craft, the cunning, and the power of those against whom he had elected
to play a lone hand! The four nights just past had resulted in something
more than the mere accumulation of those code messages he had just read,
in something besides a more intimate acquaintanceship with the farmhouse
and its surroundings, even including the underground passage, for
instance, that led from the wagon shed to a trapdoor in the cellar—it
had resulted, last night, in a still further insight into the ingenuity
and the sort of remorseless mastery of detail through which the
organisation attained its ends. The method by which they tapped the
wires, commandeering the telegraph system of the railroad, the
primary purpose of which was undoubtedly to supply them with the vital
information that must of necessity pass over the wires and on which they
based their own plans, this gold shipment to-night, for example, or the
shipment of diamonds from New York of a few weeks back, was ingenious
enough; but still more ingenious, when using their secret code and
putting the wires to another purpose, that of enabling the Ladybird to
direct his operations and send his orders as he had done to-night, was
the method by which those messages were received. Every sounder on the
line carried them, of course, and when, in isolated cases, the gang was
working at smaller places along the line, they could readily enough, if
expecting a message, as he, the Hawk, had often done, keep within sound
of an instrument by the simple expedient of occupying a waiting room,
or of lounging on the platform outside the operator's window; but the
vast majority of the messages were for those of the gang who maintained
a sort of branch headquarters in Selkirk, and such a method was neither
practical nor possible, since the first essential in making the scheme
of value was that, without the chance of a single message being missed,
the messages should reach their destination at any hour of the day and
night.
Again the Hawk smiled grimly. It had puzzled him a good many times—but
it puzzled him no longer! Last night the Ladybird, quite unconscious
of a rapt audience, had, by a chance remark, disclosed the secret; and
to-night he, the Hawk, had seen the plan in operation! The news-counter!
It was simple enough; but it held a deadly significance in its proof of
the fact that there were no obstacles too great, no details too minute
to stand in the way between the Ladybird and the end he sought. The
news-counter was directly beneath the operator's room upstairs. In the
old days, before the station had been enlarged and modernised, it had
been a somewhat diminutive affair, and where the news-counter now stood
had been the superintendent's office. This had connected with the room
above by means of an old-fashioned speaking tube. When the alterations
had been made, the mouthpieces, both above and below, had been removed,
the room above had been papered over, and the waiting room had been
plastered; but, as the wall had been left intact, the speaking tube had
remained embedded—in the wall. Yes, it was very simple! Say, a dint in
the wall in the operator's room above, and a slight tear in the paper
that, if it attracted any attention at all in surroundings where the
call boys backed their chairs against the wall and kept their hair on
end with nickel thrillers, would at least never excite suspicion! And
below, with the desk in the little office of the news-counter backed up
against it, who was to know that a hole had been punched in the
wall, or, for that matter, in the back of the desk itself behind the
convenient little drawer, so that one could sit there and listen to the
sounder upstairs! Also, it was quite obvious now why, several months
ago, the old lessee of the news-counter had been bought out by some
newcomers!
The Hawk's lips tightened. The game to its full extent was wide open
now. The news-counter ran day and night, operated by four of the gang
in pairs, one always on duty at the desk; while, should there, by any
chance or at any time, be an unwelcome intruder in the office, the
drawer had only to be shut and the sound was thereby eliminated. When
a message “broke” over the wires above, the man on duty had only to
decipher it and telephone it to what the Ladybird had referred to as the
“boarding house”—the disguise, it appeared now, under which the
gang maintained its headquarters in the city. That was all there was to
it! To-night, it was true, the operation had been a little different;
but the reason for that, as the Hawk had already decided in his own
mind, was obvious enough. With MacVigh-tie, Lanson, and the authorities
generally, on the alert, due to the gold shipment coming through, the
man had not dared to take the risk of telephoning any such message as
he had received, but had taken it outside to where one of the gang,
undoubtedly, in view of the importance of the night's work, was on
additional duty and in readiness to receive and transmit it on the
instant, say, to the local headquarters. As for the absence of the
second man at the news-counter, who ordinarily preserved the pretence of
catering to the public, it was quite possible, and indeed likely, that
he had gone on a similar errand with a previous message; or, if one of
the rare occasions when it was necessary to telegraph a cipher message
from Selkirk had arisen, he might have gone—according to the Ladybird
again—to the little suburban station at the East End of the city,
which was closed at night, but to which an entry and the subsequent
use of the wire would present little difficulty, since MacVightie had
finally given up as impossible the task of guarding all the numerous
stations of that description on the division.
“Yes,” said the Hawk suddenly, under his breath, “I guess they'd
go a long way to get their hands on what I've got off their bat; and
I guess, after that, I'd go out—like a pricked bubble!” He sucked
meditatively at his brier for a moment; then a mirthless smile parted
his lips, and he spoke again. “Forty thousand dollars,” whispered
the Hawk. “Yes, I guess that's the play—and the last one! If I win
out to-night, and I guess I will, this is where the curtain drops, and
the Hawk makes his fade-away for parts unknown!”
XVIII—THE HAWK PACKS HIS VALISE
THE Hawk looked at his watch again, removed his feet from the table,
knocked the ashes from the bowl of his pipe, stood up, and crossed
leisurely to the window. The window gave on the fire escape. He lifted
aside the shade, and stood there for a moment staring out into the
darkness, then drew the shade very carefully back into place again. From
the window he crossed to the door, reassured himself that it was locked,
and, as an extra precaution, draped his handkerchief on the door handle,
completely screening the keyhole.
He returned now to the other side of the room, and from under the bed
pulled out a large, black valise. He laid this on the bed, and opened
it. It was quite empty.
Between the bed and the table stood his trunk. He unlocked the trunk,
and threw back the lid.
“It's quite possible,” muttered the Hawk, as his fingers worked
deftly and swiftly around the edges of the lid, “that I may not
return. I've forgotten just how I stand on my rent, though, I fancy
I've paid up for a week in advance! In any case, there's the trunk
for old Seidelberger downstairs, and likewise its contents, with the
exception, scarcely worth mentioning—of this!” There was a grim
chuckle on the Hawk's lips, as the false tray came away in his hands.
“Yes,” said the Hawk, as he laid the tray on the bed beside the
valise, “I hardly think that I'll be back! I guess they're pretty
peeved as it is, and after to-night I've a notion their sentiments
aren't going to improve any!”
He stood looking down at the tray, that bulged to repletion with the
proceeds of a dozen robberies that were almost country-wide in fame,
and which, more pertinent still as far as the Hawk was concerned,
represented the loot that the Wire Devils had already counted their
own—when he, the Hawk, instead, had helped himself to the prize at
their expense!
The Hawk began to transfer the contents of the tray to the valise.
“I don't know how big the lot would size up, but it looks like a
garden villa at Palm Beach—which is going some!” observed the
Hawk softly. “Yes, just one more little play to-night, and I guess I
retire!”
He held the magnificent diamond necklace up to the light, causing its
thousand facets to leap and gleam and scintillate in fiery flashes,
then laid it in a curiously caressing sort of way in the bottom of the
valise. The Hawk seemed peculiarly entranced with diamonds, as though
in their touch and in their responsive life and fire he found a pure and
unalloyed delight. From their little box he allowed the score or two of
unset stones to trickle into the palm of his hand, and again he brought
the light to flash and play upon them. And for a moment he held them
there—then a sudden hardness set his jaws and lips, and impulsively he
thrust the stones back into the box, and tossed the box into the valise.
“Damn it!” said the Hawk through compressed lips. “They make me
think of the kid—and old Mother Barrett.”
He laughed harshly, and shrugged his shoulders as though literally to
throw off the weight of an unpleasant memory—and reached again into
the tray. He worked more quickly now. Into the valise he packed away in
rapid succession a very large collection of valuables, amongst them
the ten thousand dollars in banknotes that he had taken from the
paymaster's safe, the contents of the cash box, amounting to some
three thousand dollars, of which he had once relieved one Isaac
Kirschell, and, still in its newspaper wrapper, the Trader's National
Bank's twenty-five thousand dollars, likewise in banknotes, which had
been his last venture, and which he had appropriated on the night he had
been wounded.
The tray was empty now, save for a black mask, a steel jimmy, and a
neat little package of crisp, new, ten-dollar counterfeit notes. The two
former articles the Hawk laid aside on the table; and the latter, after
an instant's hesitation, was added to the horde in the valise. He
closed and locked the valise. There remained now but the empty tray. He
stared at this ruefully.
“I hate to lose that trunk, upon my soul, I do!” he muttered. “But
I can't afford to take any chances of spilling the beans by trying to
get it out of here!”
He took out his knife, and slashed away the canvas bottom of the tray,
then broke the framework into a dozen pieces. The lid of the trunk
itself was innocent of fastenings, or of any evidence that it had ever
concealed a tray; and the tray itself, when the Hawk was through with
it, was an unrecognisable debris of splintered wood and ribbons of torn
canvas. He made a bundle of this, tying it together with a strip of the
canvas.
The Hawk now emptied his pockets, and proceeded to change his clothes.
If he were destined to sacrifice the greater part of his wardrobe, he at
least need not linger long in indecision over the choice of what should
be preserved! There was an exceedingly useful and ingeniously devised
pocket concealed in the back lining of a certain one of his coats. The
suit, of which this coat was an integral part, was a trifle worn and
threadbare, not in quite as good repair as any of the rest of his
clothing, and for that reason he had not worn it of late; but one could
not at all times afford to be fastidious! What he left behind would
be minutely searched and examined. The secret of that pocket, a little
invention of his own, was worth preserving from the vulgar eye, even at
the expense of sacrificing a better suit of clothes for the sake of it!
He resurrected the suit in question from the bottom of the trunk, and
put it on. And into the concealed pocket he tucked away his mask and his
bunch of skeleton keys. A side coat pocket, more instantly accessible,
served for his automatic—the other pockets for his various other
belongings, including the steel jimmy.
The Hawk made a final and comprehensive survey of the room, then closed
and locked the trunk, and again consulted his watch. It was five minutes
after ten, and No. 18 scheduled Selkirk at ten-twenty. The Hawk nodded.
It was time to go—just time. He took from his pocket his automatic,
tested and examined its mechanism critically, and restored it to his
pocket. He crossed the room, turned out the light, unlocked the door
without opening it, and took his handkerchief from the keyhole. Without
a sound now the Hawk moved back to the bed, picked up the valise, tucked
the bundle of what had once been the tray under his arm, returned to
the door, opened it silently, and stood peering out into the dark
hallway—and the next instant, the Hawk, stealing like a shadow down
the stairs, gained the street, and in another had swung around the
corner into the lane.
It was only the length of a block to the station, but here in the lane
the Hawk found means of disposing of the irksome bundle under his arm by
the simple expedient of dropping pieces of the wreckage in the various
refuse barrels as he went along. Nor had the Hawk, evidently, any
intention either of hampering his movements with the care of the valise,
or of risking the valise's contents in the night's work that lay
ahead of him. The Hawk was, perhaps, possessed of a certain ironical
sense of humour. Since his possession of the loot which the valise
contained was due in a more or less intimate degree to the railroad, it
seemed eminently fitting that it should be restored to the railroad
for safekeeping temporarily. The Hawk, as he entered the station,
nonchalantly exchanged his valise for a parcel-room check, paid down
the dime for the service to be rendered, and passed on into the general
waiting room.
He glanced at the news-counter on his way through to the platform. Its
full complement of two attendants were present now; but, contrary to all
precedent, it being an all-night stand, obvious preparations for closing
it for the night were in progress—the two men were engaged in removing
the magazines, newspapers, and various small wares from the outside
ledge of the counter, and in pulling down the large sliding windows
that enclosed the place. The Hawk's dark eyes flashed a gleam of grim
appreciation. It was then literally a mobilisation of the Wire Devils
to the last man to-night! A half million in gold—was a half million in
gold!
The Hawk bought a mileage book in lieu of a ticket to any specific
destination, both because his immediate destination was peculiarly his
own private concern, and because in the very near future he expected to
put a considerable quantity of mileage to excellent use. He strolled out
to the platform, and along to the east end of the station.
Here, quite unobtrusively, he awaited the arrival of No. 18. The
platform was fairly well crowded—but not unusually so, or rather,
perhaps, not noticeably so. A half dozen, or even a dozen, extra men
circulating amongst the ordinary press of traffic would hardly be
expected to make any appreciable difference. The Hawk, back under
the shadows of the building, surveyed the lighted stretch of platform
narrowly. They were there, the Wire Devils' reserve, he knew; but
he recognised none of them. He smiled a little whimsically. His
acquaintanceship with the gang so far had been with its more prominent
members, as it were, and these, as likewise Mac-Vightie's posse, had
already boarded the train far west of Selkirk—that each might not
excite the other's suspicion! Nor was MacVightie himself in evidence.
Not that this surprised the Hawk! He was interested, that was all. It
was simply a question of whether MacVightie had elected to stay with
the gold, or had gone on with the first posse on the Limited on the
assumption that the Limited was the more likely to be attacked. It made
little difference, of course, as far as he, the Hawk, was concerned,
whether it was MacVightie or some one else who was in command of the
posse—his own plans would in no way be affected on that account.
There was a stir along the platform. Up the yard, past the twinkling
switch lights on the spurs, the glare of a headlight flashed into sight
around the bend. Came the roar and rumble of a heavy train, and a
moment later No. 18, its big mogul panting like a thing of life from a
breathless run, its long string of coaches behind it, rolled into the
station.
The Hawk did not stir. By coincidence, perhaps, the baggage car had come
to a stop directly opposite the position he had chosen. The rearmost
sliding door of the car was slammed back, and the baggageman, a
powerfully built, muscular fellow of perhaps thirty, appeared in
the doorway. The Hawk, from his place of vantage, eyed the other
appraisingly, and then his glance travelled on into the interior of the
car—what he could see of it. What he saw was a mass of trunks, some
of which the man now unloaded on the waiting trucks, and in turn piled
others, as they were heaved up to him from the platform, into the
formers' places. The Hawk nodded his head shortly. True, the forward
door of the car had not been, opened, but MacVigh-tie had done his work
well. There was no hint of concealment, the baggage car of No. 18 was as
frankly innocent in appearance on its run tonight as it had ever been.
The train was starting into motion again when the Hawk finally moved.
He crossed the platform, and swung himself on the forward steps of the
smoker, that was immediately behind the baggage car. His slouch hat
pulled a little over his eyes, he opened the door, stepped into the car,
sauntered down the aisle, and out of the rear door to the vestibuled
platform of the first-class day coach behind. But here, the Hawk paused
a moment, and his face, impassive before, was stamped now with a twisted
smile. His reconnaissance of the train so far had proved fruitful. The
four men in the forward double seat of the smoker, a lap board across
their knees, and apparently engrossed in their card game, were the
Butcher, Whitie Jim, the Cricket and the Bantam! And further down
the aisle, unwittingly rubbing shoulders quite probably with some of
MacVightie's men, Parson Joe occupied a seat, and the keen, pale, thin
face of Kirschell peered out from another.
“Yes, they're all here,” decided the Hawk, his voice drowned
in the rattle of the train. “Counting those who got on at Selkirk,
they're all here to the last man—except the Ladybird and his wheel
chair!”
The Hawk moved forward, reached out for the handle of the day coach
door—and sucked in his breath, as he drew sharply back again. Through
the glass panel he had caught sight of two men he had not expected to
see. Sitting together on the right-hand side about a quarter of the
way down the aisle were MacVightie and Lanson. The Hawk frowned. He had
waited until the train was in motion, and he had not seen them get on;
and they, as witness that little conference in the roundhouse of a
while back, had not been amongst those who had boarded the train west of
Selkirk. And then the frown gave place to a sort of self-commiserating
expression. Where were his wits to-night! It was simple enough! They
had boarded the car from the yard side of the train, and not from the
platform, of course!
Well, that put an end to any further reconnaissance through the train!
In one sense it was not altogether true that it made no difference
whether MacVightie was aboard or not. He and MacVightie were not
altogether strangers. They had met once in his, the Hawk's, room,
and on that occasion, the night, to be precise, he had cleaned out the
paymaster's safe of that ten thousand dollars, MacVightie had been in
a decidedly suspicious frame of mind. MacVightie, it was quite certain,
had not forgotten that night; nor, it was quite equally safe to assume,
had MacVightie forgotten his, the Hawk's face—and at that exact
moment the Hawk had no desire that MacVightie should recognise him
again!
The Hawk turned, re-entered the smoker, found the always unpopular
crosswise seat behind the door vacant, and appropriated it. His eyes
straying forward over the car located two more acquaintances in the
person of Crusty Kline and French Pete, and came back to fix musingly on
the worn nickel faucet of the water-cooler. No. 18'. first stop was at
Barne's Junction, fifteen miles out from Selkirk, and some five miles
this side of Conmore; the next stop was Lorraine, and Lorraine was on
the other side—in fact a good many miles on the other side—of Echo
Rock and the Willow Creek bridge. The deduction was obvious; and the
Hawk's destination, in so far as his occupancy of a seat in the smoker
was concerned, was therefore quite plainly—the Junction.
“Three miles east of Echo Rock,” repeated the Hawk to himself.
“No, I don't think so! This is where the Ladybird has another guess!
Maybe I couldn't get away with a half million—but maybe I'm not
the only one! There's one or two guys in this car that haven't
got the high-sign to my lodge! It seems to me I promised the Butcher
something the night he tried to shoot me through his pocket, and it
seems as though I promised Parson Joe something too—yes, it seems to
me I did!”
XIX—BIRDS OF A FEATHER
IT took twenty minutes for the run to the Junction. And at the Junction,
as far as the Hawk could tell, since, yielding to what had become a sort
of habit with him, he descended to the ground on the opposite side from
the station, he was the only passenger for that stop. It was dark here;
strangely silent, and strangely lonely. Barne's Junction owed its
existence neither to a town site, nor to commercial importance—it
existed simply as a junction, and for purely railroad operating purposes
only. It was, in fact, the other extreme as compared to Selkirk with its
lighted and busy platform, its extensive yard, and its ubiquitous and,
perhaps, too inquisitive yardmen!
The Hawk dropped on all fours and began to creep along the side of the
smoker toward the forward end of the train, his eyes strained warily
through the darkness against the possibility of one or other of the
engine crew descending from the cab. He passed the smoker and kept on
along the length of the baggage car, still crawling, moving without
a sound. When he rose from his knees finally, he was crouched down in
between the tender and the forward end of the baggage car; and a
moment later, as the train jerked forward into motion, he was crouched
again—this time on the end beam of the baggage car which, in lieu of
platform, served as a sort of wide threshold for the door.
The train was beginning to gain momentum now, and against the jolt and
swing of the increasing speed the Hawk steadied himself by clinging with
one hand to the iron handrail at the side of the door—with the other
hand he tried the door cautiously, and found it locked.
From the pocket in the back lining of his coat he produced his mask,
fingered it speculatively for an instant, then slipped it over his face.
True, this was to be his last venture in the Wire Devils' preserves,
but he had always worn a mask, and—there came a twisted grin—they
perhaps would not recognise him without it. And it was quite necessary
that they should recognise the Hawk—if he was to keep that promise to
the Butcher! It might be a farewell, as far as he was concerned, but he
intended that it should be a memorable one, and that no doubt should
be permitted to linger in their minds as to the identity of the parting
guest they had so lavishly, if ungraciously, entertained!
From the same pocket came his skeleton keys. The Hawk now felt
tentatively with his finger over the keyhole, nodded his head briskly,
and from the bunch of keys, still by the sense of touch, selected one
without hesitation. The Hawk, however, for the moment, made no effort
to open the door. The rush of the wind was in his face now; like some
black, monstrous, uncanny wall confronting him, the tender clashed and
clattered, and swayed in dizzy lurches before his eyes; while heavenward
the sky was tinged with a deep red glow, and the cab was ablaze with
light from the wide-flung fire-box door, and the top of the baggage car
door, and the individual particles of coal on the top of the tender's
heap stood out in sharp relief against the background of the night.
And then the darkness fell again.