WHERE THE CRIMINAL FINDS NO MERCY
Sergeant-major Sturt, of the Mounted Police, pulled on his short
buffalo coat. As he turned up its storm collar about his neck and ears,
and set his yellow-badged fur cap on his stubble of dark hair, he was a
worried man.
He stared round him at the pleasant quarters which represented his home
in the Calford barracks. His quick eye came to rest on one of the two
small-paned windows. It revealed nothing except wintry daylight It was
thick with ice and snow. But it was sufficient.
He was not concerned just now with anything the winter-bound barrack
square beyond could show him. He was thinking; thinking hard. He was
pondering the interview he was about to seek. And, for the autocrat
of the Calford barrack square, for a man of his stern discipline, it
afforded him no pleasant anticipation.
At last he turned away. He crammed some papers into one of the pockets
of his coat, picked up a plug of chewing tobacco and disposed it
handily, seized a stocky hunting crop, drew on his fur mitts, and
passed out of the room for the white expanse of the barrack square.
Sturt was a fierce disciplinarian and an exceedingly shrewd police
officer. No one knew better than he the severity of the conditions
governing the lives of those who acknowledged the authority of the
Police Department. And no one knew better than he the need for such
severity if a mere handful of men were to maintain law and order in a
territory large enough to support a world of strenuous human souls.
Nor would he have had things otherwise. Police traditions were
ingrained in his sturdy nature. The “Force” and its purposes bounded
his whole outlook. He understood that it was not only his duty but his
desire to see that its _esprit_ was maintained to the last degree, and
no affront or outrage against its traditions went undealt with. And
discipline? Well, discipline in the Mounted Police was the whole of
everything as he saw it.
It was little wonder, therefore, that the morning’s mail had grievously
upset him. He had received a private letter from Doctor Fraser
at Buffalo Coulee. And the doctor was a man with whom he had not
infrequently come into contact; a man for whom he entertained a certain
respect. It was an astounding letter. A letter which very nearly added
further bristle to his cropped hair.
The letter conveyed the information that, for something over two weeks,
Constable Ernest Sinclair had been missing from his post at Buffalo
Coulee.
Constable Sinclair was missing. Missing! It was that curiously ugly
word which the doctor had used. And no one had a better appreciation of
its significance than Sergeant-major Sturt.
There were, of course, all sorts of possible explanations for such
a situation. But the sergeant-major’s mind saw few alternatives.
That was the result of extensive knowledge and experience. There was
first of all the matter of life and death. Many an able constable had
lost his life in the execution of his duty. There was the winter,
the intense cold, blizzards. Then there was shooting, when dealing
with criminals--a hundred and one chances. But Sturt was incapable
of accepting any excuse where a policeman’s life was involved. It
was always the same. An “intolerable,” a “damnable” expression of
inefficiency.
Another alternative he saw was desertion. It was just possible that
Sinclair had deserted across the United States border. But somehow he
could not bring himself to accept such a theory. He knew the man’s
keenness and ambition too well. There was one thing certain, however.
Should desertion prove to be the answer, all his passive, blasphemous
disgust would be swiftly translated into fierce activity.
The reflection with the greatest appeal, based of course on Sturt’s
personal knowledge of the man in question, was the chance that
Sinclair was away on a hot trail after some criminal, a trail that
had carried him farther than he had anticipated. But, even so, it
offered no excuse for creating a position in police affairs wherein it
was possible for a mere civilian to interfere. That was against all
police tradition and, in Sturt’s mind, the worst possible exhibition of
inefficiency.
The man chewed and spat the whole way across the barrack square. It was
an almost mute expression of his disturbance. He moved swiftly, his
rubber-shod feet ploughing their resolute way through the soft snow
without concern for the depth of the drifts. And by the time he reached
the Orderly Room, where he knew he would find Superintendent Croisette
already at work, it would have been a simple matter to have tracked him
down by the trail of tobacco juice he left behind him in the snow.
His chief greeted him with a short nod that bespoke a mood no better
than his own.
“Better sit down, Sergeant-major,” he said, as Sturt halted before his
desk and saluted. “There’s a tough proposition to be settled before
Orderly Room. We’ve got an hour.”
He went on working while the other remained standing. Sturt’s jaws had
become suddenly motionless.
“You got the news, too, sir,” he asked, making a shrewd guess.
“I think so.” Croisette did not look up.
“About Constable Sinclair?”
“Yes.”
The superintendent raised his searching eyes, and the sergeant-major
sat down with a movement very like a jolt.
Croisette reached across his big desk. He picked up a single sheet of
somewhat soiled paper. He held it out to his subordinate, who took it.
“You’d best read what it says. It’s from a mossback of sorts, I take
it, who has forgotten to sign it.”
Sturt laid his own letter from Doctor Fraser on the desk within the
superintendent’s reach.
“My letter’s signed,” he observed, and began to read the anonymous
document.
Croisette picked up the doctor’s letter and leaned back in his chair.
The superintendent was an alert-eyed French Canadian who had won
his position in the Mounted Police by sheer merit. He was at once a
practical officer and an organizer. But like most men of sheer capacity
in the Mounted Police he preferred the activities and dangers of the
trail to the work of the office. Nevertheless, he was a glutton for
work wherever he found it. And he had certainly raised Calford into one
of the most efficient centres of police work.
He was still under forty, with jet-black hair and a pair of keen,
stone-gray eyes which peered from between thick, black lashes. And if
it were possible for the mind of his staunch sergeant-major to set
anything human on a pedestal of admiration, it would certainly have
been Fram Croisette.
Croisette was the first to finish his reading. He raised his searching
eyes above the top of the letter and studied the rugged face of his
henchman with its steadily masticating jaws.
“Well?” he inquired presently, when Sturt passed the dirty sheet of
paper back across the desk.
“Best set Sergeant Fyles to work on it, right away, sir.” The
sergeant-major turned his tobacco over to the other cheek. “There’s
more to this than I got from Doc Fraser. Fraser states his facts
without unnecessary comment. This guy, whoever he is, knows more than
he tells. And he looks to have as much use for the police as a bunch of
rattlesnakes. Sinclair’s been--done up.”
“Ye-es. You’ve warned Fyles already, I take it?”
“I told him to come right over, sir. He’s here right now. I saw him
pass the window.”
“What do you propose?”
“Pass him a free hand, sir. Give Fyles a free hand and he’ll punch it
well home.”
Croisette eyed the letter that had been returned to him.
“Ye-es,” he admitted, thoughtfully.
“I was wrong sending a boy like Sinclair to a tough show like Buffalo
Coulee,” Sturt grumbled. “You reckoned at the time, sir, it was a job
for a ‘non-com’ of experience. It makes me feel mean. I misjudged.”
“That’s all right, Sergeant-major. Don’t take too much blame to
yourself. We don’t know a thing yet, except that Constable Sinclair is
missing.”
“I’m thinking of the bunch down there in that rotten prairie township,
sir. That’s what makes me sore. There’s an ugly outfit of half-breeds,
and there’s that flood of bad liquor always leaking across the border,
which the United States Prohibition folk are all the time complaining
of. It’s made there. Some of the worst rotgut that ever burned a human
belly. There’s dollars to burn down there, too. And when toughs have
dollars to burn, why, just anything can happen. Yes. This looks like
work for Stanley Fyles. If there’s a thing hidden up in that place
he’ll nose it.”
“Do you make that anonymous letter the work of a man--or a woman?”
The officer’s challenge startled his subordinate. Sturt’s face was a
study in astonishment. His jaws stilled, and his small eyes widened.
“I hadn’t thought, sir,” he said. “I just took it to be a man’s letter.
And a pretty mean man at that.”
“That’s why I asked. It’s almost too mean. It’s full of spite. Spite
against anybody and everybody--except Sinclair.”
“Friend of Sinclair?”
But the superintendent only shrugged his black-coated shoulders.
“Tell Sergeant Fyles to step in.”
Stanley Fyles entered the office accompanied by a draught of icy air.
Of middle height and neat figure, capacity was there in the keen glance
he gave his superiors as he paused before the desk and saluted.
Croisette took in the man’s appearance without seeming to do so. A
quick upward glance accompanied his sharp announcement.
“Constable Sinclair’s missing from his post at Buffalo Coulee,” he
said. “I’ve had word by anonymous letter; the sergeant-major by a
private letter from Doctor Fraser, who lives there.”
“Any particulars, sir?”
“Doctor Fraser gives none. Mentions the fact and expresses worry.
That’s all.”
“May I see the anonymous letter, sir?”
“I’d like you to. Sit down.”
Stanley Fyles took the dirty, unsigned sheet of paper from the officer.
He pulled up a Windsor chair and sat down. Croisette went on with the
work of dealing with his official correspondence. The sergeant-major
sat chewing and furtively eyeing the subordinate who had never yet
failed him in any difficult problem.
Fyles was absorbed in the document handed to him.
Nobody but a bunch of foolheads like the police would need to be told
the things happening in Buffalo Coulee. You send a lone-handed boy,
whod orter have a mother around, to lick a bunch of toughs into
shape. Well hes got it. An the folks who done it will clear away with
it if you dont send along quick. It aint use sending any hoodlam.
Itll take a big bunch of red-coated gophers to beat up Buffalo Coulee.
Ill-written, scrawling, illiterate document as it was, it yet managed
to convey in the fewest possible words all the venom of the writer as
well as the news to be conveyed. Sinclair had “got it.”
“She’s pretty mad about it,” Fyles observed, still considering the
paper in his hands. “And she’s used paper that belongs to a heading.
The heading’s been cut off with scissors.”
“She?”
The superintendent’s eyes were alight with interested approval.
“Yes, sir. A man don’t cut paper with scissors. A man who wants to
tell things to the police won’t worry to pass meanness to them with a
shovel. And it’s a female who hasn’t seen the inside of a state school,
too. I’d say that letter comes from the inside of the outfit who knows
what’s happened. Buffalo Coulee--that’s the hunting ground of the Wolf
Pack.”
Fyles returned the letter across the desk. And the eyes of the
superintendent conveyed his approval.
“I thought that was the work of a woman, Sergeant,” he said,
contemplating the paper. “Looks like she’s a friend of Constable
Sinclair.”
“Likely one of them, sir?”
“_One_ of his women friends?”
The sergeant-major shifted uneasily. He felt it was time to make
himself heard.
“Aren’t you moving a bit fast, Sergeant Fyles?” he asked brusquely.
“Sinclair was a sound enough officer. He’s pulled some good work since
he was transferred here.”
A half smile flashed into the keen eyes of Stanley Fyles. He
understood. Sturt was responsible for his men. Croisette watched the
two men with quiet amusement.
“I haven’t a word against Sinclair for his work,” Fyles said seriously.
“There was no better man I’d be glad to have on a job with me. You’re
quite right. He’s pulled some good work. But there are men splendid
under personal orders who aren’t worth salt on their own. I reckon
Sinclair was one of them.”
“What was the trouble, Sergeant?” Croisette asked quietly.
“How do you come to know that--without passing word to me?”
The sergeant-major’s notions of duty and discipline were outraged.
Fyles turned to the man behind the desk.
“I reckon you’re going to send me along to look into things, sir, and
this is by way of a conference?”
Croisette inclined his head.
“Then I can speak plainly, sir?” Fyles went on. He turned at once to
his sergeant-major, who was also his friend. “It’s my work to learn
all I can about the merits or demerits of men, who may, at some time,
have to carry out my orders. But the things I learn of our boys, unless
they are detrimental to discipline and efficiency, are solely for my
information. They’re just a guide for me, something that may help
me in real emergency. In keeping them that way, Sergeant-major, I’m
sure you’ll be the first to admit my right. If I’d learned anything
of Sinclair detrimental to our work you would have been the first to
hear it. The man was a sound officer, as you say. But he wasn’t to be
trusted when women cut across him. I think that’s the meaning of that
unsigned letter.”
“You think it’s nothing to do with the gang of rum-runners?” Croisette
questioned sharply.
Sergeant Fyles considered.
“I wouldn’t say that, sir. I just don’t know yet. It’s bad making a
definite conclusion without sound evidence. But the thing I do make
out is sufficiently clear to me. Something in the way of violence has
happened to Sinclair. As Doc Fraser’s letter says, he’s ‘missing.’ Has
been missing two weeks. A woman, who hasn’t a word to say against him,
but, on the contrary, inadvertently conveys a sense of pity for him,
and who clearly has no love for the police, is impelled to write asking
help. As a jumping-off mark it suggests as I said, she’s a friend of
Sinclair’s. She’s to do with those from whom he ‘got it.’ She knows
all that’s happened and is out to make someone pay. I’ll have to find
that woman. May I have that letter when you’ve had it copied, sir. It
might be very useful.”
Superintendent Croisette sat up. He folded his arms on the desk before
him, and his keen eyes fixed themselves steadily on the face of
Sergeant Fyles.
“Certainly you can have it,” he said. “I’ll get it photographed right
away. It may serve you for identification. I like your argument,
Sergeant. Your jumping-off mark looks good to me. You’ll proceed
at once to Buffalo Coulee, and take the post over temporarily. But
you’re not going there to police the place, or to concern yourself
with the rum-running especially. Your work is to find out what’s
happened to Sinclair. And, if he’s been killed, it’s up to you to
bring his murderer to justice. I think it might help you to leave
the place without proper police supervision other than simply your
presence there. As the sergeant-major says, it’s a township of
toughs. And they may make your work easier. They may, I mean, give
things away inadvertently if they are not too closely watched. I
think single-handed for you will be best. You can take with you full
authority for any arrest. And any help you may ultimately need will
be sent on the ‘rush’ at word from you over the ’phone. When you’re
through I mean to clean that place up so it isn’t possible for a crook
to find shelter in it. That will do.”