lounging chair in the observation car of the Coast Limited, he was
apparently engrossed in the financial page of his newspaper, and
apparently quite oblivious of his fellow travellers, some four or five
of whom lounged and smoked in their own respective wicker chairs around
him. On a little pad of paper, which he held in his left hand, he might
even, without serious tax upon the imagination, have appeared to be
calculating the effect of the market's fluctuations upon personal,
and perhaps narrowly held, margins—for again he scowled unhappily. The
Hawk, however, at the moment, was engrossed solely with a few curiously
assorted letters of the alphabet, which were scrawled across the top of
the pad. They ran:
pzudl kmlqpb.
Beneath this his pencil had already been at work, and he had transformed
the line as follows:
He was staring at this result now in a bewildered way. Then his pencil
picked out the remaining five unscored letters, and mechanically set
them down as a third line:
“Rainy”—there was one word, just one word—“rainy.” What did
it mean? What was the significance of the word? No message in the Wire
Devils' cipher, once the message was decoded, but had been at once
clear and unmistakable in its meaning before. Had they resorted now to
code words as well, to a cipher within a cipher? Into the grimness of
the Hawk's smile there crept a hint of weariness, as he slipped the
pad into his pocket, allowed the newspaper to drop to his knees, and,
edging his chair around, gazed out of the window.
For once his knowledge of their cipher was obviously useless to
him—and useless when a foreknowledge of their plans at that moment
meant scarcely less than a matter of life and death to him in a very
unpleasantly real and literal sense. Not a word had come from them; not
a message had gone over the wires on either of the two preceding nights;
not a sign of existence had they given since three nights ago when, with
an empty safe as the sole reward for their elaborately laid plans, he,
the Hawk, had enriched himself with the twenty thousand dollars' worth
of diamonds it had once contained. There had been something sinister,
something ominous in their silence, as compared with the almost insane
ravings of MacVightie, the police, and the press—yes, and the railroad
men as well, who were particularly incensed over the “murder” of
the young messenger found dead at his post in the express car with his
revolver partially emptied on the floor beside him.
The Hawk drummed abstractedly with his finger tips upon the window pane.
MacVightie, the police, and the press made no doubt but that he, the
Hawk, was the leader of the desperadoes who were terrorising that
particular section of the country; on the other hand, the gang itself
had already had occasions enough and in plenty to be painfully aware
that he, the Hawk, played always a lone hand—and won! A smile, grim
and ironical, parted the firm, set lips. The police and the Wire Devils
had a common interest—the Hawk. He was the storm centre.
The smile faded, the strong jaws clamped, and the dark eyes narrowed on
the flying landscape. It was not the police who concerned him, it was
not the impotent frothings of the press—it was the silence that the
Wire Devils had not broken since that night until they had broken it
this morning with the single word that, now that he had deciphered
it, still meant nothing to him. A dozen times, stealing their cipher
messages, he had turned all their carefully prepared plans to his own
account, and snatched away the prize, even as they were in the act
of reaching for it. But he was not a fool to close his eyes to the
inevitable result. He was pitted against the cleverest brains in the
criminal world; all the cunning that they knew would be ruthlessly
turned against him; and, already out to “get” him, a price already
guaranteed to the lucky member of the band out of the common funds,
the empty safe of three nights before, with its jeering ten-dollar
counterfeit bill flung in their faces, crowned, he feared, their
injuries at his hands, and marked the turning point where they would
leave no stone unturned to wreak their vengeance upon him.
And he did not like this silence of theirs since that night. Were they
suspicious at last that he had the key to their cipher? He did not think
so, and yet he did not know—it was always a possibility. But in any
case, wary of any move they might make, he had, as far as it was humanly
possible, remained within sound of a telegraph instrument ever since.
Last night, for example, taking advantage of some repairs that were
being made on the station at Elk Head, fifty miles east of Selkirk, he
had lain hidden behind a mass of building material in the dismantled
waiting room within earshot of the telegraph sounder—and there had
been nothing. Forced to retire from there by the advent of the workmen,
he had eaten a very leisurely breakfast at the lunch counter—still
within earshot of the sounder. He had lingered around the station as
long as he had dared without running the risk of exciting suspicion, and
then he had taken the local east for Bald Creek—and taken the chance,
because he had no choice, that nothing would “break” over the wires
during the three-quarters of an hour that he was on the train. The
Limited scheduled Bald Creek, and that would give him an excuse for
remaining there, an innocent and prospective patron of the road, until
the Limited's arrival some two hours later. After that, if nothing
happened, he had intended to go back on the Limited to Selkirk—and get
some sleep.
The Hawk yawned heavily again. Yes, after an almost uninterrupted vigil
of forty-eight hours one needed sleep. Well, he was on his way back to
Selkirk now—on the Limited. Only something had happened. Almost at the
moment that the Limited had pulled into Bald Creek, the Wire Devils had
broken their silence, and a cipher message had flashed over the wires.
He had waited for it, fought for it, schemed for it, gone without
sleep for two days and nights for it—and he had been rewarded. He had
intercepted the message, deciphered it, he had got it at last—he
had it now! It was the one word—“rainy.” And the word to him
meant—nothing!
The Hawk's fingers ceased their drumming on the window pane, his head
inclined slightly to one side, and he listened. His fellow travellers
had evidently scraped up acquaintanceship. The conversation had become
general—and suddenly interesting.
“... Yes, unquestionably! The amount I have with me is worth quite
easily a half million francs—a hundred thousand dollars. It is not
my personal property, I regret to say. Quantities sufficient to be of
material service are for the most part institutionally held.”
The Hawk swung around in his chair, and with frank interest surveyed
the little group. He had scanned them once already, critically,
comprehensively—at the moment he had first entered the car. The man
who sat nearest to him was a doctor from Selkirk; and, it being the
ingrained policy of the Hawk to know a reporter as he would know a
plain-clothes man, he had recognised one of the others as a young
reporter on the staff of the Selkirk Evening Journal. The others again,
of whom there were three, were strangers to him. His eyes rested—with
frank interest—on the man who had just spoken. There had been just a
trace of accent in the other's perfect English, and it bore out the
man's appearance. The man was perhaps forty-five years of age, rather
swarthy in complexion, and, though slight in build, commanding in
presence. The black Vandyke beard, as well as the mustache, was
carefully trimmed; and his face had an air of the student about it, an
air that was enhanced by the extraordinarily heavy-lensed spectacles
which he wore. The excellent clothes were unmistakably of foreign cut.
“Great Scott!” ejaculated the reporter. “Is that straight?” He
twisted his cigar excitedly from one corner of his mouth to the other.
“I say, I don't suppose there's a chance of getting a squint at
it, eh?”
“A—squint?” The foreigner's face was politely puzzled.
“I mean a chance to see it—to see what it looks like,” interpreted
the reporter, with a laugh.
“Oh, yes, of course—a squint. I will remember that!” The foreigner
joined in the laugh. “One learns, monsieur, always, eh—if one keeps
one's ears open!” He reached down and picked up a small black bag
from the floor beside his chair. “No, I am afraid I cannot actually
show it to you, monsieur, owing to the nature of the container; but
perhaps even the manner in which it is carried may be of interest, and,
if so, I shall be delighted.”
The others, the Hawk among them, leaned spontaneously forward in their
chairs. From the bag the man produced a lead box, some four inches
square. He opened this, and, from where it was nested in wadding, took
out what looked like a cylindrical-shaped piece of lead of the thickness
and length of one's little finger. He held it out in the palm of his
hand for their inspection.
“Inside this sealed lead covering,” he explained, “is a glass
tube hermetically sealed. The lead, of course, absorbs the rays, which
otherwise would render the radium extremely dangerous to handle. You
perhaps remember the story—if not, it may possibly be of interest.
Radium, you know, was discovered in 1898 by Monsieur and Madame Curie;
but the action of radium on human tissues was unknown until 1901, when
Professor Becquerel of Paris, having incautiously carried a tube in his
waistcoat pocket, there appeared on the skin within two weeks the severe
inflammation which has become known as the famous 'Becquerel burn.'
Since that time, I may add, active investigation into the action of
radium has been carried on, resulting in the establishment in Paris in
1906 of the Laboratoire Biologique du Radium.”
The doctor from Selkirk reached out, and, obtaining a smiling
permission, picked up the lead cylinder from the other's hand. The
reporter sucked noisily on the butt of his cigar.
“And d'ye mean to say that's worth one hundred thousand
dollars?” he demanded helplessly.
“Fully!” replied the foreigner gravely. “I should consider myself
very fortunate if I had the means and the opportunity of purchasing it
at that price. There are only a few grains there, it is true, and yet
even that is a very appreciable percentage of the world's entire
output for a single year. The Austrian Government, when it bought the
radium-producing pitchblende mines at Joachimsthal, you know, acquired
what is practically a world's monopoly of radium. And since the annual
production of ore from those mines is but about twenty-two thousand
pounds, and that from those twenty-two thousand pounds only something
like forty-six grains of radium are obtained, it is not difficult to
understand the enormous price which it commands.”
The little lead cylinder passed from hand to hand. It came last to the
Hawk. He examined it with no more and no less interest than had been
displayed by the others, and returned it to its owner, who replaced it
in the black handbag.
“Look here,” said the reporter impulsively, “I don't want to
nose into personal affairs; but, if it's a fair question, what are you
going to do with the stuff?”
It was the doctor from Selkirk who spoke before the foreigner had time
to reply.
“I was being tempted to ask the same question myself,” he said
quickly. “I am a physician—Doctor Moreling is my name—and from
what you have said I imagine that possibly you are a medical man
yourself?”
“And you are quite right,” the other answered cordially. “I am
Doctor Meunier, and I come from Paris.”
“What!” exclaimed the Selkirk physician excitedly. “Not Doctor
Meunier, the famous cancer specialist and surgeon of the Salpêtrière
Hospital!”
The other shrugged his shoulders protestingly.
“Well,” he smiled, a little embarrassed, “my name is certainly
Meunier, and it is true that I have the honour to be connected with the
institution you have mentioned.”
The reporter had a notebook in his hand.
“Gee!” he observed softly. “You don't mind, do you,
Doctor Meunier? This looks like luck to me. I'm on the Evening
Journal—Selkirk.”
“Ah—a reporter!” The dark eyes seemed to twinkle humorously from
behind the heavy lenses. “I have met some—when I landed in New York.
They were very nice. I liked them very much. Certainly, young man, why
should you not say anything I have told you? You have my permission.”
“Fine!” cried the reporter enthusiastically. “And now, Doctor
Meunier, if you'll just round out the story by telling us why the
celebrated Paris surgeon is travelling in America with a hundred
thousand dollars' worth of radium, I'll be glad I got panned on the
story I went after this morning and so had to take this train back.”
“Panned?” inquired the other gravely.
“Yes.” The reporter nodded. “It blew up, you know.”
“Blew up! Ah!” The foreigner's face was at once concerned. “So!
You were in an accident, then?”
“No, no,” laughed the reporter. “There wasn't anything in the
story. It didn't have any foundation.”
“Again I learn,” observed the foreigner, with an amused drawl.
He studied the reporter for an instant quizzically. “And so I am to
supply the place of the panned story that blew up—is that it? Well,
very well! Why not? I see no reason against it, if it will be of service
to you. Very well, then. I have been summoned to Japan to attend a
case of cancer—radium treatment—and I am on my way there now.” He
smiled again. “I have noticed that American reporters are observant,
and it may occur to you that I might have reached my destination quicker
by way of Russia. As a matter of fact, however, I was in New York
attending a convention when I received the summons. I cabled for the
radium, and—well, young man, that pretty well completes the story.”
“Yes—thanks!” said the reporter. He wrote rapidly. “Operation on
a Japanese?”
“Why, yes, of course—on a Japanese.”
“'Summoned,' you said. That listens as though it might be for one
of the Emperor's family,” prodded the reporter shrewdly.
“I did not say so,” smiled the other imperturbably.
“And even if it were so——” He shrugged his shoulders
significantly.
“I get you!” grinned the reporter. “Well, there's no harm in
saying a 'High Personage' then, is there? That sounds good, and it
would have to be some one on the top of the heap to bring a man like you
all this way.”
“Let us be discreet, young man, and say—well, let us say, a member
of prominent family,” suggested the other, still smiling.
“All right,” agreed the reporter. “I won't put anything over
on you, I promise you. And now, doctor, tell us something more about
radium, how it acts and all that, and how an operation is performed with
it, and——”
The Hawk had apparently lost interest. He settled back in his chair, and
picked up his previously discarded newspaper—yet occasionally his eyes
strayed over the top of his newspaper, and rested meditatively on the
little black handbag on the car floor beside the Frenchman's chair.
The doctor from Selkirk, the reporter, and the French specialist talked
on. The Limited reached the last stop before Selkirk. As the train
pulled out again, the Hawk, as it were, summed up his thoughts.
“A hundred thousand dollars,” confided the Hawk softly to himself.
“Maybe it wouldn't be easy to sell, but it would make a very nice
haul—a very nice haul. It would tempt—almost anybody. Yes, bad stuff
to handle; the fences would be leery probably, because I guess every
last grain on this little old globe is catalogued as to ownership, and
they'd be afraid it would be an open-and-shut game that what they
were trying to shove would be spotted as the stolen stuff—not that it
couldn't be done though, at that! There's always somebody to take a
chance—on a hundred thousand dollars! And what about the institution
that owns it coming across big and no questions asked to get it back
again? Yes, I guess it would make a nice haul—a very nice haul. I
wonder——”
The conductor had entered the car, had said something that the Hawk had
not caught—and now the French specialist was on his feet.
“How long did you say?” he demanded excitedly.
“I didn't say,” replied the conductor; “I only guessed—twelve
hours anyway, and if we're through under twenty-four it'll be
because some one has performed a miracle.”
“Twelve hours—twenty-four!” echoed the Frenchman wildly. “But,
mon Dieu, I have not that to spare to catch my steamer for Japan in San
Francisco!”
“But what's wrong, conductor?” asked the Selkirk doctor. “You
haven't told us that.”
“The Rainy River bridge is out,” the conductor answered.
The Rainy River bridge! The Hawk reached into his pocket, withdrew his
cigarette case, and made a critical choice of one of the six identical
cigarettes the case contained.
“Out! How?” the doctor from Selkirk persisted.
“No details,” said the conductor; “except that it was blown up
a little while ago and that they think it's the work of the Hawk's
gang. They just got word over the wire at the last stop.”
“Jumping whiskers!” yelled the reporter. “Is that right,
conductor?”
“Yes, I guess it's right, fast enough,” said the conductor
grimly. He turned to the Frenchman. “It's tough luck, sir, to miss
transpacific connections; but I guess that's the man you've got to
thank for it—the Hawk.”
“The Hawk? What is that? Who is the Hawk?” The Frenchman had lost
his poise; he was gesticulating violently now.
“I'll tell you,” said the reporter briskly. “He's the man
that's got your original reign of terror skinned a mile—believe me!
He's an ex-Sing Sing convict, and he's the head, brains and front
of a gang of criminals operating out here compared with whom, for pure,
first-water deviltry, any one of Satan's picked cohorts would look as
shy and retiring as a maiden lady of sixty who suddenly found herself
in a one-piece bathing suit—in public. That's the Hawk! Yes,
sir—believe me!”
Doctor Meunier waved his hands, as though to ward off a swarm of buzzing
bees.
“I do not understand!” he spluttered angrily. “I do not care to
understand! You do not speak English! I understand only of the delay!”
He caught at the conductor's sleeve. “You, monsieur—is there not
something that can be done?”
“I don't know, sir,” said the conductor. “We'll be in Selkirk
now in a few minutes, and the best thing you can do is to see Mr.
Lanson, the superintendent.”
The conductor retired.
The Frenchman sat down in his chair, mopped his face with a
handkerchief, and stared from one to another of his fellow passengers.
“Messieurs, it is necessary, it is imperative, that I catch the
steamer!” he cried frantically. “What am I to do?”
“Lanson's a good head; he'll fix you up some way,” said the
reporter soothingly. “Don't you worry. I'm mighty sorry for you,
Doctor Meunier, upon my soul—but, say, this is some story—whale of a
climax!”
The Frenchman glared for an instant; then, leaning forward, suddenly
shook his fist under the other's nose.
“Young man, damn your story!” he snarled distractedly.
The Hawk retired once more behind his newspaper. The reporter was
pacifying the excited Frenchman. The Hawk was not interested in that.
The message, that single word which had puzzled him, was transparently
clear now—and had been from the moment the conductor had spoken. The
surmise of the railroad officials, even if it were no more than surmise
on their part, was indubitably correct—barring the slight detail of
his own participation in the affair! The Wire Devils had blown up the
Rainy River bridge. This, as a detached fact, did not interest him
either—they were quite capable of blowing up a bridge, or anything
else. That was a detail. But they were quite incapable of doing it
without a very good and sufficient reason, and one that promised returns
of a very material nature to themselves. What was the game? Why the
Rainy River bridge? Why this morning? Why at this time? The Rainy River
bridge was but a few miles west of Selkirk, and—the Hawk's
eyes strayed over his newspaper again, and rested mildly upon the
Frenchman's little black handbag, that was quite slim, and not
over long, that was of such a size, in fact, that it might readily be
concealed under one's coat, for instance, without attracting undue
attention—and with the bridge out a passenger, say on the Coast
Limited this noon would experience an annoying, somewhat lengthened,
but unavoidable interruption in his journey. The passenger might even
be forced to spend the night in Selkirk, and very much might happen in
a night—in Selkirk! It was a little elaborate, it seemed as though it
might perhaps have been accomplished with a little less fuss—though
lack of finesse and exceeding cunning was, in his experience, an
unmerited reproach where that unknown brain that planned and plotted
the Wire Devils' acts was concerned; but, however that might be, the
reason that the Rainy River bridge was out now appeared quite obviously
attributable—to a very excited foreigner, and a little black handbag
whose contents were valued at the modest sum of one hundred thousand
dollars.
“And I wonder,” said the Hawk almost plaintively to himself, “I
wonder which of us will cash in on that!”
The Hawk rose leisurely from his chair, as the train reached Selkirk.
He permitted the Frenchman, the Selkirk physician and the reporter to
descend to the platform in advance of him; but, as they hurried
through the station and around to the entrance leading upstairs to the
divisional offices, obviously with the superintendent's office as
their objective, the Hawk, in the privileged character of an interested
fellow traveller, fell into step with the reporter.
The four entered the superintendent's office, and from an unobtrusive
position just inside the door the Hawk listened to the conversation. He
heard Lan-son, the superintendent, confirm the conductor's story, and
express genuine regret at the Frenchman's plight, as he admitted it to
be a practical certainty that the other would miss his connection in
San Francisco. The Frenchman but grew the more excited. He suggested a
special train from the western side of the bridge—they could get him
across in a boat, he said. The superintendent explained that traffic
in the mountains beyond was already demoralised. The Frenchman raved,
begged, pleaded, implored—and suddenly the Hawk sucked in his breath
softly. The Frenchman was backing his appeal for a special with the
offer to pay any sum demanded, and had taken a well-filled pocketbook
from his pocket. The Hawk's eyes aimlessly sought the toes of his
boots. He had caught a glimpse of a fat wad of bills, a very fat wad,
whose denominations were of a large and extremely interesting nature.
The official shook his head. It was not a question of money; nor was the
other's ability to pay in question. Later on, he, Lanson, would
know better what the situation was; meanwhile he suggested that Doctor
Meunier should go to the hotel and wait—that there was nothing else to
do for the moment. The Selkirk physician here intervened, and, agreeing
with the superintendent, offered to escort the Frenchman to the Corona
Hotel.
The Hawk, as one whose curiosity was satiated, but satiated at the
expense of time he could ill afford, nodded briefly to the reporter who
stood nearest to him, and quietly left the room.
XII—BLINDMAN'S-BUFF
FIVE minutes later, standing in another room—his own—the Hawk
rapidly changed the light-grey suit he had been wearing for one of a
darker material. From the pockets of the discarded suit he transferred
to the pockets of the suit he had just put on, amongst other things, his
automatic and his bunch of skeleton keys. He opened his trunk, removed
the false tray, and smiled with a sort of grim complacency as his glance
inventoried its unhallowed contents; and particularly he smiled, as,
opening a little box, he allowed a stream of gleaming stones to trickle
out into the palm of his hand—the twenty thousand dollars' worth of
diamonds robbed from the Fast Mail three nights ago.
“Some haul!” observed the Hawk softly. “And, with any luck,
there'll be something else there worth the whole outfit put together
before to-night is over.” He replaced the diamonds in the box, the box
in the tray, and spoke again, but now his smile was hard and twisted;
not an article there but he had scooped from under the noses of the
gang. “Yes, I guess I'd go out like you'd snuff a candle if they
ever get me, and I guess they're getting—querulous!”