Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (68 page)

“I’d like to know,” said McMurdo, “how you ever came to learn that I had spoken with Morris at all?”

McGinty laughed. “It’s my business to know what goes on in this township,” said he. “I guess you’d best reckon on my hearing all that passes. Well, time’s up, and I’ll just say—”

But his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion. With a sudden crash the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces glared in at them from under the peaks of police caps. McMurdo sprang to his feet and half drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as he became conscious that two Winchester rifles were levelled at his head. A man in uniform advanced into the room, a six-shooter in his hand. It was Captain Marvin, once of Chicago, and now, of the Mine Constabulary. He shook his head with a half-smile at McMurdo.

“I thought you’d be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked McMurdo of Chicago,” said he. “Can’t keep out of it, can you? Take your hat and come along with us.”

“I guess you’ll pay for this, Captain Marvin,” said McGinty. “Who are you, I’d like to know, to break into a house in this fashion and molest honest, law-abiding men?”

“You’re standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty,” said the police captain. “We are not out after you, but after this man McMurdo. It is for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty.”

“He is a friend of mine, and I’ll answer for his conduct,” said the Boss.

“By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for your own conduct some of these days,” the captain answered. “This man McMurdo was a crook before ever he came here, and he’s a crook still. Cover him, Patrolman, while I disarm him.”

“There’s my pistol,” said McMurdo coolly. “Maybe, Captain Marvin, if you and I were alone and face to face you would not take me so easily.”

“Where’s your warrant?” asked McGinty. “By Gar! a man might as well live in Russia
^bu
as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the police. It’s capitalist outrage, and you’ll hear more of it, I reckon.”

“You do what you think is your duty the best way you can. Councillor. We’ll look after ours.”

“What am I accused of?” asked McMurdo.

“Of being concerned in the beating of old Editor Stanger at the
Herald
office. It wasn’t your fault that it isn’t a murder charge.”

“Well, if that’s all you have against him,” cried McGinty with a laugh, “you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right now. This man was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight, and I can bring a dozen to prove it.”

“That’s your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court to-morrow. Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly if you don’t want a gun across your head. You stand wide, Mr. McGinty; for I warn you I will stand no resistance when I am on duty!“

So determined was the appearance of the captain that both McMurdo and his boss were forced to accept the situation. The latter managed to have a few whispered words with the prisoner before they parted.

“What about—” he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining plant.

“All right,” whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place under the floor.

“I’ll bid you good-bye,” said the Boss, shaking hands. “I’ll see Reilly the lawyer and take the defense upon myself. Take my word for it that they won’t be able to hold you.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that. Guard the prisoner, you two, and shoot him if he tries any games. I’ll search the house before I leave.”

He did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant. When he had descended he and his men escorted McMurdo to headquarters. Darkness had fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the streets were nearly deserted; but a few loiterers followed the group, and emboldened by invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.

“Lynch the cursed Scowrer!” they cried. “Lynch him!” They laughed and jeered as he was pushed into the police station. After a short, formal examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the common cell. Here he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the night before, all arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial next morning.

But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the Freemen was able to extend. Late at night there came a jailer with a straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles of whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They spent a hilarious night, without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.

Nor had they cause, as the result was to show. The magistrate could not possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court. On the one hand the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that the light was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed, and that it was difficult for them to swear to the identity of the assailants; although they believed that the accused were among them. Cross examined by the clever attorney who had been engaged by McGinty, they were even more nebulous in their evidence.

The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise by the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond the fact that the first man who struck him wore a moustache. He added that he knew them to be Scowrers, since no one else in the community could possibly have any enmity to him, and he had long been threatened on account of his outspoken editorials. On the other hand, it was clearly shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six citizens, including that high municipal official, Councillor McGinty, that the men had been at a card party at the Union House until an hour very much later than the commission of the outrage.

Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to an apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had been put, together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the police for their officious zeal.

The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which McMurdo saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge smiled and waved. But there were others who sat with compressed lips and brooding eyes as the men filed out of the dock. One of them, a little, dark-bearded, resolute fellow, put the thoughts of himself and comrades into words as the ex-prisoners passed him.

“You damned murderers!” he said. “We’ll fix you yet!”

I
f anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo’s popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge should have done something which brought him before the magistrate was a new record in the annals of the society. Already he had earned the reputation of a good boon companion, a cheery reveller, and withal a man of high temper, who would not take an insult even from the all-powerful Boss himself. But in addition to this he impressed his comrades with the idea that among them all there was not one whose brain was so ready to devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more capable of carrying it out. “He’ll be the boy for the clean job,” said the oldsters to one another, and waited their time until they could set him to his work.

McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a fierce bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller work; but some day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A few members of the lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the stranger and hated him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as to laugh.

But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter, one which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it. Ettie Shafter’s father would have nothing more to do with him, nor would he allow him to enter the house. Ettie herself was too deeply in love to give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned her of what would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as a criminal.

One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him, possibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him from those evil influences which were sucking him down. She went to his house, as he had often begged her to do, and made her way into the room which he used as his sitting-room. He was seated at a table, with his back turned and a letter in front of him. A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came over her—she was still only nineteen. He had not heard her when she pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her hand lightly upon his bended shoulders.

If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only in turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he turned on her, and his right hand was feeling for her throat. At the same instant with the other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him. For an instant he stood glaring. Then astonishment and joy took the place of the ferocity which had convulsed his features—a ferocity which had sent her shrinking back in horror as from something which had never before intruded into her gentle life.

“It’s you!” said he, mopping his brow. “And to think that you should come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing better to do than to want to strangle you! Come then, darling,” and he held out his arms, “let me make it up to you.”

But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear which she had read in the man’s face. All her woman’s instinct told her that it was not the mere fright of a man who is startled. Guilt—that was it—guilt and fear!

“What’s come over you, Jack?” she cried. “Why were you so scared of me? Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not have looked at me like that!”

“Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping so lightly on those fairy feet of yours—”

“No, no, it was more than that, Jack.” Then a sudden suspicion seized her. “Let me see that letter you were writing.”

“Ah, Ettie, I couldn’t do that.”

Her suspicions became certainties. “It’s to another woman,” she cried. “I know it! Why else should you hold it from me? Was it to your wife that you were writing? How am I to know that you are not a married man—you, a stranger, that nobody knows?”

“I am not married, Ettie. See now, I swear it! You’re the only one woman on earth to me. By the cross of Christ I swear it!”

He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not but believe him.

“Well, then,” she cried, “why will you not show me the letter?”

“I’ll tell you, acushla,” said he. “I’m under oath not to show it, and just as I wouldn’t break my word to you so I would keep it to those who hold my promise. It’s the business of the lodge, and even to you it’s secret. And if I was scared when a hand fell on me, can’t you understand it when it might have been the hand of a detective?”

She felt that he was telling the truth. He gathered her into his arms and kissed away her fears and doubts.

“Sit here by me, then. It’s a queer throne for such a queen; but it’s the best your poor lover can find. He’ll do better for you some of these days, I’m thinking. Now your mind is easy once again, is it not?”

“How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a criminal among criminals, when I never know the day that I may hear you are in court for murder? ‘McMurdo the Scowrer,’ that’s what one of our boarders called you yesterday. It went through my heart like a knife.”

“Sure, hard words break no bones.”

“But they were true.”

“Well, dear, it’s not so bad as you think. We are but poor men that are trying in our own way to get our rights.”

Ettie threw her arms round her lover’s neck. “Give it up, Jack! For my sake, for God’s sake, give it up! It was to ask you that I came here to-day. Oh, Jack, see—I beg it of you on my bended knees! Kneeling here before you I implore you to give it up!”

He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.

“Sure, my darlin‘, you don’t know what it is you are asking. How could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my comrades? If you could see how things stand with me you could never ask it of me. Besides, if I wanted to, how could I do it? You don’t suppose that the lodge would let a man go free with all its secrets?”

“I’ve thought of that, Jack. I’ve planned it all. Father has saved some money. He is weary of this place where the fear of these people darkens our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly together to Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe from them.”

McMurdo laughed. “The lodge has a long arm. Do you think it could not stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?”

“Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where father came from—anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!”

McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. “Sure, it is the second time I have heard the valley so named,” said he. “The shadow does indeed seem to lie heavy on some of you.”

“It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that Ted Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you, what do you suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in those dark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!”

“By Gar! I’d teach him better manners if I caught him at it! But see here, little girl. I can’t leave here. I can‘t—take that from me once and for all. But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will try to prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.”

“There is no honour in such a matter.”

“Well, well, it’s just how you look at it. But if you’ll give me six months, I’ll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed to look others in the face.”

The girl laughed with joy. “Six months!” she cried. “Is it a promise?”

“Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the furthest we will leave the valley behind us.”

It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was something. There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate future. She returned to her father’s house more light-hearted than she had ever been since Jack McMurdo had come into her life.