jack lanagan of the san francisco enquirer was conceded to have “arrived” as the premier police reporter of san francisco. this honour was his not solely through a series of brilliant newspaper feats in his especial field, but as well by reason of an entente that permitted him to call half the patrolmen on the force by their given names; enjoy the confidences of detective sergeants, a close-mouthed brotherhood; dine tête-à-tête in private at french restaurants with well-groomed police captains on canvasback or quail out of season, and sit nonchalantly on a corner of the chief’s desk and absent-mindedly smoke up the chief’s two-bit cigars.
it was an intimacy that carried much of the lore of the force with it: that vital knowledge not of books. bill dougherty on the “pawnbroker detail” knew scarcely more “fences” than did lanagan; charley hartley, who handled the bunco detail, found himself nettled now and then when lanagan would pick him up casually at the ferry building and point out some “worker” among the incoming rustics whom hartley had not “made,” and debonair harry o’brien, who spent his time among the banks, was more than once rudely jarred when[pg 4] lanagan would slip over on the front page of the enquirer a defalcation that had been engaging o’brien’s attention for a week.
so it went with lanagan; from the “bell hops” of big hotels, the bar boys of clubs, down to the coldest-blooded unpenned felon of the barbary coast who sold impossible whiskey with one hand and wielded a blackjack with the other, the police sources were his.
consequently lanagan, having “arrived,” may be accorded a few more liberties than the average reporter and permitted to spend a little more time than they in poker in the back room at fogarty’s, hard by the hall of justice. here, when times were dull, he could drift occasionally to fraternise with a “shyster,” those buzzards of the police courts and the city prisons who served fogarty; or with one of the police court prosecuting attorneys affiliated with the fogarty political machine, for fogarty was popularly credited with having at least two and possibly three of the police judges in his vest pocket. or he could rattle the dice with a police judge himself and get the “inside” on a closed-door hearing or the latest complaint on the secret file; and he could keep in touch with the “plain-clothes” men who dropped in to pass the time of day with fogarty; or with the patrolmen coming on and off watch, who reported to fogarty as regularly as they donned and doffed their belts and helmets things they thought fogarty should know.
[pg 5]in this fashion does the police reporter best serve his paper; for it is by such unholy contact that he keeps in touch with the circles within circles of the police department of a great city. some he handles by fear, some he wins by favour, some he wheedles. in the end, if he be a brother post-graduate, the grist of the headquarters’ mill is his.
of the shysters there is horace lathrop, for instance, who boasts a harvard degree when he is drunk—never when he is sober.
horace is sitting with lanagan at fogarty’s rear room table, while lanagan sips moodily at his drink.
larry the rat, runner for the shysters, pasty of face, flat of forehead as of chin, with an upper lip whose malformation suggests unpleasantly the rodent whose name he bears, shuffles in and bespeaks lathrop at length. that worthy straightens up, glances at lanagan, and then remarks:
“casey has just brought in a moll,” and arises, with elaborate unconcern, to leave the room.
“well,” drawled lanagan, “what else?”
“nothing. that’s all i know. going to try to get the case now, whatever it is.”
“is that all you told him, larry?” asked lanagan. the rat mumbled unintelligibly and shuffled away.
“the rat’s answered after his breed,” said lanagan. “he says no, it is not. now, horace—pardon me, barrister lathrop—kick through.[pg 6] you know i’ve got to deliver a story to my paper to-day. come on.”
lanagan never wasted words with lathrop. there were a few trivialities that he “had” on that individual. but lathrop balked.
“look here, lanagan, all i got’s her name and address. it isn’t square. she may have a roll as long as your arm. you print this story, the newspaper men go at her for interviews, tip her off about me, she gets a regular lawyer, and where do i come off? you fellows are always crabbing our game. i gave you that shoplifter story a week ago and you played it for a column. you know you did, jack; now you know you did.”
lathrop had been whining. now he stiffened.
“i ain’t going to,” defiantly; “i’m tired o’ being bullied by you. aw, say now, jack, it’s a big case. and i got a wife and kids to look out for”—which was a fact—“and here you come taking the bread and butter out of their mouths. it ain’t square, jack; you know it ain’t.”
all morals to all men, reflected lanagan, and laughed lazily, pulling a copy of the enquirer across the table.
“see her, horace? right on this page—page one, column two, right here, with your name in big black-face letters—a little story of about one-third of a column on that $750 touch-off on that oroville deacon, who went astray for the first time of his life and was pinched as a drunk—to be fleeced by you[pg 7] and your precious band. there isn’t any way of getting his money back, or proving a case against you or the two cops who cut the roll with you and fogarty. i didn’t print the story, but i’ve got the facts pretty straight; and it goes right here—right in this nice, conspicuous place for the grand jury to see and for that wife and those ‘kids’ to see also, who, singular as it may sound, actually don’t know what particular brand of a ‘lawyer’ you are. get all that?”
lathrop “got” it.
lanagan was then told that the detinue cells held a young woman of remarkable beauty, miss grace turner, taken from a family rooming house on o’farrell street. also that through lathrop word of her arrest was to be taken to her brother there. lathrop—or larry the rat, both being cogs in the same machine—had come by the information by the underground wire that runs from every city prison to the bail-bond operators and their shysters without.
fogarty was the bail-bond chief, and possibly one of the plain-clothes men who just now rested his elbow upon the bar may have passed that name and address to larry the rat.
the “detinue” cases are those on the secret book at headquarters, that stable police violation of magna charta; the detinue cases, therefore, become the focus of the police reporter’s activity.
“and incidentally, horace, you stay away from[pg 8] 1153a o’farrell street until i get through,” was lanagan’s final command.
“but what about fogarty?” whined the shyster. “he must know by this time i got the case. you know what he could do to me if he wanted to, jack.”
“yes, and i know what i could do to him if i wanted to, and he knows it, too,” snapped lanagan. “leave him to me.”
“i’m a friend of miss turner’s,” he said as the landlady opened the door at 1153a o’farrell. “i wish to speak with her brother.”
“he’ll be glad to see you. he has been worrying. you ain’t another one of them detectives? i didn’t tell him, though. he was asleep and the doctor said he shouldn’t be worried just now. it might be fatal. what did they do with the poor, dear girl?”
“merely holding her for a few hours. what was the trouble?”
“giving a bad check to the druggist for medicine. she did the same thing at the grocer’s. it’s a dirty trick, i say, to arrest the poor thing. why, the grocer’s bill was only a few dollars. they don’t eat enough to keep my canary. the man eats mostly almonds. something wrong with his stomach, and that seems to be all he can eat. funny, ain’t it?”
the garrulous woman led lanagan to a doorway in the rear. he knocked and, in response to a feeble voice, entered.
[pg 9]propped up with two pillows was a young man whose wasted features were bright with a hectic flush; whose arms, hanging loosely from his gown, were shrunk to the bone and sinews. the eyes were grey, steady, and assured; so much so that lanagan half halted on the threshold as he felt the response in his own sensitive brain to the personality that flashed to him through those eyes. a man of mental power, thought lanagan; of swift decision and of iron will.
the voice was little more than a gasp, but each word by effort was clearly uttered.
“you’re an upper office man?”
“no. i am a newspaper man. why did you ask that?”
“because they were here and took my sister for overdrawing what little funds we had in bank.”
there was concentrated fury in his weak voice.
“still i am curious to know how you knew they were plain-clothes men that took her?”
“how? a newspaper man ask how? because they walk like a ton of pig lead. and didn’t that cursed grocer threaten to have her arrested for a paltry four or five dollars? i heard her scream when they took her. this”—more quietly, with a slight shrug and comprehensive gesture to indicate his wasted form and flushed cheeks—“this particular complaint serves to strengthen our outer faculties for a while at least, even if it is at the expense of our inner ones.”
[pg 10]“i take it your sister is bringing you from the interior to the south?”
“yes. we came from south dakota. we were robbed of our tickets on our first night here. she has been trying to get something to do to save enough money to get as far as los angeles. it came on me suddenly, alcohol helping. sis stuck when they turned me out. on general principles, i don’t blame father. i gambled a mortgage on to the old ranch and twenty years on to his head. anyhow, here we are, sis and me. that’s what you fellows on the papers call a human-interest story, isn’t it?”
there was something about the measured and sinister tone that told of the bitterness of a baffled strong man, in the face of a situation that he was powerless to avoid. lanagan wondered what that man would have done—or tried to do—to him if he were in full possession of his strength. he judged from those level grey eyes that the session would not be uninteresting.
“yes, it might be a human-interest story,” said lanagan, “and then again—it might be better than a human-interest story.”
he was looking at the tip of his cigar, flicking the ashes from it as he said it; but he caught the swift, suddenly veiled flash that the keen eyes shot to his face. to all appearances, though, lanagan did not see that glance. he had not liked the ready talk about upper office men; and he would take oath[pg 11] that in the wasted features, round the ears and the neck, were the tell-tale traces of that prison pallor that requires many a long day to wear away.
“for instance,” lanagan continued, still flicking at his cigar tip, “if you were being kept under cover here?”
it was only a swift, partial intake of breath, but lanagan caught it, and then the man spoke so easily and smoothly that the newspaper man believed himself deceived.
“well, i am. that’s a bet. but just until sis can get me away; that’s also a bet.”
then there followed details, the man on the pillows supplying with facility a pedigree that went back to the mayflower. lanagan had been fishing; yet as he left the room he was uneasy and far from being satisfied. as the story stood it was a neat little “human-interest” story—as harry turner had said—and worth a column and a half. he had comforted turner to the extent of informing him that the shysters had his sister’s case and would probably have her out before night. he drifted moodily back to police headquarters. there lathrop met him.
“nothing stirring,” he said, disgustedly. “they’ve turned her loose. grocer wouldn’t prosecute. she’s got a sick brother. don’t think she was a live one, anyway.”
lanagan ground one palm into the other. three-quarters of the story was gone with the woman free[pg 12] and his “hunch” was afloat without an anchor. he drifted into chief leslie’s office and helped himself to a cigar.
“chief, what did you have on that turner girl?”
leslie was past being surprised at anything lanagan knew. he stopped studying a police circular long enough to look up. “couple of little checks, but the complaining witness withdrew. i wouldn’t write her up if i were you. she’s one case entitled to sympathy. i talked to her. thoroughbred, that girl; consumptive brother; taking him south. so i turned her loose.”
leslie fell to studying his circular again and lanagan drew up a chair to look over the circular also, a little privilege he alone enjoyed of the newspaper men at headquarters. then he whistled softly; lanagan was past being surprised at anything—almost. that whistle was about his most demonstrative exhibition.
the circular was from denver and offered $5,000 reward for information leading to the “arrest and conviction” of harry short, wanted for highway robbery and murder. the details of a denver crime that a brief time before had shocked the country were given and the customary police description, with the front and profile pictures from the rogues’ gallery.
“would probably be found with a woman,” the circular read, “posing as his wife or sister.” there followed a description of the woman, cecile andrews,[pg 13] and her history. she was the daughter of a country minister who became enamored of short when he did odd jobs about her father’s place. she had refused to give him up when he was charged with triple murder. in some way, it was believed, she had managed to join him in hiding, for she had disappeared as completely as he.
leslie finally became annoyed at flanagan’s prolonged whistle.
“good heavens, jack,” he said irascibly, “i’m trying to get these descriptions in my head. take that whistle outside.”
“all right; but say, chief—” the tone was tense, drawn taut like a fiddle string. leslie wheeled. lanagan’s eyes were lighting up with that curious brightness that flamed there when the strange brain of the man was at work, when there was action promised, when the tortuous mazes of some enigma were unfolding to that inner sight.
“say, chief,” he went on, “i wonder if i could make a trip, say to paris, on about one-half of that reward? i’ve always had a curiosity to study that paris police system. i don’t approve of newspaper men taking blood money. it isn’t in our game. but it might be proper to take about one-half of that money in a case like this for a trip like that. what do you think?”
leslie’s eyes were searching lanagan’s. he knew of old that lanagan was not a quibbler and that he never wasted words.
[pg 14]“you’ve got something, jack. what is it?”
“him,” said lanagan inelegantly, tapping the face upon the circular.
leslie jumped straight up out of his chair. the police reporter lit a fresh cigar from leslie’s top desk drawer, where the good ones were.
“it’s this way, chief; but the story’s mine, mine absolutely.”
“you’ve brought me the tip, the story’s yours. that’s the way i play the game,” said leslie.
“this woman was the girl you arrested. her brother’s out in a rooming house on o’farrell street, laid up with consumption—galloping, too, it appears to me.”
leslie was an explosive man, and after a swift glance through the circular description of the woman again, he expressed himself volubly and with unction. it never occurred to him to question the accuracy of lanagan’s statements. he would have taken the newspaper man’s word over that of one of his own men.
lanagan telephoned to sampson, city editor of the enquirer, and before that cold-blooded individual could get in a word, lanagan had said enough to indicate to sampson that something choice was on the irons. lanagan had asked for me, and i was detailed to report to him in thirty minutes at van ness avenue and eddy.
it was just thirty minutes later that the chief, lanagan, brady, wilson, and maloney—three of[pg 15] leslie’s steadiest thief takers—and myself were dropping singly into 1153a o’farrell street, lanagan having preceded us to reassure the landlady. maloney went on through to take the alleyway, the room having a window over the alley. softly and swiftly we massed before the door. lanagan took the door, rapping. there was no answer. the chief signaled for a rush.
leslie never carried but one gun, and this he now rested in the hollow of his left arm. he towered above and behind us as we noiselessly wedged against the old-fashioned, flimsy door. my heart was beating like a trip hammer. i never seem to be able to get over that thumping just before the opening engagement when i am elected to make a target of myself. i confess freely that i always went into those thrillers with lanagan in the full expectation of getting my own name and picture in the papers, and the complimentary designation usually accorded a man of my profession by the paper he serves when mishap befalls him: “a reporter who was killed.”
the chief breathed a soft command, the wedge crashed, the bolts burst, and we were in—an empty room.
there was an awkward pause, it seemed to me for an hour; it may have been but a minute, while leslie slipped back into his holster that ugly gun of his. lanagan was turning slowly, examining[pg 16] every corner of the room. his eyes were living, snapping fire.
“i guess, chief,” he drawled, “i won’t make the reservations to-day for that little trip of mine.”
the bed was unmade, but the room showed no traces of recent occupation save several empty medicine bottles from which the labels had been washed, and on a closet shelf a paper sack half full of almonds. there were almond shells on the floor. for the rest the room held but the ordinary appurtenances of a room of its kind; washstand, bowl, towels and rack, and cheap dresser.
the landlady was summoned. she was more surprised than lanagan or the chief. she had not seen the girl return; had not seen the pair depart; had believed that the man was too sick to leave his bed.
galvanic leslie, within an hour, had men at the ferry building, at the third and townsend street depot, covering every boathouse that had launches or tugs for hire; the suburban electric lines were covered and the country roads leading south. the great mantrap that so easily can be thrown around the peninsula of san francisco, the trap that time and again has caught the thieves of the world when they have fled for haven to the western coast metropolis, was set. and yet so quietly was the work done, so implicitly had leslie impressed upon every district captain, every detective, every patrolman concerned with the story, the necessity for[pg 17] absolute secrecy that not one of the other great papers of san francisco knew that the jaws of that trap were gaping hungrily. probably there was no reporter save lanagan who could have broken into that story once leslie had commanded his men to secrecy. they knew what disloyalty to that disciplinarian meant too well to trifle with him.
within the city proper, plain-clothes men by shoals flooded every hotel and lodging house that might by any possibility harbour the pair. the hospitals were watched; half a dozen doctors known to leslie worked among their professional brothers, but no one was attending such a man as turner.
and the wonder grew to lanagan that the story, scattered now well over the city, was even yet escaping the innumerable sources of news of the times and the braggart herald, to say nothing of the evening papers, the record and the tribune. in such fashion, though, by grace of newspaper luck, are the greatest successes scored after they have knocked around under the very feet of half the newspaper men of a city.
of that army of plain-clothes men none worked harder than lanagan. for days i did not see him. sometimes i would locate him in the foulest sinks of the barbary coast or chinatown. here, with products brewed in some witch’s caldron, he would be in fraternity, trying ceaselessly to tap that underground wire by which the convict bayed in a great city sends word to his kind. but always he failed.[pg 18] “kid” monahan laboured in vain; “red” murphy, credited with knowing more thieves than all the coast saloon men put together, could secure no trace; turner, or short, had found no refuge in the hutches of the drug or the opium fiends. lanagan met men who should have been in san quentin; one night he crossed “slivers” martin, who had broken from a deputy sheriff and escaped a ten-year sentence.
slivers was waiting until he could get out of the city. yet even slivers knew nothing of such a one as turner. finally lanagan turned his attention to the residence sections.
at times he would drag me with him. for hours he would ramble up one street and down another, always trying the fruit stands, the grocery stores, the delicatessen stores, and always he asked one question: did a blond young woman, with dark blue eyes, blue tailored suit, quick, nervous walk, come in and buy nuts, particularly almonds? a dozen times the answer was yes. and when the customer was not known to the proprietor, lanagan would take up his watch, tireless, indefatigable, and wait until that person appeared or passed on the street. always he met with failure.
lanagan, always gaunt, became cadaverous. for four days i lost him. i worried and spent my nights trying to locate him, but his old haunts knew him not. one day there came a call for me.
“you, norrie?” it was lanagan’s voice; it[pg 19] sounded thin and tired. “i’ve landed. come to eddy and van ness. got your gun?”
a quick shiver went over me. the climax had come. i borrowed sampson’s gun, having left mine home.
“heard from lanagan, have you?” asked that austere individual. i nodded. “has he landed? yes? good luck,” said sampson, his eyes sparkling. he knew that lanagan’s pride, after the first fiasco, prevented his ringing up until the story was clinched.
“give lanagan my regards. let us hear from you. it is not necessary to tell either you or lanagan to do your best for speed.”
sampson, reckoned the coldest-blooded city editor in the west, was yet the most responsive to a story. he was a driver, but he knew how to humour men. i disliked him personally, and would avoid him out of the office, but in harness would have worked both legs to the ankle for him. most of the men on his staff had that fanatical loyalty for him as a city editor; yet outside they seldom spoke of him save to damn. curious breed, reporters.
to his credit as a city editor, in all of those two weeks he had not complained. he spoke about lanagan to me only twice. he knew i was worried, and knew, i think, that i had spent many a night searching for him, finally to appear for work without sleep. but he knew that lanagan was out[pg 20] for the paper first, last, and all the time; knew that that bloodhound quality of sticking to the trail would never let him quit till he had proved that there was no way of landing the story.
lanagan’s appearance shocked me. he had not shaved for a week. rings were under his eyes, red-lidded for want of sleep. his pale cheeks held an unhealthy flush and he coughed once or twice in a fashion i did not like, but that old magnetic smile was there.
“scared as a rabbit, i’ll bet, and wishing you’d insured your life first,” he laughed, pulling me into a doorway. then, more seriously, “norrie, i’m just a wandering hulk, a derelict; whatever you will. my passing would be nothing to a soul on earth.”
i had never heard lanagan speak in that way.
“no soul on earth,” he repeated.
then he swept me with those luminous eyes of his, and they were as clear and as unclouded as my own. i knew that i had caught a swift glimpse as the shutter opened upon the vista of his past; that secret past that now i understood.
for a moment i was conscious of nothing save that this man whom i loved like a brother was in pain and i could do nothing for him. with his swift perceptions, lanagan had caught my mood and our hands met; that lean, sinewy hand was as firm as steel. then, with his facile art, he had thrown aside his humour of introspection and spoke briskly.
[pg 21]“norrie, i don’t want to tangle you with this against your will. this man, i believe, is the hardest game this city has held in my time or yours. he will die with his stockings on. it looks like gun play.”
frankly, i was for quitting, inwardly. outwardly, because of that mesmeric way of his, that teasing, superior tone, i was all for the climax. besides, i did not want to leave him to himself in that humour to go into a mess; i knew his reckless ways too well.
we walked rapidly up eddy street and turned on franklin until near the corner of o’farrell, where, entering a flat, lanagan led the way to the top story. here we entered an unfinished alcove room in the rear with a dormer window covered by a heavy curtain of burlap. the slightest possible rent had been made in the curtain. lanagan told me to look. opposite was a dormer window corresponding to our own, the next house being one of similar design. the alley between was possibly ten feet. our window was the only one that could command the other.
in the opposite house the curtain was of ordinary heavy lace. after peering intently for a time, i could distinguish through it a woman’s figure and a bed, upon which a form could be discerned.
“there you are, norrie. that man shows his caliber by moving round the corner from his former home while the police look for him elsewhere. he[pg 22] knows by now the police descriptions are here; that i must have recognised him, and that the hunt is on. my almond trail landed when i came back to this territory just on the final chance that the man was big enough to figure out that his surest safety lay right here. she has been out but a few times, buying those eternal almonds. malted milk has been added to his diet, too. i picked her up, trailed her, and the rest was easy.
“the man’s stomach is gone. incidentally, they owe a week’s rent there, and she is living mostly on almonds now, too; so i guess the exchequer is pretty low. i didn’t suppose there were any more women left in the world like that. this girl, born of good family, daughter of a minister, takes up with that triple-stained murderer and sticks. she surely took that honour and obey in epic earnest—if she married him; if not, why, the more credit to her for sticking.
“it isn’t for us to judge, norrie. keep your eye glued to that hole while i go into the next room—i’ve rented this attic, by the way—and grind out copy.”
it was four o’clock then; at nine lanagan ceased writing. he had made in longhand 6,000 words of as clean-cut, brilliant a narrative story of its kind as, under similar pressure, has ever appeared in print. as in all of lanagan’s stories, it was “the police” who had learned this and that. lanagan has made several detective sergeants in his time.
[pg 23]“leslie will meet us here at one o’clock. we must keep the smash until two, fire the story at sampson by telephone to lead off my stuff with; hold them in the room until three, and we beat the town again.”
he hurried out to return in half an hour. he had telephoned to sampson that the story would break about two o’clock and to hold the paper until he had heard from us; then he had sent his copy down by messenger boy and loaded up on a bundle of the choicest of the rank brand of manilas he chose at times to affect. i noticed as he lit a match that his hands shook. i wanted him to lie down until one, but his only answer was to fix me with those eyes of his, glowing like a cat’s in the darkness (we were smoking with the lighted ends of our cigars held inside our hats, so careful was lanagan lest any trace be given to the opposite room), and he laughed that curious laugh of his.
“when this is over, norrie,” he said, “i’ll sleep for a week. half that $5,000 is mine; you and leslie and the others can divide the rest.”
really, i saw lanagan in my mind’s eye already snooping and prying around those paris byways; it sounded too assured as he said it. i wondered whether i cared for blood money; figured that i would accept it, and began pleasantly in the gloom to spend my “bit” with much contentment. i concluded i would accompany lanagan on that paris trip.
[pg 24]one o’clock came, and with it leslie, brady, wilson, and maloney. brady was put at the aperture. a faint light in the opposite room brought the two figures out into bold relief. the rest of us moved to the outer room, where the plain-clothes men slipped their revolvers to their side coat pockets. i wished lonesomely that i had brought two and that i might feel braver, although i had as much chance of shooting a revolver with my left hand without disaster as of sailing an aeroplane with either. at that i believe i would have felt more in the picture with two.
the plan was to pull a fire alarm, and as soon as the engines clattered into the street, scatter to the top story, rap on the door as if to warn the occupants, take them off their guard when the door was opened, and the thing was done. that programme was carried out. when the apparatus swung up from o’farrell, filling the still night air with those strident bells of terror and alarm, we sped to the top floor and made the corridor.
“fire! fire!”
it was brady’s hoarse voice; and even i thrilled, it was done so realistically. i, as the one most likely unknown to the pair, had been selected to take their door. i rapped loudly and shouted the alarm. brady was on one side of me, lanagan on the other. wilson, maloney, and the chief on either side again in the dark hall, flattened to the wall, guns drawn ready for the rush. the door opened six inches[pg 25] a startled, wan face with lustrous blue eyes, shining vividly above deep circles of black, looked into mine through the aperture. possibly something in my face, possibly native suspicion and fear, induced her to essay to slam the door. i pushed my shoulder to the door and shoved, brady at one shoulder, lanagan at the other. she gave back with one more wide-eyed look that went over my shoulder and caught the grey-bearded chief, known to her, huddled back for fear of that very thing.
there came one shrill scream: “harry! the police!” and she had turned and fled and we pushed in vain—the door was chained! one united crash again, the fastenings gave just as the slight figure, quicker than a swallow, had darted within the inner room and slammed the door shut in our faces. a bolt shot to place as a bullet from within tore through the panelling and clipped the rim of brady’s hat, and that towering figure bore back out of range and swung us in a mass with him. two more shots tore through and sprayed us with splinters. we flattened against the wall.
“the jig is up, short; you may as well come out.”
it was leslie, calm as if he were delivering orders to his chauffeur. a shot rewarded him, impinging perilously close to his shoulder. the man within was dying with the convict’s last desperate ambition to take a policeman with him. we dropped flat. there was a pause, while brady and leslie counselled[pg 26] in whispers whether to risk a rush. the silence became acute, punctuated now and then by whisperings from the inner room.
it sounded as if she were pleading with him; his note of finality could not be mistaken, although the words were not heard. another silence, and then to our straining ears, rising clearly above the din and clamour of doors below stairs opening and shutting, of shoutings and excited cries, came a trembling voice floating through the jagged holes of the inner door—trembling with the strength or the ardour of a determination rather than any dread or fear:
“then, harry, take me, too! take me, too!”
“no, cecile, no!”
there was silence again from within; and again that voice, now touched with pleading still more earnest:
“it is only right, harry dear; all that the world held i sacrificed for you. if you don’t take me, i will follow you!”
prolonged to acuteness became the silence again; the man’s voice, hoarse, gasping, finally came:
“pray, cecile.”
and again that voice, trembling, yet clear as the beautiful sweeping chords of a harp, came floating with the acrid revolver smoke through the jagged, ugly rents in the panelling, and seemed to flood the room with something almost like a visible radiance:
“our father, who art in heaven!”
[pg 27]i saw maloney, his blue-nosed revolver in hand, half risen, make the sign of the adoration, touching his forehead and his chest with that grim muzzle. leslie stood slowly upright, his massive head sunk into his breast. lanagan breathed hard and deep. it was awesome; we were held in the spell of that strange and extraordinary occurrence. on that beautiful voice went to the end:
“and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. amen.”
“amen!” echoed the murderer’s choking voice.
“the door! to save her!”
it was leslie’s electric whisper, and at his signal we crashed with our united strength. with the crashing came two shots, and i caught lanagan’s harsh curse at my ear and his swift mutter: “too late!” the door gave.
she knelt with her head fallen upon her clasped hands, just as she had knelt in that final prayer, beside the bed. he was lying back upon the pillow.
there was no dry eye there. veteran thief-takers, men who had stood with their backs to the wall and death baying them a score of times; men who would risk the billy or knife or gun as blithely as they would go to their morning meal; to whom suffering and violence and death were daily allotments, bowed themselves before the melancholy end of that misguided girl.
yet possibly, for her, it was better so.
it was lanagan’s voice that brought me back.[pg 28] lanagan, answering the newspaper call, with the dominant newspaper demand still strong upon him and over him; lanagan, quick with instinctive thought for the high-strung, chafing sampson down at the enquirer office and the press waiting for the release gong; lanagan, the genius of his craft, asserting once again his incomparable newspaper superiority to me, still dreaming the precious seconds away at the pathetic fate of that poor piece of clay kneeling there; lanagan, crisply as a colonel in the field, snapped:
“scatter, norrie, for a ’phone!”
