Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

Linky Mitchell was the terror of the underworld until a little man with a keen eye threw a hat in his face...

I

“The Wolf is dead!”

A few weeks ago, when those words slipped from twisted mouths with lightning-like rapidity in certain quarters of that weird labyrinth known as New York’s underworld, there was great rejoicing.

“He’s dead, huh? Well, that’s a relief!”

But Federal officials, from the President down, knew that with the passing of the Wolf — otherwise known as James R. Kerrigan — the Government of the United States had suffered an irreparable loss. For Kerrigan was the ace of Uncle Sam’s narcotic agents. A man of unadulterated courage and stamina, despite the fact that the scales said only one hundred and twenty pounds, and the possessor of a brain that was sharper than that of the sharpest criminal, Kerrigan thrust terror into the hearts of narcotic law violators, big and small, in this country and in Europe, for more than a decade. Hence his sobriquet.

This month he would be in San Francisco’s dimly lit Chinatown, battering down the doors of an “importing and exporting house,” and seizing a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of dope, single-handed. Next month he would be aboard a transatlantic liner, peering through the keyhole of a stateroom in the dead of the night, unearthing a gigantic smuggling plot. On another occasion he might be found sitting in a joint deep in the notorious halfway world of Amsterdam, his keen ears tuned in on conversations not intended for him.

Born in New York’s famous East Side, the Wolf grew up with many of those individuals who were later to carve niches for themselves in the realm of dishonest enterprise. Accordingly, when the Wolf passed on he took to his grave with him inside information about criminals which will never be retrieved. Literally, he was a walking encyclopedia of information on the underworld and its habitués. He hadn’t the time to impart all he knew. He revealed a good deal to his fellow agents, understand, but not half enough.

Often times he would be walking along murky streets with his two side-kicks — Agents Ray Connolley and Louis Kelley — when some one whom he knew would slink by.

“See that guy?” the Wolf would say. “Well, listen; take a good look at him and I’ll slip you the low-down on him in case I get bumped off.” And thereupon the Wolf would narrate the history of the individual in question, giving, among other things, his racket, his various hangouts, his real name and his aliases, the date of his birth, the names and addresses of those with whom he contacted, and so on ad infinitum.

The police, when they were at sea regarding the whereabouts of a certain person they wanted, usually called on the Wolf. They figured that he would have, in the back of his unusual and retentive brain, the information they desired. And they were rarely disappointed.

A few years ago, when the river pirates in and around Gotham were extremely active, the authorities decided to call a halt to their nefarious practices. Things had gone a trifle beyond the pale of tolerance. In fact, it got so that a self-respecting boat was afraid to go out at night. If it did, it was looted.

Whereupon some one suggested:

“Maybe the Wolf can help us out.”

So the Wolf was asked what he knew about the activities of the river pirates.

“Well,” he answered, “that’s a little out of my line. Dope, you know, is my meat. But I think I can help you boys.”

So the Wolf unreeled certain information from the film of his memory with the result that the river pirates passed into history ere a month went by.

Quite an unusual man, this Kerrigan, you’re thinking. Well, let’s take a look at him: Five feet ten and the aforementioned one hundred and twenty pounds. Skinny as a rail.

“No flesh, but lots of nerve,” is the way he put it.

Lines all over his face. Dark, burning eyes that looked right through you. (You wouldn’t lie to Kerrigan.) A big forehead. Forty-two.

Tobacco and booze were taboo. His wife and two children rarely saw him. He slept wherever his work took him — when he did sleep.

Arnold Rothstein, notorious gambler, racketeer and dope lord, who was recently slain, was one of the many who would have given anything for the Wolf’s good will. Rothstein tried hard enough, Heaven knows, but got nowhere.

Rothstein used to sip coffee by the hour in a well-known restaurant on upper Broadway. Kerrigan often passed the place. But he seldom passed without being approached by Rothstein

“Hello there, Wolf,” Rothstein would say as he rushed into the street, bareheaded. “Come on in and have something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry; go on and sell your papers, Arnold,” the Wolf would answer. “I don’t want to be seen in your company.”

But despite the fact that he detested racketeers and dope runners, the Wolf was often seen in their company. On such occasions, however, he was usually busy turning down bribes, notwithstanding the truth that his pay was small and his family more or less in want. It is estimated that he turned a deaf ear to a cool million in bribes during his service with the Government.

Only a few weeks before his untimely demise the Wolf was passing the restaurant frequented by Rothstein and his gang when a pale-faced fellow ran out of the eating place and accosted the narcotic agent with this remark:

“Say, Wolf, I understand you’re after me.”

“That’s right, egg,” answered Kerrigan, who was truthful to the point of painfulness.

“Well, lookit! I got twenty-five grand for you if you lay off, see?”

“Listen, bozo,” he snapped. “Who ever told you I went in for petty larceny?”

Kerrigan’s icy stare was famous. His eyes would start at your shoes and wander upward, in a despising, withering manner, to your face. Then he would stare hard, looking right through you. That stare was most irritating and disconcerting. Therefore, it produced results.

At noons the Wolf, when in New York, frequented a cheap eating house patronized by characters of the underworld. When entering the place he was in the habit of giving every one in the joint the once over. One day he let his glance fall on a man and a woman. He didn’t know them; he hadn’t, in fact, ever laid eyes on them before. But they apparently knew him, for when his gaze roved from their shoes to their heads they nudged one another, left their meals unfinished, paid their bill and hurried into the street.

“Oh, boy,” said Kerrigan to Agent Kelley, “they’ve done something. Notice how fast they blew when I looked ’em over?”

So the Wolf bounded through the door and shadowed the couple — for two weeks.

They wound up in jail, having been underlings connected with a big dope ring. Before taking the rap they spilled information to Kerrigan which resulted in the demolition of the ring in question.

For more than a year preceding his death the Wolf concentrated on an international narcotic network which had for years mystified the best minds of the Government. Kerrigan loved big jobs — and he knew that to get to the core of that ring was a big job. He had an idea that Arnold Rothstein was in back of the organization, but he couldn’t get the goods on him.

The Wolf’s labors, however, began to bear fruit just after Rothstein’s death. It seems that the police had gone to the offices of the Rothmere Realty Company, one of the slain gambler’s many “smoke screens,” in an effort to unearth a clew which would lead them to Rothstein’s murderer. But the police came to the conclusion that there was nothing of value in the offices.

The Wolf, however, had a hunch that a search of the “realty” company’s premises might reveal something of moment. So the place was gone over with a fine tooth comb, and certain data — the Government won’t reveal the details — was obtained. The upshot of the whole thing was this:

One fine day, a few weeks after Rothstein’s murder, Joseph Ungar, a suave and dapper crony of the slain man, strolled into the Grand Central Terminal in New York. He was leaving for Chicago on the crack Twentieth Century Limited, the first section of which pulls out every day at two forty-five. It was then two thirty, and Ungar occupied himself with the task of seeing that his two expensive-looking trunks were properly placed in one of the baggage cars.

Meanwhile, the Wolf sat in the office of Assistant United States Attorney John M. Blake, in the Federal Building, his long, nervous fingers beating a tattoo on the desk. He was waiting for the word from Grand Central Terminal.

Shortly after three o’clock Ungar’s two trunks, which had been removed from the train without the knowledge of their owner, were brought in to Kerrigan.

“Now we’ll see if I’ve worked a year for nothing,” said the Wolf to Blake. With that Kerrigan took an oversized hatchet and began to smash one of the trunks open. When his task had been completed he was confronted with a sight he had long anticipated — narcotics valued in excess of a million dollars.

The wires began to buzz, with the result that the Twentieth Century was flagged outside of Buffalo that night. Ungar was unceremoniously hustled from his berth, forced to complete his toilet in the railroad yards, brought back to New York and sent up for a long stretch.

But I’m a trifle ahead of my story. When Kerrigan was smashing open the second trunk, which also contained more than a million dollars’ worth of “hop,” his hatchet slipped and he struck himself in the stomach.

“Dammit,” he said, a sly smile playing about his lips, “I’ve killed myself.”

And the Wolf had killed himself. He was taken to Misericordia Hospital, where he succumbed to an operation for a twisted intestine, brought on by the blow from the hatchet. He didn’t have a chance. His constitution had been undermined by seventy-two consecutive hours of work preceding Ungar’s arrest and the Wolf died a martyr to his country, the same as a soldier on the battlefield.

And so the arrest of Ungar marked the beginning of what promises to be the end of the Rothstein dope ring — the crowning achievement in the fictionlike and hair-raising career of the peer of all narcotic agents. Little was published about the Wolf’s exploits when he was alive. The Government was rather touchy about that. It didn’t want people to know how clever he was. But his death changed all that, so I sought out the man with whom he had worked on so many cases and who knew Kerrigan as well as anybody — Assistant United States Attorney Blake. And from Mr. Blake I obtained the inside stories on three of the Wolf’s most thrilling exploits, many of the facts being set clown here for the first time.

II

Beyond a shadow of doubt, the intrepid Kerrigan had his closest call during his encounter with “Linky” Mitchell, generally recognized as one of the most fearless and desperate of the bad men, and the scourge of New York’s halfway world. Linky and the scrappy agent met head on one night in a glorified speakeasy just off the street called gay, and only a miracle — in the form of Wolf’s dominating personality — prevented the loss of several lives. In order that the reader will thoroughly appreciate the pure grit displayed by Kerrigan on the night in question, it will be best, perhaps, to unfold some of the more important details of Linky Mitchell’s life and habits.

Mitchell, a stocky lowbrow in his early twenties — with a career of petty crimes behind him — earned the sobriquet of “The Link” with the advent of prohibition, at which time his leap to notoriety was swift and lasting. He was, perhaps, the first of the bootleggers to successfully execute on a large scale the racket of toting booze from ship to shore. He operated several small boats which, in the murky hours between midnight and daybreak, chugged their way out into the ocean, got their cargo from waiting rum ships and brought it to shore for distribution. Thus, Mitchell became known as The Link because he was the go-between who brought about a connection between ships at sea and the thirsty ashore. As time went on, the nickname The Link was abbreviated to Linky.

In a short while, Mitchell became something of a whisky czar in certain circles. He supplied many of the more disreputable of the night clubs and cabarets and a long string of speakeasies with booze. One fine day another bootlegger made the sad mistake of encroaching on Linky’s territory, and the next night the bootlegger in question was found lying in an alley, literally perforated with forty-five caliber bullets. Linky boasted of the killing, displaying an empty but recently-fired forty-five caliber revolver.

When a few months wore on, the leader of a notorious gang decided to give Linky a little opposition in the booze racket and dispatched one of his henchmen to Mitchell to tell him so.

“You go on back,” retorted Mitchell, “and tell your boss that as soon as he starts takin’ the play off of me he’s a dead one. I love to bump people like that off, I do — and I ain’t kiddin’. Linky Mitchell never goes back on his word, he don’t.”

When the gang leader was apprised of Linky’s threat he laughed long and loudly. He had a whole army behind him, he reasoned, while Mitchell was known to be a lone wolf. So the gang leader promptly took an order for some booze in Linky’s self-designated domain, and within a week he was in his grave. Again Linky boasted of a killing as he strutted lordly through the underworld.

“ ’N let that be a warnin’,” added Linky to his awe-stricken listeners, “that nobody is goin’ to step on Linky Mitchell’s toes and get away with it — they ain’t.”

In a short while, Linky no longer enjoyed the thrill of encounters with those who trespassed on his territory — for the simple reason that other bootleggers were afraid to trespass. Linky had them all scared stiff. So, flushed with victory, he went out with the express purpose of digging up trouble, deciding to cut into the rackets of others. His first move in this daring campaign was a visit to a cabaret which was the hang-out of thieves, thugs and racketeers of all types. Linky approached the proprietor of the place and asked:

“Who are you buyn’ your booze off of?”

The proprietor supplied the name of his bootlegger, whereupon Linky retorted:

“Well, beginnin’ to-morrow you’re buyin’ it off of me, see?”

“No, I ain’t!” snapped the proprietor, who happened to be a tough egg.

“Listen, guy,” warned Mitchell, “I’ll be around to-morrow, and if you ain’t changed that weak mind o’ yours then I’ll bump you off. I’m Linky Mitchell, see?”

The proprietor laughed a slightly sickly laugh as the vicious-looking Linky strutted from the place, his cap pulled down over his eyes and a cigarette drooping from his tight lips. He told some of his thug-patrons of Mitchell’s threat. They advised him to pay no attention to Linky — which turned out to be bad advice.

“We’ll take care of dat bimbo if he starts gittin’ tough,” was the reassuring comment of one gangster.

So, when Mitchell called the next night, the proprietor told him he had decided to string along with his old bootlegger and that he (Linky) could go to hell if he didn’t like it. Twenty-four hours later, the man who had defied Linky was leaving his cabaret for his home when he ran into a fusillade of steel-jackets and dropped to the sidewalk, a corpse.

A couple of nights later, Linky went into another night club and sought out the proprietor.

“My name’s Linky Mitchell, see? Did you read about what happened to the guy what run the Blue Owl, did you?”

“Yes; why?”

“Nothin’,” answered Linky, “only I’m the fella what bumped him off. He wouldn’t buy his booze off of me. Who are you takin’ your stuff off of?”

“I’m gettin’ it from Marty the Wop.”

“Well, beginnin’ to-morrow you’re takin’ it off of me, see?”

“All right.”

So that sort of thing went on for many moons. Whenever Linky decided that he wanted to supply another night club or cabaret with booze, he simply made his wish known to the proprietor of the establishment in question, the latter gentleman being only too pleased to acquiesce to the bad man’s desire. And whenever any one was foolhardy enough to demur, he was promptly riddled with bullets and Linky would go home and reload his gun.

But the peculiar thing about Linky was that he did things in such a manner that the police were never able to pin anything on him; they didn’t have any evidence. They laid a score or more murders at his door, but their hands were tied. Linky’s reign of terror was so completely dominating that the toughest of the tough simply wouldn’t entertain the fantastic notion of turning informer against him. Such a thing was entirely too dangerous. And there the matter stood.

So Linky continued on his defiant, boastful way, fearing neither man nor God.

His sole precautionary measure was the donning of a bullet-proof vest which he wore even while sleeping. He had, by this time, many enemies, but he of tea remarked that those people were, to him, the spice of life. In fact, he didn’t know what he would do without them; they supplied his only thrills.

One of Linky’s favorite stunts was to walk into a joint where he was surrounded by gangsters who were just eating their hearts out for a chance to murder him. On such an occasion, Linky would take a seat in a corner and order the most sumptuous repast which the establishment had to offer. When he had eaten, he would call the waiter over, hand him a good-sized tip, and then remark:

“I’m Linky Mitchell. I guess they ain’t no bill for this food, is they?”

“Oh, no, sir; that’s quite all right, sir.”

Whereupon Linky would turn his back on his hawk-eyed enemies and brazenly depart. But did any of those gangsters have the nerve to fire at Mitchell? Guess again! They were thanking their stars that he had gone without firing at them!

Time passed and one night, in January of 1926, Linky swaggered into a smoky, disreputable speakeasy and pulled his usual line on the proprietor, asking him who he was buying his booze from, informing him that he would have to change bootleggers, and so on. The proprietor, exhibiting more than his share of nerve, told Linky that he was perfectly satisfied with his present bootlegger.

“I’ll be around at ten to-morrow night, I will,” said Linky, “ ‘n’ if you still talk back like that I’ll bump you off right in here!”

Shortly after Linky left, Jim Kerrigan walked into the speakeasy. It might be explained at this point that this particular place was a favorite haunt of the Wolf’s because it was frequented by many stool pigeons who, from time to time, turned over certain information to the agent which resulted in the seizure of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of narcotics.

In view of the fact that the place was a source of great aid to Uncle Sam, Kerrigan arranged things so that those in authority closed their eyes to its violations of the prohibition law. In other words, here was one speakeasy that was under the protective wing of the United States Government.

When Kerrigan entered that night, the proprietor rushed up to him excitedly and told him of Linky’s threat. Kerrigan, of course, knew all about Linky. He had never come in contact with him, but he knew him by sight — and he hated him. Likewise with Linky. He hated Kerrigan for the very plausible reason that the agent was a symbol of law and order — the thing most removed from Linky’s heart.

Kerrigan listened intently to the proprietor’s story, and upon its conclusion he asked:

“What time did that egg say he was comin’ to-morrow night?”

“At ten o’clock.”

“All right. Don’t worry; I’ll be here, too.”

The prospect of an encounter with the desperate Mitchell meant little to Kerrigan. It was just another nasty job in the line of duty — and duty was sacred. Kerrigan had started and finished many nasty jobs in his time; he had bucked up against what was thought to be certain death on countless occasions, only to exit unscathed. Fear was a total stranger to him.

So, at precisely ten o’clock the next night, Linky entered the speakeasy. As usual, he was alone. (He was never seen in any one’s company.) Taking a table near the door, Linky ordered up a whisky. The place was blue with smoke and the atmosphere was charged with a foreboding tenseness. Men with white faces and women with carmined lips made their way through the blue haze and out into the street — and safety — when Linky ordered his second whisky. They knew that an ill wind was blowing. But a few of the more ignorant souls — those who didn’t know Linky — remained.

Five minutes after the bad man’s arrival, Kerrigan entered. The gritty little agent walked up to Linky’s table and focused his piercing, blistering stare on the man before him. The effect of this treatment on Mitchell should be evident. He started to burn up, asked Kerrigan in threatening tones what the hell he wanted, whereupon the agent, without speaking, abruptly and sneeringly turned his back on the bellicose Linky and strolled across the room.

Mitchell, recognized as the fastest man on the draw in New York, aside from Kerrigan, pulled out his revolver and aimed it at the agent’s back. Kerrigan was looking at the bartender, not Linky. The bartender’s eyes nearly popped from their sockets. Kerrigan knew what that meant. So, without turning, he shouted:

“Mitchell, put that cannon away!”

Then, Kerrigan turned around and strode swiftly over to Linky’s table. The bad man was still pointing his gun at the agent, who had not drawn his weapon.

“I told you to put that cannon away, you dirty, filthy, lousy rat!” thundered Kerrigan, who knew all the adjectives — and used them.

Mitchell, for the first time in his life, put his gun back in his pocket without firing it. Then the Wolf, who weighed a hundred pounds less than the bad man, grasped Mitchell by the coat collar and the seat of the pants, marched him over to the door and threw him out on the sidewalk — face downward!

Kerrigan then returned to the table which Linky had “left” so unceremoniously, scooped up the bad man’s hat, went back to the door and threw it in its owner’s face.

“If you ever set foot in this place again, you weasel,” roared Kerrigan, “I’ll blow your rotten brains through your thick skull! I’m one guy that you can’t scare!”

Kerrigan later explained that he had not drawn his gun on Linky for fear that several of the cabaret patrons would be killed by stray bullets. As for Mitchell, he was a broken man after his encounter with the Wolf. He hadn’t the heart to go after the little agent and he was never seen in the vicinity of the unlucky speakeasy again.

Linky died as violently as he had lived. A little later, a girl lured him to a speakeasy. Four men, who didn’t want to go to the trouble of removing Linky’s bullet-proof vest, grabbed him while a fifth stood on a chair and pumped six bullets through the crown of his head. When Kerrigan heard of the murder, he smiled and said:

“What a pity! Poor Linky gave me the biggest thrill of my life and I had hoped to meet up with him just once more before one or the other of us got humped off...”

III

About two years ago members of the narcotic squad, working out of New York, were beginning to get gray around the temples because they couldn’t lay their hands on a mysterious leak, through which hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of dope was finding its way into this country. Various of the agents had a hunch that the stuff was filtering in from big transatlantic liners or ships calling from South America, but sharp eyes focused on the baggage of incoming travelers at the New York piers failed to confirm any such suspicions.

Assistant United States Attorney Blake, under whom many of the Government’s best agents operate, called in Kerrigan.

“Jim,” said Blake, “this leak is beginning to get on my nerves. I want you to concentrate on it and plug it up.”

“Enough said,” replied the intrepid Kerrigan, who picked up his battered slouch hat, pulled it well down over his eyes and sauntered out of Blake’s office.

For several days the Wolf met all the big steamers which docked at New York and trained his eagle eyes on each and every passenger who came down the gangplanks. On the seventh day of his vigil, he noticed a dapper young man, with a pinpoint mustache, leaving a steamer which had just arrived from South America. Kerrigan began to search his uncanny memory. He had seen that face somewhere before. Oh, yes! That was the fellow he had pinched in December, 1918, for running dope! So, when the gentleman in question set foot on the pier, Kerrigan called him aside.

“Remember me?” asked the agent.

“I sure do,” was the tart reply.

“Come over here in the corner; I want to search you.”

“You’ll be wastin’ your time. Wolf; I haven’t got a thing on me.”

“Are you sure there’s no hop sewed up in your clothes?” asked Kerrigan, eying up the man before him in a suspicious manner.

“I’ll give you my word that there ain’t,” was the reply. “I’ve laid off the stuff since the time you got me seven or eight years ago.”

Now, here was an unusual thing about the unusual Kerrigan: In nine instances out of ten, he could tell when a man was lying — and he could tell when a man was speaking the truth. If the latter happened to be the case, the Wolf never exposed any one to the embarrassment of a search. Thus, he made many friends, for there is nothing more flattering than to have your word accepted at its face value, if you’re telling the truth.

So Kerrigan beamed on the returned traveler and said:

“O.K., kid. I know you wouldn’t lie to me — and I’m glad to know that you’re walking the straight and narrow... By the way, how’s the family?”

“Just great, Wolf. Got two new members — a boy and a girl — since I saw you last.”

“Now isn’t that just dandy, kid,” responded the inspector. “By the way, look me up any time — especially if you know of anything that’ll interest me. Remember, now, that if you tip me off to anything, I won’t question you. I know you’re on the level, but I thought maybe you had overheard something hot in your travels...”

The Wolf looked after the dapper young man as he walked away. The kid, personally, was on the square, mused the shrewd agent, but he knew more than he was telling...

The next morning, when Kerrigan took up his vigil at one of the largest piers, the dapper young man who had figured in the previous day’s proceedings approached him and said:

“Well, here I am again, Wolf; thought I’d find you here.”

“Hello there,” said Kerrigan, jovially. “What’s up?”

“Just this, Wolf: I’ve been thinkin’ things over and I’ve decided that you’re a pretty white egg. Now, I’m going to give you a tip. The B — is due in at noon and on board is Signor A, a diplomat from C—” (a small foreign country). “Several diplomats from that country have been comin’ over here lately and I understand they’re all cartin’ dope. They sell it in New York and Washington and make a lot of dough for themselves.”

“Thanks a lot, kid!” said the Wolf, as the informer made his way from the pier.

So that was it! Emissaries were bringing in the stuff, taking advantage of diplomatic immunity, which enabled them to get their trunks through the customs, unsearched! A rotten, low-down trick, mused Kerrigan.

The big liner drew into her pier shortly after twelve thirty and one of the first to march down the gangplank was Signor A, accompanied by his secretary and a valet. Signor A, puffing away on a cigarette, kept almost a foot from his mouth by an ebony holder, appeared very nonchalant as ship workers toted his three trunks after him. When the baggage was deposited on the wharf, a ship officer told one of the customs men that a search of the effects would not be necessary as they were the property of Signor A, a distinguished visitor en route to Washington on official business. Kerrigan stood a safe distance away, but close enough to the scene of activities to take in everything.

Signor A cast a furtive glance or two about him and then stepped into a taxi, instructing the driver to fasten one of his trunks to the side of the cab. The other two trunks were strapped to a second taxi, this machine being occupied by the diplomat’s secretary and valet.

“Follow those cabs!” said Kerrigan to the driver of a third taxi, which he boarded.

The three machines, traveling in line, weaved their way in and out of the clutter and din of the dock vicinity and twenty minutes later drew up in front of one of New York’s largest hotels.

Kerrigan followed the diplomat into the hostelry and stalled around in the lobby until the visitor and his retinue were ensconced in an expensive suite. Then the agent went up to the suite and knocked on the door. The diplomat’s secretary answered.

“I’d like to speak to Signor A,” said Kerrigan.

Signor A, who spoke excellent English, having been in this country on several previous occasions, was not long in putting in an appearance.

“I’m an officer of the United States Government,” said Kerrigan, revealing a bronze badge, “and I’d like to search your trunks.”

“But, my dear sir,” mildly protested the suave diplomat, “I am protected by the flag of my country and am therefore immune to a search of my effects.”

But these words fell on deaf ears. The Wolf was no respecter of personages or titles.

“I don’t care what sort of protection you have,” he said, “there’s something in one of your trunks that I want.”

But Signor A held his ground.

“Do you realize, my dear man,” he said, menacingly, “that I could have you discharged for this unwarranted intrusion?”

Kerrigan thought fast. Signor A was no blockhead. He would have to be cornered by a subtle scheme.

“I can’t understand your attitude,” said Kerrigan pleasantly. “You threaten to have me discharged just because I have come here to help you.”

“To help me?” asked the diplomat, with some surprise.

“Yes, signor, I am here to help you.”

“In what way?”

The Wolf stepped closer to his quarry.

“Please don’t get excited now,” he said calmly, “but there’s a time bomb in one of your trunks.”

“What!” shouted the diplomat.

“I say there is a time bomb in one of your trunks. I just got word of it after the ship docked. It was placed there by some of your political enemies who crossed on the boat with you.”

“Oh, this is terrible — terrible!” wailed Signor A. “Which trunk is it in?”

“I don’t know,” said Kerrigan. “Let’s open them all — in a hurry! The bomb is set for two o’clock and it’s one thirty now!”

So the diplomat called his secretary and valet and the three of them hurriedly removed the contents of the three trunks, while the Wolf stood by, watching their every move.

Among the effects which were excitedly placed on the floor was a wooden box, about a foot square, with a sliding lid. Kerrigan never took his eyes from that box. When everything had been removed from the trunks, Signor A said to Kerrigan:

“You seem to be mistaken, my dear man. There is no time bomb in these trunks.”

“Well, well, well,” laughed the Wolf. “I guess I was misinformed.”

Kerrigan then picked up the wooden box, slid back the lid and a fortune in opium greeted his expectant eyes.

“Here, here!” shouted Signor A, realizing that he had been out-smarted. “Give me that box!”

“No, I’ll just take this along with me,” smiled Kerrigan.

“I shall complain to the President of the United States!” thundered the emissary. “You shall pay for this!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” joked the Wolf, whose sense of humor was quite pronounced. “I am one man who shall not pay for this — opium. I shall have it free.”

“An outrage! An outrage! That’s what it is!”

With that Kerrigan took the diplomat by the arm and escorted him to a chair.

“Now sit down and listen to me!” snapped the agent, focusing his renowned icy stare on his prey. “I want you and the rest of that crowd from your damned country to stop bringing dope into the United States. And, diplomatic immunity or no diplomatic immunity, I am personally going to search the baggage of every one of you rascals who come over here in the future — and you can tell them so when you go back!”

The minutes wore on and Kerrigan continued to talk.

Before long he had completely won over Signor A.

“Very well, sir,” said the diplomat when Kerrigan had stopped talking, “I assure you that this shall be the last offense. Now then, shall we have a little something to eat?”

So, the Wolf was extended all the hospitalities of the government he had so recently condemned until late in the afternoon, and when he left the hotel suite — with the opium under his arm — he left a friend, Signor A. For, from that day to this, diplomats coming to these shores from the country in question have never violated the law as laid down by Kerrigan to Signor A.

IV

The Wolf was strolling up New York’s famous Broadway one night early in 1927, looking for trouble. He had heard that many traffickers in narcotics were openly plying their nefarious calling along the main stem, and he was out to demoralize the practice. Little did he realize what was in store for him.

On this particular night Kerrigan had hit upon a clever scheme. He was imitating a “hophead” — one who uses dope. His arms twitched at his sides, his eyes bulged out blankly. His every movement was quick, nervous, jerky. The masquerade, in short, was perfect, and it was not long in producing results.

The Wolf had been sauntering along for perhaps ten minutes when he noticed a heavy-set man, attired in a natty brown suit and overcoat, following him.

Kerrigan crossed to the other side of the thoroughfare, and the man in brown did likewise. Finally the little agent made a sharp turn to the left and eased up Fiftieth Street. He slackened his pace and when he reached a point half a block from Broadway’s mad, milling throng, the man in brown overtook him.

“Leanin’ against the stem?” asked the stranger, his expression meaning, to dope users: “Do you smoke opium?”

“Yeah,” drawled the inspector.

“In the market?” was the next query.

“Yeah,” came the enthusiastic answer. “Got any?”

“About fifty dollars’ worth.”

“Gimme it quick!” said the Wolf, his hands reaching out nervously and eagerly.

“Let’s have the cash first,” retorted the stranger.

Kerrigan produced fifty dollars in bills of ten-dollar denomination. The other man took the money, counted and pocketed it and then reached into another pocket and extracted a good-sized chunk of opium. Kerrigan grasped it as a hungry baby grasps a bottle of milk.

“Gee, this is great,” he said, training his eagle eyes on his purchase, which he knew to be genuine stuff. Then, lifting his glance to the peddler, he asked:

“Say, can you get any more of this stuff? I sell it, too, but the fellow I been gettin’ it off got pinched by the agents.”

“Yes, I can get you more. How much would you want?”

“Oh, a hell of a lot of it; say, fifteen thousand dollars’ worth.”

The man in brown was taken aback at the mention of such large figures. Kerrigan was eying him up, not missing a trick.

“Well,” answered the stranger, “that’s a pretty big order, but I guess I can fix you up all right. Could you come for the stuff yourself?”

“Yeah,” answered the Wolf. A pause. Then: “Where?”

“Well, I could deliver it to you at an old farmhouse outside of Rutland, Vermont, if that wouldn’t be too far for you to come. You see, I don’t like to take a chance on bringing so much down here to New York. I been doin’ quite a business lately with my two partners, and the agents might be on to me.”

Kerrigan feigned indecision. At length he said:

“Well, the agents won’t bother me. I’ll come up to Vermont. Just where is the place?”

The stranger gave Kerrigan detailed directions as to how to reach a deserted farmhouse situated along a lonely road ten miles out from Rutland.

“You can’t miss it,” he concluded. “It’s a big place and sets far back from the road. It ain’t been occupied in years.”

“What time will I see you there?” asked Kerrigan.

“Eleven o’clock sharp to-morrow night — will that be satisfactory to you?”

“Yeah, that’ll be O K. I’ll be there.”

“You’ll have the cash with you?”

“I’ll have fifteen thousand in my pocket. What’s your name?”

“Phelps — Ned Phelps.”

The following night, at eight o’clock, Kerrigan and Agent Ray Connolley alighted from a train in Rutland. The night was pitch black. A storm was brewing.

The two agents hired a decrepit automobile and drove over ten miles of lonely country roads and finally arrived at a spot where a deserted old house sat far back from the road. A stretch of woods began in the rear of the place.

“This must be it, Ray,” opined the Wolf. “Now, here’s what we’d better do: I’ll take you back down the road and leave you at that gas station we just passed and then I’ll come back here. If I don’t return to the gas station by eleven thirty, you come after me. I want to handle this baby alone because if he sees you anywhere around he’s sure to blow.”

“But he might turn out to be a tough egg when he finds out who you are,” ventured Connolley.

“He won’t turn out to be half as tough as I am,” replied the Wolf.

So Kerrigan drove Connolley to the gas station, about a quarter of a mile back toward Rutland, left him there, and returned in the machine to the old farmhouse. He parked his car in from the road, alighted and walked into the dark, deserted structure. With the aid of his flashlight he saw that the floors were bare and that there was not a piece of furniture in the place. The wind whistled ominously through innumerable cracks in the sides of the house and any one but Kerrigan, there alone, would have been frozen by fright.

After completing his explorations, the Wolf took a seat on the floor of what had once been a parlor, drew his overcoat collar up around his neck, and proceeded to wait for eleven o’clock.

A couple of minutes before eleven o’clock the dozing Kerrigan was awakened by the noise of an old flivver, which pulled up in front of the house. He went to the front door and there saw the man who had sold him the dope in New York coming up the porch steps.

“Well,” said Phelps, “I see you got here all right.”

“Yeah,” said the Wolf, smiling, “I’ve had a pretty cold wait; been here since ten.”

The peddler, still sporting his natty brown outfit, led Kerrigan back into the house, lit a couple of candles which he had brought with him and then drew a gun on the little agent.

“Are you a narcotic man?” snapped Phelps.

“Lord, no,” replied Kerrigan: “What made you think that?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure — and I ain’t sure yet!”

With that, Phelps, holding his gun in his right hand, ran his other hand through the Wolf’s hip, jacket and overcoat pockets, but found no trace of what he was looking for — a gun. Kerrigan, however, had his trusty automatic with him, but it was reposing in the left-hand arm pit of his jacket. That’s where the Wolf always carried his gun. It was placed in such a manner that the barrel pointed downward and the handle stuck out from the arm pit, making a quick draw quite simple. And, let it be recorded, one of the late Jim Kerrigan’s many specialties was a quick draw.

“Well,” said Phelps, after his examination of the agent’s person had been completed, “I guess you’re all right. But if I’d found out you was an agent, I’d knock you off in a minute... Got the money for the stuff?”

Kerrigan produced a roll of greenbacks and handed them over to the man in brown. The latter counted them, by the aid of candlelight, pronounced the sum “fifteen thousand iron men; just right” and then told Kerrigan to come outside with him.

“We got the stuff in two suitcases in the machine here,” said Phelps, indicating the flivver.

When Kerrigan approached the machine, he noticed two men sitting in silence in the rear of the car. He had not anticipated dealing with three dope runners!

“Hand out the suitcases,” said Phelps to one of the occupants of the flivver. Two bags were promptly tossed from the car.

“Mind if I look over the stuff?” asked the Wolf of Phelps, who was standing alongside of him, still toying with his revolver.

“Not at all; go right ahead.”

Kerrigan opened up one of the suitcases and extracted a big chunk of what was represented to be opium. He then walked in front of the automobile headlights, explaining that he wanted to get a better look at the stuff. The agent at once recognized the contents of the suitcases as imitation opium and knew instantly that he was dealing with a gang of racketeers who specialize in the old game of “cheating cheaters.”

The Wolf began to burn up. He had gone to time and trouble of making the jaunt from New York to Vermont in the hope of running into something big, only to be disappointed in the worst way. He concealed his anger, however, for Phelps was standing right in front of him. Kerrigan was in a ticklish position — and he knew it. Why, any one of these fellows could bump him off out here in the wilderness and make a clean get-away.

Suddenly, Kerrigan raised the chunk of fake opium over his head, holding it with both hands, as if to further examine it. Then, in a fraction of a second, he let it fly — right in the face of the man in front of him! Phelps fell to the ground in a heap, knocked completely unconscious by the terrific blow. In less time than it takes to tell it, the Wolf whipped out his gun and covered the two men in the machine.

“You babies can step right out of there,” he snapped, “before I blow your dull brains out!”

Two stocky frames made clumsy exits from the car. The Wolf searched them and confiscated two revolvers and a hundred or more loose bullets. Still covering them, he leaned down and picked up Phelps’s gun. Then he marched the two conscious captives to the rear of the house and told them to stand with their chests flat against two trees, which were close together. Kerrigan next ordered the men to stretch out their arms and when these instructions were complied with he extracted some fine but strong copper wire from his overcoat pocket and bound the men’s hands. Thus, only a tree separated each prisoner from his liberty!

“I guess that’ll hold you fellows for a while,” said the Wolf.

Going back to the flivver, Kerrigan noticed that Phelps was beginning to display signs of life. So the little agent grabbed the latter by the collar and dragged him into the deserted house.

Shortly after eleven thirty, Connolley, fearing that something had happened to his side-kick, put in an appearance. Seeing the candlelights in the front room of the farmhouse, he walked in, to find Kerrigan holding an animated conversation with his desperate-looking captive.

“Would you mind going out to the back of the house, Ray, and bringing in those two eggs who are tied to the trees? They’ll probably find it a little warmer in here.”

Ten minutes later the three prisoners were lined up before the two agents.

“What’s the idea of selling me fake dope?” asked Kerrigan of the trio. “I’m a narcotic agent and came up here to catch you with the real stuff.”

“I was just thinkin’,” was the answer, “that you ain’t got a thing on us. We didn’t sell you real dope.”

“Is that so,” shot back Kerrigan. “Well, listen to this: I didn’t give you real dough, either. It’s all counterfeit stuff, seized by other Federal men in raids. We use it on guys like you.”

“Well, we’re even then,” said the man in brown.

“The hell we are,” said the Wolf. “I’m taking the three of you in for the sample of real stuff that you sold to me in New York last night!”