behind it, took the main line switch with a stagger and a lurch, and
straightened away into the clear. There was speed now, and the speed
was increasing with every second. The shouts, the yells, the cries, the
pandemonium from the yard was blotted out in the pound of the drivers
and the belch of the exhaust; and the station and switch lights
were lost to sight as engine and car flew on, heading west into the
foothills. The Hawk chuckled to himself. There would be wild confusion
in the dispatcher's office, and wild confusion all along the line west
of Selkirk, as regulars, extras and traffic of all sorts scurried for
safety to the sidings—but there would be no interference with him!
Where they would otherwise have ditched him, given him an open switch
at the first station and sent him to destruction without compunction, he
possessed, as it was, a most satisfactory hostage in the person of
the division superintendent, whom they would hesitate about sending to
eternity at the same time!
Possibly a minute and a half, two at the outside, had passed since he
had jumped through the gangway. He eased the throttle a little now,
reducing the speed to a rate more nearly commensurate with safety;
and, placing the package on the driver's seat, ripped off the outside
wrapper. There was a queer, hard smile on the Hawk's lips, as his
fingers tore at the covering of one of the small sealed packets within.
Was it the dummy parcel—or the twenty-five thousand in cash? Had Dixer
succeeded—or was the money still behind him there in the private car?
The cab lamp above the dancing gauge needles seemed to throw its
meagre yellow glow with strained inquisitiveness over the Hawk's
shoulder—and then the Hawk laughed softly, and laughed again. In his
hands were banknotes. He riffled the stack through his fingers. It was
here, in his possession—twenty-five thousand dollars in cash!
And he laughed again, and glanced around him—through the cab glass
at the white ribbons of steel glistening under the headlight's glare,
around the murky cab that in its sway and jolt seemed to endow a legion
of shadowy with movement, vitality and life, at the platform of the
private car, which he could see by looking along the edge of the tender,
and which, like its fellow at the rear, was bathed in the soft radiance
of a dome light. Well, he might have known from the fact that the
occupants of the car had not made any move as yet, at least from the
forward end, that they had been in bed and asleep when the disturbance
began; and he might, on that count, if he had stopped to think, have
known that Dixer had succeeded even before he, the Hawk, had put it to
the proof by opening the parcel.
A lurch of the cab sent him against the seat, and scattered the sealed
packages. He gathered them together again hurriedly. He had only to slow
down the engine a little more, jump to the ground, let the engine and
car go on, make his own way back through the fields, and he would be
safe unless—that strange, queer smile, half grim, half whimsical, was
flickering across his lips—unless he cared to risk his life for that
dummy package back there in the car behind, that contained nothing more
valuable than neatly trimmed pieces of blotting paper!
The smile lost its whimsicality, and the grimness gathered until his
lips drooped in sharp, hard lines at the corners of his mouth—and,
abruptly, lifting up the seat, he swept the packages of banknotes into
the engineer's box, leaped across the cab, and began to claw his way
up over the coal, making for the back of the tender.
“Twenty-five thousand in cash for me, and twenty years in the
'pen' for the kid, doesn't look like an even break,” muttered
the Hawk, as he clawed his way up. “Maybe I'm a fool—I guess maybe
I am—but it doesn't look like an even break. You see,” said the
Hawk, continuing to commune with himself, “they'll know, of course,
that some one who wasn't Meridan tried to get the package, but with
the package still there they'll think that the 'some one' made a
bull of it, and to-morrow morning when they open the package and spot
the finger prints, and get that bank seal in Meridan's home,
they'll hold him for it cold, because what's happened around here
to-night'll only look like somebody making a try for the goods without
knowing they were already gone. The kid wouldn't have a hope—the
Ladybird wasn't dealing any aces except to himself—the kid would
go up for having previously stolen the goods on his own account. Yes, I
guess he would—wax, seal and paper in his house to make dummy packages
with—yes, I guess the kid would stand a hot chance!”
The Hawk rose to his feet at the rear of the tender, preparing to
negotiate a leap down over the ornamental brass platform railing of the
private car—and instantly flung himself back flat on his face on the
coal. The car door was flung open, and Lanson, the superintendent, in
pajamas, a revolver in his hand, stepped out on the platform. He
was closely followed by a young man—Meridan, the bank clerk,
obviously—also in pajamas, but apparently unarmed; and, behind Meridan
again, came the negro porter.
Lanson's voice, raised excitedly, carried to the Hawk:
“Damn it, there's no one in the cab! What the devil sort of a game
is this!”
The Hawk edged up to the top of the coal again—and the next instant,
with catlike agility, he launched himself forward. Lanson, clambering
over the platform railing, with the very evident intention of making his
way via the tender to the throttle, gasped audibly over the racket of
the beating trucks, and in a sort of stunned surprise and irresolution
remained poised inertly on the railing, as the Hawk, clinging now with
one hand to the rear handrail of the switcher, his feet planted on the
buffer beam, thrust the muzzle of his automatic into Lanson's face.
“Drop that gun!” invited the Hawk in a monotone.
The weapon, from Lanson's hand, clattered down, struck the coupling,
and dropped to the track.
The Hawk spoke again—with unpleasant curtness:
“You—Sambo! Move back, and stand in the doorway! Yes—there! Now,
you, young man, you stand in front of Sambo—your back to him!” And
then, as Meridan too obeyed, though more slowly than the porter and with
a sort of defiant reluctance, the Hawk addressed the superintendent:
“Now, you—your name's Lanson, isn't it?” he snapped. “You,
Lanson, back up against the young fellow. Yes—that's it! Sambo, put
your hands on the young fellow's shoulders—and you, young fellow,
do the same on Lanson's!” The Hawk swung over to the' car
platform—and then the Hawk smiled uninvitingly. “It's the
lock-step backwards,” he explained insolently. “You get the idea,
don't you? If either of you two behind lift your hands, Lanson in
front here pays for it. Now—back with you!”
They shuffled backward into the observation compartment of the car,
through this, and through a narrow side corridor, and emerged into the
main compartment of the car. The Hawk, guiding their movements by the
simple expedient of prodding the muzzle of his automatic none too gently
into Lanson's body, here ranged the three along the side of the car;
and, backing over to the opposite side himself, halted in front of the
bookcase, and stood surveying his captives with his former insolent
stare. The porter was patently reduced to a state of nervous terror;
Meridan, young, clean-cut, was white to the lips, and his lips quivered,
but his eyes, a hard, bitter light in them, never left the Hawk's
face; Lanson, too, was white, but there was a stern composure in his
face that was absent from the younger man's.
It was Lanson who spoke.
“I presume,” he said evenly, “that you are the abandoned
scoundrel, known as the Hawk, whom one of these days we are going—to
hang.”
The Hawk shrugged his shoulders.
“I haven't a calling card with me, but we'll let it go at that,”
he answered flippantly.
The car swayed and lurched suddenly; the trucks beat a louder tattoo
as they clattered over a switch; lights, a row of them from without,
scintillated through the car windows—and were gone. They were not
running perilously fast, but fast enough to prohibit the possibility
of any one, even an acrobatic brakeman from a stalled train, swinging
aboard. The Hawk laughed low. Also, he had been quite right—they had
just passed a station, and, thanks to the superintendent's presence,
no attempt had been made to interfere with the train.
From one of the Hawk's pockets—with his left hand—the Hawk
produced a small steel jimmy. He knelt down, and, still covering the
three men, inserted the jimmy in between the cupboard doors. There was
a creak, the rip and split and tear of rending wood and lock, and the
doors flew apart. The Hawk reached in, laughed again, as, with the dummy
package under his arm, he stood up and began to back away toward the
corridor leading to the forward end of the car—and the laugh died
on his lips. In the winking of an eye Meridan had swung his hands from
Lanson's shoulders, and was springing forward.
“You'll never get it!” The boy's voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Not while I——”
“Keep away, you fool!” snarled the Hawk, and fired—at the floor.
His brain seemed instantly in a riot of ironical mockery. He could not
fire at the boy—it was the boy who had brought him here—and now the
other was upon him—like a wild cat—snatching at the automatic.
It was only another step backward to the opening of the corridor, and
the Hawk gained it; but still the boy clung on, fighting furiously. He
saw Lanson and the porter leap forward, but for the moment that mattered
little—no more than one at a time could get at him in the confined and
narrow space here. To hold the package rendered his left arm useless. He
dropped the package to the floor, and kicked it deftly back behind him,
as the boy, with both hands, wrenched and battled madly for possession
of the automatic.
They were swaying now, the two of them, bumping their shoulders and
their arms and elbows against first one side of the corridor and then
the other. There was the crash of splintering glass as they lunged into
a window—another crash, louder, more ominous, and with it a tongue of
flame, as the automatic went off in their hands—and something like a
red-hot iron seared the Hawk's side, and a blur came before his eyes.
He reeled, recovered himself, and, massing all his strength for the
effort, as, with a cry of triumph, Meridan closed again, he tore himself
free from the other's grasp. There was one way—he was still in
possession of the automatic—only one way now.
With a lightning swing he whipped the hutt of the weapon to the
other's head, backed rapidly away as the boy slid a limp thing to the
floor, and, picking up the package as he moved backward, holding the
narrow corridor with his automatic, though Lanson was kneeling now at
Meridan's side, he reached the observation compartment, whirled, ran
for the door, opened it, and stepped out on the platform.
He stood panting here, a little dizzy, a sort of nauseating weakness
upon him, as he fumbled in his pocket. He was not as quick as usual
in his work, not as expert now in the use of his skeleton keys, but,
swiftly for all that, he locked the car door.
The car and the engine seemed to sway and lurch and pitch and toss
as they had never done before. Was the speed greater? What was it? He
stumbled and nearly fell as he climbed to the tender. He fell, unable to
maintain his footing in the shifting coal, as he reached the cab. There
was something hot and wet that seemed to be working its way down his
leg; his side was giving him intolerable pain.
He looked at the package in his hands, looked at it queerly for a
moment, and then his drawn lips parted in the old whimsical smile, as
he lurched forward and opened the fire-box door. The red glow filled the
cab and spread upward, tinging the sky with a rosy light—and the Hawk
thrust the package into the fire, and, swaying unsteadily, watched it
burst into flame.
He glanced at the gauge now. The steam was dropping rapidly. He swept
his hand across his eyes. He had two things to do, and it seemed as
though his brain clogged in its decision as to which he should do
first—he had to get more coal on the fire, or else the engine would
run down, and he did not want it to run down, for it must keep on going
a long way, a very long way if possible, after he left it; and he must
stop the flow of blood from his wound somehow, or else——
He put coal into the fire-box. It was painful, dizzy work, and he
spilled a great deal of it, and the lumps rolled over the floor of the
cab, and he stumbled over the lumps.
The Hawk's teeth were biting into his bloodless lips, as he finally
shut the fire-box door, and, staggering to the side of the cab, lifted
up the engineer's seat again. Here, under the packages of banknotes,
he found a bunch of waste and some cord; and then, reeling with the
lurch of the cab, reeling with his own weakness that only an iron nerve
held back from mastering him, he examined his wound, found it, though
painful and bleeding profusely, to be only a bad flesh wound, and,
making a thick pad of the waste, he laid it against his side, and bound
it there by passing the cord tightly several times around his body.
It was a crude bandage, but it should, at least, check the flow of
blood—afterwards, if he had luck, there would be opportunity for a
better one!
His mind reverted, seemingly without volition of his, to the fight in
the car, and he spoke aloud.
“I guess,” said the Hawk, “I didn't hit him as hard as twenty
years in the 'pen' would have hit him—I guess I didn't hit him
that hard.”
He rested for a moment, sitting on the floor of the cab; then from
the engineer's box he removed the sealed packages, the torn outside
wrapper, and likewise an evening newspaper which he found there. He
wrapped up the banknotes in the newspaper, tied the bundle securely with
the remainder of his cord, replaced the seat, and, crouched low enough
on the floor to be protected by the tender from, say, a shot fired
through the observation window of the private car, kept his eyes
fastened on the right of way ahead.
The next station must be close at hand, and there was but one way in
which he could get back to Selkirk—and he must get back. There was
that letter—the Ladybird's letter—that would be received in
Elkhead in the morning! His brain was clearer now. He must be on Extra
No. 92, the eastbound fast freight's, running time, and she must be
somewhere very near here, must have taken to the siding at the next
station probably to avoid him, and to give clearance to what was,
undoubtedly now, coming behind him—a detective's special, with
MacVightie, naturally, in command.
He straightened up painfully. Ahead, he had caught the glint of switch
and station lights. The siding was on the left-hand side. He moved to
the left-hand side of the cab, and lay on the cab floor by the gangway.
That letter! It seemed to obsess him now. If, when the letter was read,
the bank seal, the wax, and the wrapping paper were found hidden in the
boy's home, the fact that some one—he, the Hawk—had stolen the
package from the car in no way changed anything. The boy's apparent
prior guilt was as glaring as ever. On the other hand, with the package
gone, and if the seal and those other things were not found, the letter
became simply the expression of some practical joker's perverted sense
of humour, or the irresponsible work of some fool or crank. He frowned
in a sort of dazed irritation. He had known that all along, hadn't he?
He had known when he started after that dummy package in the first place
that he would have to go all the way—so why was his mind dwelling now
on useless repetitions!
The Hawk raised his head slightly—a deafening racket was in his ears.
The freight was here—on the siding. He was roaring past it now. He
could not hope for an open boxcar on the fast freight. His eyes were
searching eagerly for a flat car—a flat car loaded with anything that
would afford him shelter. Yes—there was one—two of them—loaded
with steel girders.
The roar subsided; he was past the station and into the clear
again—and now the Hawk was at the throttle, easing the speed craftily.
He did not dare to “shut off” entirely, for, behind there at the
station, they would know, if the sound of the exhaust ceased, that
he had stopped. He checked a little with the “air” now. And now,
calculating the speed reduced enough to risk a jump, he opened the
throttle to its former notch, took up his newspaper package, lowered
himself to the bottom gangway step, and swung off.
He rolled down the embankment. The switcher and private car went by,
and, gradually gaining speed again, racketed on up the right of way.
With a groan, the Hawk readjusted his displaced and makeshift bandage,
and began to make his way back toward the station. If he had slowed
enough to allow of a safe landing for himself, he had, of course, given
Lanson the same opportunity—but he had no fear of that. Lanson might
have jumped, but Meri-dan, whom he had left unconscious, couldn't, and
Lanson would stick to Meridan. As for the porter—the Hawk shrugged his
shoulders, as he looked about him—the porter had not jumped.
He stumbled on. If he were right, if they had started a posse on a
special in pursuit, he had plenty of time. The fast freight could
not pull out until the special had gone by. It seemed a long way, an
interminable way, an immeasurably greater distance than he had covered
coming up on the switcher. And then, at last, the tail-lights of the
stalled freight came into sight around a bend, and grew brighter. And
then, too, there came from the eastward the rumble of an approaching
train. He grew cautious now, and, creeping far out from the side of
the track, passed the caboose, crept in again toward the line of cars,
located the position of the flat cars, climbed aboard one of them, and
crawled in under the shored-up girders.
The Hawk lay very quiet. He was weak again, and his head swam, and
he was dizzy. An engine and car—MacVightie and his posse
presumably—passed by on the main line; and then, presently, the
freight, with a clatter and bang echoing from one to another down the
length of cars, drew out of the station.
When the Hawk moved again, it was as the train whistled and slowed for
the Selkirk yard. Perhaps twenty minutes had passed—the fast freight,
with no stops and already late, had made time. He put his mask in his
pocket, wormed his way out from under the girders, and peered ahead and
behind. They were just crawling into the upper end of the yard. He slid
to the ground, found himself a little more steady on his feet, slipped
across the spur tracks, dodged in between two buildings that flanked the
side of the yard, and came out on the street.
Under a street lamp the Hawk looked at his watch. It was one o'clock.
He swayed a little again, but his lips set hard. There was not very much
time. Somewhere up the line the switcher and the private car would come
to a stop, and they would bring Meridan home—and once that happened,
with its consequent stir in Meridan's apartment, it would be
impossible to get in there, and the game, as far as the boy was
concerned, would be up.
“Yes,” said the Hawk, as he forced himself along the street,
“I guess maybe that's right—I guess maybe I'm a fool—but it
wasn't an even break.”
A street car at the next corner took him across town; and fifteen
minutes more found him standing in the unlighted vestibule of the
Linden Apartments. The tiny flashlight swept the ground floor apartment
doors—and an instant later the door of Apartment B yielded noiselessly
to the deft manipulation of a skeleton key.
The Hawk closed the door, and stole forward. It was a rather fashionable
apartment, as the Ladybird had said, but it was also a very small one,
small enough to warrant the presumption that the young couple did not
keep a servant, and that there would probably be no one there except
Meridan's wife. A door at his right, as he felt out in the darkness,
he found to be open. He listened—for the sound of breathing. There was
nothing. The flashlight winked—and the Hawk stepped forward into the
room. It was the sitting room. The flashlight was sweeping about now in
an inquisitive little ray. A door, closed, leading to an inner room, was
on his right; facing him was a heavily portièred window, the portières
drawn; and a little to the left of the window was the mantel.
The flashlight's ray wavered suddenly, unsteadily—and the Hawk
caught at the nearest thing to him, the table in the centre of the room,
for support, a sense of disaster upon him, a realisation that, lashed
on as it might be by force of will, there was a limit to physical
endurance, and that the limit had well nigh been reached. His hand
brushed across his eyes, and brushed across them again to clear his
sight, as he tried to follow the flashlight's ray to where it played
jerkily on a massively framed picture over the mantel. He bit his lips
now, bit them until they bled—and moved forward—and laid his parcel
of banknotes on the floor that he might have the use of both hands—and
climbed upon a chair, and felt in behind the picture. Yes—it was
there! His fingers closed on a roll of paper, twitched and shook a
little as they pulled it out—and a small package from inside the roll
fell with a slight thud to the mantel, and from the mantel bounded off
to the floor.
The Hawk caught his breath, as he listened, and descended from the
chair.
“Clumsy fool!” he gritted fiercely, as he knelt on the floor.
“I—I guess I'm pretty near the count to do a thing like that.”
The flashlight came into play again, and disclosed a metal seal and
several pieces of dark-green wax peeping through the paper wrapper that
had been split apart in the fall. He picked them up, and put them in his
pocket; then, loosening his vest, he tucked the roll of wrapping paper
inside his shirt. Well, it was done now; he had only to get back to his
room, and there was surely strength enough left for that. Again his hand
swept across his eyes, and pressed hard against his temples—and then,
stooping swiftly, he clutched at his package of banknotes on the floor
beside him, and stood up, rigid and tense.
Out of the darkness, almost at his elbow, with a startling clamour that
clashed and shattered through the silence, and seemed to set a
thousand echoes reverberating through the room, came the ringing of the
telephone.
Some one in the inner room stirred. The Hawk drew back hurriedly into
the window recess behind the portières. The telephone rang again. There
came a step now, and now the room was flooded with light, and a woman,
a dressing gown flung hastily over her shoulders, crossed from the inner
doorway to the table, and picked up the instrument.
“Yes?... Hello!... What is it?” she asked, a little sleepily.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Meridan... What?... My husband!” Her voice rang
out in sudden terror. “What did you say?” she cried frantically.
“Yes, yes—the Hawk—my husband—unconscious... You are not telling
me all the truth—you are trying to keep the worst from me—for
God's sake tell me the truth!... Not dangerous?... You are sure—you
are sure?... Yes, yes, I understand!... At the station in half an
hour... I will be there.”
Mechanically she hung the receiver on the hook, and clung for a moment
to the table's edge, her face grey and bloodless; and then her lips
moved, and one hand clenched until the tight-drawn skin across the
knuckles was an ivory white.
“I pray God they get this Hawk!” she whispered. “I pray God they
do! And I pray God they kill him! The coward! The miserable, pitiful
coward!”
The Hawk's fingers were digging at the window sill, because somehow
his knees were refusing to support his weight. What was she saying? He
did not quite understand. Well, it did not matter, she was gone now into
that other room—only she had left the light on. It was very strange
the way his hand on the window sill seemed to keep pulling his body
around in circles!
Time had lost concrete significance to the Hawk. She appeared again,
fully dressed now, and, switching off the light, went out into the hall,
and the front door closed behind her.
The Hawk parted the portières, and staggered across the room—and, a
moment later, a dark form, a newspaper parcel clutched under its arm,
emerged stealthily from the vestibule, and, reeling like a drunken man,
disappeared in the darkness down the street.
XVII—A HOLE IN THE WALL