The Valley of Fear
What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I’ve a mind
to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating
up and see what they can get from him.”
“Well, there would be no harm in that,” McMurdo answered. “I won’t deny
that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come to
harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and though
he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort that
squeals. But still it is not for me to stand between him and you.”
“I’ll fix the old devil!” said McGinty with an oath. “I’ve had my eye
on him this year past.”
“Well, you know best about that,” McMurdo answered. “But whatever you
do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair is
settled up. We can’t afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of all
days.”
“True for you,” said McGinty. “And we’ll learn from Birdy Edwards
himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.
Did he seem to scent a trap?”
McMurdo laughed. “I guess I took him on his weak point,” he said. “If
he could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he’s ready to follow it
into hell. I took his money,” McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad of
dollar notes, “and as much more when he has seen all my papers.”
“What papers?”
“Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about constitutions and
books of rules and forms of membership. He expects to get right down to
the end of everything before he leaves.”
“Faith, he’s right there,” said McGinty grimly. “Didn’t he ask you why
you didn’t bring him the papers?”
“As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and Captain
Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!”
“Ay, I heard of that,” said McGinty. “I guess the heavy end of this
business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft when
we’ve done with him; but however we work it we can’t get past the man
living at Hobson’s Patch and you being there to-day.”
McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “If we handle it right, they can never
prove the killing,” said he. “No one can see him come to the house
after dark, and I’ll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now see
here, Councillor, I’ll show you my plan and I’ll ask you to fit the
others into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He comes at
ten. He is to tap three times, and me to open the door for him. Then
I’ll get behind him and shut it. He’s our man then.”
“That’s all easy and plain.”
“Yes; but the next step wants considering. He’s a hard proposition.
He’s heavily armed. I’ve fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to be
on his guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men in it
where he expected to find me alone. There is going to be shooting, and
somebody is going to be hurt.”
“That’s so.”
“And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township on
top of it.”
“I guess you are right.”
“This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room—same as
you saw when you had a chat with me. I’ll open the door for him, show
him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while I get
the papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how things are
shaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked papers. As he is
reading them I will jump for him and get my grip on his pistol arm.
You’ll hear me call and in you will rush. The quicker the better; for
he is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than I can manage. But
I allow that I can hold him till you come.”
“It’s a good plan,” said McGinty. “The lodge will owe you a debt for
this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the man
that’s coming after me.”
“Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit,” said McMurdo; but
his face showed what he thought of the great man’s compliment.
When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim
evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his Smith
& Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the detective was
to be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long deal table in the
centre, and the big stove at one side. At each of the other sides were
windows. There were no shutters on these: only light curtains which
drew across. McMurdo examined these attentively. No doubt it must have
struck him that the apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting.
Yet its distance from the road made it of less consequence. Finally he
discussed the matter with his fellow lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer,
was an inoffensive little man who was too weak to stand against the
opinion of his comrades, but was secretly horrified by the deeds of
blood at which he had sometimes been forced to assist. McMurdo told him
shortly what was intended.
“And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep
clear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning.”
“Well, indeed then, Mac,” Scanlan answered. “It’s not the will but the
nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at the
colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I’m not made for
it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the worse of
me, I’ll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves for the
evening.”
The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly respectable
citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces would have read
little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths and remorseless
eyes. There was not a man in the room whose hands had not been reddened
a dozen times before. They were as hardened to human murder as a
butcher to sheep.
Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the
formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a
long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible
fidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no
notion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter,
was a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression, and
a yellow parchment skin. He was a capable organizer, and the actual
details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting brain. The
two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows with
determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy, dark
youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of his
disposition. These were the men who assembled that night under the roof
of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.
Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened to
prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin and Cormac were
already half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their ferocity.
Cormac placed his hands on the stove for an instant—it had been
lighted, for the nights were still cold.
“That will do,” said he, with an oath.
“Ay,” said Baldwin, catching his meaning. “If he is strapped to that,
we will have the truth out of him.”
“We’ll have the truth out of him, never fear,” said McMurdo. He had
nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair
was on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever. The others
marked it and applauded.
“You are the one to handle him,” said the Boss approvingly. “Not a
warning will he get till your hand is on his throat. It’s a pity there
are no shutters to your windows.”
McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter. “Sure
no one can spy upon us now. It’s close upon the hour.”
“Maybe he won’t come. Maybe he’ll get a sniff of danger,” said the
secretary.
“He’ll come, never fear,” McMurdo answered. “He is as eager to come as
you can be to see him. Hark to that!”
They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested halfway
to their lips. Three loud knocks had sounded at the door.
“Hush!” McMurdo raised his hand in caution. An exulting glance went
round the circle, and hands were laid upon their weapons.
“Not a sound, for your lives!” McMurdo whispered, as he went from the
room, closing the door carefully behind him.
With strained ears the murderers waited. They counted the steps of
their comrade down the passage. Then they heard him open the outer
door. There were a few words as of greeting. Then they were aware of a
strange step inside and of an unfamiliar voice. An instant later came
the slam of the door and the turning of the key in the lock. Their prey
was safe within the trap. Tiger Cormac laughed horribly, and Boss
McGinty clapped his great hand across his mouth.
“Be quiet, you fool!” he whispered. “You’ll be the undoing of us yet!”
There was a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed
interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger
upon his lip.
He came to the end of the table and looked round at them. A subtle
change had come over him. His manner was as of one who has great work
to do. His face had set into granite firmness. His eyes shone with a
fierce excitement behind his spectacles. He had become a visible leader
of men. They stared at him with eager interest; but he said nothing.
Still with the same singular gaze he looked from man to man.
“Well!” cried Boss McGinty at last. “Is he here? Is Birdy Edwards
here?”
“Yes,” McMurdo answered slowly. “Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy
Edwards!”
There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room
might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a
kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white
faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set
motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a
bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window, while
the curtains were torn from their hangings.
At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged
for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him there with the
stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind
the sights. The Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.
“You’re safer there, Councillor,” said the man whom they had known as
McMurdo. “And you, Baldwin, if you don’t take your hand off your
pistol, you’ll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or by the Lord that
made me—There, that will do. There are forty armed men round this
house, and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you have.
Take their pistols, Marvin!”
There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles. The
men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat round
the table.
“I’d like to say a word to you before we separate,” said the man who
had trapped them. “I guess we may not meet again until you see me on
the stand in the courthouse. I’ll give you something to think over
between now and then. You know me now for what I am. At last I can put
my cards on the table. I am Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton’s. I was chosen
to break up your gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to play. Not a
soul, not one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that I was playing
it. Only Captain Marvin here and my employers knew that. But it’s over
to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!”
The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable
hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.
“Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my chance
of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and there are
sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this night. I’ll
tell you this, that when I was put upon this job I never believed there
was such a society as yours. I thought it was paper talk, and that I