MICHAEL DEVELOPED A FONDNESS FOR THE
CRIMINAL CLASSES
The girl rose up from the chair where she had been sitting and
crossed to where Michael lay on the floor where they had thrown him.
He looked up and smiled.
“Why, Kate,” he said faintly, “always… meeting… you.”
She sat down at his side and lifting his head laid it upon her lap.
“That’s nice,” he murmured.
“Why is it nice?” she asked curiously, “because I make a softer pillow
than the stone?”
“That and something more,” he answered.
“What more?” she insisted.
“Oh--because it is you, I suppose,” he said vaguely.
Her lips twitched in amusement.
“But it would be just the same if it were any other person,” she said,
“wouldn’t it, Mike?”
He looked up at her.
“Put your hand on my forehead,” he said.
“Like this?”
She laid her soft palm against his throbbing head.
“What does that do?” she asked after a long interval of silence.
“It just makes my head better--don’t ask a lot of questions.”
Her fingers stole down his face and she gently pinched his nose.
“Oh, Kate,” he murmured sleepily, “I was just going to sleep.”
“Then don’t,” she said, “what is the use of dozing--you’ll be dead
soon and so will I.”
She said this very calmly, in the same matter-of-fact tone in which
she might have announced that there would be a roast chicken for
dinner.
“I hope they kill you first,” she said thoughtfully.
“You’re a bloodthirsty little beggar,” said Michael indignantly; “why
do you wish that?”
She shrugged her shoulders and went on pressing back the hair from his
forehead, never taking her eyes from his face.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, “only I want to make sure that
you’re gone and nobody else can have you--and then I shan’t care.”
He did not move; for a second she saw his eyelids quiver, but he lay
still staring past her to the dingy roof of the engine house.
“Say that again,” he whispered.
“Say what again? That I want you to be killed first?” she asked
innocently.
“Mike,” she said suddenly, “who was the girl?”
“Which girl?”
“You know,” she said, “the girl you--care about.”
“Why, you of course,” he said in surprise.
Her hands slipped down from his forehead covering his eyes.
“Say that again,” she mimicked.
“You,” he repeated. “You see I am more obliging than you were.”
“And you would not come in with us, not even for me?”
“Not even for you.”
She did not speak for some time.
“How did you know we were here?” she asked.
“I knew you could be nowhere else,” he said.
“You are an awfully arrogant young man, aren’t you? Do you know how it
was all done?”
He nodded.
“The train ran into the tunnel where you had a long motor-car mounted
with flanged wheels and having three green lamps on the front and two
red tail lamps behind. That was the ‘train’ which the signalman saw
dashing through the rain and you had a horrible siren.”
She laughed softly.
“It was terrible, wasn’t it?” she admitted. “Do you remember that day
you were in Crime Street? You heard it.”
He recalled the uncanny sound which had then excited his curiosity.
“When you got to the level crossing gates, the car was lifted off the
rail and went on to the road. It followed the tram lines for some
distance where it turned into a convenient garage, which I suppose you
had already arranged for?”
“That’s right,” she nodded.
“The train went no farther than the tunnel. It then backed on to a
side track. Gregori had his Italian workmen ready and fixed up the
buffer which had been dropped--you know the rest. The hole behind the
buffer and the green scum--that was your idea, I suppose.”
“It was cunning, wasn’t it, and did you see the rust I made?”
“It is a fortunate thing you are dying young, Kate,” he said; “you
have a criminal mind.”
“But I haven’t a criminal mind,” she protested; “it is a game, a sort
of highly complicated jigsaw puzzle. Do you ever read detective
stories?”
“Very seldom.”
“But you have read them?” she persisted.
“I have read one or two,” he confessed.
“Did the men who wrote those have criminal minds? It was a game to
them. It was a game to me. I know it is all wrong, horribly wrong, but
I never thought I should realize that much. I thought nothing would
turn me.”
“And what has turned you?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said shaking her head. “It is a curious
feeling that I get when I meet one man in the world. A feeling that
makes my heart turn to ice and makes me tremble. That is all it is,
Mike--how do you think they are going to do it?”
Her thoughts had gone back to the approaching end.
“Heaven knows,” said Michael. “I haven’t any time to think of it. I am
thinking of something else. Why do they keep the steam up in that
engine?” he asked.
“It was Gregori’s idea,” she said; “he had the hole filled in to-day
and the buffer taken down. He thought it might be useful to let the
engine run on to the main line and block it. That is, if we had word
that they were sending a lot of police down to search this part of the
country.”
“Here they are,” said Michael; “help me to sit up.”
She raised him to a sitting position as the door opened and a dim
figure appeared silhouetted against the dusk. It struck a match and
lit a candle and Dr. Garon was revealed. He placed the candle
carefully upon the floor just behind the half-closed door and passed
slowly over to where Michael lay.
“Well, my young sleuth,” he said pleasantly, “the best of friends must
part.”
“Fortunately,” said Michael, “I do not fall into the category of your
friends.”
The doctor hummed a little tune as he took a small leather case from
his pocket.
“You have seen a hypodermic syringe before, I suppose?” he held up the
tiny instrument. “I am going to give you a slight dope, which won’t
hurt you.”
“One moment,” said Michael, “do I understand that this dope
is--final?”
The doctor bowed. From his heightened colour and his unsteady hand
Michael guessed he had been drinking, either to give himself nerve for
his task or to drown the memory of his misfortune.
“Very good,” said Michael. He looked up at the girl and raised his
face and Kate stooped and kissed him on the lips.
“That is it, is it?” said the doctor unpleasantly. “Gregori will be
pleased.”
He caught the manacled wrists of the prisoner and pulled back his
sleeve and the girl’s heart almost ceased to beat.
It was at that moment that the light went out.
“Who is there?” said the doctor releasing his grip on Michael’s arm
and turning quickly.
He took a groping step forward through the darkness.
“Who’s there?” he said again and they heard a soft thud followed by
the sound that a body might make, when it struck the ground.
Michael caught his breath. Suddenly a beam of light danced in the room
and focused upon the prostrate figure of Dr. Garon.
“Got him,” said a well-satisfied voice.
“Barr,” whispered Michael, “where did you spring from?”
“I came through the door,” said the voice. “Did you see it open? That
is what knocked the candle over.”
He flashed the light on his superior.
“They have got the bracelets on you, sir,” he chuckled softly, took a
key from his pocket and with a few deft turns released the other. His
pocket knife finished the work.
Michael stretched his cramped limbs.
“I tried to get in last night but they had too many sentries--I
couldn’t come here or get back to a telephone. I have been lying on
that hillside all last night and all to-day,” said Detective-Sergeant
Barr. “I dared not move until it was dark. I tell you, sir, I had a
bit of a fright. I thought they would get away.”
“Have you a revolver?” asked his chief.
The man slipped a weapon into his hand. They made their way softly
back through the room where the engine was still smoking, through the
little steel door of the office. It was empty save for a shrouded
figure which lay beneath the table. There was a second door in the
room. Michael tried this. It was locked. He heard voices and tapped at
the door.
“Who is there?” said Gregori.
“Open the door,” said Michael.
“Who is there?” demanded Gregori again.
“Open, in the name of the law,” said Michael.
He heard a shuffle of feet and an oath and stood waiting, his pistol
extended but the door did not open. A sudden silence came.
“Is there any way out of here?”
“There is a door leading into the shed where the engine is,” said the
girl. She was white and trembling… that shrouded figure under the
table had been the last straw.
Michael dashed out into the shed but it was too late.
As his feet crossed the foothold a bullet struck the steel door and
ricochetted to the roof. In the dim light offered by an oil flare he
saw Mulberry and Stockmar hoisting the inanimate figure of Dr. Garon
to the cab of the engine. He fired twice and Cunningham stumbled but
was dragged into the cab. Then with a mighty “schuff!” which
reverberated through the building the engine began to move toward the
closed door. It gathered speed in the dozen yards or so it had to
traverse and then with a crash it struck the gate, splintering and
sending it flying.
Michael flew the length of the shed and arrived at the outer gates in
time to see the engine disappearing round the edge of the bluff. Barr
was at his side and the two men stood helpless, as their enemies
gradually receded into the grey dusk.
“There is a telephone here,” said Michael quickly, “but it is probably
laid for their own purpose.”
“I left my motor-bike on the top of the hill somewhere, sir,” said
Barr.
“Get on to it,” said Michael.
He stood listening to the sound of the locomotive going faster and
faster. A hand touched his timidly.
“Did they get away?”
He slipped his arm round the girl.
“I am afraid they have,” he said.
He was turning back to the shed when the roar of an explosion set the
building trembling.
“What was that?” whispered the girl.
They walked back to the end of the bluff. There was no need for him to
speculate as to the direction from whence the explosion had come, for
a bright red glow two miles away illuminated the whole countryside.
“Something has happened to the engine,” he said.
He did not know till an hour later that running at full speed the
Atlantic had dashed into a down goods train and that the blaze he
witnessed was the blaze of a burning petroleum tank which the wrecked
Atlantic had crushed in its death flurry.
“We have not been able to recognize any of them,” said T.B. “Do you
think Kate Westhanger was with them?”
“Kate Westhanger is no more,” said Michael gravely, and he spoke the
truth for Kate Pretherston was at that moment on her way to France,
where her husband intended joining her just as soon as his resignation
was accepted.
“But why give up the work, Michael?” said T.B.
“I found, sir,” said Michael, “that it was sapping my moral
qualities.”
“Your moral qualities?” said his puzzled chief. “I didn’t know that
you had any. What particular form did the sapping take?”
“I found, sir,” said Michael, “that I was developing a fondness for
the criminal classes.”
THE END
ENDNOTES
[1]
_Tolmini made a mess of it_] See Rex _v._ Tolmini (Notts. Assizes).
This was evidently the big mail robbery which failed, owing to the
precipitancy of one of the criminals.--Editor.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. drawing-room/drawing room,
fireplace/fire-place, motor-car/motor car, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Convert footnote to endnote.
Standardize the time formatting to use the colon. (The source text
used both periods and colons.)
[Chapter II]
Change “Her mother was a wholesome parson’s _wife_, her father was a
rascal who was kicked out of the army” to _daughter_.
[Chapter IV]
“But what I mean to say is this; there was a time when you” change
the semicolon to a colon.
[Chapter V]
“across the _streaming_ brass pots and the blistering hot plates” to
_steaming_.
[Chapter VI]
(“I am sending you two tickets for the theatre _tonight_.) to
_to-night_.
[Chapter VIII]
(“That, Princess.” he said, “is Lady Moya Felton.”) change the first
period to a comma.
[Chapter XII]
“pulled it back until he felt the snap of the rotten _hand_ as it
broke” to _handle_.
“And Daddy, if you are rude to Fonso, I shall be very rude to Ralph.”
add comma after _And_.
[Chapter XIII]
(“Well, you couldn’t open them from the box,” said the man) add a
period to this sentence.
[Chapter XIX]
(“Did you see it open. That is what knocked the candle over.”) Change
the first period to a question mark.
[End of text]