The Room Under the Stairs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 865, 8 January 1930, Page 5

The Room Under the Stairs

The Baffling Story of a Man Who Read of His Own Murder.

By

Herman Landon

Copyright by O. Howard Watt. Serialised by Ledger Syndicate.

CHAPTER XXVII. — (Continued) “Tell me, Lee!” he exclaimed. “When this man tried to terrify you—this man who always appeared in the dark—do you happen to know whether the telephone receiver was off the hook eacn time ?” She started sharply at the question. ■'How was I to know? I couldn’t tell in the dark. But it’s strange—very. This man—this monster —was always dragging me toward the telephone. I wondered at it, but it never occurred to me till now that ” She paused, a ghastly glow of comprehension sweeping over her face. “Tommie, I believe you are thinking exactly what I am thinking!” They stared at each other for a moment, then Dean’s eyes became fixed on the opposite wall. An optical message flashed between them, and then he dropped to the floor, rolled over a few times, flung out an arm, let his head droop to one side and lay rigid. A moment later approaching footfalls told him that Littleby had entered the room. THE TEMPTER’S SNARE As if startled by the sudden intrusion, the girl sprang aside with a little cry. “Don’t be alarmed,” said Littleby, beaming on her. “These mysterious entrances and exits are a hobby of mine. Sit down there, my dear, with your back to —that.” He cast a brief glance at the still, crumpled form at the other side of the room. “You have had a trying time. Can you compose yourself for a few minutes? I have something to tell you.” Silently, with an air of strong aversion, she sat down, avoiding Littleby’s soothing gaze. “I am sure you have regretted the hasty words you spoke at our last meeting,” murmured the lawyer. “I didn't take offence, knowing you would soon realise how- unjust you had been. Just a case of hysterics—that was all. I quite understand.” “You didn't understand at all,” Miss Lamont corrected him. “And you needn't make apologies for me. I meant every word I said, and I mean it now. The only difference is that in the meantime you have added still another murder to jour record.” The lawyer’s brows went up. “My dear child, you are raving. You surely don’t mean to insinuate that 1 aih in any way responsible for what this unfortunate young man has done.” “I heard every word you told him over the telephone. He killed himself to save me.” Littleby smiled indulgently. “1 wonder if you realise how that would sound if you were to repeat it. to a third, unprejudiced person. How would a hard-headed police official take it, for instance? Or a judge or a jury? And where is your proof? You have none —not a scrap of proof. People would merely construe your statements as the hallucinations of a young woman whose mind has been unbalanced. They might go further even and make certain embarrassing inquiries. The average person is always ready to suspect the worst. You would be asked

to explain how it came about that j-ou were found alone in a room with the body of a young man beside you. The harder you tried to clear yourself, the deeper you would sink. There would be all sorts of nasty insinuations from the Press, from the police, from the man in the street. Just think how it would look.” With a shudder of loathing, the girl edged farther back in the chair. “Scandal, my dear, is a nasty thing,” remarked Littleby, sententiouslj’. “Once it touches you, you are contaminated for life. You are still very young, and it would hurt me deeply to see your future ruined, all the more so since you are the daughter of a man who was my best friend. Take my advice and be sensible.” “What do you advise?” asked the

girl in a tone indicating that the lawyer’s black prognostications had taken effect. “You are going to be reasonable? That’s splendid.” Littleby beamed on her approvingly. “I would advise, in the first place, that you abandon all plans of returning to Wichita to teach school. Wichita is a dull place, and school teaching a trying profession. There are so many interesting things one can do at your age. All you have to do is to say the word, and life in all its glamour lies open before you. You may travel, have a private ! yacht, a palace on Fifth Avenue, and old chateau in one of those romantic spots along the Riviera. I can make j'ou rich. Anything you wish is within your reach. Isn't that better than Wichita and a stuffy classroom?” “It sounds very attractive,” admitted Miss Lamont in a tone which might have meant that she was vacii lating a trifle. “What else do you advise?” “My next suggestion has to do with the immediate present:. Something must be done to avert a scandal. We mustn’t give evil-minded people a chance to construe things their own sordid way. Two courses are open to

you. If you adopt the first, you will tell what in your present hysterical condition you believe to be the truth. If you do, j-ou will be laughed at —or worse. If j-ou choose the second course, you will gloss over certain unpleasant details, interpreting them so that j'ou will not be placed in a compromising position. You understand, my dear?” “I think I do.” Littleby raised his brows for an instant, as if vaguely suspicious of a double meaning, but the guileless expression of her pale face reassured him. “Splendid!” he ejaculated. “You will choose the second course, naturally. As a matter of fact, I anticipated your choice, and I am prepared to make certain suggestions in regard to the explanations you will make. I have put them in the form of a statement which you may sign if you approve of it. Would you care to glance it over?” She extended her hand and Littleby drew a folded paper from an inside pocket. He watched her with a faint smile of satisfaction as she read. 1 He permitted himself a sigh of relief, as if already approaching the happy conclusion of a task which he had approached with misgivings. With a little frown and a shake of her head, Miss Lamont looked up from the paper. "But this is all a pack of lies,” she objected. “A lie, my dear, is nothing but the bright side of truth. Why tell things that people will either doubt or sneer at, when it is so easy to present the situation in a plausible and agreeable form?” Miss Lamont appeared to consider. “But what about him?” she asked, inclining her head in the direction where Dean lay. “How are you going to explain—that?” “Oh, no explanation is necessary there. Dean will simply disappear. The secret of this room is almost as safe as the secret of that little room under the stairs in the house on Hudson Street. It isn’t likely that any one except myself will set foot within this room for years. Moreover, a steady current of arselene for live or six hours will remove every trace. Great thing, arselene! It has so many different uses. Well, my dear?” A shiver shook the girl; then she drew herself erect. Her eyes, with a flame in their depths, looked steadily into his. She tore the paper into bits. “Thank you for making everything so clear, Mr. Littleby,” she said in a tone of withering scorn. “I wouldn’t have listened to you for a moment, but I wished to see how far you would go. I understand. You spared my life only because you thought I could be persuaded to tell a few convenient lies. I was more useful to you alive than dead. Otherwise you would have murdered me with no moi a scruple than you murdered the others.” The lawj’er gave her a blank look, as if her sudden change of front had been too abrupt for his mind to follow. Then a sultry flash came into his ej-es; his lips curled unpleasantly. “Oh, just as you prefer,” he said indifferently. “I was hoping extreme measures wouldn't be necessary. I

see I was wrong. I shall leave you now, but —” With a shrug he turned and walked away from her, then flung Pack over his shoulder: “As I remarked a moment ago, arselene in a great thing. You will soon discover ” The words ended in a gasp. Sounds of a hurried movement had come from the other side of the room. Littleby, turning suddenly, stood as if transformed into a pillar. His mouth sagged, his eyes protruded, his face turned ashen. “Not yet, Littleby!” cried Dean, leaping forward. CHAPTER XXVIII. BACK TO LIFE For a moment longer Littleby stood as rigid as if all his faculties had suddenly congealed into a lump. Then his hand whipped out, clutching an object that gleamed with a steely flash in the light. The girl gave a tremulous, warning cry. Two cracks came in such quick succession they sounded like one, followed by a splintering sound; then the room went dark. Dean ducked just in time to hear a bullet whistle in murderous glee above his head. Then he rushed forward again, straight toward the spot where he had seen Littleby just before the second -bullet obliterated the light. The lawyer was moving toward the wall, doubtless making for one of his mysterious exits. Dean floundered in the dark, conscious only of a burning rage and a fixed determination that the lawyer should not escape. A gentle draft fanned his hot face, signifying that an opening had appeared somewhere. He sprang directly into its path, collided with a fleeing form, felt a random blow scraping his cheek, and clutched a flying coat tail. “This way, Lee!” he shouted hoarsely. “I’ve got him!” No answer came, but he thought nothing of it. Just then a vigorous jerk at the coat tail sent, him bounding forward, lurching wildly against the sides of a narrow opening. A grim, vindictive fury was burning in his veins, a savage determination to inflict primitive justice on Lee’s tormentor. The lawyer twisted and squirmed while he ran, struggling with all the strength and agility of a man in despair to free himself of the pursuer’s dogged grip. They were out in the hall now, and a short distance ahead a dim light told the direction of the stairs. Dean hung on with an exultant ferocity, all his sensibilities submerged in a single purpose, and it seemed a little odd that such an all-important purpose was to be attained through his grip on a prosaic thing like a coat tail. Then, in a twinkling, the coat tail was gone. At the turn in the hall, Littleby made an unexpected plunge to the side, and Dean’s head crashed dizzyingly into a post. For a moment he stood dazed, seeing the attainment of his flaming purpose slipping away from him, but the sounds of the lawyer’s tumbling progress down the stairs revived the zest of the hunter, in a moment he was following, reaching the lower hail just in time to see his quarry dash through a door.

In a few seconds Dean, too, was at the door. To his surprise it opened easily'; he had expected that the lawj'er would shoot the bolt on the inside and utilise the delay thus gained by attempting an escape through the window. He rushed inside, stared in a dim light at the four massive walls surrounding him, but the lawyer was not there. His darting eyes fixed on an inner door, then he hurried forward. He was half-way across the room when the door came open and Littleby stepped through. He was smiling—a thin, malignant smile that seemed to spread a glow of triumphant venom over his face.

“Too late, Dean,” he murmured softly. “I win.” Dean heard nothing; neither did he see the transfiguring glow of malicious satisfaction in the lawyer’s face. He could feel nothing but a tingling, pulse-quickening ecstasy in the thought that at last he stood face to face, on a footing of equality, with the monster who, to gain as yet inscrutable ends, had terrorised Shirley Lamont. His fingers itched with a strange and savage craving that he had never known before, enrapturing his senses and blinding him to the pistol that gleamed menacingly in the lawyer’s hand. He leaped forward his fist described a lightning curve, and the pistol halted in its quick upward movement and fell to the floor. A blow on the jaw silenced the lawyer's outcry and sent him whirling to the floor. In a moment Dean was upon him, all his explosive frenzy gathering for a fresh blow. But the blow did not land. A glance into the lawyer’s fear-stricken face, : and of a sudden the brutish, exultant strain left him. His muscles grew limp; in a twinkling his fierce vindictiveness changed into an innocuous sense of contempt. Littleby, with ashen face twitching in a spasm of fear, seemed so feeble that Dean experienced an instant revulsion. He got up, cheated of his vengeance by a palsied old face.

“Stop that whining,” he said disgustedly. “I wish to heaven you were 20 years younger!” CHECKMATED Littleby, at first uncomprehending, struggled to his feet. He cast a designing eye at the pistol, but Dean kicked it under the bed. A sullen, maliciously calculating look transplanted the terror in the lawyer's face. “It’s just as well you changed your mind,” he muttered, a silken venom in 'his tones. “Rather fond of Miss Lamont, aren't you. Dean?” “Shut up!” said Dean hotly, "or I may forget that you are only a weakling.” “How impetuous we are!” The lawyer, still breathing hard, was rapidly > recovering his composure. “Miss Lamont is a very charming

young lady, and you are still young enough to be impressionable. The intimacy of common peril makes excellent soil for romance to sprout in. The young lady has suffered a grievous loss, but that only makes her mere susceptible to the appealing qualities of any one who is ready to offer her sympathy. I’ll wager, Dean, that you made the most of your opportunity. Mow, don't get into a ‘huff, please, a id don't look at me as if you were ready to tear me to pieces. Where do you suppose Miss Lamont is now?” Dean started. The loathing died out of his face, giving way to an expression of stark bewilderment. Of a sudden he threw the door open and looked out. In the dusk and silence j that reigned everywhere there was :io sign of Shirley Lamont. I (To be Continued Tomorrow.)