CHAPTER III THE BATTLE
"There! That's the one! The one up next!" Johnny sat up with a start.Arrived at the auction house where all manner of strange things lost,damaged or stolen, are sold, he had taken his place among the bidders. Hehad found himself crowded in between a thin man and a stout one. He knewthe stout one slightly; they called him John. The slim man was new andquite strange for such a place. His clothes were new and very well kept.His face was dark. His lips were twitchy, his slim fingers ever inmotion. There was on his left cheek a peculiar scar. Two marks, like across, as if someone had branded him, so Johnny thought.
And now, to his great astonishment, after dozing through a half hour ofuninteresting auction, he found this stranger whispering shrilly in hisear. Before the whisper had come he felt a sharp punch in the ribs. Thepunch may have been made with a sharp elbow. Johnny had an uncomfortablefeeling that the business end of some sort of short gun had been stuckinto his side.
"Say!" he whispered back. "What's the big idea? This is an auction house;not a hop joint!"
"I know! I know!" came in an excited whisper from the slender,nervous-eyed man. "But listen to me!" One more prod in the ribs. "You'llremember it the longest day you live! You _bid_ on that next package! And_get_ it! Take it away from 'em, see? Take it away! Me? I'm broke," thestranger went on hurriedly. "But I got a hunch. An' my hunches, they'reopen and shut, open and shut. Just like that! So you bid! See?"
The package in question seemed about as uninteresting as it well couldbe--a, plain corrugated box tied round with a stout hempen cord. Therewere scores quite like it. Some were larger, some thinner, some thicker.Johnny had seen many such packages opened.
"Broken bits of statuary," he thought to himself, "or old clothes, likeas not, or jars of cheap cosmetics. What do I want of that package?"
But the stranger was insisting. "Bid! Bid! See, I got a hunch!"
"Bid?" Johnny grumbled in a whisper. "What for?"
The auction room was warm. He guessed he must have fallen asleep. Alwaysafter a nap he felt cross. He wouldn't bid on the silly package. What ifthis fellow did have a hunch? He had a mind to tell him so.
Strange to say, when the package went up, he did bid. "One dollar! Two!Three dollars!" And he had it.
He turned about to look into the slim stranger's face; wanted to see howhe felt about it. To his surprise he found the seat empty.
"That's queer!" he thought with a start. "Perhaps I dreamed the wholething!... No, not all of it," he amended ten seconds later. "Here comesthe collector after my deposit. I've got a good mind to tell him I didn'tbuy the package."
This notion too he abandoned. Digging into his watch-pocket, he draggedforth a crumpled dollar bill.
"O.K., Buddie, you get your package after the auction." The collectorwent his way.
Johnny had not meant to stay the auction through. Now he must, or forfeithis dollar. He debated this problem and decided to stay. The package didnot interest him overmuch, but his money was up. He would have a look.
Losing all interest in the auction, he spent his time thinking throughhis unusual adventures of the night before. Closing his eyes, he seemedto see again that frightful wavering skeleton which in time he came tobelieve was his own. Two other skeletons he saw, one with a long-bladedknife wavering in its hand.
"I saw them later on the streets, those men," he told himself, "only theywere all dressed up in flesh and had their skins on--clothes too. It's aqueer business! Eyes staring at a fellow from the wall!" He shuddered."Fairly gives you the creeps! Wonder why I agreed to join up with such anoutfit as that old professor and his children."
"People," he whispered after a long period of deep thinking, "certainpeople have a way of getting inside of you and making you like them. Theymay be very good and they may be very bad, in certain ways, but you likethem all the same. And you'll follow them as a dog follows his master.Queer old world! The professor is like that, and so's his daughter.Fellow'd come to like the boy too.
"Wonder what we were up to in that strange house," he mused. "Good thingwe got out of that cellar before anyone showed up! I doubt if that boy'smuch of a fighter.
"Dumb!" He stirred impatiently in his seat. "Got a lot more to sell atthis auction. Radios, somebody's trunks, 'with contents if any,' somepuppies--hear 'em squeal!--pop-corn in a sack, six broken lamps and ahundred more things. Guess I'll get out. Buzz around here after awhileand pick up that package."
When he returned to the auction room two hours later darkness wasfalling. A dull, drab fog had come creeping in from the lake. Lightsglowed through it like great staring eyes. They reminded him of the eyesin the wall at the professor's house.
"Bought a package here," he grumbled to the clerk. "Some busted thing, Iguess. Here's the ticket and the rest of the money."
"Here you are!" The parcel man handed out his prize package.
The thing was heavier than he had expected. Prying up a corner of thebox, he thrust in a hand. He touched something round, smooth and hard."Like a skull," he whispered.
"Only some sort of electric lamp," he decided after further exploring."Metal affair made like a jug; broken, probably. Oh well, might as welltake it along."
Leaving the auction room, he came out into the street and headed west.
That portion of the city is not inviting, nor does it seem particularlyfriendly to well-dressed strangers. During the day, when the weather isfair, the cross streets swarm with men who once worked, who may workagain, but who for the present stand and idly stare or wander up anddown.
This night was damp and chill. The street was all but deserted. Halfwaythrough a block a chance flash of light from a passing car revealed fourwell-dressed men standing at the entrance to an alley.
One look, and Johnny sprang back. The movement was purely instinctive. Hehad seen faces like theirs before, in court rooms and behind iron bars.Three of the men were in full view, one in the shadow.
Unfortunately the chance revelation of that passing car came too late.Before he could turn and show them his heels, they had him surrounded.
That there would be a fight he did not question. Why? He had not theremotest idea.
Johnny did not mind a fight, a clean fight. He kept himself fit for justsuch an occasion as this. He was always in training.
"But four of them!" He groaned.
No ringside rules here. One of the men was fat. Like a battering-ram,Johnny aimed his head square at that one's stomach. The man went overwith a groan. But not Johnny. Regaining his balance in a flash, he swunghis good right arm to bring his heavy package squarely down upon a secondman's head.
The package flew from his hand. In a fair fight with one man, or eventwo, Johnny needed only two well-formed fists. As the third man sprang athim, he squared away to give him an uppercut under the chin that closedhis jaws with the snap of a steel trap and put him out for a count oftwice ten.
But at that instant something crashed down upon Johnny's skull. Thefourth member of the gang, he who had hovered in the shadows, had goneinto action.
Ten minutes later when a detective threw the beam of his flashlight downthat alley it fell upon a lone figure huddled against the wall.
He was about to pass on, thinking it was some poor wanderer fast asleep,when something about the person's clothes caused him to look again. Twolong strides and he was beside the prostrate form.
"Johnny Thompson, as I live!" he muttered after bending over for a look.
"And somebody's got him! I wonder if it's for keeps?"