floor he was lying upon. “Whisky!” came Lanagan’s sharp whisper.
Unconsciously he was taking command of the situation, asserting his
natural leadership as he always did in tense moments. Marshall passed
him a pocket flask and he forced a sip to Enright’s lips, holding his
head up with his left arm. The eyes opened.
“_I did._”
“Oh, God, Billy! No, no! Not that, not that!” It was Marshall. He
broke down and sobbed like a boy. Twenty-five years he had been in the
federal blue with Billy Enright, one in the revenue, the other in the
customs service.
“Yes--_I did!_ Jim, get me a priest! Don’t let me die like this! For
old time’s sake, Jim!”
The train was whistling on its return.
“We’re taking you right in,” said Lanagan, soothingly. “We’ll have a
priest for you. Why did you kill her?”
Enright motioned for the flask with his free arm. Lanagan gave him a
long pull. For a time at least his voice was stronger.
“She was threatening to tip off the gang. She used to work with us. She
was well paid. She didn’t know I was in the service. She found it out
some way. I came out one day to talk over with her about her threats.
I’d been drinking, worrying over fear of exposure. She wouldn’t listen
to reason. She was a wolf. She goaded me crazy, I guess. She taunted me
about being a traitor to the country I served. Well, I lost my head. I
grabbed the butcher knife and killed her. So help me God as I am about
to die, that’s the truth.”
The eyes closed for a space, and then he continued:
“I stuck a few things in my pockets to make it look like robbery. Then
I started to cut up the body to pack it in a sack and bury it or drop
it off the cliff. I weakened and dropped it outside the door and ran.
It was dark but I ran for miles around over the sandhills and it seemed
she was always right after me. It was awful.
“I got my wits back later. I saw the police and the papers were
after the son. I felt easier. There was a big shipment coming in
on the _Hongkong_--$40,000 all told. No one would come out here
and take a chance landing it. Afraid the police were watching the
house. I volunteered. I figured if any one saw me nosing around I
could give them the inspector talk. I hung around last night but
the ship was held away out on account of the storm. I had to come
out--again--to-night--that’s all, boys--”
The door flung open and through it came Phillips and Castle. McCluskey
and Roberts followed. The train had stopped unnoticed, so tense was the
interest within the hut in the dying man’s recital.
“Quick, take him up,” said Lanagan. They stooped to lift him.
“Here, what’s all this?” It was Phillips.
“Stand aside!” came Marshall’s blunt command. It was obeyed. Enright’s
eyes had closed. He was made as comfortable as possible with cushions
on the train, as that ancient rattle-trap strained and tugged to make
the greatest speed of its history. Enright’s eyes did not open on the
trip in.
They never opened again.
* * * * *
Lanagan filled in for me the details of the story. The bit of red
paper, crinkled inside the paper with the Chinese characters, meant
but one thing: opium. Here was where his wide acquaintance with the
underworld and Chinatown, the customs service and the water front,
aided him.
Puzzling over the presence of an opium wrapping in that isolated hut
Lanagan had seated himself upon the salt grass hummock to smoke. Into
his field of vision steamed the Pacific Mail liner--and his “hunch”
came with it. His examination of the shore followed to locate a cove
that would give a safe place to float the opium to land from a launch
or white hall boat by day or night. Such a cove he had found, where the
waters for a sixteenth of a mile deposited their driftwood. His theory
was complete. The hut was a smuggler’s runway; the woman was in the
ring and for a breach of faith had been slain, an attempt being made to
have it appear she was slain by robbers.
* * * * *
That Marshall and his men had been preparing to close in on the gang
that made the cabin their rendezvous Lanagan did not know until the
night before.
“Then I found the whole map out here sprinkled with them. Recognised
Marshall, who nearly tumbled over me; but he probably figured I was one
of his men, and said nothing.
“It was funny. McCluskey and Roberts chasing ghosts with myself and
four revenue officers as the audience. I nearly laughed when McCluskey
told me the story this morning. They didn’t come within fifteen yards
of the edge of the cliff, either, although they said they did.
“The weather man told me to-day the storm would blow over by evening
and I figured the _Hongkong_ would be making port and the ring would
attempt to land their stuff; every liner has been bringing it in. I
came out last night on the chance she might try to make port.
“No one suspected Enright.”
It was a quarter to one o’clock when the train pulled into the depot.
Marshall turned the body over to Phillips and Castle with a terse
resume of the facts and then took his men and his bundles of opium and
disappeared. They laid Enright out on a bench to await the coroner’s
deputies.
Phillips came over to us.
“I guess I acted kind of stiff,” he said, in awkward apology. “But I
want to hand it to you. You scored on us strong.”
Lanagan put out his hand. The detective took it.
“You’ll never make any mistake treating newspaper men right, Phillips.
Just do this much for us now, will you? Hold off thirty minutes before
you telephone the morgue. That will keep the story exclusively for the
_Enquirer_.”
“I’ll do it,” said Phillips.
And he did; which may seem to the layman a little thing, but to the
newspaper man a detail of vast importance; because it enabled Lanagan,
sending the story to the office by telephone, to score once again
in sensational manner over his contemporaries, the _Times_ and the
_Herald_.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic spelling that may have been in use at the time of publication
has been retained.
Incorrect page reference in the Table of Contents has been corrected.