THE FIRST PEEP BEHIND THE CURTAIN
The next day Wagg went out and shot two partridges and contrived a stew
which fully occupied his attention in the making and the eating. He had
suggested to Vaniman that he'd better come along on the expedition
after the birds. Vaniman found a bit more than mere suggestion in
Wagg's manner of invitation. With his shotgun in the hook of his arm
he presented his wonted appearance as the guard at the prison. It
was perfectly apparent that Mr. Wagg proposed to keep his eye on the
promiser of the fifty-fifty split. But Wagg did not refer to the matter
of the money while they strolled in the woods.
As a matter of fact, days went by without the question coming up.
Wagg had previously praised himself as a patient waiter; the young man
confessed in his thoughts that his guardian merited the commendation.
Wagg was plainly having a particularly good time on this outing. He
displayed the contentment of a man who had ceased to worry about the
future; he was taking it easy, like a vacationer with plenty of money
in the bank. On one occasion he did mention the money in the course of a
bit of philosophizing on the situation:
“I suppose that, when you look at it straight, it's stealing, what I'm
doing. I've seen a lot of big gents pass through that state prison,
serving sentences for stealing. Embezzlement, forgery, crooked stock
dealing--it's all stealing. They were tempted. I've been tempted. I've
fell. I ain't an angel, any more than those big gents were. And you
know what I told you about mourners chirking up, after the first blow!
I figure it's the same way in the bank case. They have given up the idea
of getting the money back. They're still sad when they think about it,
but they keep thinking less and less every day. They've crossed it off,
as you might say.”
The two who were bound in that peculiar comradeship were out on the
crag where they could look down upon the distant checker board of the
village. Vaniman, in the stress of the circumstances, wondered whether
he might be able to come at Wagg on the sentimental side of his nature.
“The little town must have gone completely broke since the bank failure.
Innocent people are suffering. If that money could be returned--”
He did not finish the sentence. Mr. Wagg was most distinctly not
encouraging that line of talk.
“Look here, Vaniman, when you got away with that money you had hardened
yourself up to the point where you were thinking of your own self first,
hadn't you?”
The young man did not dare to burst out with the truth--not while Wagg
was in the mood his expression hinted at.
Wagg continued: “Well, I've got myself to the point where I'm thinking
of my own self. I'm as hard as this rock I'm sitting on.” In his
emphasis on that assertion Wagg scarred his knuckles against the ledge.
“After all the work I've had in getting myself to that point, I'm
proposing to stay there. If you try to soften me I shall consider that
you're welching on your trade.”
Wagg made the declaration in loud tones. After all his years of
soft-shoeing and repression in a prison, the veteran guard was taking
full advantage of the wide expanses of the big outdoors.
“What did I do for you, Vaniman? I let you cash in on a play that I had
planned ever since the first barrow of dirt was dumped into that pit.
There's a lifer in that prison with rich relatives. I reckon they
would have come across with at least ten thousand dollars. There's a
manslaughter chap who owns four big apartment houses. But I picked you
because I could sympathize with you on account of your mother and that
girl the papers said so much about. It's a job that can't be done
over again, not even for the Apostle Peter. Now will you even hint at
welching?”
“Certainly not!”
But that affirmation did not come from Vaniman. It was made in his
behalf by a duet of voices, bass and nasal tenor, speaking loudly and
confidently behind the two men who were sitting on the ledge.
The younger man leaped to his feet and whirled; the older man struggled
partly upright and ground his knees on the ledge when he turned to
inspect the terrifying source of sound.
So far as Vaniman's recollection went, they were strangers. One was
short and dumpy, the other was tall and thin. They wore slouchy,
wrinkled, cheap suits. There was no hint of threat in their faces. On
the contrary, both of the men displayed expressions of mingled triumph
and mischief. Then, as if they had a mutual understanding in the matter
of procedure, they went through a sort of drill. They stuck their right
arms straight out; they crooked the arms at the elbows; they drove
their hands at their hip pockets and produced, each of them, a bulldog
revolver; they snapped their arms into position of quick aim.
Wagg threw up his hands and began to beg. Vaniman held himself under
better control.
But the men did not shoot. They returned the guns to their pockets and
saluted in military fashion, whacking their palms violently against
their thighs in finishing salute.
“Present!” they cried. Then the dumpy man grinned. Wagg had been
goggling, trying to resolve his wild incredulity into certainty. That
grin settled the thing for him. It was the same sort of a suggestive
grin that he had viewed on that day of days in the prison yard.
“Number Two-Eight-Two!” he quavered.
“Sure thing!” The dumpy man patted the tall man's arm. “Add one, and
you have Number Two-Eight-Three--a pal who drew the next number because
we're always in company.”
“And we're here because we're here,” stated the other.
The short man fixed his gaze on the ex-cashier. “You don't realize it
yet, but this is more of a reunion than it looks to be on the surface.
You two gents have seen how we're fixed in the gun line, and we hope the
understanding is going to make the party sociable.”
“You may be thinking that this is only another case of it being proved
how small the world is, after all,” remarked the tall man. “Not so! Not
so! We have followed you two because we have important business with
you. We have had a lot of trouble and effort in getting here. Bear that
in mind, please!”
The new arrivals were quite matter-of-fact and Wagg was helped
to recover some of his composure. “The two of you are three-year
men--robbery in the nighttime,” he declared, out of his official
knowledge. “What in blue blazes are you doing outside the pen?”
“Attending to the same business as you are--after a slice of the bank
coin,” replied the short man, carelessly.
Wagg got to his feet and banged his fists together. “Do you dare to walk
right up to a guard of the state prison and--and--” He balked in his
demand for information; Mr. Wagg was plainly afflicted with a few
uncomfortable considerations of his own situation.
“We do!” the convicts declared in concert. Then the dumpy man went on:
“And whatever else it is you're wondering whether we dare to do, we'll
inform that we dare. Once on a time we had occasion to express our
opinion of a bank. I wrote out that opinion and left it where it would
be seen. Not exactly Sunday-school language, but it hit the case.” He
turned away from Vaniman's frenzy of gasping interrogation. He confined
his attention to Wagg. “A prison guard, say you? You're a hell of a
guard!”
“Opinion indorsed!” said the other convict.
For a few moments there was complete silence on the summit of Devilbrow.
Somewhere, on an upland farm in the distance, a cow mooed. Then a
rooster challenged all comers.
“That's the word, old top!” agreed the tall man. “It expresses my
feelings,” He clapped his hands against his legs and cried in his
tenor, imitating the singsong of the rooster, “We're here because we're
he-e-ere!”
Then he and his fellow sat down on a ledge outcropping that overtopped
and commanded the position of the other men. The convicts surveyed
Vaniman and Wagg with a complacent air of triumph. “Are you willing to
take things as they stand, or do you feel that you can't go ahead till
your curiosity has been scratched?” inquired the short man.
“Curiosity!” stormed the ex-cashier. “Do you dare to call the feeling I
have in me curiosity?” He thumped his fist against his breast.
“And how about my feelings, with escaped convicts racing and chasing all
over this country?” shouted the guard. “What has happened to that prison
since I've been off my job?”
“One at a time!” The dumpy man put up his hand to shut off the stream of
questions that were pouring from Wagg. “The young fellow has his innings
first. He has more good reasons for rearing and tearing. It's easy
enough to get out of a state prison when you have a trick that can be
worked once.” He winked at Wagg. Then he directed his remarks strictly
at Vaniman.
“I'm going to talk free and open. We're all in the same boat. We're a
couple of pots, and both of you are kettles, all black. Now, listen! I'm
Bill.” He stuck his finger against his breast and then tagged with
it his pal at his side. “He's Tom. Bill and Tom have been humble and
hard-working yeggmen, never tackling anything bigger than country stores
and farmers' flivvers. Once on a time they were in a barn, tucked
away waiting for night, and they heard a man running a double shift of
talk--beating down the farmer on the price of cattle and blowing off
about gold coin hoarded by the bushel in a rube bank.”
Stickney's unruly mouth! Vaniman understood. “So, says Bill to Tom:
'Why not go up like everything else is going up these days?' Says Tom to
Bill: 'I'm on.' We took our time about it, getting the lay of the land.
We went down to the big burg to buy drills and soup and pick up points
on how to crack a real nut. Equipment up to that time had been a glass
cutter and a jimmy for back windows and padlocks.”
He was humorously drawling his confession. He stopped talking and
lighted a cigarette. Impatience that was agony urged Vaniman, but he
controlled himself. Wagg did not venture to say anything. His thoughts
were keeping him busy; he was mentally galloping, trying to catch up
with the new situation.
“And let me tell you that when Bill and Tom got back up here, they had
colder feet than the weather accounted for. General headquarters, that
camp!” He jerked thumb gesture toward the log cabin. “It had been our
hang-out in times past when we operated in this section. Handy place!
Finally got up courage enough to go to the job. Fine night for it!
Deserted village. Peeked into Town Hall and saw the general round-up.
Light in the bank. Bill was boosted up by Tom and got a peek over the
curtain. One fellow inside adding figures--much taken up. Bank-vault
door wide open. Front door unlocked. Crawled in. Kept crawling. Crawled
into bank room. Grille door wide open. Bill up and hit fellow with
rubber nob-knocker--it snuffs, but is not dangerous. Tom is handy by
with the chloroform--always carried it for our second-story work.”
The young man began to stride to and fro, striving by using his legs to
keep from using his tongue.
The narrator snapped the ash off his cigarette. “Bill and Tom looked at
each other. Did they expect such easy picking? They did not. The stuff
had been fairly handed to 'em. They dragged the stuff out--all the sacks
of it. Transportation all planned on. Couple of handsleds such as we had
seen leaning up against the houses in the village. Slipped the fellow
into the vault with his hands tied and shut the door with a trig so that
he couldn't kick it open right away. Idea was that anybody stepping in
later would think he had gone home; we intended to put out the light;
nothing desperate about us; we wouldn't shoot the bolts. Bill said to
Tom that there'd be a hunt for the fellow when he failed to show up at
home, wherever he lived, and he'd sure be pulled out of the vault in
good season. Thoughtful, you see! Not bloody villains. Simply wanted
time for our getaway. Slow pulling up this hill with handsleds! But
we slit a bag to make sure of what we would be pulling. And we kept on
slitting bags. And--” the short man shook his head and sighed. “You
say it, Tom. I'm trying to be sociable in this talk with these
gents--showing a full and free spirit in coming across with the facts.
But I don't trust myself!”
“Nor I!” declared Tom. “We'd better not spoil a pleasant party.”
“Well, Bill wrote his sentiments, as they occurred to him at the time.
Then we heard somebody hollering at the front door that we had left
open. We ran and jumped behind the door of the bank office. The fellow
who galloped in ran a few times in circles and then he galloped out. He
might have noticed a rhinoceros if the rhino had risen up and bit him.
But he paid no attention to Bill and Tom behind the door. And Bill and
Tom walked out. And we managed to get clear of the village just as that
Town Hall crowd broke loose.
“Says Bill to Tom, when they were on their way: 'It's plain that banks
are bunk, like everything else these days. Let's stick to our humble
line where we know what we're doing.' But, having been studying bank
robbing, we had got ourselves nerved up to take desperate chances--and
we bulled the regular game in Levant. Coarse work, because we were off
our stride. All due to the bank. The bank stands liable for damages.
We're up here collecting. Cashier, consider what regular and desperate
cracksmen would have done to you! Considering our carefulness where you
were concerned, and the trouble we have been put to in getting out and
chasing you, what say?”
Again Vaniman got a strong grip on his emotions. He was a fugitive;
these cheeky rascals had his fate in their hands; he was not in a
position to reply to their effrontery as his wild desire urged. He did
not dare to open his mouth just then with any sort of reply; he did not
trust himself even to look their way.
“Think it over,” advised the short man, composedly. “But please take
note that there are now four of us in on the split, and that quartering
it makes easy figuring.”
Mr. Wagg was not composed. This threat to disrupt his fifty-fifty plan
brought him out of something that was like stupor. “You belong back in
state prison, and I'll see to it that you're put there.”
The man who called himself Bill was not ruffled. He waved his arm to
indicate the spread of the landscape. “Doesn't being up here above the
world lift you out of the rut of petty revenge? Can't you see things in
a broader way? I can. I feel like praising you for that job you put up
to get our valuable friend out where he can help all four of us. For
many a day, after I saw that you had this friend out in the yard and
were interested in him, I tended less to making harness pads and more to
watching you through the shop window. I was interested in the gent, too.
Tom and I had made up our minds to be as patient as possible for seven
years--and then be rusticating up in these hills, right on hand to help
him in the chore of digging it out of whatever hole it's hidden in.
Couldn't let you monopolize him--absolutely not, Mr. Guard! Do you think
I was hiding out that noon only by luck and chance? No, no! I saw
you monkeying with the chimney door that forenoon. I saw how you were
hopping around and I got a good look at your face. Says I to myself, Tom
not being handy, 'There's something to be pulled off, and I'll make sure
how it is pulled.' That's how I happened to be on the business side of
that shield, Mr. Guard. It was good work. It leaves our friend pretty
comfortable, so far as the dicks are concerned. Tom and I have got to
keep dodging 'em. We didn't have your advantages, you know--Tom and I
didn't! We simply did the best we could in getting out--realizing the
value of time.”
The short man was employing a patronizing tone, as if accomplishing an
escape from state prison was merely a matter of election of methods. All
of the guard's official pride was in arms. He advanced on the convict
and shook a finger under his nose. “How did you get out? You don't dare
to tell me. It was an accident. You didn't use any brains. You don't
dare to tell, I say!”
“Oh yes, I do!” The convict was placid. “I'll tell you because you'll
never dare to open your mouth on the matter. Furthermore, you've got to
understand the position Tom and I are in right now in regard to a third
party. That party is a trusty--he gets out in three months from now and
has been having the run of the corridors as a repair man.”
Wagg growled something.
“Oh yes, he will!” asseverated the convict. “He'll come out on time!
A fine show of yourself you'll make trying to dutch him. The pen is
mightier than the sword, but inside a prison pen the little screw driver
has 'em all faded when a trusty is the repair man. Cell door, tier
door, attic door--all attended to; ventilator grating likewise. Rope in
ventilator, up rope--out goes rope and down rope! Roof, wall, drop! Rear
window of second-hand shop. Outfit! Hike! Good start, till morning shows
the cot dummies! Truss rods of Wagner freight, blind baggage to Levant
on the 'tween-days train. Into the bush--and here!”
“With this added by me,” put in the other convict. “That trusty was a
pal in the old days. He understands his friends' financial interest
is in this thing, and how we needed to get out sudden to tend to that
interest. We have given him our word. He took that word like it was a
certified check. And he's going to cash in on that word!”
“He sure is!” declared the short man. “We pass words instead of checks
in our business, and a man who lets his promise go to protest is crabbed
for keeps. We have incurred obligations so as to get in at the split.”
He spread out his palm and tapped a digit into the center of it.
“Cash--here!”
“Strictly on a business basis, of course,” said the tall man. “We don't
call for a special split for that trusty. It's a personal debt incurred
by Bill and me. We ask nobody to pay our personal debts. All we ask is
that debts due us be paid. And we're drawing a sight draft on you gents.
Bill and I are probably only a few jumps ahead of the dicks. Where's the
coin?”
He brutally thrust the question at Vaniman. The young man turned to
Wagg, seeking support in that crisis, believing that the affair could
be held on the basis of two against two in the interests of further
dilatory tactics. Wagg had been showing indignant protest against
the demands of the interlopers. But his corrugated face was smoothed
suddenly. He had evidently decided to cash in on the new basis. “That's
what I want to know--and what I have been trying to find out. Where's
the coin?”
The realignment--three against one--was menacing. Vaniman surveyed the
faces--the glowering demanding countenances, the eyes in which money
lust gleamed. He knew that the men were in a mood where the truth would
serve him in sad stead. He had no knack as a liar. He understood how
little chance he had of convincing those shrewd knaves by his inept
falsehoods in that extremity. He had already meditated on the plan of
running away from Wagg. His reasons for escaping from this intolerable
baiting were now threefold.
“It's too near sunset for a job that will take us a long way through the
woods,” he blurted.
“I'll admit I'm so tired I can't count money till I've had a night's
sleep,” confessed the short man. “But you make your promise now and
here, Mr. Cashier. When?” He emphasized the last word.
“To-morrow!”
“A promissory note--dated and delivered. Don't let it go to protest.
That's language you can understand, Mr. Bankman.”
Vaniman walked off toward the cabin and the three men followed him.