Chapter Sixteen

THORPE scanned the central waiting room at Union Station. He was extremely nervous as he had, from the first, opposed Pellman’s trip to Washington, DC. And now that they were here, Thorpe expected death momentarily.

Pellman followed the redcap. There was a quiet certainty about Pellman. He knew that in a matter of hours he would either win or die. He had made his decision and on it he rested.

Thorpe paced beside him. “I tell you, Jim, this is nonsense. It was all right to cure up everybody in New York. That makes you a hero—hero enough. But …”

“It doesn’t keep them from remembering that it was I that made Doughface Jack,” said Pellman quietly.

“Sure, sure. But they’ll forget that. They won’t hold it against you. I admit that there’s been a lot of talk in the press.…”

“Yes, lots of it,” said Pellman. “They’re damning me in every line. And why not? I was the cause of a half a thousand deaths. Maybe more. I’m the direct cause of this financial panic. I am the reason factories are closing and workers starving. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened.”

“Yes, but that’s no reason for you to walk into a hornet’s nest like this.”

“I see that you are coming along,” smiled Pellman.

“Well … yes … I …”

“But I’m not letting you come very far,” said Pellman.

They were leaving the waiting room toward the cab line when a flurry of swagger coat attracted their attention. Pellman whirled to have Miss Finch fling herself into his arms.

“Jim, I won’t let you do this!” she wailed. “When you vanished this morning I knew where you had gone and I flew ahead. You can’t do this, Jim. It’s suicide! He’s got gangsters and everything! And you’re all alone and you haven’t even got a gun.”

“I don’t need a gun,” said Pellman, gently pushing her away. “This is a deal between a girl named Rita and me and because of that I’ll have to face Doughface. I don’t know what may happen, but I do know that this is my fault. Nothing can stop me.”

A cabbie was holding open the taxi door and Pellman started to enter.

Just in time, Thorpe saw the glint of sun on metal. He shouted “Look out!” and knocked Pellman back.

The gunman fired too late. Glass showered from the window. On the walk Pellman rolled swiftly over. The gunman was chopping down with a second shot. The gun blazed and the cab driver was hammered back against his fender. And then the gunman sagged, bending forward to fall without making an effort to break the drop.

“Get inside,” snapped Pellman. “He must have people all over this town by now.”

“That damned girl’s emptied the jails,” said Thorpe.

Pellman turned to the driver and stared for a few seconds. “Get in and drive, fellow.”

The cabbie was holding his side and his face was twisted with pain. “I … I can’t. I’m hit!”

“Sure, I know,” said Pellman. “Get in and drive.”

The cabbie pulled his hand away and looked at it. Yes, there was blood on it, but … but there wasn’t anything more dangerous than a hole in his coat. There was no wound.

“What the hell?” he gaped.

“Drive,” said Pellman.

They entered the cab and the driver began to weave through the traffic on the ramp.

“There might have been another one,” said Thorpe. “They might know about this by now up at the White House.”

Pellman looked steadily ahead.

“I’m going all the way with you,” said Miss Finch.

“No you’re not,” contradicted Pellman. “As soon as we draw alongside another cab, I’m taking it. You can follow at a distance if you like.”

“How,” said Thorpe, “do you know Doughface won’t be able to kill you?”

“I don’t know that,” said Pellman quietly.

Miss Finch was frightened. “Is it worth the risk?”

“Is the United States worth the life of one lousy doctor?” countered Pellman. “This is my show. Nobody ordered me to operate on that tramp. I operated and things happened. Nobody has ordered me to do this, but I’m doing it. It’s the very least I can do.”

They went around the circle at Massachusetts Avenue. The lights stopped them and Pellman, seeing an empty cab behind them, crawled out.

Miss Finch tried to grab his sleeve but he avoided her.

“Jim,” she cried.

He didn’t look back. He opened the door of the other cab and got in.

“Where to?” said the broken-nosed driver.

“The White House,” stated Pellman.

“Huh? Hell, buddy, you couldn’t get me near that place for a million bucks. A thousand anyhow. What’s the idea? Want to get yourself killed?”

“Maybe,” said the doctor. “My name is Pellman.”

“Pellman? Doctor Pellman?” said the cabbie with awe. “Gosh! Don’t pull nothin’ on me. Don’t look at me. I’ll drive you anyplace you say. Honest I will, only don’t look!”

“All right,” said Pellman, “I won’t. But drive me around to the rear. I’ll walk up out of the park to it.”

The cabbie drove with a recklessness born of a desire to get rid of his passenger as soon as possible. He careened past the Treasury and around the curve at the back of the White House. He braked to a stop beside some masking shrubs and Pellman got out, reaching into his pocket for the fare. But the cabbie didn’t wait. He was gone with roaring motor and out of sight in the blink of an eye.

Pellman turned toward the back of the White House. He was under no delusions about the danger he faced and in his mind stuck the words of Thorpe, “Might burn each other to a crisp.”

The iron fence was high but Pellman had no difficulty in climbing it. He dropped to the lawn within, hidden from prying windows by a clump of evergreens.

And then began the work of edging up on the place, getting as close as possible before he was seen. And so swift were his rushes from cover to cover that he came within a hundred feet of the rear door before he saw a curtain twitch.

Window runners shrieked and a head appeared. The snout of a Tommy gun was thrust over the sill.

Pellman dropped just as the gun started chattering. Twigs and leaves sprayed upward from the tree above him. He raised himself an inch and stared.

Suddenly the gun began to shoot toward the zenith. And it kept on shooting as it arced. The last few shots sounded within the room.

Pellman leaped up and dashed for the door. A revolver banged to his right and a whistling bullet passed over his head. He flung himself into the cover of the doorway, glanced back and then threw the full weight of his shoulder against it. It crashed inward.

A revolver exploded almost in his face and a flash of pain raced up his arm. He did not see who it was as it was dark within this basement room. He did not have to see. When he started up the stairs he trod on an outflung hand which did not jerk back.

He reached another door at the top and slammed his weight against it. But he knew better than to go through. He jerked back and lead splintered the wood over his head.

He did not show himself. He, a man of science, knew a few things Doughface Jack did not. Pellman stared through the partition, and though he saw nothing, there was a sudden silence in the White House kitchen.

He sprang into the room. Two men were heaped up before the stove. He heard a footfall in the hallway. He did not open that door immediately.

He waited and then he opened it.

A gentleman with a gun still clutched in his hand was face down on the floor.

Going at a run, Pellman raced toward the dining room. A gun crashed behind him and he flung himself forward like a slugger going for first base, glancing behind him as he slid. There was a thump and he did not need to inspect the source for the reason.

Directly before him towered Harry. The man gripped an automatic and his eyes were wild with determination to kill. But Pellman was still sliding when Harry got it. Harry stumbled back, arm going limp, a single shot pumped into the floor.

The doctor was up on the instant. He glanced about him. Somewhere at hand he would find Doughface and Rita. He had to find them before they could escape or before a lucky shot killed him.

He threw his weight against a double door. It gave with a splintering crash and Pellman braced himself from following through. Rita was just coming to her feet on the other side of a desk.

“Sit down,” said Pellman. “I have no wish to kill you.”

“JACK!” she screamed.

She grabbed for a revolver which lay before her and Pellman also snatched at it. The recognition of the danger in her had been enough.

Rita’s stretching fingers suddenly tightened up into an agonized claw. Her face froze into white marble. She strove to stay erect but she could not.

She was dying and she knew it.

“Jack,” she whispered.

And then, as though she were a puppet whose strings had suddenly been dropped, she sank into her chair.

A door was flung open and Pellman whirled to see Doughface. The tramp paused on the threshold. His hair was disheveled and his face grimy. He had looked for Pellman to come the other way and now …

“rita!” he cried, rushing forward to grab at her shoulders. But even that touch told him that she was dead. He faced about, raging.

“Damn you!” screamed Doughface Jack. “You’ve killed her!”

“Jack,” said Pellman, “you’re coming with me.”

“The hell I am!”

Jack drew himself up. There was a curl to his lips and hardness in his eyes. “You been askin’ for this, Doc. I thought you was a good guy but I know now that you’re just as rotten as the rest of ’em. I only wanted one thing in this world and that was this dame and now …”

He jutted out his jaw.

Pellman faced him squarely.

A grandfather clock out in the hall was tick-tocking with steady monotony.

Pellman felt as though he were being electrocuted but his face was without expression as he stood his ground.

The clock kept clipping the seconds and Doughface did not move. One of them had to break. One of them had to let down. One of them … And it was Doughface. He began to reel. He seized hold of the desktop to support himself. And then it came faster. His resistance vanished. He felt lightning frying in his head and awful nausea sweeping through his body.

He dropped, clawing out even as he fell to snatch a final hold. He knocked down Rita’s arm and when he hit the floor, her hand was on his shoulder, touching him ever so slightly.

Pellman sank down into a chair and held his head in his hands.

Footsteps were coming from the hallway and then Thorpe was shouting, “We’ve found him! Here he is, Mr. President!”

A hearty voice was saying, “Thank God, you’ve come, Doctor Pellman.”

“Jim,” whispered Miss Finch.

Pellman looked at them sadly and then gazed upon Doughface Jack’s outstretched legs which reached beyond the screen of the desk.

Pellman, at last, stood up. “Let’s go,” he said wearily.