Partners Of The Night/Chapter 4
I
"So much for Slant-Face Regan," ended Commissioner Thorne. When he spoke again, his voice was savage, low. "But his case is not what we're here for. it's my case. I'm in a hole! And the Police Department's in a hole, too!"
Clifford glanced with instinctive caution about the bedroom in the Biltmore, to which both he and the Commissioner had come in separate and round- about ways for this secret meeting, He drew nearer the chief and spoke in a whisper.
"Those bank robbery cases?"
"Yes! The police have not done a thing, and have not even a clue!" The Commissioner could hardly control his impotent wrath. "And great God! you've seen how the newspapers have been panning me?"
"I have. And incidentally, Chief, I have seen how the papers have all been praising Bradley; saying that if you hadn't curtailed his powers as chief of the detective bureau, he would have had those safe-men long ago."
"But I haven't curtailed Bradley's powers!"
"I know. But Bradley has made the newspapers believe you have. That's the same thing. As a manipulator of the newspapers, Bradley has the world beaten."
"And on top of that, he gets sick--"
"Or pretends to get sick," amended Clifford.
"And leaves the whole proposition straight up to me!" ejaculated the angry Commissioner.
"Just so," said Clifford; and, after a moment: "Since you've asked me here, Chief, I'd like to say just five things."
"A hundred, if you want to!"
"First, Bradley wants to be the head of the department; most of the force look to him as the coming man. This whole bank robbery epidemic is partly a frame-up on Bradley's part, to get you in so bad that you will have to resign in response to public clamor. And public clamor, inspired by him, will demand that he be made chief in your place."
"Next?"
"Second, there are other big safe jobs being planned this minute."
"Go on--cheer me up!"
"Third, examine the records of the transfers of detectives Bradley has had you sign during the last two or three months. You'll find all the honest detectives who know safe-men are working out in the suburbs, where they've nothing to do but say good-morning to the goats. Bradley hasn't left an honest detective on Broadway, who'd know a safe-man if he saw one."
"Fourth?"
"Fourth, those safe-men have got away clean with those big jobs because everything was fixed with Bradley before they began to operate. Bradley's getting his fifteen per cent."
"Fifth?"
"Fifth, Bradley knows exactly what's doing, and could have every man cracking cribs in New York locked up within two hours."
"Couldn't you," asked Commissioner Thorne ironically, "just to put me entirely at my ease, add a happy little sixth?"
"Well, the other day I happened to see Billy Hawkins on Broadway."
"You think it's Hawkins?"
"He's the smoothest safe-man in America. And the size of the jobs--he won't touch anything smaller than two or three hundred thousand dollars --and the clean style of the jobs, make it look like Hawkins."
Commissioner Thorne leaned forward, his face set.
"Clifford," he said sharply, "Bradley's put me in bad! I've got to get those safe-men or go under. I'm not sure of a man in the department. Somebody I can trust has got to help me. And that somebody has got to be you!"
"That's a mighty big assignment, Chief," said Clifford slowly. "All right, though. But you must let me go my own way and pick my own men."
"Anything you want! And while you're at it, get Bradley, if you can!"
Clifford's face set grimly.
"Oh, I'll get Bradley--if I can. But don't let's forget this, Commissioner--Bradley is the wisest of all wise guys!"
II
As Clifford came down into the lobby of the hotel, he saw just before him the square, powerful figure of Bradley himself--supposed to be ill and spending this month of December on a leave of absence in the South. Clifford instinctively tautened; but in the department, such men as he and Braddley mask their purposes, and do not strike until they believe the blow will carry home.
"Hello, Clifford," called Bradley. "Have a drink."
"Thanks, Chief. I'm on the wagon."
"You're wise. Sit tight! haven't seen you for a couple of months. Say, that was a great collar you made of Slant-Face Regan--three murders, shooting up two others, and on top of that a ten thousand dollar reward. What you going to do with the coin?"
"I'm not spending it yet, Chief."
"Might as well be. you've got Slant-Face standing up, and he's the same as convicted. Of course you know, Clifford, that his conviction will mean your reinstatement in the department. What I stopped you for was to say that as soon as you get back, I'll have a good assignment for you."
"Thank you, Chief." Clifford saluted his former chief and present arch-enemy and passed on, smiling grimly to himself and knowing Bradley doing likewise. Clifford glanced at his watch; it was just seven o'clock. The most likely place to find an operator of Hawkins' caliber was at dinner in one of the best-known hotels, for Hawkins preferred, for business reasons, to mix inconspicuously among the well-to-do and respectables. Clifford looked into the dining-rooms of the Biltmore--Delmonico's-- the Ritz--the Astor--and again the Biltmore. This time he entered, secured a corner table, and out of the. tail of his eye watched a man who sat alone at a table with places arranged for three: a man of perhaps forty-five, in evening clothes, lean of face, cold of eyes, reserved in manner. Mr. William Hawkins always looked the part of a reticent man of affairs.
If there was one quality that particularly distinguished Clifford from other police officials, it was his humanness: his recognition that accidents of birth and of environment make the average criminal, and not a perverse native instinct; and his disposition to give the criminal a chance to become a man where possible. But as he gazed across the tables at the cold lean mask of a face of Hawkins, all that was relentless and indomitable in Clifford surged up and assumed control of him. To help Thorne--to defeat Bradley--perhaps to catch Bradley in his subtle plannings--this would have been sufficient motive. But Hawkins multiplied the motive; for Hawkins he knew to be without conscience and without mercy. Clifford remembered poor Joe Gregory, once one of Hawkins' subordinates. Gregory had determined to go straight; he had told Hawkins he was quitting the outfit and quitting the game. The next day he had been found stiff in his bed; an overdose of a sleeping potion was the coroner's finding--he who had never needed, or taken, a sleeping potion in his life. Hawkins let no man quit who shared his secrets.
Clifford, keeping Hawkins under observation, swiftly counted the difficulties of his assignment. This was to be no case where the super-detective of fiction--Clifford smiled whenever he encountered that entertaining but improbable gentleman in print--could examine a cigar's ash, meditate an hour in laboratory or study, and then bring villain and narrative to a dramatic close. That finished quiet gentleman over there was the criminal equivalent of the highest-grade businessman. Safe-cracking with him was a carefully developed profession, almost as exact as mathematics. He feared no living thing; but he took no risk, for the reason that by his method of working with the police where possible, and of carefully planning every detail in advance, he had eliminated all risk. Hawkins did not rob vaults with jimmies, nitro-glycerin, acetylene gas. Hawkins robbed vaults with his business efficiency.
Clifford gave his dinner order. When he glanced again at Hawkins' table the two empty places had been filled. He started. Mr. Hawkins' guests were Joe Russell and Mary Regan.
At once all of Clifford's senses were on the trail. Were these two merely guests of Hawkins? Was this merely an informal little dinner party of three aristocrats of crime? Or was Joe Russell or Mary Regan in some way involved in the plans of Hawkins?
The next instant Clifford remembered something: Years ago, "Gentleman Jim" Regan, Mary Regan's father, had been partner in many of Hawkins' operations; there had been a rumor that the two had broken off in anger and suspicion--and when the cold, patient, vindictive Billy Hawkins severed a partnership there was danger for the other man; but the natural death of Gentleman Jim had saved him from any stern accounting Hawkins may have been waiting his opportunity to press grimly home.
Undoubtedly, Clifford reasoned, Mary Regan must have known Hawkins from her girlhood days. And there were a dozen ways a handsome, quick- witted, cynical girl like Mary Regan could aid in the great schemes of such a subtle criminal. Clifford rose, intending to slip out unobserved; but Joe Russell sighted him and motioned him to their table. Mary Regan gave him a cold nod as he came up; Russell took Clifford by the arm.
"Bob," said the suave Russell, in a baiting tone, "let me present Mr. Phillips. Mr. Phillips, this is Mr. Robert Clifford, formerly lieutenant-detective police--'broken' by Commissioner Thorne, you know--now a private detective, with offices in--beg pardon, Bob, what size hat do you wear?"
Clifford did not know what was behind Russell's gibing manner, but he assumed its kind.
"My office may be only under my hat," he retorted gruffly, "but there are some detectives with swell offices who've got under their hats just exactly nothing!"
"Some comeback that,", said Russell. "Sit down."
Clifford did so.
"Russell, since I chanced to meet you and Miss Regan," he continued harshly, but in a low voice, "I want to tell you that it's going to be the best thing for you if you come right through with what you know about Slant-Face Regan."
"If this is going to be what I believe you police call the third degree," said Mr. Phillips, rising, "I'm sure you'll all excuse me while I make a telephone call."
Clifford had this bit of satisfaction--he had made Hawkins estimate him as a "boob."
"I intended trying to see you to-night, Miss Regan," Clifford went on, changing to a quiet tone, "to give you the latest inside dope on how your brother's case sizes up."
Her cold manner of the previous moment vanished. She leaned toward him eagerly.
"Yes--yes? " she breathed.
"Since Slant-Face has been indicted, of course I've got to go through with my end of it and take the stand against him. But as for his alleged shooting of Jennie Malone and that college fellow, Slant-Face switched out the lights before the shooting was done; the state can't prove he did the shooting; it can only prove that he switched out the lights. And Jennie's standing by him, and their intention to get married, that'll weigh an awful lot with the jury. And as for the three men who were killed--Biff Farrell, Gipsy Joe and Red Mick were shot with each other's guns, and the state can't prove they didn't shoot each other during a three-sided quarrel. Besides, the jury will think it a public service to remove three such gangsters. As things stand, Slant-Face is sure to beat the case."
Mary Regan, who had grown very pale, and her uncle gazed silently at Clifford.
"But how about your ten thousand reward?" queried Russell after a moment. "And your reinstatement in the department?"
"I'll never get either--not out of Slant-Face Regan's case," Clifford returned quietly.
"But you might get one, or both, if you handled your end of it right," said Russell.
Mary Regan caught her breath, in her dark eyes was a subdued glow.
"I suppose we ought to thank you, Mr. Clifford," she said in a low voice.
From her intonation Clifford knew that her remark was primarily a question addressed to herself. So he did not answer. Twice before this, in crises of their strange acquaintance, she had been stirred and for a moment had seemed to believe in him. He continued to gaze at her, and waited--wondering, hoping. As he waited, a complex of warring desires, the worldly-wise element in him tried to fight down the feeling which this daughter of great crime had awakened in him. Yet at the same time that feeling made him want to compel her to believe in him--want to rouse to dominance what was best in her. But this end, he knew, could only be achieved by masterly adroitness on his part; her proud nature would instantly detect and haughtily repel any open attempt to influence her. Clifford was wise enough to know that only time and experience could overcome what time and experience and companionship had produced.
The next moment her dark eyes were cold again.
"We'll save our thanks until we see how it really comes out," she said.
He recognized that her instinctive distrust of him had resumed its former sway, that she suspected him of having some secret motive; some hidden purpose, in his attitude toward her brother.
Well--he must keep on waiting.
Clifford's mind came back to the great task in hand, and he had an impulse to ask Russell about the doings of Billy Hawkins--for Clifford knew that Russell, though professionally his antagonist, respected and liked him. But a second thought made him realize that no favor shown him, no skill in the questioning, would ever make Joe Russell "give up" anything to the police. It was better not to let Russell know his mission and what he suspected.
"By the way, Bob," said Russell, "what do you think--Mary is going into business?"
"Business?" exclaimed Clifford, and looked at Mary Regan in surprise. "What sort of business?"
"Public stenography," said her uncle.
"I didn't know you were a stenographer, Miss Regan."
Mary Regan did not deign to answer.
"She isn't," said Russell--"at least not much of a one. She's going to open an office; she'll just manage things, and have half a dozen experts who'll do the actual work. You see, she thinks something of the kind is best for her while the, case of Slant-Face is on."
Mary Regan going into business! There was no opportunity to follow this up, for at this moment Clifford saw Hawkins returning among the tables. Clifford rose and said good-night. Outside the dining-room he covertly glanced back, Mary Regan and the cold-faced master-cracksman, leaning toward each other, were talking in low voices.
Again the insistent questions asked themselves: Was Mary Regan involved in Hawkins' scheme? And if so, how?
III
What followed was an education, if Clifford needed one, in how a great modern safe-man goes about his chosen business. With such a one it is no such simple and swiftly dramatic matter as picking your bank, waiting for the first dark night, using your "soup" on the safe, and disappearing amid a gun-fight with the deposits. It is much more prosaic, and much more effective; an affair in which the least difficult item is the actual opening of the vault. The preliminary planning of every detail, the elimination of risk from his business just as an up-to-date manufacturer eliminates waste--this is what differentiates the finished cracksman from the yegg, who makes his precarious livelihood from the childish safes of small postoffices and country stores.
Hawkins, as Clifford knew, had spent six months planning his great Pittsburg robbery, and only two hours in the actual execution-- and had made such a clean get-away that there was no evidence connecting him with that affair.
Clifford had to match patience against patience, caution against caution, wit against wit. First of all, through his lawyer friend, Stanley Tarleton, he engaged a private detective agency to cover every move of Hawkins, instructing Tarleton to give as explanation, so that the private detectives would have no idea of the real value and purpose of the records they turned in, that his client was seeking evidence against Hawkins as corespondent in a contemplated divorce suit. This surveillance would supply Clifford with details he personally might miss.
Also, Clifford himself began to shadow Hawkins. There were futile days of tailing; then one day Hawkins went into the City Building Department. After he had come out, Clifford himself entered the department, and by clever questioning, which did not reveal his own identity or purpose, learned that Hawkins, as Mr. Peabody, an architect, had examined the plans of several great office buildings there on file.
Clifford thanked the clerk who had served him and walked out with the bustling manner of a hurried building contractor. But within him was excitement, and a bit of admiration: Hawkins was certainly a thorough worker!
A few days later Clifford tailed Hawkins to the offices of a great vault-building concern. Here Clifford, again entering after Hawkins had gone, learned by presenting credentials prepared in advance, which proved, him a banker from New Orleans, and by putting adroit questions, that Hawkins, as Mr. Foster, representing big San Francisco banking interests desirous of installing a new vault of most modern defensive power, had been shown, as sample specimens of what could be done, the plans of several of the strongest vaults in New York.
Clifford left the offices of the vault concern with the sober manner suitable in a banker, and in the hallway he coolly lit a cigar. But once in his waiting taxicab, which he swiftly entered after making sure he was not watched, he sat in excited thought. Hawkins had considered some score of vaults; and the addresses of the buildings in which five of these vaults were located coincided with the addresses of five of the score or more of buildings Hawkins had examined in the building department. Hawkins had the detailed plans of five great bank buildings; also he had the plans of five great vaults.
Undoubtedly Hawkins had already picked his bank. But which was the bank?
Who of the many men that had previously worked with Hawkins were working with him now?
Also--and again--where did Mary Regan come in?
Days of tailing Hawkins and watching the five banks which appeared on both lists brought Clifford nothing further, though he was certain that the plans of Hawkins were going carefully forward. In the meantime he had been receiving, through Tarleton, daily reports from the detective agency--all valueless.
Then one day came a report, apparently of the same unimportance to one seeking evidence in a suit for divorce, telling of an accidental meeting between Hawkins and three men, evidently friends whom he had not seen for some time, at a road-house near Yonkers, and their return together to New York in a hired touring car. From the descriptions given in the report Clifford recognized the three acquaintances: "Big" Ed Johnson, a Houdini at picking locks; and "Splinter" Stilwell and "Dutch" Brown, cracksmen of smaller caliber than Hawkins, but both, none the less, what are termed at Headquarters as "good safe-men." The car and chauffeur Clifford also set down to be part of Hawkins' equipment.
Clifford would have given a year's pay as lieutenant (if only he were getting it!) to have known what those five men discussed on that ride down from Yonkers. The bank? . .. Mary Regan? . . .
The very day on which this report was delivered he entered the Hotel Astor for his lunch. At a table alone he saw Mary Regan, in a personal adaptation of the latest mode which toned in perfectly with her dark, reserved, supercilious beauty that for Clifford was charged with tantalizing mystery. He crossed to her.
"Miss Regan, do you mind if I share your table?" he asked.
"If you will wait a few minutes, you may have the whole of it," she said coldly, with a glance almost contemptuously brief. "I'm just finishing. I've already asked for my check. But do as you like."
He sat down, grimly but uncomfortably.
"Where is your uncle? "
"He doesn't like New York in January. He left a week ago for a month or two in Florida. I suppose, as usual, you are doing wonders?"
Her tone was coldly taunting; always, when they met, her pride prompted her to hurt him.
"Nothing of importance," he said, taking the menu from the waiter to whom she had just paid her bill. "How about your public stenography office?"
"I'm opening it to-morrow. Would you like one of my cards?" From her bag she drew out a bit of pasteboard and pushed it toward him across the white cloth. "Perhaps"--her voice again was taunting--"when you have a report to make that your own office cannot handle, you will deign to patronize me."
Clifford glanced at her card. Only his long schooling in self-control saved him from a start. The card read:
THE MUTUAL STENOGRAPHY CO.
First Mutual Bank Building --Broadway.
Clifford looked up and steadily met her dark eyes.
"Certainly--I'll be glad to give you any work I have."
With a slight nod, which gave him mocking gratitude and good-by, she walked away. He gazed after her, his breath held tensely.
So Mary Regan was in it!
And the bank was the First Mutual Bank!
He saw in a flash, and perfectly, her part in the scheme. She was to conduct an apparently legitimate business in the Mutual building; that business would be so managed as to give Hawkins and his men free and natural entry into the building; and that office was to be the basis of inside operations against the bank.
From that day on, unobserved, Clifford centered his attention on the First Mutual Bank. He noted trifles which, if he had not known that this was the bank of Hawkins' choice, he never would have noticed and which would have had no significance to him--trifles which informed him that during every minute of the twenty-four hours the minutest detail in the routine of the bank was being studied and recorded.
Also, he kept watch on Mary Regan's office. He had Tarleton send Mary Regan work; he had other friends do the same; he had his agents keep the Mutual Stenography Company under constant scrutiny. All reports forced the deduction that her office was not only busy, but was legitimately so. As the days passed, that phase of the situation began to puzzle him: the most careful surveillance of her office, the most careful deductions from reports about it, failed to reveal a trace of any slightest connection between the office and Hawkins or any of his men.
Two weeks--three weeks passed; still nothing but legitimate business: people bringing in work to be copied, men coming in to dictate. Clifford might have lost patience had he not remembered the man with whom he was dealing. It was part of the successful Hawkins' system to make every detail seem natural, to rouse no suspicion in advance of action. Such a system took time.
The business of the office developed beyond what could be handled during the usual work-day. The fourth week a night-shift was inaugurated to meet the exigency of much legal and brokerage work that admitted of no delay in execution. Men came in to give rush dictation or to take away completed work. Then the sex of the operators began to change; soon only men typists appeared at night. The next development was a night manager: an alert, prompt, efficient young man. Clifford secured a snapshot of him; but being a discharged officer, Clifford did not have personal access to the records at Headquarters. So he sent the photograph to Commissioner Thorne.
When Thorne's report on the photograph came to him, Clifford felt that at last he knew all the cards in Hawkins' hand and knew how Hawkins was going to play them; that at last he understood everything.
Everything, that is, except Mary Regan. The detective in him was expectantly exultant, but the man in him was sick over a young woman of such quality--though as yet he had no definite assay of her worth--allying herself with a ruthless villain like Billy Hawkins. Against his fears and his better judgment and all the growing facts in the case, he had persisted in hoping for something better than this from her. Her course could only be explained by her lawless Regan blood.
Well--Mary Regan, or no Mary Regan, he had now to see the matter through.
IV
Mr. James Anderson, president of the First Mutual Bank, greeted Clifford with that neutral dignity which financiers have as part of their equipment for use upon strangers who penetrate to their presence. This neutral manner makes easy a transformation to warmth or chilly negation, when the financial desirability or undesirability of their caller is unfolded.
Mr. Anderson started to glance perfunctorily through the letter Clifford handed him. Then his glasses tumbled from his nose, and he stared short-sightedly at Clifford.
"What's this mean? No--wait! I'll take this letter at its word. I know Commissioner Thorne."
The next moment he was speaking into his telephone.
"Is this Commissioner Thorne? Yes. Just one moment." He placed his glasses and referred to the letter, which contained a few code phrases-- devised for the benefit of the score of switchboard operators at Headquarters through whom so many intended police secrets find swift passage to intended police victims. "This is Peter Jackson talking. . . . Yes, yes, feeling fine, Commissioner. A Mr. Hardy, Edward Hardy, has applied to me for position as manager of my dairy farm. He says he knows you. Can you recommend him? . . . Yes, yes--thank you very much."
The florid executive hung up, and pushed a pad across the great glass-topped desk to Clifford. "Sign your name on that, please." When Clifford had done so, his expert eyes compared the signature on the pad with a sample signature on Commissioner Thorne's letter.
"The Commissioner says I can trust you to the limit, and your identification checks up." Mr. Anderson's manner had changed to that bankerly benignity which is a forecast of pleasant weather to one desirous of making a loan. "And now, Mr. Clifford, what can I do for you?"
"You can let me do something for you," said Clifford.
"What's that!" The banker suddenly lost his professional blandness.
"I believe that when the First Mutual closes this afternoon you will have on hand, what with the deposit made to-day with you by the Sub-Treasury, the largest amount of any day this month--close on half a million, cash."
"Yes, to-day is our regular monthly maximum. But see here--what are you driving at?"
"At this: it's one hundred to one that the First Mutual Bank will be robbed to-night."
"The First Mutual--robbed!"
Mr. James Anderson slumped back, his full face suddenly gray and loose, his pop-eyes staring. The next moment he had recovered, and was smiling.
"My dear sir, you are altogether absurd! Break into the First Mutual--it is impossible! We have the strongest vault in America; our burglar wiring is perfect; besides, our watchman--"
"My dear sir," interrupted Clifford, "the man who plans to rob the First Mutual knows your vault, your wiring, your whole building, the routine of your night watchman, as well as you know them. He knows the exact intervals at which the watchman punches the time clock; he knows the exact habits of all the policemen stationed hereabout; he knows the habits of every important person connected with the bank. As a matter of fact, Mr. Anderson, the gentleman I have in mind could undoubtedly give you a lot of altogether new information about the First Mutual."
The banker again was staring, pop-eyed, at his visitor.
"You forget, Mr. Anderson," continued Clifford, "that as the powers of defense increase, the powers of destruction also develop, and sometimes the latter develop more rapidly. The superdreadnought seemed indestructible--until the submarine came along. You think you have a super-vault downstairs, but to this super-cracksman it is about as impregnable as a can of sardines."
Mr. Anderson sprang up.
"If that's true, I'll notify the Commissioner and have a police guard here at once, and keep it here day and night! "
"That's exactly what we don't want. We want to let the gang rob your bank."
"Let them rob the First Mutual!"
Mr. Anderson collapsed. The idea was preposterous beyond belief.
"Exactly," said Clifford calmly. "We have suspicions, big suspicions. we've got to have evidence, and to get evidence against this mob we've got to catch them in the act."
"Do you think, as the chief official of this institution," exploded Mr. Anderson,
"I'll ever consent to its being robbed!" His manner became more calm, but was no less dignified. "Besides, think of the loss of confidence in our reliability such an event would bring about!"
"There's another side to that matter, Mr. Anderson," said Clifford. "Think of the increased confidence the public will have in you, when the public learns, as it will, that you were so watchful of the interests of the bank that you knew in advance all about the scheme against it and were prepared. Further, think of the general service you will be rendering in helping apprehend men who are a menace to all the public. And further, think of the valuable publicity--sensational, but at the same time dignified publicity."
Mr. Anderson gazed at Thorne's letter--gazed at Clifford--considered. Clifford had judged him aright: heavy, conservative, but with a secret liking for what the newspapers might say.
"Very well, Mr. Clifford," the banker conceded impressively. "The First Mutual will coöperate in all ways possible."
V
The darkness up there in the balcony, where the executive offices were located, was like the center of a can of black paint; the silence was as that of the heart of infinite space. Noiselessly, Clifford stood at the crack of the door of the president's office. His senses could perceive nothing at all. Then again he heard a soft, regular pad-pad upon the marble pavement below: the rubber-soled night-watchman making his regular rounds.
Clifford held his tiny flash almost against the crystal of his watch. Close on twelve o'clock. Something would soon begin to happen.
While he stood there in the blackness Clifford felt no such confidence as he had expressed to the bank's president. Eight hours of solitary waiting (he had entered the bank as an extra cleaner, and slipped unnoticed up to this hiding place) had given him time to consider the risks he had assumed. Hawkins, of course, never added an unnecessary crime to his burglaries; but perhaps Clifford had miscalculated some detail of Hawkins' plans, perhaps there might be a slip-up--and Hawkins, if cornered, and given a desperate chance, was swift and merciless. And then there was Bradley, whom Clifford had never for a moment omitted from his calculations; there was the chance that, in some unguessable way, the infinitely wary and powerful Bradley might be an immediate danger, too.
Thorne had urged that a squad of several officers be hidden in the bank; but Clifford lad finally brought the Commissioner around to the present plan by arguing that any attempt to introduce several officers would arouse suspicion and frighten Hawkins off. But this argument did not represent the whole of Clifford's reason for wanting to be in the bank alone. His great desire, grown during the last day to be his dominating purpose in this case, was to try to find out, for himself, before any other persons knew, just what was Mary Regan's share in this gigantic robbery. The case looked black for Mary Regan. But he wanted to know--for certain.
Clifford slipped down the stairway and crouched on its first landing. From this point he could see the grilled interior of the huge marble chamber, illumined from the street lamps and from the one electric light at the bank's front. That is, illumined with certain exceptions. The stairway and its foot were in a shadow, created by a jutting angle of the wall. At Clifford's left the shadow deepened into blackness, and here he knew was a side door opening into the bank from the general hallway of the building. Behind the balcony stairway, and also in shadow, was the entrance of the stairway which led down into the vault.
The night-watchman, whom Clifford from his dusk-protected crouching-place could make out to be a strongly built body, a grayish uniform and cap, and a heavy mustache, went pad-padding across the bank's pavement as he had done mechanically every hour for the last twenty years and inserted a key in his watchman's box. In the office of the burglary protective company flashed the signal that all was well.
The night-watchman twisted at his mustache--this in previous observations of the guard Clifford had noted to be a habit--saluted a snow-drifted policeman without as he passed the grated windows, and disappeared into the darkness behind the stairway where was a chair for his occasional rest.
Clifford strained to hear faint expected sounds off left where was the side door through which, if he had deduced correctly, Hawkins and his confederates would enter. He could hear nothing. But big Ed Johnson could handle the most difficult lock almost as noiselessly and easily as by the utterance of a magic word. Perhaps even then Big Ed was working silently outside.
Minutes passed. Clifford's excited imagination saw the complete details of what might now be passing: two "lookouts," posted near the bank to give warning of danger--a big automobile, stalled in a side street, its chauffeur struggling with a hopelessly refractory engine; but which engine would become instantly docile and active when the time came for the "get-away"--and outside, in the dark hallway, crouching low, Hawkins and his three confederates who were to do the actual job, Big Ed's swift surgeon's fingers probing at the lock.
And Mary Regan--where was she, what was she doing? . . .
More minutes throbbed away. Without, two drunken marines appeared, having cruised far out of the ordinary track of revelry, and sang in the joyous abandon of disciplined fighters when on shore-leave. The policeman stopped them; there was a debate. The bank watchman went forward to the window and gazed at this interesting interruption of his night's routine. Presently the sailors were induced to move quietly on, and the watchman recrossed to the dark area behind the stairway.
Thus far Clifford had not heard a sound within the bank itself except the watchman's rubber tread. But now, as the watchman passed into the darkened area, he heard a gasp, a gurgle, the scuffle of a brief struggle--then silence again. Though he saw nothing, Clifford knew that the watchman had been gagged and tied up; knew that the hilarious marines had been a "stall" to distract the watchman, and cover any inadvertent sounds, while Hawkins and his confederates had made their entry.
Silence again. Then from out of the darkness sauntered a strongly built figure, in grayish uniform and cap. He pulled characteristically at his heavy mustache; yawned; saluted the policeman who again appeared outside. Then he turned the key of the time-clock--and once more, in the offlce of the burglary protective agency, a buzzer announced that all was well at the First Mutual.
Clifford hardly breathed in his excitement. Thus far everything had been done, and was now being done, exactly as he had calculated. Hawkins, this moment, was already at swift work upon the vault below; and Big Ed Johnson, in his uniform prepared in advance, made a perfect and reassuring fac-simile of the regular watchman, as he stood there in the full light, stroking his big false mustache.
Clifford, rehearsing to get correctness of manner, stroked the big false mustache on his own upper lip, and pulled his watchman's cap a little farther down.
Noiselessly he crept back up the balcony stairway and into the blackness of the president's office. Groping, he found the telephone. The wire had been open all evening; six blocks away, in a dark room, sat Commissioner Thorne, on his head a telephone operator's helmet.
"Hello, Commissioner," whispered Clifford.
"That you, Clifford?" came back over the wire.
"Yes. The mob 's here and at work. They got in through the side door."
"I'll be over with a squad in ten minutes."
Clifford slipped down the stairway. He had practically done his duty to Thorne. The law was the same as served. Within the next ten minutes he had to do what was now for him the great business of the night--to learn about Mary Regan. Earlier in the evening he had had a report over the open wire that she was in her apartment. But what was she going to do next?--where did she fit in?
He waited, crouching at the stairway's foot until Big Ed again passed out into the lighted area of the bank. Then Clifford ducked swiftly around into the darkness behind the stairway and pressed himself in a corner of the wall. He stood, hardly breathing, waiting his chance for the next move in his plan--in his left hand a handkerchief, in his right a wide-necked little bottle stoppered with his thumb.
Big Ed sauntered back into the shadow and stood over the dim prostrate form of the bank's guardian. There was one moment when the three night-watchmen, each a duplicate of the other, were not three feet apart.
"You poor boob," Big Ed laughed low, satirically--"watching all this loot for eighteen iron men per week. But just to show there's no hard feelings, Jack, have a drink on us."
Big Ed stooped as if to thrust a coin into th clothes of the prostrate man. This was Clifford's chance. He dashed the contents of the bottle into the handkerchief, flung himself on Big Ed from behind, and clamped the dripping handkerchief against Ed's mouth and nose. Big Ed jabbed backwards with his elbows, swung viciously over his shoulders at Clifford's head; many of the blows landed and pained frightfully, but Clifford held the anesthetizer into place with an embrace of steel.
The pair swayed about in their struggle--noiseless because both were rubber-soled. Once they swung out into the light, but the next instant Clifford had dragged his captive back into the shadow. With a final burst of energy Big Ed tried to break the grip upon him. After that his struggles began to weaken; in another moment his body was an inert weight. Clifford let him slide to the pavement, and for security's sake he handcuffed the cracksman's hands behind his back and left the saturated handkerchief upon his face.
Then, making sure that cap, uniform and mustache were all in order, Clifford crept softly down the stairway leading into the vault.
VI
The dungeon of steel and concrete, down in the remote stillness of the earth, was ablaze with its own electric light. His footsteps unheard, Clifford stood within the shadow at the entrance, and for a moment gazed across the chamber at the swift dexterity of the three men in front of the massive door of the vault.
Hawkins, as a great surgeon might prepare for a major operation, was chalking a line around the combination. At his side were two little steel tanks, connected up with flexible steel tubing. Stilwell was at the little tank which Clifford knew contained acetylene gas; Brown was in charge of the tank of oxygen. Already Stilwell had turned on the acetylene, and from the nozzle which held spurted a white flame. Slowly Brown turned on the oxygen; in the "mixer" it joined the acetylene; the pair regulated, tested--and gradually the flame of the torch changed from white to blue.
Five thousand degrees of heat, that was what Clifford knew the blue fang of fire would have attained when the pair had it in readiness. And when applied along the chalk marks with which Hawkins was outlining the vital organs of the lock, he knew that that knife of flame could carve through the armor-plate of the heavy door as easily as a kitchen knife could cut the plug out of a watermelon.
Clifford moved a pace nearer, but still remained in the semi-shadow. His heart pumped wildly. Would the men recognize that in him was yet a third night-watchman?
"Everything going all right, Billy?" he asked in a muffled whisper.
Hawkins turned; his thin face was tense with the task before him.
"Fine as silk, Ed," Hawkins answered, and resumed drawing his white outline upon the vault door.
Clifford had passed muster. Now for the matter that had made him so arrange his scheme that for a few moments at least he would be accepted by these men as one of them. His next remark had to be a hazard; but as he spoke he had his hand on the automatic in his side pocket.
"Wonder what Mary Regan's doing now, Billy?"
"Sleeping a sleep that I hope will last till eight to-morrow," said Hawkins.
That brief answer was as a new light turned on in Clifford's mind. He was silent a moment, considering the undreamed-of possibility revealed to him. When he spoke again he tried to speak casually--though he knew he was again venturing into waters sowed with mines.
"You certainly are slipping it across on the Regan woman in great shape, Billy."
"I've had to wait years for it," said Hawkins, coldly exultant. "But I guess after this nobody'll ever think they can throw me down and get away with it. Her father tried it--just once!"
"But since Gentleman Jim died and beat you out of it--" Clifford led him on.
"He's got to pay through his family--and by God, his family is paying all right!"
Clifford endeavored to put uneasiness into his tone.
"Mary Regan's a clever girl, Billy, and I'm still afraid she may take a tumble."
"I've told you she doesn't suspect a thing," said Hawkins sharply, barely veiling his contempt for the lack of nerve of his supposed first lieutenant "She thinks she's been running a perfectly straight office."
It was with difficulty that Clifford forced a gleeful chuckle.
"You sure have framed her for fair, Billy. After we've blown, she'll be pinched as an accomplice; the police'll say she was running that office just to give us a chance to get into the bank. And after her own record, and her father's record, and Joe Russell's record, and her knowing you, and the looks of the whole scheme--why, her denial won't be worth a damn! She'll be sent away for God knows how many years. Billy, you've certainly done her up great!"
"Nobody'll ever try to throw me down again!" Hawkins repeated with triumphant grimness.
His swift diagramming done, Hawkins put the chalk in his pocket, drew on heavy gauntlets, and pulled over his head a goggled hood like a diver's helmet--protection against the heat and the sparks of consuming steel.
"Give me the torch, boys," he ordered sharply. "And you, Ed, better get back upstairs and punch that time clock."
Clifford trembled with two great feelings: amazement at the ruthless, unforgetting vindictivenes of this man, and a surging desire to shoot him down as he reached for the torch of blue flame.
"Hawkins," Clifford said sharply, in his full-toned natural voice, and he stepped out in the light toward them, "I guess you'll be stopping work on that vault right now."
Hawkins and the two others whirled about and found Clifford's black automatic upon them. Hawkins jerked off his hood; his lean mask of a face was now contorted in savage bewilderment.
"If any of you three make a move for your guns, it'll be a job for the coroner," said Clifford. "Hawkins, I guess you'll not turn that trick on Mary Regan. When this case comes to trial I'll take the stand and swear to what you've just told me about your plan to frame her."
"Who the devil are you?" choked out Hawkins.
"I'm not Big Ed; that's enough for you to know just now. he's upstairs, handcuffed and doped, beside the other watchman."
The master safe-man, caught at last, glared at Clifford, barely able to hold in his vicious, convulsive, impotent rage. Clifford kept his automatic trained upon the three and waited. Thorne and his squad were due in a very few minutes now.
The next moment footsteps sounded behind him on the stairway--rather sooner than Clifford had calculated.
"I've got them, Chief," he said, the covering of "his prisoners not permitting him to turn. "Just put the cuffs on them."
"Say, what the hell--!"
The voice that thus ejaculated was a heavy bass--not at all the friendly voice Clifford had expected. Startled, Clifford looked sharply about. At the foot of the stairway was Chief of Detectives Bradley.
In the instant that Clifford stood dumfounded, off guard, Hawkins and the two other men leaped upon him. The automatic was wrenched from him, hands clutched his throat. Even during his surprise, and while he struggled fiercely, Clifford guessed at how Bradley came to be here. Bradley, in full knowledge of what was happening and with Hawkins' consent, had from some dark window across the street also been "covering" the robbery, his purpose being, if there was any serious slip-up in the consummation of Hawkins' plan, to rush in himself and have the glory of making a spectacular arrest--and as for Hawkins, if arrest were inevitable, Hawkins would prefer that it should be made by Bradley. Bradley must have glimpsed him and Big Ed during the instant they had struggled in the light.
Clifford felt the life being strangled out of him; a blow from his pistol butt aimed at his head laid open his cheek and fell heavily upon his shoulder. But even as he fought these three silent determined men for his life, even as he burned with the chagrin of this unexpected defeat, he was conscious of Bradley standing motionless in the entrance of the vault-room, his square powerful face alight with malignant triumph; and he was vividly conscious of what was passing in Bradley's mind. Bradley could say, if developments compelled him to report the matter, that when he arrived Clifford was already done for; or he could say that he had seen the struggle and, not recognizing Clifford in this make-up, had naturally supposed the three had turned upon one of their confederates. And no person would challenge his statements.
Clifford realized, as one blow half dazed him, that he had lost. The next blow, or the next, would be his end. This was Bradley's hour--Bradley's triumph. By just keeping his hands off, by merely doing nothing at all, Bradley was getting rid of his worst enemy.
And Clifford realized, if he were done away with, that his testimony would die with him--that Mary Regan would surely go to prison. . . .
He struggled wildly, with weakening power. The pistol butt found his head again. All seemed up . . . Then his dazed senses thought they discerned other footsteps descending into the vault. And that same instant his blurring vision was amazed to see Bradley spring forward, his pistol drawn.
"Put up your mitts!" savagely cried Bradley.
The three cracksmen fell away and their hands went up. The next moment Clifford saw Commissioner Thorne step into the vault.
"You understand, Clifford," Thorne said half an hour later when they were alone, "that though I had to accept Bradley's statement about the coincidence of all of us having been at work on the same job, and though I had to praise Bradley for making the arrest, and had to praise him, too, for intervening just in time to save your life--I want you to understand that I wasn't fooled for a minute, and that I recognize that you're the man responsible for to-night's arrests, and that I'm setting you down in my mind for a big reward when your day comes."
Clifford mumbled something, intended to be thanks. His aching head was not then thinking of rewards. It was thinking of Mary Regan.