Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 22/Number 2/The Fluctuating Package/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
GETTING ACTION.
CALL me Robinson," said the detective. "It is just as easy and won't give the snap away. When you knocked, Ruthven, I was expecting some one else. I remember now that you came to Montana from the Catskills. Got fired from the School of Mines because you stayed so long in the East helping Millyar. Your kindness was a sort of boomerang, eh? Never mind—don't get hot. Queer that you should run in on me like this. How did you know I was in this hotel?"
"I didn't know it," answered Ruthven. "I can't say that I really expected to find Weasel Morrison in this room, but I rather hoped that is what would happen."
"Why Morrison?"
"You're here looking for him, aren't you? Haven't you been chasing him ever since he skipped out of the Catskills?"
"Don't publish it, anyhow," said the detective. "There are other things Weasel Morrison has done that make that job in the Catskills look like the work of a piker. For weeks he has known I was after him, and yet he has sown a trail of crime all over the West. I've come within an ace of landing on him half a dozen times, but he always wriggles through. He's the smoothest cracksman at large in this country to-day.
"Why," continued the detective, "he has invented a kit of tools that would enable him, single-handed, to open the vaults of the subtreasury. Other crooks want tools made on the same pattern, and Morrison bleeds them well for duplicate instruments. The Weasel, with these devilish inventions, has helped more of his kind into burglar-proof safes than the police can count. I want to catch that 'gun,' and I want to catch him with his patent kit. To capture Morrison and not the tools would be only half a job; to get hold of both would be the slickest clean-up that was ever pulled off, would mean a lot for law and order, and incidentally would jump yours truly into the king row.
"Now," Hackett went on, changing the subject briskly, "why did you think Weasel Morrison might be in this room?"
Ruthven seated himself; then he began telling of the ride from Burt City to Bluffton with Durfee, to overtake Seventeen. The detective smiled. "I read about that," he interjected. Ruthven continued with the account of how he had seen Morrison's face at a car window as Seventeen was leaving Bluffton, how he had boarded the train, and how an attempt had been made to rob the express car between Bluffton and Okaday.
"Knew about that, too," struck in the detective. The other proceeded with his recital, and briefly recounted the attempted holdup on the trail to Barton's upper ranch, and followed with a statement of his suspicions concerning one of the robbers.
"That was why I returned to Dry Wash instead of going on to the Musselshell," he finished. "I heard when I got back that there was a stranger in town, and that he was occupying this particular room in the hotel. So I came up.
Ruthven had done his talking without the slightest reference to the mysterious Barton package. That was quite apart from the detective's work, he reasoned, and it was not necessary to start a bootless discussion.
Hackett had bitten off the end of a cigar, and was lighting it as Ruthven ended his remarks. Surrounding himself with smoke, the criminal hunter drew into his shell of reflection and remained there for several absorbing minutes.
Finally he came out of it to say: "I came to Dry Wash hot after Morrison. He thought he had shaken me in Bismarck, North Dakota, I guess, but I learned he had bought a ticket for this place and was only a train or two behind him. Of course I had my doubts as to whether Morrison had really come to Dry Wash. Tickets are sometimes bought for a 'blind.' I came on, though, and went straight to the deputy sheriff in this place. There I connected with surprise number one." The detective knocked the ash off his cigar, and then resumed: "Jenkins, the deputy sheriff, had an anonymous letter from Burt City telling him to warn every Dry Wash man with money in his safe to be on guard, and that a cracksman named Weasel Morrison was loose in these parts with criminal intent. As a rule, anonymous letters never appeal to me; but, in the circumstances, this one did. Jenkins is prowling around now looking for Morrison. The Weasel knows me, so I am lying low and waiting for the deputy to report. From this you will see that your information comes in mighty pat. We're closing in on the crook, and I believe we're going to get him. Do you want to help?"
"How will the capture of Morrison affect Howard Millyar?" queried Ruthven anxiously. "Millyar is trying to live down that Catskills affair, but if the whole story was published broadcast"
"It won't be," cut in the detective. "Morrison will be brought to book for a crime committed in Montana. He'll not go back East."
Ruthven's face cleared of worry. "Then I want to help," said he. "What can I do?"
"Just tell me where you're going to be, so I can get you in a hurry, if necessary. Don't come near me any more. Just flock by yourself, and when I need your assistance I'll let you know."
"All right," agreed Ruthven. "I shall be right here in this hotel." He got up and started for the door.
"You're living in Burt City?" queried the detective.
"On a ranch near there."
"Have you any idea who it was sent that anonymous letter to Jenkins?"
"No."
"Keep turning it over in your mind and see if you can guess. The information might prove important."
Ruthven thereupon left the room. Having missed his dinner, he was hungry enough to do more than justice to a good supper. After the meal he went to his room and stretched out on his bed. He was thinking of the anonymous letter, and somehow coupling it with the talk Lois McKenzie had had with Weasel Morrison between Williamsburg and Burt City. Was it possible that Lois had written that unsigned communication? He could not believe it. He was glad, however, that he had not mentioned the girl's name in his talk with the detective.
About nine o'clock he undressed and got into his blankets. It was morning, just about dawn, when he was aroused by a soft tap on his door. "Who's there?" he called. No voice answered, but the tapping continued. Leaping out of bed, he opened the door and found the detective in the hall.
"Dress as quickly as you can," said the detective, "and come down. We've got our man trapped. We may not need you, but there's a man with Morrison, and I think it's just as well to have you along."
Hackett paused for no further words, and Ruthven, in some excitement, began hustling into his clothes. When he got downstairs he found the detective and another man on the porch, waiting.
"Jenkins, this is Mr. Ruthven," said the detective. "We can depend on him."
Jenkins nodded. Without speaking, he left the porch and started up the walk. The detective, with a jerk of the head, indicated that Ruthven was to follow. The deputy sheriff walked briskly, and led the way into a sparsely built-up street where the houses faced the railroad tracks. He stopped before a two-story frame structure which was badly in need of paint.
"We'll go in at the rear," said he in a low tone to the detective. "I've arranged for that door to be left open. We'd better leave Ruthven outside to watch—the two of us will be needed inside."
"Correct," answered Hackett. "Get that, Ruthven?"
"Yes," answered the one-time half back; "but I'd like to be where there's something going on. I don't want to pose as a figurehead."
"You're not prepared, and things might go hard with you at close quarters. Keep your eyes skinned, so that if one of the men tries to slip away you can stop him."
Jenkins had quietly opened a kitchen door, and the detective trailed after him. The door closed, and for a few moments there was silence within the house. Then, all at once, a wild commotion started. A struggle was going on, furniture crashed, the whole house seemed to shiver and shake, husky voices cried out angrily, and above all arose the wild, terrified scream of a woman.
Ruthven's ears were keen, and while the disorder was at its height there came to him a sharp scraping against clapboards around the corner of the house. Darting in that direction, he observed a man in shirt and trousers, barefooted and bareheaded, racing toward the railroad tracks. It was Weasel Morrison, and he was carrying a satchel as he ran. He had dropped from an upper window, and apparently had eluded successfully the two officers in the building.
"Stop!" shouted Ruthven, immediately taking up the pursuit.
Morrison cast a quick glance over his shoulder, and his sinister face darkened. He must have recognized Ruthven, and realized that he owed him an old score. He did not stop, of course; on the contrary, he gathered himself in for a fresh burst of speed. He was aiming for the end of the little freight depot, and was dashing along the side of a big stock pen.
Ruthven, in spite of his size, was a crack sprinter. Many a time he had come down the field like a limited express train, with the pigskin under his arm, crashing through the interference and showing clean heels to all who came behind. His legs had not lost much of their speed, and now he was gaining upon Morrison at every jump. He was not more than ten yards in the rear when the fleeing crook vanished around the corner of the freight depot.
"I've got him!" thought Ruthven exultantly.
But he had to revise this opinion. When he, in his turn, whirled around the corner of the freight building, Morrison was just piling upon a velocipede car which stood on the rails. Opposite the car stood a pole that held a target. A railroad employee was at the top of the pole making repairs. The little car belonged to him, and he was yelling dire things at Morrison.
The crook paid no attention. Throwing off the supplies that lay on a small platform back of the "speeder's" seat, he placed his satchel where it would be safe and bent to the foot pedals and handlebars.
Ruthven had trained his mind to quick action on many a hard-fought field. Now his wits worked with lightning rapidity. On foot he never could overhaul Morrison, with the speeder rushing along the clicking steel. How was he to follow with any hope of success?
He flashed a keen look around. Near the depot was a small shanty in which the section gang stored a hand car and tools. The shanty was open. There were no laborers about, but the hand car had been pushed out on the main track.
In six jumps Ruthven had reached the car. Running with it for a few yards, he gave it a start and then leaped upon it and caught the handlebars. At once he began to work with all his might, lifting and falling with the bars, and urging the car into a wild clip.
There was to be a race between the hand car and the speeder. Ruthven felt that he had never been in better trim to put up a good fight. And he still felt sure that he was going to lay hands on Weasel Morrison.