The Collection (139 page)

“Joe,” said Checkered Suit, “I'll kill him if I sock him,
and the boss'll get mad. Got your sap?”

“Sap?” asked the little man. “That's a new term, isn't it?

What is a—?” Joe's blackjack punctuated the sentence.

It was very dark when Mr. Smith opened his eyes. At first,
it was a swirling, confused, and thunderous darkness.

But after a while it resolved itself into the everyday damp
darkness of a cellar, and there was a little square of moonlight coming in at a
window over his head. The thunder, too, resolved itself into nothing more
startling than the sound of footsteps on the floor above.

His head ached badly, and Mr. Smith tried to raise his hands
to it. One of them moved only an inch or two before there was a metallic clank,
and the hand couldn't be moved any farther. He explored with the hand that was
free and found that his right hand was cuffed to the side of the metal cot with
a heavy handcuff.

He found, too, that there was no mattress on the bed and
that the bare metal springs were cold as well as uncomfortable.

Slowly and painfully at first, Mr. Smith raised himself to a
sitting position on the edge of the bed and began to examine the possibilities
of his situation.

His eyes were by now accustomed to the dimness. The metal
cot was a very heavy one. Another one just like it stood on end against the
wall at the head of the cot to which Mr. Smith was handcuffed. At first glance
it appeared ready to crash down on Mr. Smith's head, but he reached out his left
hand and found that it stood there quite solidly.

He heard the cellar door open and footsteps starting down. A
light flashed on back by the steps and another at a work bench on the opposite
side of the cellar. Checkered Suit appeared, and crossed to the work bench. He
glanced over toward the dark corner where Mr. Smith was, but Mr. Smith was
lying quietly on the cot.

After a moment at the bench he went back up the stairs.

The two lights remained on.

Mr. Smith rose to a sitting position again, this time slowly
so the springs of the cot would make no noise. Once erect, however, he went to
work rapidly. What he was about to attempt was, he knew, a long-shot chance,
but he had nothing to lose.

With his free hand he pushed and pulled at the iron cot
leaning against the wall, first grasping the frame as high as he could reach,
then as low. It was heavy and hard to shift, but finally he got it off balance,
ready to topple over on his head if he had not held it back. Then he got it
back on balance again, by a hair. He moved his hand away experimentally.

The cot stood, a sword of Damocles over his head.

Then lifting a foot up to the edge of the cot on which he
sat, he took out the lace of one of his shoes. It wasn't easy, with one hand,
to tie an end of the shoelace to the frame of the upended cot, but he managed.
Holding the other end of the shoelace, he lay down again.

He had worked more rapidly than had been necessary. It was a
full ten minutes before Checkered Suit returned to the cellar.

Through slitted eyes, the insurance agent saw that he
carried several objects — a cigar box, a clock, dry-cell batteries. He put them
down on the bench and started to work.

“Making a bomb?” Mr. Smith asked pleasantly.

Checkered Suit turned around and glowered. “You talking
again? Keep your lip buttoned, or I'll—”

Mr. Smith did not seem to hear. “I take it you intend to
plant the bomb near that pile of gasoline cans tomorrow?” he asked. “Yes, I can
sec now that I was hasty in criticizing it as a fire hazard. It's all in the
point of view, of course. You want it to be a fire hazard. Seeing things from
the point of view of an insurance man, I can hardly approve. But from your
point of view, I can quite appreciate—”

“Shut up!” Checkered Suit's voice was exasperated.

“I take it you intend to wait until you have collected the
ransom money for Mr. Kessler, and then, leaving him and me in the house —
probably already dead — you will set the little bomb and take your departure.”

“That sock Joe gave you should have lasted longer,” said
Checkered Suit. “Want another?”

“Not particularly,” Mr. Smith replied. “In fact, my head
still aches from the last one I had from that — did you call it a 'sap'?” He
sighed. “I fear my knowledge of the slang of the underworld to which you
gentlemen belong is sadly lacking—”

Checkered Suit slammed the cigar box back on the bench and
took the automatic from his pocket. Holding it by the barrel, he stalked across
the cellar toward Mr. Smith.

The little man's eyes appeared to be closed, but he rambled
on, “It is rather a coincidence, isn't it, that I should call here to sell
insurance — life and fire — and that you should be so sadly ill-qualified to
receive either one? Your occupation is definitely hazardous. And—”

Checkered Suit had reached the bed. He bent over and raised
the clubbed pistol. But apparently the little man's eyes hadn't been closed. He
jerked up his free hand to ward off the threatened blow, and the hand held the
shoestring. The heavy metal cot, balanced on end, toppled and fell.

It had gained momentum by the time a corner of it struck the
head of Checkered Suit. Quite sufficient momentum. Mr. Smith's long-shot chance
had come off. He said “Oof” as Checkered Suit fell across him and the cot came
on down atop Checkered Suit.

But his left hand caught the automatic and kept it from
clattering to the floor. As soon as he caught his breath, he wormed his hand,
not without difficulty, between his own body and that of the gangster. In a
vest pocket, he found a key that unlocked the handcuff.

He wriggled his way out, trying to do so quietly. But the
upper of the two cots slipped and there was a clang of metal against metal.

There were footsteps overhead and Mr. Smith darted around
behind the furnace as the cellar door opened. A voice— it seemed to be the
voice of the man they had called Joe-called out, “Larry!” Then the footsteps
started down the stairs.

Mr. Smith leaned around the furnace and pointed Checkered
Suit's automatic at the descending gangster. “You will please raise your
hands,” he said. Then he noticed that smoke curled upward from a lighted
cigarette in Joe's right hand. “And be very careful of that—”

With an oath, the cadaverous-faced man reached for a
shoulder holster. As he did so, the cigarette dropped from his hand.

Mr. Smith's eyes didn't follow the cigarette to the floor,
for Joe's revolver had leaped from its holster almost as though by magic and
was spitting noise and fire at him. A bullet nicked the furnace near Mr.
Smith's head.

Mr. Smith pulled at the trigger of the automatic, but
nothing happened. Desperately, he pulled harder. Still nothing—

At the foot of the staircase a sheet of bright flame,
started by Joe's dropped cigarette, flared upward from the wooden floor,
saturated with gasoline from the leaky can.

The sheet of flame leaped for the stack of cans, found the
hole in the leaky one. Mr. Smith had barely time to jerk his     head back
behind the furnace before the explosion came.

Even though he was shielded from its force, the concussion
sent him sprawling back against the steps that led to the outer door of the
cellar. Behind him, as he got to his feet, half the cellar was an inferno of
flames. He couldn't see Joe — or Checkered Suit.

He ran up the steps and tried the slanting outside cellar
door. It seemed to be padlocked from the outside. But he could see where the
hasp of the padlock was. He put the muzzle of the automatic against the door
there, and tried the trigger again. He brought up his other hand and tried the
gun with both hands. It wouldn't fire.

He glanced behind him again. Flames filled almost the entire
cellar. At first he thought he was hopelessly trapped.

Then through the smoke and flame he saw that there was an
outside window only a few yards away, and a chair that would give him access to
it.

Still clinging to the gun that wouldn't shoot, he got the
window open and climbed out. A sheet of flame, drawn by the draft of the opened
window, followed him out into the night.

He paused only an instant for some cool air and a quick
look, to be sure his clothing wasn't afire, and then ran around the house and
up onto the front porch. Already the fire was licking upward. Through the
first-floor windows he could see its red glare.

He ran up onto the front porch. The gun that wouldn't shoot
came in handy to knock the glass, already cracked by explosion, out of the
front door so he could reach in and turn the key.

As he went into the hallway, Mr. Smith heard the back door
of the house slam, and surmised that Greasy Face was making his getaway. But
Mr. Smith's interests lay upstairs; he didn't believe that the fleeing criminal
would have untied his captive.

The staircase was ablaze, but still intact. Mr. Smith took a
handkerchief from his pocket, held it tightly over his mouth and nose, and
darted up through the flames.

The hallway on the second floor was swirling with smoke, but
not yet afire. He stopped only long enough to beat out the little flame that
was licking upward from one of his trouser cuffs, and then began to throw open
the doors that led from the hallway.

In the center room on the left, just down the hallway from
the stairs, a bound and gagged man was lying on a bed.

Hurriedly Mr. Smith took off the gag and began to work on
the ropes that were knotted tightly about his feet and ankles.

“You're Mr. Kessler?” he asked.

The gray-haired man took a deep breath and then nodded
weakly. “Are you the police or—?”

Mr. Smith shook his head. “I'm an agent for the Phalanx Life
and Fire Insurance Company, Mr. Kessler. I've got to get you out of here,
because the house is burning down and we've got a big policy on your life. Two
hundred thousand, isn't it?”

The ropes at the wrists of the prisoner gave way. “You rub
your wrists, Mr. Kessler,” said Mr. Smith, “to get back your circulation, while
I untie your ankles. We'll have to work fast to get out of here. I hope we
haven't a policy on this house, because there isn't going to be a house here in
another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

The final knots parted. Over the crackling of flames, Mr.

Smith heard the cough of an automobile's engine. He ran to
the open window and looked out, while Mr. Kessler stood up.

Through the windshield of the car nosing out of the garage
behind the house, he could see the face of the leader of the trio of kidnapers.
The driveway ran under the window.

“The last survivor of your three acquaintances is leaving
us,” said Mr. Smith over his shoulder. “I think the police would appreciate it
if we slowed down his departure.”

He picked up a heavy metal-based lamp from the bureau beside
the window and jerked it loose from its cord.

As he leaned out of the window, the car, gathering speed,
was almost directly below him. Mr. Smith poised the lamp and slammed it
downward.

It struck the hood just in front of the windshield. There
was the sound of breaking glass, and the car swerved into the side of the house
and jammed tightly against it. One wheel kept on rolling, but the car itself
didn't.

Greasy Face came out of the car door, and there was a long
red gash across his forehead from the broken glass. He squinted up at the
window as he stepped back, then raised a revolver and fired. Mr. Smith ducked
back as a bullet thudded into the house beside the window.

“Mr. Kessler,” he said, “I'm afraid I made a mistake. I
should have permitted him to depart. We'll have to leave by the other side of
the house.”

Kessler was stamping his foot to help bring his cramped leg
muscles back to normal. Mr. Smith ran past him and opened the door to the
hallway. He staggered back and slammed it shut again as a sheet of flame burst
in.

The room was thick with smoke now, and on the inside edge,
flames were beginning to lick through the floorboards.

“The hallway is quite impassable,” said the insurance agent.
“And I fear the stairs are gone by now, anyway. I fear we shall have to—” He
coughed from the smoke and looked around. There was no other door.

“Well,” he said cheerfully, “perhaps our friend has—”

Two shots, as he appeared at the window, told him that
Greasy Face was still there. One of them went through the upper pane of the
window, near the top.

Mr. Smith leaped to one side, then peered cautiously out
again. The leader of the kidnapers stood, revolver in hand, twenty feet back
from the house, beyond the wrecked car under the window. His face was twisted
with anger.

“Come out and get it, damn you,” he yelled. “Or stay in
there and sizzle.”

The gray-haired man was coughing violently now.

“What can we—?”

Mr. Smith took the automatic from his pocket and glanced at
it regretfully. “If only this thing — Mr. Kessler, do you know how many bullets
a revolver holds? He's shot three times. And lie's nearsighted. Maybe—”

“Six, most of them, I think. But—” The gray-haired man was
gasping now. Mr. Smith took a deep breath and stepped to the window, started to
climb through it. If he could get the kidnaper to empty his revolver, probably
he could bluff him with the automatic that wouldn't shoot.

The gun below him barked and a bullet thudded into the window
sill. Another; he didn't know where it landed. The third shot went just over
his head as he let go and dropped to the top of the wrecked car.

He whirled, jumped to the grass. It was farther than he
thought and he fell, but still clung to the automatic. He was flat on his face
in the grass only a few steps from the kidnaper.

Greasy Face didn't wait to reload. He clubbed the revolver
and stepped in. Mr. Smith rolled over hastily, bringing the automatic up, held
in both hands. “Raise your—”