Part 17

“I hear,” said Rhoda Gray coldly.

She picked up the jack-knife from the table, and keeping both men covered, stepped backward to the wall. Here, kneeling, she reached behind her with her left hand, and felt for, and cut the heavy cord that bound the Sparrow's arms; then, pushing the knife into the Sparrow's hands that he might free himself from the rest of his bonds, she stood up again.

A moment more, and the Sparrow, rubbing the circulation back into his wrists, stood beside her. There was a look on the young, white face that was not good to see. He circled dry lips with the tip of his tongue and then his thumb began to feel over the blade of the big jack-knife in a sort of horribly supercritical appraisal of its edge. He spoke thickly for the gag that had been in his mouth.

“You dirty skates!” he whispered. “You were going to bump me off, were you? You planted me cold, did you? Oh, hell!” His laugh, like the laugh of one insane, jangling, discordant, rang through the room. “Well, it's my turn now, and”--his body was coiling itself in a slow, curious, almost snake-like fashion--“and you'll--”

Rhoda Gray laid her hand on the Sparrow's arm.

“Not that way, Marty,” she said quietly. She smiled thinly at Danglar, who, with genuinely frightened eyes now, seemed fascinated by the Sparrow's movements. “I wouldn't care to have anything happen to Mr. Danglar--yet. He has been invaluable to me, and I am sure he will be again.”

The Sparrow brushed his hands across his eyes, and stared at her. He licked his lips again. He appeared to be obsessed with the knife-blade in his hand--dazed in a strange way to all else.

“There's enough cord there for both of them,” said Rhoda Gray crisply. “Tie them in their chairs, Marty.”

For a moment the Sparrow hesitated; and then, with a sort of queer reluctancy, he dropped the knife on the table, and went and picked up the strands of cord from the floor.

No one spoke. The Sparrow, with twitching lips as he worked, and worked not gently, bound first Danglar and then Skeeny to their respective chairs. Skeeny for the most part kept his eyes on the floor, casting only furtive glances at Rhoda Gray's revolver muzzle. But Danglar was smiling now. He had very white teeth. There was something of primal, insensate fury in the hard-drawn, parted lips. Somehow he seemed to remind Rhoda Gray of a beast, stung to madness, but impotent behind the bars of its cage, as it showed its fangs.

“We'll go now, Marty,” she said softly, as the Sparrow finished.

She motioned the Sparrow with an imperious little nod of her head to the door. And then, following the other, she backed to the door herself, and halted an instant on the threshold.

“It has been a very profitable evening, Mr. Danglar,” she said coolly. “I have you to thank for it. When your friends come, which I think I heard you say would be in another hour or so, I hope you will not fail to convey to them my--”

“You she-fiend!” Danglar had found his voice again. “You'll crawl for this! Do you understand? and I'll show you inside of twenty-four hours what you're up against, you--you--” His voice broke in its fury. The veins were standing out on the side of his neck like whipcords. He could just move his forearms a little, and his hands reached out toward her, curved like claws. “I'll--”

But Rhoda Gray had closed the door behind her, and, with the Sparrow, was retreating down the stairs.

VII. FELLOW THIEVES

Reaching the courtyard, Rhoda Gray led the way without a word through the driveway, and finding the street clear, hurried on rapidly. Her mind, strangely stimulated, was working in quick, incisive flashes. Her work was not yet done. The Sparrow was safe, as far as his life was concerned; but her possession of even the necklace would not save the Sparrow from the law. There was the money that was gone from the safe. She could not recover that, but--yes, dimly, she began to see a way. She swerved suddenly from the sidewalk as she came to an alleyway--which had been her objective--and drew the Sparrow in with her out of sight of the street.

The Sparrow gripped at her hand.

“The White Moll!” he whispered brokenly. “God bless the White Moll! I ain't had a chance to say it before. You saved my life, and I--I--”

In the semi-darkness she leaned forward and laid her fingers gently over the Sparrow's lips.

“And there's no time to say it now, Marty,” she said quickly. “You are not out of this yet.”

He swept his hand across his eyes.

“I know it,” he said. “I got to get those shiners back up there somehow, and I got to get that paper they planted on me.”

She shook her head.

“Even that wouldn't clear you,” she said. “The safe has been looted of money, as well; and you can't replace that. Even with only the money gone, who would they first naturally suspect? You are known as a safe-breaker; you have served a term for it. You asked for a night off to stay with your mother who is sick. You left Mr. Hayden-Bond's, we'll say, at seven or eight o'clock. It's after midnight now. How long would it take them to find out that between eight and midnight you had not only never been near your mother, but could not prove an alibi of any sort? If you told the truth it would sound absurd. No one in their sober senses would believe you.”

The Sparrow looked at her miserably.

“My God!” he faltered. He wet his lips. “That's true.”

“Marty,” she said quietly, “did you read in the papers that I had been arrested last night for theft, caught with the goods on me, but had escaped?”