"What was that you mentioned last week—something about the record of Kreisler's 'Drigo's Serenade' reminding you of the capture of some one?" I asked Bill Quinn one summer evening as he painfully hoisted his game leg upon the porch railing.
"Sure it does," replied Quinn. "Never fails. Put it on again so I can get the necessary atmosphere, as you writers call it, and possibly I'll spill the yarn—provided you guarantee to keep the ginger ale flowing freely. That and olive oil are about the only throat lubricants left us."
So I slipped on the record, rustled a couple of bottles from the ice box, and settled back comfortably, for when Quinn once started on one of his reminiscences of government detective work he didn't like to be interrupted.
"That's the piece, all right," Bill remarked, as the strains of the violin drifted off into the night. "Funny how a few notes of music like that could nail a criminal while at the same time it was saving the lives of nobody knows how many other people—"
Remember Paul Weimar [continued Quinn, picking up the thread of his story]. He was the most dangerous of the entire gang that helped von Bernstorff, von Papen, and the rest of that crew plot against the United States at a time when we were supposed to be entirely neutral.
An Austrian by birth, Weimar was as thoroughly a Hun at heart as anyone who ever served the Hohenzollerns and, in spite of his size, he was as slippery as they make 'em. Back in the past somewhere he had been a detective in the service of the Atlas Line, but for some years before the war was superintendent of the police attached to the Hamburg-American boats. That, of course, gave him the inside track in every bit of deviltry he wanted to be mixed up in, for he had made it his business to cultivate the acquaintance of wharf rats, dive keepers, and all the rest of the scum of the Seven Seas that haunts the docks.
Standing well over six feet, Weimar had a pair of fists that came in mighty handy in a scuffle, and a tongue that could curl itself around all the blasphemies of a dozen languages. There wasn't a water front where they didn't hate him—neither was there a water front where they didn't fear him.
Of course, when the war broke in August, 1914, the Hamburg-American line didn't have any further official use for Weimar. Their ships were tied up in neutral or home ports and Herr Paul was out of a job—for at least ten minutes. But he was entirely too valuable a man for the German organization to overlook for longer than that, and von Papen, in Washington, immediately added him to his organization—with blanket instructions to go the limit on any dirty work he cared to undertake. Later, he worked for von Bernstorff; Doctor Dumba, the Austrian ambassador; and Doctor von Nuber, the Austrian consul in New York—but von Papen had first claim upon his services and did not hesitate to press them, as proven by certain entries in the checkbook of the military attaché during the spring and summer of 1915.
Of course, it didn't take the Secret Service and the menfrom the Department of Justice very long to get on to the fact that Weimar was altogether too close to the German embassy for the safety and comfort of the United States government. But what were they to do about it? We weren't at war then and you couldn't arrest a man merely because he happened to know von Papen and the rest of his precious companions. You had to have something on him—something that would stand up in court—and Paul Weimar was too almighty clever to let that happen.
When you remember that it took precisely one year to land this Austrian—one year of constant watching and unceasing espionage—you will see how well he conducted himself.
And the government's sleuths weren't the only ones who were after him, either.
Captain Kenney, of the New York Police Force, lent mighty efficient aid and actually invented a new system of trailing in order to find out just what he was up to.
In the old days, you told a man to go out and follow a suspect and that was all there was to it. The "shadow" would trail along half a block or so in the rear, keeping his man always in view, and bring home a full account of what he had done all day. But you couldn't do that with Weimar—he was too foxy. From what some of the boys have told me, I think he took a positive delight in throwing them off the scent, whether he had anything up his sleeve or not.
One day, for example, you could have seen his big bulk swinging nonchalantly up Broadway, as if he didn't have a care in the world. A hundred feet or more behind him was Bob Dugan, one of Kenney's men. When Weimar disappeared into the Subway station at Times Square, Dugan was right behind him, and when the Austrian boarded the local for Grand Central Station, Dugan wason the same train—on the same car, in fact. But when they reached the station, things began to happen. Weimar left the local and commenced to stroll up and down the platform, waiting until a local train and an express arrived at the same time. That was his opportunity. He made a step or two forward, as if to board the express, and Dugan—not wishing to make himself too conspicuous—slipped on board just as the doors were closing, only to see Weimar push back and jam his way on the local!
Variations of that stunt occurred time after time. Even the detailing of two men to follow him failed in its purpose, for the Austrian would enter a big office building, leap into an express elevator just as it was about to ascend, slip the operator a dollar to stop at one of the lower floors, and be lost for the day or until some one picked him up by accident.
So Cap Kenney called in four of his best men and told them that it was essential that Weimar be watched.
"Two of you," he directed, "stick with him all the time. Suppose you locate him the first thing in the morning at his house on Twenty-fourth Street, for example. You, Cottrell, station yourself two blocks up the street. Gary, you go the same distance down. Then, no matter which way he starts he'll have one of you in front of him and one behind. The man in front will have to use his wits to guess which way he intends to go and to beat him to it. If he boards a car, the man in front can pick him up with the certainty that the other will cover the trail in the rear. In that way you ought to be able to find out where he is going and, possibly, what he is doing there."
The scheme, thanks to the quick thinking of the men assigned to the job, worked splendidly for months—at least it worked in so far as keeping a watch on Weimar wasconcerned. But that was all. In the summer of 1915 the government knew precisely where Weimar had been for the past six months, with whom he had talked, and so on—but the kernel of the nut was missing. There wasn't the least clue to what he had talked about and what deviltry he had planned!
Without that information, all the dope the government had was about as useful as a movie to a blind man.
Washington was so certain that Weimar had the key to a number of very important developments—among them the first attempt to blow up the Welland Canal—that the chief of the Secret Service made a special trip to New York to talk to Kenney.
"Isn't it possible," he suggested, "to plant your men close enough to Weimar to find out, for example, what he talks about over the phone?"
Kenney smiled, grimly.
"Chief," he said, "that's been done. We've tapped every phone that Weimar's likely to use in the neighborhood of his house and every time he talks from a public station one of our men cuts in from near-by—by an arrangement with Central—and gets every word. But that bird is too wary to be caught with chaff of that kind. He's evidently worked out a verbal code of some kind that changes every day. He tells the man at the other end, for example, to be at the drug store on the corner of Seventy-third and Broadway at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon and wait for a phone call in the name of Williams. Our man is always at the place at the appointed hour, but no call ever arrives. 'Seventy-third and Broadway' very evidently means some other address, but it's useless to try and guess which one. You'd have to have a man at every pay station in town to follow that lead."
"How about overhearing his directions to the men he meets in the open?"
"Not a chance in the world. His rendezvous are always public places—the Pennsylvania or Grand Central Station, a movie theater, a hotel lobby, or the like. There he can put his back against the wall and make sure that no one is listening in. He's on to all the tricks of the trade and it will take a mighty clever man—or a bunch of them—to nail him."
"H-m-m!" mused the chief. "Well, at that, I believe I've got the man."
"Anyone I know?"
"Yes, I think you do—Morton Maxwell. Remember him? Worked on the Castleman diamond case here a couple of years ago for the customs people and was also responsible for uncovering the men behind the sugar-tax fraud. He isn't in the Service, but he's working for the Department of Justice, and I'm certain they'll turn him loose on this if I ask them to. Maxwell can get to the bottom of Weimar's business, if anyone can. Let me talk to Washington—"
And within an hour after the chief had hung up the receiver Morton Maxwell, better known as "Mort," was headed toward New York with instructions to report at Secret Service headquarters in that city.
Once there, the chief and Kenney went over the whole affair with him. Cottrell and Gary and the other men who had been engaged in shadowing the elusive Weimar were called in to tell their part of the story, and every card was laid upon the table.
When the conference concluded, sometime after midnight, the chief turned to Maxwell and inquired:
"Well, what's your idea about it?"
For a full minute Mort smoked on in silence and gazedoff into space. Men who had just met him were apt to think this a pose, a play to the grand stand—but those who knew him best realized that Maxwell's alert mind was working fastest in such moments and that he much preferred not to make any decision until he had turned things over in his head.
"There's just one point which doesn't appear to have been covered," he replied. Then, as Kenney started to cut in, "No, Chief, I saidappearednot to have been covered. Very possibly you have all the information on it and forgot to hand it out. Who does this Weimar live with?"
"He lives by himself in a house on Twenty-fourth Street, near Seventh Avenue—boards there, but has the entire second floor. So far as we've been able to find out he has never been married. No trace of any wife on this side, anyhow. Never travels with women—probably afraid they'd talk too much."
"Has he any relatives?"
"None that I know of—"
"Wait a minute," Cottrell interrupted. "I dug back into Weimar's record before the war ended his official connection with the steamship company, and one of the points I picked up was that he had a cousin—a man named George Buch—formerly employed on one of the boats.
"Where is Buch now?" asked Maxwell.
"We haven't been able to locate him," admitted the police detective. "Not that we've tried very hard, because the trail didn't lead in his direction. I don't even know that he is in this country, but it's likely that he is because he was on one of the boats that was interned here when the war broke."
Again it was a full minute before Maxwell spoke.
"Buch," he said, finally, "appears to be the only link between Weimar and the outer world. It's barely possible that he knows something, and, as we can't afford to overlook any clue, suppose we start work along that line. I'll dig into it myself the first thing in the morning, and I certainly would appreciate any assistance that your men could give me, Chief. Tell them to make discreet inquiries about Buch, his appearance, habits, etc., and to try and find out whether he is on this side. Now I'm going to turn in, for something seems to tell me that the busy season has arrived."
At that Maxwell wasn't far wrong. The weeks that followed were well filled with work, but it was entirely unproductive of results. Weimar was shadowed day and night, his telephones tapped and his mail examined. But, save for the fact that his connection with the German embassy became increasingly apparent, no further evidence was forthcoming.
The search for Buch was evidently futile, for that personage appeared to have disappeared from the face of the earth. All that Maxwell and the other men who worked on the matter could discover was that Buch—a young Austrian whose description they secured—had formerly been an intimate of Weimar. The latter had obtained his appointment to a minor office in the Hamburg-American line and Buch was commonly supposed to be a stool pigeon for the master plotter.
But right there the trail stopped.
No one appeared to know whether the Austrian was in New York, or the United States, for that matter, though one informant did admit that it was quite probable.
"Buch and the big fellow had a row the last time over," was the information Maxwell secured at the cost of a few drinks. "Something about some money that Weimaris supposed to have owed him—fifteen dollars or some such amount. I didn't hear about it until afterward, but it appears to have been a pretty lively scrap while it lasted. Of course, Buch didn't have a chance against the big fellow—he could handle a bull. But the young Austrian threatened to tip his hand—said he knew a lot of stuff that would be worth a good deal more money than was coming to him, and all that sort of thing. But the ship docked the next day and I haven't seen or heard of him since."
The idea of foul play at once leaped into Maxwell's mind, but investigation of police records failed to disclose the discovery of anybody answering to the description of George Buch and, as Captain Kenney pointed out, it is a decidedly difficult matter to dispose of a corpse in such a way as not to arouse at least the suspicions of the police.
As a last resort, about the middle of September, Maxwell had a reward posted on the bulletin board of every police station in New York and the surrounding country for the "apprehension of George Buch, Austrian, age about twenty-four. Height, five feet eight inches. Hair, blond. Complexion, fair. Eyes, blue. Sandy mustache."
As Captain Kenney pointed out, though, the description would apply to several thousand men of German parentage in the city, and to a good many more who didn't have a drop of Teutonic blood in their veins.
"True enough," Maxwell was forced to admit, "but we can't afford to overlook a bet—even if it is a thousand-to-one shot."
As luck would have it, the thousand-to-one shot won!
On September 25, 1917, Detective Gary returned to headquarters, distinctly crestfallen. Weimar had given him the slip.
In company with another man, whom the detective didnot know, the Austrian had been walking up Sixth Avenue that afternoon when a machine swung in from Thirty-sixth Street and the Austrian had leaped aboard without waiting for it to come to a full stop.
"Of course, there wasn't a taxi in sight," said Gary, ruefully, "and before I could convince the nearest chauffeur that my badge wasn't phony they'd gone!"
"That's the first time in months," Gary replied. "He knows that he's followed, all right, and he's cagy enough to keep in the open and pretend to be aboveboard."
"Right," commented the Department of Justice operative, "and this move would appear to indicate that something was doing. Better phone all your stations to watch out for him, Cap."
But nothing more was seen or heard of Herr Weimar for five days.
Meanwhile events moved rapidly for Maxwell.
On September 26th, the day after the Austrian disappeared, one of the policemen whose beat lay along Fourteenth Street, near Third Avenue, asked to see the government detective.
"My name's Riley," announced the copper, with a brogue as broad as the toes of his shoes. "Does this Austrian, this here Buch feller ye're lookin' for, like music? Is he nuts about it?"
"Music?" echoed Maxwell. "I'm sure I don't know.... But wait a minute! Yes, that's what that chap who used to know him on the boat told me. Saying he was forever playing a fiddle when he was off duty and that Weimar threw it overboard one day in a fit of rage. Why? What's the connection?"
"Nothin' in particular, save that a little girl I'm rather sweet on wurruks in a music store on Fourteenth Street an' she an' I was talkin' things over last night an' I happenedto mintion th' reward offered for this Buch feller. 'Why!' says she, 'that sounds just like the Dutchy that used to come into th' shop a whole lot a year or so ago. He was crazy about music an' kep' himself pretty nigh broke a-buyin' those expensive new records. Got me to save him every violin one that came out.'"
"Um, yes," muttered Maxwell, "but has the young lady seen anything of this chap lately?"
"That she has not," Riley replied, "an' right there's th' big idear. Once a week, regular, another Dutchman comes in an' buys a record, an' he told Katy—that's me gurrul's name—last winter that th' selections were for a man that used to be a stiddy customer of hers but who was now laid up in bed."
"In bed for over a year!" exclaimed Maxwell, his face lighting up. "Held prisoner somewhere in the neighborhood of that shop on Fourteenth Street, because the big Austrian hasn't the nerve to make away with him and yet fears that he knows too much! Look here, Riley—suppose you and Miss Katy take a few nights off—I'll substitute for her and make it all right with the man who owns the store. Then I can get a line on this buyer of records for sick men."
"Wouldn't it be better, sir, if we hung around outside th' store an' let Katy give us the high sign when he come in? Then we could both trail him back to where he lives."
"You're right, Riley, it would! Where'll I meet you to-night?"
"At the corner of Fourteenth Street and Thoid Av'nue, at eight o'clock. Katy says th' man never gets there before nine."
"I'll be there," said Maxwell—and he was.
But nothing out of the ordinary rewarded their vigil thefirst night, nor the second. On the third night, however, just after the clock in the Metropolitan Tower had boomed nine times, a rather nondescript individual sauntered into the music store, and Riley's quick eyes saw the girl behind the counter put her left hand to her chest. Then she coughed.
"That's th' signal, sir," warned the policeman in a whisper. "An' that's the guy we're after."
Had the man turned around as he made his way toward a dark and forbidding house on Thirteenth Street, not far from Fourth Avenue, he might have caught sight of two shadows skulking along not fifty feet behind him. But, at that, he would have to have been pretty quick—for Maxwell was taking no chances on losing his prey and he had cautioned the policeman not to make a sound.
When their quarry ascended the steps of No. 247 Riley started to move after him, but the Department of Justice operative halted him.
"There's no hurry," stated Maxwell. "He doesn't suspect we're here, and, besides, it doesn't make any difference if he does lock the door—I've got a skeleton key handy that's guaranteed to open anything."
Riley grunted, but stayed where he was until Maxwell gave the signal to advance.
Once inside the door, which responded to a single turn to the key, the policeman and the government agent halted in the pitch-black darkness and listened. Then from an upper floor came the sound for which Maxwell had been waiting—the first golden notes of a violin played by a master hand. The distance and the closed doorway which intervened killed all the harsh mechanical tone of the phonograph and only the wonderful melody of "Drigo's Serenade" came down to them.
On tiptoe, though they knew their movements wouldbe masked by the sounds of the music, Riley and Maxwell crept up to the third floor and halted outside the door from which the sounds came.
"Wait until the record is over," directed Maxwell, "and then break down that door. Have your gun handy and don't hesitate to shoot anyone who tries to injure Buch. I'm certain he's held prisoner here and it may be that the men who are guarding him have instructions not to let him escape at any cost. Ready? Let's go!"
The final note of the Kreisler record had not died away before Riley's shoulder hit the flimsy door and the two detectives were in the room.
Maxwell barely had time to catch a glimpse of a pale, wan figure on the bed and to sense the fact that there were two other men in the room, when there was a shout from Riley and a spurt of flame from his revolver. With a cry, the man nearest the bed dropped his arm and a pistol clattered to the floor—the barrel still singing from the impact of the policeman's bullet. The second man, realizing that time was precious, leaped straight toward Maxwell, his fingers reaching for the agent's throat. With a half laugh Mort clubbed his automatic and brought the butt down with sickening force on his assailant's head. Then he swung around and covered the man whom Riley had disarmed.
"Don't worry about him, sir," said the policeman. "His arm'll be numb half an hour from now. What do you want to do with th' lad in th' bed?"
"Get him out of here as quickly as we can. We won't bother with these swine. They have the law on their side, anyway, because we broke in here without a warrant. I only want Buch."
When he had propped the young Austrian up in a comfortable chair in the Federal Building and had given hima glass of brandy to strengthen his nerves—the Lord only knows that they'll have to do in the future—Maxwell got the whole story and more than he had dared hoped for. Buch, following his quarrel with Weimar, had been held prisoner in the house on Thirteenth Street for over a year because, as Maxwell had figured, the Austrian didn't have the nerve to kill him and didn't dare let him loose. Barely enough food was allowed to keep him alive, and the only weakness that his cousin had shown was in permitting the purchase of one phonograph record a week in order to cheer him up a little.
"Naturally," said Buch, "I chose the Kreisler records, because he's an Austrian and a marvelous violinist."
"Did Weimar ever come to see you?" inquired Maxwell.
"He came in every now and then to taunt me and to say that he was going to have me thrown in the river some day soon. That didn't frighten me, but there were other things that did. He came in last week, for example, and boasted that he was going to blow up a big canal and I was afraid he might be caught or killed. That would have meant no more money for the men who were guarding me and I was too weak to walk even to the window to call for help...."
"A big canal!" Maxwell repeated. "He couldn't mean the Panama! No, that's impossible. I have it! The Welland Canal!" And in an instant he was calling the Niagara police on the long-distance phone, giving a detailed description of Weimar and his companions.
"As it turned out," concluded Quinn, reaching for his empty glass, "Weimar had already been looking over the ground. He was arrested, however, before the dynamite could be planted, and, thanks to Buch's evidence, indicted for violation of Section Thirteen of the Penal Code.
"Thus did a phonograph record and thirty pieces of silver—the thirty half-dollars that Weimar owed Buch—lead directly to the arrest of one of the most dangerous spies in the German service. Let's have Mr. Drigo's Serenade once more and pledge Mort Maxwell's health in ginger ale—unless you have a still concealed around the house. And if you have I will be in duty bound to tell Jimmy Reynolds about it—he's the lad that holds the record for persistency and cleverness in discovering moonshiners."
"July 1, 1919," said Bill Quinn, as he appropriately reached for a bottle containing a very soft drink, "by no means marked the beginning of the government's troubles in connection with the illicit manufacture of liquor.
"Of course, there's been a whole lot in the papers since the Thirst of July about people having private stills in their cellars, making drinks with a kick out of grape juice and a piece of yeast, and all that sort of thing. One concern in Pittsburgh, I understand, has also noted a tremendous and absolutely abnormal increase in the demand for its hot-water heating plants—the copper coils of which make an ideal substitute for a still—but I doubt very much if there's going to be a real movement in the direction of the private manufacture of alcoholic beverages. The Internal Revenue Department is too infernally watchful and its agents too efficient for much of that to get by.
"When you get right down to it, there's no section in the country where the art of making 'licker' flourishes to such an extent as it does in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. Moonshine there is not only a recognized article of trade, but its manufacture is looked upon as an inalienable right. It's tough sledding for any revenue officer who isn't mighty quick on the trigger, andeven then—as Jimmy Reynolds discovered a few years back—they're likely to get him unless he mixes brains with his shooting ability."
Reynolds [continued Quinn, easing his injured leg into a more comfortable position] was as valuable a man as any whose name ever appeared in the Government Blue Book. He's left the bureau now and settled down to a life of comparative ease as assistant district attorney of some middle Western city. I've forgotten which one, but there was a good reason for his not caring to remain in the East. The climate west of the Mississippi is far more healthy for Jimmy these days.
At the time of the Stiles case Jim was about twenty-nine, straight as an arrow, and with a bulldog tenacity that just wouldn't permit of his letting go of a problem until the solution was filed in the official pigeonholes which answer to the names of archives. It was this trait which led Chambers, then Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to send for him, after receipt of a message that two of his best men—Douglasand Wood, I think their names were—had been brought back to Maymead, Tennessee, with bullet holes neatly drilled through their hearts.
"Jim," said the Commissioner, "this case has gone just far enough. It's one thing for the mountaineers of Tennessee to make moonshine whisky and defy the laws of the United States. But when they deliberately murder two of my best men and pin a rudely scribbled note to 'Bewair of this country' on the front of their shirts, that's going entirely too far. I'm going to clean out that nest of illicit stills if it takes the rest of my natural life and every man in the bureau!
"More than that, I'll demand help from the War Department, if necessary! By Gad! I'll teach 'em!" andthe inkwell on the Commissioner's desk leaped into the air as Chambers's fist registered determination.
Reynolds reached for a fresh cigar from the supply that always reposed in the upper drawer of the Commissioner's desk and waited until it was well lighted before he replied.
"All well and good, Chief," he commented, "but how would the army help you any? You could turn fifty thousand men in uniform loose in those mountains, and the odds are they wouldn't locate the bunch you're after. Fire isn't the weapon to fight those mountaineers with. They're too wise. What you need is brains."
"Possibly you can supply that deficiency," retorted the Commissioner, a little nettled.
"Oh, I didn't mean that you, personally, needed the brains," laughed Reynolds. "The pronoun was used figuratively and collectively. At that, I would like to have a whirl at the case if you've nothing better for me to do—"
"There isn't anything better for anyone to do at the present time," Chambers interrupted. "That's why I sent for you. We know that whisky is being privately distilled in large quantities somewhere in the mountains not far from Maymead. Right there our information ends. Our men have tried all sorts of dodges to land the crowd behind the stills, but the only thing they've been able to learn is that a man named Stiles is one of the ruling spirits. His cabin is well up in the mountains and it was while they were prospecting round that part of the country that Douglas and Wood were shot. Now what's your idea of handling the case?"
"The first thing that I want, Chief, is to be allowed to work on this absolutely alone, and that not a soul, in bureau or out of it is to know what I'm doing."
"Easy enough to arrange that," assented the Commissioner, "but—"
"There isn't any 'but,'" Reynolds cut in. "You've tried putting a number of men to work on this and they've failed. Now try letting one handle it. For the past two years I've had a plan in the back of my head that I've been waiting the right opportunity to use. So far as I can see it's foolproof and I'm willing to take all the responsibility in connection with it."
"Care to outline it?" inquired Chambers.
"Not right at the moment," was Reynolds's reply, "because it would seem too wild and scatterbrained. I don't mind telling you, though, that for the next six weeks my address will be in care of the warden of the penitentiary of Morgantown, West Virginia, if you wish to reach me."
"Morgantown?" echoed the Commissioner. "What in Heaven's name are you going to do there?"
"Lay the stage setting for the first act," smiled Jimmy. "Likewise collect what authors refer to as local color—material that's essential to what I trust will be the happy ending of this drama—happy, at least, from the government's point of view. But, while you know that I'm at Morgantown, I don't want anyone else to know it and I'd much prefer that you didn't communicate with me there unless it's absolutely necessary."
"All right, I won't. You're handling the case from now on."
"Alone?"
"Entirely—if you wish it."
"Yes, Chief, I do wish it. I can promise you one of two things within the next three months: either you'll have all the evidence you want about the secret still and the men behind it or—well, you know where to ship my remains!"
With that and a quick handshake he was gone.
During the weeks that followed, people repeatedly asked the Commissioner:
"What's become of Jimmy Reynolds? Haven't seen him round here for a month of Sundays."
But the Commissioner would assume an air of blank ignorance, mutter something about, "He's out of town somewhere," and rapidly change the subject.
About six weeks or so later a buzzard which was flapping its lazy way across the mountains which divide Tennessee from North Carolina saw, far below, a strange sight. A man, haggard and forlorn, his face covered with a half-inch of stubble, his cheeks sunken, his clothing torn by brambles and bleached by the sun and rain until it was almost impossible to tell its original texture, stumbled along with his eyes fixed always on the crest of a hill some distance off. It was as if he were making a last desperate effort to reach his goal before the sun went down.
Had the buzzard been so minded, his keen eyes might have noted the fact that the man's clothes were marked by horizontal stripes, while his head was covered with hair the same length all over, as if he had been shaved recently and the unkempt thatch had sprouted during the last ten days.
Painfully but persistently the man in convict's clothes pressed forward. When the sun was a little more than halfway across the heavens he glimpsed a cabin tucked away on the side of a mountain spur not far away. At the sight he pressed forward with renewed vigor, but distances are deceptive in that part of the country and it was not until nearly dark that he managed to reach his destination.
In fact, the Stiles family was just sitting down to what passes for supper in that part of the world—fat baconand corn bread, mostly—when there was the sound of a man's footstep some fifty feet away.
Instantly the houn' dog rose from his accustomed place under the table and crouched, ready to repel invaders. Old Man Stiles—his wife called him Joe, but to the entire countryside he was just "Old Man Stiles"—reached for his rifle with a muttered imprecation about "Rev'nue officers who never let a body be."
But the mountaineer had hardly risen from his seat when there was a sound as of a heavy body falling against the door—and then silence.
Stiles looked inquiringly at his wife and then at Ruth, their adopted daughter. None of them spoke for an appreciable time, but the hound continued to whine and finally backed off into a corner.
"Guess I'll have to see what et is," drawled the master of the cabin, holding his rifle ready for action.
Slowly he moved toward the door and cautiously, very cautiously, he lifted the bolt that secured it. Even if it were a revenue officer, he argued to himself, his conscience was clear and his premises could stand the formality of a search because, save for a certain spot known to himself alone, there was nothing that could be considered incriminating.
As the door swung back the body of a man fell into the room—a man whose clothing was tattered and whose features were concealed under a week's growth of stubbly beard. Right into the cabin he fell, for the door had supported his body, and, once that support was removed, he lay as one dead.
In fact, it wasn't until at least five minutes had elapsed that Stiles came to the conclusion that the intruder was really alive, after all. During that time he had worked over him in the rough mountain fashion, punching andpulling and manhandling him in an effort to secure some sign of life. Finally the newcomer's eyes opened and he made an effort to sit up.
"Wait a minute, stranger," directed Stiles, motioning his wife toward a closet in the corner of the room. Mrs. Stiles—or 'Ma,' as she was known in that part of the country—understood the movement. Without a word she opened the cupboard and took down a flask filled with a clear golden-yellow liquid. Some of this she poured into a cracked cup on the table and handed it to her husband.
"Here," directed the mountaineer, "throw yo' haid back an' drink this. Et's good fur what ails yer."
The moment after he had followed instructions the stranger gulped, gurgled, and gasped as the moonshine whisky burnt its way down his throat. The man-sized drink, taken on a totally empty stomach, almost nauseated him. Then it put new life in his veins and he tried to struggle to his feet.
Ruth Stiles was beside him in an instant and, with her father's help, assisted him to a chair at the table.
"Stranger," said Stiles, stepping aside and eying the intruder critically, "I don't know who or what you are, but I do know that yo' look plumb tuckered out. Nobody's goin' hungry in my house, so fall to an' we'll discuss other matters later."
Whereupon he laid his rifle in its accustomed place, motioned to his wife and daughter to resume their places at the table, and dragged up another chair for himself.
Beyond a word or two of encouragement to eat all he wanted of the very plain fare, none of the trio addressed the newcomer during the remainder of the meal. All three of them had noted the almost-obliterated stripes that encircled his clothing and their significance wasunmistakable. But Stiles himself was far from being convinced. He had heard too much of the tricks of government agents to be misled by what might prove, after all, only a clever disguise.
Therefore, when the womenfolk had cleared away the supper things and the two men had the room to themselves, the mountaineer offered his guest a pipeful of tobacco and saw to it that he took a seat before the fire where the light would play directly upon his features. Then he opened fire.
"Stranger," he inquired, "what might yo' name be?"
"Patterson," said the other. "Jim Patterson."
"Whar you come from?"
"Charlestown first an' Morgantown second. Up for twelve years for manslaughter—railroaded at that," was Patterson's laconic reply.
"How'd you get away?"
At that the convict laughed, but there was more of a snarl than humor in his tone as he answered: "Climbed th' wall when th' guards weren't lookin'. They took a coupla pot shots at me, but none of them came within a mile. Then I beat it south, travelin' by night an' hidin' by day. Stole what I could to eat, but this country ain't overly well filled with farms. Hadn't had a bite for two days, 'cept some berries, when I saw your cabin an' came up here."
Stiles puffed away in silence for a moment. Then he rose, as if to fetch something from the other side of the room. Once behind Patterson, however, he reached forward and, seizing the stubble that covered his face, yanked it as hard as he could.
"What th'——?" yelled the convict, springing to his feet and involuntarily raising his clenched hand.
"Ca'm yo'self, stranger, ca'm yo'self," directed themountaineer, with a half smile. "Jes' wanted to see for myself ef that beard was real, that's all. Thought you might be a rev'nue agent in disguise."
"A rev'nue agent?" queried Patterson, and then as if the thought had just struck him that he was in the heart of the moonshining district, he added: "That's rich! Me, just out of th' pen an' you think I'm a bull. That's great. Here"—reaching into the recesses of his frayed shirt—"here's something that may convince you."
And he handed over a tattered newspaper, more than a week old, and pointed to an article on the first page.
"There, read that!"
"Ruth does all th' reading for this fam'ly," was Stiles's muttered rejoinder. "Ruth! Oh, Ruth! Come here a minute an' read somethin' to yo' pappy!"
Patterson had not failed to note, during supper, that Ruth Stiles came close to being a perfect specimen of a mountain flower, rough and undeveloped, but with more than a trace of real beauty, both in her face and figure. Standing in front of the fire, with its flickering light casting a sort of halo around her, she was almost beautiful—despite her homespun dress and shapeless shoes.
Without a word the convict handed her the paper and indicated the article he had pointed out a moment before.
"Reward offered for convict's arrest," she read. "James Patterson, doing time for murder, breaks out of Morgantown. Five hundred dollars for capture. Prisoner scaled wall and escaped in face of guards' fire." Then followed an account of the escape, the first of its kind in several years.
"Even if you can't read," said Patterson, "there's my picture under the headline—the picture they took for the rogues' gallery," and he pointed to a fairly distinct photograph which adorned the page.
Stiles took the paper closer to the fire to secure a better look, glanced keenly at the convict, and extended his hand.
"Guess that's right, stranger," he admitted. "You're no rev'nue agent."
Later in the evening, as she lay awake, thinking about the man who had shattered the monotony of their mountain life, Ruth Stiles wondered if Patterson had not given vent to what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief at that moment. But she was too sleepy to give much thought to it, and, besides, what if he had?...
In the other half of the cabin, divided from the women's room only by a curtain of discolored calico, slept Patterson and Stiles—the former utterly exhausted by his travels, the latter resting with keen hair trigger consciousness of danger always only a short distance away. Nothing happened, however, to disturb the peace of the Stiles domicile. Even the hound slept quietly until the rosy tint of the eastern sky announced another day.
After breakfast, at which the fat-back and corn bread were augmented by a brownish liquid which passed for coffee, Stiles informed his guest that he "reckoned he'd better stick close to th' house fer a few days," as there was no telling whether somebody might not be on his trail.
Patterson agreed that this was the proper course and put in his time helping with the various chores, incidentally becoming a little better acquainted with Ruth Stiles. That night he lay awake for several hours, but nothing broke the stillness save a few indications of animal life outside the cabin and the labored breathing of the mountaineer in the bunk below him.
For three nights nothing occurred. But on the fourth night, Saturday, supper was served a little earlier than usual and Patterson noted just a suspicion of somethingalmost electrical in the air. He gave no indication of what he had observed, however, and retired to his bunk in the usual manner. After an hour or more had elapsed he heard Stiles slip quietly off his mattress and a moment later there was the guarded scratch of a match as a lantern was lighted.
Suspecting what would follow, Patterson closed his eyes and continued his deep, regular breathing. But he could sense the fact that the lantern had been swung up to a level with his bunk and he could almost feel the mountaineer's eyes as Stiles made certain that he was asleep. Stifling an impulse to snore or do something to convince his host that he wasn't awake, Patterson lay perfectly still until he heard the door close. Then he raised himself guardedly on one elbow and attempted to look through the window beside the bunk. But a freshly applied coat of whitewash prevented that, so he had to content himself with listening.
Late in the night—so late that it was almost morning—he heard the sounds of men conversing in whispers outside the cabin, but he could catch nothing beyond his own name. Soon Stiles re-entered the room, slipped into bed, and was asleep instantly.
So things went for nearly three weeks. The man who had escaped from prison made himself very useful around the cabin, and, almost against his will, found that he was falling a victim to the beauty and charm of the mountain girl.
"I mustn't do it," he told himself over and over again. "I can't let myself! It's bad enough to come here and accept the old man's hospitality, but the girl's a different proposition."
It was Ruth herself who solved the riddle some three weeks after Patterson's arrival. They were wanderingthrough the woods together, looking for sassafras roots, when she happened to mention that Stiles was not her own father.
"He's only my pappy," she said, "my adopted father. My real father was killed when I was a little girl. Shot through the head because he had threatened to tell where a still was hidden. He never did believe in moonshining. Said it was as bad as stealin' from the government. So somebody shot him and Ma Stiles took me in, 'cause she said she was sorry for me even if my pa was crazy."
"Do you believe that moonshining is right?" asked her companion.
"Anything my pa believed was the truth," replied the girl, her eyes flashing. "Everybody round these parts knows that Pappy Stiles helps run the big still the rev'nue officers been lookin' for the past three years. Two of 'em were shot not long ago, too—but that don't make it right. 'Specially when my pa said it was wrong. What you smilin' at?"
Patterson resisted an inclination to tell her that the smile was one of relief and replied that he was just watching the antics of a chipmunk a little way off. But that night he felt a thrill of joy as he lay, listening as always, in his bunk.
Things had been breaking rather fast of late. The midnight gatherings had become more frequent and, convinced that he had nothing to fear from his guest, Stiles was not as cautious as formerly. He seldom took the trouble to see that the escaped prisoner was asleep and he had even been known to leave the door unlatched as he went out into the night.
That night, for example, was one of the nights that he was careless—and, as usually happens, he paid dearly for it.
Waiting until Stiles was well out of the house, Patterson slipped silently out of his bunk in his stocking feet and, inch by inch, reopened the door. Outside, the moon was shining rather brightly, but, save for the retreating figure of the mountaineer—outlined by the lantern he carried—there was nothing else to be seen.
Very carefully Patterson followed, treading softly so as to avoid even the chance cracking of a twig. Up the mountainside went Stiles and, some fifty feet behind him, crouched the convict, his faded garments blending perfectly with the underbrush. After half a mile or so of following a rude path, Stiles suddenly disappeared from view—not as if he had turned a corner, but suddenly, as if the earth had swallowed him.
After a moment Patterson determined to investigate. When he reached the spot where he had last seen Stiles he looked around and almost stumbled against the key to the entire mystery. There in the side of the mountain was an opening, the entrance to a natural cave, and propped against it was a large wooden door, completely covered with vines.
"Not a chance of finding it in the daytime unless you knew where it was," thought the convict as he slipped silently into the cave. Less than thirty feet farther was an abrupt turn, and, glancing round this, Patterson saw what he had been hoping for—a crowd of at least a dozen mountaineers gathered about a collection of small but extremely efficient stills. Ranged in rows along the sides of the cave were scores of kegs, the contents of which were obvious from the surroundings.
Pausing only long enough to make certain of his bearings, the convict returned to the cabin and, long before Stiles came back, was sound asleep.
It was precisely four weeks from the day when thebuzzard noted the man on the side of the mountain, when a sheriff's posse from another county, accompanied by half a dozen revenue officers, rode clattering through Maymead and on in the direction of the Stiles cabin. Before the mountaineers had time to gather, the posse had surrounded the hill, rifles ready for action.
Stiles himself met them in front of his rude home and, in response to his challenge as to what they wanted, the sheriff replied that he had come for a prisoner who had escaped from Morgantown a month or so before. Stiles was on the verge of declaring that he had never heard of the man when, to his amazement, Patterson appeared from the woods and surrendered.
The instant the convict had gained the shelter of the government guns, however, a startling change took place. He held a moment's whispered conversation with one of the revenue officials and the latter slipped him a spare revolver from his holster. Then—"Hands up!" ordered the sheriff, and Stiles's hands shot above his head.
Leaving three men to guard the cabin and keep watch over Old Man Stiles, whose language was searing the shrubbery, the remainder of the posse pushed up the mountain, directed by the pseudoconvict. It took them some time to locate the door to the cave, but, once inside, they found all the evidence they wanted—evidence not only directly indicative of moonshining, but the two badges which had belonged to Douglas and Wood and which the mountaineers had kept as souvenirs of the shooting, thus unwittingly providing a firm foundation for the government's case in court.
The next morning, when Commissioner Chambers reached his office, he found upon his desk a wire which read:
Stiles gang rounded up without the firing of a single shot. Direct evidence of complicity in Woods-Douglas murders. Secret still is a secret no longer.
Stiles gang rounded up without the firing of a single shot. Direct evidence of complicity in Woods-Douglas murders. Secret still is a secret no longer.
The signature to the telegram was "James Reynolds, alias Jim Patterson."
"Jim Patterson," mused the commissioner. "Where have I heard that name.... Of course. He's the prisoner that broke out of Morgantown a couple of months ago! Jimmy sure did lay the local color on thick!"
"But," I inquired, as Quinn paused, "don't you consider that rather a dirty trick on Reynolds's part—worming himself into the confidence of the mountaineers and then betraying them? Besides, what about the girl?"
"Dirty trick!" snorted the former Secret Service agent. "Would you think about ethics if some one had murdered two of the men you work next to in the office? It was the same thing in this case. Jimmy knew that if he didn't turn up that gang they'd probably account for a dozen of his pals—to say nothing of violating the law every day they lived! What else was there for him to do?
"The girl? Oh, Reynolds married her. They sometimes do that, even in real life, you know. As I said, they're living out in the Middle West, for Ruth declared she never wanted to see a mountain again, and both of them admitted that it wouldn't be healthy to stick around within walking distance of Tennessee. That mountain crowd is a bad bunch to get r'iled, and it must be 'most time for Stiles and his friends to get out of jail.
"It's a funny thing the way these government cases work out. Here was one that took nearly three months to solve, and the answer was the direct result of hard work and careful planning—while the Trenton taxicab tangle, for example, was just the opposite!"
We'd been sitting on the front porch—Bill Quinn and I—discussing things in general for about half an hour when the subject of transportation cropped up and, as a collateral idea, my mind jumped to taxicabs, for the reason that the former Secret Service operative had promised to give me the details of a case which he referred to as "The Trenton Taxicab Tangle."
"Yes," he replied, reminiscently, when I reminded him of the alliterative title and inquired to what it might refer, "that was one of the branch cases which grew out of the von Ewald chase—you remember Mary McNilless and the clue of Shelf Forty-five? Well, Dick Walters, the man who landed von Ewald, wasn't the only government detective working on that case in New York—not by some forty-five or fifty—and Mary wasn't the only pretty woman mixed up in it, either. There was that girl at the Rennoc switchboard....
"That's another story, though. What you want is the taxicab clue."
If you remember the incidents which led up to the von Ewald affair [continued Quinn, as he settled comfortably back in his chair] you will recall that the German was the slipperiest of slippery customers. When Walters stumbled on his trail, through the quick wit of Mary McNilless, there wasn't the slightest indication that therewas such a man. He was a myth, a bugaboo—elusive as the buzz of a mosquito around your ear.
During the months they scoured New York in search for him, a number of other cases developed. Some of these led to very interesting conclusions, but the majority, as usual, flivvered into thin air.
The men at headquarters, the very cream of the government services, gathered from all parts of the country, were naturally unable to separate the wheat from the chaff in advance. Night after night they went out on wild-goose chases and sometimes they spent weeks in following a promising lead—to find only blue sky and peaceful scenery at the end of it.
Alan Whitney, who had put in two or three years rounding up counterfeiters for the Service, and who had been transferred to the Postal Inspection Service at the time of those registered mail robberies in the Middle West—only to be detailed to Secret Service work in connection with the von Ewald case—was one of the bitterest opponents of this forced inaction.
"I don't mind trouble," Whitney would growl, "but I do hate this eternal strain of racing around every time the bell goes off and then finding that some bonehead pulled the alarm for the sheer joy of seeing the engines come down the street. There ought to be a law against irresponsible people sending in groundless 'tips'—just as there's a law against scandal or libel or any other information that's not founded on fact."
But, just the same, Al would dig into every new clue with as much interest and energy as the rest of the boys—for there's always the thrill of thinking that the tip you're working on may be the right one after all.
Whitney was in the office one morning when the phone rang and the chief answered it.
"Yes," he heard the chief say, "this is the right place—but if your information is really important I would suggest that you come down and give it in person. Telephones are not the most reliable instruments in the world."
A pause followed and the chief's voice again:
"Well, of course we are always very glad to receive information that tends to throw any light on those matters, but I must confess that yours sounds a little vague and far-fetched. Maybe the people in the taxi merely wanted to find a quiet place to talk.... They got out and were away for nearly two hours? Hum! Thanks very much. I'll send one of our men over to talk to you about it, if you don't mind. What's the address?"
A moment or two later, after the chief had replaced the receiver, he called out to Whitney and with a smile that he could barely conceal told him to catch the next train to Trenton, where, at a certain address, he would find a Miss Vera Norton, who possessed—or thought she possessed—information which would be of value to the government in running down the people responsible for recent bomb outrages and munition-plant explosions.
"What's the idea, Chief?" inquired Al.
"This young lady—at least her voice sounded young over the phone—says that she got home late from a party last night. She couldn't sleep because she was all jazzed up from dancing or something, so she sat near her window, which looks out upon a vacant lot on the corner. Along about two o'clock a taxicab came putt-putting up the street, stopped at the corner, and two men carrying black bags hopped out. The taxicab remained there until nearly four o'clock—three-forty-eight, Miss Norton's watch said—and then the two men came back, without the bags, jumped in, and rolled off. That's all she knows, or, at least, all she told.
"When she picked up the paper round eleven o'clock this mornin' the first thing that caught her eye was the attempt to blow up the powder plant 'bout two miles from the Norton home. One paragraph of the story stated that fragments of a black bag had been picked up near the scene of the explosion, which only wrecked one of the outhouses, and the young lady leaped to the conclusion that her two night-owls were mixed up in the affair. So she called up to tip us off and get her name in history. Better run over and talk to her. There might be something to the information, after all."
"Yes, theremight," muttered Whitney, "but it's getting so nowadays that if you walk down the street with a purple tie on, when some one thinks you ought to be wearing a green one, they want you arrested as a spy. Confound these amateurs, anyhow! I'm a married man, Chief. Why don't you send Giles or one of the bachelors on this?"
"For just that reason," was the reply. "Giles or one of the others would probably be impressed by the Norton's girl's blond hair—it must be blond from the way she talked—and spend entirely too much time running the whole thing to earth. Go on over and get back as soon as you can. We can't afford to overlook anything these days—neither can we afford to waste too much time on harvesting crops of goat feathers. Beat it!"
And Whitney, still protesting, made his way to the tube and was lucky enough to catch a Trenton train just about to pull out of the station.
Miss Vera Norton, he found, was a blond—and an extremely pretty one, at that. Moreover, she appeared to have more sense than the chief had given her credit for. After Whitney had talked to her for a few minutes he admitted to himself that it was just as well that Gileshadn't tackled the case—he might never have come back to New York, and Trenton isn't a big enough place for a Secret Service man to hide in safety, even when lured by a pair of extremely attractive gray-blue eyes.
Apart from her physical charms, however, Whitney was forced to the conclusion that what she had seen was too sketchy to form anything that could be termed a real clue.
"No," she stated, in reply to a question as to whether she could identify the men in the taxi, "it was too dark and too far off for me to do that. The arc light on the corner, however, gave me the impression that they were of medium height and rather thick set. Both of them were dressed in dark suits of some kind and each carried a black leather bag. That's what made me think that maybe they were mixed up in that explosion last night."
"What kind of bags were they?"
"Gladstones, I believe you call them. Those bags that are flat on the bottom and then slant upward and lock at the top."
"How long was the taxi there?"
"I don't know just when it did arrive, for I didn't look at my watch then, but it left at twelve minutes to four. I was getting mighty sleepy, but I determined to see how long it would stay in one place, for it costs money to hire a car by the hour—even one of those Green-and-White taxis."
"Oh, it was a Green-and-White, eh?"
"Yes, and I got the number, too," Miss Norton's voice fairly thrilled with the enthusiasm of her detective ability. "After the men had gotten out of the car I remembered that my opera glasses were on the bureau and I used them to get a look at the machine. I couldn't see anything of the chauffeur beyond the fact that he was hunched downon the front seat, apparently asleep, and the men came back in such a hurry that I didn't have time to get a good look at them through the glasses."
"But the number," Whitney reminded her.
"I've got it right here," was the reply, as the young lady dug down into her handbag and drew out a card. "N. Y. four, three, three, five, six, eight," she read. "I got that when the taxi turned around and headed back—to New York, I suppose. But what on earth would two men want to take a taxi from New York all the way to Trenton for? Why didn't they come on the train?"
"That, Miss Norton," explained Whitney, "is the point of your story that makes the whole thing look rather suspicious. I will confess that when the chief told me what you had said over the phone I didn't place much faith in it. There might have been a thousand good reasons for men allowing a local taxi to wait at the corner, but the very fact of its bearing a New York number makes it a distinctly interesting incident."
"Then you think that it may be a clue, after all?"
"It's a clue, all right," replied the operative, "but what it's a clue to I can't say until we dig farther into the matter. It is probable that these two men had a date for a poker party or some kind of celebration, missed the train in New York, and took a taxi over rather than be left out of the party. But at the same time it's distinctly within the realms of possibility that the men you saw were implicated in last night's explosion. It'll take some time to get at the truth of the matter and, meanwhile, might I ask you to keep this information to yourself?"
"Indeed I shall!" was the reply. "I won't tell a soul, honestly."
After that promise, Al left the Norton house and made his way across town to where the munitions factory reared its hastily constructed head against the sky. Row after row of flimsy buildings, roofed with tar paper and giving no outward evidence of their sinister mission in life—save for the high barbed-wire fence that inclosed them—formed the entire plant, for there shells were not made, but loaded, and the majority of the operations were by hand.
When halted at the gate, Whitney found that even his badge was of no use in securing entrance. Evidently made cautious by the events of the preceding night, the guard refused to admit anyone, and even hesitated about taking Al's card to the superintendent. The initials "U. S. S. S." finally secured him admittance and such information as was available.
This, however, consisted only of the fact that some one had cut the barbed wire at an unguarded point and had placed a charge of explosive close to one of the large buildings. The one selected was used principally as a storehouse. Otherwise, as the superintendent indicated by an expressive wave of his hand, "it would have been good night to the whole place."
"Evidently they didn't use a very heavy charge," he continued, "relying upon the subsequent explosions from the shells inside to do the damage. If they'd hit upon any other building there'd be nothing but a hole in the ground now. As it is, the damage won't run over a few thousand dollars."
"Were the papers right in reporting that you picked some fragments of a black bag not far from the scene of the explosion?" Whitney asked.
"Yes, here they are," and the superintendent produced three pieces of leather from a drawer in his desk. "Two pieces of the top and what is evidently a piece of the side."
Whitney laid them on the desk and examined them carefully for a few moments. Then:
"Notice anything funny about these?" he inquired.
"No. What's the matter?"
"Not a thing in the world, except that the bag must have had a very peculiar lock."
"What's that?"
"Here—I'll show you," and Whitney tried to put the two pieces of metal which formed the lock together. But, inasmuch as both of them were slotted, they wouldn't join.
"Damnation!" exclaimed the superintendent. "What do you make of that."
"That there were two bags instead of one," stated Whitney, calmly. "Coupled with a little information which I ran into before I came over here, it begins to look as if we might land the men responsible for this job before they're many hours older."
Ten minutes later he was on his way back to New York, not to report at headquarters, but to conduct a few investigations at the headquarters of the Green-and-White Taxicab Company.
"Can you tell me," he inquired of the manager in charge, "just where your taxi bearing the license number four, three, three, five, six, eight was last night?"
"I can't," said the manager, "but we'll get the chauffeur up here and find out in short order.
"Hello!" he called over an office phone. "Who has charge of our cab bearing license number four, three, three, five, six, eight?... Murphy? Is he in?... Send him up—I'd like to talk to him."
A few moments later a beetle-jawed and none too cleanly specimen of the genus taxi driver swaggered in and didn't even bother to remove his cap before sitting down.
"Murphy," said the Green-and-White manager, "where was your cab last night?"
"Well, let's see," commenced the chauffeur. "I took a couple to the Amsterdam The-ayter in time for th' show an' then picked up a fare on Broadway an' took him in the Hunnerd-an'-forties some place. Then I cruised around till the after-theater crowd began to come up an'—an' I got one more fare for Yonkers. Another long trip later on made it a pretty good night."
"Murphy," cut in Whitney, edging forward into the conversation, "where and at just what hour of the night did those two Germans offer you a hundred dollars for the use of your car all evening?"
"They didn't offer me no hunnerd dollars," growled the chauffeur, "they gave me...." Then he checked himself suddenly and added, in an undertone, "I don't know nothin' 'bout no Goimans."
"The hell you don't!" snarled Whitney, edging toward the door. "Back up against that desk and keep your hands on top of it, or I'll pump holes clean through you!"
His right hand was in his coat pocket, the fingers closed around what was very palpably the butt of an automatic. Murphy could see the outline of the weapon and obeyed instructions, while Whitney slammed the door with his left hand.
"Now look here," he snapped, taking a step nearer to the taxi driver, "I want the truth and I want it quick! Also, it's none of your business why I want it! But you better come clean if you know what's good for you. Out with it! Where did you meet 'em and where did you drive 'em?"
Realizing that escape was cut off and thoroughly cowed by the display of force, Murphy told the whole story—or as much of it as he knew.
"I was drivin' down Broadway round Twenty-eig't Street last night, 'bout ten o'clock," he confessed. "I'd taken that couple to the the-ayter, just as I told you, an' that man up to Harlem. Then one of these t'ree guys hailed me...."
"Three?" interrupted Whitney.
"That's what I said—t'ree! They said they wanted to borrow my machine until six o'clock in th' mornin' an' would give me two hunnerd dollars for it. I told 'em there was nothin' doin' an' they offered me two-fifty, swearin' that they'd have it back at th' same corner at six o'clock sharp. Two hunnerd an' fifty bones being a whole lot more than I could make in a night, I gambled with 'em an' let 'em have th' machine, makin' sure that I got the coin foist. They drove off, two of 'em inside, an' I put in th' rest of th' night shootin' pool. When I got to th' corner of Twenty-eig't at six o'clock this mornin', there wasn't any sign of 'em—but th' car was there, still hot from the hard ride they give her. That's all I know—'shelp me Gawd!"
"Did the men have any bags with them?"
"Bags? No, not one."
"What did they look like?"
"The one that talked with me was 'bout my heig't an' dressed in a dark suit. He an' th' others had their hats pulled down over their eyes, so's I couldn't see their faces."
"Did he talk with a German accent?"
"He sure did. I couldn't hardly make out what he was sayin'. But his money talked plain enough."