by Max Brand
Yours truly,
W. R. ROCK.
He read it out to the signature, slowly, dwelling a little on every offensive phrase, and as he finished her first remark was: “You poor simpleton, couldn’t you remember the gist of that without bringing it home? Burn it in the fireplace this minute! That’s a bomb that would blow you to pieces if the newspaper got hold of it! The News-Democrat would love to have that! Can’t you see a photographic reprint on the first page?”
“How long would I last with you,” he asked curiously, “if things went bust?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m in here working with a wise man, not with a sap. Burn-that letter, will you?”
“It has to go in the safe,” said her husband.
“Suppose that the safe is cracked?”
“What yegg would waste his time on a safe like that?” he asked her. “I’m not rich. There’s not a hundred dollars in cash in it, and as for my papers, who am I? No, I need this letter to refer to. It may be that they’ll try to double cross me. Here’s their definite promise of a ten thousand bonus.”
“Would they pay any attention to it?”
“There are certain quarters—not newspapers!— where I could show this and do them a lot of harm if they were to try to hold out on me. They’d know that. One reason Rock made this so strong and open was to scare me into burning it. But I’m made of tougher stuff than that.”
She hesitated, glancing at a corner. Then she snapped her fingers.
“I think you’re right!” said she. “You have a head, Clyde darling, and I can see it, once in a while. Better go down and put it away now!”
Here the front door bell rang, and they looked at each other with big, frightened eyes; then Orrin himself went to answer the call.
He let in the yellow eyes and the smoked skin of Jose Vedres, who stood before him, sourly smiling, a letter in his hand. Orrin, without a word, tore it open and read.
“Wait here!” he said to the messenger, and hurried back into the dining room.
He flung the letter down on the table, before his wife, merely muttering:
“Read this, Sylvia!”
Sylvia read, and then, refolding it without a word, she puckered her smooth brow.
“It’s like something in a play,” she said at last. “I ought to say: ‘Has it come to this, Clyde Orrin?’ ”
“It’s come to this,” said he.
“You look pretty sick,” said she. “But what could this man-eater get by clawing you?”
“What did he get by clawing poor Jerry Wendell?”
“True,” she answered. “You’d better call in the police.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For the safe! It has your soul locked up in it. And after all, it’s a pretty good idea to keep a soul inside of a steel skin.”
“You’re not worried, Sylvia?” he asked her grimly.
“Darling,” said she, “my heart’s in my throat!”
But he knew, as he listened and watched her, that already the woman was preparing herself to see the ruin of her husband.
Chapter Fifteen
One of the strings which lay in the hand of Clyde Orrin connected with the detective branch of the police department and it was for that reason that Detective Hugh McDonald was installed in the little basement room which contained the Orrins’ safe. It was a small, bare room, without an electric light, and even after a chair had been installed, and a lamp furnished, the place was not much more inviting. However, Mr. McDonald had sat through longer nights in worse places.
He first looked to the small window and assured himself that the bars which defended it were solidly sunk in the concrete of the sill and window jambs. He shook them with all his might, and still they held. Then he drew down the whitened glass pane, which shut out all sight of the interior to one passing outside. Next, he regarded the door, locked it, shoved home the bolt, and told himself that no agency other than spiritual could effect an entrance to this chamber. After that, he opened his magazine and resumed the narrative which had been interrupted by this call to duty.
To make surety a little more sure, he laid his Colt across his lap; it was a special guaranty against sleepiness, because it would be dangerous to allow that gun to fall to the floor.
Dimly, overhead, he heard the last sound of people going to bed, the creak of a stairs being climbed, and the screech of a chair pushed back from a table. Then silence gathered the house softly in its arms.
It was two o’clock when there came the tap on his window. He looked at his watch, made sure of the hour, and then approached the window carefully, standing to one side, where the lamp could not throw his shadow upon the whitened glass. He was in no humor to throw away chances, for he had not forgotten the strained face of Clyde Orrin when the latter told him that in spite of one or twenty detectives, that room would be entered and the safe opened, if so be that the feared criminal decided to do this thing. Hugh McDonald had smiled a little at this fear; he was used to the tremors of the man of the street.
Now he said: “Who’s there?”
“Jack Campbell,” said a voice, dim beyond the window. “Open up and let’s have a chin, will you? I’m froze out here and wanta thaw out my tongue!”
Mr. McDonald, hesitating, remembered the strength of the bars beyond the window, and his doubts departed.
But first he returned to the lamp and turned down its flame until there was only the faintest glow through the room. After that, he raised the window and peered cautiously out into the darkness. At once a face was pressed close to the bars, a face that wore bristling moustaches which quivered and stood on end as the fellow grinned.
“Who are you?” asked McDonald.
“I’m Campbell. I heard there was another Campbell down here on the job.”
“I ain’t a Campbell,” said the McDonald with reasoned bitterness, “and what’s more, I wouldn’t be one. I ain’t a Campbell and there ain’t a drop of blood in me that ever seen Argyleshire, or ever wants to see it. I ain’t a Campbell, and I never had a Campbell friend, and what’s more, I don’t never expect to have one. If that ain’t enough for you, I’ll try to find another way of sayin’ it!”
“Campbell or McDonald,” said the stranger at the bars, “there’s only one country between us.”
“You don’t talk like it,” said McDonald.
“Don’t I? What chance of I gotto talk Scotch when I never was there, but a Scotchman’s a Scotchman from London to Yuma, and don’t you mistake.”
“You talk like a man with a bit of reason in him,” admitted the McDonald. “But what are you doin’ out there?”
“I’m the outside gent of this job,” said the other.
“I didn’t know there was goin’ to be an outside man,” said McDonald.
“There wasn’t,” replied the Campbell, “but along comes Orrin back to the office and makes another howl, and gets me put on the job to be outside watchdog! What’s in there, anyways?”
“Nothin’ to eat,” said McDonald.
“And me with my stomach cleavin’ to my backbone.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“Up from Phoenix.”
“I never seen you before.”
“Because you never been in Phoenix.”
“Have they put you on regular?”
“They’ve put me on for a try, but if they don’t give me no better chance than this, what good will a try do me, I ask you?”
“Search me,” said McDonald. “What can you do?”
“Ride a hoss and daub a rope.”
“Humph!” said the McDonald. “Well, I wish you luck. I’m gunna go back to my chair. You can set on the outside of the window sill, if that’s a comfort for you!”
“Thanks,” said the other. “But put these moustaches straight, will you?”
“What?”
“Look at ’em,” said the other. “I dunno whether they’re tryin’ to make a fool out of me, or not, but they stuck thes
e on me like a detective in a dime novel. Look at the twist in ’em, already, but I got no mirror to put ’em straight.”
“What difference does it make? It’s dark. Nobody’s worryin’ about your style of moustaches.”
“It makes me nervous. It don’t cost you nothin’ to put these right for me, and it keeps me from feelin’ like a clown. Look at the way they got me fixed. A wig, too, and the damn wig don’t match the moustaches. They’re makin’ a fool out of me, McDonald.”
“Some don’t take much makin’,” said the McDonald sourly. “Wait a minute, and I’ll give those whiskers a yank for you.”
He stepped close to the bars as he said this, and when he was near, the hand and arm of the other shot through a gap. In the extended fingers of the Campbell appeared a small rubber-housed bag of shot which flicked across the side of the McDonald’s head.
The detective fell in a noiseless heap to the floor!
After this the “outside” man fell to work with a short jimmy which easily ripped the bars from their sockets. He was presently able to pull the whole framework back, and, entering the room through the window, he closed it carefully behind him.
Next, he secured the fallen gun of the man of the law, “fanned” him dexterously but failed to find anything more of interest on his person, and then gave his attention to the safe.
He turned up the flame in the throat of the lamp’s chimney, so that he would have ample light, and then fell to work with wonderful rapidity running a mold of yellow laundry soap around the crack of the safe door.
Then, into an aperture at the top of the mold, he let in a trickle of pale, viscous fluid from a small bottle which he carried.
He was engaged in this occupation when the form on the floor stirred and groaned faintly. The other calmly went to him, selected a spot at the base of the skull, and struck with the bag of shot again. The McDonald slumped into a deeper sleep.
A moment later the fuse was connected, lighted, and the intruder stepped back into a corner of the little room and lay down on his face. The next instant the explosion took place, not a loud roar or a great report, but a thick, half stifled sigh that shook the house to its foundations.
The lamp had been put out by the robber before; now he lighted it again and by that flame he viewed the contents inside the open door of steel. In the very first drawer he found what apparently contented him—a letter which began:
“Dear Orrin,
I’ve just read a copy of your last speech—the one of the seventh——”
He glanced swiftly through its contents and placed the envelope in his pocket. Then he canted his head to listen to the rumble of footfalls coming down the stairs.
He was in no hurry. He even delayed to lean over the unconscious detective and slip a hand under the coat and over the heart of the McDonald. The reassuring though faint pulsation made him nod with satisfaction, and, raising the window, he was gone in a moment more into the outer night.
Still he was not ended for that evening, but hurried to the street, across it to a narrow alley, and down this to a hitching rack where a tall bay mare was tethered. He mounted, and cantered her out of the little suburb village into the adjoining capital city, itself hardly more than a village, conscious of its three paved streets and its gleaming street lamps!
He gained the center of the town, where he tethered the mare again in an alley and shortly afterward was climbing the dingy stairs that led to the rooms of the News-Democrat.
The reporters were gone. It was far too late for them, but the editor remained, punching wearily at his typewriter while he held the press for a late item. He was an old man. He had sunk to a country level from a city reputation. His head was gray, his eyes were bleared with the constant perusal of wet print, the glamour and the joy of the press almost had departed from his tired soul, but still a ghost of his old self looked through his glasses at Destry as that robber stood smiling before him, rubbing the crooked moustaches with sensitive finger tips.
“What’re you made up to be?” asked the editor, grinning.
“I’m made up to be scandal,” said Destry. “You take a look at this and tell me what you think?”
The editor glanced at the first few lines, half rose from his chair, and then settled back to finish. At the conclusion, he glanced fixedly at Destry for a few seconds, then ran to a tall filing cabinet from which he produced a handful of specimens of handwriting. With a selection from among these, he compared the signature at the bottom of the page.
After that, he allowed everything except the letter to fall fluttering and skidding through the air to the ink-painted floor while he rushed to a telephone.
Destry started for the door, and heard the editor screaming wildly:
“Stop the press! Stop the press!”
Then, as Destry was about to disappear, the editor’s voice shouted after him: “I want your story! Where’d you pick this up?”
“Out of his safe,” said Destry.
“Hey? Wait a minute! You mean that you robbed his safe?”
“Out of a feelin’ for the public good,” said Destry. “So long. Make it big!”
“Make it big! It makes itself! It’s the whole front page! It’s the T. & O. going up in smoke——”
But Destry waited to hear no more. He hurried down the stairs to the street, only pausing at the first dimly lit landing to take from his pocket a card containing a list of twelve names. Three of these already had been canceled. He now drew a line through the fourth.
Chapter Sixteen
The slope was long, dusty, and hot, and Destry jogged up it on foot, with Fiddle following close at his heels, stepping lightly with the burden of his weight removed from the saddle. When they came to the crest, the man paused to roll a cigarette and look over the prospect before him and behind. In front was a steep declivity which ran down to the cream and brown froth of a river in spate, the water so high that it bubbled against the narrow little wooden bridge that spanned the flood. Then, turning, Destry scanned the broader valley behind him.
He could see the cattle here and there, single or in groups, like dim smears of pastel; but only one thing moved to the eye of the fugitive, and that was a puff of dust which advanced gradually across the center of the hollow. He knew that there were six riders under that veil, and the thought of them made him look carefully at his mare.
She had done well, she had done very well indeed to hold off the challenge of relayed pursuers but she showed the effects of the labor, for her eye was not as bright as usual, and though it was as brave as ever, it was the luster that Destry wanted to see back in it. She had grown somewhat gaunt, also, and the ribs showed like faint streaks of shadow under the gloss of her flanks.
She needed rest. She could not endure the continued strain of the race which already had lasted for thirty-six hours since first the handful of riders had spotted him on his way back from the capital and had launched their early sprint to overtake him.
Since her legs were not long and strong enough to distance all pursuit, Destry calmly sat down on a stump and considered the problem gravely, unhurriedly. There was only one salvation, and that was in his own mind.
He could, for instance, nest himself somewhere among the rocks and open fire pointblank on them, when they came struggling up the slope within the range of his rifle, but he knew that he who kills is bound to be killed. Moreover, even if he dropped two or three of them, enough would remain to keep him there under observation; and more men, more horses, were sure to come up from the rear. Aware of this, Destry lighted a second smoke, and with the first whiff of it, he saw the thing that he should do.
He went down the slope at the calmest of walks, therefore, and crossed the little bridge with the mare at his heels. The water had now risen until some of the spray dashed continually upon it and got the surface of the floor boards slippery with wet, yet Fiddle went over with a dainty step and stood at last on the farther side with her fine head raised and turned back toward the ridge of l
and they had just crossed, as though she knew that danger was coming up behind them.
Destry led her on up the steep way that twisted snakelike among the rocks above. When she was safely upon the shoulder of the table land that appeared here, he put her behind a nest of pines and went back to the edge of the plateau. The bridge was now a hundred feet directly beneath him, and over the ridge which he had just passed tipped the pursuit— six riders, six horses, one rushing behind the other, and their shout of triumph at the view of him went faintly roaring down the wind to Destry’s ears.
There were masses of detached boulders lying about, fallen from the upper reaches of the high ground, and one of these monsters he rolled end over end, until its three hundred pounds pitched over the verge, landed not a foot from the bridge, and burst like a shell exploding.
Another great shout went up from the pursuers, but Destry had learned how to find the range and he heaved another boulder to the brink with perfect confidence, regardless of the shots which the six were pumping at him. Bullets fired from the saddle on a galloping horse are rarely more dangerous than a flight of wild sparrows. He carefully deliberated, then heaved the stone over.
This one, falling more sheer, struck a projecting rock-face half way in its descent, and glanced outward. Almost in the center of the bridge it struck, and broke the back of that frail structure as though it were built of straw. The water completed the ruin. The bridge seemed to rise with muddy arms, and in a trice all the timbers had been wrenched from their lodgment and carried swiftly down the water.
So the link was broken between Destry and the six.
He waved his hat to their shaken fists and brandished guns, then returned to the mare and rode her at a walk through the pines, up to the crest, where he appeared again, faintly outlined against the sky, then dipped from view beyond. He was in no slightest hurry.
At the first runlet which crossed his way, he refreshed Fiddle by sluicing water over her stomach and legs, and letting her have a few mouthfuls of grass; then he loosened the cinches and went on, walking in front of her, while she followed grazing here and there, then trotting to catch up with him—sometimes galloping a quarter of a mile ahead, and there pausing to feed greedily, until he came again.
