Three steps led up to a verandah. Stranway mounted these, and, more by the sense of touch than sight, found the door and the bell. He rang the latter and waited.
A quick step sounded from inside the house, the door opened on a dark hallway without vestige of light within, and a man's voice spoke brusquely:
"Well?"
"Does Mr. Herman Stolman live here?" Stranway asked.
"Who are you?" demanded the voice sharply.
"If Mr. Stolman doesn't live here, I don't know that it really matters who I am," responded Stranway, with well-simulated tartness. "But Larson's my name—Sam Larson."
"Come in," said the voice instantly, and with a more friendly intonation. "I'm Stolman."
Stranway stepped promptly into the hall, and the door was closed. The other's hand fell upon his arm, guiding him forward.
Dark without, it was Egyptian blackness within—until suddenly, dazzled and half-blinded, blinking painfully, Stranway found himself standing on the threshold of a room whose door Stolman had thrown open. Lights seemed to dance everywhere before Stranway's eyes. It was a small room, but from the ceiling, from the corners, from the walls, glowed, not single lamps, but clusters of high-powered incandescents—it was beyond question the most brilliantly lighted room he had ever been in. He stood there rubbing his eyes for an instant, then he turned nonchalantly to Stolman.
"Too bad you couldn't have shoved another light or two in here," he remarked facetiously.
"It's a fad of mine," said Stolman shortly.
Stranway's eyes, accustomed now to the glare, swept around the apartment. It was plainly furnished. There were a few chairs, and a table that stood just in front of an open fireplace where two huge logs crackled and blazed merrily—that was about all. The furniture was of the summer cottage variety—wicker. There was a window opposite the door, and Stranway noticed that the green roller shade was drawn down.
"So you're Larson, eh?" Stolman had shut the door, and now faced Stranway, eyeing him from head to foot.
"Sure—Larson," said Stranway absently, continuing to glance around the room.
"Well?" Stolman threw out the word curtly, tentatively.
"Eh?" inquired Stranway, as though still absorbed in his surroundings; then, with a little laugh: "Oh, sure! I forgot—I guess this is what you mean."
He took the envelope addressed to Stolman from his pocket, and handed it to the other; and then, as Stolman opened it and began to read, Stranway's eyes the first time, and now but for a bare second, played critically over the man. Stolman was well-built, about his, Stranway's, height, with black eyes, black hair, and a shrewd, thin, cunning, clean-shaven face.
Stranway was again gazing with a puzzled expression at the extraordinary display of lights, when the other, with a quick movement, suddenly thrust the note back at him.
"What's the signature on this paper?" snapped Stolman.
Stranway's eyes lowered, met Stolman's, and then a slow smile crept to his lips.
"Well," he drawled, "it depends on how you read it. Some would say it was Martin P. Adams, and some would say it was—Chuck MacAllister."
"Sit down," said Stolman affably. He drew a chair up to the table with his back to the fireplace, and motioned Stranway to one opposite to him. He took a couple of cigars from his pocket, tossed one over to Stranway, bit off the end of his own leisurely, and tilted back his chair.
Stranway as leisurely lighted his—and waited.
"Had a letter from Chuck some time ago saying you were coming," said Stolman easily, when his cigar was well alight. "And I got that letter you wrote me three days ago from"—he leaned forward a little in his chair—"let's see, where was it you wrote that letter from?"
Stranway was watching the blue spirals curl upward from the tip of his cigar.
"Chicago," said he complacently.
Stolman laughed shortly.
"I guess you're all right," he said briskly. "Well, let's get down to business. Flash your wad!"
Stranway reached promptly into his inside vest pocket, took out the bundle of banknotes and laid them on the table.
"How much?" inquired Stolman, deftly running his fingers through them.
"Twenty thousand," said Stranway.
"That's a hundred thousand of the queer," said Stolman, getting up from his chair. "That's more than I've got left. Chuck knew about this lot in time enough—why didn't he send before?"
"I don't know," said Stranway, with a shrug of his shoulders. "That's his hunt. If you're low, he'll have to take what's left."
"It's mostly English," said Stolman. "All his special lot of that—no one else uses 'em."
"All right!" Stranway flicked the ash from his cigar toward the fireplace. "It's all the same! Give me what you've got—it's easy enough to salt a Canadian port with English stuff. What with the tourists and shipping, even the banks fall for it—when the counterfeiting's good enough."
Stolman left the room; but was back almost in an instant, carrying a package in his hands.
"Good enough!" he ejaculated, echoing Stranway's words. He passed to the same side of the table that he had occupied before, opened the package, and held up to the light a sample twenty-dollar American gold certificate and a five-pound English note. "Good enough! Look at 'em!" he cried—and laughed. "This is counterfeit stuff that is counterfeit stuff! There hasn't been one in ten ever spotted. Chuck's getting them too cheap! You tell him that after this the price is going up."
Stranway's left hand was drumming a tattoo mechanically on the pile of hundred-dollar genuine notes that he had brought with him. He looked admiringly at the notes Stolman held up.
"Beauts!" said he eloquently.
Stolman nodded, put back the two notes, and opened the package wider, displaying neat piles of new counterfeit money similar to the specimens he had exhibited.
"I'll count what's here," he said. "They're the last of the lot, and——"
In a flash Stranway was on his feet, and, as his left hand whipped the genuine hundred-dollar bills into his pocket, the muzzle of his automatic peeped through the fingers of his right hand and held a line on Stolman's eyes.
"I wouldn't bother to count them!" he said in a low, grim voice. "Just hand them over!"
Stolman's face went white. He leaned heavily on the table, both hands on the package of counterfeit notes—and stared into Stranway's face. He swayed a little from one foot to the other.
"What's—what's the meaning of this?" he stammered hoarsely.
"Hand them over!" repeated Stranway curtly. "Your game's up—we've got you red-handed. I've half a dozen men outside the house."
For an instant more Stolman stood there staring wildly, jaw dropped, seeming to shuffle uneasily upon his feet—then there was a faint click, the lights went out, and there came a harsh, jeering laugh.
"Got me, have you—you fool!" sneered Stolman's voice out of the darkness. "Know now what those lights are for? A floor switch is a handy thing, ain't it—for the feet!"
For a second, it might have been two, in the transition from intense light Stranway could not see a thing; then the fireplace seemed to leap with sudden vigour into high, curling flames—and, as suddenly, the table was hurled against him, throwing him back toward the centre of the room.
One shot Stranway fired at the ceiling as he regained his balance—the signal—and sprang on the instant for the fireplace. It was lighting up the room. He could see again—only too well now! And with a sickening shock he understood. Stolman had thrown the counterfeit notes on the fire! It was the evidence that was blazing there on the logs! But if he could still get even one of the counterfeit notes it would be enough!
With a snarl and an oath, Stolman met his rush. They clenched, grappled. Stranway tried to throw the other from him and reach the fireplace, but he could not loosen Stolman's hold. They swayed, toppled, went to the floor, and rolled over and over.
A minute, two, three passed. The light in the fireplace died down to the flames from the logs alone. Both men were still struggling on the floor. And then, as there came the sound of racing footsteps from the hallway, Stolman wrenched himself suddenly free from Stranway, and, dashing to the fireplace, kicked quickly and frantically at the charred paper. A little flame sprang up again—and died down. And then, an instant later, as the door swung inward, the lights in the room blazed out—and Stolman was leaning calmly against the back of a chair, a sneer upon his face.
A moment the man stood there, evidently not quite able to see distinctly in the sudden glare of the lights he himself had switched on, then the sneer faded slowly from his lips, and his face became pasty white as he stared at Charlebois, who, with two men behind him, stood now in the open doorway.
"You!" Stolman mumbled. "It's a trick of some kind—you're——" He stopped with a little gasp, swept his hand across his eyes and seemed to pull himself together. "You!" he said again.
"Yes; I—Henri Raoul Charlebois!" The little old gentleman's voice, cold, contained, was deadly in its menace, as he came forward into the room. "And this"—he laid his hand on Stranway's arm—"is Stranway—not Larson. But perhaps you have already discovered that fact. I found the real Larson, and got his story and his papers from him. And to-night I have got you—at last."
He took a step nearer Stolman, his face stern, set, implacable. Stolman gazed at him with a strange fascination, but without movement, save to wet his lips with his tongue.
"It is a long time ago, is it not?" Charlebois' voice dropped to a low monotone. "Many, many years ago! Do I need to recall that night to you? A cold, bitter night—a poor devil of a perishing, starving wretch brought into the bar-room of a little western town by a big-hearted cowboy. They took up a collection for him—three dollars and seventy-five cents—do you remember? Every one contributed except one young fellow—you! When this poor devil went out into the night again, lighter hearted than he had been for many days, you followed him. Do you remember? You told him you were not well off yourself, not well enough off to give him the whole of the five-dollar bill that was all the money you had—that you wanted to help him, but had not liked to ask to have the bill changed before all the men in the room. You told him to give you the silver and he could keep the bill."
Charlebois paused. There was something in the rigid attitude of the little old gentleman, a quivering, passionate something that made Stranway lean suddenly, tensely forward.
"He thanked you, did he not?" Charlebois' low voice went on. "He thanked you, and with tears in his eyes asked God to bless you for your kindly, generous act—and then—and then for two long years with prison stripes upon his back he paid bitterly for your 'generosity.' The bill was counterfeit. He was arrested in another town the next day and convicted for having attempted to pass that bill. He was friendless, a vagrant, a hard-looking character—he had no chance. Even his story helped to convict him—in the other town you were not known, not to be found. It was long ago, long, long ago. It was your night then—it is my night now. It is strange, is it not, that we should be dealing in counterfeits again?"
The sneer had gradually crept back to Stolman's face, and with it a brazen self-composure.
"If it is your night," he said mockingly, "you're welcome to it! I hope you like it! And talking about counterfeits, if you find any here you're welcome to them, too."
Charlebois turned quickly and looked at Stranway.
"What is it, my boy?" he asked sharply.
"He put out the lights with his foot—a floor switch," explained Stranway savagely. "I couldn't see for a moment. He flung the counterfeit notes into the fire, and——"
"Quite right—perhaps—if there were any counterfeit notes," jeered Stolman. "You are an imaginative and somewhat amusing pair of fools—one in his second childhood, the other not yet out of his first. Oh, well, don't cry over spilt milk! You may have better luck if you try again. Maybe you'll catch me then with the goods."
Slowly Charlebois turned once more toward Stolman, and his eyes played now with a curiously merciless composure over the other's face.
"There will never be an occasion to 'try' again," he said, with a grim smile. "An hour ago I should have been sorry that the notes were gone; now it is of little consequence. What you will answer for to-night is not for counterfeiting—it is murder."
Stolman laughed unpleasantly.
"Oh, no, I guess not; not with you standing there," he said meaningly. "But then, of course, you didn't know about that, did you? If I were to be held for any murder to-night it would be for yours."
"No," said Charlebois softly; "I am speaking of the murder of Sam Larson, the real Sam Larson!"
For the second time the sneer left Stolman's lips, and the white crept into his face.
"I—I don't know what you mean," he faltered.
"You tried to murder me to-night in Talimini's Café," said Charlebois sternly. "You see, I do know. But, instead of murdering me, the man you hired to do your cowardly, miserable work mistook Larson for me, and——"
"That's not true!" screamed Stolman suddenly. "You've no proof! You can't prove it!"
"It is God's justice," Charlebois went on, paying no heed to the interruption. "It has fallen heavily, strangely, has it not? That your tool should kill the very man who, before he died, placed in my hands at the hospital the information that enabled us to act to-night, is——"
"You've no proof!" The muscles of Stolman's lips were working in spasmodic twitches. "You've no proof! It's a frame-up—a dirty frame-up!"
With a slight movement of his head Charlebois motioned to the two men in the doorway—and a revolver gleamed in the light as he raised his hand quickly from the elbow.
"Don't put your hand in your pocket!" he commanded sharply. "Proof? Yes; you are entitled to that before you go. Your tool is known in gangland as Magpie Low—ah, I see you recognise the name! He was captured by one of my men, and confessed within an hour of committing the crime. That is all." He turned to the two men, Rainier and Sewell. "Take him to Flint," he directed tersely, "and hand him over to the law with Low."
There was no fight, no resistance, no scuffle—it was a weak, flabby, nerveless thing that Rainier and Sewell half carried through the door.
For a moment after they had gone Charlebois stood motionless, then he laid his hand on Stranway's arm.
"An utter scoundrel," he said soberly. "A curse upon society—a man, I think, who for the first time has aroused no single appeal to my sympathy or pity."
Stranway was staring at the fireplace, his brows knitted.
"He might have been lying about that being all the counterfeit notes," he said suddenly. "At any rate, it would be worth while to look through the house."
A whimsical smile crept to the little old gentleman's lips, and he shook his head as he walked slowly toward the door.
"That, my boy," he said quietly, "is for the police to do—my debt is paid."