THE DEN OF DISGUISES

As Johnny Thompson stood in the dark doorway of the gray stone court-yard he shivered.  He was not cold, though this was Siberia—­Vladivostok—­and a late winter night.  But he was excited.

Before him, slipping, sliding, rolling over and over on the hard packed snow of the narrow street, two men were gripped in a life and death struggle.  They had been struggling thus for five minutes, each striving for the upper hand.  The clock in the Greek Catholic church across the way told Johnny how long they had fought.

He had been an accidental and entirely disinterested witness.  He knew neither of the men; he had merely happened along just when the row began, and had lingered in the shadows to see it through.  Twelve, yes, even six months before, he would have mixed in at once; that had always been his way in the States.  Not that he was a quarrelsome fellow; on the contrary he was fond of peace, was Johnny, in spite of the fact that he carried on his person various medals for rather more-than-good feather-weight fighting.  He loved peace so much that he was willing to lick almost anyone in order to make them stop fighting.  That was why he had joined the American army, and allowed himself to be made part of the Expeditionary force that went to the Pacific coast side of Siberia.

But twelve months in Siberia had taught him many things.  He had learned that he could not get these Russians to stop quarreling by merely whipping them.  Therefore, since these men were both Russians, he had let them fight.

The tall, slender man had started it.  He had rushed at the short, square shouldered one from the dark.  The square shouldered one had flashed a knife.  This had been instantly knocked from his grasp.  By some chance, the knife had dropped only an arm’s length from the doorway into which Johnny had dodged.  Johnny now held the knife discreetly behind his back.

Yes, Johnny trembled.  There was a reason for that.  The tall, slender man had gained the upper hand.  He was stretched across the prone form of his antagonist, his slim, horny hands even now gliding toward the other’s throat.  And, right there, Johnny had decided to draw the line.  He was not going to allow himself to witness the strangling of a man.  That wasn’t his idea of fighting.  He would end the fight, even at the expense of being mussed up a bit himself, or having certain of his cherished plans interfered with by being dragged before a “Provo” as witness or participant.

He was counting in a half-audible whisper, “Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three.”  It was a way he had when something big was about to happen.  The hand of the slender man was at the second button on the other’s rough coat when Johnny reached fifty.  At sixty it had come to the top button.  At sixty-five his long finger-tips were doubling in for the fatal, vice-like grip.  Noiselessly, Johnny laid the knife on a cross bar of the door.  Knives were too deadly.  Johnny’s “wallop” was quite enough; more than enough, as the slender one might learn to his sorrow.