THE RUSH OF DEEP WATERS!
Of those on Bleeker’s Island, the Sheriff was the first to speak, following the story of the man in the high-legged flexible boots and the beakless knitted cap. The while a faint—a very faint semi-snore—now emanated from the lips of the sleeping man, some distance off, in East Indian costume. Showing that his sleep was a bit less deep than it had been up to now; showing indeed—as such things go—that within about an hour or so, he would likely awaken by himself.
“And so,” the Sheriff said, sardonically, to the man in the knitted cap, “yo’ come out hyar to check up on yo’re friend bein’ alive or dead?”
“As I said,” replied the other coldly. “And to get the object which he’s deeded to me as a gift for so doing.”
“But which deed,” the Sheriff pointed out ironically, “on-fortinately fur provin’ itse’f, lays on a glass bottle back in a town ’sposedly called ‘Irontown’!”
“But lies there just the same,” the other declared meaningfully. “And is a valid deed. And I want you all—including you, Sheriff!—to take note of the fact that on this day, at the hour and minute of—but what is the exact time?”
“Well, ef’n yo’re intimatin’,” retorted the Sheriff savagely, “that you ain’t had the full time as was give you, I’ll—” He glanced sourly at his big silver watch. “—I’ll so much as say it’s 5 minutes to 5.”
“What! You mean—I had more than my 5 minutes?”
“More! I’ll goddanged say you did! You done had 17 minutes, all in all. Fur sence they wa’n’t no water climbin’ up on us—I let you talk on. And they won’t nobody ever be able to say that Al Hart didn’t git his say out!”
“And—and so it’s 5 minutes to 5? Instead of—of 17 minutes to? Well, I’ll be—” The speaker scratched his ear as a man who either was astounded at the way he had consumed minutes, or else was putting on an amazing act. “However,” he broke off, “to get back to where I was a few seconds back! I want everybody here to note that on this day—at this critical hour of 5 minutes to 5 in the afternoon!—I demanded openly—and officially—in open court—that my bequest—my property—be removed at once from the person of that dead man who lies in yonder vault.”
“A fair ’nough demand,” grunted the Sheriff, “ef ’twas yo’re proppity! On’y—they’s mo’ than one pu’sson setting hyar what has put yo’re tale down as a damned ro-mance, that’s what! And so, sence it don’t ’pear to be in the kyards that yo’re going to git to shore, why in tarnation hell do you keer whether yo’re proppity—” He accented that word scornfully. “—is successfully removed or not?”
“Why do I care?” retorted the other, if not with anger, then with a stupendous show thereof. “I’ll tell you why I care, you—you short-visioned fool. I made a will out a few months back. In favor of—of Alyda. And that very pin becomes my estate—my whole estate. And if I get my freedom from Sadie thanks to your thick-wittedness—by, in short, having to drown like a dog!—then the pin won’t have to be sold and paid to Sadie’s lawyer. It’ll go, in that event—because of the nonexistence of dower rights in personal property, in my state—to Alyda. And so once and again I demand—I demand, Sheriff Brister, that my property be removed by you—the Law—before things are moving too fast around here to make possible its removal.”
“Is it,” queried the Sheriff, very very ironically this time, “that you want to comply with yo’re dead friend’s wishes and asc’tain whether mebbe he mought be—alive?”
“Hardly,” said the other, “since you tell us the cause of his death was the bursting of a heart-vessel. And since—thanks to a two-bit river-village cockroach—I refer to that undertaker of yours—Philaster McCorniss got embalmed in the bargain.”
“Yo’re plenty pert,” snapped the Sheriff, “referrin’ to people in river villages like our’n as cockroaches. But let it pass. They’s b’en nary a chanct o’ Philaster McCo’niss ever comin’ to life—with the setup as was ag’in him. And good thing fur you, too—fur he’d hatter say he’d never heered of you in his life.”
“In short,” returned the other bitterly, “the verdict is—that I drown?”
“My verdict,” said the Sheriff cautiously, “hain’t b’en offici’lly rend’ed yit.”
“Okay! That gives me a fighting chance anyway. But once again, I’m not arguing on the matter of McCorniss coming back to life. I’m on the matter of that pin! That pin is my estate. And whether I drown—or whether I’m saved, through being able somehow to pierce that thick wit of yours here today, I demand here and now that you take my estate in custody.”
The Sheriff frowned painedly. And stroked his chin. The other’s wasting of what might be precious minutes—who knew!—by his insistence on his presumed property rights—instead of pleading and arguing intensely for his life—did, indeed, seem to bear out his otherwise unprovable and skeletonized story. Though again, the Sheriff had to admit to himself, exactly such a tack as that would be taken by a cunning, Machiavellian liar—not, of course, that the Sheriff knew the word Machiavellian or its meaning. And so he sat in reflective puzzled silence. The while the other two men, who had earlier told their stories, sat in grim silence like men who saw no reason to complicate a situation which patently lay completely in favor of themselves and their brother-in-exoneration, fast asleep on the ground. As to which of those two who were awake might have seen, in that fourth story, a rendition of truth, was not discernible on either set, immobile face, though, to the Sheriff, the story he had just heard was every bit as convincing—from, that is, the point of sheer credibility, unsubstantiated by a single fact—as the first three.
And mighty glad he was that it was not substantiatable—for, he had to admit to himself, to have to allot those life belts and that blow-up vest on the matter of mere credibility alone was beyond him. A case, no less, of Solomon’s choice with three babies—and four mothers!
And he sighed deeply. For he was not unwitting of the fact that, in allowing the allotment of belts and blow-up vest to stand as it now was, he might—might, yes—be sending one Boyd Arganbright, chemist, to his death. And, in like manner, be sending forth a criminal—even possibly three criminals, so far as that went—to brag later, in the Underworld, how they had outwitted him. For, as would and could be pointed out later in the High Court of Newspaperdom alone, reviewing the findings of this humble river-island court, neither of those other three stories had been confirmed at all in the manner that a story must be confirmed in a regulation court.
And again the Sheriff sighed deeply.
And resolved at least to protect his judicial ego by cautiously modified language.
And reaching up and unbuttoning, in turn, the two top buttons of his hickory shirt, he addressed the defendant.
“Well, Mr. Defendant,” he said, “yo’re alleeged estate—note them words well!—‘alleeged’—is a’ready in the custody o’ the Law. And ef it’s to be that they is to go by deed to some Alyd—that is, to anybody whatsoever!—they’re a’ready in the hands o’ the Shelby County Co’te. In whose name I have sekwestered ’em. And which co’te is now leg’lly ’sponsible, ’count o’ th’ surety bonds as ezists, ef I—the ’ficial rep’sen-tive—don’t make it soccessfully down-river.”
And turning back the right edge of his hickory shirt, the Sheriff calmly exhibited—for any and all concerned on that island!—what was pinned thereto; the beautiful diamond-studded butterfly, with platinum antennae and ruby eyes, the jewels of which scintillated with fire even under the gray light coming down out of the fog-screened sky—that bauble which he had removed this morning from McCorniss’ dead cold body, so white and marble-like in contrast with the brilliant red police-launch drawn up some distance off, and waiting the Sheriff’s departure.
“Yes,” nodded the Sheriff—and a bit defiantly, but this time to the man in the Mexican costume and the one in the tight yellow derby, “gittin’ sich a valyable thing as this would be the fu’st thing I’d do—on a island like this, with flood threatenin’, and mebbe a dam bustin’ upstream as well. Most decid’ly not the last thing. Hardly! And which I had no mo’n completed doing when you, Hick—assuming, as I do, that Hick is yo’re name—” The Sheriff was indeed being verbally cautious now, for the benefit of his intellectual standing before 60,000,000 newspaper readers. “—for, o’ course, Hick, you ain’t showed me downright dociments provin’ yo’rese’f to be named Hick—no!—anyway, as I started to say to you, I’d act’ally jest retrieved this hyar pin when you come rowin’ up in that rowboat of yo’rn.” He was now buttoning the pin safely back. “But I hain’t dee-vulged the fact of my havin’ got it to none o’ you fur the simple reason that I hain’t b’en wantin’ to give Mister Al Hart, who atter all is one o’ you four—” Cautious the Sheriff was indeed now, in the eyes of History—the History of Destiny’s Stage! “—didn’t want,” he repeated, “to give Mister Al Hart a fu’ther inducement to rush me, ’sides my life belt and my gun! Not,” he added, with sudden warning, “that sich rush-in’ o’ me would be successful—’twould most likely be pu’tty messy I—but ’twould use up some valyable bullets with which I may yet need to protec’ myse’f from some passel o’ hungry panthers or bobcats squattin’ on some cut-off p’int o’ land whar I come up—or ef’n I later wander into the hands o’ some of them west-shore swamp skallywags that’d cut a man’s th’oat fo’ fo’ bits. Yes, I hain’t b’en aimin’ fur to add inducements to Mister Al Hart to use up a few o’ my bullets—but, now that a p’int has b’en made that somebody’s ‘rights’ in McCo’niss’ estate is involved, let it be fully noted that I hain’t neglected, by nary mite, my duties as deputy o’ Shelby County, nor—” He turned to the last speaker—“Yes, fellow, ef, by some fool chance, you air Boyd Arganbright, kindly take note that I have secured yo’re proppity and not b’en wilfully neglectful; and git out’n yo’re mind that you—or yo’re heirs—’ll do any suin’ o’ me when I git back. And ef, on the other hand, yo’re Al Hart, take note that while you got a good extry reason now fur to try and rush me, I’ll on’y give you all the bullets ef you try it—and take my chances with the bobcats down-river.”
“You won’t need to use a damned bullet, Sheriff,” said the man who had called himself Hick. “For I’ll strangle him if he approaches within a foot of you.”
“Within a foot?” derisively echoed the man who was being called Mex. “I’ll kick his feet out from under him if he even rises from that rock.”
“It seems,” declared the remaining speaker bitterly, “that the defendants in this court are being made into policemen!”
“The on’y assistant p’liceman in this court,” returned the Sheriff promptly, “is right hyar under my armpit.” And he meaningfully tapped the handle of that big gun. “Well—you’ve gi’n us a story now! A story containing a ingrejient that Al Hart hisse’f could have wove into it—”
“An ingredient!” sneered the Mexican-clad man. “Christ! He wove all of Hart’s possible ingredients into it—Hart’s stock one: steel mills!—plus chemistry—plus optics—both of which we all now know he’s been reading up on. Why, hell and damnation, he used just everything in that yarn that nobody around here could possibly have checked up on!”
“True enough,” conceded the Sheriff. And now proceeded to lean over backward—judicially! “Though I want it onderstood that I’m ruling today on the matter o’ the danged onconfirmability of his story—and not on the fact of the subjec’ matter of it—or its background. For they themsevves don’t brand him as Al Hart.”
“Oh—don’t they?” retorted the rustically clad member of the trio. “Well that’s just what they do! For they show up the poker-player supreme. He—he declared in advance he was going to put those three ingredients into his story—and, moreover, did it!—knowing that you’d slowly reason, as he talked, that he’d never have dared to put ’em in if he were Al Hart. And therefore couldn’t be Al Hart!”
The Sheriff scratched his head. He had already made this point himself today—concerning super-poker-playing!—in advance. But to hear it set forth now as a definite argument that—And again he scratched his head. The argument held a logic so subtly deep that, not being a swift thinker, he had to survey the pivotal point of it pro and con—as an argument—as a proof of anything!
“We-ell,” he said at length, “I get yo’re p’int, a’right, Hick, as a p’int o’ sheer proof o’ things. Yes.” He turned to the man in the high legging-like boots and the knitted skull-fitting cap. “Well, yo’ve heerd me say sev’ral times now that yo’re story hain’t nary goddanged elyment in it that kin be confirmed. And sence you ain’t spoke up, on that, you patently ain’t got nothing fu’ther to offer noway nohow that can even halfway confirm it. And sence I am able to confirm these other three boys, in a manner o’ speaking—oh, yes, I know that you p’inted out that they mought have wove their own conf’mation into their stories—yes—but you ain’t even done nothing like that! So—I am forced to make a decision on what we got in this co’teroom—not what we ought to have. And so today, at—” He pulled out his watch. “—today at 1 minute befo’ five, I declare that the verdic’ of this co’te is that—”
“Wait! Wait! I have two proo—well, no—no!—just one—but one ten times as good, to my way of thinking, as either of those offered today in this court by those two lugs in front of me, and that one behind me.”
“You have, heh? Well, I’ll be goddanged ef I see what it kin be. And I won’t even listen to—well, what the tarnation-hell is it?”
“As follows,” coolly said the man in the close knitted cap. “You spoke, way back this morning, of McCorniss’ intention eventually to install a unit-detonator on the island here—and give an exhibition on his lawn with the hyper-seismograph which he helped to develop—in the hands of that Professor Geogar of Marysville, now dying in State Center Hospital. But what would you say if I can prove my story—that is, the really important phase of it: that McCorniss and I knew each other intimately enough to write to each other? Yes—by telling you that in the last letter he ever wrote to me—which I gather now was just before he built this vault, since he made no mention as yet of the vault being completed, much less started—he asked me a few questions about the burning time of fuses—and whether fixed amounts of given explosive chemical compounds always had the same mechanical explosive force. Told me, in short, of his intention of having installed, here on his island, a unit-detonator. And I am not only certain that he did get it installed—but am certain that I—I can locate it.”
“Arrah,” snorted the Sheriff contumeliously. “There hain’t b’en nobody hyar today—nor at that fun’al yist’day, that has seed—much less tripped over—no pipe-end sticking up two feet out’n the ground, ’ith a screw-cap on!”
“Naturally! Since he wouldn’t have left it in a way that every picknicker and river tramp might set it off—and render the installation all negative. And what, moreover—in all common sense!—would the sticking up and out 2 feet—or any number of feet—of that fuse-pipe have to do with the powers of the part buried to propagate a given ground concussion? Nothing! But, as matters are, he told me exactly how he intended to conceal it—and, from just what he told me in brief, I believe I can locate it.”
“In a pig’s eye you can,” said the Sheriff angrily.
“Well—won’t you even give me a chance? To prove myself?”
“To prove yo’rese’f? A chanct, you mean, to go a-wandering all over this island, till sich moment as each of us thinks the other two has their eyes on you, when you’ll suddently pull a fast one. No, by God, you ain’t going to—”
“But wait! You three can stay where you are. And all watch me. And I’ll go straight—and direct—to where I have reason to believe—the unit-detonator is. And if—if I’m all wet—I’ll come back—and take my sentence.”
“In a pig’s eye you will,” sneered the Sheriff. “Fur it’s easy to see yo’re figgering to get yo’rese’f to whar them belts is layin’—which’ll give you—so you think!—a chanct to wrop one around yo’re midriff, and take it into the briny?”
“If I go within—let’s see?—15 feet—yes!—of those belts,” said the other, “let it be prima-facie evidence I’m guilty—and shoot me down like a dog. Or aren’t you that good a shot?”
The Sheriff winced. As one who could knock the cork out of a pint whisky flash at 50 paces, without breaking the flash, he didn’t know whether he was being goaded or covertly insulted.
“I—I kin blow yo’re brains out before you ever lift up a belt,” he said. “But I can see plain now that yo’re figuring to get yo’rese’f tother side o’ that vault, whar you think you can scooch down and play ring-around-the-rosy with me—till mebbe the dam busts or so’thin’—and hell busts loose—and—”
“Oh, then come along with me,” sighed the other. “With your popgun in the small of my back. And—”
“Oh, yeah?” jeered the Sheriff. “And let you pull some o’ them onexpected joo-jitsy moves you tolt ’bout ’arlier t’day—ruther, some o’ them you didn’t tell ’bout? Partic’ly whilst I’m ’sposed to be lookin’ at some fool thing on the ground yo’re calling my ’tention to? No, thanks—I’ll stay out’n joo-jitsy range o’ you—but not out o’ bullet range.”
“I don’t blame you. If I were in your place, I’d not get within jiujitsu range of myself. A fact! But that doesn’t need to hamstring my proposed proof. Let me prove my story by finding that unit-detonator unerringly. With yourself quite out of jiujitsu range—of yours truly. And if I go within 15 feet—well, no, I’ll have to amend that, on some mental consideration—you’ll have to make it a dozen feet, for round measure—if I go within a dozen feet of that vault, let fly at me. For I’ll then be only 22 or 23 feet—no more—from here—from you.”
The Sheriff frowned. Such figuring sounded paradoxical. For if he was any judge, the distance between the marking-stone and the vault was 28 feet—no more. While the island—from midline to shore, either way, at the center—was no more, under present flood conditions, than 16 feet. And even less—where the vault was. If a man, the Sheriff reasoned, were to walk 22 to 23 feet in any direction but that vault, from where they all sat, that man would be out in the river; and if, the Sheriff likewise reasoned, that man walked 22 to 23 feet toward that vault, the walker would then be but 5 feet or so from it. A self-administered drowning!—or a self-ordered execution!—would simplify matters around here. Since—
But the man in the legging-like boots was speaking.
“Or,” he asked again, tauntingly, “aren’t you that good?—as to hit me?—at 20 feet?—or, say, 23 feet—which is positively all I’ll have to proceed?”
“I’ll—I’ll show you,” the Sheriff raged, between grinding teeth, “how good I am—at 20 feet—at 30 feet—or even the hull length of this island from hyar to the tip. Go ahaid! And make yo’re leetle gesture. ’Bout findin’ that unit-detonaytor. Which is all the hull thing amounts to: a damned gesture. ’Caze it’s even ag’in—so fur’s I see—the laws of geom’try. But keep it all to jest that—a gesture. Fur—” He withdrew his gun. “—efn you go ’ithin 10 feet—not 15 feet—nor 12 feet—but jest ’ithin 10 feet o’ that vault—and them life belts—I’m going to take you plumb at yo’re word. And give you ev’ry danged slug in the gun. Remember, men—” He turned to the others. “—he said ’twould be primy factive ev’dence he was Hart ef’n he did that—an’ which gives me the right to ex’cute him. Go ahaid,” he again instructed the man with the knitted cap. “An’ establish, fur all consarned, that yo’ve had yo’re full chanct to prove yo’re story. Go ahaid.” He glanced exasperately at his watch. “It’s 5 o’clock—and yo’re long beyant the time gi’n you to bewild—that is, to hornswoggle this co’te.”
With tremendous alacrity, the man in the leather legging-like boots arose. And turning, walked straight and undeviatingly off. Upward of the island—yes!—but yet also in an oblique direction, westward, so that he moved ever outward from the line of the vault as he partially lessened the distance between himself and it. Maintaining thereby a huge margin of safety as to that precise 10 feet the Sheriff had given him; increasing, indeed, his crosswise distance from the vault as he lessened his longitudinal distance from it. And relying, evidently—with respect to the Sheriff’s guarantee as to those “10 feet”—that the latter had had witnesses, and would not wantonly unleash his bullets. All of the circle of sitters watched the man in the knitted cap, meanwhile, scorn on the faces of the two who were clad, respectively, in rural habiliments and Mexican costume, wariness, changing to perplexity, on the face of the Sheriff. At, however, just about precisely 23 feet from the circle of sitters—and, thanks to the laws of diagonals, a full 15½ feet from the vault!—and, thanks to the fact that that 15½ feet did not lie east and west—thanks, in other words, to more laws of more diagonals!—still on the island, since he was a half-dozen feet from the western shore thereof, the man who had left the circle stopped abruptly, and, rotating slightly on one spot so that his back, at least, was not exposed to that gun, gazed troubledly downward, biting his lips—a man who either had failed to find something he had hoped to find—or else one who was superbly imitating such individual. Shaking his head in apparent helplessness, he rotated slightly around his spot, altogether as though seeking to get the better north light—such as it was today!—on it. This brought his back again to the three watchers, but it was evident that he was now assured, not having been blazed away at, that he had not entered within his permissible limits of that vault—rather, that the Sheriff could easily, easily see that. It would seem that even the north light was of no utility to him, for he dropped to his knees. From the movements of his elbows, he seemed to be scraping desperately about on the ground, upturning pebbles, clods, whatnot. He shook his head fiercely—apparently unconsciously—and could be seen now to throw his hands in front of him as supports, and to lower his eyes closer to the earth—so close that it appeared he must surely be getting a dirty forehead. He raised back again, however, on his haunches, and his head could again be seen to be shaking wearily. Then, as though to make one last desperate effort to find something—something seemingly microscopic in size!—or to appear to be trying to find such!—he fumbled in his side coat pocket, and withdrew a paper book of matches. From having earlier searched him—and having seen that same book produced at the time of that last donated cigarette—the Sheriff knew that it contained now only one match. But the man who was now on his knees, back to the circle, nevertheless struck that lone match—tossing the booklet away, and gazing back at the onlookers forlornly, with a look that patently said “No dice!” Notwithstanding, he leaned forward again, and apparently examined the ground intently, evidently by the light of his match. Then, with a flirt of his hand that extinguished the match, he tossed it away. And rising to his feet, returned glumly and morosely to the circle, wiping his obviously soiled palms and fingertips clumsily with his handkerchief as he walked. And, reaching his original boulder, sat down—dejectedly.
“Wall,” said the Sheriff grimly, replacing his gun at last, “no unit-detonaytor sticking its nose out’n the ground, heh?”
“No.”
“Wall, we-all knew they wouldn’t be. ’Caze ef’n thar had b’en, we’d a-seed it oursevves! You ain’t got sharper eyes—”
“But it appears I have—at that. For I found it!”
“You—you found it? Why, you never found noth—”
“But I did!” And the speaker held up his right fingers. The black dirt was deep under the nails. Showing that the nails had dug a little bit! “I found it,” he repeated. “The fuse had fallen just a bit in the piping—and I had to hook it up with my little finger. But here’s the actual oiled screw cap that covered the fuse-pipe end!” And he opened his left hand.
An iron screw cap lay on it.
“Arrah!” snorted the Sheriff. “You found that thar screw cap ’bove ground or b’low ground, and now yo’re pertendin’ you—” He rose. “I’ll dang soon find out what kind of a cock-an’-bull story this is. And we’ll—”
“No, Sheriff—don’t!” the other said. “Don’t! I can’t vouch, you see, for the force of the explosion.”
“Ex-plosion?” The Sheriff knew he went a bit white. “What you mean—explosion?”
“Why, I mean that I ignited the fuse. You saw me light the match, didn’t you?”
“You—you ignited the fuse—a fuse?” the Sheriff stammered. “Well, what in tarnation hellja do that fur—ef’n, that is, you did find it? What in tar—”
“Because,” said the other desperately, “things have come to such a damned pass around here that I doubted you’d ever even walk over and confirm me if I said I did find it. So I lighted the fuse, that’s all. For the pipe-end, with oiled screw cap on it, was right there where Philaster McCorniss wrote me—rather, as he wrote me he was going to install it. With the detonator fuse-pipe not sticking 2 feet out of the earth—no!—but with its capped end just about an inch below the surface of the ground—but its location marked by a clever artificial cloth-and-wire flower—rather, wilted flower!—ground well into the dirt so that nobody would ever try to pick it—but the wire core of which would be tied to the detonator pipe-end, and—”
“That—that vi’let,” said the Sheriff mutely, remembering it—and recalling, too, that it had been plainly the only violet on this island. “Why, I seed that t’day—”
“And didn’t realize that since it was a Louisiana violet it couldn’t possibly be blooming—couldn’t even be alive—at this date of the year—even in this latitude—you told us, yourself, you know, about that latitude business—though maybe, of course, you don’t know flowers, at that. I knew all along today, without even bending down and fiddling at that violet, that it must be artificial—and so must mark that unit-detonator.”
“But a Loosyana vi’let,” protested the Sheriff, “mought—”
But now something happened.
It was a hollow—almost soundless—boom. A sharp sound that had apparently been smothered almost into soundlessness by a million blankets wrapped around it—or many feet of earth! Indeed, the men on the island could feel it—rather than hear it. It was as though a small steam hammer came up, individually, against the soles of each one’s feet. But once and once only. Even the sleeping man in the East Indian costume stirred irritably—though did not awake. And that the man in the legging-like boots had spoken the truth of what really had happened, was now shown by white smoke seeping forth from the spot where he had kneeled—just this side, in fact, of that wilted ground-to-earth “violet”!
The Sheriff had sunk helplessly down on his boulder.
“Wa-all,” he now stuttered, “this—this—goddanged ef’n I know what to think. I—”
“Hell-fire, Sheriff!” burst in the Mexican-clad man. “Aren’t you next to him yet? You told him yourself that McCorniss intended to install that detonator. And he knew that McCorniss, being an old man, and not able himself to dig, would almost certainly have had it installed by the same laborers who put up the vault. And he knew from you that the experiment had never been held—because of that Professor Geogar’s sickness or something. So he was safe in assuming the detonator was on this island—and unexploded. And if it were, where else would it be—but concealed? And, if concealed, where else would it be concealed but under some artificial marker? And what more artificial marker could there be but a flower?—that very Louisiana ‘violet’ which all of us saw this morning—sure!—but we’re not botanists!—we’ve not been able to lie up in a prison cell reading botany and Christ knows how many other subjects. Hell-fire, Sheriff, he pulled a smooth and fast one. He—”
“Smooth and fast is right,” muttered he who had called himself Hick.
The Sheriff was now black as a thundercloud. And was facing the subject of discussion.
“By God, these men is—is right. ’Twas shrewd deduction, that’s what. Tain’t b’en proof at all. Dumb we all was, that we didn’t re’lize that detonaytor was on this island. But you, Hart, you re’lized it. Well, yo’re so-called proof ain’t nary proof at all. And we’re right back ag’n to whar we started at 3 o’clock or so t’day. I’God, these hyar two shrewd men has got yo’re number like nobody’s business, but it takes a soft fool like me to be givin’ you a lot o’ fool chances to prove yo’rese’f—”
“Though I only wonder,” put in the other cuttingly, “what these ‘here two shrewd men’—and yourself, Sheriff—would be saying right now—and doing—if I had on my person—was showing—the piece of proof that, double damn the luck, I ought to have—but haven’t! I sure do wond—”
“Which piece o’ proof is what?” queried the Sheriff sardonically. “Seein’s you ev’dently hain’t got it?”
“Well, since you do me the honor of at least asking, I’ll so much as say it’s the long, long telegraphic reply I received, early this morning aboard the Atlantic Coast and Big River Railroad—at Ames Junction, in fact—from Alyda Westover.”
“Oh, yeah!—yeah!—Miss Alyda! And how-come Miss Alyda sent you this here wire—what you hain’t got?”
“Well, since again you do me the honor of asking, I can only say that I wired her, last night, from Ore Junction—about an hour beyond Irontown—the bare facts of what happened in my room—my discovery, that is; and that I was heading for Bleeker’s Island to regain my inheritance—gift—call it what you will. And can again only tell you that I got a long, long reply—at Ames Junction—an hour back of Boggtown—congratulating me—rather, us! But unfortunately I lost it, somewhere between there and here, since it’s not on me—and which you yourself know from having searched me.”
“I well know that,” the Sheriff said dryly. And went on, with a dry chuckle. “Well, ef’n by some queer chanct—a one in a thousand chanct!—yo’re story was true—and you was Mister Boyd Arganbright!—yo’re gal is weepin’ plenty tears at this minute. Ef, that is, she’s heered on the raddio the big story what’s busted on Big River. Fur—”
“But which story,” put in the other coldly, “she hasn’t heard—on any radio!—for the simple reason that—as I told you!—she has been in the Convent of St. Cecelia at Steeltown since noon today—and will be there till 6 tonight—and that convent doesn’t permit newspapers nor radios. So—”
“But sence,” interpolated the Sheriff brusquely, “she ain’t going to enter thar as no nun!—and so will hatter git out at 6 o’clock, and go home so’s the nuns kin do their pr’ars—and sence evenin’ raddios do send out slop-over news-stories fur them as was workin’ in th’ daytime, she’ll doubtless hyar all ’bout the story. And will—ef, that is, you air Mis-ter Boyd Arganbright!—be weepin’ plenty tears. Fur havin’ talked to you jest afore you left Irontown—and you leavin’ ’thout changing’ yo’re clothes—well, two of us sittin’ hyar now will def’nitely be identyfied to the whole world: me, the Sheriff—and you, in leggin’ boots and knitted cap an’ all, as Mis-ter Boyd Arganbright—of Irontown! But both of us—boo-hoo!—def’nitely drownded! However, I don’t calkilate to weep my own eyes out fur a gal that’ll be weepin’ hers out tonight, becaze takin’ yo’re story as the lie it ondou’t’ly is—by 999 chanctes in a thousand—there ain’t gonna be no gal weepin’ no eyes out—and the tel’gram from her is all myth’cal.” He shook his head wonderingly. “My God, Hart—as I figger you to be—you would invent a telegram what you ain’t got. You would!”
The man addressed made a weary gesture with his hands.
“I’ve invented nothing today,” he retorted gruffly. “Not even the telegram. But I can’t prove it.”
“Yes,” said the Sheriff savagely, “and that’s jest th’ trouble. As jedge here, I’ve heerd 4 stories this day. Three of ’em is proved—at least ’codin’ to my standa’ds o’ proof. One of ’em ain’t—by nary standa’ds o’ nobody on this here island. And so there ain’t nothing’ I can do now but passel out the life belts the way I virt’ally assigned ’em after hearing the fu’st three stories.” And, almost defensively, the Sheriff added: “They—they ain’t nothin’ no man could have did—but that! And ef’n by some slim chanct it sh’ld tu’n out that a mistake has been made, I’ll—I’ll stand on ever’thing—before the hull world. I’ll stand on it. And so co’te is hereby declar’d to be ajour—”
“Wait!”
It was the man he had just been addressing.
“May I,” the latter asked hastily, “have a brief bit of discussion with these two lucky, lucky men who have told stories—and won life belts? Rather—these two lucky men out of three lucky men altogether—counting the Sleeping Morpheus behind me—with the blow-up vest he succeeded in keeping? May I have a few words with these two who happen to be awake?”
The Sheriff grimaced. “Wall, sence you concede they is to be the ones who’s to git the two avail’ble life belts—I guess you kin. Though ef’n yo’re expectin’ them to be symp’thetic to anything you mought want to say, I fear yo’re plumb out o’ luck. Becaze they got life belts now—and ain’t goin’ to part with ’em—nor reduce their chancts to same to any two-thirds ’r even three-qua’ters chanct.”
“I can readily imagine that!” said the other bitterly. “All right. I’ll say—what I want to say.”
He turned leftward.
“Hick,” he began, “if you are Hick—now don’t start to get red-headed—I’m due, don’t forget, to drown—all right—if you are Hick, then you know definitely, I take it, and beyond all shadow of doubt, that Al Hart is either myself or this fellow in the Mexican suit or this fellow sleeping in back of me. Isn’t that so?”
“I know that you—” began the man addressed.
“Now wait—wait! Nobody ever ‘knew’ anything—outside of himself. So isn’t it true that if you’re Hick, then Al Hart has to be this ‘Mexican’—or that ‘East Indian’—or myself?”
The other gave an impatient gesture with his big hands. “Oh, naturally,” he said curtly.
The speaker turned to the man in the Mexican costume.
“Mex, if you’re the man you claim to be—now don’t you get red-headed!—if you’re the—well, in downright reality, the unlucky Mr.—”
“Unlucky—did I hear you calling me now? Well, I’m him, all right, all right, but not unlucky—just lucky enough—as you first put it—to have had awarded me the life belt you’re trying to talk yourself into! And which belt will carry me to land while you pay off—for your filthy life. Unlucky, eh? Gad—that’s good! I’m luckier than—” And now the speaker turned impulsively to the silent waiting Sheriff. “Whether anybody around here concedes it or not, I’m the luckiest gink in or out of all New York State—luckier even than a certain damned lucky friend of mine back in New York—a chap who used to travel in my old fast set—and who told me, only night before last, about having inherited a nice $50,000 diamond necklace from some Aunt Sophy or something—plus some kind of a fool pussy-cat collar or something, not that that matters—and was even to pick ’em up from the family lawyers last night. Yet, say I, Sheriff, I’m luckier, this day of the Lord, than this fellow Derek Wingblade and his $50,000 inheritance. Yet this bird across from me now calls me—unlucky. Why—”
“Skip it then,” said the man in the silken neckerchief hastily. “We’re wasting words on trivialities. Let me finish the proposition in logic that I’m trying to set forth.” And since his Mexican-clad hearer was now again regarding him, though scornfully, he drove on. “All right. You’re lucky, you say? Okay! For that’s got nothing to do with what I’m going to say now. Which is this: If you are Thorpe Richendollar, as you’ve claimed—owner of this tax-plastered island by virtue of a transferred deed from Silas Crabtree—yet with a thousand-dollar equity because of the vault on it, and all that, you know nothing except that you are Thorpe Richendollar. And that, therefore, Al Hart is myself or the man who calls himself ‘Hick’ or the man who calls himself ‘ten-Brockerville.’ Is this—or isn’t it—logic?”
“Oh, all right,” snapped the other. “Conceded—as mere ‘logic’—yes.”
“All right. Well, knowing myself to be Boyd Arganbright, I find myself in the position of knowing that one of you three definitely has to be Al Hart. Except that—”
“Except that what?” scornfully retorted the man in the dollar-studded sombrero.
“Except that—this. The incidents—and details—of Hart’s colorful career given to the five of us today—counting, of course, our friend who was down in the cyclone-slot, wide awake!—well, the incidents of Hart’s career given to us all today—we four and Sheriff Brister here—were not, you’ll all recall, in chronological order at all. After, that is, Hart walked out—at the age of 26—from Captain Billy Turkins’ repertoire troupe—and became a bank robber. The majority of the incidents and details were not even connected to any degree whatsoever. They were all just the more colorful highlights of the man’s career, given hastily—and helter-skelter, to boot!—by a prison warden to a New York radio broadcaster over 3000 miles of transcontinental phone wire—and jotted down by the latter in shorthand on bits of paper—as he even told us—and then shuffled about a bit for color and drama on his broadcast—”
“And supp’l’mented,” put in the Sheriff dryly, “by a United States Gov’ment Public En’my cir’clar in the hands o’ said broadcaster.”
“Yes—of course. Which was how we all at least obtained one concrete thing about Hart, in the disorganized conglomeration of incidents given about him, namely: that he was 30 years of age today—”
“30 years and 7 months,” amended the man in the Mexican suit, “as per that green-tinted circular, which we heard the broadcaster himself say was this year’s tint—”
“The same being a fact,” corroborated the Sheriff.
“—as even I can corroborate,” said the man in the knitted cap. “Since, on a fence outside one of the gates of my mill at Irontown, is one of those circulars—describing Sicconi, that young New York Sicilian who came to the front only a few months ago, and pulled off that gang massacre. All right. Then the one concrete thing we have on Hart is really thanks to that circular, and is that he’s 30 years and 7 months ol—”
“Practically 30 years, 8 months,” amended the man in the yellow derby, “according to Uncle Sam’s date of issuance the fellow Topkins told us he found somewhere on the circular. And—” This to the man in the legging-like boots, “—if you don’t look more like 30 years and 8 months than either I or Richendollar here—or even tenBrockerville over there included—I’m a—”
“May be I do—yes. But I’m discussing ‘Actor’ Hart now. And what I’m trying to emphasize is that all of the incidents we got on his life were shuffled—jumbled about—higgledy-piggledy—and actual dates there were none, other than that public-enemy circular. Moreover, some of the incidents related by Topkins happened under other identities of Hart—and aliases of Hart—all got eventually co-ordinated, as it seems, only in Folsom Prison—and it’s doubtful that even us four now sitting here—from what we remember or read of an incident—even if we did read of it!—could link them together into the true time-scheme—replete, I mean, with dates. For one day’s voluminous crime news—occupying never less than 50 per cent of all the day’s news!—drives another day’s crime news into the previous week’s crime news—and one month’s crime news drives another month’s crime news into the very background almost of the previous year—till all, if it’s remembered at all, is fused together in a vague potpourri of recollections—in which banks, somewhere, were robbed—people, somewhere, were killed—criminals, somewhere, were convicted. Now take myself—oh, yes, I see cynical smiles on three faces—but take myself, just the same: I more likely than not have read in newspapers one or more of the incidents related by the fellow Topkins, but I don’t remember it today—much less its date, and I’m pretty good at dating past events; apparently all I know about Hart’s career, from reading or memory thereof, is one incident that I’m not even able to tie up to any date, since I read it only in a little 10-cent paper booklet called ‘Oddities of Crime’—and it related to his having robbed that bank of Eureka, Oklahoma, and the complete collapse of the town thereby, and of the riffraff of Little Hell, across the tracks, winning their hate-feud thanks to Hart’s robbery of that Eureka bank. Now the broadcaster told us that that crime was known, at that very time, to have been committed by Al Hart—in fact, I think he said that the Little Hellians were anxious to rear a gold plate to Hart, except that they didn’t even have the price of a piece of tin plate!—anyway, it must have been set forth in the 10-cent booklet I read as done by Al Hart—even as to the date thereof—yet all I positively remember is the incident itself—and some of its aftermaths—yes!—with no recollection of name of criminal—date—or anything. And I’ll warrant that every man on this island—except, of course, Hart!—is in the same boat as myself. And that’s what I’ve been getting at: That because of the absence of dates in the whole conglomeration, no one of us knows how long Hart has been in prison there in Folsom—”
“What in damnation hell,” growled the man who called himself Hick, “would it make? Since he—same being you!—is out now?”
“Well, it would make a lot of difference to me,” said the man who called himself Boyd Arganbright, “if, for instance—but here’s the point: Green is the tint of this year’s public-enemy circular, according to T. Topkins—and as even I can confirm—and as the Sheriff here has confirmed. But since there are only 11 tints of paper through which Uncle Sam can annually rotate the colors of his public-enemy circulars, it means that 11 years from today, he’ll be back to—”
“—to green again,” said the man who now called himself Richendollar, sneeringly. “At which time you won’t be on any—because you’ll be part of the History of Crime.”
“Maybe so. But has it occurred to anybody here—and you, Sheriff, too?—that what that broadcaster took for the date of publication of that circular—and which I know is in mighty fine-point type under one edge—a type smaller than even diamond type, in fact—might have been merely a rubber-stamped date; one, that is, stamped in by that new girl in that G-man’s office where the fellow Topkins got the circular—a mere filing date—possibly even a re-filing date—perhaps due to Hart’s escaping a few months ago—and therefore coming from an inactive file to an active file, but—”
“But all meaning—what?” queried the derby-hatted man disgustedly.
“Meaning,” the speaker drove on desperately, “that Hart could have been in prison longer than we think!—that that green-tinted circular, instead of having been this year’s, could have been one of exactly 11 years back—exactly like, for instance, an old old one posted today in a line-gang shanty in Irontown Mill describing ‘Bull’ Cloud, ex-puddling-foreman and gang chief, who it was once thought might hide in some steel mill—anyway, Bull Cloud has been dead for years. And if, by some chance, the Hart circular were 11 years old—instead of current—then—”
“But goddang it,” the Sheriff pointed out, ruminating on the implications opened up by this line of reasoning—or pseudo-reasoning, “that feller they’re calling ‘Rat’ positiv’ said he seed Hart on this island, and—”
“Oh, yes, of course, but—”
But the speaker’s words were broken sharply off, and the Sheriff, still reflecting upon the implications contained in the other’s suggestions—specious or otherwise—saw the other’s face grow chalky white—the latter’s eyes pop from his very head. The man was—if ever there was such—a man who was seeing an actual ghost—a ghost, moreover, of someone whom he had atrociously murdered. And was, the Sheriff immediately concluded, stark crazy—a madman! For the other had, in but the two or three seconds before—as it was to eventuate—he was to find his tongue, scrooched low on his boulder seat—and thrown up his left forearm defensively—but at nothing at all. And in that rapid sweep of seconds in which, as it turned out, he did find a cloven tongue, he seemed to be trying to pry it loose from the roof of his mouth. And all the while 3 faces—including the Sheriff’s—were fastened helplessly on him. But now the frantic words escaping from his lips proclaimed that it was not a ghost he was seeing at all—that it was Death!—and Destruction—for someone—for himself—sweeping down—but, by the words he released, at last, the Sheriff found that ’twas he—the Sheriff!—who stood in imminent danger of quick and immediate death—by way of the treacherous currents of angry Big River.
For the words, unpent at last, were actually screamed:
“Duck!—Sheriff!—for your life!—huge tree—pointed branch coming up—across—God—duck!”
But it required only those words “Duck” and “Sheriff” to make the Sheriff, by some operation of his automatic nervous system—and not by conscious thinking at all—fling himself sharply forward on his face, hands crushed flat beneath his chest. He knew, as clearly as ever he knew anything in his life, that the sharp point of a broken-off gigantic tree, due to the tree being thrust momentarily up on the island, was shooting past where his own head had been—and he only wondered, vaguely, whether it had spitted the speaker. He waited, gasping, for a grinding tonnage of water-soaked wood to settle atop his back—crush his ribs—his spine—but heard only, as from a long distance, the same voice that had been speaking, its owner apparently arisen now, shouting:
“Quick—you confounded fools! Join with me—both of you—or else. Hart can be 41 years of age as well as 30—this man is 41, all right—and so he can be Hart—make him at least prove himsel—”
“Damn idjit!” the Sheriff grunted, spitting out some of the dirt from his lips, and raising up the few inches he could on the misplaced palms of his hand. “Yo’re pullin’ a fast—”
But he got no more words out, for he felt a sudden surge of bodies atop him—bodies of three men, two of whom, in the last 5 seconds, must have been completely swept off their mental feet as even he, the Sheriff, had been driven atop his own face! Indeed, the Sheriff, because of heavy feet now atop his back—and because his hands were jerked violently out from under him—dropped squarely back on his face again. Where, utterly anchored, he felt his wrists being tied back of him by something soft as silk—guessed it to be that lineman man’s neckerchief!—felt a relentless hand prying up under his own coat—drawing forth that gun!—felt himself being jerked by two pairs of powerful arms to a standing position—blinking, saw that the neckerchief was gone from the man with the legging boots—that the latter stood off 4 feet or so, Shelby’s Bluff’s gun in hand—that the man in the Mexican suit, holding the Sheriff’s left arm, had a huge rock in his free hand—the man in the yellow derby, holding the Sheriff’s right arm—
“What the goddanged fool double-goddanged tarnation hell is the matter o’ you birds?” the Sheriff roared, rotating his head from the Mexican-clad man to the man in the yellow derby hat. “Yo’ve let Actor Hart put over the swif’est—”
“Three of us believe,” said the man in the lineman costume calmly, “that we’ve got Actor Hart.”
“Got Actor Hart?” retorted the Sheriff scornfully—and bitingly. “You fools—all of you. I’m the Sheriff of—”
“—of Little Hell, Oklahoma—if you’re Actor Hart,” replied the lineman-clad man. “Little Hell, Oklahoma—which honored you with a ‘life-sheriffship’ for ruining their enemy—the snooty town of Eureka across the tracks!—by robbing and busting the Eureka bank. Yes, you’re a real sheriff, all right, according to that booklet called ‘Oddities of—’”
“Yo’re crazy as a bedbug,” raged the Sheriff. He turned from one to the other of the two holding him. “Air you two fools goin’ to see the smoothest crook in 7 cont’nents git away ’ith—”
“And I’ll show you two fellows,” said the man alluded to, “if I’m a smooth crook. And whether my theory is right or not. Here, Richendollar—” He thrust the big gun forward—though sidewise of the Sheriff too—handle foremost. “—you can have the artillery! Stand off—6 feet from this hickory-shirted bird—the while Hick and I make a certain examination—and keep a bead on our captive—and kill him if he makes so much as one false mov—”
“I’ll drill him all right,” snarled the latter, who had left the man he was guarding, and grabbed the gun. He moved off some 6 feet away.
“Hick,” said the first speaker, “you and I’ll take a look—at McCorniss’ body. For the reason that—come, Hick.”
The man whom he had addressed followed him silently. Gazing a bit dubiously back at the man holding the gun. The first man, however, looked not even backward. But led the way across the ground to the vault. Beckoning his derby-hatted helper to one end, he himself took up a position at the other. And held up a single forefinger. Which the other, getting the idea, did likewise. Leaning forward, the self-appointed director of operations placed his forefinger—the ball thereof—against the top of the cross. As did the other likewise, “Shove now—sidewise,” the first man ordered.
The ease with which, by merely the combined sidewise finger shoves, the heavy, heavy lid raised, on the far side of the cross, showed that a man could have, with but the flat of his hand, tilted that cross alone—perhaps only a child—even a resuscitated dead man—even—
About one third the way up—and the heavy cross hanging out over one edge—the lid suddenly shot upward, on the edge on which it was swinging, by its own action—and in a trice stood vertically upright, the top of cross in exact contact with ground.
Rendering the vault completely open.
And, dumfounded, the two men gazed in. For on the marble slab, lay no dead man in a toga—but a living man! A man purplish of face—for he was gagged with a couple of huge handkerchiefs. Gagged so completely that the air barely went in and out of his distended nostrils. Rope tied tightly about his knees—and a short rope end trailing out from under his torso—showed how his hands and feet had been tied till circulation of blood must have almost stopped. His hair was black and wavy—he was about, as nearly as could be judged, 30 years of age. He wore long legging-like boots like the man Arganbright; and a knitted cap, that had been tossed loosely inside with him, was not unlike that Arganbright was wearing. And since his shirt was of green silk—though not green flannel!—it was easy—so easy!—to see how Arganbright was being identified today, in Press and on Radio, as being this man!
The former had come swiftly around to the front edge of the vault. Was leaning over. Was feeling in the prone man’s trousers pocket. Was withdrawing a huge clasp knife. Was opening the blade. And was now cutting the other’s leg bindings. Now motioning Hick to help, he was raising the recumbent form to a sitting position. Where, in a trice, he had cut the gag free of the man’s face. And severed the cruel vicious rope knotted about the other’s wrists.
“I—I don’t know who you folkses be,” the man in the vault said, rubbing his wrists, “but sence yo’re a-onloosin’ of me, you must be ok—” But saying no more he leaned, somewhat feebly, far forward, and peered fearfully past the front of the upraised vault lid—down the island. “Ho-ho!” he ejaculated. And regained his straight sitting position. “Yes, sence yo’ve onloosed me—and are holtin’ a gun on him—” He nodded his head toward the vault lid, thus indicating the “him” he was referring to far on the other side of it. “—you must be okay. Well, I’m th’ Sher’ff o’ Shelby’s Bluff. And that man down yander in th’ hick’ry shirt—” He jerked his head again toward the vault lid which, for him, cut off the view of the lower island. “—he’s a crook o’ some kind! He—he come on this hyar island this mo’nin’ whilst I was ’zaminin’ McCo’niss’ body. Sayin’ he was a Gov’ment flood inspector, and fur me to go ahaid ’ith what I was doin’, and he’d do what he hadda do. I was heap stupid, I reckon, dang me!—fur to let him be free ahind my back whilst I was a-doin’ of things. Fo’ whilst my back ’uz turned he—he knocked me out ’ith a rock! When I come to in ’bout a minute, I ’uz bound tighter’n a kite—and gagged—and I see him shovin’ off, into the river, the boat he come in—which was a stripet speedboat he prob’ly bought or stole som’eres—atter which he fished ’round in McCo’niss’ bur’al shroud, an’ brung out a diamont pin what I myse’f had come out hyar to git. Fo’ th’ McCo’niss Estate! After which, what’d he do but lift McCo’niss—paper caskit an’ all, jest as ef they wuz a toy!—right out’n the vault, tote ’em down to the river aidge, and toss ’em plum out into the river. God—what stren’th that man had! And then—then he tuk off’n me a flar’ signal what I had in m’ pocket—but which he wasn’t able to git into his’n—a flar’ signal ’ith some wroten instroctions wropped about it—instroctions to me ’bout how our Mayor wanted th’ signal used, an’ writ by Sam Turner, our ha’dware-sto’ man—seems he—that danged crook!—a’riddy had m’ gun—and m’ star!—even, i’God, m’ turnip!—and then he picked me up, like as ef I was a chilt, an’ put me down into this hyar vault. And—and drawed the lid down atop me. To keep me hid, I reckon, ’twell—”
“To be drowned like a rat,” corrected the man who had cut him loose, shaking his head. “For it’s authoritatively said that the Cooperstown dam is due to go down today—and to cover this place with 10 feet of wat—”
“My—God!” broke in the man Hick. “Now—now we’re six men on this island—that is, five honest men—and only three life belts as before, plus one blow-up vest! Which of the five’s to go—to go—without a belt—or blow-up vest? Who—”
“Nobody, I hope,” said Arganbright gravely. “Of even the whole six of us. Because of—but come—let’s get back to our man on guard: Richendollar.” And helping the Sheriff of Shelby’s Bluff out of the vault, he reached up and drew down the heavy lid, which now, being in the ascendancy, beautifully balanced the heavy cross which was not—until suddenly the center of gravity of both cross and lid lay to one side of the edge on which the lid rotated, at which moment the lid settled sharply down. “I’m closing this,” Arganbright said significantly, “so as to maintain this one highest spot we’ve got on this island—yes, the top of the cross!—in case—” But he explained no further, instead leading the way back to where the Mexican-clad Richendollar had the Sheriff—the Sheriff, that is, of Little Hell, Oklahoma!—safely under the lee of his gun. Arganbright waited till Hick, and Sheriff Brister, who had to be helped occasionally by Hick, drew up. “Yes,” Arganbright now said, to all, “resuming what we were saying up there at the vault—and which Richendollar here was not in on—I’m hoping that nobody is going to have to take to the flood today—without a life belt—or blow-up vest—on him. One reason alone being that this dog in the hickory shirt is worth exactly $5000 apiece to us four who’ve captured him—yes, us four, I said, for I’m certainly including friend tenBrockerville yonder, still fast asleep, since I can show any of you—will, in fact, shortly—how he did as much as any of us three today in this capture—so as I say—back up a couple of more feet there, Hart—keep the gun a bit higher there, Richendollar—as I started to say, this dog in the hickory shirt is worth exactly $5000 apiece to us four who’ve captured him—but only providing we deliver him! And as for you, Sheriff Brister,” the speaker said dryly, “you’re out of this reward business, I’m sorry to say. We made the capture while you were in a bad state of ‘capture’ yourself!—a quite bad one. And so—”
“Hell ’ith any reward,” Sheriff Brister retorted fervently. And visibly shivered. “Danged happy to have saved my fool life. Fur—but what’s this ’bout the dam?”
Arganbright was holding open his coat and fishing down, apparently through a gap between the material of the breast pocket and the coat lining itself. He had, in fact, to raise the coat corner to meet his groping fingers, but evidently got hold of what he was fishing for. And brought it out. It was obviously a folded yellow telegram—though it appeared to be made of an unusually flimsy—almost gossamer-like—material—and was minus envelope.
“Yes, my friends of Bleeker’s Island,” he now said, “this is the proof I had of my story—but really thought I had lost! But when I crouched low awhile back to grab that pup’s gun, I was certain I heard it crackle—soft thought it is—in my coat—and knew I must have slipped it into some hole in the lining instead of the pocket. However—let me read it aloud—and then—” He unfolded it. It proved to be of amazing size for a telegram—at least one foot square! Though its context was to illuminate the why of its size and its voluminous contents. “And when I’ve read it,” he continued, “then, by Godfrey, one and every one of you had better pray!”
And, in great silence, he read off:
NIGHT-LETTER, VIA
SPEEDOGRAPH
CARE MORNING ARRIVING BOGGTOWN A.C. AND B. R. R. R. TRAIN, AMES JUNCTION.
BOYD, DEAREST, RECEIVED YOUR WIRE, SENT FROM ORE JUNCTION AT 2 THIS MORNING, AND SINCE I HAVE ASCERTAINED THAT I CAN GET THE FAMOUS AND AMAZING NEW POSTAL-UNION SPEEDOGRAPH SERVICE BETWEEN HERE AND AMES JUNCTION, INVOLVING TELEGRAPHING AT RATE OF 100 WORDS PER MINUTE AND AT COST OF ONLY 2 CENTS A WORD NIGHT-LETTER, I AM MAKING THIS REPLY DETAILEDLY SPECIFIC AND PERHAPS A BIT VOLUMINOUS! IN REPLY TO YOUR WIRE, THEREFORE, LET ME SAY THAT I THINK IT WONDERFUL THAT YOU HAVE A VIRTUAL GIFT FROM MR. McC AND CAN BUY FREEDOM THEREBY FROM SADIE; THOUGH OF COURSE I DO THINK YOUR BENEFACTOR’S FEARS AS TO PREMATURE BURIAL MUST BE QUITE UNFOUNDED. BUT, BOYD, I AM TERRIBLY WORRIED SINCE OUR EVENING PAPER SAYS THAT INTERMENT WAS MADE SOLELY TO BEAT THE RAPIDLY RISING FLOOD. TO TRY, THEREFORE, TO OBTAIN SOME FIRSTHAND INFORMATION ON SITUATION AT BIG RIVER I CALLED, BY LONG-DISTANCE, ONLY INDIVIDUAL OF THAT REGION KNOWN TO ME BY NAME, NAMELY, THAT MAN WHO WAS MENTIONED ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THAT OLD LETTER YOU ONCE SHOWED ME OF MR. McC’S. I REFER, BOYD, TO THAT PROFESSOR GEOGAR OF MARYSVILLE, BELOW THE ISLAND. I WAS, HOWEVER, REFERRED BY THE MARYSVILLE NIGHT-OPERATOR TO STATE CENTER HOSPITAL AT STATE CENTER; AND THERE TALKED TO PROFESSOR GEOGAR DESPITE THE UNEARTHLY HOUR. BEING A GEOLOGIST HE HAS SOME IDEAS ON THE FLOOD AND IS ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN, FROM FOLLOWING PUBLISHED FLOOD DATA, THAT THE ISLAND CANNOT POSSIBLY BE SUBMERGED BY THIS PARTICULAR FLOOD BEFORE THE COMING MIDNIGHT IF NOT PERHAPS NEXT DAWN; BUT HE DOES SAY THAT IN A FLOOD SUCH AS NOW EXISTS A MAN LIKE YOURSELF CAN ONLY BEACH A HEAVY BOAT THUS AND SO FAR, AND THAT A VERY SLIGHT RISE IN THE WATERS, IMPERCEPTIBLE TO YOU, CAN LIFT IT OFF BEFORE YOU CAN SAY JACK ROBINSON, AND MAROON YOU. PROFESSOR GEOGAR TELLS ME, HOWEVER, BOYD, THAT A DEVICE CALLED A UNIT-DETONATOR—TO HAVE BEEN USED TO CALIBRATE A HYPER-SEISMOGRAPH HE INVENTED—WAS INSTALLED ON THE ISLAND BY MR. McC BEFORE HIS DEATH, BY ONE OF THE VAULT BUILDERS. FOR PROFESSOR GEOGAR TALKED BY LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHONE FROM HIS BED TO MR. McC BEFORE THE LATTER DIED. MR. McC TOLD HIM, HE SAYS, THAT THE EASILY UNSCREWED BUT CAPPED END OF THE DEVICE, LEADING TO AN EXPLOSIVE CHARGE FAR BELOW—ENCASED, IN FACT, ON THE UNDERSIDE OF A BURIED TAMPED-IN SO-CALLED “BUFFER PLATE”—LIES JUST ABOUT ONE INCH BELOW AN ARTIFICIAL CLOTH AND WIRE VIOLET ACTUALLY TIED TO IT, THOUGH APPARENTLY TRAMPLED UNOBTRUSIVELY INTO THE EARTH. ANYWAY, BOYD, THE UPSHOT OF THE WHOLE THING IS THAT PROFESSOR GEOGAR IS GOING TO RETURN HOME TOMORROW—WELCOMES THE EXCUSE TO DO SO, IN FACT!—AS HE IS SICK OF CONVALESCING—AND WILL LEAVE STATE CENTER ON THE NOON WEST-BOUND RIVER SPECIAL, STRIKING EAST BANK AND SOUTHERN BIG RIVER RAILROAD IN TIME TO CATCH NORTHBOUND LOCAL ARRIVING MARYSVILLE AT 10 MINUTES TO 5; WILL BE WITHIN HIS HOUSE AND STUDIO WITHIN 3 MINUTES; AND WILL IMMEDIATELY INSERT PAPER ON RECORDING DRUM OF THE McC HYPER-SEISMOGRAPH, INK IN RECORDING PEN, WILL SET THE H-S FOR RECORDING, AND WILL PROCEED TO WATCH IT. ALL THIS OF COURSE, BOYD, UNLESS A LONG-DISTANCE CALL FROM ME TO THE HOSPITAL, OR LATER TO HIS STUDIO, ESTABLISHES THAT I HAVE, IN THE MEANTIME, RECEIVED A LONG-DISTANCE CALL FROM YOU STATING THAT YOU ARE SAFELY OFF THE ISLAND. NOW OF COURSE, BOYD, I DO NOT KNOW FROM WHERE YOU ANTICIPATE TRYING TO GET OUT TO THE ISLAND—MUCH LESS AT WHAT PART OF THE DAY—BUT IT SURELY WILL BE IN AMPLE TIME BEFORE DARK CAN SET IN. AND SO IF, BOYD ANYTHING GOES WRONG—I.E. THAT THROUGH SOME MISCHANCE YOU BECOME MAROONED, WITH NO BOAT BY WHICH TO LEAVE—OR IF, FOR INSTANCE, HEAVY WIND UNEXPECTEDLY ADDS ITSELF TO FLOOD AND, AS PROFESSOR GEOGAR TELLS ME IT CAN DO, WHIPS BIG RIVER INTO SUCH WAVES THAT NO SMALL BOAT OR LAUNCH WOULD DARE TO TAKE OFF FROM AN ISLAND—YOU ARE TO—AND MUST!—SET THE DETONATOR OFF AT 5 P.M. EXACTLY—BUT IT MUST BE 5 EXACTLY, PROFESSOR GEOGAR WARNS, SINCE THERE ARE SEISMIC SHOCKS GOING ON CONTINUOUSLY. HE SAYS THAT IF SHOCK FROM NORTH AND EAST RECORDS ITSELF AT 5 P.M. EXACTLY, HE WILL PRESUME IT TO CONSTITUTE PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE THAT IT IS ONE SET OFF BY YOU ON ISLAND, ASKING HELP, AND WILL IMMEDIATELY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION TO THE NEAREST FLOOD-CONTROL BOAT. IF FOG IS EXISTENT—WHICH, PROFESSOR GEOGAR THINKS, IS QUITE POSSIBLE BY TOMORROW AFTERNOON—HE WILL COMMUNICATE FINDINGS TO THE FLOOD-CONTROL BOAT USFC-49 ANNOUNCED LAST NIGHT AS MOORED AT MARYSVILLE, AND NOW PROBABLY SOMEWHERE UP RIVER EN ROUTE FOR MINNEAPOLIS. THE USFC-49 IS, HE SAYS, THE ONLY BOAT ON THE RIVER EQUIPPED WITH THE “NOCTOVISOR” OF J. L. BAIRD OF LONDON, A COMBINATION INFRA-RED SEARCHLIGHT BEAM AND VISING SCREEN BY WHICH ISLAND COULD BE FOUND EVEN IN THE DENSEST TYPE OF FOG KNOWN. SUCH REGULAR FLOOD-CONTROL BOAT AS WOULD BE CONTACTED WOULD, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, BE FORCED TO STEAM IN AND TAKE YOU OFF; IN CASE OF FOG, EVEN THE USFC-49 WOULD, HE SAYS, BE FORCED TO STEAM BACK ON ITS COURSE TO DO JUST THAT. NOW, BOYD, I KNOW YOU WILL THINK THIS IS ALL VERY SILLY, BUT IT IS JUST ONE OF THOSE FEMININE HUNCHES; SO BEAR WITH ME! AND OF COURSE CANCEL EVERYTHING BY TELEPHONE CALL TO ME IF OR WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN OUT THERE TO THE ISLAND AND HAVE GOTTEN BACK SAFELY, THOUGH KEEP IN MIND THAT I WILL BE AT HOME IN IRONTOWN ONLY TILL ABOUT 11:30, AND AT CONVENT IN STEEL CITY FROM NOON TILL 6—PHONE NUMBER OF CONVENT IS STEE-8743. AND, ON OTHER HAND, IF ANYTHING WHATSOVER GOES WRONG—AND YOU GET MAROONED—REMEMBER PARTICULARLY THAT THE DETONATION MUST NOT BE BEFORE 5 SINCE PROFESSOR GEOGAR WON’T BE THERE TO SET UP SEISMOGRAPH, NOR MUST IT BE MUCH AFTER 5 AS IN THE PLETHORA OF EARTH TREMORS GOING ON EVER AND ALWAYS, IT CAN BE UTTERLY MISINTERPRETED. ALL KINDS OF LOVE TO YOU, MY DEAR, AND GOOD LUCK.
ALYDA.
“And now you know,” said the reader of the message dryly, “why Brother tenBrockerville—still asleep, the sleeping wonder!—is in on this capture: his story of Cleopatra’s Tears—with all the ensuant palaver which took place—was the one thing that helped defer my ‘trial’ today late enough so that I could negotiate myself—rather, maneuver myself!—through heap-much preliminary argument!—and a desperate drawing out of my own synopsization of what I had to tell—towards that vital violet—at the vital moment!”
Hick was the first to speak, however.
“And you say—you say—we—we should pray?”
“Yes,” said Arganbright gravely. “That’s exactly what I said. Pray—each and every one of you—that any one of a congeries of complications hasn’t nullified our one and only signal to civilization! For the possibility of that signal will still—of course!—exist for Professor Geogar—oh, yes, indeed, it will! For Alyda Westover did not know that I came out here to Big River clad in the curious working habiliments that I did—and so Geogar doesn’t know it!—and if he’s read the ‘Rat’ Glover story today—or heard it on a hospital radio—I am still, in his eyes, the Sheriff of Shelby’s Bluff—and drowned to boot! I am still—so far as he knows—to come out here sometime today—on my own. And, by dint of perhaps being in a powerful motor-launch—instead of the canoe which you people know I did come in—to have hit this island somehow—despite fog—by sashaying back and forth—forth and back—till I made it. Oh, Geogar is a scientist—and so long as there is a tenth of 1 per cent of a chance that I made it—that, for him, is his basic postulate: that I did make it.” Arganbright paused, with a careful look at the silent scowling hickory-shirted captive. “But as to many other possible complications,” he went on, “I tell you all you’d better pray. And—and like hell! That, for instance, Professor Geogar didn’t have a relapse—at the very nervousness of going home. That his west-bound train connected the E. B. and S. B. R. R. in time for him to catch the north-bound. That the north-bound was on time. And pray—most of all—every man here—including even a certain dog in a hickory shirt!—that some vicious earth-temblor in the far north and west didn’t shake—at the moment our detonator went off—and nullify it completely as a signal—so far as direction went. Pray—for all of these things! For, if any one happened, one innocent man here today will have to die—when that dam breaks—if it brea—”
But the speaker stopped short. And his face whitened. For the particular water line where his eyes were idly resting suddenly moved straight inward—2—4—6—feet! Other eyes, looking in other directions, were conscious of the same phenomenon. A terrific and unprecedented rise of water had taken place! Eyes now traversing the island in all directions, saw that it had shrunk, in but 10 seconds, by a third of its area. The rise must have been fully—
But now a second interruption took place. Had, in a sense, been taking place, whilst all eyes had been fearfully traversing the new water line. For it had consisted of—initially—men’s voices—coming from somewhere—somewhere out in the fog—that particular fog which lay between the shrinking island and where Shelby’s Bluff must have been. The air was suddenly now rent by two short blasts of a whistle—meaning, on the river, full steam ahead! Then miraculously, from out the wall of fog, emerged a curious boat. It was painted white, and was flat-bottomed, obviously, judging from the closeness of its deck to the water surface—yet carrying a cabin, and, atop the cabin, a pilothouse with a man in it. The boat, as it hove rapidly in closer, so that its stern was not shrouded in fog, proved itself to be about 30 feet in length—indeed, it was in so close now that a paddle wheel on that stern could be vaguely seen to be violently churning up water. Painted in huge black letters on the bow of the vessel were the letters and digits U-S-F-C-40—followed by smaller words in bright red: BUREAU OF FLOOD CONTROL. Mounted in the high pilothouse was a great searchlight—a searchlight pointed directly downward at the island—at the very knot of men standing!—though no light—at least no visible light!—came from it. The man in the pilot-house was, however, gazing intently at a boxed screen of some sort below it—manipulating his wheel as he did so. Plainly, he was right now viewing by infra-red rays what undoubtedly he had been viewing for some many moments out in the fog—judging from the fact that the vessel had unerringly found this island. In a frontwise window of the cabin could be seen a wireless operator at his instruments. Along the deck of the boat, were several youthful khaki-clad figures.
“Get on here—quick!—all of you!” a man, upfront of the figures, and wearing red cloth epaulets on his shoulders, shouted. “The dam went out—30 minutes ago—we’ll be riding higher’n a kite in 60 seconds!—step on it if you don’t want to be swept—”
The boat was now grating on land—submerged land, that is—but, with a most violent shove of its great paddle wheel, it shot itself—its nose, at least—squarely up on shore, where never would the boat be able to dislodge itself—but neither could it be dislodged by current!
“Hurry—you idiots,” the man wearing the red epaulets now shouted. “The vanguard of those waters is here—the waters themselves’ll be—get on, goddamn it!—or—or drown!
There was a sudden rush toward the boat. By all individuals. The real and genuine Sheriff of Shelby’s Bluff being well in the lead. A rush by all, that is, but two persons. One being the man in the hickory shirt. Who stood his ground contemptuously—even ground one heel firmly into the earth. And the other being, of course, the man who had been sleeping. But who was no longer sleeping. As Arganbright—stopping short—shamed at himself—remembering only at this instant that piece of drugged inanimity—saw. And saw also, at the same time, that Hick and Richendollar had in like manner suddenly remembered—and also stood like graven figures. TenBrockerville himself was now on hands and knees—like a dog—lids hanging heavy over eyes—Indian turban fallen off—staring blearily at the boat.
“Keep going—you two!” Arganbright yelled towards his two companions. “I’ll get him.” And saying no more, he was back at tenBrockerville’s side. “Up!” he said sharply. “Up!—up!—dam’s out!” And jerked the other to his feet. Was now, in fact, propelling him, like a drunken man, towards the boat. A glimpse, filtering into Arganbright’s brain, showed him Hick and Richendollar waiting—hands on rail—to see that the sleeper was retrieved—and then, seeing that he was, clambering up over the rail—being helped over. Now Arganbright himself was at the rail with his burden. And which burden had come wide awake—was clambering over—with no help at all! And Arganbright was being helped up over by khaki-clad arms. And then and then only did the stocky lone figure with hands knotted behind himself, come to—and waddle over to the boat—a man who evidently preferred prison-life to drowning!
He was at the rail now. But hamstrung—because of his knotted wrists:
But ever—apparently—the actor! For scared though he manifestly was—he had become now a brand-new personality. Some personality, no doubt, out of his histrionic past—and the first one at hand.
“I say!” he cried. “H—h—h—help meh up—you chaps—will you? Don’t be so wacky as to let meh drown—after you’ve captured meh! I’m worth 20 thou to you, demmit, but only if—and besides, there’s other sides to those stories about me bloomin’ crimes. I’m not ’alf so black as they pai—”
Two pairs of arms—Hick’s and Richendollar’s—reached down—almost dragged him up on the deck.
“Mocha thanks, Mexicano!” he said ironically, towards the Mexican-clad latter. “You fool me today weeth them Spaneesh talk what you spik!—bot now that I know you are act-tor too, I theenk I spiking moch better Spaneesh than you—I so dam’ su’—madre de Jesu!—as am I that you goeeng spand moch monee w’at you catch from catch me—yes?—no? But don’ you forgeet whan you spand them monee—wan cartone av ceegaratte!—to me—av’ry Chrees’mas—in Folsom preesone—heh?”
But now the epauleted khaki-clad man, who was evidently the leader of the boat crew, was speaking.
“Is—is everybody on?” he was asking troubledly.
“All on, Captain Bill,” said a man next him. “But of course we can’t ever pull off now, thanks to the way—”
“Pull off?” retorted the first speaker. “Hell-fire, Jim, we’ll be lifted off!—and sooner than you can say Jack Spratt, if I’m any guess—” The speaker turned to Arganbright. “The Cooperstown dam went out—30 minutes ago—we were moored at Marysville, preparatory to going upstream tonight—but when we got the news on our radio, we unmoored immediately—and started head-on upstream—only thing we could do under such circumstances. But about 10 minutes ago—or about a mile below the island here—we got a down-river-station wireless message—some info relayed by a Professor Geographicus—to head in here and take a man off—but good God!—there’s six of you—how comes it there’s six—”
But what this very speaker had predicted, a few seconds back, was now about to take place!
For a small, relentless-looking hummock of water—a hummock evidently lying crosswise of the entire river, did one judge from the segment of it visible out here—rolled out of the fog up ahead. It was about 3 feet high. And was like a ripple in a carpet being pushed along by some force considerably in back of it. But now the creating force of this hummock itself showed—out of the fog. And proved to be a gently slanting hill of water back of the hummock—though where its top might be could not be guessed, because of that fog. It was like an aqueous wedge which threatened to uproot the island, and send it soaring into spa—But now the hummock, traveling in advance of that great wedge had struck the island. Which became first crisscrossed with madly-flowing rivulets—then was bounding with angry little water waves. Creakingly, the very vessel, out on one edge thereof, started to rise—then settled sadly and groaningly as if in remonstrance to the small help afforded by that quickly subsiding hummock. But now again the vessel rose—bouncingly this time—vigorously—as the relentless nose of that advancing hill of water shot down onto the island. And no wonder the USFC-49 was rising! For Bleeker’s Island was literally falling away from the onlookers on the deck—indeed, it was all covered with water now—all, that is, but the stone vault which reared itself proudly above the surface, the cross atop the lid coldly defiant to the torrent. And the wooden vessel was afloat—afloat! And not being swept downstream, either, by any manner of means—for the splashing roar of the paddle wheel at its stern could be heard—and a thousand squeakings from all over it—as it strained, against conflicting forces—seemingly moving not an inch upward of stream—nor yet an inch downward—just rotating slowly, majestically, inexorably toward parallelism with the channel—bouncing savagely at times like a rider atop a bucking broncho.
Aside an island which—with the exception of a concrete cross defying the torrent—was no more; for vault, too, was gone!
But there were, on that snug trim safe vessel, as it still kept exactly even with the rush of current, still not moving an inch, 6 men to whom Destiny this day, on Bleeker’s Island, had doled out their fates unerringly. To a stupid country-town Sheriff, his life. To a bank robber and cruel murderer, return to the prison cell where he belonged—and belonged because, being an actor as well as a criminal, he was too dangerous an individual to be loose on Society. To a country boy, knowledge of protection complete to his inheritance till flood should subside. To one of two embryonic and desperate newspapermen, the complete ownership of the valuable vault on this island, as well as the island itself, thanks to a deed thereto, and to having set foot atop this island before it was erased—all this plus an exclusive story as to how Silas Crabtree, New York multimillionaire—uninterviewable—had been completely outwitted. To the other newspaperman—equally embryonic—equally desperate—an exclusive story of how a famous Negro actor of Harlem, wanted for murder, had been drowned and buried as a river roustabout.
And to both newspapermen conjointly, the exclusive story—for their papers fortunately in different cities—of an amazing rescue from flood of 6 persons by “concussion,” as well as the equally amazing capture of a famous criminal by 4 men unknown to each other—4 men who would each, thereby, earn $5000! And last, but far from least, to a chemist—who was no legatee of any will—nor newspaperman on any paper—freedom, thanks to a deed-of-gift—the gift now safely retrieved, and even now being unpinned by him from the garment of a certain hickory-shirted individual!—freedom from a disastrous, hopeless marital entanglement—love—security—a future!
And as though Bleeker’s Isle—and anything that had been on it—was no longer required to play any part in the drama that had determined 6 lives, an invisible hand now seemed to take hold of the concrete cross—to pull it forcibly beneath water. For it lowered visibly—sank—was gone! And where Bleeker’s Island had been was now—just the inscrutable face of angry Big River.
And as the USFC-49 put on full speed ahead—and its wheel churned violently, driving it slowly but relentlessly and surely forward upstream—Destiny smiled. For she knew her favorite stage would come back; and that dramas—other and many!—would be played out on it during the thousands of years yet that old Big River would be flowing down to the sea!