 |
Project Gutenberg
Australia a treasure-trove of literature treasure found hidden with no evidence of ownership |
BROWSE the site for other works by this author (and our other authors) or get HELP Reading, Downloading and Converting files) or SEARCH the entire site with Google Site Search |
Title: The Wire Devils Author: Frank L. Packard * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 2000071h.html Language: English Date first posted: January 2020 Most recent update: January 2020 This eBook was produced by: Walter Moore Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg Australia Licence which may be viewed online.GO TO Project Gutenberg Australia HOME PAGE
Mechanically, he separated words and sentences, and, eliminating the superfluous
letters, wrote out the translation at the bottom of the sheet:
“Combination in upper drawer left side divisional paymaster (’s)
desk. Ten thousand in safe to-night. Put Number One on job.”
The Hawk stood up, “plugged out” the station circuit, and, gathering
up the two sheets of paper he had used, put them in his pocket; then, leaving
the door of the operator’s room open behind him, as he had found it,
he stepped out from the station to the platform, and, with his skeleton key,
relocked the station door. He stood for a moment staring up and down the
track. The switchlights blinked back at him confidentially. He listened.
The eastbound freight, from which he had jumped some twenty minutes before,
would cross Extra No. 83, the westbound way freight, at Elkton, seven miles
away, but there was no sound of the latter as yet.
He turned then, and, jumping from the platform to the track, swung into
a dog-trot along the roadbed. The Hawk smiled contentedly to himself. It
was all timed to a nicety! A mile or so to the west, the right of way rose
in a stiff grade that the way freight would be able to negotiate at no better
speed than the pace at which a man could crawl. He could make the distance
readily, board her there, and the way freight would get him to Selkirk—and
the divisional paymaster’s office!—by about midnight.
He ran on, the swing and ease of a trained athlete in his stride. And, as
he ran, he took the sheets of paper from his pocket, and, tearing them into
small fragments, scattered the pieces at intervals here and there.
He reached the foot of the grade, and paused to look back along the track,
as suddenly from behind him came the hoarse scream of an engine whistle.
That was the way freight now, whistling perfunctorily for the deserted station!
He had made the grade in plenty of time, though the nearer to the top he
could get the better, for the freight, requiring all the initial impetus
it could attain, would hit the foot of the grade wide open.
The Hawk broke into a run again, glancing constantly back over his shoulder
as he sped on up the grade. And then, when he was well on toward the summit,
opening the night like a blazing disk as it rounded a curve, he caught the
gleam of the headlight. It grew larger and larger, until, beginning to fling
a luminous pathway up the track that, gradually lengthening, crept nearer
and nearer to him, he swerved suddenly, plunged down the embankment, and,
well away from the trackside, dropped flat upon the ground.
The engine, slowed, was grunting heavily on the incline as it strained by
the spot where he lay; there was the glimmer of the front-end brakeman’s
lamp from the top of one of the forward cars—and, with a quick, appraising
glance to measure the length of the train, the Hawk, on hands and knees,
crawled forward, and up the embankment, and, in the shadow of the rolling
cars themselves, stood up. There would be sharp eyes watching from the cupola
of the caboose. He laughed a little. And not only the train crew there, perhaps!
The railroad detectives, at their wits’ ends, had acquired the habit
of late of turning up in the most unexpected places!
A boxcar rolled by him, another, and still another—but the Hawk’s
eyes were fixed a little further along toward the rear on an open space,
where, in the darkness, a flat car gave the appearance of a break in the
train. The flat car came abreast of him. He caught the iron foot-rung, jumped,
and, with a powerful, muscular swing, flung himself aboard.
The car was loaded with some kind of carriage, or wagon, tarpaulin-covered.
The Hawk crawled in under the tarpaulin, and lay down upon his back, pillowing
his head on a piece of timber that blocked the carriage wheels.
The train topped the grade, gained speed, and roared on through the night.
Occasionally, during what was close to a two-hours’ run, it stopped
at intermediate stations, and the Hawk peered furtively out from under the
tarpaulin to locate the surroundings, with which he appeared to be intimately
familiar; and once, nearing the end of the run, as the faint-suffused glow
from the city’s lights in the distance showed under the shadows of
the towering peaks, he spoke aloud, “Ten thousand dollars,” remarked
the Hawk pleasantly. “Nice picking for a few hours’ work—ten
thousand dollars!”
He arranged the scattered letters into words, and the words into sentences:
“Number Three and Seven Isaac Kirschell(’).s cash box to-night
as planned. Calhoun to report all line splices his own. Number One says Hawk
slender white hands, manicured, medium height, eyes and hair black, expensive
tailored clothes. Two thousand dollars out of reserve fund to Number that
puts a bullet in him.”
The Hawk inspected his hands, and smiled whimsically. Number One was the
Butcher. He had not given the Butcher credit for being so observant! Presently
he stared out of the window.
“Wonder how much of a haul I can make tonight?” he murmured. “Regular
El Dorado—having ’em work it all up and handing it to you on
a gold platter. Pretty soft! Hope they won’t get discouraged and quit
picking the chestnuts out of the fire for me—while there’s any
chestnuts left!”
And then the Hawk frowned suddenly. The chestnuts appeared to be only partially
picked for him to-night. What was the game—as planned? There must have
been a previous message that had got by him. His frown deepened. There was
no way of remedying that. To hope to intercept them all was to expect too
much. There was no way whereby he could spend twenty-four hours out of twenty-four
in touch with a sounder. He shrugged his shoulders philosophically after
a moment. Perhaps it was just as well. They credited him with playing a lone
hand, believing that his and their depredations were clashing with one another
simply by virtue of the fact that their mutual pursuits were of a competitive
criminal nature, that was all. If it happened with too much
regularity, they might begin to suspect that he had the key to their cipher,
and then—the Hawk did not care to contemplate that eventuality. There
would be no more chestnuts!
The Hawk read the first part of the message over again. Who was Isaac Kirschell?
The name seemed to be familiar. The Hawk studied the toe of a neatly-fitting
and carefully polished shoe thoughtfully. When he looked up again, he nodded.
He remembered now. He had lunched the day before in a restaurant that occupied
a portion of the ground floor of an office building, the corridor of which
ran through from street to street. In going out, he had passed along the
corridor and had seen the name on the door panels of two of the offices.
He resumed the study of his boot toe. It was not a very vital matter. A
moment spent in consulting the city directory would have supplied the information
in any case. He nodded again. MacVightie was unquestionably right. Some one
on the inside, some railroader, and probably more than one, was in on the
game with the Wire Devils—and it was perhaps as well for this Calhoun
that MacVightie, already suspicious, was not likewise possessed of the key
to the cipher! Also, Lanson had been right. It was no easy task to locate
a new splice on a wire that was already scarred with countless repairs. Still,
if Lanson’s men went at it systematically and narrowed down the radius
of operations, it was not impossible that they might stumble upon a clue—if
Calhoun did not placidly inform them that it was but another of his own making!
But even then, granted that the wire was found to have been tapped in a certain
place one night, that was no reason why it should not, as Mr. MacVightie
had already suggested, be tapped fifty miles away the next! The Hawk grinned.
Mr. Lanson and his associates, backed even by Mr. MacVightie, were confronted
with a problem of considerable difficulty!
“I wonder,” communed the Hawk with himself, “who’s
the spider that spun the web; and I wonder how many little spiders he’s
got running around on it?”
He perused the message once more; but this time he appeared to be concerned
mainly with the latter portion. He read it over several times: “Two
thousand dollars to the Number that puts a bullet in him.”
“Nobody seems to like me,” complained the Hawk softly. “MacVightie.
doesn’t; and the Butcher’s crowd seem peeved. Two thousand dollars
for my hide! I guess if I stick around here long enough maybe it’ll
get exciting—for somebody!”
The Hawk tore up the message, the sheet on which he had deciphered it, the
sketch of Bald Creek station, tore all three into small fragments, opened
the window a little, and let the pieces flutter out into the night. He closed
the window, returned the notebook, innocent of everything now but its blank
pages, to his pocket—and, pulling his slouch hat down over his eyes,
appeared to doze.
He was staring at this result now in a bewildered way. Then his pencil picked
out the remaining five unscored letters, and mechanically set them down as
a third line:
rainy.
“Rainy”—there was one word, just one word—“rainy.” What
did it mean? What was the significance of the word? No message in the Wire
Devils’ cipher, once the message was decoded, but had been at once
clear and unmistakable in its meaning before. Had they resorted now to code words
as well, to a cipher within a cipher? Into the grimness of the Hawk’s
smile there crept a hint of weariness, as he slipped the pad into his pocket,
allowed the newspaper to drop to his knees, and, edging his chair around,
gazed out of the window.
For once his knowledge of their cipher was obviously useless to him—and
useless when a foreknowledge of their plans at that moment meant scarcely
less than a matter of life and death to him in a very unpleasantly real and
literal sense. Not a word had come from them; not a message had gone over
the wires on either of the two preceding nights; not a sign of existence
had they given since three nights ago when, with an empty safe as the sole
reward for their elaborately laid plans, he, the Hawk, had enriched himself
with the twenty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds it had once contained.
There had been something sinister, something ominous in their silence, as
compared with the almost insane ravings of MacVightie, the police, and the
press—yes, and the railroad men as well, who were particularly incensed
over the “murder” of the young messenger found dead at his post
in the express car with his revolver partially emptied on the floor beside
him.
The Hawk drummed abstractedly with his finger tips upon the window pane.
MacVightie, the police, and the press made no doubt but that he, the Hawk,
was the leader of the desperadoes who were terrorising that particular section
of the country; on the other hand, the gang itself had already had occasions
enough and in plenty to be painfully aware that he, the Hawk, played always
a lone hand—and won! A smile, grim and ironical, parted the firm, set
lips. The police and the Wire Devils had a common interest—the Hawk.
He was the storm centre.
The smile faded, the strong jaws clamped, and the dark eyes narrowed on
the flying landscape. It was not the police who concerned him, it was not
the impotent frothings of the press—it was the silence that
the Wire Devils had not broken since that night until they had broken it
this morning with the single word that, now that he had deciphered it, still
meant nothing to him. A dozen times, stealing their cipher messages, he had
turned all their carefully prepared plans to his own account, and snatched
away the prize, even as they were in the act of reaching for it. But he was
not a fool to close his eyes to the inevitable result. He was pitted against
the cleverest brains in the criminal world; all the cunning that they knew
would be ruthlessly turned against him; and, already out to “get” him,
a price already guaranteed to the lucky member of the band out of the common
funds, the empty safe of three nights before, with its jeering ten-dollar
counterfeit bill flung in their faces, crowned, he feared, their injuries
at his hands, and marked the turning point where they would leave no stone
unturned to wreak their vengeance upon him.
And he did not like this silence of theirs since that night. Were they suspicious
at last that he had the key to their cipher? He did not think so, and yet
he did not know—it was always a possibility. But in any case, wary
of any move they might make, he had, as far as it was humanly possible, remained
within sound of a telegraph instrument ever since. Last night, for example,
taking advantage of some repairs that were being made on the station at Elk
Head, fifty miles east of Selkirk, he had lain hidden behind a mass of building
material in the dismantled waiting room within earshot of the telegraph sounder—and
there had been nothing. Forced to retire from there by the advent of the
workmen, he had eaten a very leisurely breakfast at the lunch counter—still
within earshot of the sounder. He had lingered around the station as long
as he had dared without running the risk of exciting suspicion, and then
he had taken the local east for Bald Creek—and taken the chance, because
he had no choice, that nothing would “break” over the wires during
the three-quarters of an hour that he was on the train. The Limited scheduled
Bald Creek, and that would give him an excuse for remaining there, an innocent
and prospective patron of the road, until the Limited’s arrival some
two hours later. After that, if nothing happened, he had intended to go back
on the Limited to Selkirk—and get some sleep.
The Hawk yawned heavily again. Yes, after an almost uninterrupted vigil
of forty-eight hours one needed sleep. Well, he was on his way back to Selkirk
now—on the Limited. Only something had happened. Almost
at the moment that the Limited had pulled into Bald Creek, the Wire Devils
had broken their silence, and a cipher message had flashed over the wires.
He had waited for it, fought for it, schemed for it, gone without sleep for
two days and nights for it—and he had been rewarded. He had intercepted
the message, deciphered it, he had got it at last—he had it now! It
was the one word—“rainy.” And the word to him meant—nothing!
The Hawk’s fingers ceased their drumming on the window pane, his head
inclined slightly to one side, and he listened. His fellow travellers had
evidently scraped up acquaintanceship. The conversation had become general—and
suddenly interesting.
“... Yes, unquestionably! The amount I have with me is worth quite
easily a half million francs—a hundred thousand dollars. It is not
my personal property, I regret to say. Quantities sufficient to be of material
service are for the most part institutionally held.”
The Hawk swung around in his chair, and with frank interest surveyed the
little group. He had scanned them once already, critically, comprehensively—at
the moment he had first entered the car. The man who sat nearest to him was
a doctor from Selkirk; and, it being the ingrained policy of the Hawk to
know a reporter as he would know a plain-clothes man, he had recognised one
of the others as a young reporter on the staff of the Selkirk Evening
Journal. The others again, of whom there were three, were strangers to
him. His eyes rested—with frank interest—on the man who had just
spoken. There had been just a trace of accent in the other’s perfect
English, and it bore out the man’s appearance. The man was perhaps
forty-five years of age, rather swarthy in complexion, and, though slight
in build, commanding in presence. The black Vandyke beard, as well as the
mustache, was carefully trimmed; and his face had an air of the student about
it, an air that was enhanced by the extraordinarily heavy-lensed spectacles
which he wore. The excellent clothes were unmistakably of foreign cut.
“Great Scott!” ejaculated the reporter. “Is that straight?” He
twisted his cigar excitedly from one corner of his mouth to the other. “I
say, I don’t suppose there’s a chance of getting a squint at
it, eh?”
“A—squint?” The foreigner’s face was politely puzzled.
“I mean a chance to see it—to see what it looks like,” interpreted
the reporter, with a laugh.
“Oh, yes, of course—a squint. I will remember that!” The
foreigner joined in the laugh. “One learns, monsieur, always, eh—if
one keeps one’s ears open!” He reached down and picked up a small
black bag from the floor beside his chair. “No, I am afraid I cannot
actually show it to you, monsieur, owing to the nature of the container;
but perhaps even the manner in which it is carried may be of interest, and,
if so, I shall be delighted.”
The others, the Hawk among them, leaned spontaneously forward in their chairs.
From the bag the man produced a lead box, some four inches square. He opened
this, and, from where it was nested in wadding, took out what looked like
a cylindrical-shaped piece of lead of the thickness and length of one’s
little finger. He held it out in the palm of his hand for their inspection.
“Inside this sealed lead covering,” he explained, “is
a glass tube hermetically sealed. The lead, of course, absorbs the rays,
which otherwise would render the radium extremely dangerous to handle. You
perhaps remember the story—if not, it may possibly be of interest.
Radium, you know, was discovered in 1898 by Monsieur and Madame Curie; but
the action of radium on human tissues was unknown until 1901, when Professor
Becquerel of Paris, having incautiously carried a tube in his waistcoat pocket,
there appeared on the skin within two weeks the severe inflammation which
has become known as the famous ‘Becquerel burn.’ Since that time,
I may add, active investigation into the action of radium has been carried
on, resulting in the establishment in Paris in 1906 of the Laboratoire Biologique
du Radium.”
The doctor from Selkirk reached out, and, obtaining a smiling permission,
picked up the lead cylinder from the other’s hand. The reporter sucked
noisily on the butt of his cigar.
“And d’ye mean to say that’s worth one
hundred thousand dollars?” he demanded helplessly.
“Fully!” replied the foreigner gravely. “I should consider
myself very fortunate if I had the means and the opportunity of purchasing
it at that price. There are only a few grains there, it is true, and yet
even that is a very appreciable percentage of the world’s entire output
for a single year. The Austrian Government, when it bought the radium-producing
pitchblende mines at Joachimsthal, you know, acquired what is practically
a world’s monopoly of radium. And since the annual production of ore
from those mines is but about twenty-two thousand pounds, and that from those
twenty-two thousand pounds only something like forty-six grains of radium
are obtained, it is not difficult to understand the enormous price which
it commands.”
The little lead cylinder passed from hand to hand. It came last to the Hawk.
He examined it with no more and no less interest than had been displayed
by the others, and returned it to its owner, who replaced it in the black
handbag.
“Look here,” said the reporter impulsively, “I don’t
want to nose into personal affairs; but, if it’s a fair question, what
are you going to do with the stuff?”
It was the doctor from Selkirk who spoke before the foreigner had time to
reply.
“I was being tempted to ask the same question myself,” he said
quickly. “I am a physician—Doctor Moreling is my name—and
from what you have said I imagine that possibly you are a medical man yourself?”
“And you are quite right,” the other answered cordially. “I
am Doctor Meunier, and I come from Paris.”
“What!” exclaimed the Selkirk physician excitedly. “Not
Doctor Meunier, the famous cancer specialist and surgeon of the Salpêtrière
Hospital!”
The other shrugged his shoulders protestingly.
“Well,” he smiled, a little embarrassed, “my name is certainly
Meunier, and it is true that I have the honour to be connected with the institution
you have mentioned.”
The reporter had a notebook in his hand.
“Gee!” he observed softly. “You don’t mind, do you,
Doctor Meunier? This looks like luck to me. I’m on the Evening
Journal—Selkirk.”
“Ah—a reporter!” The dark eyes seemed to twinkle humorously
from behind the heavy lenses. “I have met some—when I landed
in New York. They were very nice. I liked them very much. Certainly, young
man, why should you not say anything I have told you? You have my permission.”
“Fine!” cried the reporter enthusiastically. “And now,
Doctor Meunier, if you’ll just round out the story by telling us why
the celebrated Paris surgeon is travelling in America with a hundred thousand
dollars’ worth of radium, I’ll be glad I got panned on the story
I went after this morning and so had to take this train back.”
“Panned?” inquired the other gravely.
“Yes.” The reporter nodded. “It blew up, you know.”
“Blew up! Ah!” The foreigner’s face was at once concerned. “So!
You were in an accident, then?”
“No, no,” laughed the reporter. “There wasn’t anything
in the story. It didn’t have any foundation.”
“Again I learn,” observed the foreigner, with an amused drawl.
He studied the reporter for an instant quizzically. “And so I am to
supply the place of the panned story that blew up—is that it? Well,
very well! Why not? I see no reason against it, if it will be of service
to you. Very well, then. I have been summoned to Japan to attend a case of
cancer—radium treatment—and I am on my way there now.” He
smiled again. “I have noticed that American reporters are observant,
and it may occur to you that I might have reached my destination quicker
by way of Russia. As a matter of fact, however, I was in New York attending
a convention when I received the summons. I cabled for the radium, and—well,
young man, that pretty well completes the story.”
“Yes—thanks!” said the reporter. He wrote rapidly. “Operation
on a Japanese?”
“Why, yes, of course—on a Japanese.”
“‘Summoned,’ you said. That listens as though it might
be for one of the Emperor’s family,” prodded the reporter shrewdly.
“I did not say so,” smiled the other imperturbably.
“And even if it were so—” He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
“I get you!” grinned the reporter. “Well, there’s
no harm in saying a ‘High Personage’ then, is there? That sounds
good, and it would have to be some one on the top of the heap to bring a
man like you all this way.”
“Let us be discreet, young man, and say—well, let us say, a
member of prominent family,” suggested the other, still smiling.
“All right,” agreed the reporter. “I won’t put anything
over on you, I promise you. And now, doctor, tell us something more about
radium, how it acts and all that, and how an operation is performed with
it, and—”
The Hawk had apparently lost interest. He settled back in his chair, and
picked up his previously discarded newspaper—yet occasionally his eyes
strayed over the top of his newspaper, and rested meditatively on the little
black handbag on the car floor beside the Frenchman’s chair. The doctor
from Selkirk, the reporter, and the French specialist talked on. The Limited
reached the last stop before Selkirk. As the train pulled out again, the
Hawk, as it were, summed up his thoughts.
“A hundred thousand dollars,” confided the Hawk softly to himself. “Maybe
it wouldn’t be easy to sell, but it would make a very nice haul—a
very nice haul. It would tempt—almost anybody. Yes, bad stuff to handle;
the fences would be leery probably, because I guess every last grain on this
little old globe is catalogued as to ownership, and they’d be afraid
it would be an open-and-shut game that what they were trying to shove would
be spotted as the stolen stuff—not that it couldn’t be done though,
at that! There’s always somebody to take a chance—on a hundred
thousand dollars! And what about the institution that owns it coming across
big and no questions asked to get it back again? Yes, I guess it would make
a nice haul—a very nice haul. I wonder—”
The conductor had entered the car, had said something that the Hawk had
not caught—and now the French specialist was on his feet.
“How long did you say?” he demanded excitedly.
“I didn’t say,” replied the conductor; “I only guessed—twelve
hours anyway, and if we’re through under twenty-four it’ll be
because some one has performed a miracle.”
“Twelve hours—twenty-four!” echoed the Frenchman wildly. “But, mon
Dieu, I have not that to spare to catch my steamer for Japan in San
Francisco!”
“But what’s wrong, conductor?” asked the Selkirk doctor. “You
haven’t told us that.”
“The Rainy River bridge is out,” the conductor answered.
The Rainy River bridge! The Hawk reached into his pocket,
withdrew his cigarette case, and made a critical choice of one of the six
identical cigarettes the case contained.
“Out! How?” the doctor from Selkirk persisted.
“No details,” said the conductor; “except that it was
blown up a little while ago and that they think it’s the work of the
Hawk’s gang. They just got word over the wire at the last stop.”
“Jumping whiskers!” yelled the reporter. “Is that right,
conductor?”
“Yes, I guess it’s right, fast enough,” said the conductor
grimly. He turned to the Frenchman. “It’s tough luck, sir, to
miss transpacific connections; but I guess that’s the man you’ve
got to thank for it—the Hawk.”
“The Hawk? What is that? Who is the Hawk?” The Frenchman had
lost his poise; he was gesticulating violently now.
“I’ll tell you,” said the reporter briskly. “He’s
the man that’s got your original reign of terror skinned a mile—believe
me! He’s an ex-Sing Sing convict, and he’s the head, brains and
front of a gang of criminals operating out here compared with whom, for pure,
first-water deviltry, any one of Satan’s picked cohorts would look
as shy and retiring as a maiden lady of sixty who suddenly found herself
in a one-piece bathing suit—in public. That’s the Hawk! Yes,
sir—believe me!”
Doctor Meunier waved his hands, as though to ward off a swarm of buzzing
bees.
“I do not understand!” he spluttered angrily. “I do not
care to understand! You do not speak English! I understand only of the delay!” He
caught at the conductor’s sleeve. “You, monsieur—is there
not something that can be done?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the conductor. “We’ll
be in Selkirk now in a few minutes, and the best thing you can do is to see
Mr. Lanson, the superintendent.”
The conductor retired.
The Frenchman sat down in his chair, mopped his face with a handkerchief,
and stared from one to another of his fellow passengers.
“Messieurs, it is necessary, it is imperative, that I catch the steamer!” he
cried frantically. “What am I to do?”
“Lanson’s a good head; he’ll fix you up some way,” said
the reporter soothingly. “Don’t you worry. I’m mighty sorry
for you, Doctor Meunier, upon my soul—but, say, this is some story—whale
of a climax!”
The Frenchman glared for an instant; then, leaning forward, suddenly shook
his fist under the other’s nose.
“Young man, damn your story!” he snarled distractedly.
The Hawk retired once more behind his newspaper. The reporter was pacifying
the excited Frenchman. The Hawk was not interested in that. The message,
that single word which had puzzled him, was transparently clear now—and
had been from the moment the conductor had spoken. The surmise of the railroad
officials, even if it were no more than surmise on their part, was indubitably
correct—barring the slight detail of his own participation in the affair!
The Wire Devils had blown up the Rainy River bridge. This, as a detached
fact, did not interest him either—they were quite capable of blowing
up a bridge, or anything else. That was a detail. But they were quite incapable
of doing it without a very good and sufficient reason, and one that promised
returns of a very material nature to themselves. What was the game? Why the
Rainy River bridge? Why this morning? Why at this time? The Rainy River bridge
was but a few miles west of Selkirk, and—the Hawk’s eyes strayed
over his newspaper again, and rested mildly upon the Frenchman’s little
black handbag, that was quite slim, and not over long, that was of such a
size, in fact, that it might readily be concealed under one’s coat,
for instance, without attracting undue attention—and with the bridge
out a passenger, say on the Coast Limited this noon would experience an annoying,
somewhat lengthened, but unavoidable interruption in his journey. The passenger
might even be forced to spend the night in Selkirk, and very much might happen
in a night—in Selkirk! It was a little elaborate, it seemed as though
it might perhaps have been accomplished with a little less fuss—though
lack of finesse and exceeding cunning was, in his experience, an unmerited
reproach where that unknown brain that planned and plotted the Wire Devils’ acts
was concerned; but, however that might be, the reason that the Rainy River
bridge was out now appeared quite obviously attributable—to a very
excited foreigner, and a little black handbag whose contents were valued
at the modest sum of one hundred thousand dollars.
“And I wonder,” said the Hawk almost plaintively to himself, “I
wonder which of us will cash in on that!”
The Hawk rose leisurely from his chair, as the train reached Selkirk. He
permitted the Frenchman, the Selkirk physician and the reporter to descend
to the platform in advance of him; but, as they hurried through the station
and around to the entrance leading upstairs to the divisional offices, obviously
with the superintendent’s office as their objective, the Hawk, in the
privileged character of an interested fellow traveller, fell into step with
the reporter.
The four entered the superintendent’s office, and from an unobtrusive
position just inside the door the Hawk listened to the conversation. He heard
Lanson, the superintendent, confirm the conductor’s story, and express
genuine regret at the Frenchman’s plight, as he admitted it to be a
practical certainty that the other would miss his connection in San Francisco.
The Frenchman but grew the more excited. He suggested a special train from
the western side of the bridge—they could get him across in a boat,
he said. The superintendent explained that traffic in the mountains beyond
was already demoralised. The Frenchman raved, begged, pleaded, implored—and
suddenly the Hawk sucked in his breath softly. The Frenchman was backing
his appeal for a special with the offer to pay any sum demanded, and had
taken a well-filled pocketbook from his pocket. The Hawk’s eyes aimlessly
sought the toes of his boots. He had caught a glimpse of a fat wad of bills,
a very fat wad, whose denominations were of a large and extremely interesting
nature. The official shook his head. It was not a question of money; nor
was the other’s ability to pay in question. Later on, he, Lanson, would
know better what the situation was; meanwhile he suggested that Doctor Meunier
should go to the hotel and wait—that there was nothing else to do for
the moment. The Selkirk physician here intervened, and, agreeing with the
superintendent, offered to escort the Frenchman to the Corona Hotel.
The Hawk, as one whose curiosity was satiated, but satiated at the expense
of time he could ill afford, nodded briefly to the reporter who stood nearest
to him, and quietly left the room.
And then the Hawk looked up—the throb and mutter of a distant train
was in the air. Pencil, paper and flashlight were restored to his pockets,
and he drew further back from the right of way. Far down the track the way
freight’s headlight flashed into view. A minute passed, another, and
still another. And now, where the Hawk had lain, the ground was ablaze with
light—then black again; there was the roar of steam, a grind and clash
and shatter ricochetting down the string of cars, the scream and shriek of
brake-shoes, and then, a panting thing, as though the big mogul were drawing
in deep breaths after great exertion, the way freight came to a standstill
a few yards from the siding switch.
The Hawk crept forward, his eyes sweeping down the length of the train in
a keen, tense gaze. There was a flat car—it showed in a curious open
space, like a break in the black thread stretched along the track—but
it was too far away, and too perilously close to the caboose. His eyes travelled
back; and, being nearer to the train now he discerned a boxcar, empty, its
door open, almost in front of him. He crawled forward until he was abreast
of it, and until he lay close up against the rails, looked cautiously up
and down the length of the train, sprang to his feet, and in an instant lay
stretched out far back in the interior of the car.
The train moved forward, stopped again at the station, and again moved forward.
The Hawk reverted to his pencil, paper and flashlight. The code message now
read:
seal waxp aper plan tedb ehin dlar gefr amed pict ureo verm ante lmer idan
ssit ting room
It was now simply a matter of grouping the letters properly, and the Hawk
wrote out the message at the bottom of the sheet:
Seal, wax (and) paper planted behind large framed picture over mantel Meridan(’)s
sitting room.
The Hawk stared at it grimly.
“‘Yea,” said the Hawk, “I guess that’s right!
I guess the job is wished on the young fellow to a finish; he wouldn’t
have a hope, and MacVightie would never look any further.” The Hawk
was silent for a moment. “Twenty-five thousand dollars—in cash!” murmured
the Hawk again.
The way freight ran slowly, very slowly—and it had already been from
ten to fifteen minutes late in reaching Conmore. At the next station the
train crew seemed possessed of a perversity infernal for shifting, shunting
and lifting cars. The Hawk, fuming with impatience, consulted his watch,
as they finally pulled out into the clear again. It was twenty-five minutes
of eleven.
The train rattled, bumped and jerked its way along—and at the remaining
intermediate stations there was more delay. And when, approaching Selkirk
at last, the Hawk consulted his watch again as the train whistled, he was
conscious that his impatience was tempered with a sort of sullen, philosophical
expectation of defeat. His luck had been too abundant during the early part
of the evening! It was now ten minutes of twelve. He leaned out of the doorway,
peering ahead. They were just rolling into the Selkirk yard.
The Hawk swung himself out from the car, dropped to the ground, darted quickly
to one side over several spur tracks, and stood still. The way freight, like
a snail, dragged past him, opening, as it were, a panorama of the scene in
the yard: the low switch lights, red, green, purple and white, like myriad
and variegated fireflies hovering everywhere over the ground; the bobbing
lantern of a yardman here and there; the dancing gleam of a headlight, as
the little yard engine shot fussily away from a string of lighted coaches—the
Eastern Express—which it had evidently just made up and backed down
on the main line beside the station; while to his right, up the yard, on
one of the spurs, perhaps a hundred yards away, its platform showing in the
glow of the dome light, stood the superintendent’s car; and to his
left, not quite so far up the yard, and therefore nearer to him than the
private car, the Hawk could make out the black, irregular outline of the
old freight shed.
The yard engine wheezed its way importantly up past the station, stopped,
a switch light winked, changed colour, and the shunter began to puff its
way back. The Hawk shrugged his shoulders resignedly. The game was up and
he was too late, unless Dixer had been forced to defer his attempt until
some time during the run that night, which was hardly likely. The yard engine
was backing down now to take the superintendent’s car up to the main
line, preparatory to running it back and coupling it to the string of coaches
beside the station platform. The Hawk smiled in the darkness without mirth,
as he lost sight of the little switcher on the other side of the private
car. Well, at least, he could gamble on the one chance that was left! There
was only one thing to do—go over to the station and get a Pullman berth.
If Dixer and the Butcher—the Butcher was “Number One”—were
on the Pullman, the money was still in the private car, and—
The Hawk’s eyes narrowed suddenly. A man, crouched and running swiftly,
circled the end of the private car, and headed in the direction of the freight
shed—and like a flash the Hawk whirled and leaped forward, running
silently toward the same goal. The Hawk’s brain, stimulated, keen,
alert, worked with lightning speed, and suddenly a strange low laugh was
on his lips. Their courses were convergent, his and that black running shape’s,
and the other had not noticed him, and there appeared to be something, a
package, under the other’s arm. The Hawk, as he ran, slipped his mask
over his face. Was it the dummy package—or the twenty-five thousand
in cash? Had the man succeeded, or had the yard engine, backing down to couple
on, disturbed him in his attempt just at the psychological instant? Again
that strange low laugh, in a panting breath, was on the Hawk’s lips.
It did not matter! There was a way now. He was not too late. If he got both of
the packages he could not lose—and there was a way to accomplish that,
a wild, dare-devil way, but a sure way!
It was black, pitch black, in near the shed, and the Hawk, with the shorter
distance to cover, reached the edge of the freight shed platform, and crouched
down on the track. Came the faint crash and bump of the yard engine coupling
to the private car; then the short, quick gasps of a runner out of breath,
and a flying form bounded across the tracks, sprang to the platform, and
dashed for the freight shed door—and the Hawk, his muscles, rigid,
taut as steel, released suddenly, as a coiled spring is released, leaped
and hurled himself upon the other.
There was a yell of dismay, of surprise and fury, that seemed to echo from
one end of the yard to the other. The man went down in a heap from the impact.
The package, from under his arm, rolled off along the platform—and
the Hawk in a swoop was upon it. He snatched it up, and running like a deer
now, headed for the yard engine and the private car.
Came another yell from behind him. He heard the freight shed door flung
violently open; and then, in grim emphasis of a sudden chorus of wild, infuriated
shouts from Dixer’s waiting companions, the vicious tongue flame of
a revolver split the black, and the roar of the report reverberated through
the yard like a cannon shot.
And now from the yard itself, the roundhouse and the station came answering
shouts. On the Hawk ran—he was alongside the private car now, which
was already in motion—and now he was opposite the cab of the yard engine.
The fireman, at the sudden pandemonium, head thrust out, was hanging in the
gangway. The Hawk’s automatic swung to a line with the other’s
head.
“Get out!” gritted the Hawk coldly. “Both of you—you
and your mate! Get out—on the other side!”
The man, with a dazed oath, retreated, and the Hawk sprang through the gangway.
The engineer, jumping from his seat, hesitated, and in the yellow light of
the cab lamp looked for the fraction of a second into the muzzle of the Hawk’s
automatic, and into the hard, uncompromising black eyes behind the mask—and
followed the fireman in a hasty exit through the opposite gangway.
The Hawk snatched at the throttle, pulled it wider—and, like a beast
stung to sudden madness under the spur, the yard engine quivered, and in
a storm of exhausts, coughing the red sparks skyward from the stack, the
drivers racing, spitting fire as they sought to bite and hold the steel,
plunged forward. Ahead the way was clear to the main line, but behind—The
Hawk dropped his package on the floor of the cab, leaned suddenly far out
through the gangway, and as suddenly fired, his automatic cutting a lane
of flame through the darkness. He had fired at the ground, but his shot had
been effective. The engineer or the fireman, he could not distinguish which,
leaping to board the private car by the rear platform, leaped back instead,
and with a series of wild gesticulations, in which arms and fists waved furiously,
vanished in the darkness.
The yard engine, as though playing snap-the-whip with the private car behind
it, took the main line switch with a stagger and a lurch, and straightened
away into the clear. There was speed now, and the speed was increasing with
every second. The shouts, the yells, the cries, the pandemonium from the
yard was blotted out in the pound of the drivers and the belch of the exhaust;
and the station and switch lights were lost to sight as engine and car flew
on, heading west into the foothills. The Hawk chuckled to himself. There
would be wild confusion in the dispatcher’s office, and wild confusion
all along the line west of Selkirk, as regulars, extras and traffic of all
sorts scurried for safety to the sidings—but there would be no interference
with him! Where they would otherwise have ditched him, given
him an open switch at the first station and sent him to destruction without
compunction, he possessed, as it was, a most satisfactory hostage in the
person of the division superintendent, whom they would hesitate about sending
to eternity at the same time!
Possibly a minute and a half, two at the outside, had passed since he had
jumped through the gangway. He eased the throttle a little now, reducing
the speed to a rate more nearly commensurate with safety; and, placing the
package on the driver’s seat, ripped off the outside wrapper. There
was a queer, hard smile on the Hawk’s lips, as his fingers tore at
the covering of one of the small sealed packets within. Was it the dummy
parcel—or the twenty-five thousand in cash? Had Dixer succeeded—or
was the money still behind him there in the private car?
The cab lamp above the dancing gauge needles seemed to throw its meagre
yellow glow with strained inquisitiveness over the Hawk’s shoulder—and
then the Hawk laughed softly, and laughed again. In his hands were banknotes.
He riffled the stack through his fingers. It was here, in his possession—twenty-five
thousand dollars in cash!
And he laughed again, and glanced around him—through the cab glass
at the white ribbons of steel glistening under the headlight’s glare,
around the murky cab that in its sway and jolt seemed to endow a legion of
shadowy with movement, vitality and life, at the platform of the private
car, which he could see by looking along the edge of the tender, and which,
like its fellow at the rear, was bathed in the soft radiance of a dome light.
Well, he might have known from the fact that the occupants of the car had
not made any move as yet, at least from the forward end, that they had been
in bed and asleep when the disturbance began; and he might, on that count,
if he had stopped to think, have known that Dixer had succeeded even before
he, the Hawk, had put it to the proof by opening the parcel.
A lurch of the cab sent him against the seat, and scattered the sealed packages.
He gathered them together again hurriedly. He had only to slow down the engine
a little more, jump to the ground, let the engine and car go on, make his
own way back through the fields, and he would be safe unless—that strange,
queer smile, half grim, half whimsical, was flickering across his lips—unless
he cared to risk his life for that dummy package back there in the car behind,
that contained nothing more valuable than neatly trimmed pieces of blotting
paper!
The smile lost its whimsicality, and the grimness gathered until his lips
drooped in sharp, hard lines at the corners of his mouth—and, abruptly,
lifting up the seat, he swept the packages of banknotes into the engineer’s
box, leaped across the cab, and began to claw his way up over the coal, making
for the back of the tender.
“Twenty-five thousand in cash for me, and twenty years in the ‘pen’ for
the kid, doesn’t look like an even break,” muttered the Hawk,
as he clawed his way up. “Maybe I’m a fool—I guess maybe
I am—but it doesn’t look like an even break. You see,” said
the Hawk, continuing to commune with himself, “they’ll know,
of course, that some one who wasn’t Meridan tried to get the package,
but with the package still there they’ll think that the ‘some
one’ made a bull of it, and to-morrow morning when they open the package
and spot the finger prints, and get that bank seal in Meridan’s home,
they’ll hold him for it cold, because what’s happened around
here to-night’ll only look like somebody making a try for the goods
without knowing they were already gone. The kid wouldn’t have a hope—the
Ladybird wasn’t dealing any aces except to himself—the kid would
go up for having previously stolen the goods on his own
account. Yes, I guess he would—wax, seal and paper in his house to
make dummy packages with—yes, I guess the kid would stand a hot chance!”
The Hawk rose to his feet at the rear of the tender, preparing to negotiate
a leap down over the ornamental brass platform railing of the private car—and
instantly flung himself back flat on his face on the coal. The car door was
flung open, and Lanson, the superintendent, in pajamas, a revolver in his
hand, stepped out on the platform. He was closely followed by a young man—Meridan,
the bank clerk, obviously—also in pajamas, but apparently unarmed;
and, behind Meridan again, came the negro porter.
Lanson’s voice, raised excitedly, carried to the Hawk:
“Damn it, there’s no one in the cab! What the devil sort of
a game is this!”
The Hawk edged up to the top of the coal again—and the next instant,
with catlike agility, he launched himself forward. Lanson, clambering over
the platform railing, with the very evident intention of making his way via
the tender to the throttle, gasped audibly over the racket of the beating
trucks, and in a sort of stunned surprise and irresolution remained poised
inertly on the railing, as the Hawk, clinging now with one hand to the rear
handrail of the switcher, his feet planted on the buffer beam, thrust the
muzzle of his automatic into Lanson’s face.
“Drop that gun!” invited the Hawk in a monotone.
The weapon, from Lanson’s hand, clattered down, struck the coupling,
and dropped to the track.
The Hawk spoke again—with unpleasant curtness:
“You—Sambo! Move back, and stand in the doorway! Yes—there!
Now, you, young man, you stand in front of Sambo—your back to him!” And
then, as Meridan too obeyed, though more slowly than the porter and with
a sort of defiant reluctance, the Hawk addressed the superintendent: “Now,
you—your name’s Lanson, isn’t it?” he snapped. “You,
Lanson, back up against the young fellow. Yes—that’s it! Sambo,
put your hands on the young fellow’s shoulders—and you, young
fellow, do the same on Lanson’s!” The Hawk swung over to the car
platform—and then the Hawk smiled uninvitingly. “It’s the
lock-step backwards,” he explained insolently. “You get the
idea, don’t you? If either of you two behind lift your hands, Lanson
in front here pays for it. Now—back with you!”
They shuffled backward into the observation compartment of the car, through
this, and through a narrow side corridor, and emerged into the main compartment
of the car. The Hawk, guiding their movements by the simple expedient of
prodding the muzzle of his automatic none too gently into Lanson’s
body, here ranged the three along the side of the car; and, backing over
to the opposite side himself, halted in front of the bookcase, and stood
surveying his captives with his former insolent stare. The porter was patently
reduced to a state of nervous terror; Meridan, young, clean-cut, was white
to the lips, and his lips quivered, but his eyes, a hard, bitter light in
them, never left the Hawk’s face; Lanson, too, was white, but there
was a stern composure in his face that was absent from the younger man’s.
It was Lanson who spoke.
“I presume,” he said evenly, “that you are the abandoned
scoundrel, known as the Hawk, whom one of these days we are going—to
hang.”
The Hawk shrugged his shoulders.
“I haven’t a calling card with me, but we’ll let it go
at that,” he answered flippantly.
The car swayed and lurched suddenly; the trucks beat a louder tattoo as
they clattered over a switch; lights, a row of them from without, scintillated
through the car windows—and were gone. They were not running perilously
fast, but fast enough to prohibit the possibility of any one, even an acrobatic
brakeman from a stalled train, swinging aboard. The Hawk laughed low. Also,
he had been quite right—they had just passed a station, and, thanks
to the superintendent’s presence, no attempt had been made to interfere
with the train.
From one of the Hawk’s pockets—with his left hand—the
Hawk produced a small steel jimmy. He knelt down, and, still covering the
three men, inserted the jimmy in between the cupboard doors. There was a
creak, the rip and split and tear of rending wood and lock, and the doors
flew apart. The Hawk reached in, laughed again, as, with the dummy package
under his arm, he stood up and began to back away toward the corridor leading
to the forward end of the car—and the laugh died on his lips. In the
winking of an eye Meridan had swung his hands from Lanson’s shoulders,
and was springing forward.
“You’ll never get it!” The boy’s voice was a hoarse
whisper. “Not while I—”
“Keep away, you fool!” snarled the Hawk, and fired—at
the floor. His brain seemed instantly in a riot of ironical mockery. He could
not fire at the boy—it was the boy who had brought him here—and
now the other was upon him—like a wild cat—snatching at the automatic.
It was only another step backward to the opening of the corridor, and the
Hawk gained it; but still the boy clung on, fighting furiously. He saw Lanson
and the porter leap forward, but for the moment that mattered little—no
more than one at a time could get at him in the confined and narrow space
here. To hold the package rendered his left arm useless. He dropped the package
to the floor, and kicked it deftly back behind him, as the boy, with both
hands, wrenched and battled madly for possession of the automatic.
They were swaying now, the two of them, bumping their shoulders and their
arms and elbows against first one side of the corridor and then the other.
There was the crash of splintering glass as they lunged into a window—another
crash, louder, more ominous, and with it a tongue of flame, as the automatic
went off in their hands—and something like a red-hot iron seared the
Hawk’s side, and a blur came before his eyes.
He reeled, recovered himself, and, massing all his strength for the effort,
as, with a cry of triumph, Meridan closed again, he tore himself free from
the other’s grasp. There was one way—he was still in possession
of the automatic—only one way now.
With a lightning swing he whipped the butt of the weapon to the other’s
head, backed rapidly away as the boy slid a limp thing to the floor, and,
picking up the package as he moved backward, holding the narrow corridor
with his automatic, though Lanson was kneeling now at Meridan’s side,
he reached the observation compartment, whirled, ran for the door, opened
it, and stepped out on the platform.
He stood panting here, a little dizzy, a sort of nauseating weakness upon
him, as he fumbled in his pocket. He was not as quick as usual in his work,
not as expert now in the use of his skeleton keys, but, swiftly for all that,
he locked the car door.
The car and the engine seemed to sway and lurch and pitch and toss as they
had never done before. Was the speed greater? What was it? He stumbled and
nearly fell as he climbed to the tender. He fell, unable to maintain his
footing in the shifting coal, as he reached the cab. There was something
hot and wet that seemed to be working its way down his leg; his side was
giving him intolerable pain.
He looked at the package in his hands, looked at it queerly for a moment,
and then his drawn lips parted in the old whimsical smile, as he lurched
forward and opened the fire-box door. The red glow filled the cab and spread
upward, tinging the sky with a rosy light—and the Hawk thrust the package
into the fire, and, swaying unsteadily, watched it burst into flame.
He glanced at the gauge now. The steam was dropping rapidly. He swept his
hand across his eyes. He had two things to do, and it seemed as though his
brain clogged in its decision as to which he should do first—he had
to get more coal on the fire, or else the engine would run down, and he did
not want it to run down, for it must keep on going a long way, a very long
way if possible, after he left it; and he must stop the flow of blood from
his wound somehow, or else—
He put coal into the fire-box. It was painful, dizzy work, and he spilled
a great deal of it, and the lumps rolled over the floor of the cab, and he
stumbled over the lumps.
The Hawk’s teeth were biting into his bloodless lips, as he finally
shut the fire-box door, and, staggering to the side of the cab, lifted up
the engineer’s seat again. Here, under the packages of banknotes, he
found a bunch of waste and some cord; and then, reeling with the lurch of
the cab, reeling with his own weakness that only an iron nerve held back
from mastering him, he examined his wound, found it, though painful and bleeding
profusely, to be only a bad flesh wound, and, making a thick pad of the waste,
he laid it against his side, and bound it there by passing the cord tightly
several times around his body. It was a crude bandage, but it should, at
least, check the flow of blood—afterwards, if he had luck, there would
be opportunity for a better one!
His mind reverted, seemingly without volition of his, to the fight in the
car, and he spoke aloud.
“I guess,” said the Hawk, “I didn’t hit him as hard
as twenty years in the ‘pen’ would have hit him—I guess
I didn’t hit him that hard.”
He rested for a moment, sitting on the floor of the cab; then from the engineer’s
box he removed the sealed packages, the torn outside wrapper, and likewise
an evening newspaper which he found there. He wrapped up the banknotes in
the newspaper, tied the bundle securely with the remainder of his cord, replaced
the seat, and, crouched low enough on the floor to be protected by the tender
from, say, a shot fired through the observation window of the private car,
kept his eyes fastened on the right of way ahead.
The next station must be close at hand, and there was but one way in which
he could get back to Selkirk—and he must get back.
There was that letter—the Ladybird’s letter—that would
be received in Elkhead in the morning! His brain was clearer now. He must
be on Extra No. 92, the eastbound fast freight’s, running time, and
she must be somewhere very near here, must have taken to the siding at the
next station probably to avoid him, and to give clearance to what was, undoubtedly
now, coming behind him—a detective’s special, with MacVightie,
naturally, in command.
He straightened up painfully. Ahead, he had caught the glint of switch and
station lights. The siding was on the left-hand side. He moved to the left-hand
side of the cab, and lay on the cab floor by the gangway. That letter! It
seemed to obsess him now. If, when the letter was read, the bank seal, the
wax, and the wrapping paper were found hidden in the boy’s
home, the fact that some one—he, the Hawk—had stolen the package
from the car in no way changed anything. The boy’s apparent prior guilt
was as glaring as ever. On the other hand, with the package gone, and if
the seal and those other things were not found, the letter
became simply the expression of some practical joker’s perverted sense
of humour, or the irresponsible work of some fool or crank. He frowned in
a sort of dazed irritation. He had known that all along, hadn’t he?
He had known when he started after that dummy package in the first place
that he would have to go all the way—so why was his
mind dwelling now on useless repetitions!
The Hawk raised his head slightly—a deafening racket was in his ears.
The freight was here—on the siding. He was roaring past it now. He
could not hope for an open boxcar on the fast freight. His eyes were searching
eagerly for a flat car—a flat car loaded with anything that would afford
him shelter. Yes—there was one—two of them—loaded with
steel girders.
The roar subsided; he was past the station and into the clear again—and
now the Hawk was at the throttle, easing the speed craftily. He did not dare
to “shut off” entirely, for, behind there at the station, they
would know, if the sound of the exhaust ceased, that he had stopped. He checked
a little with the “air” now. And now, calculating the speed reduced
enough to risk a jump, he opened the throttle to its former notch, took up
his newspaper package, lowered himself to the bottom gangway step, and swung
off.
He rolled down the embankment. The switcher and private car went by, and,
gradually gaining speed again, racketed on up the right of way. With a groan,
the Hawk readjusted his displaced and makeshift bandage, and began to make
his way back toward the station. If he had slowed enough to allow of a safe
landing for himself, he had, of course, given Lanson the same opportunity—but
he had no fear of that. Lanson might have jumped, but Meridan, whom he had
left unconscious, couldn’t, and Lanson would stick to Meridan.
As for the porter—the Hawk shrugged his shoulders, as he looked about
him—the porter had not jumped.
He stumbled on. If he were right, if they had started a posse on a special
in pursuit, he had plenty of time. The fast freight could not pull out until
the special had gone by. It seemed a long way, an interminable way, an immeasurably
greater distance than he had covered coming up on the switcher. And then,
at last, the tail-lights of the stalled freight came into sight around a
bend, and grew brighter. And then, too, there came from the eastward the
rumble of an approaching train. He grew cautious now, and, creeping far out
from the side of the track, passed the caboose, crept in again toward the
line of cars, located the position of the flat cars, climbed aboard one of
them, and crawled in under the shored-up girders.
The Hawk lay very quiet. He was weak again, and his head swam, and he was
dizzy. An engine and car—MacVightie and his posse presumably—passed
by on the main line; and then, presently, the freight, with a clatter and
bang echoing from one to another down the length of cars, drew out of the
station.
When the Hawk moved again, it was as the train whistled and slowed for the
Selkirk yard. Perhaps twenty minutes had passed—the fast freight, with
no stops and already late, had made time. He put his mask in his pocket,
wormed his way out from under the girders, and peered ahead and behind. They
were just crawling into the upper end of the yard. He slid to the ground,
found himself a little more steady on his feet, slipped across the spur tracks,
dodged in between two buildings that flanked the side of the yard, and came
out on the street.
Under a street lamp the Hawk looked at his watch. It was one o’clock.
He swayed a little again, but his lips set hard. There was not very much
time. Somewhere up the line the switcher and the private car would come to
a stop, and they would bring Meridan home—and once that happened, with
its consequent stir in Meridan’s apartment, it would be impossible
to get in there, and the game, as far as the boy was concerned, would be
up.
“Yes,” said the Hawk, as he forced himself along the street, “I
guess maybe that’s right—I guess maybe I’m a fool—but
it wasn’t an even break.”
A street car at the next corner took him across town; and fifteen minutes
more found him standing in the unlighted vestibule of the Linden Apartments.
The tiny flashlight swept the ground floor apartment doors—and an instant
later the door of Apartment B yielded noiselessly to the deft manipulation
of a skeleton key.
The Hawk closed the door, and stole forward. It was a rather fashionable
apartment, as the Ladybird had said, but it was also a very small one, small
enough to warrant the presumption that the young couple did not keep a servant,
and that there would probably be no one there except Meridan’s wife.
A door at his right, as he felt out in the darkness, he found to be open.
He listened—for the sound of breathing. There was nothing. The flashlight
winked—and the Hawk stepped forward into the room. It was the sitting
room. The flashlight was sweeping about now in an inquisitive little ray.
A door, closed, leading to an inner room, was on his right; facing him was
a heavily portièred window, the portières drawn; and a little
to the left of the window was the mantel.
The flashlight’s ray wavered suddenly, unsteadily—and the Hawk
caught at the nearest thing to him, the table in the centre of the room,
for support, a sense of disaster upon him, a realisation that, lashed on
as it might be by force of will, there was a limit to physical
endurance, and that the limit had well nigh been reached. His hand brushed
across his eyes, and brushed across them again to clear his sight, as he
tried to follow the flashlight’s ray to where it played jerkily on
a massively framed picture over the mantel. He bit his lips now, bit them
until they bled—and moved forward—and laid his parcel of banknotes
on the floor that he might have the use of both hands—and climbed upon
a chair, and felt in behind the picture. Yes—it was there! His fingers
closed on a roll of paper, twitched and shook a little as they pulled it
out—and a small package from inside the roll fell with a slight thud
to the mantel, and from the mantel bounded off to the floor.
The Hawk caught his breath, as he listened, and descended from the chair.
“Clumsy fool!” he gritted fiercely, as he knelt on the floor. “I—I
guess I’m pretty near the count to do a thing like that.”
The flashlight came into play again, and disclosed a metal seal and several
pieces of dark-green wax peeping through the paper wrapper that had been
split apart in the fall. He picked them up, and put them in his pocket; then,
loosening his vest, he tucked the roll of wrapping paper inside his shirt.
Well, it was done now; he had only to get back to his room, and there was
surely strength enough left for that. Again his hand swept across his eyes,
and pressed hard against his temples—and then, stooping swiftly, he
clutched at his package of banknotes on the floor beside him, and stood up,
rigid and tense.
Out of the darkness, almost at his elbow, with a startling clamour that
clashed and shattered through the silence, and seemed to set a thousand echoes
reverberating through the room, came the ringing of the telephone.
Some one in the inner room stirred. The Hawk drew back hurriedly into the
window recess behind the portières. The telephone rang again. There
came a step now, and now the room was flooded with light, and a woman, a
dressing gown flung hastily over her shoulders, crossed from the inner doorway
to the table, and picked up the instrument.
“Yes?... Hello!... What is it?” she asked, a little sleepily. “Yes,
this is Mrs. Meridan... What?... My husband!” Her voice
rang out in sudden terror. “What did you say?” she cried frantically. “Yes,
yes—the Hawk—my husband—unconscious... You are not telling
me all the truth—you are trying to keep the worst from me—for
God’s sake tell me the truth!... Not dangerous?... You are sure—you
are sure?... Yes, yes, I understand!... At the station in half
an hour... I will be there.”
Mechanically she hung the receiver on the hook, and clung for a moment to
the table’s edge, her face grey and bloodless; and then her lips moved,
and one hand clenched until the tight-drawn skin across the knuckles was
an ivory white.
“I pray God they get this Hawk!” she whispered. “I pray
God they do! And I pray God they kill him! The coward! The
miserable, pitiful coward!”
The Hawk’s fingers were digging at the window sill, because somehow
his knees were refusing to support his weight. What was she saying? He did
not quite understand. Well, it did not matter, she was gone now into that
other room—only she had left the light on. It was very strange the
way his hand on the window sill seemed to keep pulling his body around in
circles!
Time had lost concrete significance to the Hawk. She appeared again, fully
dressed now, and, switching off the light, went out into the hall, and the
front door closed behind her.
The Hawk parted the portières, and staggered across the room—and,
a moment later, a dark form, a newspaper parcel clutched under its arm, emerged
stealthily from the vestibule, and, reeling like a drunken man, disappeared
in the darkness down the street.
This site is full of FREE ebooks - Project Gutenberg Australia