mask were tight and hard.

"I was a fool-a fool!" Marco cried out sharply. "A fool, ever to have taken him in here as my clerk! I might have known! He has already been in jail!"

"It was only the reform school." Mrs. Clancy was wringing her hands piteously. "He is only a boy-only seventeen now. And he did not mean any harm even then-and-and since then he has been a good boy."

"Has he?" Marco flung out a clenched fist and shook it in the air. "He has-eh? Well, then, where did he get this? Answer me that! Where did he get this?" Marco's closed hand opened, and he threw what looked to Billy Kane like a little brooch, a miniature in a cheap setting, upon the table. "That's you, ain't it? That's his mother's picture, ain't it? Do you think I do not recognize it? That's you twenty years ago-eh? Did you _give_ it to him-eh? Answer me that-did you _give_ it to him?"

The woman had risen from her chair, and was swaying upon her feet.

"Did you think I did not have reason to be pretty sure when I asked if he had not stolen from you, too?" Marco, apparently beside himself with rage, was gesticulating furiously again. "And you said I had no proof of _this_-eh?" He shook his fist in the direction of the safe. "Well, I found that brooch there on the floor where he must have dropped it out of his pocket when he blew my safe open, and he didn't know he'd dropped it in the dark, and then some of the papers he pulled out covered it.

That's where I found it-under the papers! That's proof enough, ain't it?

I guess with his record it will satisfy the police-no matter what his mother thinks!"

A great sob came from the woman. The tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"My boy!" she faltered. "It's true-I-I am afraid it's true. Oh, my boy-my boy-my fatherless boy!" She thrust out her hands in a sudden imploring gesture toward the other. "Listen! I will tell you all I know.

I will show you that I am honest with you, and you will have mercy on us. To-night, after supper, I found that the little chamois bag in which I keep the few little things I have like that brooch, and the money I take in from the store during the day, was gone. Yes, I was afraid then.

I was afraid. But he is all I have, and--"

"And my eight hundred dollars, that he came over here and stole afterwards, was all _I_ had!" screamed Marco. "You tell me only what a blind man could see for himself! Did I not put two and two together myself? He has run away now-eh-with all he could get? That he stole from you does not give me back my money. But the police will find him! Ha, ha! The police will find him, and when they do they will remember the reform school and he will get ten years-yes, yes, ten years-for this!"

"Listen!" Mrs. Clancy's voice choked. She brushed the tears from her cheeks with a trembling hand. "If-if I give you back the money, will you let him go?"

"Ha!" Marco stood stock still, staring at her. "What is that you say?

You will give me back the money? You! Are you trying to make a fool of me?"

"No, no!" she cried. "I've got that much-it is my savings-it is in the bank. Listen! Oh, for G.o.d's sake, be merciful! Give him a chance! You'll get your money back, you won't lose anything, and-and you would the other way, because-because before they caught him he would perhaps have spent a lot of it."

"That is true!" said Marco, in a milder tone; and then, a hint of suspicion in his voice: "What bank is it in? The bank down the street?"

"Yes," she answered.

"That is my bank, too," said Marco. He stared at the woman for a moment speculatively, then his eyes circled the room, and he stared at the broken safe. "Will you pay for my safe?" he demanded abruptly.

"Yes," she agreed eagerly.

"Fifty dollars," said Marco. "It would be fifty dollars."

"Yes-oh, thank G.o.d!" She was crying again.

"So!" Marco shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I will do it." He walked back toward the safe, picked up a check book from amongst the debris on the floor, tore out a blank check, dropped the book on the floor again, and returned to the table. He pushed the slip of paper toward Mrs. Clancy, and pulled out a fountain pen from his pocket. "So! Well, make out a check for eight hundred and fifty dollars." He shrugged his shoulders again.

It was slow work. Mrs. Clancy's hand trembled, and she stopped at intervals to wipe her eyes. Billy Kane edged closer to the door. It was probably all she had, the savings of years from the little shop, but the fear and strain was gone from her face, and her lips were quivering in a smile, as she signed her name at last, and handed the check to Marco.

But now Billy Kane's revolver was in his hand-and suddenly, as Marco held the check close to his eyes to peer at it through his thick lenses, Billy Kane stepped forward across the threshold. And then Billy Kane spoke.

"Drop that, Marco!" he said quietly.

There was a cry of terror from the woman, as she whirled around, white-faced, clutching at her breast; it was echoed by a frightened gasp from Marco, and as though the slip of paper in his fingers had suddenly turned to white hot iron, he s.n.a.t.c.hed his hands back in a sort of grotesque jerk, and the check fluttered to the table.

Billy Kane stepped toward the man.

"You've made a mistake, Marco, haven't you?" he inquired coolly.

"Instead of this woman's son being the robber, are you sure it isn't-yourself?"

The man shrank back.

"What do you mean-myself?" he stammered hoa.r.s.ely. And then, recovering a little of his self-control: "Who are you? And what are you b.u.t.ting in here for? What's your game to say I did that?" He jerked his hand toward the safe. "You can't bluff old Marco, whatever you're up to! I was in Morgenfeldt's cafe all evening until half past ten, and I can prove it; and ten minutes after that I was pulling her"-he jerked his hand toward Mrs. Clancy now-"out of her shop next door to show her what I had found here. She'll tell you so, too! I couldn't have come all the way from Morgenfeldt's, and done all that, and blown that safe open in ten minutes, could I?"

Billy Kane's smile was unpleasant.

"Don't be in such a hurry to produce your alibi, Marco," he said evenly.

"It sounds suspicious-and it also accounts for a good deal. I think we'll take a look through your pockets, Marco-not for the eight hundred"-Billy Kane's smile had grown still more uninviting-"but on the chance that we may find something else. Put your hands up!"

The man hesitated.

Billy Kane's revolver muzzle came to a level with the other's eyes.

"Put them up!" he ordered curtly; and, as the man obeyed now, he felt deftly over the other's clothing, located a revolver, whipped it out, and laid it on the table behind him. A moment later, also from the man's pocket, he took a chamois bag, which, too, he placed upon the table.

Mrs. Clancy, with a startled cry, s.n.a.t.c.hed at it.

"Mary, Mother of Mercy, what does this mean!" she gasped out. "It's-it's my bag!"

"It means that our friend Marco here is a very versatile rogue," said Billy Kane grimly. "You may put your hands down now, Marco, and"-he was clipping off his words-"you won't need that beard, or those gla.s.ses any more! Take them off!"

The man had gone a sudden grayish white. Mechanically he obeyed-and cowered back, his eyes in terror fixed on Billy Kane's mask. _It was Antonio Laverto._

With a scream of rage, Mrs. Clancy rushed at the man.