Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/41

 that he had hastily seized and held upraised and ready to strike. “Who are you?”

“Tomaso, signor. Your gondolier, Tomaso. May I come in now without being smashed with that chair I think you are holding?”

Astonished at the old gondolier's night vision Jimmy laughed, dropped the chair and swung the door open. He could hear Tomaso panting heavily in the darkness and then, “Have you a light, signor?”

“Yes,” Jimmy said. “Just a moment. But I've no match.” He felt two or three thrust into his fingers, struck one, crossed the room, found the lamp and with it in his hand turned and stared at Tomaso.

“Good Lord! You're hurt!” Jimmy exclaimed. “What's all that blood on your face?”

“I don't think it amounts to much, signor. Knife thrust in the dark. Fought it off with my arm. Grazed my head.”

“You look as if you'd been half scalped, instead of grazed,” Jimmy remarked solicitously. 'Come over here and let me have a look at it.”

“The signor capitano had perhaps better have a look at the other fellow first. He may need attention more than I,” Tomaso remarked, stepping back and looking downward. Jimmy advanced, bent over with the light, and discovered the man with earrings, his chief abductor, lying doubled up in a grotesque attitude, with clothing as badly rent and torn as Tomaso's, while some disheveled blankets on the floor proved that he must have been either asleep or lying down on guard when Tomaso attacked him.

“How did you do it to him?” Jimmy asked.

“Why, when he tried to knife me I got him by the ears and banged his head against the wall. I don't think he's dead. His skull ought to be too thick for that. I think I know who he is. He's mostly a loafer and not much good, so it won't matter much if he is dead.”

Jimmy dragged the man with the earrings inside, came to the conclusion that he was merely knocked out, so tied his hands with the handkerchief from around his neck and then examined his henchman's wound. He assisted Tomaso to cleanse it in the wash basin in the room, and bound it up with a towel, turbanwise.

“Ah, that's better. A million thanks, signor. You are a good man and kind master. I feel all right now. So, if you'll wait here, I'll bring in the other one from far down the hall. I left him there when I came to this one,” and he indicated the bound brigand with a careless kick in the ribs.

“I'll bring the light. You seem to have had rather a merry party of it, Tomaso. Good old sport! I'll come along with the light.”

“No, you remain here and watch this one, signor. I don't need the light. I can manage alone.”

He disappeared, Jimmy heard his bare feet slapping down the hallway, then after a time heard them returning. He came through the door carrying a man so bound with ropes and so wrapped with a gagging cloth that he appeared helpless to do more than give an occasional soundless wriggle. Tomaso carried his burden over to the bed, dumped it casually thereon and then said, “If the signor will hold the light so I can see to cut away this gag, our friend may feel better.”

Jimmy promptly obeyed. Tomaso slipped a knife from its sheath and said to his victim, “Best lay still or I might make a mistake and slice off an ear or two.” He gave a quick slash, and the lamp almost fell from Jimmy's hand as he recognized Pietro.

“Good heavens! What's this? You've made a mistake, Tomaso.”

“Not I, signor,” the old gondolier declared.

“Where did you get him?” Jimmy demanded. “Out of another room in this crib?”

“Not at all. I nailed him when he was on his way to his hotel—down near the landing of the rio.”

“But—but Pietro is my friend!” Jimmy insisted. “Cut those ropes and let me help him limber up.”

“You'll most likely help him to limber up with your fists, or your boots, after I tell you how I happened to get him,” Tomaso asserted. “Suppose, my master, you don't liberate him until I've explained.”

He was so certainly in earnest that Jimmy hesitated and looked at Pietro. That young gentleman shut his mouth tightly, as if refusing to speak, and turned his head away.

“Pietro, haven't you anything to say?” Jimmy asked, bending over the poetical guide.

“You know I haven't,” Pietro snapped.