The Valley of Fear
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!”
Chapter V
The Darkest Hour
If 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.
It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the society
would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the organization
was wider and more complex than the simple lodge. Even Boss McGinty was
ignorant as to many things; for there was an official named the County
Delegate, living at Hobson’s Patch farther down the line, who had power
over several different lodges which he wielded in a sudden and
arbitrary way. Only once did McMurdo see him, a sly, little gray-haired
rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a sidelong glance which was
charged with malice. Evans Pott was his name, and even the great Boss
of Vermissa felt towards him something of the repulsion and fear which
the huge Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous Robespierre.
One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo’s fellow boarder, received a note from
McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed him that he was
sending over two good men, Lawler and Andrews, who had instructions to
act in the neighbourhood; though it was best for the cause that no
particulars as to their objects should be given. Would the Bodymaster
see to it that suitable arrangements be made for their lodgings and
comfort until the time for action should arrive? McGinty added that it
was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the Union House, and
that, therefore, he would be obliged if McMurdo and Scanlan would put
the strangers up for a few days in their boarding house.
The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack.
Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad in
an old black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged,
grizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an itinerant preacher.
His companion Andrews was little more than a boy, frank-faced and
cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who is out for a holiday and
means to enjoy every minute of it. Both men were total abstainers, and
behaved in all ways as exemplary members of the society, with the one
simple exception that they were assassins who had often proved
themselves to be most capable instruments for this association of
murder. Lawler had already carried out fourteen commissions of the
kind, and Andrews three.
They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about their deeds
in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride of men
who had done good and unselfish service for the community. They were
reticent, however, as to the immediate job in hand.