Crooks Go Straight

CHAPTER I. ABOARD THE LIMITED

THE Eastern Limited was driving through the night. To scattered passengers, seated in the lounge of the observation car, the whistle of the locomotive came as a distant blare from far ahead. The train, though long and heavy, was maintaining its fast schedule.

Two men were chatting over newspapers. Strangers who had met aboard the train, they were discussing subjects of common interest. One news story seemed to have impressed them both.

“Well,” one passenger was saying, “I can’t criticize the governor of this state for pardoning those two convicts. He must have studied their cases mighty closely.”

“Both men were lifers,” objected the second passenger. “It seems a bit radical to put them back into circulation. They were chronic offenders—”

“Wait a moment,” put in the first man. He tapped the newspaper. “The facts are right here. These chaps only went up for short terms to begin with. Steve Zurk was in for a bank robbery” — the speaker paused and referred to a column — “and Jack Targon was a swindler.”

“They broke jail together, didn’t they?”

“Yes. That was the rub. They took to robbing more banks. Zurk was caught; he went back into the jug.

Then the law landed Targon—”

“I know the details. The pair of them made another break. More crimes. They’ve been in now for three years and the governor has pardoned them, despite their accumulated sentences.”

“Accumulated sentences. You’ve hit it, friend. That’s the point that won the governor over. If those fellows hadn’t made their first break, they’d have finished their original terms a couple of years ago.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“Here, read the details.”

The first passenger shoved his newspaper to the second. The latter studied the columns, then began to nod slowly as he laid the journal aside.

“That makes it different,” he admitted. “They were hunted men. Crime was their only course.”

“Self-preservation,” agreed the other passenger. “Man’s first instinct.”

“I guess the governor deserves credit. Those fellows will have a chance to go straight. I’m glad that they’re out. I wonder where they’ve gone?”

“The newspapers don’t know. Leastwise, they’re not saying. Zurk and Targon were whisked away in an automobile after the gates of the penitentiary clanged behind them. That’s all the report that’s given.”

Grinding brakes up ahead. The observation car jolted slightly. The limited was heading to a stop. A distant blare of the locomotive whistle.

THE chatting passengers forgot their former subject.

“Wonder what this is?” questioned one. “Sounds like a station stop. But there’s none on the schedule.

We’re supposed to make a nonstop ninety-minute run—”

“There’s a stop, though,” broke in the second passenger. He was referring to a time-table. “Place called Dupaw. Time-table says to refer to note M. Here it is: ‘Will stop Saturdays and Sundays only to receive through passengers for New York.’ That must be it. Somebody getting on at this jerkwater station.”

“Hope there’s more than one,” chuckled the first speaker, “It says ‘passengers’ — not ‘passenger.’ Well, this is a Sunday, so it makes passengers eligible.”

The train was almost to a stop. Peering from the window, the passengers saw the dingy lights of the station. Then the limited reached a full halt. A dozen seconds passed. Then came the muffled, heavy chugging of the locomotive.

“Dupaw, all right,” observed the man with the time-table, as the observation car rolled slowly past the little waiting room of the station. “See? There’s the sign.”

His acquaintance nodded. The two reverted to their newspapers and began a comment on the sporting news. Like the subject of the pardoned convicts, the stop at Dupaw was forgotten.

DIRECTLY across the aisle from the conversing men was another passenger. A tall, calm-faced individual, he had been seated quietly, smoking a cigarette between thin, smileless lips. His immobile countenance possessed a peculiarity hawkish expression, due to the presence of a high, aquiline nose.

Added to the stranger’s appearance of dignity was the keenness of his eyes. Though placid, they carried a sharp glint that signified a powerful brain behind them.

It was evident that this listener had heard all that had passed between the other passengers, regarding the convicts and the chance stop at Dupaw. But his expression showed no interest in the conversation that he had overheard.

It was not until the hawk-faced passenger had finished his cigarette that a change came over his expression. Even then, his flicker of countenance was scarcely noticeable. A thin smile appeared upon his steady lips. The tall passenger arose and strolled from the lounge.

His smile remained fixed as he went forward from the observation car. Through clattering vestibules, through sleeping cars where aisles were walled by the green curtains of Pullman berths, the stroller kept steadily onward. He passed through a dining car where waiters were dozing at clothless tables.

He came to a Pullman that bore the name, Callao; also cards that marked it as Car G 3.

The tall passenger stopped in the smoking compartment. The porter was seated there, shining shoes. He did not observe the passenger’s arrival until the tall personage spoke in a quiet tone. The porter started and looked up.

“Is my compartment made up?” came the quiet question.

“Yes, sah,” returned the porter, with a nod. “I figured you were back in the obsahvation cah. All made up, sah. Sorry the conductah couldn’t give you the drawing-room. I didn’t know that it was reserved until he told me.”

“That’s quite all right. When I learned that the compartment was unoccupied, I decided that it would be preferable to the drawing-room.”

“That’s what I said, sah, when I came in to move your baggage. Compahtment’s better than the drawing-room. Plenty big enough for one person, sah, and it costs less money.”

The porter was chuckling when the tall passenger left. He recalled how this gentleman had come aboard the train and taken the drawing-room of Car G 3. Then the porter had learned from the conductor that two other passengers had reserved the drawing-room— passengers due to come aboard the train at Dupaw.

So the tall passenger had moved to the compartment that adjoined the drawing-room. He had been offered drawing-room accommodations in another car; but after viewing the compartment, he had agreed with the porter that it would be suitable.

All along the trip the porter had been wondering about those passengers from Dupaw. It was the first time in his experience on this run that the limited had made that stop. It was odd the drawing-room passengers should come aboard at Dupaw; odd, at least to the porter’s way of thinking.

MEANWHILE, the tall passenger had reached his compartment. Entering, he found the lower berth made up. He turned to a suitcase that was lying on the compartment chair. Still wearing his slight smile, he unlocked the bag.

From it, he produced earphones. A length of wire projected from them. Leaning into the berth, the passenger ran his fingers along the window ledge. He found the end of another wire, drew it inward and connected it with the wire from the earphones.

It was obvious that this mysterious passenger had made unusual use of his brief occupancy of the drawing room and his later removal to the compartment. He had managed to open the window of the drawing-room and let out a tiny wire, which he had later fished in from the window of the compartment.

This wire formed the vital portion of a dictograph connection.

Turning out the light in the compartment, donning the earphones in the darkness, the tall passenger was listening in on conversation that was taking place within the drawing-room.

A soft laugh in the darkness of the compartment. A scarcely audible whisper; yet that strange, suppressed mirth pronounced the identity of the scientific eavesdropper.

This personage who had taken interest in the affairs of the passengers from Dupaw was none other than The Shadow. Master hunter who investigated crime, The Shadow was aboard the Eastern Limited, seeking new knowledge that might aid him in his ceaseless quests.