CHAPTER XLITHE SILENT SHOT.
Barrows had talked about chance, and the way in which it might affect the most carefully laid plans. It usually does, as a matter of fact. The plan that is so carefully worked out that it depends upon the favorable combination of a great number of circumstances, is the one least likely to succeed. The best plan is the one that will not suffer if it has to be changed at the last moment; for so many things may happen to require a change that the man who makes a plan in an important matter should really expect and look for accidents. He is sure to encounter them.
On the night following the visit of Riggs to the gambling house that had ruined him, Jim Phillips, after going to bed early, had been called out again. A friend of his, in whom he had always taken a deep interest, had had an attack of typhoid fever just before the examinations began, and, after a severe illness, was beginning to recover slowly. He had found himself, this night, unable to sleep, and had asked Jim to go to see him, which Jim had done readily enough. He had stayed with his friend until one o’clock, and then, making his way home through the deserted streets of the quiet college town, quieter than ever now that most of the Yale men had gone home, had stumbled upon a surprising affair.
He was in the block above the Elm National Bank when he was attracted by the sound of the night watchman’s footsteps. He himself was wearing a dark rain coat, and his feet were clad in rubber-soled shoes, so that he was hard to see in the darkness, and almost impossible to hear, also.
He looked at the watchman, and was amazed to see him suddenly throw up his hands and fall to the ground. It looked as if the man had been shot, but there had been no report, and Jim was amazed at the whole circumstance. Without a moment of hesitation, he ran toward the fallen man, and, as he neared him, still moving silently, he almost cried out at the sight of a stealthy pair of figures that emerged from the door of the bank building and dragged the victim in with them.
The door was shut when he reached the bank. On the sidewalk where the watchman had lain was a spot of blood. Inside there was deep silence. The whole thing was mysterious and terrifying. Jim could make no sense of what he had seen. The spot of blood, still wet, showed him that he had made no mistake; that he had actually seen a man shot. Except for that, he would have been inclined to think that he had imagined the whole extraordinary affair. But that left no room for doubt.
Jim tried the door, but without success. It seemed to be locked. But behind it, he well knew, some dark thing was going on. He had seen what might prove to be murder; it was likely that robbers had done it, and that they were even now engaged in completing their task by robbing the bank. He remembered the discussion they had had on that very subject, and then the need for action struck him.
He must find a policeman and get help. But that was easier said than done. The very presence of the private watchman in that block had decreased the vigilance of the regular police. They had been inclined to leave the duty of protecting property in that neighborhood to him.
Jim raced around the block, and came, as he ran, to the rear of the bank building. He could see the entrance to the great vault, in the light that burned in the room, and a man working at its lock.
He shouted for help then, but no one seemed to hear him. And, determined to do what he could for himself, and by himself, he returned to the front of the bank building, and tried the door again. This time he found it yielded. He was inside the bank in another moment, and stumbled at once over the body of the watchman. Jim was no surgeon, but he saw at once that the man was not badly hurt. Moreover, he had been looked after. He was gagged, and his wild eyes stared up at Jim, but his wound was only in the fleshy part of the leg, and a tourniquet had been roughly applied to relieve him of his only serious danger, that of bleeding to death.
Jim slipped the gag out of his mouth; then dashed for the rear of the bank building. A shout told him that he had alarmed the robbers, but he didn’t hesitate a moment. It was a reckless, foolish thing to do, for he should have stopped to think that they would be able, in a fight, to overpower him. But Jim was thoroughly aroused, and he had no thought for his own danger.
Suddenly a man rose in his path. Jim gasped as they clinched. They struggled all over the floor of the room that led into the great vault, and, though the robber fought hard, Jim was getting the best of him. The thief was no match for the Yale athlete, and, wasting his breath as he did in vain curses, he was succumbing fast to Jim’s superior strength. But help came for him. Bascom, who had been inside, heard the struggle, and in a moment, Jim was felled by a heavy blow that descended on his head from behind. He lay unconscious on the floor while Barrows struggled to his feet.
In his hand Bascom held a bundle of yellow-backed bills. His face was livid with rage as he heard the outcry that the watchman, freed from his gag, was making in the front room. He kicked savagely at Jim’s unconscious form, lying on the floor before him.
“This game’s up,” said Barrows, as he got his breath back. “We’ll have to make a quick get-away. Slug that infernal watchman as you go by, and make him stay quiet for a while. I think he’s still roped up. No time to take him away as we planned. We’ll have to go some to get away ourselves.”
“I’ve still got this,” exclaimed Bascom, waving his bundle of bills. “Better than nothing. Gee, what tough luck! Just when everything looked so good, too.”
“No use thinking of that,” growled Barrows. “Hang on to that and come along. Listen to that watchman. If he’s loose, we’ll never get out of this. Hurry!”
They had to pass the watchman to get out of the bank. He cursed them volubly as they approached on the run, but a terrific blow from Bascom’s slingshot, the same weapon with which he had felled Jim, silenced him effectually. Suddenly Barrows turned and ran back to the room where the vault was.
“Where are you going?” cried Bascom. “Come on—are you crazy?”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” cried Barrows. “See that the coast is clear. We’re safe enough yet.”
What Barrows had to do in the vaultroom did not take him more than two minutes. When he returned, Bascom was still looking in fright up and down the street. But not a soul was in sight. The peace that reigned all over the town was complete. There was no one to interfere with them. Barrows breathed a great sigh of relief.
“We can still make some trouble,” he said. “Here—give me a hand. We’ve got to get this hulk down to the cellar. It’s summer, and they’re not using the heating plant. We may still be able to stall them a while. They won’t find him down there right away.”
Bascom grumbled, but he could see the wisdom of the idea. The longer their start, the greater their chance of escape would be. And, with the collapse of their scheme, Bascom had become completely subservient to Barrows. He was a genius in certain ways, but without Barrows to direct him, he was worthless. Even now he did not fathom the new plan that Barrows had conceived on the spur of the moment.
They threw the watchman, still unconscious, into a dark part of the cellar, and, regardless of the suffering they were imposing on him, gagged him again. Then, convinced that they had done all they could, after another careful scrutiny of the street, they emerged into the soft summer night, and made their way slowly to the station.
Down in the freight yards there was some sign of human activity—the first they had seen since they left the bank.
“I’m glad this isn’t New York,” said Barrows, with a shiver. “Up here folks go to bed early, and stay there till the alarm clock starts ringing in the morning. Good thing for us. Not even a cop in sight.”
A freight train was pulling out as they slipped, unobserved, through the tangle of box cars. There would be no passenger train for hours, as they knew, and this freight was a Heaven-sent opportunity that they were not slow to seize. They swung aboard, and soon they were traveling fast, on tracks cleared of passenger traffic, bound for New York and freedom.
Barrows and his fellow villain, dirty, unshaven, needing clean clothes and a bath, dropped off their freight train in the Harlem River yards soon after seven o’clock. The big city was astir, and going about its business. No one had a word or a serious thought for the two tramps, as they appeared to be. A railroad detective looked at them as they neared the street, but decided that they were game too small for his notice.
Barrows had a flat far downtown that served as a nest for him. Thither he took Bascom. The wireless man slept, but Barrows still had work to do—work that took him to the long-distance telephone.
“Well,” said Barrows, in the evening, when both were fresh and clean, “we’ve got something out of this. Twenty-five hundred apiece. Marsten can whistle for his share now. Let’s go look up our friend Harding.”
They reached Harding’s flashy hotel in due time, and went quietly into the barroom. Harding was there. He was telling a group of his particular friends, with great relish, of the way in which Barrows had been beaten in New London.
“He wouldn’t take my advice,” he ended, “and now he’s up in the tall timber somewhere, broke and looking for a stake. He’ll find it, too, I don’t think.”
“Hello, boys,” said Barrows, breaking in at that moment. “Have one on me. Open up as many bottles of wine as the crowd can drink, barkeep. I guess this will settle the bill.”
And, taking out a roll of bright new yellow bills, he threw down a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. Then he glanced triumphantly at Harding, who was both astonished and crestfallen.