CHAPTER II
WHEN the day clerk arrived the night clerk sleepily informed him that the guest in Room 214 was without baggage and had not paid in advance.
"Leave a call?"
"No. I thought I'd put you wise. I didn't notice that the man had no grip until he was in the elevator."
"All right. I'll send the bell-hop captain up with a fake call to see if the man's still here."
When the captain—late of the A.E.F. in France—returned to the office he was mildly excited.
"Gee, there's been a whale of a scrap in Room 212. The chambermaid let me in."
"Murder?" whispered the clerks in unison.
"Murder your granny! Naw! Just a fight between 212 and 214, because both of 'em have flown the roost. But take a peek at what I found on the table."
It was a case of blue velours. The boy threw back the lid dramatically.
"War medals?"
"If they are I never piped 'em before. They ain't French or British." The captain of the bellboys scratched his head ruminatively. "Gee, I got it! Orders, that's what they all 'em. Kings pay 'em out Saturdays when the pay roll is nix. Will you pipe the diamonds and rubies? There's your room rents, monseer."
The day clerk, who considered himself a judge, was of the opinion that there were two or three thousand dollars tied up hi the stones. It was a police affair. Some ambassador had been robbed, and the Britisher and the Greek or Bulgarian were mixed up in it. Loot.
"I thought the war was over," said the night clerk.
"The shootin' is over, that's all," said the captain of the bellboys, sagely.
What had happened in Room 212? A duel of wits rather than of physical contact. Hawksley realized instantly that here was the crucial moment. Caught and overpowered, he was lost. If he shouted for help and it came, he was lost. Once the police took a hand in the affair, the newspaper publicity that would follow would result in the total ruin of all his hopes. There was only one chance—to finish this affair outside the hotel, in some fog-dimmed street. There leaped into his mind, obliquely and queerly, a picture in one of Victor Hugo's tales—Quasimodo. And there he stood, in every particular save the crooked back. And on the top of this came the recollection that he had seen the man before. … The torches! The red torches and the hobnailed boots!
There began an odd game, a dancing match, which the young man led adroitly, always with his thought upon the open window. There would be no shooting; Quasimodo would not want the police either. Half a dozen times his fingers touched futilely the dancing master's coat. Back and forth across the room, over the bed, round the stand and chairs. Persistently, as if he understood the young man's manœuvres, the squat individual kept to the window side of the room.
An inspiration brought the affair to an end. Hawksley snatched up the bedclothes and threw them as the ancient retiarius threw his net. He managed to win to the lower platform of the fire escape before Quasimodo emerged.
There was a fourteen-foot drop to the street, and the man with the golden stubble on his chin and cheeks swung for a moment to gauge his landing. Quasimodo came after with the agility of an ape. The race down the street began with about a hundred yards in between.
Down the hill they went, like phantoms. The distance did not widen. Bears will run amazingly fast and for a long while. The quarry cut into Pearl Street for a block, turned a corner, and soon vaguely espied the Hudson River. He made for this.
To the mind of Quasimodo this flight had but one significance—he was dealing with an arrant coward; and he based his subsequent acts upon this premise, forgetting that brave men run when need says must. It would have surprised him exceedingly to learn that he was not driving, that he was being led. Hawksley wanted his enemy alone, where no one would see to interfere. Red torches and hobnailed boots! For once the two bloods, always more or less at war, merged in a common purpose—to kill this beast, to grind the face of him into pulp! Red torches and hobnailed boots!
Presently one of the huge passenger boats, moored for the winter, loomed up through the fog; and toward this Hawksley directed his steps. He made a flying leap aboard and vanished round the deckhouse to the river side.
Quasimodo laughed as he followed. It was as if the tobacco pouch and the appraiser's receipt were in his own pocket; and broad rivers made capital graveyards. They two alone in the fog! He whirled round the deckhouse and backed on his heels to get his balance. Directly in front, in a very understandable pose, was the intended victim, his jaw jutting, his eyelids narrowed.
Quasimodo tried desperately to reach for his pistol; but a bolt of lightning stopped the action. There is something peculiar about a blow on the nose, a good blow. The Anglo-Saxon peoples alone possess the counterattack—a rush. To other peoples concentration of thought is impossible after the impact. instinctively Quasimodo's hands flew to his face. He heard a laugh, mirthless and terrible. Before he could drop his hands from his face—blows, short and boring, from this side and from that, over and under. The squat man was brave enough; simply he did not know how to fight in this manner. He was accustomed to the use of steel and the hobnails on his boots. He struck wildly, swinging his arms like a Flemish mill in a brisk wind.
Some of his blows got home, but these provoked only sardonic laughter.
Wild with rage and pain he bored in. He had but one chance—to get this shadow in his gorilla-like arms. He lacked mental flexibility. An idea, getting into his head, stuck; it was not adjustable. Like an arrow sped from the bowstring, it had to fulfill its destiny. It never occurred to him to take to his heels, to get space between himself and this enemy he had so woefully underestimated. Ten feet, and he might have been able to whirl, draw his pistol, and end the affair.
The coup de gràce came suddenly: a blow that caught Quasimodo full on the point of the jaw. He sagged and went sprawling upon his face. The victor turned him over and raised a heel. … No! He was neither Prussian nor Sudanese black. He was white; and white men did not stamp in the faces of fallen enemies.
But there was one thing a white man might do in such a case without disturbing the ethical, and he proceeded about it forthwith: Draw the devil's fangs; render him impotent for a few hours.
He deliberately knelt on one of the outspread arms and calmly emptied the insensible man's pockets. He took everything—watch, money, passport, letters, pistol, keys—rose and dropped them into the river. He overlooked Quasimodo's belt, however. The Anglo-Saxon idea was top hole. His fists had saved his life.