Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/80

Rh night without, and the glimmer of a dark face at the curb.

"Here you are, sir," Quarrier heard the voice, with, he was certain, a mocking quality in the quasi-deferential cadence. But he could see merely the face, behind it a black well of darkness, velvet black, save for the dim loom of a lofty building just across.

Quarrier did not know how many there might be, lurking there in the blackness, nor did he greatly care. The locked door; the face of the man at the wheel; the unfamiliar street—shanghaied by a land pirate, at the very least! There could be no doubt of it.

But it was no time for hesitation. If he were in the wrong, and it was all a mistake—well, he could afford to pay. But—the face of Marston arose before him, suave, sinister, smilling. What was it the man had said, on the occasion of their last meeting at the Intervals offices:

"Possession, my dear Quarrier—possession is ten points of the lawless. Remember that!"

Quarrier remembered, and with the remembrance came a swift, sudden anger. But it was an anger that was controlled, as a flame is controlled—though it was none the less deadly.

"Here you are, sir," repeated the voice, and now there was in it a something more than mockery. There was an edge, a rasp; almost it sounded like a command, an order.

Quarrier grinned then—a mere facial contraction of the lips. Then, muscle and mind and body, in one furious projectile, he launched himself outward through the doorway in a diving tackle.

The white face with its sneering grin was blotted out; there came the spank of a clean-cut blow; a turgid oath. Quarrier, rising from his knees, surveyed the limp figure on the cobbles with a twisted smile; then he turned, peering under his hand down a long tunnel of gloom, where, at the far end, a light showed, like a will-o-the-wisp beckoning him on.

He could not tell where he was. Somewhere in the Forties, he judged—Hell's Kitchen, probably—although there was a curious lack of the life and movement boiling to full tide in that grim neighborhood of battle, murder, and sudden death.

But as his eyes became accustomed to the stifling dark he found the reason. It was a street of warehouses, public stores; and further on, as he looked, like a ribbon of pale flame against the violet sky, he saw the river.

He bent his steps away from it, walking carefully, picking his way on the uneven flagging. Twice, as he went forward, it seemed to him that he was watched—that eyes gazed at him out of the blackness; and twice he turned his head, swiftly to face the silence and the emptiness of the long, lonely way.

And it seemed, too, that as he went, the whispering echo of his hasty steps went on before him, and behind; he fell to counting them—and suddenly he knew. They were before him—and behind. He was in a trap.

There came a leaping, thunderous rush at his back, and a voice, screaming between the high walls:

"There he is! Now—go get 'im!"

And it was then that Quarrier, reaching for his pistol, discovered that it was gone; lost, doubtless, in that encounter with the taxi-driver. But he braced, spreading his arms wide as a grizzly meets the onslaught of wolves. But the wolves were many, and they came on now, a ravening pack; one, before the rest, looming as a black blot against the starshine, lunged forward with a growling oath.

The rest were yet some little distance away. Quarrier saw the man, or, rather, he sensed the nearness of that leaning shadow, spread-eagled like a bat against the dimness Then there came the sudden impact of fist on flesh—a straining heave—and Quarrier, diving under the hurtling figure, straightened, and hurled him outward and away.

The flying figure struck among the rest, head on, to a growling chorus of oaths, imprecations. But still they came on, thrusting, lunging; a gun crash almost in Quarrier's face There came a voice: