Through the Outposts
When I awoke it was broad daylight. I lay for a moment in the daze of
intense fatigue and the temporary befuddlement that follows very deep
sleep. I glanced about me at bare stone walls, a barred window and a
door made of heavier iron bars, and suddenly I was conscious of a
deadly chill at my heart. Where was I?
Then memory returned, and the terror at my queer surroundings was
surmounted by an intense anxiety to be up and doing. What had happened
to Natalie and Margaret, to Moore and Pride and Larry, while I had
been lying asleep? What might not be happening to them now?
I sat up with a jerk that sent a fierce twinge of pain through my
shoulder and brought a gasp out of me, and at the same moment I
realized that some one was calling my name, fumbling at the bars of my
door the while.
“All right, Mr. Clayton! Just a moment, sir!”
I stared at the opening door. And I cannot express my relief at the
sight of a stout and powerful member of New York’s finest, with a tray
of food in his hands.
“What’s that?” I demanded. “And where’s Captain Peters? And how did I
get in here, anyhow?”
“The captain will be here in ten minutes, sir. He just ’phoned to have
you waked. And he said to tell you that he hoped you’d eat something.
You’re in the Tombs, sir. We carried you in last night, for all the
world like a dead man.”
I sat up on the edge of my cot and stared at the tray he held. I did
not much relish the thought of being in the hands of the police, after
what Peters had said about not being able to prevent my arrest
earlier. If some of the police were in the Emperor’s pay, the food on
the tray might finish me and my work once and for all. Then I
remembered who had brought me here and confidence returned. Captain
Peters would have been sure of the men he left in charge of me.
So I took the tray and fell to on the breakfast, and finding the
policeman of a talkative turn of mind, I encouraged him with an
occasional affirmative or a nod if my mouth was full, for I was in a
hurry. The food was all cut up, which was a good thing, as my left arm
was bound tight against my side. But I could make shift with the right
hand all right.
“The captain should be here directly, sir. He had a gray-haired
gentleman with him when he came before. Would that be any one from
Washington, maybe? Would there be something doing?” He broke off and
stared at me inquiringly.
“How do I know?” I laughed.
The policeman scratched his head. “Well, sir, he said to tell you to
be ready in ten minutes if possible, if you want to go with them. But
he thought it would be better to let you sleep through and not go
wherever they’re going. Would there be any chance of going with you,
sir? Did you fall, maybe, and break your arm?” And he gazed at me
blandly, but with a twinkle in his Irish blue eyes.
“What else?” I inquired, and pushed the tray away from me, for I had
taken the edge from my appetite and anxiety had returned. “But as for
your going with us, that will be for Captain Peters and maybe the
gray-haired gentleman to decide.”
For I guessed that the latter was the Chief—my Chief.
“Well, sir——” he began, and rose suddenly to his feet, grabbed the
tray and edged toward the door.
I looked up and the next moment was shaking hands with the Chief,
while Captain Peters grinned in the background. The Chief’s big frame
and bigger personality seemed to fill the little cell, although
neither the captain nor I are small men. I was glad to see him, I can
tell you. And my anxiety died a little. Capable men had the thing in
hand now.
“Well done, Clayton!” the Chief was kind enough to say as he shook my
good hand. “Peters was all for letting you sleep, after what you have
been through. But I knew that you would want to be in at the death.
And that won’t be long now, after what you have found out. The captain
here has told me all about it.”
“I would have called the captain out if he had let me sleep!” I
answered, and the Chief laughed while the captain looked puzzled.
“We put you in here for safe keeping,” my Chief went on. “I don’t know
of any safer place. But I’d like to hear the whole story from you
again if you can tell it in five minutes. Our plans are made now, and
we are merely waiting for a couple of police cars before we start.
How’s the shoulder?”
“First-rate, sir. Here goes then,” and I started at the beginning when
Pride and I drove up to the house of Ivanovitch the preceding
afternoon and told him everything that had happened to me since. When
I had finished the story he nodded. “Peters had it as straight as a
die. But it’s as well to have the details confirmed in a case of this
magnitude. Eh, Peters?”
The captain laughed. “It is that, sir. But I listened pretty
carefully. I’ve come across some queer tales in my time. But Mr.
Clayton here has them all beat.” He turned to me. “You had better join
the police, Mr. Clayton, for a quiet life. _I_ never ran across
anything like it.”
“Would you tell me the plans you have made, sir?” I asked. “I know
these customers pretty well now.”
“Certainly.” He drew a little closer and lowered his voice. “From your
description of the place, they must have a pretty big staff of men
there, so I am not taking any chances. I have a force of fifty
plain-clothes men, some of them police patrolmen and some Secret
Service operatives. I have called in all the men I could lay my hands
on at such short notice. That is, the men that I could rely on with
certainty. And Captain Peters here vouches for the policemen.
“It’s about four o’clock in the afternoon now. The fifty men are
taking the 4.30 train from the Pennsylvania in plain clothes, and will
get off at the ——— station, after changing at Jamaica. They will wait
there till we arrive. You and Peters and I and possibly another
operative will go down by car, meet the men outside the ——— station
and lead them to the place. What do you think of the plan?”
I thought for a moment. “Are we going in one car or two, sir?”
“Why, I don’t know. Two, I think, because it will be easier to conceal
ourselves. You see we cannot take you by train for fear you might be
recognized. We don’t want to warn them and give them a chance to skip
out. You were killed last night in ——— police station, by the way. Did
you know that? It’s in the afternoon papers.”
I grinned. “That was a mighty good idea, sir. Unless they followed
Captain Peters’ car. I have a good deal of respect for them.”
“There was nobody about when you left the station-house. And you were
carried in here and might as well have been a corpse.”
“That’s right. But I would suggest two cars, sir. They blew up Pride
and wrecked him, you see, and they may try that again. And there won’t
be many of us to fight them off if they stop us. But if the other
operative and I go ahead in the first car, we can spring the trap, if
there is one. Then, if you keep a safe distance, you can get by all
right. Of course I don’t know where they blew Pride up last time. But
I don’t see how it could have been on a main road.”
“No, we’ll stick to the main roads anyway. But your idea is a good
one. I think if Peters is willing, he and the other operative had
better go in the first car and you and I in the second. Then if we get
through you know the way and I can, perhaps, plan the attack. But I
don’t think we will be molested. I have commandeered two cars, both of
them limousines. And I don’t think that they will suspect either car,
especially if no one except the driver is visible. I will drive mine
and you can lie down out of sight in the back. Peters can drive the
other and the operative can lie down in the back. How’s that?”
“All right, sir. But keep well behind the other car. I mean keep a
safe distance, so that they can’t catch us both in the same trap.
They’re a wonderfully organized gang,” I laughed. “I don’t believe I’m
timid about it, but I want to get our friends out of the clutches of
that gang.”
There was a rap on the iron plate guarding the lock on my door. There
was a policeman standing there.
“The cars are here, sir,” he said.
“Come on,” said the Chief, “there’s no time to waste.” And together we
filed out of my second police cell.
We passed through dreary corridors, where policemen on duty stared at
us curiously, when Captain Peters was not looking, and so out into the
open street. Two big limousines were pulled up before the door.
A man was lounging near one of them, keeping a sharp look-out up and
down the street. He straightened up when he saw us and opened the door
of the first car. With a nod Peters stepped into it and the lounger
mounted after him. The car pulled away from the door and started
slowly up the street and away.
The Chief opened the door of the other car and motioned me into it. He
followed me and closed the door, nodding to the liveried driver.
“We’re riding together for the present. Both drivers are men of our
own. We will rendezvous just outside Jamaica. But we’re going there by
different routes.”
I was filled with exultation at the thought that we were starting on
our final journey to clean up the work that had occupied my every
thought for the better part of a year. But I was far from feeling that
the task before us was a simple one.
“Have you made any definite plan of campaign for when we get there?” I
asked the Chief presently.
He nodded. “Yes, I have, Clayton. This is a tricky business and I know
it. I have no great confidence that a gang as well organized as the
one we have to deal with is ignorant of our movements or yours for
that matter. They have too many spies about.
“On the other hand,” he went on, “I am pretty certain that they know
nothing about the men who are to meet us at the station. That was all
arranged in code over the telephone. So, while there is a chance that
they will try to hold us up before we get there, I do not believe that
they will do so, because they will think we are weak in numbers and
they can finish us better on their own grounds. I’m banking on that to
get through.
“When we do get there, I think the garage is our best means of
approach. If we can get into the garage and overpower the guard, we
ought to be able to take them by surprise. And we’ll have plenty of
men. Frankly, Clayton, after what you and Peters have told me of this
gang’s resources, I’m afraid that if we surround the place and try to
take it by frontal attack, they’ll try to cover up their traces and
get away. We have no idea how many other ‘earths’ they may have; I
mean, underground exits.” He paused. “And we want to round up the
whole gang.”
“That seems like a good plan,” I answered. “Those men I saw on the
beach may have been getting in by some other entrance.”
“Exactly. I think we’ll try the garage, anyway,” he concluded.
We left it at that and fell to speculating about Moore and Pride, and
whether they were still alive. I was equally worried about Larry. But
they had less quarrel with him, perhaps.
We reached the rendezvous in good time. But the other car, which had
started ahead of us on a shorter route, was not there. The Chief
looked a little anxious, I thought. But we waited practically in
silence for an hour or so before he voiced his anxiety.
“Well, Clayton, no traffic jam could have held them up this long.
Unless the car has broken down, which isn’t likely, they’ve been
picked off in some way. I think we had better go on alone, eh?”
“Right you are, sir,” I answered; “I think so, too.”
My big, grizzled companion leaned forward and opened the window.
“Heldt,” he said, “I was going to drop you here, but I’ll take you
along if you want to come, as the other car hasn’t turned up. What
about it?”
“Sure, sir,” the driver answered. “Why wouldn’t I come along?”
The Chief laughed. “All right. I’m going to sit in front with you and
tell you the road, and Clayton here will stay out of sight in the
back.”
He got out and stepped up on the front seat with the driver, and I
settled down on the back seat, curling up on it so that I would not be
visible from outside the car. And so we started.
For the better part of an hour we drove along smoothly and with some
speed. For the most part I kept out of sight, but now and then, when
my position became too cramped to be borne any longer, I sat up and
turned over, snatching a passing glimpse out of the windows to see
where we were.
My shoulder pained me a good deal in the cramped position in which I
was forced to lie. But it was in a good cause, I thought, and I was
quite willing to put up with a little discomfort.
In a way, however, I think that sore shoulder saved all our lives. We
had swung into a long level stretch of road with trees growing thick
and close to it on either side, when I decided to turn again. I knew
that we had taken the toll road through the center of the Island and
that we were still on it, but in settling down on the seat again I
glanced out of the back window of the limousine, and as I did so a man
stepped out from the trees into the road behind us and waved his hands
above his head in the direction in which we were going.
I jumped up and snatched open the window in front. “Step on it! Speed
up, man, for God’s sake! Hit her up. They’ve seen us and signaled.”
Automatically the driver threw open his cut-out and the big car jumped
ahead, leaping under us like a spurred horse. An instant passed and
then there came a flash and a roar from just behind us, and the glass
of the back window tinkled down on to the seat where I lay. I jumped
up and looked back. A great hole like a shell crater spanned the road
behind us.
Suddenly I saw three little stars appear like magic in the glass of
the side windows. “Keep low!” I shouted and ducked down in the seat.
Bullets were splintering the woodwork and whipping through the windows
all about me. I could not see the Chief from where I lay and I
imagined that he had ducked too. But I could see the driver and see
the blood oozing from his neck. There must have been twenty men
pumping lead at us, and the experience took me back to France with an
unpleasant distinctness.
But for all his wound and the whipping bullets, the driver kept the
car steady; we fled down that road like a wounded buck, and after a
moment or two we were clear of them. I saw the Chief lean back in his
seat and reach over to take the wheel. He had been waiting with his
arms outstretched to grab it if they got the driver, Heldt.
The car slowed down a little. “I’m all right, sir,” I heard the driver
announce. “Just scratched me, that’s all. Straight ahead, sir?”
“Straight ahead,” answered the Chief and turned. “All right, back
there, Clayton?”
“All right, sir. Never touched me. How about you?”
“Nice hospitable lot of friends you’ve got, Clayton. No, they didn’t
touch me either. But it’s about time we got that gang. Blowing up a
main road like that. They’ve got a nerve!” Clearly the Chief’s sense
of law and order was absolutely outraged, and I chuckled to myself in
the back seat. I was not sorry to have him get a taste of what I had
been up against.
After that we kept a pretty sharp look-out, both before and behind us.
But they seemed to have staked their hopes on getting us in the road
back there, for we continued our journey unmolested. Fortunately they
had not succeeded in hitting any of the tires.
We got to the railroad station and pulled up in front of it without
further adventure. But I confess I was disappointed to find it almost
deserted. I expected to find a huge crowd of men waiting for us.
The Chief got down and hurried into the station. Through the window I
could see him in consultation with a man who looked like a traveling
salesman. Presently he came out again. “All right, Clayton,” he
called. “We’ll leave the car here. Come along if you feel up to it.”
Heldt and I got down and walked over to the Chief and his companion.
“This is Foster, Clayton. One of my right-hand men. Meet the other,”
he added to the stranger.
“Glad to meet you, Clayton. Pretty fine bit of work you’ve done. I
heard all about it. Well, it’s getting dusk. It’ll be dark in half an
hour. Guess we’d better start, eh, sir? The men are ready for us.”
I was a little bewildered, but I turned with the others and started
off down the road on foot, without the faintest idea of where I was
going.
Presently we turned off into a little side road and then off again in
among a little group of trees. And here, sitting in rows on fallen
trees or standing talking quietly together in groups, loomed up what
seemed like a regular regiment of men. We had all the reënforcements
now that heart could desire.