THE PAY CAR ROBBER
Ralph Fairbanks sat at work on the task apportioned him by the general
superintendent six hours after he had delivered the California fruit
special "on time."
The young railroader went at the missing pay car case just as he started
at anything he undertook--with ardor and intelligence. He lined up all
the facts in order, he met Adair down the line at Maddox, and Zeph
Dallas was with him.
By three o'clock in the afternoon Ralph knew all there was to gather up
as to the details of the missing pay car. It was not much to know. No
trace of it had been found. There were a dozen theories as to what had
become of it. Two of Adair's helpers favored one looking to the bold
running off of the car after being detached by a "borrowed" engine of
the Midland Central, and were working along that line.
Adair told Ralph that he was anxious to get after the five men with whom
Zeph Dallas had been making friends for a week or more. Their leader was
Rivers, and there was no doubt that this crowd had worked on the pay car
robbery.
As Zeph had tearfully narrated to Ralph when he had implored his aid,
the crowd had fooled him completely. From the start they must have had
an inkling as to his identity. Working on that knowledge, as Zeph
expressed it, they had simply "had fun with him."
The deceptive Rivers had left false telegrams purposely in Zeph's way.
He had got up fictitious interviews with his confederates to which Zeph
had listened, believing himself a shrewd eavesdropper.
They put up a plausible plan which diverted his investigations entirely
from their real intentions, and this was how he never dreamed for a
moment that they had the slightest hint as to the starting of the
substitute pay car out of Rockton.
The day of that event they had sent Zeph on a fool errand to pretended
accomplices at a desolate spot thirty miles from any railroad. Returning
to the old camp of the conspirators the next morning foot sore and
wearied, Zeph had found it utterly abandoned. The crowd had deserted him
for good, and he was left "to hold the bag," as he ruefully expressed
it.
There was "one great big thing" that Zeph had done, however, and Ralph
encouragingly told him so. He had managed to get possession of papers
and lists that gave the names and plans of the conspirators who were
acting for the rival road, and also the cypher telegraphic code they
used.
So valuable did Adair consider this information, that he declared it
would not only result in proving where the real responsibility rested
for the various loss and damage of late to the Great Northern, but he
believed that when confronted with the proofs the Midland Central
officials, rather than court legal proceedings would foot every dollar
of the expensive bill run up by their spies, even to the pay car loss.
So, after telling Ralph that he should spend a day in consultation with
the superintendent and others at Stanley Junction, and to advise him at
once of any new discoveries of importance, the road officer left Ralph
and Zeph hopefully to their own devices.
At exactly ten o'clock the next morning as the general superintendent
and Adair sat in earnest consultation at headquarters. Glidden arrived
in great haste with a telegram.
"A pink, sir," he reported to the head officer. "Was in cypher. From
Fairbanks."
"Hello!" commented Adair, rising from his chair interested. "That's
good. He never wastes electricity unless he has something to tell."
"Why," almost shouted the superintendent, roused up to tremendous
excitement, "he has found the missing pay car!"
"He beats me, and that's fine, quick work!" declared Adair. "I told you
he was a genius, and I knew what I was about when I sent for him."
"Listen to this," continued the superintendent hastily: "Pay car
found--north Eagle Pass. Smashed. Empty. Adair must come at once.'"
"I guess so," nodded the road detective with animation. "What a record:
Roundhouse wiper, towerman, fireman, engineer, train dispatcher, and now
beating the special road service right on its own grounds! Chief, where
are you going to put Fairbanks next?"
"Something better and something soon," said the gratified
superintendent. "He deserves the best."
"There's nothing better than chief dispatcher," declared old John
Glidden, loyal to the core to the proud traditions of his calling. "You
just keep Fairbanks right at my side--we're both happy and useful right
here."
Adair waited for no regular train. A special locomotive took him down to
Maddox, to find Ralph and Zeph awaiting him in a private room off the
operator's office.
"Found the pay car, eh, Fairbanks?" challenged the road detective
briskly.
"Yes, Mr. Adair--what was left of it."
"Knew you would, if anyone did. So I bungled? Well, I'm glad to learn
what I don't know. Give us the details."
Ralph was brief and explicit. The first investigating party under
Adair's direction had traversed all the southern cut offs. They had
forgotten or neglected the one over which Ralph had made his sensational
run with the California fruit special. It was no wonder that the
division superintendent had considered it impossible, for at places the
fruit special had ploughed up dirt and dead leaves matted down over the
rails two feet thick.
At all events, recalling the obstruction of the chained ties, Ralph and
Zeph had gone to the spot.
"That obstruction," explained Ralph, "had certainly been placed before
the theft of the pay car, anticipatory of what was planned to happen."
"Yes, it looks that way," nodded Adair thoughtfully.
"The car must have run on strong gravity to the bumper, and went over
the edge of the roadway at that point. She struck down over one hundred
feet, breaking through the tops of trees. The snow later covered all
traces of the descent. You will find the car lying near an old abandoned
quarry house, a mere heap of kindling."
"And the safes and the money parrels?"
"Not a trace. However, Mr. Adair, it is no easy way to get out of the
ravine with those stout heavy bank safes, and I advise that a guard be
left in the vicinity."
"You have solved the mystery of the pay car, Fairbanks," said the road
officer in a gratified tone--"now to find out what has become of the
plunder."
"You will remain here, Mr. Adair?" inquired Ralph.
"Until I have made a thorough investigation and placed my men,
certainly," responded the detective.
"I wish to put in a few hours at a side line investigation, if you
please, and may not see you again until tomorrow, and I wish to take
Dallas with me."
"All right," said Adair. He looked as if he would like to know more of
Ralph's plans, but he had too much confidence in his young helper to
question him.
As to Ralph, he had a decided reason for not explaining to the road
officer. Glen Palmer was on his mind strongly, and a good many strange
things that Glen had told him had impressed him with the conviction that
the grandfather of the unfortunate Glen had been a pretty important
element in the plots of the conspirators all along the line.
Zeph, while at the camp of the plotters, had heard considerable they did
not intend him to hear. They had spoken of the Palmers--grandfather and
grandson, many times.
"From what they said," declared Zeph, "I could easily decide that they
discovered old Palmer, knowing him to be just the man they could use.
Without Glen knowing it, they got him away from home several times. They
played on his simple vanity, making him believe they would later get him
a great job with a big railroad. Glen was heart-broken when he
discovered this. The crowd finally got his grandfather in captivity.
Glen tried to rescue him, and they caged him up, too."
"I begin to understand the circumstances under which the poor fellow
sent those two warning messages," murmured Ralph. "Thief or no thief, he
was loyal to me."
"I think it, too, and I think he could tell you lots," said Zeph. "I
know his grandfather could. Both escaped finally, but where they went I
don't know."
Ralph knew at least where Glen was. He remembered the town at which his
arrest had been reported. It was less than twenty miles distant, and
they caught a fast freight. Ralph went at once to the workhouse of the
thriving little town. He inquired for Glen Palmer, but was informed that
the following day was visitor's day, and that the rules were never
broken except on special orders from the superintendent, who was absent
at present.
"I will call tomorrow, then," said Ralph. "I wish, though, you would see
Glen Palmer and tell him so. He may have some important message for me."
"You guessed it, sure enough," reported the prison guard, returning with
a folded fragment of a note. "Young Palmer was frantic to know you was
here, and says please don't forget and come tomorrow."
"I will certainly be here, or some one representing me," promised Ralph,
and then he read the note, which ran:
"I am terribly anxious to know if my grandfather arrived safely at the
home of my friend, Gregory Drum, at Ironton, where I sent him a few days
ago."
Ralph and his companion went on to Ironton at once. They located the
Drum residence, but did not find its proprietor at home. His wife, a
thin, nervous lady, told how a few days before an old man named Palmer
had come there, saying that his son was well known to her husband, which
the lady believed to be true.
"He acted so strange I was nearly frightened to death," narrated the
lady. "The second day here I found him astride of the roof ordering some
imaginary men to string it with wires. The next day a neighbor came
running in to tell me that he was up on a telegraph pole with a little
pocket clicker. My husband was away, I was frightened for the man's good
as well as my own, and I had him taken in charge by the town marshal.
He'll treat him kindly till my husband returns, and Mr. Palmer will be
in safe hands."
Ralph followed up this explanation by going at once to the marshal's
headquarters. There was a low, one-story building with an office, and a
barred room comfortably furnished beyond. The marshal listened to
Ralph's story with interest.
"I'll be glad if you can make head or tail out of the old fellow," he
said, and led the way into the barred room.
"Hello!" exclaimed Ralph, with a violent start as he entered the
apartment.
"Thunder! I say, where did you get him?" ejaculated Zeph Dallas, with an
amazed stare.
Across a cot lay a man asleep. He wore a stained bandage across his head
and was haggard and wretched looking.
"Oh, that?" replied the marshal. "That's mystery No. 2. That's a bigger
puzzle than the old telegrapher. He's the man we picked up mad as a
March hare, with twenty thousand dollars in banknotes in his pockets."
"Zeph," spoke Ralph in a quick whisper, "you know who it is?"
"Sure, I know who it is," responded Zeph with alacrity. "It's Rivers,
the king bee of the pay car robbers."