VIII—BOOKIE SKARVAN PAYS HIS ACCOUNT

THE little red-rimmed eyes blinked into the glare—it was the only color left in the white, flabby face—the red rims of the furtive little eyes. Bookie Skarvan's fat hand lifted and tugged at his collar, as though the collar choked him. He fell back a step and his heel crunched upon the telephone transmitter, and smashed it. And then Bookie Skarvan licked his lips—and attempted a smile.

“I,” mumbled Bookie Skarvan, “I—I can't see your face. Who—who are you?” The sound of his own voice, husky and shaken as it was, seemed to bring him a certain reassurance. “What do you want? Eh—what do you want?” he demanded.

Dave Henderson made no reply. It seemed as though his mind and soul and body were engulfed in some primal, savage ecstasy. Years swept their lightning sequence through his brain; hours, with the prison walls and iron bars around him, in which he had promised himself this moment, seemed to live their life and existence over again. He said no word; he made no sound—but, with the flashlight still playing without a flicker of movement upon the other, he felt, with the back of his revolver hand, over Bookie Skarvan's clothing, located in one of the pockets Bookie Skarvan's revolver, and, with utter contempt for any move the man might make through the opening thus given him, hooked the guard of his own revolver on the little finger of the hand that held the flashlight, and unceremoniously jerked the other's weapon out from the pocket and tossed it to the far end of the desk. The flashlight lifted then, and circled the walls of the room. Bookie Skarvan's complaint had not gone unheeded. Bookie Skarvan would have ample opportunity to see whose face it was! The flashlight found and held on the electric-light switch. It was on the opposite wall behind Bookie Skarvan. Dave Henderson shoved the man roughly out of the way, stepped quickly forward to the wall, switched on the light—and swung around to face Bookie Skarvan.

For an instant Bookie Skarvan stood there without movement, the little eyes dilating, the white face turning ashen and gray, and then great beads of sweat sprang out upon the forehead—and a scream of abject terror pealed through the room.

“Go away!” screamed Bookie Skarvan. “You're dead! Go away! Go back to hell where you belong!” His hands clawed out in front of him. “Do you hear? You're dead—dead! Go away! Curse you, damn you—go away!”

Dave Henderson spoke through closed teeth:

“You ought to be satisfied then—Bookie. You've wanted me dead for quite a while—for five years, haven't you?”

There was no answer.

Dave Henderson's eyes automatically swept around the now lighted room. Yes, that was Dago George there on the floor near the bed, lying on the side of his face, with a hideous gash across his head. The man was dead, of course; he couldn't be anything else. But anyway, Dago George was as something apart, an extraneous thing. There was only one thing in the world, one thing that held mind and soul and body in a thrall of wild, seething, remorseless passion—that maudlin, grovelling thing there, whose clawing hands had found the end of the desk, and who hung there with curious limpness, as though, because the knees sagged, the weight of his body was supported by his arms alone—that thing whose lips, evidently trying to form words, jerked up and down like flaps of flesh from which all nerve control had gone.

“Maybe you didn't know that I knew it was you who were back of that attempt to murder me that night—five years ago.” Dave Henderson thrust the flashlight into his pocket, and took a step forward. “Well, you know it now!”

A sweat bead trickled down the fat, working face—and lost itself in a fold of flabby flesh.

“No!” Bookie Skarvan found his tongue. “No! Honest to God, Dave!” he whined. “It was Baldy.”

“Don't lie! I know!” There was a cold deadliness in Dave Henderson's tones. “Stand away from the desk a little, so that I can get a look at that telephone on the floor! I don't want any witness to what's going to happen here, and a telephone with the receiver off——”

“My God!” Bookie Skarvan cried out wildly. “What are you going to do?”

“Yes, I guess it's out of commission.” Dave Henderson's voice seemed utterly detached; he seemed utterly to ignore the other for a moment, as he looked at the broken instrument.

Bookie Skarvan, in an access of fear, mopped at his wet face, and his little red-rimmed eyes, like the eyes of a cornered rat, darted swift, frantic glances in all directions around the room.

“Dave, do you hear!” Bookie Skarvan's voice rose thin and squealing. “Why don't you answer? Do you hear! What—what are you going to do?”

“It's queer, kind of queer, to find you here, Bookie,” said Dave Henderson evenly. “I guess there's a God—Bookie. How did you get here—from San Francisco?”

Bookie Skarvan licked at his dry lips, and cowered back from the revolver that was suddenly outflung in Dave Henderson's hand.

“I—I followed the girl. I thought you'd opened up to the old man, and he'd bumped you off with that bomb to get the stuff for himself. I was sure of it when he died, and she beat it for here.”

“And to-night?” Dave Henderson's voice was rasping now.

“I got the room opposite hers.” Bookie Skarvan gulped heavily; his eyes were fixed, staring now, as though fascinated by the revolver muzzle. “She came downstairs. I followed her, but I don't know where she went to. I saw the package go into the safe. I could see through the fanlight over the door. I saw him”—Bookie Skarvan's hand jerked out toward the huddled form on the floor—“I saw him put it there.” Mechanically, Dave Henderson's eyes followed the gesture—and narrowed for an instant in a puzzled, startled way. Had that dead man there moved? The body seemed slightly nearer to the head of the bed!' Fancy! Imagination! He hadn't marked the exact position of the body to begin with, and it was still huddled, still inert, still in the same sprawled, contorted position. His eyes reverted to Bookie Skarvan.

“You had a man in here with you at work on that safe, a man you called Maggot, and you sent him, with that dirty brand of trickery of yours, to bring back some one you called Cunny the Scorpion, with the idea that instead of finding you and the money here—they would find the police.” There was a twisted, merciless smile on Dave Henderson's lips. “Where did you get into touch with your friends?”

Bookie Skarvan's eyes were roving again, seeking some avenue of escape, it seemed. Dave Henderson laughed shortly, unpleasantly, as he watched the other. There was only the door and the window. But he, Dave Henderson, blocked the way to the door; and the window, as he knew through the not-too-cursory examination he had made of it when he had come down the fire escape with the valises, was equally impassable. It had been in his mind then that perhaps he, himself, might gain entrance to Dago George's room through the window—only the old-fashioned iron shutters, carefully closed and fastened, had barred the way.

“Well?” He flung the word sharply at Bookie Skarvan.

“I—Baldy knew the Scorpion.” Bookie Skarvan's fingers wriggled between his collar and his fat neck. “Baldy gave me a letter to him, and the Scorpion put one over on—on that fellow on the floor, and got me a room here upstairs. And when I saw the money going into the safe I beat it for the Scorpion, and got him to give me a box-worker, so he got Maggot for me, and——”

“You hadn't the nerve, of course, when you saw Dago George putting the money in the safe, to tackle the job alone before the safe was locked!” There was grim, contemptuous irony in Dave Henderson's voice. “You're the same old Bookie, aren't you—yellow as the sulphur pit of hell!” His face hardened. “Ten minutes, you said it would take them to get back. It's not very long, Bookie. And say two or three minutes longer, or perhaps a little more, for the police, allowing for the time it would take central to get her breath after that nerve racking cry for help you sent her. Or maybe the police would even get here first—depending on how far away the station is. I'm a stranger here, and I don't know. In that case, there wouldn't be even ten minutes—and part of that is gone now. There isn't much time, Bookie. But there's time enough for you and me to settle our little account. I used to think of what I'd do to you when I got out on the other side of those iron bars. I used to think of it when I couldn't sleep at night in my cell. I kept thinking of it for five years, Bookie—and here we are to-night at last, the two of us, you and me, Bookie. I overheard Runty Mott explain the whole plant you had put up to murder me, so there's no use of you lying, there's no use of you starting that—that's one thing you haven't got time to do. You'd better clean house, Bookie, for there isn't room enough in this world for the two of us—one of us has got to go.”

Bookie Skarvan had crouched against the end of the desk again. He cringed now, one arm upraised as though to ward off a blow.

“What—what are you going to do?” The words came thick and miserably. Their repetition seemed all that his tongue was capable of. “What—what are you going to do?”

“I can't murder you!” Dave Henderson's face had grown set and colorless—as colorless as his tone. “I wish to God I could! It's coming to you! But I can't! There's your revolver on the end of the desk. Take it!”

Again and again, Bookie Skarvan's tongue licked at his lips.

“What do you mean?” he whispered.

“You know what I mean!” Dave Henderson answered levelly. “Take it!”

“My God!” screamed Bookie Skarvan. “No! My God—no! Not that!”

“Yes—that! You're getting what I swore I'd never give you—a chance. Either you or I are going out. Take that revolver, and for the first time in your life try and be a man; or else I'll fix you, and I'll fix it so that you won't move from here until your friend the Scorpion gets his chance at you for the pleasant little surprise you had arranged for him with your telephone trick, or until the police carry you out with a through ticket to the electric chair for what looks like murder over there on the floor. You understand—Bookie? I'll make you fight, you cur! It's the only chance you've got for your life. Now—take it!”

Bookie Skarvan wrung his hands together. A queer crooning sound came from his lips. He was trembling violently.

“There aren't very many of those ten minutes left, Bookie,” said Dave Henderson coldly. “But if you got in a lucky shot—Bookie—you'd still have time to get away, from here. And there's the money there, too—you could take that with you.”

The man seemed near collapse. Great beads from his forehead ran down and over the sagging jowls. He moaned a little, and stared at the revolver that lay upon the desk, and reached out his hand toward the weapon, and drew his hand back again. He looked again at Dave Henderson, and at the muzzle of the revolver that covered him. He seemed to read something irrevocable and remorseless in both. Slowly, his mouth working, his face muscles twitching, he reached again to the desk, and pulled the revolver to him; and then, his arm falling nervelessly, he held the weapon dangling at his side.

Dave Henderson's revolver was lowered until it pointed to the floor.

“When you lift your hand, Bookie, it's the signal,” he said in a monotone.

Bookie Skarvan's knees seemed to bend and sag a little more—there was no other movement.

“I'm waiting,” said Dave Henderson—and pulled the trigger of his revolver to put a shot into the floor.

There was the click of the falling hammer—no more. A grim smile played across Dave Henderson's lips. It was as well, perhaps, that he had tried in that way to startle, to frighten, this terrified, spineless cur who stood there into action! The cartridge that he had depended upon for his life had missed fire! He pulled the trigger again. The hammer clicked. He pulled again—his eyes never leaving Bookie Skarvan's face. The hammer clicked.

For the fraction of a second the room seemed blurred to Dave Henderson. The chambers of his revolver were empty! His brain seemed to sicken, and then to recover itself, and leap into fierce, virile activity. He was at the mercy of that cringing hound there—if the other but knew it. It seemed as though all the devils of hell shrieked at him in unholy mirth. If he moved a step forward to rush, to close with the other, the very paroxysm of fear that possessed Bookie Skarvan would instinctively incite the man to fire. There was one way, only one way—the electric light switch behind him. If he could reach that without Bookie Skarvan realizing the truth, there would be the darkness—and his bare hands. Well, he asked no more than that—only that Bookie Skarvan did not get away. His bare hands were enough.

He moved back a single step, as though shifting his position, his face impassive, watching the dangling weapon in the other's shaky hand, watching the other's working lips. The chamber of his revolver was empty! How? When? It had been fully loaded when he lay down on the bed. Yes! He remembered! It was queer that it had twisted like that in his sleep. Dago George! It came in a lightning flash of intuition. Dago George, cautious to excite no suspicion, had been equally cautious to draw, his, Dave Henderson's, teeth!

He edged back another step—and stopped, as though rooted to the spot. Bookie Skarvan, that dangling revolver in the other's hand, his own peril, all, everything that but an instant before had obsessed his mind, was blotted out from his consciousness as though it had never existed. That huddled form, that murdered man on the floor behind Bookie Skarvan, that he could see over Bookie Skarvan's shoulder, had raised his hand in a swift, sudden movement, and had thrust it under the mattress at the head of the bed, and had snatched out a revolver.

It was quick, quick as thought, quick as the winking of an eye. A shout of warning rose to Dave Henderson's lips—and was drowned in the report of the revolver shot, deafening, racketing, in the confined space. And, as though thrown into relief by the flash and the tongue flame of the revolver, a picture seemed to sear itself into Dave Henderson's brain: The up-flung arms of Bookie Skarvan, the ghastly surprise on the sweat-beaded face, the fat body spinning grotesquely like a run-down top—and pitching forward to the floor. And through the lifting smoke, another face—Dago George's face, working, livid, blood-smirched, full of demoniacal triumph. And then a gurgling peal of laughter.

“Yes, and you, too! Con Amore!” gurgled Dago George. “You, too!”

The man was on his knees now, lurching there, the revolver swaying weakly, trying to draw its bead now on him, Dave Henderson. He moved with a spring to one side toward the door. The revolver, as though jerked desperately in the weak hand, followed him. He flung himself to the floor. A shot rang out. And then, as though through the flash again, another picture lived: The revolver dropping from a hand that could no longer hold it, a graying face that swayed on shoulders which in turn rocked to and fro—and then a lurch—a thud—and, the face was hidden between out-sprawled arms—and Dago George did not move any more.