Within the Web
We waited quietly in the woods until darkness fell. None of us spoke
above a whisper, and there was no lighting of matches or anything else
to draw attention to us. But no one passed by in the road outside
except a party of young people in a broken-down Ford, and our nerves
survived that ordeal.
But at last it grew too dark in the woods to see your own hand in
front of your eyes, and then the Chief gave the signal and we stumbled
out of our hiding-place as silently as we could.
We turned to the right, and the men strung out behind us in a long
single file, walking close to the edge of the road and making little
noise. The road was deserted for the most part, but when a car or a
wagon passed, the men faded into the shadows like a band of Red
Indians and no one noticed us.
We came to a cross-roads presently and turned to the left into a much
smaller road. Here the Chief slowed our pace considerably. And
presently he turned back and issued some instructions in a whisper,
and two of the men turned off and plunged into the dense woods about
us. The Chief came up and touched my arm.
“The house is over there,” he whispered. “Foster knows this country
around here like a book. I sent those two men to reconnoiter it. The
garage is a few hundred feet ahead of us. We’re going to spread out
now and surround it.”
I stood with him in the starlit road, for the night was moonless
though clear, and watched the men file past me like so many ghosts and
disappear into the darkness ahead and on either side of us. And
presently the Chief and Foster and I were alone in the road.
“Come along,” he whispered, and we walked ahead.
As I tramped along in the darkness my heart lightened considerably.
The goal was close at hand now and I felt pretty certain that they
would not foresee an attack on the garage. They knew that I had
escaped, and they knew that I knew the location of the house. But
running into the doctor and learning of the suspicious garage was pure
chance and they could not know about that. So I felt pretty secure
that we were not walking into another trap. For I hated to think of
our fate, even so many of us, if they caught us down in that tunnel.
Presently a building loomed up ahead of us and a little back from the
road. It was a garage, with the familiar red gasolene pump standing
outside it. A single dim light flickered through the open doors.
“This is no place for a garage,” whispered Foster. “I didn’t even know
that there was one here. It hasn’t been here very long. I’m sure of
that, I’ve only been away from these parts about a year.”
Suddenly the Chief spoke out in his natural voice, even raising it a
little. “Well, by the Lord Henry, here’s a garage! What do you know
about that? Boys, we’re in luck!”
He stepped forward quickly into the doorway and we followed his lead,
uttering exclamations of surprise. There were two men lounging in
chairs at the back of the garage, but there were no cars in it. They
sprang up when we entered and they seemed anything but glad to see us.
The Chief tramped down the length of the place toward them with us
behind him. “Hey, you fellows,” he called, “I’ve got a broken-down car
back in the main road a ways. Can you come and take a look at it?”
The two men looked at each other. Then one of them, a surly, dark
individual, shook his head. “Naw, not to-night. We’re just going off.
Bring it around in the morning.”
The Chief was close to them now and they backed away from him a
little, as a guilty man always will before a stranger who is accosting
him. “But say,” he answered, “you’re not going to leave us in the
lurch like that, are you? It’s only the pump chain’s broken. Here,
wait a minute, I brought it along to show you.”
He dived into his pocket and brought out a very serviceable-looking
revolver. “Throw up your hands!” he roared at them. “Don’t move!”
At the sight of the revolver, one of the men had started to make a
dive toward the side of the garage. But at the Chief’s words he halted
in his tracks. “Tie em up, you fellows,” the Chief added.
One after the other, Foster bound and gagged the two swearing,
foul-mouthed men, while I helped him as well as I could with my single
available hand, using odds and ends of rope we found about the garage
and part of the men’s overalls. Then we laid them down side by side,
and not too gently, on the floor against the wall.
That done, the Chief took out a pocket torch and walked over to the
wall toward which the dark fellow had made his move when first held
up. We followed him.
For a long time the Chief studied it in the little glow of his torch.
Then he walked back to the men. “Where’s the button, you?” he
demanded. “If you want to get off light, you’d better show us.”
The fellows on the floor merely stared at him, and presently the Chief
rejoined us and fell to studying the wall again. “See that tiny crack
there?” he asked me, flashing his pocket torch up and down the wall
slowly. “That’s where the elevator comes up, I fancy. But I have no
idea how to open it. There must be a bell or a button or something
around here somewhere. It probably opens from the other side.”
For a little longer the Chief searched. Then he went to the door and,
standing framed in it, waved his arms. In a moment he turned back to
us and in his wake filed in his silent satellites until the garage was
full of them. It was exactly like a scene in a play.
“Now, you fellows, get up against this wall,” he said, “where you’ll
be out of sight from here.” He was standing in front of the wall with
the cracks in it. The men filed over and leaned against the same wall.
The Chief turned back to the wall again, leaned down and pulled a
little wire lying on the floor. I had seen it, but had taken it for a
little bit of loose copper wire. When the Chief pulled it, however, I
saw that it ran into the wall through a tiny hole. “Pretty clever,
eh?” he inquired. “Hope they haven’t got some regular signal that they
give.”
But the fates were with us now; for after a wait of perhaps two
minutes, there was a little jar from behind the wall, and suddenly two
sections of it swung out on hinges like a double door. It was through
this door that I must have passed the night before.
Within, I caught a glimpse of a startled face as the Chief jumped
through and into the elevator. The operator grabbed the lever and the
elevator shot down again with the two in it. We crowded into the
doorway and looked down. And a moment later it came up again,
revealing the operator on his back on the floor and the Chief with one
hand on his throat and the other on the lever.
As the elevator stopped, the Chief jerked the man to his feet and
threw him out into the garage, where a dozen or so of willing hands
laid hold of him. The man was clearly terrified out of his wits. And a
moment later I got my first and last sight of the Third Degree as it
is practised.
“Let him go,” said the Chief. He walked over close to the man. “Who’s
below?” he bellowed at him suddenly.
The man shook his head and the Chief’s fist shot out and caught him
full in the face, stretching him flat on his back. The Chief leaned
over and jerked him to his feet again, almost as soon as he touched
the floor. “Who’s below?” he bellowed again.
The fellow broke down at that. “No one, sir. So help me God, there’s
only me on duty to-night at this end. Don’t hit me again, sir!”
There came a strangled sound from the floor behind us, and I turned to
see the two men we had tied up, lying purple in the face and making
the most horrible faces at our new captive. The latter saw them too
and he broke down completely. First, he tried to make a dash for the
door. But we easily headed that off. Then he fell on the floor at the
Chief’s feet. “My God, sir, don’t let none of them get at me. My heart
never was in this dirty business, sir. S’help me God, it wasn’t!”
“All right,” answered the Chief. “Come along with us and show us the
way, and we’ll see what can be done for you later on.”
It was a fairly sickening sight. For the man’s terror was abject,
surrounded as he was by such an army of enemies, there in the dim
garage. I was glad when the first car-load of us, including the Chief,
the former operator and myself, stepped into the more brightly lighted
elevator and started on our journey into the nether regions.
“This is the place all right,” I whispered to the Chief. “It’s exactly
the same smell. Hope they don’t drown us out down there like rats in a
trap. It’s a long tunnel.”
The Chief laughed. “I don’t think there is much danger of that. We
haven’t given any one a chance to give the alarm yet. And if it had
been given, this fellow would be a lot less anxious to come with us,”
and he indicated the late elevator operator. “I’m banking on that.”
The elevator was a simple one to operate. But the Chief let the former
operator take charge of it again as soon as we had started, only
directing two of his men to keep a tight hold on the man and another
to keep him covered. But there was little fight or trickery left in
that fellow.
Just before the car stopped I spoke to the Chief again. “Are the
others coming after us?”
“One more load,” he answered. “I’m sending Foster up again. The others
are going into the woods to surround the house and cut off any attempt
at breaking out. That’s why I sent out two scouts to look over the
land. But I think you and I had better keep on with this, eh?”
“I’d hate to miss it,” I answered. A moment later the elevator
stopped.
We stepped out into a brightly lighted room, the top of which was of
rough wood shored up with heavy beams. The walls were of unpainted
planks. Ahead of us stretched a long tunnel about ten feet high by
eight feet wide, lit at intervals by small electric bulbs. The floor
of it carried a narrow-gauge track. The air was dank and cool, as I
well remembered.
The elevator went up to the surface again under the charge of Foster,
and the Chief turned to the operator. “Where’s the car?” he demanded.
“At the other end, sir,” whimpered the fellow.
“Is it automatic or operated by hand?”
“Automatic electric, sir. But if I signal for it, the operator at the
other end will have to send it. He’ll be on the look-out for us, then.
Shall I signal it, sir?”
“How long a ride is it?” demanded the Chief.
“About three hundred yards, sir.”
“All right, signal for it,” answered the Chief.
I would have hesitated about sending that signal. But I felt that the
thing was in more capable hands than my own and I said nothing.
The man leaned over a table which stood beside the little platform for
passengers on which we were standing and pulled down a buzzer on the
wall behind it—a buzzer similar to the one with which the signal for
help had been given from the house of Mrs. Fawcette.
After the sound of it had died away in the clammy, silent air of the
tunnel, we stood and waited expectantly. But the second load of men
arrived in the elevator before anything was visible in the tunnel.
Foster was not with this second lot, having remained above to direct
the men who were to surround the house.
Again we settled down to silence and then, far off in the tunnel, a
little car became visible, gliding steadily towards us. It drew closed
and closer until we could see that it had accommodation for about
eight passengers, in four parallel seats. But it was quite empty. Just
before it reached us there was a click and a flash of blue light, and
the little car slowed down and stopped at the platform in front of us.
It made a most eerie impression on me.
“Now,” said the Chief, turning and looming over the crowd of us as he
drew himself up, “you and I, Blake, are going to make the trip with
this fellow”—he indicated the operator—“and then you’ll come back with
him and get another car-load, and so on until we all reach the other
end. In the meantime, I’ll keep guard down there. Not more than two or
three can go this first time or we’re likely to set up a scare when we
get there.” He turned to me, “I’d like to have you go along, Clayton,
this time, but there’ll be at least two men to watch and you’ve only
got one arm.”
I could not put up an argument against that, and presently the Chief
and the man we had captured, together with Blake, one of the Secret
Service men, mounted the little car and started on their crucial
journey.
My heart was in my mouth as the car gathered speed, slid into the
tunnel and grew steadily smaller in the distance, finally rounding a
curve and disappearing from sight.
And it was a long and anxious wait, standing huddled together in that
dank, silent, underground place, straining our ears for the sound of
shots from down the tunnel, while I at least pictured the Chief as
killed or captured at the other end and the alarm given.
It had taken the little car about five minutes to come to us the first
time, after the operator had signaled for it, so I allowed twelve
minutes as the maximum time it should take for it to get back to us
again, if all went well. But the minutes dragged along and there was
still nothing in sight down the length of the tunnel.
At last, when fifteen minutes had passed and we were still anxiously
waiting, I turned to the men about me and addressed them in a low
voice. “Look here, you fellows,” I said, “now that the Chief is not
here, I do not know who is in command among you. But I feel pretty
sure that something has gone wrong at the other end. Are you willing
to follow me into the tunnel on foot and try to reach the Chief? He
may be in desperate need of our help while we are waiting here.”
For a moment or two they stared at each other. Then one of them spoke
up, crowding forward to my side: “I’m with you, sir, let’s go ahead
and try to reach him!” He stared at the others and a number of them
murmured their assent.
“Right!” I said. “Come on, then. But be sure to walk in the middle of
the track. I think that car is run with a battery, but it may be some
sort of a third rail affair. Are you ready?”
And I stepped down into the tunnel and started to walk briskly along
it.
I did not look back at once, for I could hear the others behind me,
but after a moment I glanced over my shoulder. They were strung out
along the track in single file. And I set my face to the walk and the
work ahead with a confident mind and did not look back again.
It was a longer walk than I had expected. The car must have been able
to develop a considerable speed. But after we had trudged along for
perhaps ten minutes or so, stooping down now and then to avoid low
places in the roof, we rounded a corner and saw another platform like
the one we had left, twenty or thirty yards ahead of us. I broke into
a run and the others came pounding after me. And as I drew near enough
to take in the details of what lay ahead, I gave a shout and put on
every bit of speed that I could muster.
The other platform was similar to the one we had left and the little
car was stationary in front of it. The operator we had captured was
sprawled half in and half out of it. Blake lay face down in the
tunnel, and on the platform beyond the Chief rolled this way and that,
in the grip of one of the biggest men I have ever seen, The light
glinted on the Chief’s revolver, still in his hand, but his opponent
had that wrist in his grip, while the Chief had reversed the position
with his other arm and held the fellow’s other wrist. They had been
struggling there for nearly fifteen minutes when we came, and it has
always been a mystery to me how the Chief held out so long in the grip
of so powerful a man. But he did hold out and so saved the situation
and probably all our lives into the bargain.
I did not wait to parley, but scrambled up on the platform between the
car and the end of the tunnel. The Chief was on his back, with his
opponent on top of him. I stooped down, slipped the revolver out of
the Chief’s fingers and brought it down with all my force on the back
of the big man’s head. He relaxed at once and the Chief heaved him off
and struggled painfully to his feet. Then he held out his hand. “Good
man, Clayton,” he said quietly, “I was nearly done for. I won’t forget
this.”
“Nonsense, you saved us all by hanging on so long,” I answered. “Now
what, sir? The men are all here behind me.”
The Chief shook himself and instinctively settled his clothes on him.
“He had a grip like a bear!” he muttered. “Guess I’m getting old!”
Then to me he added, “Let’s get as many men as we can cram into the
elevator and go up and clean up with them. I’m getting mad! Come on,
men!”
At the back of the platform another larger elevator stood empty and
waiting. Two of the men fell on the big fellow and tied him up
securely. The first operator we had captured was stone dead with a
bullet through the middle of his head. We left him where he lay.
Blake, too, was dead and we lifted him onto the platform. There were
about twenty of us in all, and by squeezing tightly together we
managed to crowd into this larger elevator. Then the last man closed
the door and the Chief began to experiment with the mechanism. It was
quite a simple one, and after a moment we started smoothly upward to
our final goal. It was a moment big with tension and I think we all
felt it.
“Listen now, men,” said the Chief, soon after we started. “This is a
case of no parley and no quarter. We’ve got to work fast and take them
all by surprise, for we’re dealing with men who stop at nothing.
Understand, all of you?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“And another thing,” he added. “There are a lot of women ahead, as
some of you know. You’ll have to be mighty careful where you shoot!
But otherwise, do not hesitate to shoot.”
There was another murmur and then we rode on in silence.