THE POST-OFFICE INSPECTOR
“Now then, my friend, behave yourself.”
“Haven’t I paid the damages?”
“You have, but don’t get into any further expensive mischief.”
“H’m!” observed the victim of Dale Wacker’s mail order swindle, “that’s
to be seen, if I ever get my hands on the real fellow who robbed me. As
to you, stranger,” to Frank, “just send in your bill double. Sorry I
disturbed you, but we all make mistakes.”
“No, Mr. Halsey,” replied Frank, “I only ask you to pay the cost of that
window you smashed and the door you broke.”
“How much--let me settle it now,” urged Halsey.
“I’ll trust you,” said Frank. “I will send the bill when the carpenter
gets the repairs done.”
The trial had come off. A small fine had been imposed by the village
judge on Halsey for his disorderly conduct. The marshal had explained
to him that Frank was not the person who had swindled him. He added that
very probably through Frank’s investigation they would soon discover the
identity of the United States Mail Order House.
“You can come with us, but you will have to curb your fighting
proclivities,” warned the marshal. “Here is where the law steps in,
and you must not interfere with its course.”
“I came a long way to get satisfaction,” muttered Halsey. “Somehow, I’ll
have it too.”
The marshal led the way, and they were soon mounting the stairs of Main
Street Block. They proceeded quietly, so as to give no warning or create
any curiosity with other occupants of the building.
“There is the door,” said Frank in a guarded tone, as they reached the
landing of the third story.
The marshal advanced and gave a firm resounding knock on its panels.
They could detect a stir within. Then the wicket shot back.
“Who are you--what do you want? Thunder! it’s the marshal.”
Frank fancied he recognized the tones as belonging to Dale Wacker.
“That’s who it is,” answered the official. “Here, here I want a word
with you, young man.”
The wicket was shot as suddenly as it had been opened. They could hear a
quick scramble in the room beyond.
“Open this door,” loudly demanded the marshal, resuming his knocking.
“They won’t do it,” spoke up Halsey, advancing a step. “Say,” lifting
his ponderous fist, “I’ll soon clear the way, if you say the word.”
“No,” responded the marshal, putting up a detaining hand. “We have no
legal right to invade the premises. Whoever is in there, cannot escape.
There is no other stairway leading to the street except this one.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Frank.
“Why, you had better go back to the town hall with Halsey,” advised the
officer. “See the clerk, and let Halsey swear out a criminal warrant
against Dale Wacker and others concerned in a swindling scheme at this
place.”
“All right,” nodded Frank. “Come Mr. Halsey, let us make haste.”
“I will save you any delay, gentlemen,” spoke up a new voice.
All three turned, to observe a keen-faced, bright-eyed man who had come
quickly up the stairs. There was a certain half-military, half-official
precision to his make up that at once impressed Frank.
“Yes,” continued the newcomer, coming forward on the landing as though
he had a perfect right there, “I’ll soon get action here. You are the
town marshal, I believe?”
“That’s right,” nodded the officer, regarding the speaker in some
wonderment.
“Well, I am a post-office inspector. Came on a telegram. Got the birds
caged in there? Give me a few facts, will you?”
The marshal briefly recited his suspicions and the case of Halsey. The
inspector as tersely told of a telegram the post-office department had
received, exposing the operations of the United States Mail Order House.
Frank at once decided that Stet was its author.
“No dilatory fraud order case here,” observed the inspector briskly.
“It’s got to be a raid, I see. Here, let me have a try. In there!”
called out the official in a loud tone of voice, pounding on the door
panels, “open in the name of the law, or we shall be obliged to use
force.”
There was no response whatever to this mandatory challenge. The
inspector placed his ear to the door. Then he said sharply.
“Watch out close. I will be back at once.”
“He’s brought the locksmith with him,” announced the marshal a few
minutes later, peering over the banisters. “Those government fellows
act pretty swiftly when they make up their minds. We haven’t the power
that they have.”
The inspector, arrived with the locksmith, ordered the latter to open
the door.
Frank looked about him curiously as, the door once opened, all hands
passed into the room beyond. Its tables were littered with envelopes,
circulars and letters.
The big lodge chamber was partitioned off at one end by a cambric
curtain. Here there was a couch, a small oil stove and some eatables
and dishes, evidences of light housekeeping on the premises.
The inspector darted about from corner to corner, and into all the
little apartments that had formerly been in service as lodge and rooms.
“H’m,” he observed, coming back from his inspection to the others,
“birds have flown.”
He moved to an open window. Pendant from an iron shutter hinge was a
strong portable knotted fire escape. Its ground end trailed into an
inside court of the building.
“If you think you know the people who were here and who have certainly
escaped,” suggested the inspector to the marshal, “you had better get
your men on their track before they leave town.”
“All right,” said the marshal glumly making for the door.
“Here, I’m in on that arrangement,” observed Halsey.
The inspector with an eagle glance at the letters on the tables and a
business-like air, sat down to look over a mass of correspondence lying
before him. Frank went up to him.
“Can I be of any assistance to you, sir?” he asked.
“You helped in this thing. Yes, yes you can help me,” said the inspector.
“Take this note to the local postmaster, will you?”
The inspector wrote a few words on his own card. It summoned the
postmaster. The inspector directed that official to deliver all future
mail of the Wacker outfit to himself or his representative.
When the postmaster was gone the inspector impressed Frank into service.
This consisted in sorting out the letters and taking down the names of
the persons who had been swindled.
“Now you can go for the marshal, if you will,” said the inspector, about
an hour later.
Frank found that official just returned from an unsuccessful search for
Dale Wacker and the old man with the big beard, his presumable partner,
whom Stet had vaguely described to Frank.
“I must catch the afternoon train for the city and make my report to
headquarters,” said the inspector, when Frank returned to him with the
marshal. “I want you to put a trustworthy custodian in charge here until
we can send a regular man to close up the matter, and start after those
swindlers.”
“I’ll put one of my deputies in charge,” said the marshal. “As to Wacker
and his partner, they’re probably safe and far by this time.”
The inspector regarded the speaker with a half-pitying,
half-contemptuous look.
“That’s as may be,” he observed, “for the present. We don’t let matters
drop that easily, ourselves. There’s something you mustn’t forget
officer: When the United States Government gets after a guilty man, if
he fled to the furthest corners of the earth, we never let up till we
find him.”