VIII
Kestner, as he emerged from that unllghted pier-office into the cavernous gloom of the equally unlighted warehouse, knew there was no time to be wasted. He felt the need for prompt action. Yet he was still undecided as to what line this action should follow and as to what form it could take.
There was one danger-zone, however, of which he could be sure. That was the spot where Whitey McKensic had attempted to bore his way up through the wharf-planking, Whitey might possess resources unknown to Kestner, and the sooner that spot was investigated the better. Daylight, Kestner felt convinced, could not be far off.
He allowed no impatience of mind, however, to interfere with his earlier demand for caution. He groped his blind way back along the warehouse as stealthily and as silently as he had first advanced from its depths. Once more his outstretched fingers became antenna. Still again his fastidiously exploring stockinged feet became tentacles, feeling ahead of the ever-shrinking body that followed them.
Then his advance came to a stop.
Suddenly one of the tentacles drew back, as natural in its reaction as the recoil of an insect's feeler, for it had come in contact with something unexpected, something unexplained. Kestner, chilling a little through his moist body at the discovery, slowly lowered himself and explored the unknown object.
There, directly in his path, he found a pair of shoes. He examined them thoughtfully, uppers and sole, as a blind man might. And he knew they were not his own. Close beside them, a moment later, he found a discarded coat. He felt it over, carefully,slipping a silent finger into its pockets, burying his nose in its folds, and sniffing at it as a hound might. Even before he held it up and made sure of its dimensions, of its length of body and width of shoulder, he knew the coat belonged to Lambert.
He knew then that his enemy was still there; and it was fair to assume he was not asleep. That enemy, in fact, was as prepared for emergency as was his pursuer. He stood as ready for silent retreat or advance as did Kestner himself.
The man with the antennæ-like fingers stood erect, peering about the blackness that engulfed him. He seemed to sniff danger in the air, as an animal upwind sniffs pursuit. Instinctively he reached down to make sure that his revolver was in place. Then he buttoned his coat, and once more stooping forward like a track-runner, moved guardedly on. He began to breathe more freely, digesting his discovery, adjusting himself to the newer condition of things. But he kept warning himself to be cautious, to feel his way carefully, to let no betraying sound announce the secret of his advance.
Then all thought stopped, with the quickness of a lightning flash. His next movement was unvolitioned and spasmodic. It was a movement of sharp recoil. Had his outstretched fingers suddenly touched a red-hot plate of metal he could not have moved more quickly.
But it was nothing like a plate of metal, that something which he had touched. It was a human hand, like his own. His groping fingers had momentarily become involved with another set of fingers, outstretched like his own. Those distended antennæ had locked together loathsomely, as the feelers of submarine monsters might, had clutched and had suddenly withdrawn, each cluster telegraphing to the brain behind them the imminence of danger, the need for action.
That action, on Kestner's part, became one of uncouth acrobatics. It sent him leaping and side-stepping backwards, in a series of jerks as quick and uncoordinated as the leaps of a beheaded pullet. Then he stood for a second, silent, poised and motionless, bayoneted with a tingle of horripilated nerves.
He seemed to know what was coming. He saw the quick stab of flame at the same moment that the high-roofed building reverberated with the thunder of the revolver-shot. Lambert was using his gun. He was forcing the issue by suddenly raking the silence about him. And he was keeping on the move as he fired, charging from side to side, craftily changing his position after each flash.
Kestner crouched there, watching those flashes, all but deafened by the echoing tumult after so many hours of silence. He wanted Lambert, and he wanted him at any cost. That was the one vague over-tone to all consciousness. Yet his first definite thought was as to the absurdity of standing there passive. The second lucid impression to enter his mind was a self-warning about seeking shelter. Quarters were too close for firing such as that, with bullets ricochetting and whistling about him and the smell of powder-smoke stinging in his nostrils. It was a fusillade from a running and ever-shifting adversary, from now one point and now another, taking on the menace of a general attack. It seemed more like the assault of a small army.
Yet Kestner was still untouched by any thought of personal fear. What he felt was more relief at sudden sound and movement. It still puzzled him a little that this sound could be so tumultuous and the movement so frenzied. He even wondered, for a moment, if he were not being confronted by more than one enemy, if Lambert's confederates had not indeed joined him in that running attack.
Then a greater wonder possessed him, for he found himself wheeling half about and groping in the air with his hands, like a skater struggling to recover his balance. He felt a sting of pain somewhere below the waist. He could not tell where, beyond the fact that the sting had merged into a feeling not unlike a burn and was on the left side. Then with a sense of shock, he realised what it meant.
Kestner knew that he was shot.
What surprised him was the discovery that a wound could be received and yet cause so little pain. He remembered, however, that loss of blood often enough implied loss of consciousness. And he could not afford to take chances. Yes, he was bleeding, somewhere along the hip-bone. He could feel it. His trouser-leg was wet and warm. It might be more serious than he imagined. And he had to be sure of his case. Whatever happened, Lambert was not to get away. So quietly and deliberately Kestner reached down for his revolver.
He began to fire, falling back and dodging from quarter to quarter as he shot. That feverish movement exhilarated him. He found a vast relief in action merely as action. To be able to do something was now a deliverance. And he knew that the end of the drama could not be far away.
Yet he shot deliberately, always aiming low, with nothing to guide him but that ever-shifting ruby flame-jet arrowing for the moment out of the blackness. Then, as he strained forward, he heard the sound he had been hoping for, the telltale snap of a trigger on an empty cartridge-chamber.
He ran forward at the sound, knowing what that implied. It meant that his enemy's ammunition was exhausted. It meant that his moment for closing in on that enemy had arrived.
He heard the click of metal against metal, close before him in the darkness, but he did not take time to reason out its meaning. He raised his automatic and fired again, still aiming low, calculating the source and central point of that one guiding sound.
Then he stopped short, dropping his hand to his side, for a quick gasp of pain had come to his ears, followed by a low and half-moaning cry of "Oh, my God!" Then came the sound of a body falling and threshing for a moment against the flooring.
Then the silence was unbroken.