  Slowly, silently, inch by inch the portal widened. Beyond that first faint scraping sound, not the slightest creak accompanied the stealthy movement. Cavanaugh, flattened against the house wall, simply saw the black shadow of the door as it swung outward, growing imperceptibly wider against the almost equally dark background behind it. It was almost as if the thing were happening without human agency; and to the boy, already keyed up by the strange doings of the night, the suspense became well nigh intolerable. He longed to shout, to dash forward, to run away—to do anything which would end that desperate tension. The thudding of his heart suffocated him; he felt sure the sound was audible for yards. It was only by digging teeth painfully into under lip that he was able to keep a precarious hold on himself. Then all at once he saw a blurred white patch against the shadow of the door—a hand resting on the latch. His own fingers gripped the hickory staff with unconscious force; his muscles stiffened. A faint rustling beat on his taut nerves with a sense of actual physical shock. What was coming? Who was coming? Could it possibly be McBride? Or was it that beastly fat man with the pasty, yellow, hairless face? The question pounded through his brain, and then suddenly was answered. Another blurred white patch showed in the darkness, larger than the other and higher up—much higher than Micky’s face would have appeared. And Cavvy staring with wide, straining eyes, seemed to glimpse the vague, shadowy outlines of a broad, bulky figure standing almost at his elbow. The head was thrust slightly forward, the face moved in a slow circle as if the man were making a stealthy survey of the yard. It was too much for Cavanaugh. In that instant his self-control snapped like a taut rope when the strain becomes too great. The stick flashed up and fell, with every ounce of his young strength behind the blow. There was a grunt, a groan. He struck again, frenziedly, but already the tall figure was reeling. In another instant it thudded to the ground and, with a gasp of horror, Cavvy came to himself. For a second he stood there shaking, the stick dangling from his laxed fingers. Then he drew a long, shuddering breath and one hand lifted mechanically to wipe the moisture, which was more than rain, from his face. “I can’t have killed him,” he muttered in a frightened whisper. “It isn’t possible!” And then: “But suppose I have?” Dropping swiftly on his knees beside the motionless body, he had another shock. He found one of the limp hands and was fumbling desperately for the pulse, when all at once he realized that the wrist he held wasn’t in the least fleshy. On the contrary it was lean and hard, and terminated in a big, muscular hand. The person he had struck down was not the fat man at all! Cavvy gasped and dropped the hand. Then he reached for it again and deliberately forced himself to find the pulse. When he felt it fluttering beneath his fingers, he gave a sigh of relief and slowly his composure began to return. At least the worst hadn’t happened. He was in a tight place, to be sure; the stranger might regain consciousness at any moment, and it behooved him to act quickly. But he could think and act now without the handicap of that numbing horror which had come so near to undoing him. Crouching in the wet grass, he glanced swiftly over one shoulder through the open door. It was dark inside, though not so dark as out of doors. He made out dimly the shadowy proportions of a wide, empty hall which seemed to run straight through the house from front to rear. Part way down its length stairs ascended. He could just distinguish the upper portion of the banisters, as if a light from one of the rooms above was shining through an open door. And listening intently, he could hear the sound of someone stirring there, accompanied by a curious scraping clink of metal striking against metal. Evidently the person above had failed to hear the fall, and, reassured, Cavanaugh felt in his pocket and drew forth a match box. There came with it some lengths of stout cord he always kept in his scout suit, but these fell to the ground unheeded. Cautiously striking a match, he cupped his hands around it until the wood was well alight. Then he bent forward, holding the flame close to the face of the man lying before him. It was a square, powerful face with a heavy jaw and chin, and a hard curve to the wide, close-lipped mouth. Even with the eyes closed, there was a certain harsh ruthlessness about it which made Cavvy shiver apprehensively. What would happen when he came to his senses, as he was likely to do at any moment? The match went out, but not before Cavvy had noticed the lengths of cord and realized their possibilities. Hastily picking them up, he turned the man over with some difficulty so that he lay upon his face. Five minutes later he had tied the fellow’s wrists firmly behind his back and made his ankles fast. Then he straightened up and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. His mind was in turmoil of doubt and fear and uncertainty. Up to this moment he had acted almost entirely on impulse—an impulse born of nervous fright and the sense of self preservation. He felt certain that in another moment the man would have discovered him and so he had struck instinctively. But now that the tension had relaxed for a moment he did not know what to do. More than anything else he wanted desperately to get away as quickly as he could and follow Ferris and Ritter back to town where the whole business could be turned over to the proper authorities. He had had more than enough of meddling with anything so fraught with risk and danger as this proved to be, and he blamed himself bitterly for not realizing at first how things were likely to turn out. But there was Micky. His strange disappearance and the discovery of his stick beside the door made Cavanaugh feel almost certain that his friend was in the house. Remembering what Ferris had said about the motor car that slowed down, he wondered whether the occupant, who might easily have been one of the gang of spies, might not have come suddenly upon McBride and made him a prisoner. The wind and rain up there in the tree top would easily have drowned any sounds of a slight scuffle. At all events Cavvy couldn’t make up his mind to run away and leave his friend. He didn’t want to venture into that spooky house at all, but he felt that he must at least make a reconnoiter and find out whether what he suspected was true or not. He glanced again at the man on the grass. The fellow was breathing heavily, but showed no other signs of returning consciousness. With a long breath, Cavvy gripped the stick tightly in one hand and stepping over the sprawling body he cautiously crossed the threshold. Noiselessly, in those rubber-soles which had already served him well that night, he tip-toed down the hall to the foot of the stairs, where he paused to glance around. Even in the semi-darkness, the ruinous, uninhabited look of the place was unmistakable. There was not a stick of furniture to be seen—nothing but odds and ends of rubbish, a few empty packing cases and layers upon layers of dust and cobwebs. Blotches of mold and mildew streaked the walls; a damp chill penetrated to his very marrow. On either side of the hall, doors opened into various rooms, but these rooms were dark, and it was evidently not on this floor that the activities of the wireless gang were centered. Cavanaugh lost little time in the survey. His teeth were chattering with nervousness and cold and he wanted to be moving. From above still came an intermittent sound of movement and that same clink of metallic objects which he had been unable before to place. Whoever was up there had evidently not yet taken alarm, and Cavvy quickly decided that it would be safe to venture further. He took the stairs slowly, keeping close to the wall to avoid awkward creakings. Presently his eyes reached the level of the floor above and he saw that the light came through an open door not far from the head of the stairs. Dropping on hands and knees, he crept up the few remaining steps, gained the door and peered eagerly through the crack. From this point of vantage his glance swept curiously around the room. It was a large one, the walls streaked and spotted, with rotting remnants of paper hanging down in strips. The meager attempts at furnishing dotted the floor sparsely, like an oases in a desert. A bed, a table holding a small oil lamp, a couple of old chairs and a small, round stove thrust into the wide, old fashioned fireplace, practically comprised these furnishings. But against the outer wall was the most interesting feature of them all and one which instantly riveted the boy’s attention. A wide, rough bench stood there holding a complete wireless apparatus. That is, it had been complete at no very distant time. Just now it was being dismantled as rapidly as the nimble fingers of the fat man could accomplish the task. His back was toward the door, but wires, screws, switches, and various other wireless parts lay about in confusion, while the twitching elbows projecting from the rear of that grotesque, massive figure told something of the feverish haste with which the demolition was being carried on. The sight thrilled Cavvy and absorbed him for a moment. It looked decidedly as if the plotters had taken alarm and were making ready for a hurried flight. And the cause of that alarm was not difficult to locate. As Cavanaugh’s glance shifted again about the room, he started and narrowly escaped betraying himself by a surprised gasp. Close to the open door and partly hidden by it, stood a straight backed wooden chair. Someone was sitting in it and for an instant Cavvy wondered if this was still another member of the gang. Then in a flash he realized that the person’s hands were tied together around the back of the chair, and recognized the crisp black hair and familiar profile of—Bill McBride! |
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