The Man in the Twilight Part 3

"I'll just say: 'Here you! Just push that darn truck right inside that room, an' don't worry me with it, I'm busy.' That how?" The man hunched his slim shoulders into a shrug.

"See you do it--just that way," Standing said. Then he turned to Bat.

"We'll get inside," he went on. "He'll be right along."

They pa.s.sed into the office. The door closed behind them and Standing moved over to his seat at the crowded desk.

"Wal?"

Bat was still standing. He failed to grasp his friend's purpose. His wit was unequal to the rapid process of the other's swiftly calculating mind.

Standing littered his writing-pad with papers. He picked up a pen and jabbed it in the inkwell. Then he flung it aside and adopted a fountain-pen which he drew from his waistcoat pocket. His eyes lit with a half-smile as he finally raised them to the rugged face before him.

"You sit right over there by that window, Bat," he said easily. "If you get a look out of it you'll be amazed at the number of things to interest you." He nodded as Bat moved away with a grin and took the chair indicated. "That's it. Just sit around, and you won't see or even hear the fellow with the mail fall in through the door. And maybe, sitting there, you'll want to smoke your foul old pipe. Sort of pipe of peaceful meditation. Yes, I'd smoke that pipe, old friend, but you can cut out the peaceful meditation. You need to be ready to act quick when I pa.s.s the word. It's going to be easy. So easy I almost feel sorry for--Idepski."

"It _is_--Idepski?" Bat filled and lit his pipe.

"It surely is. No other. And--I'm glad. Now we'll quit talk, old friend.

Just smoke, and look out of that window, and--think like h.e.l.l."

Bat's understanding of his friend was well founded. The extreme nervous tension in Standing was obvious. It was in the wide, dark eyes. It was in the constant shifting of the feet which the table revealed. For the time, at least, the cowardice Standing claimed for himself was entirely swamped. He was stirred by the headlong excitement of battle in a manner that left Bat more than satisfied.

Once Bat turned from his contemplation of the piled-up country beyond the valley. It was at the sound of Standing's fiercely scratching pen.

And his quick gaze took in the luxury of the setting for the little drama he felt was about to be enacted.

It was a wide, pleasant room, built wholly of red pine, and polished as only red pine will polish. There was a thick oriental carpet on the floor, and all the mahogany furniture was upholstered in red morocco.

There were a few carefully selected pictures upon the walls, hung with an eye to the light upon each. But it was not an extravagant room. It suggested the homeland of Scotland, from which the owner of it all hailed. The Canadian atmosphere only found expression in the great steel stove which stood in one corner, and the splendid timber of which the walls of the room were built.

But Bat's eyes swiftly returned to their allotted task, and his reeking pipe did its duty with hearty goodwill. There was the sound of strident voices in the outer room, and the rattle of the door handle turning with a wrench.

The door swung open. The next moment there was the sound of a sack pitched upon the soft pile of the carpet. And through the open doorway the harsh voice of Loale pursued the intruder in sharp protest.

"Say, do you think you're stowing cargo in your darn, crazy old barge?"

he cried. "If you fancy throwing things around you best get out an' do it. Guess you ain't used to a gent's office, you darn sailorman--"

But the door was closed with a slam and the rest of the protest was cut off. Bat swung about in his chair to discover a picture not easily to be forgotten.

Standing had left his desk. He was there with his back against the closed door, and his lean figure towered over the shorter sailorman in dungaree, who stood gazing up at him questioningly. The sight appealed to the grim humour of the manager. He wanted to laugh. But he refrained, though his eyes lit responsively as he watched the smile of irony that gleamed in the mill-owner's eyes.

"Well, well." Standing's tone lost none of the aggravation of his smile.

"Say, I'd never have recognised you, Idepski, if it hadn't been that I was warned you'd shipped on the _Lizzie_." He laughed outright. "I can't help it. You wouldn't blame me laughing if you could see yourself. Last time I had the pleasure of encountering you was in Detroit. That's years ago. How many? Nearly seven. It seems to me I remember a bright-looking 'sleuth,' neat, clean, spruce, with a crease to his pant-legs like a razor edge, a fellow more concerned for his bath than his religion. Say, where did you raise all that junk? From old man Hardy's slop-chest?

h.e.l.lbeam makes you work for your money when you're driven to wallowing in a muck-hole like the _Lizzie_. It isn't worth it. You see, you've run into the worst failure you've made in years. But I only wish you could see the sorry sort of sailorman you look."

Standing's right hand was behind him, and Bat heard the key turn in the lock of the door. He waited. But the trapped agent never opened his lips.

Idepski had seen Standing and the other down at the quay-side. He had left them there when he started up the hill. Yet--A bitter fury was driving him. He realised the trap that had been laid. He realised something of the deadly purpose lying behind it. So he remained silent under the scourge that was intended to hurt.

For all the filthy dungarees tucked into the clumsy legs of high leather sea boots, the dirty-coloured handkerchief knotted about his neck, the curious napless cloth cap with its peak pulled down over one eye, that curious cap which seems to be worn by no one else in the world but seafaring men, it was easy enough for Bat to visualise the dapper picture, that other picture of Walter Idepski that Standing had described. The man possessed a well-knit, sinuous figure which his dungarees could not disguise. His alert eyes were good-looking. And, cleaned of the black, stubbly growth of beard and whisker, an amazing transformation in his looks would surely have been achieved. But Bat's interest was less with these things than with the possible reaction the man might contemplate.

For the moment, however, the situation was entirely dominated by Standing, who displayed no sign of relaxing his hold upon it. He flung out a pointing hand, and Bat saw it was grasping the door key.

"You'd best take that chair, Idepski," he ordered. "You've opened war on me, but there's no need to keep you standing for it. You'll take that seat against my writing table. But first, Bat, here, is going to relieve you of the useless weapons I see you've got on you. Get those, Bat!

There's a gun and a sheath knife, and they're clumsily showing their shape under his dungarees."

It was the word the mill-manager had awaited. He was on his feet in an instant. Idepski stirred to action. He turned to meet him.

"Keep your darn hands off!" he cried fiercely. "By--"

His hand had flown to his hip. But he was given no time. Bat was on him like an avalanche, an avalanche of furious purpose. The fighting spirit in him yearned, and in a moment his victim was caught up in a crushing embrace. There was a short, fierce struggle. But Idepski was no match for the super lumber-jack.

While Bat held on, the tenacious hands of Standing tore the weapons he had discovered from their hiding places. Then in a moment Idepski found himself sprawling in the chair he had been invited to take.

Standing's appreciation was evident as he watched the man draw a gold cigarette case from the breast pocket of his overalls as though nothing had occurred. It was an act of studied coolness that did not for a moment deceive, but it pleased. However, his next effrontery pleased the mill-owner still more.

"Say, boys," Idepski observed quietly, as he opened the case and extracted a cigarette. "I guess I'm kind o' glad you left me this. But I don't figger you're out for loot, anyway." Then he glanced up at the man watching him so interestedly. "Maybe you'll oblige me with a light," he demanded, and c.o.c.ked up the cigarette he had thrust between his lips with an exaggerated impertinence.

The action was quite irresistible and Standing nodded.

"Sure," he said smilingly, and picked up the matchbox lying on his table.

He struck a match and held it while the other obtained the required light. Then he pa.s.sed round the desk to the seat he had originally occupied.

Idepski leant back in his chair, and luxuriated in a deep inhalation of smoke. Bat watched him from his place at the window. Standing placed the revolver and sheath knife he had taken possession of in a drawer in the desk, and closed it carefully.

"Well, what's the play?" Idepski addressed himself solely to Standing.

"I guess you've said a deal calculated to rile, and your pardner's done more," he went on. "Still--anyway we're mostly men and not school-kids.

What's the play?"

Standing, too, was leaning back in his chair.

"It's easy," he said, after a moment's thoughtful regard. Suddenly he drew his chair up to the table, and, leaning forward, folded his arms upon the littered blotting pad in front of him. "It's seven years since h.e.l.lbeam--blazed the war trail," he said deliberately. "I know he's persistent. He's angry. And he's the sort of man who doesn't cool down easily. But it's taken him seven years to locate me here. And during all that time I've been looking on, watching his every move." He shook his head. "He's badly served, for all his wealth. He was badly served from the start. You should never have let me beat you in that first race across the border. I got away with every cent of the stuff, and--you shouldn't have let me. You certainly were at fault. However, it doesn't matter."

Idepski removed his cigarette from his lips and dropped the ash of it in the waste basket.

"No. It doesn't matter, because I'll get you--in the end," he retorted coldly.

"Perhaps."

Standing shrugged. But there was no indifference in his eyes. The acid sharpness of Idepski's retort had driven straight home. If the agent failed to detect it, the watchful eyes of Bat missed nothing. To him the danger signal lay in the curious flicker of his friend's eyelids. The sight impelled him. He jumped in and took up the challenge in the blunt fashion he best understood.

"Guess you've got nightmare, boy," he said, with a sneering laugh. "I ain't much at figgers, but it seems to me if it's taken you seven years to locate us here, it's going to take you seventy-seven gettin' Standing back across that border. Work it out."

Idepski had no intention of being drawn. He replied without turning.

"You think that?" he said easily. "Say, don't worry a thing; I'm satisfied. Just as sure as the sun'll rise to-morrow, h.e.l.lbeam'll get Leslie Martin, or Standing as he chooses to call himself now, just where he needs him. And if I know h.e.l.lbeam that'll be in the worst penitentiary the United States can produce. Guess you're going to wish you hadn't, Mister--Standing."

Perhaps Idepski knew his man, and understood the weakness of which Bat was so painfully aware. Perhaps he was just fencing, or even putting up a bluff in view of his own position. Whatever his purpose the effect of his added threat was instant.

Standing's luminous eyes hardened. The muscles of his jaws gripped. He sat up, and his whole att.i.tude expressed again that fighting mood in which Bat rejoiced.