The Drums of Jeopardy | Page 7

The weary body was
overcoming the will. A sound broke the pleasant spell. He sat up, tense.
Someone had entered through the window and stumbled over the chair!
Hawksley threw on the light.
CHAPTER II
When the day clerk arrived the night clerk sleepily informed him that

the guest in Room 214 was without baggage and had not paid in
advance.
"Lave a call?"
"No. I thought I'd put you wise. I didn't notice that the man had no grip
until he was in the elevator."
"All right. I'll send the bell-hop captain up with a fake call to see if the
man's still there."
When the captain - late of the A.E.F. in France - returned to the office
he was mildly excited.
"Gee, there's been a whale of a scrap in Room 212. The chambermaid
let me in."
"Murder?" whispered the clerks in unison.
"Murder your granny! Naw! Just a fight between 212 and 214, because
both of 'em have flown the roost. But take a peek at what I found on the
table."
It was a case of blue velours. The boy threw back the lid dramatically.
"War medals?"
"If they are I never piped 'em before. They ain't French or British." The
captain of the bell-boys scratched his head ruminatively. "Gee, I got it!
Orders, that's what they all 'em. Kings pay 'em out Saturdays when the
pay roll is nix. Will you pipe the diamonds and rubies? There's your
room rents, monseer."
The day clerk, who considered himself a judge, was of the opinion that
there were two or three thousand dollars tied up in the stones. It was a
police affair. Some ambassador had been robbed, and the Britisher and
the Greek or Bulgarian were mixed up in it. Loot.
"I thought the war was over," said the night clerk.

"The shootin' is over, that's all," said the captain of the bellboys, sagely.
What had happened in Room 212? A duel of wits rather than of
physical contact. Hawksley realized instantly that here was the crucial
moment. Caught and overpowered, he was lost. If he shouted for help
and it came, he was lost. Once the police took a hand in the affair, the
newspaper publicity that would follow would result in the total ruin of
all his hopes. There was only one chance - to finish this affair outside
the hotel, in some fog-dimmed street. There leaped into his mind,
obliquely and queerly, a picture in one of Victor Hugo's tales -
Quasimodo. And there he stood, in every particular save the crooked
back. And on the top of this came the recollection that he had seen the
man before.... The torches! The red torches and the hobnailed boots!
There began an odd game, a dancing match, which the young man led
adroitly, always with his thought upon the open window. There would
be no shooting; Quasimodo would not want the police either. Half a
dozen times his fingers touched futilely the dancing master's coat. Bank
and forth across the room, over the bed, round the stand and chairs.
Persistently, as if he understood the young man's manoeuvres, the squat
individual kept to the window side of the room.
An inspiration brought the affair to an end. Hawksley snatched up the
bedclothes and threw them as the ancient retiarius threw his net. He
managed to win to the lower platform of the fire escape before
Quasimodo emerged.
There was a fourteen-foot drop to the street, and the man with the
golden stubble on his chin and cheeks swung for a moment to gauge his
landing. Quasimodo came after with the agility of an ape. The race
down the street began with about a hundred yards in between.
Down the hill they went, like phantoms. The distance did not widen.
Bears will run amazingly fast and for a long while. The quarry cut into
Pearl Street for a block, turned a corner, and soon vaguely espied the
Hudson River. He made for this.
To the mind of Quasimodo this flight had but one significance - he was

dealing with an arrant coward; and he based his subsequent acts upon
this premise, forgetting that brave men run when need says must. It
would have surprised him exceedingly to learn that he was not driving,
that he was being led. Hawksley wanted his enemy alone, where no one
would see to interfere. Red torches and hobnailed boots! For once the
two bloods, always more or less at war, merged in a common purpose -
to kill this beast, to grind the face of him into pulp! Red torches and
hobnailed boots!
Presently one of the huge passenger boats, moored for the winter,
loomed up through the fog; and toward this Hawksley directed his steps.
He made a flying leap