Three sevens A detective story
no difference. They were not the twain to go riding around the
country together, trusting each other, helping each other to outwit
detectives.
Then there crept into Mr. Green’s mind an additional ray of light. He
recalled that interview of his with Three Sevens the day of the big
get-away--what Masters had said about freeing those only who deserved
to go free.
He saw the truth. He saw it even when, like many another man
confronted by the truth, he wouldn’t admit that it was the truth. No!
No! No! The idea that convict No. 3777 should now be risking his skin
merely to turn in another convict, and this convict one of the most
dangerous of them all--that, too, was absurd.
Nonetheless, the ex-warden got busy. He was not without friends and
influence in the county where he had lived so long and turned over
petty graft and favors of a sort for so many years. He organized a
posse all his own, by phone and telegraph.
What was the big idea? Was he expecting another jail delivery? Why
should he want the boys to surround San Pedro so secretly, and wait,
and wait? Green wouldn’t explain. He himself started for San Pedro.
Less than an hour ago the accommodation freight had, sure enough,
dropped a box car at the San Pedro siding. The car was still there.
From the half gate guarding the open door of the car a mule stretched
out an intelligent, interrogating head.
The ex-warden was sitting in a small and rusty auto which he used for
his longer jaunts about the country, although he preferred a horse.
He was a fine figure on a horse--much finer than when crumpled up in
his little automobile. But he had no thought now for his appearance
at all. He sat in his auto and looked at the freight car and the
mule. There they were, as if confirming all those suspicions and
half-formulated theories and longings that were squirming in his
heart and brain.
While the ex-warden of San Pedro looked and looked, so did Craig.
He was still in the car. In the end of it, near the roof, there was
a little square window. The wooden shutter of this was tilted up an
inch or so. Under this he could see the wide, gray prospect of the
prison wall, and then, pasted against this like a poster, the dusty
little auto with the big ex-warden in it.
For a moment or so there seemed to be a great silence--a silence so
intense that it seemed to Craig as if he were back in the dark cell
again, listening to the reverberating hum of the prison power plant.
Wouldn’t it be strange if the dark cell should receive him again?
Yet, didn’t the bright dream of every life after a manner, end like
that--in the grave?
CHAPTER XII
THE SECOND VERSION
There were two versions of the capture of Sancho Red, as told by the
remarkable Mr. Sanders. Perhaps this was because the little man,
on his arrival at San Pedro, finding himself so easily and swiftly
behind the steel and stone portals of the prison, was a bit confused.
He told a keeper, and later told the warden himself, that he was an
honest man, and that, as such he had discovered Sancho Red at liberty
and had simply decided to bring him back.
“You?” demanded Major Gracie.
“Me!”
The man was so small, so nervous, that there was a tragic humor in
his claim. His crossed eyes glinted. He grinned.
“I had intended to kill him myself, but----”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” said the major.
“He had killed my brother,” said Sanders.
Gracie had led the little man almost straight to the warden’s office
from the prison gate. In the warden’s mind now there repeated itself
various details of that amazing message of warning and inquiry he
had received that same morning from the detectives who had gone to
Pahkaville. The detectives had stated that there were two men. True,
they had sent but vague descriptions.
“And you took him single-handed?”
“Almost.”
“How do you mean, ‘almost?’”
“There was a friend who helped me.”
“Will you tell me his name?”
“Yes, sir. He told me to tell you his name was Daniel Craig.”
“Ah!”
The little man looked about him, made sure that there was none to
overhear.
“He said--Mr. Craig did--that I could trust you and tell you the
story as I have told it, and ask you to let it go at that.”
The warden nodded. He remembered the youth with the handkerchief over
his face, remembered the clear eyes, remembered certain things his
daughter had said about the man who had led the San Pedro revolt and
then had defended her against a possible mob when the convicts were
getting out of hand. And that was about all until they had brought in
Red himself, trussed and gagged.
The version continued:
“But why this? Why the mule car?”
“I had no extradition papers,” said Sanders. “We--that is I didn’t
want to muss with detectives. It would only have resulted in some one
getting killed and in Sancho’s getting away.”
“You’ve almost killed him, yourself.”
“He’s in good condition. He’s tough. He’ll get over it.”
Sancho let out a roar. They had brought him into the prison office.
He couldn’t stand, but his voice was strong--so strong that at first
there was no telling what he said. Then he was shrieking murder, and
asking them to let him go back--just for a moment--long enough to
kill the blankety-blank and so-forth scoundrel who had brought him to
this, Three Sevens!
“He thinks I’m Three Sevens,” suggested the little man, grinning.
“You lie----” and then more incoherency.
Sanders began to tremble, show nerves again. It had been a long
strain. He was under a strain still. He said that he would go and
water his mule, which was in great need of water.
Various other reports also had been coming into San Pedro from far
and near. Major Gracie reviewed these reports in his mind all the
time that he was hearing the words that this strange and shaky little
volunteer shouted over the sudden uproar of Sancho Red. They bore Red
away.
Not until Sancho Red was gone did Joan Gracie appear. She knew all
about those reports her father had been getting--especially that last
report of all from the detectives who had gone to Pahkaville. She
also heard what the little man had to say about watering his mule.
A keeper just then came back to the office with a white smile. Sancho
Red was making up for lost time in the matter of violence, the keeper
said. Would the major come and give advice. The major hurried away.
Joan and the little man were alone.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Who?”
“The man who managed this.”
“I--I--you mean----”
“You can speak openly to me. Quick! There’s no time to lose. I’m his
friend.”
“He’s in the car.”
“There’s a posse going through the country all around the prison.”
“He knows it.”
“Why did he come so far?”
“He didn’t want to leave me alone with Sancho.”
“He could have wired for help.”
“We’ve been suspected all along the line for the past fifty miles.”
“What was his plan?”
“To wait till night and then ride away on the mule.”
“He’ll never make it.”
“You don’t know him, not the way I do--the way he caught old
Red--gentled him as much as he could--kept me from killin’ him----”
And herewith came the second version, the truth this time, from the
start to the finish, even the fact that the little man was not named
Sanders, but Jones.
He had changed his name because he had expected to kill or get
killed, and didn’t want the name of Jones dishonored again. “He’s
helped me a lot--has Mr. Craig. I don’t want him took.”
“Hurry,” said Joan. “Tell him that the chief danger’s outside the
prison, not in. But he’ll know that.” She put a small fist against
her lips, let herself go in thought. “Go back to the car,” she said.
“Get word to him that everything’s all right. I’ll send a squad of
men with orders to push the car into the prison yard.”
Mr. Sanders suspected a trick.
“I’d rather go to the pen myself,” he faltered. “If it wasn’t for
him----”
“Can’t you see that I’m also his friend?”
“Yes, ma’am; but----”
She was still trying to formulate her plan while she was already
getting the first part of it out. There were so many complications in
the way of clear thinking--loyalty to Craig, loyalty to her father,
and a whole flock of memories, a flock of hopes, too, perhaps, and
both hopes and memories beating about like supernatural birds in the
golden blaze of a new sunrise.
Then an old trusty--old Eddie Yarmouth, who himself was some sort of
a living shadow of Craig--had opened the door, and looked in.
“This way, sir,” said Eddie, speaking to a visitor as yet unseen.
Joan looked up, some swift intuition informing her that a shadow had
announced the coming event. Her breath was caught. Her heart was
palpitant. Or was it merely the odd expression on Eddie Yarmouth’s
face that caused her to feel like that? There had been a curious,
haunted look on Eddie’s face. There still was, now, as Eddie stepped
back to let the visitor pass. It was Craig himself.
CHAPTER XIII
SHIP AND BEACON
Craig was the first to speak. Perhaps it was because he had already
done his thinking, had decided to accept the one course that appeared
to be clear to him.
“I’ve come to see your father,” he said.
He dared not address her otherwise. All that old equality of theirs
was gone, so far as Craig was concerned. In a few minutes now he
would be the prisoner again. So he was telling himself. He was
telling himself that he was the prisoner already.
“My father?” breathed Joan.
She was looking at Craig. But also she was seeing Eddie Yarmouth. On
Eddie’s face was a look that was stricken, yet not minus hope, for
Eddie, emboldened by the need of the moment, was giving her a signal
of distress, an appeal to stand by. So was Sanders.
Joan spoke rapidly to these latter.
“Eddie,” she said, “you and this gentleman may go and see about
having the car pushed into the yard. Get some men to help you.” She
drew an inspiration from their misery, sought to comfort them. “I’ll
arrange everything here. Everything will be all right.”
She scarcely knew what she was saying. She scarcely heard the sound
of her own voice. If Craig had been like a ship driving along a dark
coast, she was suddenly become the beacon--shining, doing the right
thing, and not questioning beyond this present necessity. The right
thing was not to involve others. And everything would be all right.
She saw Craig changed. She saw him free. She saw him very much a
man--a young man, tall and strong, roughly dressed. He was dressed as
any young engineer might have been dressed when engaged on a rough
job, for he had outfitted himself down there in the swamps. It made
her head reel and her heart gasp like a fish, the mere thought of
taking this man and locking him into a cell.
“You mustn’t see my father,” she said.
There were tears in her voice, none in her eyes. They were liquid
clear.
“I must.”
“Why?”
“To give myself up.”
“Why must you give yourself up?”
“I’ve let myself in for it--the only thing I can do.”
“You mean because your presence is suspected here.”
“By Green and others.”
“They’ve seen you?”
“No.”
“Then----”
“But they’ll see me if I try to get away.”
“Still you can get away.”
“Not without their knowing that either you or your father have helped
me. Joan--Joan! I am willing. Where is your father?”
“No, no! You mustn’t see him.” She ran over to the door through which
her father had disappeared. She stood there for a moment listening
and still trying to get a grip on her thoughts. “Why--why----”
Craig read her thoughts.
“I wanted to show you how strong I was, how clever I was,” he began,
with a touch of self-contempt. But his mood softened, even toward