“Gee! You’re some artist, doctor!” said the sycophantic Cuccini, and managed to get a simulation of envy into his voice.
“In my student days I was a great singer,” said the doctor modestly.
Over the mantelpiece was a big, old clock, with a face so faded that only a portion of the letters remained. Its noisy ticking had usually a sedative effect on the doctor. But its main purpose and value was its accuracy. Every day it was corrected by a message from Greenwich, and as Oberzohn’s success as an organizer depended upon exact timing, it was one of his most valuable assets.
He glanced up at the clock now, and that gave Cuccini his excuse.
“We’ll be getting along, doctor,” he said. “You don’t want anything tonight? I’d like to get a cut at that Gonsalez man. You won’t leave me out if there’s anything doing?”
Oberzohn rose and went out of the room without another word, for he knew that the rising of Cuccini was a signal that not only was the business of the day finished, but also that the gang needed its pay.
Every gang-leader attended upon Mr. Oberzohn once a week with his payroll, and it was usually the custom for the Herr Doktor to bring his cashbox into the room and extract sufficient to liquidate his indebtedness to the leader. It was a big box, and on payday, as this was, filled to the top with banknotes and Treasury bills. He brought it back now, put it on the table, consulted the little slip that Cuccini offered to him, and, taking out a pad of notes, fastened about by a rubber band, he wetted his finger and thumb.
“You needn’t count them,” said Cuccini. “We’ll take the lot.”
The doctor turned to see that Cuccini was carelessly holding a gun in his hand.
“The fact is, doctor,” said Cuccini coolly, “we’ve seen the red light, and if we don’t skip now, while the skipping’s good, there’s going to be no place we can stay comfortable in this little island, and I guess we’ll follow Gurther.”
One glance the doctor gave at the pistol and then he resumed his counting, as though nothing had happened.
“Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty …”
“Now quit that,” said Cuccini roughly. “I tell you, you needn’t count.”
“My friend, I prefer to know what I am going to lose. It is a pardonable piece of curiosity.”
He raised his hand to the wall, where a length of cord hung, and pulled at it gently, without taking his eyes from the banknotes.
“What are you doing? Put up your hands!” hissed Cuccini.
“Shoot, I beg.” Oberzohn threw a pad of notes on the table. “There is your pay.” He slammed down the lid of the box. “Now you shall go, if you can go! Do you hear them?” He raised his hand, and to the strained ears of the men came a gentle rustling sound from the passage outside as though somebody were dragging a piece of parchment along the floor. “Do you hear? You shall go if you can,” said the doctor again, with amazing calmness.
“The snakes!” breathed Cuccini, going white, and the hand that held the pistol shook.
“Shoot them, my friend,” sneered Oberzohn. “If you see them, shoot them. But you will not see them, my brave man. They will be—where? No eyes shall see them come or go. They may lie behind a picture, they may wait until the door is opened, and then … !”
Cuccini’s mouth was dry.
“Call ’em off, doctor,” he said tremulously.
“Your gun—on the table.”
Still the rustling sound was audible. Cuccini hesitated for a second, then obeyed, and took up the notes.
The other three men were huddled together by the fireplace, the picture of fear.
“Don’t open the door, doc,” said Cuccini, but Oberzohn had already gripped the handle and turned it.
They heard another door open and the click of the passage light as it had come on. Then he returned.
“If you go now, I shall not wish to see you again. Am I not a man to whom all secrets are known? You are well aware!”
Cuccini looked from the doctor to the door.
“Want us to go?” he asked, troubled.
Oberzohn shrugged.
“As you wish! It was my desire that you should stay with me tonight—there is big work and big money for all of you.”
The men were looking at one another uneasily.
“How long do you want us to stay?” asked Cuccini.
“Tonight only; if you would not prefer …”
Tonight would come the crisis. Oberzohn had realized this since the day dawned for him.
“We’ll stay—where do we sleep?”
For answer Oberzohn beckoned them from the room and they followed him into the laboratory. In the wall that faced them was a heavy iron door that opened into a concrete storehouse, where he kept various odds and ends of equipment, oil and spirit for his cars, and the little gas engine that worked a small dynamo in the laboratory and gave him, if necessary, a lighting plant independent of outside current.
There were three long windows heavily barred and placed just under the ceiling.
“Looks like the condemned cell to me,” grumbled Cuccini suspiciously.
“Are the bolts on the inside of a condemned cell?” asked Oberzohn. “Does the good warden give you the key as I give you?”
Cuccini took the key.
“All right,” he said ungraciously, “there are plenty of blankets here, boys—I guess you want us where the police won’t look, eh?”
“That is my intention,” replied the doctor.
Dr. Oberzohn closed the door on them and re-entered his study, his big mouth twitching with amusement. He pulled the cord again and closed the ventilator he had opened. It was only a few days before that he had discovered that there were dried leaves in the ventilator shaft, and that the opening of the inlet made them rustle, disturbingly for a man who was engaged in a profound study of the lesser known, and therefore the more highly cultured, philosophers.
