The Wire Devils. Frank L. Packard
with the railroad, a thinly veiled hint that I am either a boy on a man’s job, or else asleep, in either of which cases I ought to be—well, you understand?” MacVightie’s fist came down with a crash on the operator’s table.
Lanson, with a worried look, nodded his head.
“Damn it!” said MacVightie. “I——” He stopped abruptly, and laid his hand on the operator’s sleeve. “Look here, Martin,” he said evenly, “you’re the one man that Mr. Lanson has picked out of the division, you’re the one man outside of Mr. Lanson and myself who has any inkling that these secret messages coming over our wires have anything to do with these crimes—you understand that, don’t you? This is pretty serious business. The newspaper didn’t exaggerate any. We’re up against a gang of crooks, cleverly organised, who will stop at nothing. Murder appears to be a pastime with them! Do you get me—Martin?”
For a long second the two men looked each other steadily in the eyes.
“Yes,” said Martin simply.
“All right!” said MacVightie. “I just want you to realise the necessity of keeping anything you may hear, or anything that may happen here to-night, under your hat.” He turned to Lanson again, the scowl heavy upon his face once more. “I was going to say that I know who the man is that slipped through my fingers last night.”
“You—what!” Lanson leaned sharply forward in his chair. “But he got away! You said he——”
“It was the Hawk”—MacVightie bit off the words.
“The Hawk?”
“The Hawk!”
“But how do you know?” demanded Lanson incredulously. “You said yourself that he had left no clue to his identity. How do you know?” MacVightie reached into his pocket, took out his pocketbook, and from the pocketbook passed a new, crisp ten-dollar banknote to Lanson.
“What’s this?” inquired Lanson. “The counterfeit ten-dollar bill you showed me last night?”
“No—another one,” MacVightie answered curtly. “Look on the other side.”
Lanson turned the banknote over, stared at it, and whistled suddenly under his breath.
“‘With the compliments of the Hawk!’.rdquo; he read aloud. He stared now at MacVightie. “Perhaps it’s a fake, inspired by that newspaper article yesterday evening,” he suggested.
“It’s no fake,” declared MacVightie grimly. “The Hawk wrote that there all right—it was inside the pay bag in which the ten thousand was carried away from the paymaster’s office last night.”
“You mean—you recovered the bag?” cried Lanson eagerly. “Where? When?”
The Hawk, watching MacVightie’s face, grinned wickedly. MacVightie’s jaws were clamped belligerently, and upon MacVightie’s cheeks was an angry flush.
“Oh, yes, I ‘recovered’ it!” MacVightie snapped. “He’s got his nerve with him! The bag was found reposing in full view on the baggage counter at Selkirk this afternoon—addressed to me. Nobody knows how it got there. But”—MacVightie’s fist came down again upon the operator’s table—“this time he’s overplayed his hand. We knew he had been released from Sing Sing, and that he had come West, but it was only surmise that he was actually around here—now we know. In the second place, it’s pretty good evidence that he’s in with the gang that’s flooded the country with those counterfeit tens, and you’ll remember I told you last night I had a hunch it was the same gang that was operating out here—well, two and two make four!”
“You think he’s——?” Lanson swept his hand suggestively toward the telegraph instruments.
“Yes—and the leader of ‘em, now he’s out here on the ground!” returned MacVightie gruffly.
The Hawk had taken a pencil from his pocket, and was scribbling aimlessly at the top of the page in his notebook.
“Sure!” confided the Hawk to himself. “I thought maybe you’d dope it out like that.”
There was silence for a moment in the office, save for the intermittent clicking of the sounder, to which the Hawk now gave his attention. His pencil still made aimless markings on the top of the page—it was only routine business going over the wire. Then Lanson moved uncomfortably in his chair, and the chair legs squeaked on the bare floor.
MacVightie spoke again:
“Well,” he said bluntly, “you’ve got all of my end of it, except that I’ve placed men in hiding at every station on the line where there are no night operators. What about you? Started your outside line inspection?”
“Yes,” Lanson answered. “I’ve had three men out with section crews working from different points. But it’s slow business making an inspection that’s careful enough to be of any use, and even then it’s a pretty tall order to call the turn on anything when there’s already so many legitimate splices and repairs on the wires.”
“Well—any results?” asked MacVightie.
Lanson shook his head.
“We found what we thought was a new splice in one place, but it turned out to have been made by one of our own men two weeks ago, only he had forgotten to report it.”
MacVightie’s eyes narrowed.
“One of our own men—eh?” he repeated curtly. “Who was it?”
“Nothing doing there!” Lanson shook his head again, emphatically this time. “It was Calhoun.”
“Calhoun—eh?” observed MacVightie softly.
Lanson bridled slightly.
“What’s the matter with Calhoun?” he inquired testily. “Got anything against him?”
“Never heard of him before,” said MacVightie, with a short laugh. “But I’ll take pains to make his acquaintance.”
“Then you might as well spare yourself the trouble,” advised Lanson. “I can tell you before-hand that he carries a good record on this division, and that he’s one of the best linemen we’ve got.”
“I daresay,” admitted MacVightie coolly. “But amongst other things we’re looking for good linemen to-night—who forget to make reports. You needn’t get touchy, Lanson, because one of your men’s names comes up. You can make up your mind to it there’s an inside end to this, and——”
The tiny ray of the Hawk’s flashlight shot suddenly upon the notebook’s open page, as the sounder broke into a sharp tattoo.
“;wtaz’—stroke at four,” he muttered, as he began to write. “Three—one—two. They’ve changed the code to-night—’qxpetlk——’”
There was a sharp exclamation from the other room.
“Listen! There he is now!” Martin cried. Chairs were pushed back—the three men were on their feet.
“What’s he sending?” questioned MacVightie instantly.
The Hawk scowled at the disturbance, as, over their voices, he concentrated his attention upon the sounder. He wrote steadily on:
“... huwkmuh hdtlqgvh...
“Same as usual,” Martin replied. “Just a jumble of letters.”
“Well then, get ready to throw that ground, or whatever you call it, into him!” ordered MacVightie tensely.
“I’m ready,” said Martin.
“All right then—now!”
The Hawk nodded to himself, as his pencil unflaggingly noted down letter after letter. The sounder was very perceptibly stronger.
“West!”