Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

A little after three they were startled by hoarse screams from the same distant point. The muffled sounds rose to a crescendo of horror, and ceased abruptly.

Still listening, the two prisoners heard the shuffle of feet along the passage, approaching their door.

“Now for it,” whispered Hal. “Keep out of sight!”

But the shuffle passed on and stopped. Then they heard it again, from somewhere close at hand.

Hal looked up suddenly. The square of barred darkness above his head now showed a light beyond.

He rose cautiously to his knees to look through the bars. Just before his head reached the level of the opening the light beyond went out.

Hal rose no higher, but lay down again. No good showing the silhouette of his head against the light in his cell. He wanted his captors to think him weaker than he actually was. It might add a fraction to his chances.

He was hardly prone again before the cell door opened and Wallace strode in. Hal turned his head wearily. The man’s face was drawn and pale. But his eyes blazed.

Nimbo shuffled in at his heels.

“You heard that bellowing?” Wallace demanded.

“Another victim?” queried Hal in a weak voice.

Wallace advanced to the table. There his figure began to lose its erect tensity. His shoulders drooped a little. The light of fury faded from his eyes, leaving only shadows of hopeless tragedy. The glance that met Hal’s seemed turned inward and blind with pain.

“Gloria died this morning,” he muttered. “She died while I was gone. You heard Papaniotis before he followed her. If I could kill him a thousand times—”

The harsh voice trailed off into silence.

Hal felt his judgment reeling. This was plain murder! Yet Wallace had suffered — was suffering — almost past endurance because of Papaniotis’s old cruelty.

It needed Hal’s dread for Dorothy to steel his determination. Tragedy or no, this madman must be downed.

Wallace looked slowly in his direction, as though seeking him with blind eyes.

“I have done you and your mother an injustice,” he droned monotonously. “You will suffer no more harm from me. As soon as possible you will be liberated. Your mother is here and quite unharmed. In other ways I have done what I can to make amends. It is too late to bring back your father and my friend. I made a mistake there—”

“You’ve made more than one,” said Hal grimly.

“Yes. I trusted to letters — for eighteen years.”

There was a little silence.

“How did you learn that dad never betrayed you?” Hal demanded.

“An old letter. Some one sent it to the papers. Morgan, no doubt. Your father wrote it soon after my crash. He offered to help me. I never got it. You were right.”

Hal studied his captor blankly. Here were sanity and madness, cheek by jowl. Hands still shaking from one murder, Wallace sincerely regretted another. Having wreaked his triple revenge with almost incredible skill and foresight, he had shown a simple-minded carelessness in confessing his crimes. He had bedeviled Hal and his mother. Now he would make amends. Then Dorothy might escape harm if Hal pleaded her cause—

But Hal hesitated. While admitting his human mistake, the man still usurped the prerogative of a deity. He had inflicted a sort of rough justice, demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Hal’s heart sank. If Hearn had been guilty, how could Dorothy hope to escape such mad, distorted revenge?

Wallace straightened his shoulders and spoke.

“In the meantime,” he sighed, “you are again to witness the justice of punishment inflicted in kind. Nimbo!”

Before Hal could stir, the black had lifted him like a child and stood him up on the bed. The Nubian leaped to his side, gripped him by one wrist and arm and spun him about to face the dark, barred opening.

Hal turned his head quickly. Wallace was eying him. To risk an uppercut at the black’s jaw would be madness.

With the skill of long practice, Nimbo bound first one of his wrists and then the other to the bars. He stepped down, leaving Hal securely lashed, his enemies behind him in the lighted room and mysterious darkness before him.

The bed creaked as Wallace took the Nubian’s place, his head close to Hal’s at the bars.

A wall switch clicked. Hal found himself looking into a cell like his own, now flooded with light. But it lacked a window. Presumably the barred opening was intended for ventilation.

On the far side of the cell, with its head against the wall, stood a cot like his own. Dorothy lay there, dressed, and fast asleep.

Hal caught his breath at the sight of her.

She lay with her head away from him. Her slim, arched feet projected limply beyond the foot of the bed. Her ankles were bound to the bar there. The rope ran under the bed, where it was fastened out of her reach.

Hal turned his head to face Wallace.

“Untie her and let her go!” he ordered with desperate calmness. “I love her, Wallace. You have no quarrel with me. You owe me something for that beating.”

“No!” said Wallace.

“If you must torment somebody, take it out on me! Not on a girl!”