“Exit the Elaps fulvius.” He was breathing fast as he clipped off his words. “They’re dangerous, but you have to jump on one to make him bite you. Now if our friend had only thought to import a couple of cobras—”
“You mean these snakes were put in here?”
“Surely. Do you think it’s some kind of a clubhouse? Strike another match and I’ll show you the door they are guarding. It’s right over my head in the end wall.”
It was there, right enough. We swung up a heavy piece of sheet iron, revealing an opening large enough to admit a good sized man. The iron was old and rusty, but it moved easily on well oiled hinges. A large hook in the top of the cistern was placed to hold it open. My comrade wriggled half through. I gave him more light. He disappeared entirely.
“Stay where you are for a minute.” His voice reverberated hollowly. There was a noise of matches scratching. Then, blessed relief, the whole place was flooded with light from a pressure gasoline lantern.
We found ourselves in another stone chamber, almost a duplicate of the one we had just left, only larger. We knelt together on the platform at the end and looked down onto the floor. It was at least fifteen feet below us. Iron rungs on the wall served as a stairway. The snake’s cistern was too close to us for us to do anything rash. We watched the floor for fifteen minutes before deciding to descend.
The air was a trifle stale, but easily breathable. It was undoubtedly connected in some way with the outside. We had escaped the fate of smothering to death, if nothing else. The furnishings were conglomerate and strange. A mass of old metal, and twisted pipes were piled together in one corner. A rough work bench occupied the far end, and two powerful chandelier lamps hung from the ceiling of the vault. I remembered I had seen one like them in Bartlett’s house. Shelves lined the walls. They were stacked with neat rows of tin boxes. Several bottles were crowded closely together on the top. When we helped clear the shelves, later on, we found they concealed four grilled openings which admitted the air through wooden chutes. It was weeks later before we discovered that the chutes opened into four hollow stumps in the ground above. In the middle of the floor stood a piece of machinery covered with a tarpaulin. I knew what it was without looking—a press. My mind was thoroughly clear on one point. We had discovered the source of supply of the counterfeit money. That we would ever get out to tell about it appeared doubtful.
We spent hours searching our prison. The tin boxes contained paper, and several thousand dollars in completed ten dollar bills. The junk in the corner proved to be the remains of a still. Marvin crowed triumphantly at the discovery.
“Do you wonder they never hung anything on Simmons? Think of a dumb officer trying to figure out that he had to wade through that cistern to find what he was looking for—”
“We’re not so bright, ourselves,” I reminded him. “Aren’t we supposed to be finding a way out of here?”
“You’re right.” He scanned the room thoughtfully.
“And I think I’ve found it.” He pointed to another metal plate set in the ceiling. “This time we go up.”
By placing a chair on the work bench he reached it easily. It swung down when he unfastened it. The lantern revealed a set of iron rungs vanishing upwards into blackness. He grasped the lower one and pulled himself up out of sight. I held the light high and waited. I was surprised to see a piece of strong fishing line drop down from the hole, and hear Marvin’s muffled voice: “Tie the lantern on it.” I complied, and the light went bobbing up the opening as Marvin pulled in on the line. From below I could see him standing on one of the rungs working at something.
He did not stay long. The lantern came down again, and by the time I had it untied, Marvin had dropped lightly onto the chair, and jumped to the floor. He carried hung around his neck by fish line, a heavy sash weight. He lifted it off and banged it down impatiently on the bench.
“It’s some sort of a stone closet up there that hooks up with the chimney in the house. I might have known it. Simmons had to have some opening for carrying off smoke and fumes.”
“But the sash weight?”
“Some sort of an arrangement to regulate the flues. It was tied to these lines and hung on a little spring snap hook. I think—”
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked impatiently.
“Take it with us for our friends in there, and see if we can use it to break out. There doesn’t appear to be a tool in the place outside of the wrenches for the press. This looked the most promising. Are you game to try it?”
“It looks like we’ll have to try it.”
We made the trip back to the trapdoor without mishap. Half the terror of those frightful reptiles dissolved under the bright light. We crawled along the ledge as before, Marvin shoving the sash weight and lantern in front of him. Neither of us spoke of the peril we were in. We both knew, only too well, that even if we broke out we risked being shot down on sight.
For two hours we worked like fiends, hammering and pounding on the slippery wood without result. The final blow fell at ten o’clock. I had just looked at my watch when the lantern hissed and went out. Utterly exhausted, and bathed in perspiration, we stretched ourselves out on the hard shelf too tired to care. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was looking at a star. The trapdoor was slowly opening over my head.
I did not dare speak. I clutched the heavy piece of iron in my hand, and nerved myself to crush a head if it appeared through the opening. The snakes had quieted down as if used to our presence. Suddenly their strident clamor broke out again. I tensed all my muscles. An electric torch bathed us in soft radiance.
My grip on the sash weight relaxed. It was no use. I was looking into the muzzle of a foot long automatic. There was no mistaking the deadly earnestness of the man who held it. His face, stern and relentless, was visible in the reflected light of the torch. It was Harry Bartlett.
28
The light held steadily on us with its unblinking eye. The muzzle of the heavy gun was lowered, an inch at a time, as if the man holding it questioned the wisdom of such a course. Marvin spoke: “Don’t stand there and look at us like we were ghosts, Harry. We would like to get out of here. It’s not very pleasant.”
The beam switched quickly around playing on the four rattlers. I heard Bartlett gasp. Then he turned and spoke to someone whom we could not see: “It’s Dr. Ryan and a lawyer, Marvin Lee, from town. The damn cistern is crawling with snakes. Hurry. Help me get them out!”
I eagerly grasped the strong hands held down to me, and felt myself lifted to security as lightly as if I were a baby. I breathed a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving when Marvin was by my side. We stood silently, sucking in great gobs of the sweetest night air in the world. The flash glowed again. Bartlett and his companion were closing the top of the cistern. When the hasp was fastened, there was nothing, except a small piece of metal, to indicate the existence of the two vaults. The top of the lid was covered with soil, and grown up with weeds.
“Beat it!” I heard Bartlett whisper to the stranger. The man merged into the shadows of the old grove. I reached into my coat pocket and fingered my gun. Marvin must have sensed what was in my mind. He placed his lips close to my ear. “Take it easy! There’s something doing. He got us out of that—”
Bartlett stepped between us and took each of us by an arm. “I haven’t time to explain now,” he said shortly. “You mustn’t talk either. Just come along with me!” We went along with docility. There was terrific strength latent in the hands resting on our arms. He stopped us in a thick clump of trees to the west of the house. “Lie down!” His tone was brusque, and I resented it. I started to tell him so. “Please,” he said more mildly. “You’ve nearly wrecked everything. Your life isn’t worth a plugged nickel if you move out of this spot before I come for you.” He was gone.
We stretched out flat. I inched closer to Marvin. “He’s escaped?”
“He’s out at any rate.” We were talking in the lowest of whispers. “Did you
know the man with him?”
“No. Is your revolver loaded, Marvin?”
He patted his coat pocket. “Listen, Doc. I don’t know exactly what’s up tonight. It smells like trouble. There are a lot of people around here besides Bartlett. I can see the shadows of two men crouching along the house. One of them is right by that hole we broke through there yesterday. Can you place where he is?”
I strained to see. I thought I could distinguish a darker patch by the house. It might have been a bush. “I can hardly tell,” I had to confess. “Your eyes are better than mine.”
It was too difficult to try to hold a conversation. We lay taut and immobile, waiting for the unknown to happen. It began to cloud up. The shadows deepened. I could no longer distinguish the blotch along the foundations of the house. An overpowering desire to sneeze took possession of me. I vainly fought it. I pressed my lip with my finger. I pursed my lips and silently whistled. It did no good. I finally gave way to it, and stifled it as well as I could with my hand. Far to our right I heard a movement in the bushes. It was just a sharp crackle as if someone had moved. Everything was quiet again.
A breeze came up and stirred the trees overhead. I watched a long whisker of Spanish moss wave against the sky. A small animal scurried over the ground in back of us, seeking a shelter. I felt Marvin touch my arm. I saw that the misshapen thing attached to the tree ten feet to our left was a human figure. Not a breaking twig, nor a moving bush had heralded its approach. I felt that searching eyes were boring into our hiding place. I fused myself with the ground.
I am certain that I never took my eyes from that black form by the tree. I must have. The next time I saw it, it was crouched by a bush twenty feet nearer the back of the house. After that I followed by hearing. The metallic click of the hasp. The soft sliding as the cistern door was opened. The unmistakable whirr as the rattlers gave their warning. Then far over on the lake shore in front of me a pin point of red light winked three times.
Silence again. Fiendish, gnawing silence, that crept through me and raised bumps on my flesh. The normal sounds of the woods died down as if waiting some great tragedy. Then again the whirr of the snakes. My blood froze. Rising from the ground by the entrance to the cistern was a shapeless white mass. Helpless to move I watched it take shape. It was coming toward me. The three pin points of red light winked out again.
Bedlam broke out around me. A powerful torch lit up the white mass like a searchlight. I saw it was a man carrying a white canvas sack. Even as the light struck him, he dropped the sack and ran through the trees not three feet away from us. He moved with the swiftness of the cottontail rabbit. Figures materialized. I heard a voice roar: “Dammit you fools, you’ve let him get away!”
A giant figure jumped on me from behind and pinned me to the ground. “Here he is!”
“That’s Doc, you’ve caught, Pete.” I knew Marvin was grinning in the darkness. “Your man is running for the lake.”
“Holy cats!” the Sheriff flashed his light on me. “Everybody in Orange Crest is out here tonight!”
He dashed off toward the lake. We followed close behind him. I felt safer than I had all day. Then I heard the sound that still penetrates my soul—the wild, lost scream of a frightened man when he meets death face to face in the night and knows there is no escape! It drove the birds from the treetops and shattered the dead silence into a thousand echoes, playful ghosts calling to each other back and forth across the water! So fearful was the sound it stopped us in our tracks. When we started to run again two more men were with us. One of them I knew. It was James Gordon, the United States Marshal. Like half-mad creatures we beat the bushes. In a frenzy we tore at the palmettos along the edge of the lake. Somehow I got separated from the rest. I had been running like one pursued by a fiend. I knew that I was not in my right senses. I had crashed into trees and fallen countless times. I was torn, bruised and bleeding. One leg of my breeches hung in shreds. It was vitally necessary that I take myself in hand. Around me I could see a dozen bobbing lights—hunting—hunting!
I was close to the water’s edge on the west fork of the lake. I quietly gathered a few small sticks together and lit a blaze. I sat down by it and carefully cut off the trailing ends of my breeches at the top of my boot. Then I picked up one of the blazing twigs, and went down to the water to bath my face. The thick grass just off shore was bending under the breeze. Lapping gently on the white sand bottom were tiny waves. I held the blazing twig down close to them. They were red—blood red!
He was lying not six feet away from me, along the bank. The back of his head was in the water. The blood was streaming from the ugly wound in his throat, and dyeing Lake Louisa crimson. I have said that I could pass him on the street and in ten minutes forget that I had seen him. It will take as many years to forget the way he looked that night. The clever hands of Timothy Reig, that strange misfit in society, had engraved their last plate. He lived until the next night—just long enough to clear up a few of the things we did not know.
Marvin and Pete came at my call. We moved him up on the bank. I did all I could to stop the loss of blood. “Did you see who did it?” the Sheriff asked me.
“I know who did it. It was Bartlett. He escaped—”
“Harry Bartlett hell!” Pete said savagely. “There is no Harry Bartlett. He’s an Operator of the Secret Service.
We put him in jail at his request so that Tim would think it was safe to come and get the plates. We didn’t know where they were hidden— What’s that?”
Out in the lake we heard a splash. We rushed to the water’s edge together. Pete’s torch shone out over the surface. Like a picture on a screen we could see a man bending to the oars in a canvas boat. He was rowing easily. The light craft was flying along.
“Stop!” Pete shouted. “Stop, and come in. You haven’t a chance. The lake is surrounded!”
The rower let his oars trail. For a moment I thought he was going to obey. I saw a spurt of fire, and Pete dropped his torchlight and clapped a hand to his shoulder.
“He got me, Doc. You and Marvin get down. Don’t stand with your back to that fire. He’ll plug you.”
“Who is it? Have you any idea, Pete?” We dropped to the ground.
“God knows! It’s some murderous sidekick of Reig’s. Knifed Tim because he was afraid he would talk— Listen!”
Two staccato explosions came from the lake. Then we recognized the steady purr of an outboard motor. The boat was heading for the Cow Pasture.
“Come on,” Pete said gamely. “Let’s cross over to the other fork of the lake. If he tries to land at the old dock, Ed will get him. He’s stationed over there.”
We made our way as quickly as possible overland, helping the wounded officer the best we could. When we reached the dock by the Simmons house, the boat was already off shore. It was heading for the landing on the other side. When it was still a hundred yards from the opposite bank, a pair of automobile lights were turned on on the shore.
From where we stood the speeding boat, and its lone occupant, were thrown into sharp relief. We saw a tall figure run down to the end of the dock across the lake, and fall prone. The motor boat veered off. From the dock a rifle spoke—once only. The boat began to run around in a circle.
“There’s a rowboat tied to the dock here,” the Sheriff said softly. “Let’s go out. The man in the boat is dead.”
By dint of much maneuvering we managed to make fast to the circling craft. We towed it back to shore. It was the boat Marvin and I had left in the bushes the night before. In it were Marvin’s bag of tools and the body of the Chief Deputy Sheriff of Manasaw County.
From across the lake sounded, loud and clear, the mournful cry of the hoot owl. The car, with its blinding lights, turned around and drove away.
“Cass Rhodes,” Marvin said. “I told him last night to keep an eye on Ed.”
29
We heard Tim Reig’s story the next morning. It was given us piecemeal. There were long pauses while he fought
to conserve his failing strength. He lay in one of two small, spotlessly clean rooms, in the house of an elderly retired trained nurse. A place which we glorified with the name of a hospital.
He refused to tell us many of the details—how, and why, he actually started counterfeiting were among them. I think he had some relative dependent on his earnings, someone whose name he wished to protect at the last. There was a vain pride about his skill as an engraver. It may have led him into his contest of wits with the government.
Shortly after he came to Orange Crest, he had found the old cistern, while hunting. He had assembled his press in it a piece at a time, and started experimenting on bills. It was Ed Brown who had caused him to put the first bad money into circulation.
The Chief Deputy had seen him leave the cistern late one night. That was five years before. Reig had been under his domination ever since. Ed Brown was ruthless, and grasping. By threats of exposure he drove the weaker man to perfecting a ten dollar bill which he felt could be passed without detection. The Deputy scorned Tim’s warnings that they were bound to get into trouble. He was a man with a fixed obsession—to get enough money to keep him in luxury for the rest of his life.
Through an accomplice in Miami—Tim did not even know his name—Ed started a campaign of beating the race tracks and gambling houses. He mailed the counterfeits from other towns in Manasaw County—never from Orange Crest. But, playing safe, he always used the name of Tim Reig in dealing with his confederates.
There was not much more that we did not know. Tim grew suspicious of Harry Bartlett a few weeks after the Government operator had obtained the position with Forman Spence. Lewis’s offer of a better position in Tampa was a deliberate part of the plan arranged by the Secret Service. If Bartlett had failed to obtain the job, other operators would have been sent, until Spence put one on.
Blood on Lake Louisa Page 18
