to-night it is—pardon me”—he was close in front of the two now,
and, with a jerk, snatched the masks from their faces—“Whitie Jim,
and the Bantam! Well, I might have known from the Butcher! You're all
out of the same kind of cocoons! The poor old simp at the head of your
gang is sure stuck with a moth-eaten lot! He's sure collected a bunch
of left-overs! Why, say, back there in New York, where a real crook
couldn't keep the grin off his face every time he met you, even the
police had you passed up as harmless cripples!”
“You go to blazes!” growled the Bantam, with an oath. “You'll
sing through the other side of your mouth for this yet!”
“You are not nice to me, Bantam,” said the Hawk, in a pained voice.
“You don't appreciate what I'm doing for you. It was a piker game
you tried to hand Calhoun; but, even at that, I wouldn't have queered
it if it would have helped you work out a few more little deals, so that
I could skim the cream off them. But it wouldn't! I don't see what
you gain by interfering with the telegraph lines, but I'll let you
in on something. I've been keeping an eye on MacVightie because
MacVightie's been keeping an eye on me, and I overheard him talking to
the superintendent to-night. MacVightie's got an idea that Calhoun's
fooling with the wires now. See where you would have been? If Calhoun
had ever got started on the real thing, some of you would have been
nipped—and, say, there's nothing like that going to happen if I can
help it! You and your crowd are too valuable to me to take any chances
of your getting in wrong anywhere. I'm not wringing the neck of the
goose that lays my golden eggs! Tell that to the guy that's supposed
to have the brains of your outfit, will you? And you might add that I
don't want any thanks. I'm getting well paid.”
“You'll get paid, curse you!” The Bantam's voice was hoarse with
fury. “You butted in once too often last night. The Butcher warned
you. There ain't any more warnings. You've got the drop on us here
to-night, but——”
“It's getting late,” said the Hawk wearily. “And I'm sure
Mr. Kirschell agrees with me that it is about time to produce that cash
box—do you not, Mr. Kirschell?”
Kirschell made no reply.
The Hawk smiled—unhappily.
“I don't think you put it back in the safe—I see that the door is
still wide open. A drawer in the desk, then, perhaps? Ah—would you!”
There was a sudden deadly coldness in the Hawk's voice. The Bantam had
edged around the corner of the desk. “If any of you move another inch,
I'll drop you as quick as I'd drop a mad dog! Now then—if
the Cricket will oblige? I'll give him until I count three.
One—two——”
“Damn you!—Kirschell's face was livid and contorted. He wrenched a
lower drawer open, and flung the cash box on the desk.
“The Butcher, Whitie Jim, the Bantam, and the Cricket,” murmured the
Hawk. “It's good to see old New York faces out here, even if you
do size up like bush-leaguers trying to bust into high society. You
can take that towel off, if you like, Cricket, it doesn't become you
particularly—and, as you've washed off the heart-rending effect of
that little bag of liquid stain you smashed over your temple, I'm
sure you'll look less like a comic opera star! No? Well, please
yourself!” The Hawk was coolly transferring the contents of the cash
box to his pockets with his left hand. “These papers,” mused the
Hawk deliberately aloud, “appear to be some securities you lifted
on that Pullman car raid. Rather neat idea, this, establishing
this office—sort of a clearing house, I take it, for the gang's
drag-net—'loans, mortgages and general exchange!' I take back part
of what I said—this shows a first faint glimmer of brains. Well, keep
the office going, your interests are mine! You'll notice that I was
considerate enough to get Calhoun out of the way before the show-down.
You were very generous, magnanimous even, Cricket—I admire you!
Calhoun'll swear Mr. Kirschell is the squarest man on earth—and
don't forget that's another little debt of gratitude you owe the
Hawk. Three thousand dollars!” The Hawk's pockets were bulging.
“Must have been what you separated some one from when I wasn't
looking! Glad you weren't stingy with your bait for Calhoun! I heard
to-day that Mr. Kirschell kept a good deal of cash in his safe, but I
had no idea that Mr. Kirschell was the Cricket—not till I came here
this evening to take a look at Mr. Kirschell's safe. I must say it has
been a surprise—a very pleasant surprise.”
The cash box was empty. The Hawk backed away from the desk.
None of the three men spoke—they were eying him like caged and
infuriated beasts.
The Hawk reached the doorway.
“You will observe,” smiled the Hawk engagingly, “that this is now
the only exit, and that as I walk backward across the outer office any
one who steps into this doorway will be directly in the line of fire.”
He bowed facetiously, backed through the doorway and across the general
office, and, still facing the inner room, opened the corridor door and
stepped out.
And then the Hawk spoke again.
“I bid you good evening, gentlemen!” said the Hawk softly. “You
will pardon me if I put you to the inconvenience of locking this
door—on the outside.”
VII—WANTED—THE HAWK—DEAD OR ALIVE
MACVIGHTIE had become troublesome. For two days MacVightie had very
seriously annoyed the Hawk. It was for that reason that the Hawk now
crept stealthily up the dark, narrow stairs, and, on the landing,
listened in strained attention before the door of his own room.
Reassured finally, he opened the door inch by inch, noiselessly. The
bolt, in grooves that were carefully oiled, made no sound in slipping
into place, as the Hawk entered and closed the door behind him. So far,
so good! He was quick, alert, but still silent, as, in the darkness,
he crossed swiftly to the window, and crouched down against the wall.
A minute, two, went by. The fire-escape, passing at an angle a short
distance below the window sill, and at first nebulous in the blackness,
gradually took on distinct and tangible shape. Still the Hawk held there
motionless, searching it with his eyes—and then, abruptly, satisfied
that it sheltered no lurking shadow, he straightened up, thrust his
automatic back into his pocket, pulled down the shade, and, turning back
into the room, switched on the light.
MacVightie, it appeared, still had lingering suspicions of this room
over the somewhat disreputable saloon below, and still had lingering
suspicions of its occupant. All that afternoon the Hawk was quite well
aware that he had been shadowed—but the result had been rather in his
favour than in Mac-Vightie's. From the moment he had discovered that
he was being followed, he had devoted his time to making applications
for a job—for MacVightie's benefit—that being the reason he had
given MacVightie for his presence in Selkirk. Later on, when it had
grown dark, having business of his own, he had left MacVightie's
satellite standing on a street corner somewhat puzzled just which way to
turn! That, however, had no bearing on the watch that had been, or might
be at the present moment, set upon this room.
The Hawk, in apparent abstraction, was flipping a coin up in the air
and catching it. There was a slight frown on the Hawk's face.
MacVightie's suspicions were still lingering for the simple reason
that MacVightie, utterly at sea, was clutching at the only straw in
sight, unless—the coin slipped through the Hawk's fingers and fell
beside his trunk. He stooped to pick it up—yes, not only had the room
been searched, but the trunk had been opened! The single strand of hair,
almost indiscernible against the brass and quite innocently caught in
the lock, was broken. Well, he had not finished that mental sentence.
Unless—what?
He tucked the coin into his pocket, and, standing up, yawned and
stretched himself. With the toe of his boot he lazily pushed a chair
out from the wall. The chair fell over. The Hawk picked it up, and quite
casually set it down—near the door. He took off his coat, and flung it
over the back of the chair.
The Hawk's face was greyer now, as it set in rigid lines, but there
was no tremor in the hand that inserted the key in the lock of the
trunk. He flung back the lid—and his eyes, for an instant, searched
the room again sharply. The window shade was securely drawn; the coat
over the back of the chair completely screened the keyhole of the door.
He laughed a little then—mirthlessly. Well, the trunk had been opened!
Had MacVightie found all—or nothing?
His fingers were working swiftly, deftly now around the inside edges of
the lid. He was either caught here, cornered, at bay—or MacVightie,
once for all, would be satisfied, and, as far as MacVightie was
concerned, the coast would hereafter be clear. The Hawk's dark eyes
narrowed, the square under jaw crept out and set doggedly. It had been a
close call, perilously close, that other night when he had taken the
ten thousand dollars from the paymaster's safe, and MacVightie
had followed him here to this room. He had pulled the wool over
MacVightie's eyes for the moment—but MacVightie had returned to the
old trail again. Well, the cards were on the table now, and it was a
gamble that was grim enough! Either he was quit of MacVightie, could
even count on MacVightie as a sort of sponsor for his innocence;
or—“Ah!” The ingeniously fashioned false tray in the curvature of
the lid had come away in the Hawk's hands. He was safe! MacVightie
had missed it! In the tray, untouched, where he had left them, lay the
packages of banknotes from the paymaster's safe; in the tray still
glittered the magnificent diamond necklace, whose theft from the wife of
His Excellency the Governor of the State had already furnished more than
one of the big dailies back in the East with attractive copy for their
Sunday editions; and there, undisturbed, were the contents of Isaac
Kirschell's cash box, a trifling matter of some three thousand
dollars; and there too, snugly tucked away in one corner, was the
bundle of crisp, new, counterfeit ten-dollar bills. The Hawk grinned
maliciously, as his eyes rested on the counterfeit notes. The one he
had sent, inscribed with his compliments, to MacVightie, when he had
returned the otherwise empty paymaster's bag to the detective, had not
pleased MacVightie!
Quite at his ease now, the Hawk fitted the false top back into the lid,
closed the trunk, locked it, drew a chair up to the table, and sat down.
With MacVightie removed as a possible factor of interruption, there was
another, and very pressing little matter to which he was now at liberty
to give his attention. He produced a folded sheet of paper from his
inside vest pocket, spread it out on the table before him, and inspected
it with a sort of cynical curiosity. In each corner were tack holes. He
had removed it less than half an hour ago—not through any misguided
dislike to publicity, but simply because he had urgently required a
piece of paper—from a conspicuous position on the wall of the railroad
station. It was a police circular. The Hawk had not before had an
opportunity to absorb more than the large type captions—he filled
his pipe calmly now, as he read it in its entirety: $5,000 REWARD—FOR
EX-SING SING CONVICT
Five Thousand Dollars Reward Will Be Paid For Information Leading to the
Arrest and Conviction of THE HAWK, Alias HARRY MAUL.
Here followed a description tallying with the one given by MacVightie
to Lanson, the division superintendent, and which Lanson had caustically
remarked would not fit more than twenty-five thousand men in Selkirk
City; followed after that a résumé of the crimes recently committed
on the railroad, amongst them the theft of the diamond necklace and the
robbery of the paymaster's safe; and, at the end, in bold-faced type
again: $2,000 REWARD
Two Thousand Dollars Reward Will Also be Paid For Information Leading
to the Arrest and Conviction of Each and Every One of THE HAWK'S
Confederates.
The Hawk smiled broadly, as he held the flame of a match to his pipe
bowl. The last paragraph was exquisitely ironical. Those whom MacVightie
so blithely called the “Hawk's confederates” were vying with each
other at that exact moment, and for the exact amount of two thousand
dollars offered by the Master Spider of the gang, for the privilege of
putting an even more conclusive end—in the shape of a knife thrust, a
bullet, or a blackjack—to the Hawk!
“And,” said the Hawk softly, as he turned the circular over,
“I guess they'd make it a whole lot more if they knew that I
had—this!”
The back of the circular was covered with line after line of what,
seemingly, was but a meaningless jumble of scribbled letters—nor, in
this case, were the letters any too well formed. The Hawk had
laboured under difficulties when the telegraph sounder had “broke”
unexpectedly with the message. He had been listening—as he was always
listening when within sound of a telegraph instrument—but he had never
known a message from the Wire Devils to come through at so early an hour
in the evening before. He had shaken MacVightie's man off the trail
and had gone down to the depot, intending to go up the line to the first
small station, where, with little chance of being discovered, he could
spend the night within earshot of the operator's instrument—in the
hope that his vigil would not, as it sometimes did, prove futile. He had
been standing under the dispatcher's open window waiting for a train,
when the police circular tacked on the station wall had caught his eye.
The large type was readily decipherable, but the platform lights were
poor, and he had stepped closer to read the remainder—and instead,
glancing quickly about him to see that he was not observed, he had
snatched the circular from the wall, and, whipping a pencil from his
pocket, had scrawled on the reverse side, as best he could, the message
that was rattling in over the dispatcher's sounder from the room
above. He had taken chances—but he had played in luck. No one had
noticed him, and—well, he was here now with the message; and, since it
must sooner or later have been put to the proof in any case, he was back
here, too, to find that he was quit of MacVightie.
“Yes,” confided the Hawk to himself, as he reached for a blank sheet
of paper in the drawer of the table, “I guess I played in luck—both
ways. Wonder if there's another ripe little melon here going to be
shoved my way on a gold platter by the Butcher and his crowd?”
The Hawk studied the cipher for a moment.
“lqrtvy... key letter... stroke at six...two-three-one,” he
murmured.
He drew the fresh sheet of paper toward him, and began to work busily.
Occasionally he paused, staring dubiously at a letter—he had taken the
message under far from ideal conditions, and a mistake here and there,
if not fatal, was annoying and confusing. Finally, however, the Hawk
leaned back in his chair, and whistled low under his breath. The
message, deciphered and arranged into words and sentences, ran:
Final orders. Number One, Three, and Six hold up Fast Mail three miles
east of Burke's Siding to-night. Cut wires on approach. Express
car next to engine. Uncouple and proceed. Diamond shipment in safe.
Messenger drugged. No interference with remainder of train. Deliver safe
five-mile crossing to Number Four and Seven. Number One, Three, and
Six take engine and car further along the line. Return separately to
Selkirk.
Again the Hawk whistled low under his breath—and for the second time
reached into his inside vest pocket. He took out a letter that was
addressed, care of general delivery, to Mr. J. P. Carrister. The Hawk
puffed pleasantly at his pipe as he read it:
“Dear Friend: The folks are all well, and hope you are the same. I
haven't had time to write much lately. I like my new job fine. Say, I
felt like a Fifth Avenue dook for about umpty seconds to-day. One of the
fellows in the office let me hold a package of diamonds in my hand just
to see what it felt like. Gee! Say, you could almost shove it in your
vest pocket, and it was invoiced through customs at twenty thousand
plunks. They were unset stones, and came in from Amsterdam. It made me
feel queer.
“I wouldn't like to be the fellow that has to keep his eye on it any
of the way from here to San Francisco, where it's going to-morrow by
express. If you see any bright lights flashing around your burg that
you can't account for about 11:15 next Wednesday night, you'll know
it's the diamonds going through in the express-car safe. I'm getting
to be some joker, eh? We all went down to Coney last Sunday. It's been
fierce and hot here. Say, don't be a clam, write us a line. Well, I
guess there ain't any more news. Yours truly, Bud.”
The Hawk, instead of folding up the letter and returning it to his
pocket, began meditatively to tear it into minute shreds, and with it
the police circular and the sheet of paper on which he had worked out
the cipher message. The Fast Mail scheduled Selkirk at 11:15—and this
was Wednesday night!
“Twenty thousand dollars,” said the Hawk gently under his breath.
“Thanks, Bud, old boy! You were there with the goods all right, but
it wasn't a one-man job, and I didn't think there was going to be
anything doing.” The Hawk grinned at the ceiling. “And just as I was
about passing up the last check, here they go and fix it for me to scoop
the whole pot! Three miles east of Burke's Siding, eh?”
The Hawk relapsed into silence for a moment; then he spoke again.
“Yes,” said the Hawk, “I guess that ought to work. She won't
make the three miles from the siding under five or six minutes. She's
due at Burke's at ten-ten. I can make it on the local out of here at
eight-thirty. Twenty thousand dollars—in unset stones! Just as good as
cash—and a lot easier to carry!”
The Hawk looked at his watch. It was five minutes of eight. He rose
leisurely from his chair, stooped for a precautionary inspection of the
trunk lock, put on his coat, and, moving toward the door, switched off
the light.
“If I get away with this,” observed the Hawk, as he went down
the stairs and let himself out through the street door, “it'll be
good-night for keeps if any of the gang ever pick up my trail—and
they won't quit until they do! And then there's MacVightie and the
police. I guess there'll be some little side-stepping to do—what?
Oh, well”—he shrugged his shoulders—“I guess I'll get a bite
of supper, anyway—there's no telling when I'll have a chance to
eat again!”
VIII—THREADS IN THE WEB
IT was not far to the station—down through the lane from the Palace
Saloon—and close to the station, he remembered, there was a little
short-order house that was generally patronised by the railroad men. Old
Mother Barrett's short-order house, they called it. She was the wife
of an engineer who had been killed, he had heard, and she had a boy
working somewhere on the railroad. Not that he was interested in these
details; in fact, as he walked along, the Hawk was not interested in
old Mother Barrett in a personal sense at all—but, as he reached the
short-order house and entered, his eyes, as though magnetically drawn
in that direction, fixed instantly on the little old woman behind the
counter.
The Hawk was suddenly very much interested in old Mother Barrett. It was
not that she made a somewhat pathetic figure, that she drooped a little
at the shoulders, that her face under her grey hair looked tired,
or that, though scrupulously neat, her clothes were a little
threadbare—it was none of these things—it was old Mother Barrett's
hands that for the moment concerned the Hawk. She was in the act of
adjusting her spectacles and picking up a very new and crisp ten-dollar
bill, that a customer from the stool in front of her had evidently
tendered in payment for his meal. The Hawk shot a quick glance up and
down the room. There were several other customers at the long counter,
but the stool beside the owner of the ten-dollar bill was vacant—and
the Hawk unostentatiously straddled it.
He glanced casually at the man at his elbow; allowed his eyes to stray
to the kindly, motherly old face with its grey Irish eyes, that was
puckered now in a sort of hesitant indecision—and glanced a little
more than casually at the banknote she kept turning over and over in her
hands. No, he had not been mistaken. It was one of those counterfeits
which, according to MacVightie, had flooded the East and were now making
their appearance in Selkirk, and it was a duplicate of those in the
false tray of his trunk. His eyes perhaps were sharper than old Mother
Barrett's—in any case, his identification was the quicker, for his
gaze had wandered to the coffee urn, and he was drumming idly on the
counter with his finger tips before the little old woman finally spoke.
“I—I'm afraid I can't take this,” she said slowly, handing the
banknote back across the counter.
“What's the matter with it?” demanded the man gruffly.
“Why—it's—it's counterfeit,” she said a little anxiously, as
though she were fearful of giving offence.
The Hawk's eyes, with mild and quite impersonal interest, were on the
man's face now. The man had picked up the bill, and was pretending to
examine it critically.
“Counterfeit!” echoed the man shortly. “Say, what are you
giving us! It's as good as wheat! Give me my change, and let me get
out—I'm in a hurry!” He pushed the bill toward her again.
She did not pick it up from the counter this time.
“I'm sorry.” She seemed genuinely disturbed, and the sweet old
face was full of sympathy. “I'm sure you did not know that it was
not good, and ten dollars is a great deal to lose, isn't it? It's
too bad. Do you remember where you got it?”
“Look here, you're dippy!” snapped the man. “I tell you it's
not counterfeit. Anyway, it's all I've got. If you want your pay,
take it!”
“You owe me thirty-five cents, but I can't take it out of this.”
She shook her head in a troubled way. “This is a counterfeit.”
“You seem to be pretty well posted—on counterfeits!” sneered the
man offensively. “How do you know it's a counterfeit—eh?”
“Because I've seen one like this before,” she said simply. “My
son showed me one the last time he was in from his run, and he warned me
to be careful about taking any.”
“Oh, your son—eh?” sneered the man again. “Some son! Wised you
up, did he? Carries it around with him—eh? And who does he shove it
off on?”
There was a queer little sound from the old lady—like a quick, hurt
catch of her breath. The Hawk's eyes travelled swiftly to her face.
She had turned a little pale, and her lips were trembling—but she was
drawn up very proudly, and the thin shoulders were squared back.
“I love my boy,” she said in a low voice, and tears came suddenly
into her eyes, “I love him with all my heart, but I should a thousand
times rather see him dead than know him for a thief. And a man who
attempts to pass these things knowingly is a—thief. I have been very
respectful to you, sir, and I do not deserve what you have said. I
assumed that you had been swindled yourself, and that you were perfectly
honest in offering the bill to me, but now from your——”
“What's the trouble, Mother Barrett?”—a big railroader farther
up the counter had laid down his knife and fork, and swung round on his
stool.
With a hurried glance in that direction, the man hastily thrust the
counterfeit note into his pocket, laid down thirty-five cents on the
counter—and, with a dive across the room, disappeared through the
door.
The Hawk stared thoughtfully after him.
“I couldn't butt in on that, and hand him one,” said the Hawk to
himself almost apologetically. “Not with twenty thousand in sight! I
couldn't afford to get into a row, and maybe miss the local, and spill
the beans, could I?”
He looked around again to find the little old woman wiping her
spectacles, and smiling at him a little wistfully.
“I'm sorry that you had to listen to any unpleasantness,” she
said. “My little place isn't very pretentious, but I would not like
to have you, a stranger, think that sort of thing was customary here.
What can I get you, sir?”
It was no wonder that the railroaders evidently swore by old Mother
Barrett, and that one of them had been quick to shift her trouble to his
own shoulders!
“I guess he was a bad one, all right!” growled the Hawk.
She shook her head regretfully. There was no resentment left—it was as
though, indeed, the man was a charge upon her own conscience.