The Man With the Mole/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
TEMPTATION.
FOR the balance of that night and for the two nights following, Sperry watched in the birch grove above the tomb, eating and sleeping by day, holed up in the deserted farm cabin. They were long vigils with the shortening days, thirteen hours at a stretch in the darkness, with one night continual rain that forced him to light a fire the next morning and dry out his sodden clothes. But he stuck to it and was confident that no one had approached the cemetery as no one came near his cabin. What he suffered from most was the fact that he dared not smoke while on guard, and found the lonely hours drag interminably. His great consolation was that, long before this, he would have become one of the silent occupants of the tomb, uncoffined and unepitaphed, but most effectually out of the world. And he was very far from wishing to have done with worldly affairs. His love of Elizabeth undoubtedly did much to give him a sane grip on events and furnish him with hope of ultimate rehabilitation.
Time and time again he went over everything and tried to patch things together into some kind of sequence that he could trace back, in order to discover some clew, some loophole he might use as the commencement of his own vindication. Remington! Everything came back to Remington! He was the one who had deliberately lied about the check’s presentation. Cairns had stated that it was torn from the back of his check book, and Sperry suspected Cairns of furnishing this bit of the evidence. This pointed inevitably to collusion between Cairns and Remington. Moreover, Cairns had interested himself in getting Remington a fresh situation. And the bank’s funds had been depleted ten thousand dollars, which Cairns had at first promised to restore with altogether too much equanimity, Sperry concluded, reviewing his stepfather’s demeanor.
Supposing that Remington had shared that ten thousand. Five thousand would not be much for Cairns to pay as the price of getting Sperry out of grace with his mother, of accomplishing his final disinheritance, and giving Cairns full control of it, if not ultimate possession. But there might be a third man, the one who had so wonderfully imitated the signatures. Who was he?
Out in the blackness he revolved these thoughts, his mind like a squirrel in its turning-cage, and arrived at but one resolution, to seek Baldy’s help to run down Remington, and, trapping him, if that were necessary, force the facts from him.
He thought of his mother, none too strong, and of what insidious poison against him Cairns by this time had succeeded in implanting in her confiding nature. There, too, he was powerless; he did not even know her address. So his heart grew bitter and hard against his transgressors. The girl was his only leaven of sweetness, and she was not of his own world, as society apportioned it. She dwelt in the tents of the wicked, and, if crime had not besmirched her, it was because she was of pure gold that may be hidden, but remains intrinsically perfect.
Baldy, too, was a man who had his qualities. Environment might have forced him into his career, as indeed it had forced Sperry. The man was one who would have made good in any surroundings, have stood out head and shoulders above his fellows. His strength was misapplied, but his virtues were still unspoiled. As friend or enemy, he would go on to the end, and Sperry felt that Baldy was his friend.
So the nights passed, and the days, and the fourth night brought action.
There was a sharp frost, the temperature dropping with the sun, until, at midnight, nested in the blankets he had been forced to bring from the cabin, Sperry was hard put to it to keep warm. He was about to get up and walk about on patrol to restore his congealing circulation, when certain noises arrested him. They were not loud—the clink of a horse’s hoofs on frosty road metal, the squeak of an axle. A team was coming on toward the cemetery. This was not the main road: all the farmers of the vicinity were long ago abed.
Excitement gripped him as the sounds grew closer and turned in to the cemetery enclosure. Sperry had wriggled forward until he lay prone on the top of the curving mound that formed the roof of the tomb. The wagon stopped and two dim shapes got down. There was no moon, but the sky was clear with the frost, and the steely stars gave sufficient light to observe movement. The two men, without a word, advanced to the doors and opened them. Then the light from an electric torch sprayed out, and they went into the vault. For fifteen minutes they worked, taking out the cases and grips, and stowing them carefully in the light farm wagon. They worked in silence. If they had expected to find a recently dead body inside, they made no comment at the lack of it.
Sperry wondered why the bearded man and his two helpers had not said something about their attempt to dispose of him, or had not themselves tried to remove the supposed corpse. Was it true, as Baldy had hinted, that the type of men entrusted by the mysterious chief to handle his loot were surprised at nothing, asked no questions beyond the scope of their own directions?
While these conjectures ran through his mind, he had other things to do; to see if he could recognize these men—as Baldy had suggested he might—and to trail the wagon to its destination.
They wielded their torch skillfully and sparsely. Sperry was unable to get a glimpse of their features. One thing he noticed with satisfaction: they had a big tarpaulin in the wagon-bed which they threw over their load. It was plain that one of them, at least, knew the locality, for he led the horses up the cemetery road to where he could swing them around a loop, not wishing to attempt to back them or turn them in the narrow space, for fear of noise or mishap in the gloom. Sperry swiftly tucked away his blankets among the bracken and slipped like a lizard from the top of the tomb, gliding down to the road, and, hidden behind a big elm, waited the coming out of the wagon.
It went cautiously on down the steep pitch, the brakes set. Behind it, at a safe distance, strode Sperry. At the bottom of the hill the wagon turned north across the valley on a fairly level road, the horses put to a jog-trot. Sperry changed his pace and kept fifty yards behind without difficulty. Thus for a mile they went, and then came the long climb up the northern ridge. Sperry knew the country well, and knew that the team would be stopped for necessary breathing half-way up the hill. He slowly closed in, and, when the wagon halted on the midway bench of the ascent, he was less than ten yards away.
He saw the striking of a match, the passing of it from one man to the other, the glow of a cigar and a pipe, and caught the scent of tobacco. He saw more—the face of one of the men, and the ruddy outline caused him to stop with a little gasp. He had not seen enough to be sure of identity, but the suggestion put his brain in a turmoil.
The two men were talking in low tones: the heavy breathing of the winded horses was plain on the cold night air. Foot by foot, bent double, Sperry crept up to the wagon. He meant to climb over its tail board, cover himself with the tarpaulin, and get a ride to wherever it was going. This he must do, he decided, at the moment of starting up, so that whatever he might make of noise or disturbance would be covered by the natural noise of the horses and wagon in getting into action.
The driver released his foot brake, and Sperry, with a little jump, glided over the tail-board and pulled the edge of the tarpaulin over himself without attracting attention. The wagon went on up the hill and down the other side. Once again the horses broke into a trot which they kept up for mile after mile with little slackenings on minor hills. Sperry no longer felt the cold: he was tingling with excitement. He was beginning to see a way out of his troubles—not an easy path, but a possible one.
The team slowed up and turned off the main road to a smoother one. Sperry stuck his head out from the tarpaulin. They were now in the private grounds of a well-kept estate, driving between lawns set with shrubs and groups of trees. A house showed, gray-white, no lights visible, a country place of wealth. The wagon drove on round to the back, and Sperry, his eyes constantly on the driver and his companion, got clear of the tarpaulin and edged over the tail board. Despite his care, his feet scuffed the gravel of the drive, and he instantly darted for the nearest cover, a clump of evergreens, crackly with the frost. The driver, pulling up his horses at the moment, paid no attention, but the other man swung about in his seat.
“What was that?” he demanded.
“What?”
“Something in the bushes back there!” As he spoke the man flung the ray of the torch upon the laurels. Sperry lay perdu like a rabbit, fearful that the shaking boughs would give him away. Just then a door opened, ruddy in the night.
“You’ve got the jumps,” said the driver. “There’s the boss, waiting for us. Get down and help out with the stuff.”
The other obeyed, though he walked over to the evergreens and deliberately examined them. But Sperry had writhed out on the other side and chosen a fresh hiding place. The distraction of the opening door had given time for the stiff branches to cease their motion, and the man gave up his idea and proceeded to help the driver with the packages.
Sperry dodged around to one side of the big house. It was dark, save for a narrow strip of orange light where a blind had not been pulled completely down. Shrubbery grew close to the wall. The frost in the ground was hard enough to bear him without telltale footprints, he decided, and he badly wanted to have a look inside that room. He made his trip in safety, and, gripping the stone sill of the telltale window drew himself up until his eyes were on a level with the crack. The window faced a door that was just opening. A man appeared and advanced toward a massive center table. Behind him appeared the driver and his fellow, carrying the packages which they set on the table at the indication of the first man, who started to unstrap the packages as the two others turned toward the doors.
Sperry was forced to lower himself to ease the pull on his muscles. He had seen enough, yet he wanted to see more. There was plenty of time ahead of him before he could get the early train to New York. The cabin door was closed properly; the blankets well hidden, and he did not intend to go back to the cemetery.
Six times, at intervals, he hoisted himself and peered through the inch of vision space at the foot of the blind. He saw the man finally dismiss the others, heard the wagon rattle off to some stable, saw the principal open the packages, and gloat for a while over the contents. These he separated entirely from their velvet covered boxes, and placed them within a big safe that was not at first sight apparent, being covered with sliding panels made to conform with the woodwork of the walls. Then he touched a bell and the driver once again appeared, devoid of his outer clothes, addressing the first man with respect, and starting to take away the now emptied cases, grips, and jeweler’s boxes.
Now Sperry was through. He could imagine the bulky stuff being burned in a furnace, but he knew where the jewels were stored, and he knew now the mysterious chief’s identity. For the man who had put the loot in his safe was his stepfather, Cairns: the driver was Peters, and the helper a footman.
Here was cause for elation, yet how was he to make use of it? He himself was still an outlaw, and must act through others. Baldy was his only friend, and he was bound to Baldy by many ties. But for the Chicago crook he would be dead in the vault.
His mind, spurred by what he had seen, worked clearly now. The half-familiar voice of the bearded man was plainly recognizable in the light of all events. It had been Remington. His own voice and his injured finger, displayed when he had fixed the tires, had given him away, despite his disguise. Just why Remington had not later removed his body he could not figure, but he did not bother with it. Evidently neither Peters nor Cairns had known of his joining the gang of which Cairns was chief. That, too, he set aside for the time.
Other parts of the pattern were forming swiftly. Cairns was a master crook, greater even than Baldy Brown, controller of a band, few of whom knew his identity. Cairns planned the robberies. His own case had been but a side issue in Cairns’ campaign, though the fortune the man hoped to control was worth having. Aside from that had been the mutual dislike between Sperry and his stepfather, and the objection of the latter to having any one close to him who might suspect or clog his operations.
Remington, dismissed from the bank, had been placed in the jeweler’s with a view to the robbery. The red-haired clerk was in it, too. Remington may have furnished the combination which was to have been put by the redhead into the box containing the tie-clip. That was why Remington had been on the balcony that morning—to watch for the man who would buy the tie-clip. Doubtless Remington, for his own reasons, wanted to link up all he could of Cairns’ chain of operatives. Naturally he had become suspicious of Sperry’s appearance in the store. Once started, he had been on the watch, and had recognized him as the driver of the Speedwell car.
That would link him up with Baldy. who had furnished the car and vouched for Sperry with the gang.
Baldy must know all this. Sperry found himself in a quandary. If he accomplished the arrest of Cairns, if he could find some one who would listen to him and act, it meant the arrest of Baldy, or at least his pursuit, and Baldy would know that Sperry, whom he had befriended, had double crossed him. He had a good excuse, his own vindication, but—he had eaten Baldy’s salt! More, he was himself mixed up with the gang.
Baldy’s friendship might have been only the ruse to use him as a tool, to procure the driver they needed, to act as outside man—a mere matter of business. But it would not have been necessary for the man with the mole to have taken him into his own house, to have brought him into close contact with his daughter. He knew what Sperry was charged with: that was whip enough, had he wanted to use it.
Instead, he had left Sperry alone with Elizabeth, had sent them off on a jaunt.
Walking along the lonely roads, Sperry thrashed it out, and found himself at last between two questions, both concerning a woman. There was his mother to be considered, to be rescued from Cairns, to have her faith in her own son restored. And there was Elizabeth, whom he loved—a crook’s daughter, but infinitely sweet. How could the two situations be reconciled?
He did not attain the solution until he boarded the early train to New York, at a station ten miles from his own home, trusting to his disguise, keeping his baseball finger well gloved.
He was going to tell Baldy everything that occurred. Crook though he was, the man was square, and he would see both sides of the case. That Baldy would double cross Cairns, having once entered his gang, he could not imagine. Baldy, sore at not meeting his principal, at being used as a cat’s-paw, and Baldy playing traitor, were two very different things. But he felt sure that Baldy would find some way to help him out of his dilemma, and he was very certain that his present duty was to warn Baldy, who might be even now proclaimed as traitor to the gang by Remington. If they had not hesitated to leave him in the tomb, what might they not do to Baldy? And to Baldy’s daughter? He remembered that they had merely told Baldy that he, Sperry, had given them the slip with cold feet. Were they giving the man with the mole the benefit of the doubt until the last job was pulled, needing his aid? Remington, recognizing Sperry, knew that Baldy lied when he called him Gentleman Manning, the Duke, from Chi.
There were a lot of tangles in the skein that all his cogitation failed to unravel: it failed to anything but merge them into a greater snarl. Arrived at New York in midmorning, he hurried to the house in Greenwich Village, taking especial care to break the direct journey, fearful that something had gone wrong.
Elizabeth met him, smiling. Her daddy, she said, would be back at noon.
“You look worried,” said the girl, “and you look—have you seen yourself in a mirror lately? You need repairs.”
Sperry regarded himself. The nights in the open had made his false complexion patchy: the dye in his hair was blotched, and a suggestion of blondness showed plainly at the roots.
“You also look hungry,” said Elizabeth. “When did you eat last?”
It had been many hours since Sperry had tasted warm food, and he had forgotten breakfast in his hurry. The girl soon remedied that, and presently she was sitting across from him while he devoured ham and eggs and wonderful coffee, with still more wonderful biscuits
What a paradox she was, he thought; fresh with that indescribable suggestion of the open country. How could it be possible that Baldy was her father? A happy solution presented itself. Like himself, she might have only a stepfather. But he hesitated to talk to her about it.
As he finished his meal she brought him a box of her father’s cigars and an envelope addressed to him.
“Daddy said to give you these if you got back while he was away,” she said, and left him to open the communication while she went humming off to get rid of the dishes.
Inside the envelope were two clippings from newspapers, one long, one short. Sperry took the latter first. It read:
Mrs. Simeon Cairns is now staying at the Isle of Pines, and is reported much improved in health. In connection with recent unfortunate family events, Mrs. Cairns stated to our correspondent that she had every reason to believe that these would terminate satisfactorily, particularly with regard to the status of her son, John J. Sperry, though she declared that she had no knowledge of his whereabouts, nor had he personally communicated with her.
Mr. Cairns is not expected to join her this winter. The capitalist is at present in the Berkshires at the family residence.
Here was more bewilderment! What miracle had happened to stiffen his mother’s mental backbone in behalf of her son? Had nature proven more powerful than Cairns’ suggestions, and had the mother risen in defense of her own flesh and blood? It seemed so. And Sperry thought he could read between the lines of the diplomatic correspondent the prophesy of a disagreement between Mr. and Mrs. Cairns, already brewing. It was good news and it heartened him. The other was not so reassuring. It was a semi-editorial from a New York daily. It was:
It has long been evident that the series of robberies that the police have been so singularly unable to prevent or follow up are being committed by the same operatives. Each crime bears the distinct marks of inside work, coupled to skillful burglary. The police can find no trace of any endeavor to dispose of the valuables acquired, much less any clew as to who may be the criminals. They hint vaguely at a master mind, at a powerful organization run upon strictly business principles, if crime may be styled business or allowed any principles. There, having established a hypothesis that bears some claim to being logical, they stop.
It is high time that this reign of terror be ended. Our merchants are not to be left thus unprotected. It must be admitted that some one with a fine mind for details has planned these depredations so successfully carried out. The robbery of Marshall & Co., the jewelers, is a case in point. But four days have passed, and the police acknowledge themselves helpless by their inactivity.
The Comet has before this taken a conspicuous hand in the unraveling of mysteries, as its readers will well remember. We have no desire to usurp the duties of the police, but, if they are unable to secure the services of competent detectives, the Comet stands ready, as heretofore, to volunteer the aid of their own representatives, who have already performed notably in the running down of crime.
The police have no information to give out—or will give none—which is tantamount to admitting that they lack even the clews they so often mention. To convince the public, if they need such conviction, that the Comet is zealous only for the common weal, and is not acting on unadvised impulse, we will state information that has already been unearthed by us to this effect. At least a part of this band of criminals has recently been recruited from Chicago, and it should not be supremely difficult for the commissioner to make inquiries along these lines. If the police department breaks into action that gives promise of success or, at least, of progress, the Comet will gladly remain in its preferred position as recorder of events. Otherwise its readers may expect in its columns the news of a vigorous campaign to uncover the identity of this gang of arch criminals, and bring them to justice. What further information the Comet now has, held back for obvious reasons, is at the service of the commissioner, if he wants it. If not, we will act upon it and—there will be speedy developments.
Sperry felt enmeshed in puzzles. What did this leader in the Comet mean? Baldy had seen it, of course, since he had clipped it. It looked like more danger for the man with the mole and for himself. He also was supposed to be from Chicago. Was it a subtle plan of Remington to get rid of Baldy? That hardly seemed plausible. The Comet, Sperry, knew, had boosted its circulation enormously by previous brilliant detective work. If it gave out such clews that, as Sperry knew, were true ones, how much more did it have up the managerial sleeves?
When Baldy arrived, he did not do much to enlighten him.
“1 thought you would like to see that news about your mother,” he said. “So did Bess. She found the item. As for the other, don’t worry about it. I don’t. Now give me your news.”
To Sperry’s chagrin, his information did not seem to impress Baldy overwhelmingly. He laid stress only upon one part of the discovery, that Sperry had seen the jewels stowed in the safe that Cairns had installed in the library since he had assumed mastership at Swiftbrook Bowl.
“Your affairs and mine seem to run together, son,” he said whimsically. “And we’ll straighten out the whole mix before we get through with it, take it from me. Meantime, don’t worry about Remington. I’ve looked out for that. You are back just in time. This trip you will be an inside man. The last job is to be pulled to-night. It is the Agricultural Bank at Longfield, and, of course, your esteemed stepfather and Remington worked out the details of this some time ago, in all probability. Also, Chief Cairns announces this as the final wind-up. He has undoubtedly seen the Comet, and read the writing on the wall. He has agreed to see certain of us as a committee after the job is done. We are to go over from Longfield to Swiftbrook Bowl by motor. You will be with the committee, and maybe you’ll have a chance to tell your stepfather what you think of him, and come to some agreement.”
"But I’m mixed up in this,” said Sperry. “Look at this disguise.”
“It needs fixing,” said Baldy. “Bess will do it. Remember, there are more ways than one of killing a goose and of cooking it. I’m leaving for Longfield on the one-thirty train. You come on the three-thirty. That brings you there well after dark. You know the Olympic Theater?”
“Of course. But it’s closed.”
“For alterations and repairs. Those repairs are being pushed just now. Night work, decorators and stage carpenters from New York. Get the idea?”
“No,” said Sperry; “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“The Olympic Theater is five doors from the bank. Its opening runs between two stores. These have been closed out under the new lease. I fancy your stepfather is back of that lease, cleverly covered. The repairs give a fine opportunity for what has been going on: a tunnel, starting underneath the stage, runs up and under the main vault of the bank.”
“But that vault is at the end of the safety-deposit department,” said Sperry. “There is only a heavy rail across, and the bank is lighted at night so that any one passing can see clear down to the end of the vault.”
Baldy smiled.
“Wait and see,” he said. “Everything is timed for to-night. There is a grip in your room with painters’ tools inside of it. Just a precaution. But you take that along and breeze right up to the theater. There’s a watchman on there, one of the gang. He’ll ask you ‘Why didn’t you show up at six o’clock?’ When you answer, ‘I mislaid my card and lost the train,’ he’ll let you through. Go up back of the stage. The curtain’ll be down. There’ll be a man or so working on the stage. You stick around: they won’t bother you. If they do, tell ’em you are waiting for Blackberry. When they go under the stage, you go with ’em. That’ll be to bring out the stuff. It’ll be shipped through the back door. But—here is your job. Don’t be the last man out of the vaults or up on the stage. As soon as there is any indication of the truck being outside, and before they open the stage doors at the back—the double scenery doors—you send up that curtain. It’s automatic-hydraulic; works on the right-hand side of the stage. There’s a labeled button.”
He looked at Sperry keenly.
“Don’t bother yourself as to why I’m asking you to do this. It’s vital to my affairs and yours. I’ve picked you for the job. I won’t put it on the grounds of gratitude for what I’ve done. I’m asking you to do it because no one else can handle this. It's a favor to me. If you don’t believe in me, call it off right now. There may be a chance of danger in it. But if you do it nicely, that’s minimized. I’ll be there. Will you do it?”
With the eyes of the man with the mole boring into him, Sperry tried to retain some self judgment, and at the same time to be fair to Baldy. He came to the conclusion that Baldy smelled a trap set for him at the last instant after his usefulness was ended in connection with the job. And Elizabeth’s request was plain in his ears.
“I believe in you. Won’t you believe in my daddy?” Baldy was his only friend, save the girl. And gratitude did enter into it.
“I’ll do it,” he said. They gripped hands.