Hooley said, harshly, 'Okay, wise guy. You win! Lucky for you, too!'
His bald head jutted threateningly at the moaning victim.
'If you want to go on living, pal, keep your mouth shut about all this.
We
made a mistake, so let it go at that. The guy we want is Arnold Dixon himself.
He musta hired the lad in the brown beard.'
'You're mad!' Timothy gasped. 'Arnold Dixon would never deliberately connive at murder. You're making a horrible mistake!'
The two crooks backed cautiously from the sunlit room. They moved like ghosts, without sound. Timothy lay on the rug where he had fallen, afraid to move or to cry out.
After a long time, he managed to get back into the chair. The fear on his face ebbed away. Color came back into his cheeks. His jaw hardened.
With a quick gesture, he reached for the near-by telephone. He called the number of his personal physician, said he needed immediate treatment for his leg, that he must get on his feet again as soon as possible.
Tenderly, he moved the aching foot. He gritted his teeth and bit off the groan the motion caused him.
'Very well,' he said grimly to himself. 'We'll see, Snaper and Hooley, whether you're going to get away with this or not. My guess is that you're not!'
CHAPTER VII
CHEMICAL FIREFLIES
ARNOLD DIXON was standing alone in the front hallway of his mansion, fully
dressed in overcoat and hat. He was reading a note, and the expression on his face was ghastly. The note was in red ink; printed in sprawling capitals, it was unsigned.
It was a peremptory demand that the millionaire come alone to a certain road in Pelham that led to a rocky and deserted part of Long Island Sound. His orders were to drive until he came to a deserted house with blue shutters. The house would be further identified by a white handkerchief tied to the doorknob.
That was all the note said. Arnold Dixon shivered. He guessed who had sent
it and he was afraid.
A step in the dim hallway caused Dixon to turn his back hastily and shove the paper into his overcoat pocket. The figure was Charles, the butler. He was just in time to see the note vanish. He stared at the overcoat and hat.
'Are you going out, sir? It's rather late.'
'Yes, I know. Bring the small car around to the front.'
'Are you sure Mr. Bruce would like that, sir? He told me to be sure not to
allow you to go out alone after nightfall. Believe me, sir, I don't wish to be impertinent, but -'
'You are impertinent,' Dixon replied, shortly. 'Where is Bruce? In town?'
'Yes, sir. He's at the apartment of Miss Edith Allen. I believe he has an appointment to take her to the theater to-night.'
'Well, keep this to yourself. I don't want Bruce bothered. Do you understand?'
'Yes, sir,' Charles replied, quietly. He watched Dixon draw a handkerchief
from his overcoat pocket and dab nervously at his perspiring forehead. A scrap of paper fell to the floor under the console table, but in his excitement the old man didn't notice his loss.
'Your coat, sir?' Charles said, eagerly. 'It's all awry. Let me help you adjust it.'
He stepped behind his employer, pretended to be busily engaged in helping him with his collar and muffler. But his body bent as he tugged at the bottom hem of the coat. His deft fingers closed over the note that lay on the floor.
Charles's smile was tight with cunning triumph, as he said, 'I'll get the small car at once.'
FIVE minutes later, Arnold Dixon was driving down the winding gravel road and out the gate of his estate. He drove with unaccustomed speed. His worry seemed to communicate itself to the machine. In twenty minutes, he had reached the turn indicated in the directions in the note. He took the shore road and presently the black darkness of Long Island Sound came into view.
Arnold shuddered. Something about the cold inky water filled him with forebodings of death.
The road ran along the edge of rocky shore for a quarter mile or so, then curved inward through a desolate region of stunted pine and spruce. Suddenly, Dixon saw the house. It was impossible to miss it. Blue shutters, a handkerchief tied to the knob of the front door. The place looked old and tenantless.
Arnold Dixon turned the knob, discovered that the door was unlocked. He opened it and peered in. A kerosene lamp was standing on the bare floor of the entry. It cast a weird yellow light that threw Arnold's shadow on the dirty plaster of the wall like a gaunt bird.
'Okay, pal,' a voice said dryly from an inner room. 'Shut that door and get in here!'
The voice was Bert Hooley's. Slowly, Dixon obeyed.
He found himself in an empty, musty room, lighted with a kerosene lamp also. Joe Snaper was there, too. He moved behind Dixon, blocking his escape.
Hooley advanced grimly toward the frightened caller.
'What - what do these threats mean?' Dixon faltered. 'I've tried to play fair with you. I've paid you a thousand dollars twice a month and I'm willing to continue to pay. Yet you've threatened me with death. Why?'
'Because you're a dirty double-crosser!' Snaper snarled, jamming the muzzle of his gun into Dixon's flinching stomach.
'Lemme handle this,' Hooley said.
His hands tightened themselves on Dixon's throat. He squeezed remorselessly until the millionaire's tongue jutted from his wide-open mouth.
Then he threw the millionaire staggering away with a contemptuous shove.
'Make the rat talk!' Snaper suggested.
'Don't worry.' Hooley's paw darted out again. He held Dixon stiffly while his ugly eyes probed him.
'Why did you try to have us killed, pal?'
'I didn't!'
'You lie! We're gonna give you the works - unless you tell us the right answers!'
'I'll tell you anything I know,' Dixon moaned.
'You know a guy named Paul Rodney, don't you?'
'I never heard of him. Who is he?'
'He's a guy with a brown beard. One of your stooges. He tried to burn us down outside your library window the night you stole your check back from me.
We got away from that okay. And we got away from his sulphur candle in the hotel room. But you ain't getting away from us until you let us in on what the big secret is!'
'Secret?' Dixon faltered.
'JOE and me think,' Hooley told Dixon slowly, his hand still clutching him
with a grip of steel, 'that maybe we've been suckers takin' your lousy two grand
a month! We think there's something big in the wind that we've been missing.
Something that might bring us in some real dough!
'We've been doin' a little sleuthin' ourselves, see? We've found that the lad in the brown beard is a guy named Paul Rodney. He's tied up with a tough little killer named Squint. That much we know. What's Rodney's angle, pal?'
'I don't know,' Dixon repeated, monotonously. He pressed his lips together
as if afraid more words might spurt out to betray him.
'So you don't know no Paul Rodney, huh?' Snaper grinned.
'No!'
'And you ain't got no big secret? I mean, outside of the little blackmail graft all three of us know?'
'I - I have nothing to say. I won't talk!'
In desperation, Dixon tried to aim a blow at Snaper's jaw, but his fist was caught in a smothering grip. His arm was wrenched over his head with a force that made the arm twist in his shoulder socket.
