RANSOM MONEY
"Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."--Matt. xxiii, 38
All through the night just passed a haggard man paced the floor of an
empty nursery in his lonely home, awaiting for a message that did not
come.
Whether or not he would have been cheered by the knowledge that his
baby daughter was being prepared to start at daybreak on the back of
a young girl, little more than a child herself, through the swamps
and quagmires that lay between the Grimes farm and the river road, it
is difficult to say.
It might, at least, have reassured him regarding her welfare for the
moment and dispelled the haunting fear that the little one was in the
hands of a fiend.
But Harris Wayne did not know. And uncertainty as to the safety and
whereabouts of a loved one is always torture.
He was not rendered more tranquil by what had been learned at the
hotel. The man, Grimes, had actually been seen leaving the Mansion
House several days prior to the kidnapping. It was not known with
whom he had visited there. Yet the script of the letter demanding
ransom corresponded in part with the handwriting of the man who had
registered at the hotel as Bailey.
Were the two acquainted, Wayne wondered. Were they in league
together! Had his child really been turned over to the hog farmer
for shelter while arrangements for ransom were pending?
Again and again he asked himself the questions. He blamed himself
for not having paid the ransom at once, thus saving himself from
torment and Doris from danger. He might have had her back in his
arms again by now! What a fool he had been to listen to the Chief.
Naturally, all the police thought about was apprehending criminals.
They could not be expected to understand his feelings and emotions!
He did not know that the Chief had six children and the detectives
were each fathers of families numbering from two to seven. He did
not realize that it was their very love of children and their desire
to protect other fathers and other children from such suffering that
made them concentrate their energies upon running down the criminals.
People in great trouble are apt to be selfish. They think no trouble
can possibly equal theirs and that no one can properly understand
their sorrow or anxiety.
So Harris Wayne paced the floor, nursing his grief and listening,
ever listening for a sound--a step on the gravel, a tap on the
window, a knock at the door, a ring at the telephone--heralding a
message that his child had been recovered.
His nerves were exhausted, his hands trembling, his hair disheveled.
The Chief had told him that he would telephone the very instant
anything new developed. Evidently nothing new had developed, for the
Chief was depending upon information he hoped to gain from a sick
child, unconscious and apparently at the point of death. It was
nonsense from Wayne's point of view--sheer nonsense!
Morning dawned. Food was brought him but he could not eat. Still no
word from the Chief. Time had gone slowly during the night. Now,
the minutes seemed flying. And the time limit would expire at noon!
Wayne grew desperate. He looked at his watch. Six o'clock. The
Chief had said he would sleep in his office that night. All right,
Wayne would see him at once and arrange to pay that ransom. He would
brook no argument against it.
He ordered his car. Five minutes later it was tearing at high speed
along the road to town. A few minutes more and Wayne burst in upon
the Chief as he was eating his breakfast, brought in from a near-by
restaurant.
"I can't stand this suspense any longer, Chief," Wayne exclaimed.
"I'm going to pay that ransom. I'm on my way to the Herald office
now, to insert the notice as they requested. I'll just have time to
get it in before the city edition goes to press. By nine o'clock the
paper will be out--perhaps a little before."
The Chief knitted his brows. For a few seconds he sat considering
the matter from all angles.
"It might not prove a bad idea," he said at length. "The time is
short, now; and if the boy up at Craddock's rallies enough to talk
and says anything worth while we'd be able to round up the whole
bunch just as they're getting ready to make the transfer and receive
the ransom."
[Illustration: _Scene from Mary Pickford's Photoplay_. _Sparrow_.
"WE SHALL GA-A-THER AT THE RIV-VER."]
He reached for the telephone.
"Herald office," he said, shortly. "Mr. Gavin."
When the connection was given he wasted no words nor time. "Hello,
Jimmie," he exclaimed, in greeting the editor. "This is Adams, over
at Headquarters. Paper gone to press yet?--Well, hold it a minute.
I've got to get a notice in.--No, don't change your make-up. Just
run a big head across the front page. It'll sell the paper. Here it
is: 'Wayne agrees to meet kidnapper's terms.' That's all, now. Not
another word or you'll queer the whole deal. As soon as the story is
ready I'll give it to you and you can get out an extra. Make a
display of that, now, and rush the paper onto the streets, will you?
All right. Thanks. Good-by."
He hung up the receiver and turned to Wayne. "Now, that's done," he
said. "As soon as the bank's open you can go over and draw the
money. Meanwhile, pull up a chair and have a cup of coffee. There's
plenty here, and it's good."
He got another cup out of a locker and poured some of the coffee for
Wayne who, now that the agreement to pay the ransom was made, found
himself able to relax sufficiently to drink it. Had he known that
his little daughter was at that moment perched on the limb of a tree,
in the depth of a swamp, absorbed in the enjoyment of a drink of
milk, served in a bottle that had once contained corn liquor while
her companions breakfasted on raw potatoes, his own enjoyment of the
coffee would have been sadly marred.
Within an hour the Herald's big headline was being shouted on the
streets by the newsboys. And within half an hour thereafter the same
car that had waited near the Help-U Gas Station on the night of the
kidnapping was dashing along the old pike in the direction of the
private thoroughfare which led to the Grimes estate. Bill Swazey was
at the wheel. Bailey sat beside him.
"Boat ready?" asked the latter.
"Fine shape," returned Swazey.
"If Grimes fetches the kid quick we'll be able to get there and have
the engine going nicely before Wayne's due at the pier," said Bailey.
"I got word to Louis. He's already there," Swazey announced.
"So far, so good," declared Bailey. "Now what we want to do, is
this. After Wayne has paid over the money and sits down on the bench
on the pier, we get into the automobile, see, where this fellow
Grimes and Louis will already be, and we reach out and put the kid
down on the ground where Wayne can see her, but he'll not dare make a
move toward her until our car gets out of sight. But we don't go
with the car, see? We step right out the other door and through the
bushes onto the boat. If Wayne has any police following him, they'll
take after this car. When they overhaul it,--which they won't, for
Louis knows his business--there won't be anyone in it that Wayne can
identify. This fellow Grimes won't talk--I've got his grand all
ready to slip him as we duck through the car--and Louis, when he does
talk, will have a story that will pull him through anything. Now all
we have to do is get the child and step on the gas on the way back."
But even then Swazey was stepping on the gas in a manner that made
their progress over the Grimes' private roadway decidedly precarious.
As they neared the formidable gate they slowed down and honked
fiercely for admittance. There was no response. Bailey muttered
oaths and cursed Grimes for a fool. Swazey sent forth another
powerful blast of the horn. Finally Bailey sprang out and rang the
bell which swung above the gate. It clattered and clanged with a
fury that told Grimes it would be dangerous to ignore its summons.
"Hit's th' police," he told Maria, "but they won't find nawthin'.
I've cleaned out th' loft. Now you'all keep yore mouths shet or yo'
know whut'll happen. Reach me thet ax."
Maria handed him the ax. Then he strode off, across the yard, and
chopped open the gate.
Bailey, annoyed by the delay and the necessity of making such a noise
to announce their arrival was in no mood for listening to apologies
or explanations even if Grimes had attempted to make any. But the
latter's surprise upon seeing Bailey instead of the police so
paralyzed his tongue that he could not have spoken had he tried.
"The child--where is it?" demanded Bailey, after he had cursed Grimes
roundly and called him all the unpleasant names he could think of at
the moment. "Come on, speak up. We can't lose time. Where's the
child?"
Then Peter regained his voice. He smiled ingratiatingly. "Hit's all
right," he drawled. "Thar hain't a mite o' evidence. I heered how
things was a-goin', an' I 'lowed ter git hit outen th' way ter day
but thet danged gal, Mollie, lit out airly this mornin' takin' th'
Wayne young-un with her."
He did not mention that she had also taken a dozen other children
beyond his reach. What he said, however, was sufficiently startling.
Bailey fairly shouted. His former oaths were as nothing.
"Gone!" he exclaimed. "Where? When?"
"Inter th' bog. This mornin' 'fore sun-up. They're prob'ly mired by
now."
Bailey knew nothing of the death gripping tendencies of the bog that
lay so close to the farmer's house. He started toward it. "Then we
must get them out," he shouted. "Is that them, out there," pointing
to what seemed to be moving figures far in the distance.
Grimes chuckled.
"Thar hain't nawthin' on earth thet kin git 'em out," he drawled, as
if the statement were a most delectable morsel.
"Then I'll raise hell and get them out," thundered Bailey, "and
you'll go after them, yourself. We've got to get back to the
crossroads ahead of Wayne and we've got to have the child. He's
coming to pay the ransom!"
It was Peter's turn to rave. He did so, handsomely. Then he
explained and demonstrated the impossibility of crossing the bog
after the fleeing children.
"How en hell they ever got acrost, beats me," he told Bailey. "Thet
thar Mollie's plumb bewitched er sumpin'. She doan know nawthin'
'bout whar she's a-headin', but ef she keeps on a-goin' th' way she
is now, she's bound ter come out some'eres aroun th' river road, not
fur frum th' cross-roads. Hit's one chanst in a million."
"That'll suit us," exclaimed Bailey, making flying leaps toward the
automobile, which Swazey had already headed in the opposite
direction. "Step on her, Bill."
But they had forgotten Grimes.
"Hey, whut erbout my thousand dollars?" he cried, springing upon the
running board, with an agility never before attained by his twisted
limbs. Bailey not replying, and the car going too fast for the door
to be unfastened to permit him to enter, the farmer continued to
cling to the running board from which, by way of retaliation upon
Bailey, he roared back to where Maria and Ambrose stood in the open
gateway:
"Hyar, you-uns, don't stand thar a-gawpin. run--Sic th' dawg on them
young-uns--Let 'im chaw 'em up!"