Корнелл Вулрич - Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 50, No. 5, October 10, 1936

She unlocked the front door, turned a switch and the place was electrically illuminated. For a cabin in the wilderness it was modern, and elaborately furnished.

Jonathan stood inside the door, a picture of dejection.

Dick inspected him and suddenly barked, “ ’Tenshun!”

The old man’s heels clicked together, his chin lifted, his arms straightened at his side, the little fingers touching the hems of his trousers. Dick roared with laughter.

“Old soldier,” he said, “you know your stuff.”

“You might as well ’fess up, Tommy Donnegan,” said Clarice, smiling broadly.

Jonathan shifted to at ease. “I ain’t saying nothin’ to nobody,” he declared.

“ Jim, take him into a bedroom and stay with him,” commanded Dick. “You’re responsible for him. If he gets away your brother will do a term in jail — and the rest of us.”

“Come, Grandpa,” said Jim gently. “You ain’t going to force me to bust your skinny old neck, now are yer?”

“No, siree,” replied Jonathan, who toddled off with Jim, and Clarice and Dick and I remained alone.

“Now what’s the program?” demanded Dick with a deep sigh. “ Everything has gone so smoothly that I’m scared.”

“We get him to the Soldiers’ Home in the morning, take his fingerprints, and have all the officers of the place and all the inmates identify him.”

“I suppose so. After that Patterson can have him back and welcome. Blessed if I know why they dug up this old codger from a Soldiers’ Home and christened him Jonathan Steele.”

“I don’t suppose there were many men to be found at short notice who looked like Jonathan,” I said slowly. “Come to think of it, it was smart. Here is a man who has been buried in an old soldiers’ institution for a quarter of a century. Before he went in there he had never amounted to anything. Inmates of Soldiers’ Homes never come out. The employees of the Home don’t circulate in millionaire circles. There wasn’t a chance in a million of his ever being recognized.”

“You’re right. Only how did Patterson know there was a double of Jonathan in that Home?”

We couldn’t answer that question. Dick rose. “We don’t want to be caught as Jonathan was, so I’m going outside to stand guard. I’ll leave you two love birds flat.” He laughed mockingly and went out of the place and slammed the door.

“Your face is red,” remarked Clarice. “You have a round face, so when it’s red you look exactly like a half of watermelon.”

“Yeh? What did he mean by that crack?” I asked uneasily.

“That,” said Clarice, “was satire.”

I chewed on that. I looked over the big living room we were sitting in. There was a grand piano and Oriental rugs and large overstuffed chairs.

“Nice place your friend has here,” I remarked.

“Very,” she said dryly. “I wish I had a mashie.”

“What for?” I asked, bewildered.

Clarice stood up. Her eyes were blazing. “To sock you over the head with, you chunk of something,” she screamed. “Of all the dumb clucks!”

I eyed her thoughtfully. “Does Dick think you and I are in love?” I asked bluntly.

“No,” she snapped. “He knows that you are a clod of mud and you couldn’t be in love except maybe with a turtle.”

Clarice was exceedingly angry and she certainly was good to look at when she was angry.

“Then what does he mean?” I persisted.

“He thinks that I am in love with you, you dolt,” she shouted.

“Well, are your?”

She stamped her foot and she laughed scornfully. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she demanded.

“Yes,” I replied. “Frankly, I thought so from the first time I met you. You’re about the finest girl I ever saw in my life and the best looking and you’ve more nerve than any other girl and more brains, so you couldn’t be in love with me unless you were crazy.”

“Is that so?” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter with you, for heaven’s sake?”

I got up and took a couple of steps toward her. She saw something in my eye and she backed away.

“You keep off,” she threatened.

“I never thought you’d give me a tumble, Clarice,” I told her. “I didn’t think you meant anything by kissing me tonight.”

She bristled. “So, you think I’m promiscuous with my kisses,” she exclaimed.

“Aw, shut up,” I yelled and I pounced on her. I got a fist in my right eye but after that she just nestled in my arms.

Bang! It sounded like a shot.

Dick bounced into the room.

“A car was coming toward the house,” he exclaimed. “They trailed us. I fired a shot to warn them off and they backed out in a hurry. Clarice, you go in and entertain Tommy. Send Jim out here. Looks like we’re in a mess. Put out all the lights. Keep a gun on Tommy — he’s a cute one.”

Clarice and I had broken apart, of course. She rushed into the bedroom. Jim came barging out and we turned out the lights. After that we opened the door and slipped outside. The moon was up.

The house was on top of a slope and its driveway turned into the dirt road about fifty yards away and ten yards below. There were Eucalyptus trees blocking the view and a lot of boulders and the car had put out its lights and wasn’t visible.

We lay flat on the edge of the porch and watched closely. I thought I saw a man run from one boulder to another thirty or forty yards away and fired. Answering shots came from three spots and one broke a window.

“A mess, all right,” said Dick. “ I think the way we came is the only way out. We’re besieged.”

“There can’t be many of them,” I said. “Unless they called the police.”

“I don’t think they’d dare. With Jonathan out of their hands they don’t know what he might have told us. They’ll try to get him back, shoot the caboodle of us and accuse us of having kidnaped him and get acquitted of murder by any court. Well, they’ll have to fight to get him back.”

“You said something, Buddy,” declared Jim.

An hour went by; two hours. We fired an occasional shot. They sniped at us. They broke two or three windows in the house. The night very slowly passed. Dawn came with us three squatting on the porch. Occasionally Clarice called softly to us from the window of the bedroom and we answered her. We knew that nobody had worked up the slope but it was possible they might have climbed the cañon walls and got around behind us.

As it grew light we saw a car down the cañon blocking the road to prevent us making a dash for it but we couldn’t see our enemies, who had plenty of cover.

Our position on the porch being too exposed in broad daylight, we retreated into the house and watched from windows front and back. The cliff at the back of the house was almost precipitous but we stationed Clarice at the back window of the bedroom where Jonathan was confined. Jonathan had crawled under the bed when the shooting first started and remained there.

We expected a rush but none came. Clarice opened some cans she found in the pantry and made coffee. Sniping had completely ceased.

“If they expect to starve us out,” Clarice said gaily, “they’re batty. There are supplies enough here for a month.”

“ They’re waiting for someone,” declared Dick.

“Lafe Morton, most likely,” I said gloomily. It was nine o’clock. Ten o’clock. Nothing had happened but we were nicely bottled up. If they brought up men enough they could rush us and recapture Jonathan. I was in an awful state on account of Clarice.

“We can’t fight it out,” I told him. “On account of her.”

“I know it. God knows I didn’t want her along.”

“ We’ll fight it out,” declared Clarice. “And we’ll win. He broke down and admitted he was Tommy Donnegan when the shooting started last night.”