Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Smith’s eyes gleamed. “You don’t miss much. Funny, that you should overlook the chance of my coming here to-night, wasn’t it? I was afraid you’d reckon on it — and cover against it — when I didn’t show up at Pink’s place. But I had to risk it.”

Kitty took a turn about the room. She knew that he was deliberately wasting time, so that she should be punished. Omnipotent and infallible up to this moment, he hated her for tricking him and for bringing him to the brink of disaster. It was the narrowest shave of his whole life.

“That Levenheim business?” asked Smith. “Was that all in the game?”

“Yes. I knew Levenheim had the goods on him. After all, the goods were the biggest thing. I recovered those — by robbing him — and it gave me a reputation. It was worth letting Levenheim go to get that reputation, because it put the hall-mark on me. I was after bigger game than Levenheim — you!”

“So. And now you’ve got me.” Smith laughed quietly.

He stood and watched her. She could not endure it. He was gloating over her. She knew that. Every nerve in her lithe, slim body was throbbing with suppressed anxiety. Life was curiously sweet.

She kept thinking of the days with Jim Lansdale on the river. That had been a mistake — that business. She should have realized that she was too young, too vividly alive, for flirtations. They might develop into something else — as this one had developed.

Smith looked at his watch.

“Time’s up!” he said.

She turned and faced him. Her heart had leaped to her throat. She read the unutterable things in his eyes. There was no courage now — only flooding, devastating fear; for she was young, and to the young death is dreadful.

But she would not show the fear. It filled her. It racked her. It made her feel faint. She wanted to collapse, to scream, to do all kinds of futile things which would have pleased him because they belittled her; yet she held herself steady. Though the trumpets of terror sounded a diapason in her ears, her eyes were unflinching.

“You’ll hang — Smith—” she said— breathlessly.

His teeth showed. “I’ve a good mind to kiss you, first, for that,” he said. “You’re damned pretty.”

She remained very still.

His gun came up.

The front door bell rang.

Chapter XVIII Murray Retires

Smith was as still as Kitty. His eyes lost their savagery and held a question.

“Who’s that?” he snapped.

She had to recover her wits. She forced her reeling brain to action. She had to answer at once — so that he did not realize how desperately she was thinking — thinking.

“My father,” she said. “I have been expecting him ever since I arrived here. You’ve wasted time, Smith.”

She heard his breath going through his teeth.

“He can wait outside — till I’ve finished,” he said. “Let him ring.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I left the Yale lock unfastened. He can walk in by turning the handle. He’ll do so if there’s no answer.”

It was flimsy, illogical. Had Smith paused to consider it he would have realized how absurd it was. A man who can walk straight into a flat doesn’t stop to ring. If ringing produces no answer he would certainly imagine the flat empty.

But Smith, like Kitty, had now to think quickly. He knew that somebody was outside, and it was quite a sound thing to imagine that somebody was Kitty’s father. She looked so easy and cool that he believed her story about the lock. Anyhow, he could soon prove it.

“Get out to the hall,” he commanded. “And if you make a sound I’ll risk everything and shoot to kill.”

She proceeded him into the hall. Their feet made no sound on the heavy carpet.

There, Smith was able to verify that she spoke the truth. The little slit between the body of the Yale lock and the socket into which the tongue fitted showed no sign of brass.

There was a rap at the door. The ringer was trying knocking.

Kitty looked round. Smith was close.

Kitty took a risk. She was like lightning. She was more athletic than Smith, a modem girl unhampered by voluminous skirts and multitudinous petticoats.

She turned and kicked. Her toe caught the gun. As she kicked, she cried: “Come in! Help!”

The gun went upward — Smith still gripping it. Kitty, with the energy of sheer desperation, flung herself forward, hoping against hope that the person outside would enter, and, on entry, prove a physical match for Smith.

She got her arms round Smith’s arm, and she clung, holding the pistol hand above her head for a few threshing, terrible seconds.

The door handle turned. She heard a cry.

Something came over her head, and clutched Smith’s wrist above her grip. She felt the wrist and arm turned backward, and she heard Smith gasp. The pistol dropped to the floor, and, quick as light, she had it.

Smith was back against the wall, holding his twisted wrist. Kitty said: “The telephone. Call Scotland Yard. Say Murray wants help. Give this address. William Smith, I arrest you for the murder of Hector Bradley in South Africa in — Jim!”