Ronicky Doone

Other voices answered far away; footfalls began to sound. Ronicky Doone knew that Harry Morgan, his victim, had at last recovered and managed to work the cords off his feet or hands, or both.

Ronicky stepped back close to the door of the closet and waited. It would mean a search, probably, this discovery that Morgan had been struck down in his own room by an unknown intruder. And a search certainly would be started at once. First there was confusion, and then a clear, musical man's voice began to give orders: "Harrison, take the cellar. Lefty, go up to the roof. The rest of you take the rooms one by one."

The search was on.

"Don't ask questions," was the last instruction. "When you see someone you don't know, shoot on sight, and shoot to kill. I'll do the explaining to the police—you know that. Now scatter, and the man who brings him down I'll remember. Quick!"

There was a new scurry of footfalls. Ronicky Doone heard them approach the door of the girl's room, and he slipped into the closet. At once a cloud of soft, cool silks brushed about him, and he worked back until his shoulders had touched the wall at the back of the closet. Luckily the enclosure was deep, and the clothes were hanging thickly from the racks. It was sufficient to conceal him from any careless searcher, but it would do no good if any one probed; and certainly these men were not the ones to search carelessly.

In the meantime it was a position which made Ronicky grind his teeth. To be found skulking among woman's clothes in a closet—to be dragged out and stuck in the back, no doubt, like a rat, and thrown into the river, that was an end for Ronicky Doone indeed!

He was on the verge of slipping out and making a mad break for the door of the house and trying to escape by taking the men by surprise, when he heard the door of the girl's room open.

"Some ex-pugilist," he heard a man's voice saying, and he recognized it at once as belonging to him who had given the orders. He recognized, also, that it must be the man with the sneer.

"You think he was an amateur robber and an expert prize fighter?" asked Ruth Tolliver.

It seemed to Ronicky Doone that her voice was perfectly controlled and calm. Perhaps it was her face that betrayed emotion, for after a moment of silence, the man answered.

"What's the matter? You're as nervous as a child tonight, Ruth?"

"Isn't there reason enough to make me nervous?" she demanded. "A robber—Heaven knows what—running at large in the house?"

"H'm!" murmured the man. "Devilish queer that you should get so excited all at once. No, it's something else. I've trained you too well for you to go to pieces like this over nothing. What is it, Ruth?"

There was no answer. Then the voice began again, silken-smooth and gentle, so gentle and kindly that Ronicky Doone started. "In the old days you used to keep nothing from me; we were companions, Ruth. That was when you were a child. Now that you are a woman, when you feel more, think more, see more, when our companionship should be like a running stream, continually bringing new things into my life, I find barriers between us. Why is it, my dear?"

Still there was no answer. The pulse of Ronicky Doone began to quicken, as though the question had been asked him, as though he himself were fumbling for the answer.

"Let us talk more freely," went on the man. "Try to open your mind to me. There are things which you dislike in me; I know it. Just what those things are I cannot tell, but we must break down these foolish little barriers which are appearing more and more every day. Not that I mean to intrude myself on you every moment of your life. You understand that, of course?"

"Of course," said the girl faintly.

"And I understand perfectly that you have passed out of childhood into young womanhood, and that is a dreamy time for a girl. Her body is formed at last, but her mind is only half formed. There is a pleasant mist over it. Very well, I don't wish to brush the mist away. If I did that I would take half that charm away from you—that elusive incompleteness which Fragonard and Watteau tried to imitate, Heaven knows with how little success. No, I shall always let you live your own life. All that I ask for, my dear, are certain meeting places. Let us establish them before it is too late, or you will find one day that you have married an old man, and we shall have silent dinners. There is nothing more wretched than that. If it should come about, then you will begin to look on me as a jailer. And—"

"Don't!"

"Ah," said he very tenderly, "I knew that I was feeling toward the truth. You are shrinking from me, Ruth, because you feel that I am too old."

"No, no!"

Here a hand pounded heavily on the door.

"The idiots have found something," said the man of the sneer. "And now they have come to talk about their cleverness, like a rooster crowing over a grain of corn." He raised his voice. "Come in!"

And Ronicky Doone heard a panting voice a moment later exclaim: "We've got him!"

Chapter Twelve

The Strange Bargain

Ronicky drew his gun and waited. "Good," said the man of the sneer. "Go ahead."

"It was down in the cellar that we found the first tracks. He came in through the side window and closed it after him."

"That dropped him into the coal bin. Did he get coal dust on his shoes?"

"Right; and he didn't have sense enough to wipe it off."

"An amateur—a rank amateur! I told you!" said the man of the sneer, with satisfaction. "You followed his trail?"

"Up the stairs to the kitchen and down the hall and up to Harry's room."

"We already knew he'd gone there."

"But he left that room again and came down the hall."

"Yes. The coal dust was pretty well wiped off by that time, but we held a light close to the carpet and got the signs of it."

"And where did it lead?"

"Right to this room!"

Ronicky stepped from among the smooth silks and pressed close to the door of the closet, his hand on the knob. The time had almost come for one desperate attempt to escape, and he was ready to shoot to kill.

A moment of pause had come, a pause which, in the imagination of Ronicky, was filled with the approach of both the men toward the door of the closet.

Then the man of the sneer said: "That's a likely story!"

"I can show you the tracks."

"H'm! You fool, they simply grew dim when they got to this door. I've been here for some time. Go back and tell them to hunt some more. Go up to the attic and search there. That's the place an amateur would most likely hide."

The man growled some retort and left, closing the door heavily behind him, while Ronicky Doone breathed freely again for the first time.

"Now," said the man of the sneer, "tell me the whole of it, Ruth."

Ronicky set his teeth. Had the clever devil guessed at the truth so easily? Had he sent his follower away, merely to avoid having it known that a man had taken shelter in the room of the girl he loved?

"Go on," the leader was repeating. "Let me hear the whole truth."

"I—I—" stammered the girl, and she could say no more.

The man of the sneer laughed unpleasantly. "Let me help you. It was somebody you met somewhere—on the train, perhaps, and you couldn't help smiling at him, eh? You smiled so much, in fact, that he followed you and found that you had come here. The only way he could get in was by stealth. Is that right? So he came in exactly that way, like a robber, but really only to keep a tryst with his lady love? A pretty story, a true romance! I begin to see why you find me such a dull fellow, my dear girl."

"John—" began Ruth Tolliver, her voice shaking.

"Tush," he broke in as smoothly as ever. "Let me tell the story for you and spare your blushes. When I sent you for Harry Morgan you found Lochinvar in the very act of slugging the poor fellow. You helped him tie Morgan; then you took him here to your room; although you were glad to see him, you warned him that it was dangerous to play with fire—fire being me. Do I gather the drift of the story fairly well? Finally you have him worked up to the right pitch. He is convinced that a retreat would be advantageous, if possible. You show him that it is possible. You point out the ledge under your window and the easy way of working to the ground. Eh?"

"Yes," said the girl unevenly. "That is—"

"Ah!" murmured the man of the sneer. "You seem rather relieved that I have guessed he left the house. In that case—"

Ronicky Doone had held the latch of the door turned back for some time. Now he pushed it open and stepped out. He was only barely in time, for the man of the sneer was turning quickly in his direction, since there was only one hiding place in the room.

He was brought up with a shock by the sight of Ronicky's big Colt, held at the hip and covering him with absolute certainty. Ruth Tolliver did not cry out, but every muscle in her face and body seemed to contract, as if she were preparing herself for the explosion.

"You don't have to put up your hands," said Ronicky Doone, wondering at the familiarity of the face of the man of the sneer. He had brooded on it so often in the past few days that it was like the face of an old acquaintance. He knew every line in that sharp profile.

"Thank you," responded the leader, and, turning to the girl, he said coldly: "I congratulate you on your good taste. A regular Apollo, my dear Ruth."

He turned back to Ronicky Doone. "And I suppose you have overhead our entire conversation?"

"The whole lot of it," said Ronicky, "though I wasn't playing my hand at eavesdropping. I couldn't help hearing you, partner."

The man of the sneer looked him over leisurely. "Western," he said at last, "decidedly Western.

"Are you staying long in the East, my friend?"

"I dunno," said Ronicky Doone, smiling faintly at the coolness of the other. "What do you think about it?"

"Meaning that I'm liable to put an end to your stay?"

"Maybe!"

"Tush, tush! I suppose Ruth has filled your head with a lot of rot about what a terrible fellow I am. But I don't use poison, and I don't kill with mysterious X-rays. I am, as you see, a very quiet and ordinary sort."

Ronicky Doone smiled again. "You just oblige me, partner," he replied in his own soft voice. "Just stay away from the walls of the room—don't even sit down. Stand right where you are."

"You'd murder me if I took another step?" asked the man of the sneer, and a contemptuous and sardonic expression flitted across his face for the first time.

"I'd sure blow you full of lead," said Ronicky fervently. "I'd kill you like a snake, stranger, which I mostly think you are. So step light, and step quick when I talk."

"Certainly," said the other, bowing. "I am entirely at your service." He turned a little to Ruth. "I see that you have a most determined cavalier. I suppose he'll instantly abduct you and sweep you away from beneath my eyes?"

She made a vague gesture of denial.

"Go ahead," said the leader. "By the way, my name is John Mark."

"I'm Doone—some call me Ronicky Doone."

"I'm glad to know you, Ronicky Doone. I imagine that name fits you. Now tell me the story of why you came to this house; of course it wasn't to see a girl!"

"You're wrong! It was."

"Ah?" In spite of himself the face of John Mark wrinkled with pain and suspicious rage.

"I came to see a girl, and her name, I figure, is Caroline Smith."

Relief, wonder, and even a gleam of outright happiness shot into the eyes of John Mark. "Caroline? You came for that?" Suddenly he laughed heartily, but there was a tremor of emotion in that laughter. The perfect torture, which had been wringing the soul of the man of the sneer, projected through the laughter.

"I ask your pardon, my dear," said John Mark to Ruth. "I should have guessed. You found him; he confessed why he was here; you took pity on him—and—" He brushed a hand across his forehead and was instantly himself, calm and cool.

"Very well, then. It seems I've made an ass of myself, but I'll try to make up for it. Now what about Caroline? There seems to be a whole host of you Westerners annoying her."

"Only one: I'm acting as his agent."

"And what do you expect?"

"I expect that you will send for her and tell her that she is free to go down with me—leave this house—and take a ride or a walk with me."

"As much as that? If you have to talk to her, why not do the talking here?"

"I dunno," replied Ronicky Doone. "I figure she'd think too much about you all the time."

"The basilisk, eh?" asked John Mark. "Well, you are going to persuade her to go to Bill Gregg?"

"You know the name, eh?"

"Yes, I have a curious stock of useless information."

"Well, you're right; I'm going to try to get her back for Bill."

"But you can't expect me to assent to that?"

"I sure do."

"And why? This Caroline Smith may be a person of great value to me."

"I have no doubt she is, but I got a good argument."

"What is it?"

"The gun, partner."

"And, if you couldn't get the girl—but see how absurd the whole thing is, Ronicky Doone! I send for the girl; I request her to go down with you to the street and take a walk, because you wish to talk to her. Heavens, man, I can't persuade her to go with a stranger at night! Surely you see that!"

"I'll do that persuading," said Ronicky Doone calmly.

"And, when you're on the streets with the girl, do you suppose I'll rest idle and let you walk away with her?"

"Once we're outside of the house, Mark," said Ronicky Doone, "I don't ask no favors. Let your men come on. All I got to say is that I come from a county where every man wears a gun and has to learn how to use it. I ain't terrible backward with the trigger finger, John Mark. Not that I figure on bragging, but I want you to pick good men for my trail and tell 'em to step soft. Is that square?"

"Aside from certain idiosyncrasies, such as your manner of paying a call by way of a cellar window, I think you are the soul of honor, Ronicky Doone. Now may I sit down?"

"Suppose we shake hands to bind the bargain," said Ronicky. "You send for Caroline Smith; I'm to do the persuading to get her out of the house. We're safe to the doors of the house; the minute we step into the street, you're free to do anything you want to get either of us. Will you shake on that?"

For a moment the leader hesitated, then his fingers closed over the extended hand of Ronicky Doone and clamped down on them like so many steel wires contracting. At the same time a flush of excitement and fierceness passed over the face of John Mark. Ronicky Doone, taken utterly by surprise, was at a great disadvantage. Then he put the whole power of his own hand into the grip, and it was like iron meeting iron. A great rage came in the eyes of John Mark; a great wonder came in the eyes of the Westerner. Where did John Mark get his sudden strength?

"Well," said Ronicky, "we've shaken hands, and now you can do what you please! Sit down, leave the room—anything." He shoved his gun away in his clothes. That brought a start from John Mark and a flash of eagerness, but he repressed the idea, after a single glance at the girl.

"We've shaken hands," he admitted slowly, as though just realizing the full extent of the meaning of that act. "Very well, Ronicky, I'll send for Caroline Smith, and more power to your tongue, but you'll never get her away from this house without force."

Chapter Thirteen

Doone Wins

A servant answered the bell almost at once. "Tell Miss Smith that she's wanted in Miss Tolliver's room," said Mark, and, when the servant disappeared, he began pacing up and down the room. Now and then he cast a sharp glance to the side and scrutinized the face of Ronicky Doone. With Ruth's permission, the latter had lighted a cigarette and was smoking it in bland enjoyment. Again the leader paused directly before the girl, and, with his feet spread and his head bowed in an absurd Napoleonic posture, he considered every feature of her face. The uncertain smile, which came trembling on her face, elicited no response from Mark.

She dreaded him, Ronicky saw, as a slave dreads a cruel master. Still she had a certain affection for him, partly as the result of many benefactions, no doubt, and partly from long acquaintance; and, above all, she respected his powers of mind intensely. The play of emotion in her face—fear, anger, suspicion—as John Mark paced up and down before her, was a study.

With a secret satisfaction Ronicky Doone saw that her glances continually sought him, timidly, curiously. All vanity aside, he had dropped a bomb under the feet of John Mark, and some day the bomb might explode.

There was a tap at the door, it opened and Caroline Smith entered in a dressing gown. She smiled brightly at Ruth and wanly at John Mark, then started at the sight of the stranger.

"This," said John Mark, "is Ronicky Doone."

The Westerner rose and bowed.

"He has come," said John Mark, "to try to persuade you to go out for a stroll with him, so that he can talk to you about that curious fellow, Bill Gregg. He is going to try to soften your heart, I believe, by telling you all the inconveniences which Bill Gregg has endured to find you here. But he will do his talking for himself. Just why he has to take you out of the house, at night, before he can talk to you is, I admit, a mystery to me. But let him do the persuading."

Ronicky Doone turned to his host, a cold gleam in his eyes. His case had been presented in such a way as to make his task of persuasion almost impossible. Then he turned back and looked at the girl. Her face was a little pale, he thought, but perfectly composed.

"I don't know Bill Gregg," she said simply. "Of course, I'm glad to talk to you, Mr. Doone, but why not here?"

John Mark covered a smile of satisfaction, and the girl looked at him, apparently to see if she had spoken correctly. It was obvious that the leader was pleased, and she glanced back at Ronicky, with a flush of pleasure.

"I'll tell you why I can't talk to you in here," said Ronicky gently. "Because, while you're under the same roof with this gent with the sneer"—he turned and indicated Mark, sneering himself as he did so—"you're not yourself. You don't have a halfway chance to think for yourself. You feel him around you and behind you and beside you every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel. Ain't that the straight of it?"

She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder at Ronicky Doone.

"You see," said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, "that our friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of—what shall I say—hypnotism!"

A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out. Then she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.

"If I could talk like him," said Ronicky Doone gravely, "I sure wouldn't care where I had to do the talking; but I haven't any smooth lingo—I ain't got a lot of words all ready and handy. I'm a pretty simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith. That's why I want to get you out of this house, where I can talk to you alone."

She paused, then shook her head.

"As far as going out with me goes," went on Ronicky, "well, they's nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and then ask yourself if I'm the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to be afraid about. I won't keep you long; five minutes is all I ask. And we can walk up and down the street, in plain view of the house, if you want. Is it a go?"

At least he had broken through the surface crust of indifference. She was looking at him now, with a shade of interest and sympathy, but she shook her head.

"I'm afraid—" she began.

"Don't refuse right off, without thinking," said Ronicky. "I've worked pretty hard to get a chance to meet you, face to face. I busted into this house tonight like a burglar—"

"Oh," cried the girl, "you're the man—Harry Morgan—" She stopped, aghast.

"He's the man who nearly killed Morgan," said John Mark.

"Is that against me?" asked Ronicky eagerly. "Is that all against me? I was fighting for the chance to find you and talk to you. Give me that chance now."

Obviously she could not make up her mind. It had been curious that this handsome, boyish fellow should come as an emissary from Bill Gregg. It was more curious still that he should have had the daring and the strength to beat Harry Morgan.

"What shall I do, Ruth?" she asked suddenly.

Ruth Tolliver glanced apprehensively at John Mark and then flushed, but she raised her head bravely. "If I were you, Caroline," she said steadily, "I'd simply ask myself if I could trust Ronicky Doone. Can you?"

The girl faced Ronicky again, her hands clasped in indecision and excitement. Certainly, if clean honesty was ever written in the face of a man, it stood written in the clear-cut features of Ronicky Doone.

"Yes," she said at last, "I'll go. For five minutes—only in the street—in full view of the house."

There was a hard, deep-throated exclamation from John Mark. He rose and glided across the room, as if to go and vent his anger elsewhere. But he checked and controlled himself at the door, then turned.

"You seem to have won, Doone. I congratulate you. When he's talking to you, Caroline, I want you constantly to remember that—"

"Wait!" cut in Ronicky sharply. "She'll do her own thinking, without your help."

John Mark bowed with a sardonic smile, but his face was colorless. Plainly he had been hard hit. "Later on," he continued, "we'll see more of each other, I expect—a great deal more, Doone."

"It's something I'll sure wait for," said Ronicky savagely. "I got more than one little thing to talk over with you, Mark. Maybe about some of them we'll have to do more than talking. Good-by. Lady, I'll be waiting for you down by the front door of the house."

Caroline Smith nodded, flung one frightened and appealing glance to Ruth Tolliver for direction, then hurried out to her room to dress. Ronicky Doone turned back to Ruth.

"In my part of the country," he said simply, "they's some gents we know sort of casual, and some gents we have for friends. Once in a while you bump into somebody that's so straight and square-shooting that you'd like to have him for a partner. If you were out West, lady, and if you were a man—well, I'd pick you for a partner, because you've sure played straight and square with me tonight."

He turned, hesitated, and, facing her again, caught up her hand, touched it to his lips, then hurried past John Mark and through the doorway. They could hear his rapid footfalls descending the stairs, and John Mark was thoughtful indeed. He was watching Ruth Tolliver, as she stared down at her hand. When she raised her head and met the glance of the leader she flushed slowly to the roots of her hair.

"Yes," muttered John Mark, still thoughtfully and half to himself, "there's really true steel in him. He's done more against me in one half hour than any other dozen men in ten years."

Chapter Fourteen

Her Little Joke

A brief ten minutes of waiting beside the front door of the house, and then Ronicky Doone heard a swift pattering of feet on the stairs. Presently the girl was moving very slowly toward him down the hall. Plainly she was bitterly afraid when she came beside him, under the dim hall light. She wore that same black hat, turned back from her white face, and the red flower beside it was a dull, uncertain blur. Decidedly she was pretty enough to explain Bill Gregg's sorrow.

Ronicky gave her no chance to think twice. She was in the very act of murmuring something about a change of mind, when he opened the door and, stepping out into the starlight, invited her with a smile and a gesture to follow. In a moment they were in the freshness of the night air. He took her arm, and they passed slowly down the steps. At the bottom she turned and looked anxiously at the house.

"Lady," murmured Ronicky, "they's nothing to be afraid of. We're going to walk right up and down this street and never get out of sight of the friends you got in this here house."

At the word "friends" she shivered slightly, and he added: "Unless you want to go farther of your own free will."