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Detective Tales, December 1935, with "Crucible of Courage"
Few men emerge from the forge of disaster fired to the steely temper of a Dirk Blaize. A lone, crippled weakling condemned by a crooked political machine, he was driven to exile... forgotten for years. Yet Dirk Blaize came back to dare again those murdering guns; to pit his life and iron will against the corruption and greed of a killer-czar. Here is the gripping story of that single-handed fight—one of the most absorbing, dramatic tales of human courage ever published!
forge—to form by heating and hammering; to
beat into... shape...
—Webster's New Int. Dict.
SIX years ago the City of Middlevale was rated at 190,000 population; principal industries: gambling, vice, graft. The latter information, of course, did not appear in any gazetteer or almanac. It was, nevertheless, true.
Captain of Detectives Owen Blaize knew it better than anybody else; and he knew also the hopelessness of fighting the situation—until he came into possession of the slip of pink paper that he had in his pocket on the way home from headquarters. It was a canceled check; and the name signed to it, together with the name endorsed on the reverse side, was going to smash things wide open in Middlevale.
Blaize drove to the modest little widower's cottage that he inhabited with his son in a quiet suburb of Middlevale, had dinner in silence. Dirk, the boy, a slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired lad, respected his father's mood, asked no questions. Since his infancy he'd had no mother, and he adored his square-jawed, honest, plodding father. To him, Owen Blaize, whose hair was already greying at the temples, was superhuman, a paragon among fathers.
The meal was served by old Gunner Swanson, who had only one arm, but managed to keep house for Blaize and his son, and who had done a better job of bringing up Dirk than any woman could have done, except a mother. Gunner had been a cop once, and had lost his left arm by amputation when infection had set in from a wound received in a gunfight with bandits. So when he was pensioned off, Owen Blaize had made a place for him in his own home.
Now, when dinner was over, and Gunner Swanson was in the kitchen with the dishes, Dirk came over to his father, and affectionately rumpled his greying hair.
"Dad," he asked, "what's on your mind? You look as if you'd come back from a funeral!"
Captain Blaize put down the pipe he had just lit, gripped his son's arm tight.
"Dirk, boy," he said huskily, "what would you say if your father gave up his job?"
Dirk looked at him unbelievingly. "You mean you're going to quit the force, dad? You only have five years to go for half pay. And by then I'll he ready to join the cops—"
Captain Blaize sighed. "I've got to go out." His grip on the boy's arm increased, so that Dirk winced, but did not complain. "Whatever happens, Dirk, always remember that I've been an honest cop. Sometimes—" his eyes grew dreamy, faraway—"I wonder if it pays—"
Suddenly he arose, crushed the lad to him. Then, as if ashamed of his display of emotion, he let the boy go, said casually: "So long, Dirk, see you later," and went out into the hall, picking up his hat from the rack near the door.
The boy called after him in a voice suddenly broken: "Wait, dad. You—you sound as if you weren't—coming back!"
But the door had already closed behind his departing father.
THE lad stood there a moment trembling. He knew this father of
his so well, knew his every mood and each inflection of his
voice. And he knew instinctively that there was something
wrong—something terribly, cruelly wrong. Suddenly he swung
toward the kitchen, shouting in a voice full of panic:
"Gunner! Gunner, come—"
He stopped, still trembling. Old Gunner Swanson stood in the doorway, his seamed face twisted into an agony of sympathetic comprehension.
"Gunner! Did you hear—"
"Yes, lad, I heard. An' I'm sure it's something to do with Roger Mercer's crowd. Mercer's been running this whole town—"
Dirk broke in frantically, as the sound of the starter on his father's car came to them from outside: "Come on, Gunner. I'm going after him!" He flew across the room, tore open the front door just as the car pulled away from the curb.
Gunner came up beside him, said soothingly: "Don't take on like that, lad. I've known Owen Blaize for years. He can take care of himself—"
"I don't care," Dirk almost sobbed. "I know he's running into danger. Come on!"
Gunner followed the boy, awkwardly untying, with his one hand, the knot of the apron that he was wearing. At the corner they saw a cab returning to the city empty, and Dirk hailed it. He asked the other breathlessly:
"Have you got any money, Gunner?"
Gunner Swanson nodded. "I have. But—"
Dirk literally pushed him into the cab, pointed out the tail light of his father's car, a block away. "Follow that coupé," he ordered.
It was moving slowly, as if Captain Owen Blaize were reluctant to arrive at his destination too soon.
Gunner Swanson sighed, and confirmed Dirk's order to the questioning cabby. As they started after the coupé, Gunner said: "I hope your father doesn't find out I let you follow him. He'd be sorer'n hell."
The boy seemed not to have heard him. He was hunched forward, peering ahead as if his whole heart and soul were in that coupé with his father.
The pursuit took them around the edge of the city, to another, more pretentious suburb, and finally to a modestly expensive private house which sat by itself in the center of a wide, carefully kept lawn.
Gunner grumbled ominously; "Just the way I thought, lad. That's Roger Mercer's place."
Dirk watched his father pull up at the curb, descend and walk up the path to the front door. He said to the cabby:
"Don't stop. Pass him and go up to the corner."
He watched out of the side window, saw the door open to his father's ring, saw the slender, rat-faced young man who admitted him.
"That's Ned Mercer," Gunner told the boy. "Roger Mercer's brat—and no better than his father, if you ask me."
Dirk nodded mutely, watched the tall straight figure of his father enter, and saw the door shut behind him. Something seemed to stick in his throat for a moment as he got out of the cab, waited while Gunner paid the driver off.
When the cab had gone the old man took Dirk by the arm, said in kindly fashion: "You're too high-strung, lad. What harm can come to your father while he's visiting with Mercer and his son? They hate him, sure. But they would never go in for rough stuff by themselves. They hire all their dirty work done for them."
Dirk eyed the house somberly. It was dark, except for a single light in a ground floor window. That would be where his father was now....
"Let's wait a while, anyway, Gunner," he said at last. And he shut his eyes tight because there was a tear in the right eye, and he didn't want the old man to see him wiping it away.
They waited ten minutes, and then something seemed to spur the boy on, to make him restless. Nobody had passed them in this quiet neighborhood. The nearest house was at the far end of the block, and the lamp across the street cast little light here. Perhaps it was the dismal quality of the place that increased Dirk's nervousness.
He said: "Wait here, Gunner. I'm going to take a look in the window. I want to see what's happening in there."
The old man shrugged. "You're like your father, lad. When you want to do a thing, nobody on earth can stop you. All right. I'll go with you."
"No. You wait here. If you see anybody coming, whistle." The boy was off across the lawn before Gunner could protest, making for the lighted window.
INSIDE the big house, Ned Mercer had ushered Captain Blaize
into the sitting room. "My father's been expecting you," he said
glumly. His mouth had a sullen curve to it, and his eyes failed
to meet those of the captain. His chin was receding, in marked
contrast to the chin of the man who received Blaize in the
library.
Roger Mercer was well on in his forties, a younger man than Blaize. But there was a ruthlessness in his face, in the set of his thin mouth and in the coldness of his eyes, that accounted for the fact that he had made himself the political boss of Middlevale.
"Sit down, Blaize," he said, motioning to a chair. "Close the door, Ned, and come in." Then to the captain: "You phoned that you wanted to see me tonight." He smiled thinly. "I've been wondering why."
Captain Blaize did not avail himself of the invitation to sit down. He stood in the center of the room, spraddle-legged, uncompromising. "You know well enough why I wanted to see you, Mercer. I'm a plain man, and I don't know how to beat around the bush. You and your son, here, have been living off Middlevale like vultures—taking the profits from dope, vice resorts, gambling houses. Nobody could ever get anything on you. You've gotten fat on the city's misery; you own the mayor, the judges, the district attorney."
He stopped, short of breath. Mercer was watching him, smiling thinly, sardonically. Ned Mercer was glowering. The older man cleared his throat, said silkily:
"Those are strong statements, Blaize. I hope you can back them up?"
"I can. Today I located another safety deposit box of the murdered gambler, Joe Milo. In that box, I found this check!" He extracted from his pocket the pink cancelled check, held it in the air, then turned it over so as to show the endorsement. "Your endorsement appears on the reverse side, Mercer. This check is for sixty thousand dollars. Milo paid this to you as your share of the profits when you made the city buy that swamp land from him down at the Old Basin. Do you know what this means, Mercer?"
For a long moment Mercer was silent, studying the grey-haired captain of detectives. Then he said, very low: "You didn't turn it in to the district attorney, Blaize?"
Blaize laughed bitterly. "What good would that do? You own him body and soul. I've come here with it."
Mercer's thin face lit up. "Ah! Then we can do business? Perhaps—"
Captain Blaize's face flushed a dull red. "Damn you, we can't do that kind of business. You ought to know that I've never taken a nickel's worth of graft I've come here to do a different kind of business. I want you to write your resignation as chairman of the county committee, and as director of public works; I want your son Ned, here, to write his resignation as budget director. And then you can leave the city. Agree to that, and I'll keep this check dark; refuse, and I'll take it to the governor. He's not your man, and he'll appoint a special prosecutor; you'll go to jail as sure as you're standing there—it's grand larceny!"
Mercer's face was inscrutable. He said to his son:
"I guess we're licked, Ned."
Ned said nothing, merely stood by the door, glowering.
Mercer sat down at his desk, shoulders sagging. "You've got me, Blaize." He reached for a pen, opened a drawer.
Captain Blaize took a step forward. "It's nothing personal, Mercer," he said. "But the people of Middlevale have to get a break; and they can't get it while you're sucking the city dry—"
He stopped short, uttered a short exclamation of surprise as Mercer's hand came out of the drawer with a short, ugly automatic.
Mercer's face was still impassive. He said: "It's too bad, Blaize. You're too dangerous to me." And he fired point-blank.
FROM the window a boy's voice screamed:
"Look out, dad!" and choked in a gasp of terror as Captain Blaize staggered backward under the impact of the slug which had caught him between the eyes. A huge gob of blood stained the pink check in his fingers. The blood was deep vermillion in contrast to the light pinkness of the check.
The boy at the window fought with the sash, trying to get it up; shouting frantically, hysterically:
"Dad! Dad... You've—killed my dad!"
His voice broke, he could say no more. Tears welled in his eyes as he started to climb through the window. "I'll kill you—kill you—"
The library door opened, and a girl stood there—a girl of perhaps fifteen, in a trim gingham dress, with dark hair and deep blue eyes that were opened wide in consternation.
"Mr. Mercer!" she exclaimed. "What's happen—"
She broke off with a short little cry of consternation as she caught sight of the body of Captain Blaize on the floor, of the agonized face of the boy climbing in through the window. Her hand went to her throat, and she stood rooted to the spot.
Roger Mercer glanced at his son, cowering near the door, and cursed coldly. "That's Blaize's boy!" he said. "He saw me shoot his father."
Methodically he swung his gun toward the window. The boy was half way in when he fired again, coldly, deliberately.
The slug whined, slapped sickeningly into the side of young Dirk's skull, carried him backward to drop on the lawn outside. There was a long, bloody furrow along the side of his head, and he twisted, moaning.
A big, lumbering, one-armed figure came running across the lawn, and bent beside the boy. "Dirk, lad!" Gunner Swanson whispered. "Did the devil get you, too?"
He folded the lad in his one arm. There was a sob in his voice. "He almost wiped out the whole Blaize family!"
"Daddy!" the boy moaned, and lost consciousness.
Within the room the girl who had appeared in the doorway uttered a cry, stared at the cold, gaunt face of Roger Mercer. "You—murderer!" she exclaimed with loathing.
Roger Mercer grated to his son: "Get her out of here. Take her away through the back entrance. I'm going out and finish up that brat. Then I'll call Preston at headquarters. He'll help me cover up. The story is that someone shot Blaize here through that window, and when the boy came running up, shot him too. There'll be nobody to question it."
He darted around his desk, stooped and snatched the pink check from Captain Blaize's already stiffening fingers, stuffed it into an open safe that stood in the corner, slammed the safe door shut, and twirled the dial. Then he swung toward the window, his face still cold and calculating, his gun ready for another shot.
The girl in the doorway screamed: "No, no! You must be mad! You can't—"
Ned Mercer lunged at her, cut off her words with a hand across her mouth, lifted her bodily and carried her out of the room.
"You know where to take her," Roger Mercer called to Ned over his shoulder. "Keep her there till I talk to her father. He'll make her keep her mouth shut."
He had reached the window, was leaning out, with his gun ready. His eyes found nothing but empty lawn. He cursed fluently. "The brat's got away!" He scrambled out of the window, ran across the lawn, stopped short as the sound of an automobile starter came to his ears, and he saw the dead captain's coupé lurch away from the curb in front of the house, sway wildly, and then roar up the street, lurching from side to side under the guidance of its desperate, one-armed driver.
"Swanson!" he exclaimed. "He's got the kid!" and he turned, raced back to the house. He scrambled in through the window, sprang across the body of Captain Blaize, and snatched up the phone.
"Get me headquarters!" he snapped. And a moment later: "Hello, connect me with Preston... Preston? I want you to send out an alarm. Instruct all cars...." A slow, cruel smile spread over his face as he issued his orders.
temper—to bring to a proper degree of
hardness and toughness. (Metal).
—Webster's New Int. Dict.
GUNNER SWANSON drove wildly, erratically, with his one hand on the wheel. How he had ever managed to carry the unconscious boy across that lawn and into the car, he did not know. It had taken almost impossible acrobatics to work the gear shift at the start, but once he had it in high he kept it there. His lined old face was set grimly, and he stared straight ahead into the night, muttering dreadful imprecations under his breath. He glanced sideways at the inert form of the bloody-headed boy on the seat beside him, and his eyes softened for a moment.
"If I'd only had a gun, Dirk, lad," he whispered. "I'd have paid those two skunks with lead. Dirk, Dirk, lad—" he exclaimed suddenly—"talk to me! God! You ain't, dead, too!"
He let out a deep sigh of relief as his ears caught the sharp, labored breathing of the boy. He swung left, turned into a concrete highway. This was state highway 26, and it would take him into the village of Grattan Lake. He knew a surgeon there who was under obligations to Owen Blaize.
Gunner's shrewd old mind had immediately foreseen the danger of taking the boy to a Middlevale hospital And his instinct was borne out a moment later when the short wave radio in the dashboard came to life:
"Calling all cars! Be on the alert for police coupé driven by Gunner Swanson. He has only one arm. He will have a wounded boy in the car. They are murderers. Shoot first—they are dangerous!"
Gunner kept a sharp lookout for prowl cars. He knew that number 16 patrolled the highway, knew the crew. They would obey their instructions to the letter—would probably open up with the new submachine guns with which they had recently been equipped.
Presently there came into view the lights of the gas station which, Gunner knew, was on the edge of the village. Under the bright incandescent light he could discern two uniformed figures. One was in the road, the other was close to a police radio car that was pulled up in the driveway of the gas station. The figure near the car held a sub-machine gun under one arm.
The officer in the road had apparently heard them coming, and was standing with his hand raised for them to stop. They were probably stopping all cars leaving Middlevale.
Gunner pushed down hard on the foot brake, slowed the coupé up within two hundred feet of the gas station. To his right was a narrow side road that led west off the highway, and Swanson heaved on the wheel with all the might of his single arm, swung the car into the side road, and stepped on the gas.
Behind him he heard the excited shouts of the officers. The unconscious boy at his side was thrown against him by the sudden lurch, but Gunner kept grimly on. He knew this neighborhood, knew this side road, for he had patrolled it many times. It curved southward a little further on, and brought you out behind the village of Grattan Lake. From there he knew a short cut that would bring him to the home of the doctor he sought.
He rounded the bend in the narrow road just as the powerful headlights of the police car swung in behind him. A short burst from the sub-machine gun reverberated through the surrounding woods, but didn't touch the coupé. Gunner kept the car in high, pushed down viciously on the accelerator.
The pursuing car roared around the bend, but Gunner Swanson had already pulled off the road into a small clearing, and jammed on the brake, turned off the lights. The police car raced past, siren going full blast, its searchlight piercing the night ahead.
Gunner Swanson swung out of the coupé, dragged out the inert boy and heaved him to his shoulder, then cut across the road and made his way through the woods, staggering with the weight of his burden, trying to keep the sagging body from falling.
Sweat burst out on his forehead, and he rubbed his face against the boy's bloody jacket. "Oh, God!" he muttered. "If I only had two arms!"
He staggered on, nearly tripping a dozen times, while the night all around him seemed suddenly to have come to life. From near by came the shrill siren of the police car. They had no doubt realized that they had been tricked, and were backtracking.
Now Gunner could hear men calling to each other. Eager citizens must have joined the man-hunt. Men were like that—always ready to hunt their fellow men, thought Gunner.
He pushed on, sweat blinding him, and his mouth twisted grimly as he saw the lights of a house ahead. How he got there he didn't know, but he fell against the rear door heavily, banged weakly with his fist.
"Doc Warner!" he called out. "Doc Warner! Open up!"
His eyes blinked into sudden light as the kitchen door was pulled open, and he gasped:
"The boy. Quick. He's hurt!"
A woman's voice came to him as from far away: "Land sakes! It's Gunner Swanson and Owen Blaize's boy. Henry! Let's get them in—quick!"
Gunner Swanson knew that voice. It was Matilda Warner, Doc Henry Warner's maiden aunt, who kept house for him. Gunner Swanson smiled, let his head drop to the doorsill, and fainted.
HOURS later, Gunner Swanson sat in the living room of Doctor
Warner's home, drinking hot, black coffee from a cup that rested
on the serving table that Matilda Warner had wheeled close to his
chair. He alternately took a sip of the coffee and a puff of the
fat cigar that the doctor had given him. His eyes rested
anxiously upon the closed door to the adjoining examining
room.
Opposite him sat Matilda Warner, on the edge of her chair, hands folded primly in her lap. She was tall and angular, but her features, though sharp and pinched now, gave evidence that she must once have been an attractive girl.
"Land sakes, Gunner!" she exclaimed. "You mean to say that Mercer murdered Owen Blaize in cold blood, and then shot the boy? It's—it sounds impossible!"
Gunner Swanson nodded bitterly. "Yes, that's it—impossible. Where would I or the kid get to in court if we told our story? I didn't even see the shooting—I only guess that's what happened. They'd laugh us out of court!"
He turned his head as the door of the examining room opened, and the tall, imposing figure of Doctor Warner appeared there. He was wearing a white operating robe, rubber gloves, and he was just taking off the white gauze mask that surgeons use.
His keen, intelligent features were set and grim, and his eyes avoided those of Gunner.
Gunner Swanson sprang from his chair, crossed the room in two strides and seized the doctor by the shoulder.
"Tell me quick, doc—how's the boy?"
Doctor Warner sighed deeply, and still avoided the other's gaze.
"He'll live, all right, Swanson—"
Gunner shook him. "But what? What's the matter?"
Doctor Warner turned back into the examining room. "Come in. But be ready for a shock, Swanson."
Gunner Swanson glanced back at Matilda, then slowly, hesitantly, his throat working spasmodically, he followed the doctor into the room.
On the examining table lay Dirk Blaize, breathing faintly. His eyes were open, and he turned his head weakly toward Gunner. The old man looked at the boy, cried:
"God, doc! His hair's white!"
The boy's head was bandaged, and through the bandage showed hair that had once been coal black, but was now snow-white.
Warner nodded. "The shock, Swanson. But—that isn't all."
Gunner said dumbly: "Not all?" He stepped closer, looked into the boy's eyes, then exclaimed huskily: "God! He's— blind!"
Dirk stirred feebly on the narrow table, said: "I can't see, Gunner. But doc says I'll be able to—some day." His youthful, thin, pain-wracked face suddenly seemed old, purposeful. "And I'm going back—to—see—the Mercers!"
Gunner took an involuntary step backward, covered his own eyes with his hand. "He's—blind!" he mumbled.
Doctor Warner's soothing voice told him: "The bullet scoured the visual section of his brain, paralyzing the optic nerve. It is not permanent, though. He will regain his sight."
"How long, doc?" the boy's hoarse voice asked.
Warner started to talk, almost choked. He gulped, then managed to say: "I can't be sure, son. Perhaps a week, perhaps a year, perhaps—more. I've seen such a condition to last for as much as ten years."
Gunner Swanson muttered: "Ten years!"
Dirk Blaize forced a smile, reached out and clasped the old man's hand. "It's all right, Gunner. As long as you stick by me—I can wait."
Suddenly Gunner Swanson, the ex-cop, the man who had borne stoically the loss of his arm, was sobbing—sobbing loudly, fitfully. "S-sure, lad. I'll stick by you. I'll—stick."
Doctor Warner said in kindly tone: "Fix up a room for them, Matilda. They're going to stay here." Then to Gunner: "You can't show yourselves. The Mercers have issued a statement—I got it on the radio—that you and the boy came up to the window and that the boy fired at Mercer but hit his own father. They claim that the three of you planned to kill Mercer and that the plan only failed because Owen Blaize stepped into the line of fire at the last moment. Then they claim that Mercer got his own gun and shot Dirk through the window, and you helped him escape, Gunner. They've got every available man on the force hunting for you, and you can be sure that you won't be brought in alive."
Gunner exclaimed: "They've made out that the boy killed his own father! They can't get away with it. We'll go to the governor. Let Dirk tell his story! They—"
Young Dirk Blaize himself put out a hand, gripped Gunner's sleeve. "We couldn't do it, Gunner. Mercer is too powerful. He's already got a couple of witnesses to bear him out—where he got them from, God knows." The boy's sensitive face, with the unseeing eyes seemed to harden as they watched him. "That girl," he went on. "I wonder what Mercer's done to her. She saw him shoot. When we're ready, we'll find her. She'll never swear falsely!"
Matilda Warner came forward, put an arm around him.
"Don't think about that now, Dirk dear. I'll give you something hot to drink, and you can go to sleep. Come—" to Warner and Gunner—"carry him upstairs."
The boy gently pushed her away, swung his feet off the table. "I can walk all right, Miss Warner."
Gunner said: "What'll we do—stay here forever?"
"Of course," Doctor Warner said. "I owe more than I can tell you to Owen Blaize, and I'm going to pay it back to his son. I'll make him see—I tell you, I'll make him see again!" The depth of intensity in the doctor's eyes gave Gunner Swanson renewed confidence.
"I hope to heaven you can, doc," he said under his breath.
Young, white-haired Dirk Blaize heard him. "He will," the boy said confidently. "And meanwhile, Gunner, you're going to teach me to shoot. They shot dad, and they shot me. I'll give them the same."
"To shoot?" Gunner Swanson repeated dully.
"Yes, Gunner. You used to be a marksman. You're going to teach me all you know about shooting. We'll practice in Doc Warner's cellar—where it's dark. I'll learn to shoot at sounds instead of at things. And when I go back to settle with the Mercers—I won't miss!"
anneal—to subject to high heat, with
subsequent
cooling, for the purpose of... rendering less brittle.
Webster's New Int. Dict.
A TALL, slim young man descended from the train at Union Station in Middlevale, and made his way to the street. He had no baggage. He walked with a certain poised quietness that might itself have attracted attention in one so young, were it not for the still greater thing of interest about him—his hair, which showed under the soft gray hat, was pure white.
Casual observers turned and stared, murmuring to each other. He was no more than twenty or twenty-one, and the phenomenon was unusual enough to cause comment.
What those casual observers did not notice, however, was the peculiar way in which the young man acted. He would stare about him as he walked, his eyes filled with reminiscent interest. And then, suddenly, every few feet, he would shut his eyes and walk blindly—not gropingly, but as if he knew exactly where each step would take him.
He crossed South Market Street diagonally, strolled with a seeming air of casualness down New Bond Street, where the City Hall Building was located. Here though it was well on into the evening, there were dozens of men, white and colored, with small boxes, soliciting the privilege of shining the shoes of passers-by for five cents.
One of these apparently destitute individuals was a man with one arm, whose face was smeared with grime and even shoe-blacking, so that his features were unrecognizable.
The young man seemed to think that he ought to patronize the one-armed shoe-shiner, for he stopped, leaned against the wide stone railing that ran the length of the street, and placed his shoe upon the little metal foot-rest on the box.
The unkempt, one-armed man said: "Yes, sir. I'll shine 'em up for you," and proceeded to do as good a job as his physical handicap would permit.
As he was applying polish to the leather, his lips moved, and he spoke so that only his patron could hear him.
"I'm glad you got here, Dirk, lad. I'll have to give this spot up tomorrow. I think one of the city dicks has me spotted. You sure no one recognized you?"
"No, Gunner. It's six years, and I was only a kid then. I'm changed. My hair—"
"Well, don't take too many chances. You want to be sure—"
"Never mind that, Gunner. I came here to take chances. What about that girl? Have you located her?"
"I have. And it's bad news, Dirk, lad. She's Mrs. Ned Mercer now."
Dirk Blaize's lips tightened. "It can't be, Gunner. I remember that face of hers, staring in horror at Mercer. She could never have married Ned Mercer after seeing them kill dad—"
"She did, Dirk." Gunner Swanson finished one shoe, and Dirk raised the other. "Her name was Patricia Lane. She's the daughter of George Lane, the manager of the Mercer State Bank. Lane has worked for Mercer all his life, and he shivers when the old man looks at him. How she came to be there that night I don't know. But she's married to Ned Mercer now. They live in that same house where—where your dad was—killed."
He finished the second shoe, and Dirk handed him a dime. "I'm going out there, Gunner. I've got to make her talk somehow. She's the only one who can clear us."
"Ned Mercer won't be home," Gunner told him. "There's a political rally at the Stadium tonight. Roger Mercer is running for mayor of Middlevale."
"All right, Gunner. Wait for me here." Dirk Blaize left him, bought a paper from the old woman at the newsstand close to the curb, and hailed a taxi.
When he left the cab in front of the Mercers' home, he surveyed the house moodily. There was the same lawn that he had crossed six years ago, the same window with the light in it—only now the blind was drawn and the window closed.
For a moment a red wave passed before his eyes, and he had a burning desire to get his hands on the throat of the man who had shot his father.
He mastered himself, forced himself to walk up to the door and ring the bell, just as his father had done, six years ago.
In a moment the door was opened, and the girl stood before him, a sort of half-frightened look in her eyes.
IT was the same girl. Older, taller, but the same, gleaming
dark hair and the same wide blue eyes. Only now there was a
furtive fear in them. The diamond wedding band on her finger
shone in the glow from the hall light.
Dirk said, keying his voice low: "Mrs. Mercer?"
She looked puzzled, said: "Yes. You want to see me?"
"Don't you remember me?" he asked quietly.
Her eyes met his, and she gazed at him for a long minute. And suddenly the color fled from her face, leaving it white, ashen. Her lips parted slightly, trembling.
"Come in," she said huskily.
Dirk Blaize stepped in, and she shut the door. He thought bitterly that it was just as it had been that other time, when his father had called—the servants were gone for the evening, probably. Then it had been by design; this time, perhaps, by accident. It suited his purpose.
The girl led the way into the sitting room, with one hand pressing against the wall of the foyer, as if for support.
The room was just as Dirk Blaize remembered it six years ago—the image of it seemed to be graven on the retinae of his eyes. There was the big desk behind which Mercer had sat. There was the window. Another door, behind the desk, led into another part of the house. It was slightly ajar now.
Dirk deliberately went and planted himself in the spot before the desk where his father had fallen, looked down at the floor, then up at the girl who was staring at him as if he were a ghost.
He said bitterly: "There's a new rug on the floor. The other one must have been ruined. It's hard to wash out— blood."
She put her hands to her face, cried: "Please! Please don't talk like that. If you only knew how I've stayed awake night after night since then, because I was afraid to go to sleep and dream—" she raised her head, stared at him— "dream about your father lying there on the floor; and of you—I keep seeing your face, the way you tried to get in the window—"
"And yet you married Ned Mercer!" he broke in harshly. "If you felt like that, why didn't you speak up? Why didn't you tell the world that I didn't kill my own father—that Mercer shot him in cold blood?"
"I couldn't. I couldn't. I was—afraid."
"Afraid? Afraid of what? Were you so afraid that you married the son of the man whom you knew to be a murderer?"
Dirk didn't know why he talked to her so bitterly. He himself, and Gunner Swanson, had been forced to hide. Why should this girl have braved the power and influence of the Mercers to save some one she didn't know? He suddenly realized that it was disappointment. He had carried a memory of her fresh young face, of the deep blue eyes and the raven hair; and to find that she had done the last thing in the world he could imagine her doing, was too much to swallow.
But he went on, cruelly: "Did they frighten you into marrying Ned Mercer? Do you want me to believe that?"
The girl's lashes lowered over her eyes. She seemed to be wishing to hide some thought from him.
Dirk Blaize took his own eyes from her, glanced at the door behind the desk. His hand went to his left armpit where he carried the .32 pistol that Gunner Swanson had given him. He said coldly: "There's some one behind that door. I can hear him breathing. Tell him to come out, or I'll riddle the door."
If one return good for evil, what, then, is to be the return
for good?
Rather should you return justice for injustice, and
good for good.
—From the Books of Kung-fu-tse.
FOR a tense moment there was no sound in the room. Then the girl cried:
"No, no. You're mistaken. There's nobody there!"
Dirk smiled thinly. "My ears are never wrong. I spent six years in the dark. I learned to shoot a quarter out of the air just from the whir of its turning—so you see, my ears must be very good. Tell him to come out. And tell him not to try to steal away; I will be able to hear his footsteps, no matter how quietly he moves. I give him one minute!"
Dirk's gun was out now, his eyes slitted, watching the opening.
The girl said hoarsely: "Don't shoot!" Then, in a beaten voice: "Come out, father."
Dirk started, glanced at her. "Father!"
He watched the small, frightened man who emerged from behind the door. The man's hands were shaking. His eyes darted from the girl to Dirk, and he stood shuffling behind the desk like a snared animal. He had mouse-colored hair and mustache. He stammered:
"I—I'm not armed. D-don't shoot."
The girl said dully: "This is my father, George Lane. He is the manager of the Mercer State Bank. Father, this is Dirk Blaize—the boy I've told you about."
Dirk asked, puzzled: "But why hide? You didn't know I was coming. You had no reason to be afraid of me."
Lane lowered his eyes. "We—we thought it was—someone else. They wouldn't have liked to find me here."
"You mean the Mercers?" Dirk asked, still uncomprehending.
The girl broke in, talking fast, as if she wanted to get it over with. "Yes, the Mercers! My husband and my father-in-law! We were trying to open the safe!"
She gestured toward the compact little safe that stood in the corner. "I was trying to rob my own home!"
Dirk put away his gun. "Why?" he demanded, studying the girl. He asked the question as if it was his right to know.
And the girl, with a single glance at her father, told him, letting the words tumble out as if she were afraid she had no time.
"There's a paper in that safe. I brought it here the night your—the night you were shot. That's why I was here. Father sent me with it. It's a confession, signed by father. In that paper he admits—embezzling thirty thousand dollars from the Mercedes State Bank. They've held it over our heads for six years, though father has paid them back every penny of it since then. They—they made me keep quiet about—about the shooting, and they made me marry Ned. That's—that's why I'm Mrs. Mercer now!"
Her lower lip was trembling as she finished the sudden, brutal statement. Silent sobs wracked her body, but no tears came to her eyes. She let her hands drop to her sides and looked at Dirk as if awaiting his judgment.
"I see," said Dirk softly.
The little man came around the desk, took the girl in his arms. "You've done enough for me, Patsy," he said huskily. "I won't let you go on. You shall demand a divorce from Ned. I'll take my medicine."
Dirk glanced at the safe. "You say the confession is in there? Why don't you get it out?"
"Because they've changed the combination. I only discovered what it was yesterday, but my father-in-law must have suspected something. The safe won't open." There was despair, hopelessness in her voice.
Dirk said quietly: "I can open it."
George Lane took an eager step forward. "How?"
Dirk smiled grimly. "My hearing is acute. I can hear the tumblers drop."
WHILE father and daughter stared at him in wondering hope, he
crossed the room, knelt before the safe. His long fingers twirled
the dial slowly. His eyes closed, he listened for the little
clicks that marked the fall of the tumblers. His ears,
trained through six years of blindness, caught the sounds, and he
manipulated the dial. It was less than three minutes before the
door of the safe swung open. Dirk Blaize sighed, opened his eyes
and stood up.
"You can get your paper," he said.
George Lane darted to the safe, began pawing feverishly through the compartments. He strewed papers over the floor, discarding one after the other as it proved not to be what he sought. Among the discards, Dirk saw a pink check. It was lying face down on the floor, and the scrawling signature of Roger Mercer stared up from it.
And Dirk pounced on the paper, snatched it up and turned it over. There, across the date line, was the faded bloodstain. He saw the girl looking at it, asked her:
"Do you remember this?" His voice was choked, tight.
She nodded, wordlessly.
He bent his eyes to it once more. "This must be why they killed—dad. It's a check from Joe Milo to Mercer, and it has Mercer's endorsement! It only needs the testimony of an eye-witness to corroborate it. It supplies the motive for their murdering dad!"
George Lane was still pulling papers from the safe. The girl said:
"I'll testify—whether father finds his confession in there or not—I'll testify."
"Even though Ned Mercer is your husband?" Dirk asked her.
She shuddered. "Even though Ned Mercer is my husband," she repeated.
She turned as her father uttered a cry of glee, sprang to his feet with a long document which he held in a shaking hand.
"Here it is!" he cried. "Here it is!" He hastily read through the long sheet, then tore it swiftly into shreds, pocketed the bits. When he was done he raised his head, and his shoulders seemed to straighten.
Dirk Blaize raised a hand. "Wait! There's a car pulling up outside." He closed his eyes, cocked his head and listened. "Four men have come in it. They are walking up the path to the door!"
George Lane exclaimed: "It must be Roger and Ned coming back from the rally with some friends. What'll we do?"
Dirk Blaize raised the pink, bloodstained check. "I want to see them," he said, tight-lipped. "The same as my father saw them—with this check in his hand!"
He turned, facing the door. The girl and her father watched him, suddenly breathless at sight of the thing that shone in his eyes.
The outer door opened, steps sounded, and the voice of Roger Mercer from the foyer: "Bring him in here, Preston. I want to ask him some private questions before you take him to headquarters."
The door of the living room opened, and Roger Mercer stepped in. Behind him were other figures, and Dirk Blaize's eyes narrowed as he saw a uniformed officer, and, handcuffed to the officer by his one arm—the bedraggled figure of Gunner Swanson!
MERCER stopped short just within the doorway, staring at Dirk
and the others, looking down at the open safe and the litter of
papers strewn about the floor. His heavy face twitched
convulsively, and his hand went into his coat pocket.
The others crowded in behind him, and Dirk saw that the fourth man was Ned Mercer.
Roger Mercer's face twisted into a saturnine smile. "So you're Blaize's brat! Robbing my safe, eh?"
Dirk's eyes were fastened to those of Mercer, steadily, unblinking.
"Yes," he said tonelessly. "Robbing your safe. And I found—this!" He held up the blood-stained check. "You killed my father for this, Mercer; to save yourself from going to jail. You should have destroyed it!"
Mercer's hand came out of his pocket with a gun.
"Turn around, Blaize!" he rapped. "And raise your hands."
Dirk was smiling thinly as he obeyed. He saw Patricia Lane and her father standing in the corner, the girl wide-eyed with fear.
"I think we can take care of you, Lane," Roger Mercer drawled. "I would guess that you've got that confession of yours out of the safe; but we can arrange a charge against you. Ned, would you be sorry to see your father-in-law go to jail—or die?"
Ned Mercer snickered. "Anything you do is okay by me, pop."
"All right, then," Roger Mercer went on, "We caught Blaize, here, robbing the safe. We had a gunfight, and Lane was shot. Think we can work it, Preston?"
The uniformed officer growled: "Sure we can. We'll plant a gun on Blaize. We've got away with murder before."
Dirk Blaize had listened, with his back to the others. In his left hand he held the check. His right was at his side. Mercer said to him: "Raise your hands, Blaize. Ned, fan him. Get his gun."
Ned Mercer said: "Okay, pop," and started toward Dirk.
And Dirk Blaize closed his eyes, raised his right hand slowly in front of him. It was hidden from the others, but visible to Patricia and her father. They saw the swift motion with which he drew the pistol from the shoulder holster, and Patricia's eyes widened. She knew he couldn't turn around and fire without being shot himself.
But Dirk Blaize didn't turn around. Still with his eyes closed he asked:
"Ned Mercer, where are you?"
Ned Mercer laughed. "Right behind you, Blaize, with a gun pointed at your back—"
His voice ended with the crack of his gun, Dirk had side-stepped and fired. The report of Ned Mercer's gun was drowned by the sharp stacatto bark of Dirk Blaize's pistol. Dirk had fired over his shoulder, at the sound of Mercer's voice; and the slug caught Ned Mercer in the mouth.
Dirk whirled as Mercer's body hit the floor, and fired once more at Preston, who had yanked out his heavy service revolver. Preston was thrown backward, carrying Gunner Swanson with him by the handcuffs. The revolver clattered to the floor from Preston's lifeless hand, and he sank down, dragging Gunner down with him.
Dirk Blaize heard the snick of a safety catch at his left, saw that Roger Mercer had a revolver, was pointing it at him. Mercer's teeth were bared in a snarl. In a moment he would squeeze down on the trigger.
But he never did. Dirk Blaize shot from the hip. The room was filled with the reverberating roar of the explosion, and the heavy slug tore through Roger Mercer's head—directly between the eyes.
His eyes glazed, and the gun dropped from his hand as he crashed to the floor.
Dirk Blaize crossed the powder-filled room, stooped beside Preston's body, and went through the pockets until he found the handcuff key. He released Gunner Swanson, patted him on the back.
"It's over, Gunner," he said huskily. "I gave it to him between the eyes—the way he gave it to dad!"
"I knew you would, Dirk, lad," Gunner told him. "I knew you would."
Dirk turned to the girl and her father, who were still in the corner of the room, staring at the dead bodies. The girl, Dirk could see, was close to hysteria.
"You're free now," he said quietly. "No one has a hold over you. With your husband and your father-in-law dead, the backbone of the political ring in Middlevale is broken. You will have no reprisals to fear. Will you testify to what you saw here—that night?"
She swayed, leaned against her father. "Of course," she said very low. "Of course I will. I'll do anything you ask."
Dirk said: "If you testify—that will be enough," and turned to the one-armed man who was watching him with solicitude.
"You and I, Gunner," he said softly, "are going to stick together—for a long time!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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