Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

The smile left his face. The dark eyes burned into me.

“We’ve had enough from you,” he snarled. “My name’s Blake and no second-rate sawbones can horn into my business and get away with it.”

He moved toward me across the hall, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, his slim body tensed for combat.

And in the dim light I saw that he carried a long, flamboyant-bladed knife.

Chapter IX

To Save a Man

So it was all up with me. The fact dripped like acid into my weary brain as Blake came bounding across the hallway with the knife in his hand. I knew that I did not have the strength to keep him off, for it was all I could do to maintain my precarious balance much less fight an active, armed man.

I did manage to evade his first rush and plunged with heavy, uncertain steps into a corner. Blake was drawing back for another blow when a woman’s voice, full of scorn, said:

“Blake, you coward! Would you knife a helpless man?”

It was the girl. She thrust herself between me and the man with the knife.

“Don’t be a fool, Sonia,” growled Blake. “Keep out of this. Your precious doctor won’t be hurt. I was just demonstrating what might happen to him unless he is reasonable.”

“Yes, I know,” said the girl wearily. Her face was white and tired-looking.

Blake faced her, hands on hips, and in a low voice dripping with cold contempt said:

“It seems to me that it was you who urged violence in this matter. Now you call me a coward for following the plan which you suggested. I can’t understand you, Sonia.”

And with that he glided off down the hall like some evil shadow and disappeared.

“Thanks, my friend,” I whispered weakly.

“Come.” said the girl sharply. “You have lost much blood and are very sick.”

She led me, stumbling helplessly, back to the room where I fell upon the bed. Then she procured a pan of hot water and gently bathed the cut in my skull and bound it with a clean cloth. Her quick, white hands smoothed my damp hair.

“Why,” I asked presently, “did you step between me, your enemy, and Blake, your friend?”

She smiled and told me to lay quiet, warned me that I was badly hurt and needed rest, but I would not be put off. My brain was seething with a dozen questions and I did not intend to lose this opportunity to have them answered.

“What place is this?” I insisted. “And why have I been brought here?”

“I believe I warned you, doctor, that you were playing a dangerous game,” she said coldly. “You refused to heed my words. You could have saved yourself all this by surrendering the capsule.”

“What is that letter to you? What sinister plot is behind this?”

She tried to quiet me again, but the excitement of the chase was in my blood now and I would not stop.

“Answer me,” I cried. “I know far more about this business than you imagine, and I’ll use my information as I see fit unless you lay your cards on the table.”

With that her reticence broke down and she began to talk freely, twisting her hands nervously in her lap as she spoke. The capsule meant everything to her, she said. More than life itself. She must have it. Blake, her good friend, had agreed to help her recover it and it was his agents who had been set to watch Copeland.

“And who murdered the poor fellow?” I interjected, but she chose to disregard my remark.

“Give me the capsule,” she pleaded, “and you will never regret it. You will help right a great wrong and will save an innocent young man from years in prison.”

“Did you know,” I said softly, “that only half of the letter is in that capsule?”

“What!” her eyes were wide with astonishment and dismay. “No! No! It must all be there. Doctor, you are mistaken!”

“And did you know,” I continued sternly, “that the letter was written to your very good friend who just attempted to stick a knife into me?”

“Oh, that cannot be true!” she cried, white to the lips. “Blake would not betray me! I cannot believe that.”

I was on my feet at this, my battered face close to hers.

“Sonia, he is deceiving you. I don’t know how, but in some manner you are being made the cat’s-paw in a game played by thieves. Come now, answer that question I asked you in my library the other night. Who told you that I was a drug-peddling rascal?”

“Who?” Her dark blue eyes were fixed on me with disturbing intensity. “Does that matter? You are, aren’t you? You seek this paper so that you might use it for your own selfish ends, do you not? You are in this game for what you can get, I take it, and what difference does it make who told me your purpose?”

“It makes a lot of difference to me,” I snarled. “I’m not after anything. I’m here because I was fool enough to believe that you looked like a girl in distress and I thought that I might be able to help you. Blake has told you these lies so that you would not have any objections to whatever they might decide to do to me. It was Blake who told you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she replied slowly.