I
The rush to the train was a frantic episode, undertaken with the eye on
the second hand of the watch. As they flashed down through the spruce
woods and over the delightful bridge of the shining Bow, the detective,
Xavier Gatineau, was scribbling a wire on a pad resting on his swaying
knee.
“To our man at Sicamous,” he explained. “He must meet that train. When
we get to the depot, will you jam that into the telegraph office? I’ll
dive for the station master an’ arrange for accommodation, an’ hold the
train if necessary. Phew! we’re cutting it fine.”
They were. They heard the train pull in and stop before they could
see it. They saw the guards preparing to send the train away as they
drew up, braking perilously beside the low platform. Clement sprang to
the telegraph office without a word. Gatineau seemed to be half-way
along the platform in the direction of the station master before their
automobile had really stopped.
The handing in of the wire took no more than a few seconds, but short
though that time was, Gatineau was already beckoning him to the rear
car when Clement appeared.
“Luck all the way,” said Gatineau. “Section superintendent’s private
car hitched on to this train. This is it.... He’ll be here in a
minute----”
He got no further. Clement suddenly caught his arm. “My God!” he
gasped. “Look there--those women.”
Two women stood by the edge of the platform watching their suitcases
being put into an automobile.
It was dark, but the two well-dressed figures could plainly be seen
in the light of an arc lamp. One was a comely, chilly, thick-set,
middle-aged woman--the Gorgon, Méduse Smythe. The other--Heloise.
No mistaking that slim, upstanding, gallantly poised figure. Even there
in the darkness and newly arrived on a strange railway platform, she
carried herself with a crispness, an air of daintiness, a grace of
candid beauty. No mistaking her at all--and no mistaking the curious
and quite sharp thrill that went through his own being as he looked at
her.
“Miss Reys?” asked Gatineau in a sharp whisper.
“Yes--and that she-scoundrel, her companion. They’ve arrived. Of
course, I should have remembered this would be their train.”
“Did they see you?” demanded Gatineau, more practically. He had a
sudden, unpleasant vision of the crafty Méduse Smythe sending telegrams
ahead of them, warning Neuburg, upsetting their own hair-brained plan.
“I’m certain they didn’t,” said Clement. “And--and do you think, from
their attitudes, that they did?”
Both men had drawn into the cover of their car, and as they looked, it
was quite obvious to them that they had not been seen.
Uneasiness was not expected from Heloise; still, if she had seen
Clement, with whom she had quarreled, who, on the word of Méduse, she
was also well on the way to love, she must have shown some sort of
nervousness. She showed none.
The Gorgon companion, who had every reason to show anxiety if she
had, unexpectedly, set eyes upon that enemy who disconcerted her
most--Clement Seadon--showed no anxiety. She was calm and smiling. With
just the right smiling calm--no amount of acting could have given her
precisely that air.
“No, they haven’t seen us,” said Clement.
“No, they certainly haven’t,” said Gatineau. “All the same----”
he began, and he realized Clement’s intent gaze and stopped, and
smothered a grin. Clement would not be fit for comment or reasoning
until the train pulled out.
Clement gazed hungrily at Heloise. During the days of excitement and
anxiety he had thought incessantly of her, and had, he thought, created
an unreal dream woman. But as he looked at her he saw that she was
better even than his dream. The beauty of her features, the charm of
her movements, the whole crisp, boyish attraction of her came to him,
even now, as a fresh revelation. Her car moved and he moved with it
towards the observation platform.
“Mr. Seadon,” Gatineau protested. “The light shines upon the platform,
if they turned and saw you....”
With a sigh Clement relinquished the most desirable sight in the world.
Their own train started.
Presently he said, “They have arrived at Banff, Gatineau. That horror of
a woman has arrived--and she will ask for a message from Newman. Do you
appreciate that? She’ll go there expecting a message.”
“She won’t get one,” said Gatineau, grinning. He put his hand in his
pocket. He drew out Newman’s--or Neuburg’s--train letter saying all was
clear, and ordering Méduse to go to Revelstoke. “I brought it along
with me. I thought of that.”
“Yes,” said Clement. “You thought of that. But did you think of what
would happen when she asks for the message she is expecting--and does
not get it?”
“Hell,” said the little detective explosively.
“Just that,” agreed Clement. “She’ll raise it. She’ll get panicky. And
she’ll do something.”
“She just will; she’ll fly to the wire or to the distance ’phone to
Sicamous. She’ll get through to Neuburg. Why, in the name of Mike,
didn’t I think of that?”
“Why, in the name of Michael, didn’t _I_?” said Clement hardly. “It was
my idiotic haste. But that doesn’t help. What does help? She’ll get
through to Sicamous and Neuburg; she will warn Neuburg. And--and what
can we do?”
They stood staring blankly at each other in the swaying car.
What could they do?
II
They stood and stared at each other. A night journey away was Neuburg
and Gunning and Siwash Mike and Joe Wandersun’s wife. They were
unsuspecting. They were preparing for some terrible crime perhaps, but
they were unsuspecting.
Behind them were the two women going in a fast car to the Banff Springs
Hotel. The woman who had most to fear was also unsuspecting. But she
would cease to be so after she had been in the foyer of the hotel
many minutes. She would ask for a message, a letter, or a wire--and
she would not get one. At once because of her fear she would become
anxious. She would communicate with Neuburg. He would be warned. He
would know at once that his letter had gone astray, that something was
wrong, and he would take steps to meet the crisis.
And the men moving towards him were standing in the saloon of a
moving train, hanging, as it were, between the two danger points in a
traveling isolation. What could they do?
Gatineau said “Hell” again, and then he said, “She’ll wire, sure.”
“Or ’phone,” said Clement.
“Yes, she might.... But who to? Joe’s wife, Mrs. Wandersun, went up to
Gunning’s shack in a motor boat. She left word she wouldn’t be back.
Remember, left word an’ a letter.”
“Siwash Mike, or Herbert Lucas, as he calls himself, may be there
waiting for the ladies.”
“Yep, that’s so,” he thought a while. “But their shack might not have a
’phone. It’s unlikely, I think. An’ then ’phoning--would she risk it?
Miss Reys might come in on her as she spoke.”
“You think she’d wire?”
“Sure I think she’d wire,” said Gatineau, his face brightening a little.
“But how does it help? I know if we could get in touch with Sicamous
we could stop it ... but from a moving train.... One of these pocket
wireless sets would be very handy just now.”
“Got it,” shouted Gatineau.
“Got what, you little train jumper?” said a large, genial man coming
into the saloon.
The little detective all but leaped at the superintendent.
“Walt, have you a train telegraph set in this car?” he cried.
“Good Lord!” said Walt. “What’s the joke?”
“I’m asking--have you?”
“Of course I have,” said Walt. “What’s the answer?”
He didn’t get an answer. Instead, Gatineau swung round on Clement with
a great laugh. “We’ve got ’em. Walt, here, will stop the train.”
“Walt, here, will be asked to do it first. Then he’ll think about it,”
said Walt, with just that tinge of asperity that showed he had not been
too neatly handled. Gatineau noticed that tone in a flash.
“Say, Walt, I guess I’m a bit fresh. We’re rather rattled, Mr.
Seadon and me.... Oh, Walt, meet Mr. Clement Seadon, a friend of The
Chief’s.... We’re on a big thing, a big criminal thing, and we did
something quite stupid back in Banff that we can only put straight by
telegraphing, an’ at once.”
“It may save a murder,” said Clement, watching the big man.
“Holy Mike!” cried the big Walt.
“Well, we’re afraid of that,” agreed Gatineau. “You see, we daren’t
wait!”
“You won’t wait,” said the superintendent. “I’m getting that set.” He
began to run out of the saloon.
“All right, Walt,” called Gatineau. “We’ve got to figure out that wire
first.”
He went over to the little writing desk near the rear window. He
switched on the desk lamp and selected cable forms. At once he wrote:
“Hold all wires from Méduse Smythe to Newman or Neuburg.” He looked
up. “Will that do?” he asks. “Our man knows Neuburg; he’ll know what
that telegram means. An’ we mustn’t block other wires. Neuburg may
be expecting one from Nimmo at Montreal, f’rinstance, and might get
anxious if he didn’t get it.”
“That’s true,” said Clement over Gatineau’s shoulder. “And while we’re
stopping Méduse’s getting to Neuburg by wire, we might stop her getting
to him in person. Write this:
‘Wire Méduse Smythe Banff Springs Hotel as follows: All clear.
Have seen Landor Revelstoke. All will be well. Don’t communicate
him. Will let you know to-morrow or next day when you can come on
here. Wait. No reason anxiety. Englishman who does not look brainy
safely interned Montreal. ARTHUR NEWMAN.’”
“Do you think that will answer?”
“It’ll answer fine--if she’s not suspicions.”
“She won’t be suspicious--if Arthur Newman isn’t. This is from Arthur
Newman.”
The little detective considered it carefully. “You’re right. It
bears the authentic stamp of Arthur. Wondered why you were putting
in that bit about the foxy bank man, Landor of Revelstoke. But I see
why. Feeling that Newman is the only one to know about him, she’ll
be certain this wire’s from him. An’ she’ll stay quiet at Banff
accordingly.”
“That’s the idea. You feel confident that your man will send it
correctly--as though it really, did come from Newman, I mean?”
“Rely on him. Walt, we’re ready if you are.”
The superintendent had been busy in the saloon with the young man who
acted as his clerk. On the saloon table a telegraph instrument had
been set up, and the young man was active with what looked like a long
bamboo fishing pole that had electric flex instead of fishing line
attached to it, as well as a curious hook at its top end. Walt gave
orders to the youth to stop the train.
In a minute the long train groaned to a standstill, and at once the
young man dropped from the observation platform at the rear of the
car, and, first hooking the bamboo rod over one of the telegraph wires
beside the track, did various things with electric plugs. Then he
came back to the saloon and began working the telegraph instrument.
“Through to Sicamous,” he said.
Gatineau pushed the slip forward, “There’s your message.”
In a surprisingly short time the young man said, “They’re O.K.ing.”
“Ask them to repeat,” said Gatineau.
The young man wrote down the message as it clicked back, Gatineau
watching his writing hand. He had written the last word only when the
detective said, “O.K. That’s all.” Then the bamboo pole and the plugs
were disconnected, the instrument dismantled, a guard waved a light and
the train moved on.
“Five minutes,” smiled Walt. “That’s how it’s done, Mr. Seadon.”
“Yes, you people make the check-mating of rogues seem child’s play,”
smiled Clement, and he went to his bunk almost with serenity.
III
At Sicamous station a railwayman slipped on board the car and spoke to
Gatineau. Gatineau and Clement left the train at once, walked straight
into the pretty hotel that hangs right above the lake and is the only
considerable structure in the place, and, passing straight through the
lounge, found themselves in the manager’s sitting room.
A youngish man with the nondescript clothes and the air of a
homesteader got up from a rocker-chair and said: “You’re Mr. Gatineau.
Pleased to meet you. And Mr. Seadon. My name is Cager. Plenty of news,
Mr. Gatineau.”
“You sent the wire I asked?” asked Gatineau. The young man handed over
a cable form. It was the wire to Méduse. “Good. Did the woman send
anything?” Again, without a word, the young man handed over another
cable form. Both men read it. It was to Arthur Newman c/o Wandersun. It
ran:
“Arrived Banff. No message from you. M. S.”
“Blocked that, of course,” explained Cager.
“Any telephone message through, do you think, to Lucas or Siwash at
Wandersun’s shack?”
“No telephone,” said Cager. “An’ then Siwash isn’t there. That is part
of the news. He went along the lake yesterday--to Gunning’s shack.”
“What time?” asked Gatineau anxiously.
“About five.”
“Before those ladies made Banff,” said Gatineau with relief. “Unless,
of course, they got a message through on the way.”
“They didn’t,” said Cager. “No wires, no train letters came through.
I’ve been watching Siwash--Lucas, as he calls himself--pretty close. I
guess he didn’t get any sort of message.”
“Not from along the lake?”
“Not even that. But I don’t know why he went. He just went up in a
canoe. I think he’s coming back. You see he was to meet them ladies,
and the woman, Mrs. Wandersun, hasn’t come back, or Neuburg shown
himself? No--then about those people who had a letter for Siwash when
he came along--I mean those neighbors who were told that he was coming,
and the ladies, too. Are they in this, do you think?”
“My opinion is, they’re just neighbors. They were here years before the
Wandersuns showed up. My opinion is that they are not in with Neuburg.”
Gatineau thought a while. “We’ll risk it, anyhow,” he said. “Look here,
Mr. Seadon, you’d better not show, but I will. I’ll go ’long an’ talk
to them.... Got a boat to take us along the lake, Cager?”
“Not a power boat, just now. You can have a skiff or a canoe.... Skiff?
Well, that’s less dangerous in a scuffle. I’ll get one ready while
you’re going to the Bloss’s.” He went to the window. “That path leading
up hill. It’s one of them two shacks you c’n see. There’s a chintz
settee on the porch.”
Gatineau was back in half-an-hour, his face was puzzled.
“Some news, Mr. Seadon,” he said. “Lucas--that’s Siwash, they don’t
know his real name, they’re on the square all right--Lucas will be
back to-morrow to meet the ladies.” He glanced deliberately at Clement.
“He’s gone up the lake to sit at the bedside of his dear cousin Henry
Gunning.”
“What!” cried Clement.
“Sure thing. Cousin Henry Gunning--he’s lying at death’s door.”
Clement stared at him in amazement. That Gunning was dangerously
ill seemed incredible.... Suddenly he remembered a passage in the
Joe Wandersun letter to Heloise at Banff. He remembered a passage
in Neuburg’s note to Méduse. He remembered the buying at the drug
stores in Revelstoke, and Mrs. Wandersun’s going to a sick friend. He
smiled grimly. “That’s the shock,” he said. “Remember Méduse was to be
prepared for one, and to play up to it. She won’t expect to learn that
a quite healthy man is abruptly at death’s door.”
“But I wonder what it means, just how it fits in with the scheme of
that blackguard Neuburg? Don’t you see, it’s saddling that outfit with
a sick man--even though he’s faking.”
“He’s got more time than he thought,” said Clement. “We’re at Montreal,
don’t forget.”
“With the long distance wire ever handy. He may have time, but not for
a long, sentimental sickness. I don’t see it fitting in.”
“No,” said Clement reflectively. “A long illness seems barred--but,
look at the effect of this sudden news of Gunning’s dangerous illness
on a nature like Miss Reys. It’ll bowl her over. Coming at the end of
all these lost trails and excitements, and the end of all the emotions
she’s been bottling up for months, this sudden, dramatic threat at the
last moment will emotionally sweep her right off her feet.”
“She’ll be crazy with anxiety--I see,” said Gatineau. “She’ll be right
off her guard, not noticing anything but how he is to be looked after,
that’s it. It’s a sweet move on that rotten rogue’s part.”
“Also,” said Clement, grimly, “Henry will look better in bed--more
presentable. He’s been on the loose, and it probably shows. But what
would look disgusting in a man standing on his feet, will only look
like the ravages of illness in a man lying and moaning on a sick bed.”
“The pathetic stop,” said Gatineau.
“The pathetic stop,” agreed Clement. “And they’ll play it for all
they’re worth to the undoing of that girl.”
In a very short time Clement Seadon and Gatineau were rowing up the
lake towards Gunning’s shack. To their friends they would have been
quite unrecognizable. Cager, the alert, had provided them with floppy
hats and clothes and fishing tackle. To the world at large they were
two westerners avid for the lake’s celebrated trout.
They had discussed with Cager the problem of getting at Neuburg and
his gang by stealth, and decided that they had best drift up to it
alone under their fishermen disguise. To guard against any eventuality,
a boatload of short, sturdy, and well-armed men followed them.
These men would wait behind a headland that cut off Gunning’s shack
from the rest of the lake, and at a signal, or if, through glasses,
they saw any signs of foul play, they would dash to the rescue.
Rowing up the lake, Clement could not repress a shudder at its
ominousness. The great spruce-clad mountains came right down to the
fillet of water, hemming it darkly. As they turned a shoulder, and the
hotel and railway buildings, standing up sharply in this clear air a
mile behind, were cut off from view, they seemed to be plunged at once
into the heart of No Man’s Land. The dark lake was stark and empty and
utterly beyond human touch and help, it seemed. What might not happen
to Heloise in a place like this?
They went ashore at the headland to spy out the land. From amid the
trees at its crest, Clement looked down on a mountain bay that might
have been the crater of an extinct volcano in the mountains of the
moon. At first it appeared almost terribly empty, then his glasses
picked out a shack well hidden in the trees alongside the lake. He saw
four people about that shack.
One was a man who sat smoking at his healthy ease and reading a paper
on the porch of the shack. One was a woman, who sometimes came out
of the door of the shack with a flutter of garments. She stood for a
moment, always, and looked along the lake. Once she picked up what
obviously were glasses, to stare across the water. She was watching.
She was Mrs. Wandersun; the man reading was undoubtedly Gunning.
Undoubtedly Gunning--neither of the other two men by the waterside were.
These two men were in a motor boat. They were obviously working with
some concentration on that motor boat. Only once, as Clement looked,
did they become erect and examine something.
One of the men was a slight, slim fellow with his arm in a sling. That
was Siwash.
The other was a big, massive mountain of a man, who sat up and moved
with curiously swift movements. That was Neuburg.
Neuburg, the murderer, and Siwash, busy over something in a motor boat.
Gatineau looked at Clement.
“What are they doing?” he asked. “What are they up to in that boat?”
IV
“The three of them there, an’ the woman,” said Gatineau, as they pushed
out their boat again. “Three to face.”
“We’ll see,” said Clement. “When we get there--well, we’ll see.”
Gatineau, as the least known of the two, stood up, plying his rod;
Clement hunched over the rowing. They drifted round the headland. They
moved slowly along the lake. Gatineau pretended to be dissatisfied
with his sport. He pointed with a long arm, indicating more likely
spots for a bite. Clement rowed languidly--there was a great deal of
power in his rowing and it took the boat nearer and nearer the shack.
Gatineau held up his hand, made a graceful cast, then he said, “Holy
Mike!--vanished.” He did not refer to the fish. He said it softly, not
because the fish might hear, but because in these silent places sounds
carry amazingly.
“You mean Neuburg and Siwash have vanished?” said Clement in the same
quiet tone.
“The earth might have swallowed them up. Not a sign of them.”
“And the woman--and Gunning?”
“Not a sign of them. Gone from the porch.”
“They’ve seen us. They’re taking all precautions.”
Clement glanced back to the headland. It shut them off from the entire
world. They could see no sign of humanity, not even of the three men
in the canoe who were following them so cautiously. Gatineau fished
sedately, partly to throw dust in the eyes of the people in or near the
shack, partly to give the men in the canoe time to make the headland.
Always they drifted nearer and nearer the shack.
Presently--it was part of their plan--Gatineau placed his rod in the
boat and sat down. He sat down facing Clement, facing in the direction
of the shack.
“Might as well eat,” he said in a loudish, clear voice. Clement said
nothing. It did not matter so much that Gatineau’s voice would carry
across the water to the shack, but his own voice was known.
Gatineau began munching and surveying the lake. Suddenly he cried,
“Say,” and his arm went out, indicating the shack. Clement, his hat
well down over his eyes, his chin crouched in his shoulder, looked
towards the shack. He said something. Gatineau answered clearly. “No,
it ain’t deserted. Why, there’s smoke coming out of the stack. We sure
can get some coffee there, or some hot water for our’n.”
He said this loudly, giving warning. If Neuburg and Siwash were in the
shack, they had time to get out of it, to run to the bush and hide.
Undoubtedly they would not want to be seen.
As they came close in under the shack, the woman appeared on the porch.
She was a tall, wiry woman, as lithe-strung as a cat. She had the
fierce, sharp, haggard air of a woman who had been wrenched from the
more hectic pleasures of cities to stagnate in the wilds. She stood in
the break of the door looking down on them, her eyes bright, her face
pale, her hand gripping the doorjamb violently to help her master her
emotions. Gatineau called, “Hello, mother; who’d a thought of seeing a
white woman here?”
“Hello,” she said in a dry voice. “Fishin’? Had luck?” Her tone
repelled advances.
“Poor,” said Gatineau. “Say--we was thinkin’--I mean seein’ you had a
fire, we thought as you’d allow us to boil a drop o’ water fer cawfee.”
The woman’s tongue went over her dry lips. “Better not come here,” she
said in a gasp. “There’s a sick man in this shack.”
“Say--out here--pore feller.”
“Infectious,” cried the woman, catching too much kindliness in
Gatineau’s tone. “Turrible infectious.”
“Still a drop of hot water fer cawfee,” said Gatineau. “We don’t want
to butt in on your trouble, mother. But we’d be mortal obliged if you
could give us a drop of hot water fer our cawfee.”
“But--but it’s turrible infectious,” said the woman, at a loss.
“Oh, but I don’t think a drop of hot water fer our cawfee’d matter
much.”
The woman made a decision. “Here, throw up yer can with the cawfee
in it, I’ll give you that water.” She caught the can deftly. “But
you stay there. Don’t you take no risk. I has to notify any risk of
infec’ion.” She turned and went swiftly into the shack.
Clement and Gatineau were out of the skiff and up the bank in a flash.
V
The woman turned from the stove with a half-cry of fear as their boots
clumped on the boards of the shack. She dropped the coffee can with a
crash, and her lips clenched tight together as she saw the weapons in
their hands. There was something significant in that sudden gesture of
silence; she had seen pistols in men’s hands before--in the hands of
men who shot regardless of sex.
Clement felt pity for her and the life she must have led. “We mean no
harm, Mrs. Wandersun. Only you must keep quiet----”
“And not move,” added Gatineau. “Stand over in that corner there, Mrs.
Wandersun--yes, in the angle of the walls. Now understand, no movement,
no sound.”
They looked about the room quickly. It was a bare room, with a table
and stove, and one window, next the door, looking on to the porch.
There was a door into an inner room. Gatineau sprang across to it and
looked in. It had a bed and a glassless window and very little else.
The window was shut, the bed had evidently been used by the woman.
Gatineau came out of the room, shutting the door. There was no need to
go into that room. What they wanted was in this outer, living room.
In a corner was a truckle bed. On that bed was a man, his deeply-marked
face pale and unshaven. He looked sick, and he stirred gently and
moaned like a sick man, not opening his eyes to them. Gatineau gave
him one look, then went and stood by the window, which was just by the
foot of the bed. Crouching against the woodwork, the little detective
watched the world outside, his pistol ready.
Clement acted quickly. From his pocket he took a piece of paper,
unfolded it and put it on the table. He found that ink and pens were
already there and he put the paper near them. It was a confession. He
had drawn it up in the train coming from Banff. It set out the general
lines of the plot as Clement saw it. And he meant Henry Gunning to sign
it. It would frighten Gunning into fleeing the country, as well as an
argument to use when he put the case before Heloise Reys.
He took a step to the bedside. The man under the blankets moved. It
might have been merely the tossing of a sick body, it might have been
anxiety. Clement looked down at the face, saw its looseness, its
weakness, its degeneration; saw, too, in the outline of good looks how
such a face might carry a fond memory right back to the time when this
man was a fine, upstanding, clean-looking boy. Oh, yes, that face
would call up memories that might well obliterate the present.
He said harshly, “Up with you, Henry Gunning. You’re found out. The
game’s up.”
The man on the bed moaned and stirred. And he made a false move. He
muttered, “Heloise.”
Clement saw red. “Up, you skunk!” he snapped. His hand went down,
plucking at the blankets. With a twist they were on the floor. Henry
Gunning, with one ineffectual grab at the disappearing clothes, lay
looking up at Clement, his eyes full of fear, his mouth loose. He had
reason for fear. He lay on the bed with his nightshirt on him, but
beneath that were all his clothes (save the boots) he had worn but a
few minutes ago as he sat a healthy man reading his newspaper on the
porch of the shack.
Clement shifted his pistol to his left hand. “Do you get up yourself?”
he snapped.
Gunning shakily got up. “Who th’ hell are you?” he demanded thickly.
“An Englishman like yourself, but a cleaner one,” said Clement with a
strong sense of racial anger.
And at the name Gunning winced. But he pulled his wits, which were
obviously fuddled, together and he stuttered, “What th’ hell do you
mean by all this? Hey, what the hell----? Look here, I’ll have the law
on you.”
“The law,” Clement sprang on him. “The law is over there”--he
indicated Gatineau. “That is a detective come to settle with you, my
friend.”
As expected, Henry Gunning stumbled back at the mere threat of the law.
Terror shone in his face.
Clement followed up his advantage. “We’re here for you, Henry Gunning.
We know all about you and this plot against Heloise Reys. We know how
you lured her out here, how you want to get hold of her and her million
of money.”
“Lies! Lies!” cried Henry Gunning. “You don’t bluff me.”
“Then you lied when you bragged at Cobalt, my friend,” snapped Clement.
“Do you want me to tell you all that you bragged of in the billiard
parlor of Cobalt?” Henry Gunning shrank back against the bed. “I see
you are recognizing we know. Well, understand fully that we’ve got
all the evidence against you. The story of those silver mines, the
details of how Joe Wandersun pretended to act as a bona fide agent,
the way Méduse Smythe became the companion of Heloise Reys, the
meaning of Adolf Neuburg behind it all. We know the whole foul plot,
the love making, the robbing of that girl, with the aid of Landor at
Revelstoke--her murder.”
“Murder!” said Gunning in a sharp voice.
“The murder at the hands of Neuburg, or Newman, or Nachbar.”
“That’s a lie!” snarled Henry Gunning. “There isn’t a murder in it.
That’s a lie; that isn’t in it.”
“It is in it.”
“Murder. The same sort of murder as Nachbar did in Oregon.”
There was a sudden movement from the corner. The woman moaned and fell
against the wall. She had swooned--apparently. Only apparently.--As
her body reached the floor her hands moved swiftly. Something flashed
and spat. Clement had taken a step towards her. It saved his life. The
bullet from a tiny pistol struck him in the fleshy part of the right
forearm. He gasped in pain, staggered. Immediately things happened.
Gatineau had spun round at the sound of the shot. His attention for a
fateful second was torn between the window, Gunning, and the woman. And
Gunning hit him.
Gunning, unsteady, but still powerful, fell forward across the narrow
gap between him and the unready detective. A great arm flailed, and
his fist took the little man behind the ear. As Gatineau fell, Gunning
fell on top of him, smothering him. Clement acted swiftly. He could
not shoot because of Gatineau underneath. With a lightning gesture, he
transferred his pistol to his right hand again, and grabbed at a chair.
He made a stride forward.
“Drop it!” snapped a voice. “Drop that chair!”
A slim man was at the window. A slim man with one arm in a sling,
but whose dark eye shone with steady purpose behind the sights of an
automatic pistol.
Clement dropped the chair.
There was a movement by the door. The light from it was darkened by
some huge and bulky figure. Clement turned his head. Smiling, without
the slightest vestige of emotion, and looking steadily not into his
eyes, but over Clement’s shoulder, the mountainous Mr. Neuburg came
into the shack.
VI
Whatever Mr. Neuburg felt he hid it with the cold, enigmatic
mirthlessness of his smile. But Clement knew that the great brute must
be at a loss. Obviously, he appreciated the fact that if his opponent
was here and not in Montreal, he must know far too much about Arthur
Newman and his doings.
Clement realized this and meant to make the most of it. He must play
for time. The three men in the canoe must have a chance to get to them,
for, of course, they would have heard the pistol shot.
Mr. Neuburg said, “Sophie, take his pistol.”
The woman came behind the young Englishman and took the pistol from
his injured hand. She pressed the muzzle of her own small weapon into
his spine, just to show what any attempt to fight might mean. Then she
stood aside. Henry Gunning stood up and away from the detective, who
lay prostrate. He looked swiftly at the silent Neuburg, and then as
swiftly turned his eyes away. He stared at Clement. He seemed to be
puzzling over Clement. Siwash Mike left the window when Clement was
disarmed. He came round into the room. He bent over the detective, his
pistol held ready; but, satisfied that the little man was stunned, he
picked up the automatic that had fallen to the floor and dropped it
into his pocket. To make sure that Gatineau was not shamming, he kicked
him sharply and savagely in the body. The prone man did not stir or
groan.
Neuburg, after a speculative stare at Clement said, “You have blundered
in on me again. You are clever, my exteriorly ingenuous young man. But
not quite clever enough. However, clever enough to know that this is a
very awkward situation for you.”
He waited for Clement to answer. Clement did not answer.
“Have you anything to say for yourself?” He wanted Clement to show his
hand either by defiance or an attempt to temporize.
Clement unsatisfyingly said, “Nothing at all.”
Mr. Neuburg blinked at the invisible thing across Clement’s shoulder.
“I am afraid I want you to say something,” said Mr. Neuburg with
his smooth suavity. “Yes, I think I must ask you to give me a few
explanations.” He waited. Again Clement did not answer. “Mr. Seadon,
you are a worldly-wise young man; you are no fool. You will, I think,
understand my position. There are certain facts I must have. I mean to
have them.”
Clement did not answer.
“I think you had better say something,” said Mr. Neuburg. His voice
took on a curious purr.
“I am not a man who finds stubbornness agreeable. I will have those
facts. Now, how and why are you here? Answer, you dog!”
“Oh, no,” said Clement. “I’m not going to answer.”
As he spoke, the woman--perhaps something still feminine in her
revolted against the horrors she thought bound to come--stepped to the
table and picked up the paper Clement had put upon it. Neuburg read it
through.
“A confession. Our bright Henry was to sign it, the girl Heloise
was to read it, and all would be well. An ingenious plan, Seadon. A
well-considered plan. You would have terrorized our backboneless Henry
with threats. Perhaps you would have carried it through, for Henry is a
cur. But you did not. I intervened. So far, then, that was your idea.
But before----”
Clement, who had been watching Gunning’s face, observing the perplexity
on it, said evenly, “That certainly was my plan. But I changed it at
the last moment. I was about to change it, that is, when you arrived. I
found an unexpected ignorance in Henry Gunning. I found he knew nothing
about--Nachbar.”
The big man’s hand moved upwards towards his breast in a startled and
curious gesture. It was an instinctive defense against an unexpected
blow. His breath came in a sudden sharp hiss. His eyes flickered
to Clement’s face with a movement and with a light, startled, yet
unfathomable. And no other sign did he give. Presently, “What is this
talk about Nachbar?” he said, in a quiet, even voice.
Gunning said explosively, “This fellow said something about this
Nachbar--and about murder. I don’t know what is meant.”
“They mean the same thing,” said Clement evenly, his attention keenly
on the alert for any movement from the mountainous man, or Siwash, or
the woman. “Nachbar--Albrecht Nachbar--is a murderer, Gunning.”
“I was speaking to Adolf,” said Gunning, snarling at Clement.
“Albrecht,” said Clement evenly.
Gunning gasped, his eyes became wild. “What--who is this Nachbar?” he
cried.
“You are speaking to him now,” said Clement. “Adolf Neuburg is Albrecht
Nachbar--murderer.”
“A murderer!” cried Gunning. He shrank away from Neuburg, his face pale
and working. “A murderer.” There was real disgust and horror in his
tone. He was a real bad hat, but somehow that had touched to horror and
disgust a clean streak in him. Then with a genuine anger he swung round
on the big man. “Give him the lie, Adolf,” he shouted. “Fling the lie
in his dirty face.”
Neuburg, or rather Nachbar, stood passive, his great face in an awful
inscrutability. Only his right hand moved. It lifted, and its fingers
caressed the flap of his coat pocket, caressed as if eager to get at
something that lay in that pocket. Only when Gunning shouted once more,
“Go on, Adolf, fling the lie in his face,” did he say, “Stop that,
Gunning. Go on, Seadon. Go on.--Don’t stop at that. Let’s have all of
it.”
He wanted to find out all Clement knew. He ignored Gunning’s horror and
disgust. He was, no doubt, entirely confident of his supremacy over
Gunning.
Clement, conscious of the play of that eager hand over the pistol
pocket, said evenly: “Gunning, for reasons of his own, for reasons
connected with Heloise Reys, this man has thought best to keep you
ignorant of his real nature. He is Albrecht Nachbar who is wanted by
the Oregon police for murder. He is careful not to deny it.”
“God!” breathed Gunning, his eyes fixed in horror on Nachbar.
“God--but you lie, he _will_ deny it.”
“Go on,” said Nachbar with a deadly evenness. “Go on, Seadon.”
“He won’t deny it,” said Clement, shooting at venture. “He won’t deny
it--because he feels that, since I have unmasked him, it will be best
for you to know what he intends to do to that girl, Heloise Reys.”
“Murder her! No--no; we aren’t going to do that. It’s a lie!” cried
Gunning, shrinking in loathing.
“You are a clever young man,” said Nachbar to Clement. “Too clever. Go
on.”
“You think he doesn’t mean murder? Ask him. Ask him if he hasn’t made
up his mind to rob a rich young girl, as he made up his mind to rob the
rich young man, Roberts of Oregon. Ask him if he didn’t plan to lure
her to the wilds, just as he lured Roberts into the wilds. Ask him if,
having planned to secure all her money through Landor at Revelstoke,
as he secured all Roberts’s money in Oregon, he does not mean to kill
her--kill her so that his robbery can be covered up, just as the
killing of Roberts covered up that robbery.”
“Kill her--murder Heloise,” said Gunning in a whisper.
“It won’t look like murder. It’ll look like an accident. Just as
Roberts’s death looked like an accident. A burst gun barrel while
hunting, Gunning--only Nachbar had seen to it that it would burst.”
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” shouted Gunning.
“Ask him.”
“It’s a lie! How could they kill her! How would they murder her?”
Clement had a sudden flashing intuition. “Ask him about the motor boat,
Gunning?”
And the shot in the dark struck home.
Siwash Mike loosed an oath. The mountain of a man started as if stung.
His mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. He made a step towards Clement. His
right hand jerked to his pocket. The effect on Gunning was startling.
That chance shot had exploded a definite fact in his mind.
“Motor boat,” he shouted. “That’s why you wouldn’t let me
help.--Mending a perfectly sound motor boat. You liar! You--you
Nachbar!”
He jumped forward and faced the big man.
“Out of the way, you dog. Out of the way!” snarled Nachbar, with a
twisted mouth. His hand had flashed out of his pocket, and in it was a
pistol. “Out of the way, you sot!”
Gunning flung himself upon him.
There was chaos in that flimsy shack.
At the first hint of violence Clement had dropped flat to the ground.
The woman’s pistol snapped as he did so, and her bullet struck the
planking where his chest had been. Nachbar and Gunning staggered in a
wild tangle. The shoulders of the huge man struck Siwash as, pistol
ready, he jumped round to get at Clement. He was flung back. Even as
he swayed under the impact, the little detective Gatineau, prone and
overlooked on the floor, suddenly came to life. He became abruptly
conscious. His arms went out and plucked at the half-breed’s ankles.
Siwash went down with a bang. As he went down, Gatineau heaved himself
up and forward with an astonishing strength and flung himself on the
fallen man. Siwash screamed as Gatineau twisted his wounded arm, and
his pistol clattered to the ground. Gatineau snatched at that pistol,
and got it.
Gunning and the mountain of a man went in a long, wild stagger, across
the shack. The table crashed as their writhing bodies smashed into
it. They tripped and thudded into the wall. They stamped and wrestled
clear, went in a writhe across the floor again. The woman failed to
get out of the way. The fighting bodies struck her and she was knocked
across the room. Then Gunning screamed. A huge, fat thumb was pressing,
pressing with monstrous power, up under his jaw-bone beneath his ear.
He screamed and wriggled to break away. Nachbar with his incredible
mobility slipped clear. In the same movement his pistol flickered
towards Gunning’s chest. A report and a scream sounded together, and
Gunning tumbled forward into the arms of the man who had shot him.
With his immense strength Nachbar flung the limp man from him and swept
round to deal with Clement. Clement was ready. As the huge body bunched
and the pistol hand jerked forward, Clement struck at it. As Clement
had risen to his feet, he had grabbed the chair again, and that was
what he struck with. The solid wood of the seat caught Nachbar’s wrist
and arm, and with such force that the pistol was sent flying across the
room. Nachbar bellowed and leaped to finish the young Englishman with
his great hands. Clement dropped the chair in front of him.
His shins caught the flimsy structure as his huge body stumbled
forward, and at the same time Clement landed with all his force on the
big face. He struck again on the mouth, and then in the excitement
strove to swing to the swaying chin with his injured right. He reached
his mark, but the pain that shot through his arm was so exquisite that
it both robbed the blow of its power and caused Clement to writhe. In
that moment of suspension Nachbar, shaking himself like some giant
beast that had been stung to rage by an insect, leaped on Clement.
They went down with a crash. Nachbar’s body caught the surface of
the capsized table, and it split and broke under the fierce impact.
Nachbar was on top. Clement strove to twist him off with a Japanese
wrestling throw, but the sheer weight of the man bore him down. His
great legs were upon the Englishman’s body, his great knee was grinding
down the injured right arm. A pair of huge hands were tearing away the
Englishman’s left, were clutching at the throat.
Clement’s head was forced back and back until he felt his spine would
snap. There was a cruel pressure on his gullet, and his blood was
roaring in his ears. He felt that his body was slipping away into
a deep and terrible abyss, and that as it slipped his strength was
dropping swiftly away from him. The great body on him was grinding him
down, crushing him down.
There was a thumping of heavy boots on the planking of the porch.
Men were running and shouting. A great voice from the window yelled,
“You--the elephant--shove your hands up--lively.”
“I’ll get hit if he fires,” Clement’s mind registered.
More stampings. A voice shouted in the door, “Don’t shoot, Paul--t’
feller underneath.--That’s it, the butt.”
Nachbar jerked round and looked up. A man was upon him, his hand up, a
pistol swinging by its barrel poised to strike. With his astonishing
mobility, the mountain of a man was on his feet. His arm shot out and
the threatening man thudded into a corner. The murderer was round at
once, springing in shack-shaking leaps of bewildering agility for the
door that lead to the inner room. He reached the door, grabbed at the
handle.
A Winchester banged from the window. Nachbar’s shoulders struck the
door, burst it open. A rifle barked again, and the door crashed to in
an echo of the shot.
There was a rush of feet across the room; the strong shoulders of two
of the men from the canoe jammed together in its narrow length before
they burst it open. Both men stopped dead, wheeled about.
“Gone!” yelled one of them. “Jumped clean through that window.” The
three made for the door of the shack.
“One of you stay,” yelled Gatineau. “There’s the man an’ the woman to
look to. The other two go after him, and shoot on sight.”
In a minute they heard the two crashing through the spruce on the trail
of Mr. Neuburg.
VII
Clement, his head feeling bigger and more painful than any human head
had a right to be, heaved himself from the floor, grabbed the pistol
Neuburg had dropped, and made swaying for the door.
“You stop here, Seadon,” snapped Gatineau, as he handcuffed the woman
(the other man was roping Siwash). “You can’t do anything outside. You
_can_ here. Gunning’s dying.”
So while the chase went on up the slope above the lake, Clement watched
Henry Gunning die.
The fellow opened his eyes in a minute or two, stared dully at Clement,
as though not realizing what had happened, and then suddenly he
understood.
“Murder!” he choked. “I won’t have murder. I’m a swine, but I won’t
have murder. _No!_”
“Take it easy,” said Clement. “Don’t tear yourself to pieces. There
won’t be any murder now.”
He hoped that was the truth, although Neuburg _had_ got away.
It was difficult to quiet the dying man, for, in his last hour, the
clean streak in him had come out uppermost, and he was beside himself
in his desire to prevent any hurt coming to the girl, Heloise Reys.
But he was quieted in the end. Suddenly he seemed to realize that he
was about to die, and he ceased to rave and struggle. Abruptly he lay
quiet.
“A fool all the time,” he said with a wry grin upon Seadon. “I muddled
my life; I’m going to muddle my death if I’m not careful. Sit down
beside me and listen. I’m going to straighten things out while I can.”
It was then that Clement heard the full story of the plot against
Heloise Reys. It had been planned very much as he had thought.
Henry Gunning, a wastrel, had fallen into the power of Adolf Neuburg
and his gang. One day Gunning had read in the paper a notice of the
death of Heloise’s father. He had forgotten all about Heloise, but that
paragraph had recalled their boy and girl affair, and, being the man he
was, he had bragged, declaring that he might marry a millionairess if
he chose.
Adolf Neuburg had in this way learned the whole story and seen its
possibilities. He had at once begun to plot. He had arranged for the
purchase of worthless mining claims, and had dictated the letter with
which Gunning reawakened the girlhood emotions in Heloise’s heart. Then
he had gone to England, bought out the old companion and seen that
Méduse took her place, and so on through the story.
But the object all through was money, insisted Gunning. They had meant
Heloise to sign away first the cash and securities she had brought to
Canada, and then they hoped to get hold of the rest of the million. He
was to make love to Heloise, even marry her to attain this end--but
murder her, _No_!
He died on that profession of guiltlessness in the major crime. It had
been impossible to argue with him, as well as useless. A muddler of
his sort could not see the logical end to the plot. Could not see that
the simplified end was to _kill_ Heloise rather than turn her loose
penniless, as seemed to be Gunning’s vague idea.
And his ignorance of what was being done to the motor boat supported
his contention.
What was being done to the motor boat?
Clement was about to turn to the imprisoned Siwash and demand the truth
about the motor boat when there came a startling interruption.
From up the hill they heard shouts and shots. Gatineau and Clement
instinctively dived towards the door. Something hit the shack with a
resounding thwack.
“Christopher!” yelled Gatineau. “They’re shooting up the shack.”
“Neuburg’s come back,” shouted Clement. “Take the back. I’ll take the
front.”
The shouts and shots redoubled. Then suddenly across the tumult they
heard another sound. From the lake there came the quick, stuttering
throb of a gasoline engine springing into life.
With a yell Clement flung himself onto the porch.
Away across the lake the big motor boat that had been at the
stringpiece was shooting towards Sicamous. Behind it trailed the skiffs
and canoes that had been tied up at the lakeside.
Clement shot out his arm and began firing. He was too late. The motor
boat had gathered speed and was already covered by the trees.
He could not hit Adolf Neuburg, who was steering it.