Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

Lowliest of the lowly is he, a bony cur at his heels; but here was a master and mongrel — in a dangerous came.

I

From all appearances the man who parted the bushes and crawled up the slope of the Susquehanna and Southern Railroad was a tomato can vagrant, who slept most anywhere in the bedroom of stars.

Big Scar, sometimes known as Scar-Faced Guffman, glared north and south along the line of slippery rails, then he scowled upward at the drizzle that came down from the skies. He was wet to the skin; water dripped down the furrows of his unshaven features; mud oozed from the cracks of the shoes he wore. A white gash across his cheek turned blue as he shivered in the clammy cold.

Behind Big Scar Guffman crouched a mongrel dog with a stumpy tail and three black spots on his hide. The dog’s eyes were sharp and clear — somewhat unlike a mongrel’s. They seemed to match the steely glitter in Big Scar’s glances.

Master and mongrel were a pair — in a dangerous game.

A stone milepost, at the side of the track, indicated to Big Scar that he was thirty miles from where he wanted to be. The Susquehanna River flowed through the bottoms like a tideless sea; the land about was mostly swamp, good only for duck hunting; there was nothing more civilizing in sight than a lone box car perched on a siding one mile north of the hobo’s position.

“Come on, Spot,” Big Scar mumbled. “We’ll mooch up an’ see if we can get dry inside that rattler.”

A position one half mile from the box car brought Big Scar to a sudden stop. He hunched forward his broad shoulders; his broken hands went on his knees: he appraised the box car with a vagrant’s suspicion.

There was a tiny plume of smoke issuing from a chimney at the near end of the car. The scent of burning wood came down the wind to Big Scar. Mingled with it was the odor of cooking.

Both man and dog’s nostrils quivered. Big Scar stood erect and took a hitch in his belt. He braced a pair of shoulders that were as wide as the box car’s door. “Here’s where we eat,” he told the dog, “if we have to tap somebody on th’ bean to get it.”

Big Star was a specialist in cracking skulls; he had an arm equal to three average brakemen; the sectional jimmy he carried under his coat was heavy enough to rip a strong box apart or stun an elephant. It was a tempered tool somewhat out of keeping with his hobolike appearance.

“Come on!” he repeated to Spot. “I smell a Mulligan stewin’, an’ it’ll taste mighty good to us.”

A cheerful song greeted Big Scar when he reached the box car and rested his unshaven chin on the door sill:

“Hello, bo!” throated Big Scar Guffman.

The occupant of the sidedoor Pullman dropped a frying pan on a sheet iron stove and wheeled with the quickness of a cat. He worked his brows up and down and peered at the prying yegg. Big Scar hooked a knee over the door sill and climbed inside the car. He lunged at the man.

“Mitt me!” said he, offering a hand. “I’m Guffman. Me moniker is Big Scar — cause of this scar on me cheek. Remember me? We did a bit together in th’ big house at Columbus, Ohio. Remember th’ principal keeper there. They used to call him Jimmy Ball.”

“Sure,” grinned the sidedoor Pullman tourist. “I’m called the Phantom Kid now. I wasn’t then. I quit larceny. I was so full of it in the old days I was breakin’ out all th’ time — like th’ measles. Now me graft, Scar, is workin’ th’ railroads — for what I can get. See that box over there?”

Big Scar scowled at a box that resembled a telegraph operator’s layout. It contained an aluminium bar sounder, a key, batteries and several coils of wire. A pair of well-worn climbers was beside the box.

“That’s all th’ tools I carry,” explained the Phantom Kid. “Th’ dicks can’t pinch me for havin’ them in my possession. I taps th’ train dispatcher’s wires, when I feel like movin’ along, an’ orders th’ trains to pick me up. I spent th’ winter rollin’ around Florida; last year I was all over th’ West; I’m restin’ here until th’ next notion seizes me.”

“S-o,” grunted Big Scar, caught with the idea. “That’s fine — for me — ’cause I’ve got to meet with th’ mob at Bedbug Island, an’ that’s thirty miles from here. Told them in a letter I’d be there to-day. Bedbug Island is out in th’ river, between Hangman’s Ferry an’ Finchburg.”

Big Scar moved toward the stove; he plucked a slice of bacon from the top and cooled it between his fingers as he continued:

“Get out y’ur juice box, Kid. Shin up th’ nearest pole an’ tell th’ conductor of th’ next train goin’ North to pick this car up an’ put k on th’ sidin’ at Hangman’s Ferry. Y’u know how to do it, Kid. If y’u don’t do it — I got a dog outside that eats bigger men than y’u. Th’ dog’s name is Spot. He’s waitin’ for some of th’ scoffins we smelled y’u cookin’!”

The yegg poised the slice of bacon. “Gawan!” he repeated to the Phantom Kid, who was fifty years old and about one half Big Scar’s size. “Sling that juice an’ get us picked up. I ain’t promisin’ nothin’, but I’m due for a big job with th’ mob on Bedbug Island an’ I may cut y’u in for a piece of it.”

Slightly appeased, the Phantom Kid lifted his instrument box, tucked the climbing irons under one arm, and approached the door. He stared down at Spot, whose eyes gleamed.

“Won’t bite y’u unless I give th’ word,” said Big Scar. “I got him trained to do whatever I want him to do, by signs. He’s great for chasin’ off other dogs when I’m hittin’ th’ main stem for handouts. An’,” added Big Scar, “th’ bulls, seein’ me with a dog followin’, think I’m a tomato can vag. Spot’s a good stall.”

II

The phantom kid leaped down; Big Scar selected two slices of bacon, inserted them between two thick chunks of bread, and munched on the meal as he watched the Phantom Kid climb a pole, cut a wire, make a number of splices, and listen in on the train dispatchers as they gave orders for the trains on the Susquehanna and Southern Railroad.

“Pretty soft,” mused Big Scar, after wiping his lips with a sleeve. “Here’s what I call luxury. Sidedoor Pullman, signs on th’ sides of it ‘Construction,’ a swell bunk to kip in, and all y’u have to do is to tap wires to be taken most anywhere. Maybe the Kid’s havin’ trouble,” he added with concern when the time lengthened.

His old prison pal came down the slippery pole, finally. “All set,” announced the Kid. “We’re to be picked up by Extra East No. 12. Th’ station agent at Greenbrier got th’ order. What are you goin’ to do with th’ mutt?”

Big Scar reached down and called to Spot. He lifted the dog with an easy heave. “I’ll close th’ door,” said the Kid. “An’ I’ll douse th’ fire. Them railroad shacks on them locals are curious. No use letting them in.”

The box car, after being bumped and jerked for thirty miles, was sidetracked near the ferry house at Hangman’s Ferry. Big Scar sprang to the cinders: he called to Spot, then, after the dog had leaped down, he instructed the Kid:

“Keep my private car right there. Maybe I’ll need it, an’ maybe I won’t, to-night. It’s a swell get-away, an’ I don’t just trust th’ mob I’m goin’ to meet.”

Big Scar avoided the ferryman’s house and detoured, with Spot at his heels, through underbrush and reeds until he stood on a spit of land jutting out in the Susquehanna. His signal to the yeggs on Bedbug Island was a fire, made from damp wood, that spiraled smoke up into the leaden air.

A rowboat appeared, propelled by a pair of brawny arms. Canada Red, a yegg with a flaming beard, climbed from the grounded boat. “Hello, bo!” he greeted. “Toledo Ed is on th’ island waitin’ for you. Did you bring th’ can opener?”

For answer Big Scar tapped his chest. “I got one inside m’ coat that’ll take th’ day door from a First National keister. Come on, let’s go to th’ island. An’ y’u do th’ rowin’.”

Canada Red’s lips curled slightly. He appraised Big Scar’s vagrant appearance. “Oh, all right, pal,” he gulped. “How about that mutt? Ain’t goin’ ta take him, are you?”

“Where I go he goes!” declared Big Scar. “I’ve been ridin’ in private cars, I have. An’ I got a right to a full-blooded pet, I have. An’ y’ur goin’ to row us to th’ island — ’cause if I’m goin’ on th’ job you got planned I give orders. Ain’t I a graduate safe opener, an’ y’u never could open anythin’ harder than a cracker box, y’u couldn’t.”

“All right,” snarled Canada Red. “Me an’ Toledo Ed thought you’d kinda run things — but we didn’t know who else to invite.”

“Invite, is good,” chuckled Big Scar.

Toledo Ed greeted the two yeggs when they reached Bedbug Island. He led the way to a hobo shack where were bunks, a table and a stove made from sheet tin. Sometimes in the summer a hobo convention met on the island. The near-by police seldom bothered any one sojourning there. They were glad enough to have the predatory gentry at a distance.

“Getting down to cases,” explained Toledo Ed, thrusting a thin face across the table toward Big Scar, who had sprawled on a soap box chair like a ragged Falstaff. “Cuttin’ details,” resumed Toledo Ed, “me an’ Canada Red spotted a swell touch at Duffel City, six miles th’ other side of Finchburg. Over there.” The yegg pointed eastward, toward the shore.

“I know th’ town,” grunted Big Scar.

“There’s a miser lives at th’ south end of th’ main stem, in a big house,” went on Ed. “He’s been pinchin’ pennies an’ shavin’ notes since th’ time of strong boxes that opened with keys. He’s got one in his house — crammed with kale. There’s six or seven grand in it. Me an’ Canada were goin’ to turn th’ trick alone — but them old boxes ain’t so easy. Our idea was to sap th’ old miser on th’ bean an’ burn his feet with matches if he didn’t open the keister. He’s got th’ key hid. But—”

“We,” broke in Canada Red, “might get a tough bird who wouldn’t come across. An’ we mightn’t find th’ key. An’ maybe we couldn’t spring th’ box. So, that’s why we want you along, Scar.”

“I’m good at burnin’ feet!” Big Scar said with disgust. “I’ve burned me own feet on many a mile of railroad — but this is th’ first occasion I’ve been invited—”

“We ain’t goin’ to do that!” injected Toledo Ed hastily. “We’ll let you rip th’ keister wide open with th’ can opener, while Canada an’ I sit on th’ miser. How about it, bo?”

“Th’ kale goes three ways?” questioned Big Scar. “ ’Cause if it don’t — if it don’t — I’ll go over there an’ turn th’ job alone. Me comin’ all this way in a private car an’ gettin’ th’ small end—”

Toledo Ed glanced at Canada Red. “Oh, all right!” he agreed. “It goes three ways. We want to all hang together on this job.”

Big Scar had opened scores of safes in his life. He had a saying that the harder the door the easier it fell. He graduated from Chicago and the time of the Drainage Canal, when yeggs first learned to use nitro or soup.

“We’ll hang,” he grunted. “Y’u two would hang anybody. I gotta run this job — from beginnin’ to end. I ain’t looked it over. I’m goin’ to. I’ll go ahead an’ be a gay-cat — a tin can vag — with me dog an’ can. I’ll mooch around th’ touch an’ see if it’s what y’u say it is. Then, when I gives th’ office, y’u two can come on an’ we’ll tie up Mr. Miser.”

A dollar watch was drawn from Toledo Ed’s pocket. “It’s goin’ on seven now,” he objected. “It’s nine miles to Duffel City, not countin’ th’ river row. We’ll all go together.”

Big Scar overturned the soap box. He struck the table with a hairy fist.

“Me an’ Spot,” he declared, “go first, in that small boat t’other side of th’ island. Y’u two follow in about an hour. Them’s orders. D’y’u want th’ hick bulls to see a mob?”

“Maybe he’s right,” consented the two yeggs finally.

Spot crept into the shack.

“He’s better than a look out,” Big Scar explained. “He’ll growl every time he sees a copper — an’ a blue uniform makes him wild. I taught him that. I trained him to stay outside a job, an’ nobody’s pinched me since I’ve had him.”

“Don’t these hoosiers around here know that mutt?” asked Toledo Ed.

“Maybe they do. Wot of it?”

III

Big Scar motioned to Spot; they went across the island, where Big Scar bailed out a boat, found the oars in the bushes, and shoved from shore. He glared over his shoulder, now and then, to see if Toledo Ed and Canada Red were obeying orders.

“I wouldn’t be seen in their company on a bet,” commented Big Scar Guffman. “They remind me of that kind of woman a self-respectin’ man just don’t dare walk th’ streets with.”

The yegg had a sense of social position. He hated a squealer; he could never turn informer, if he went to the electric chair for it. He took pride in his work and found joy in reading the small town papers after he had ripped a strong box open.

A sense of cover was in his tomato can vag disguise. He beached the boat on the bank of the Susquehanna, called to Spot, and, after a satisfactory scowl across the dark water toward Bedbug Island, he selected a course through paths and unfrequented country roads that would avoid Finchburg and bring him to the outskirts of Duffel City.

Spot followed his burly master, like a white shadow.

From Canada Red’s description Big Scar recognized the house of the miser. It was set back of an unkept hedge; maple trees shaded its front porch; unlighted windows, one or two of which were broken, stared at Big Scar with cold invitation. “We’ll mooch round to th’ back,” the Yegg mumbled to Spot. “Y’u go ahead an’ see if y’u can scare up any dogs. If y’u do — chase ’em away.”

Spot had helped Big Scar prowl more houses than one; he rounded the hedge and started nosing through a wilderness of chicken coops, tool houses, and glass frames.

Everything about the place reminded Big Scar of poverty and neglect. He began to doubt Canada Red’s glowing account of seven thousand in a keister. “I’m goin’ in through that side window an’ make sure,” he decided. “Maybe Canada dreamed of all that kale.”

He glanced around for Spot. The animal was not in sight. Big Scar listened intently. He worked his shaggy brows up and down. The dog had disappeared.

“He’s chasin’ some mutt,” decided Big Scar. “He’ll be back to stand guard — he always comes back.”

Selecting an unlocked window, Big Scar raised the sash, sniffed inside a room, strained his ears, and then climbed with a twisting motion that landed him, without sound, upon a rag carpet, between two curtains. Again he listened. No one was stirring. The scent of the room was of hair-stuffed chairs and chintz draperies.

Big Scar drew a cigar stump from a pocket: he had picked it up from the road. He lighted the charred end and dragged a spark to a large round circle. His unshaven cheeks worked in and out. He exhaled the smoke.

The glowing end of the cigar, shaded in a cupped palm, made a miniature lamp by which he could see some distance in front of him. Big Scar did not believe in flash lamps; they were dangerous things to have in one’s possession with so many hostile constables about.

The miser’s safe was in that room. Big Scar crawled to it and studied its construction. He redragged at the cigar, sending a halo of soft light over keyhole, hinges, and outside frame.

“This box,” he muttered, “is th’ softest pete I ever saw. It was made out of pig-iron by some blacksmith.”

A diversion came, unexpected and chilling. Big Scar’s jaw snapped shut. He got down on all fours and backed away from the safe, like a disturbed grizzly.

Framed in a doorway stood a gray-haired woman, holding a candle aloft in one skinny arm. Her eyes were fixed and staring.

“I smell cigar smoke,” she whispered. “Who would dare smoke a vile weed in my house?”

Big Scar, with one section of the can-opener clutched in his hand, cleared his lips. The cigar had been vile. It was a five-center, popular to that region.

He began to perceive, as the woman advanced step by step toward the center of the room, that she was blind. Her scrawny hair fell over sightless eyes. She did not brush it away.

“Some one is in this room,” she declared with intuition. “I hear some one breathing. Why should they come to my poor house and break in on me. I live alone. There is nothing here for any one to steal.”

Big Scar began to join a few details together. Canada Red and Toledo Ed, both somewhat yellow-hearted, had selected a job against an aged, sightless woman. They had informed him it was a man — a miser. The strong box, ancient as it was, might have been more than a match for their ability.

Their plan to burn the old woman’s feet, if she did not give them the key to the safe, was just their size. To further back up this plan, if the woman did not produce the key, the two yeggs had invited him along.

Getting on his feet. Big Scar lunged toward the woman. He had made a decision in a split second.

“Don’t scream,” he throated with a blood-curdling threat. “For if y’u do... if y’u do.” Big Scar lowered his voice, and changed it to a deep rasp. “If y’u do — I’ll fix y’u, lady. Come with me. I’m goin’ to lock y’u in another room. Gimme th’ candle.”

She struggled vainly in his grasp. He urged her before him. “That way, lady,” he indicated by pressure with his fingers. “Right into this large closet. I see there’s a window in it — high up. Y’u’ll be comfortable on them rugs. Don’t call for help — for if y’u do, I’ll come back — I’ll come — back.”

Big Scar locked the door on the outside and slouched toward the safe. He set the woman’s candle on one corner of it. The face of the grandfather’s clock, overlooking the operation of opening a strong box with a can opener, would have shown astonishment if it had eyes instead of hands. Big Scar went at the keister like a famished man plucking a fowl.

He was forced to move the candle when the entire box seemed ready to fall apart. Out through the shattered door fell ancient heirlooms — a silk shawl, an album, a Bible, and a stocking, of another period, crammed with bank notes.

Big Scar’s eyes bulged when he ran his fingers into the stocking. The bills, mostly large ones, were crumpled with age. Some were torn, others pasted together.

“There’s five or six grand here,” Big Scar muttered. “Canada Red was right. An’ he won’t get a cent of it. I’m goin’ to double cross them two crooks; they got it comin’ to them, burnin’ an old woman’s feet—”

He took precautions before he left the safe and climbed out through the window. His tattered right sleeve served to wipe away any trace of finger prints. The candle, with its soft wax, had better be taken along. It would retain thumb marks.

The outer world was damp with mist when he started away from the woman’s house. Canada Red and Toledo Ed would be along any minute. They would break into the house, after a vain wait for him, and find the shattered safe. No use then torturing the woman. Big Scar had checkmated his unsavory pals. He looked around for the Spot; the dog was still missing. He whistled softly. Spot always answered that signal.

A sound of two men coming along the country road decided Big Scar. Spot was a sagacious animal; he would be sure to make his way toward Hobo Island. Often before, Big Scar had overheard the dog barking on the shore, and gone with a boat to bring it out to the hobo camp.

He avoided being seen by the two yeggs when he circled the house, stumbled over a pile of tin cans, and climbed a wire fence beyond which was a lane that led in the general direction of Finchburg and the river. His boat was drawn up as he left it. He looked back for Spot; again he whistled, this time shrilly.

“Th’ whole mob’s busted up!” he muttered. “Even Spot’s scattered. I’ll row out an’ see what happens when we get together.”

He rather thought much would happen when Canada Red and Toledo Ed found the crib cracked and came fuming toward camp. He reached Bedbug Island and entered the shack, where he lighted a fire and started cooking a Mulligan in a kerosene oil can.

While the stew boiled he sprawled across the soap box chair and waited for developments. A second stump of a cast off cigar filled the place with biting smoke.

“They’re long comin’,” concluded Big Scar, crossing his leg. He finished the cigar and spat it to the floor. Getting up with a sudden idea, he went outside and buried the sectional jimmy in a spot that he alone could find.

“No use havin’ evidence when you’re on a job with that yellow, feet-burnin’ bunch. They might get pinched an’ squeal on me.”

IV

He slouched back toward the shack. Parting underbrush, he was about to cross the clearing when his form grew rigid. Sounds came over the river of more than one pair of oars. A constable’s hard voice called a command:

“Get around on th’ other side of th’ island, you. We’ll give it a good frisk an’ see if any yeggs are there. If they aren’t here, they’ll be over by Hangman’s Ferry.”

Big Scar knew he was trapped; he believed that Canada Red and Toledo Ed had squealed on him. The chief of police from Duffel City found the yegg sitting in the hut, smoking a third cigar butt with the air of a nabob.

“Come along!” ordered the chief, while a rifle was thrust in through a broken window. “You’re wanted for a job — openin’ a safe. We’ve got your pals in th’ jail. One of them had a letter in his pocket, mentioning this island. That’s how we found you. We got a dog over at th’ lockup that ’ll be sure to recognize you. He did th’ other two — first crack.”

Big Scar did some rapid thinking.

“So,” he replied to the bristling chief, “so I got pals an’ there’s a dog. Gawan! An’ y’u said somethin’ about me openin’ a safe. I couldn’t do that — even if I had a combination. Me, a safe cracker? I’m a tourist, I am. I whitewashed one jail once, that was near Scranton, for stealin’ a ride on a freight train. That’s th’ only wrong I ever did, mister.”

“Come on!” snapped the rural chief. “We’ll see.”

Big Scar was searched. The chief found nothing more incriminating than cigar stumps, small change, matches, and candle grease. He overlooked the last clew. Big Scar had tossed the woman’s candle in the same hole that concealed the can opener.

Leaving a deputy to search the island, the posse hurried Big Scar across the river. He was rushed to Duffel City by auto. Canada Red and Toledo Ed sat in separate cells. Their features grew sullen when Big Scar came lunging through the jail door.

“Ever see this tramp before?” queried the chief.

A brooding, sullen silence was their answer. Big Scar scowled toward his pals.

“They’re strangers to me,” he rumbled. “That runt there looks like a bo I knew down in th’ Lehigh Valley — but he ain’t. That bo had one eye an’ this one has two.”

“Bo!” the chief repeated. “Them ain’t hoboes — them be yeggs! We picked them up near th’ Widow Henderson’s after one of their number had locked th’ widow in a closet. Lucky for her the telephone was in that closet, an’ she phoned me.”

Big Scar winced; he had overlooked the telephone. The closet, near the front stairs, was a logical place for it.

The chief whispered to one of his deputies. He turned on Big Scar. “We’ll test you,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have to let you go — maybe we won’t. Let th’ dog out of th’ cell, Nate. See if it knows this fellow.”

Spot came out of a gloomy hole and shook himself. He looked toward Canada Red and Toledo Ed. He wagged his tail at them. The chief explained: “We found this animal caught in some chicken wire. It belongs to those two yeggs — it knows them. How about this fellow, mutt?”

Big Scar’s foot shifted slightly. “I never saw that dog before,” he protested. “It ain’t mine. I’m too poor to own a dog.”

Spot growled at Big Scar; its short, white hair bristled; it showed a gleaming row of teeth.

“Call it off, it ’ll bite me!” cried the yegg.

A disgruntled chief showed Big Scar the jail door. He aimed a parting shot in the yegg’s direction. “Make tracks from this town. You don’t look like a man who could steal six thousand — but those birds I got in there, do.”

Big Scar rounded the block; he came to the back of the jail. There was a small yard there. A flight of stone steps led up to an open door through which streamed a light that glowed into the early morning.

Spot, as chief witness, had the freedom of the yard. Big Scar leaned over the fence. He whistled peculiarly. Spot’s ears lifted. Again Big Scar whistled, this time louder.

Casually Spot glanced at the chief and jailors. He moved toward the door unnoticed. He bounded across the yard and cleared the fence.

“Good dog,” muttered Big Scar, mooching off. “Y’u denied yore own master when I signaled for y’u to do it, with me foot. We’ll mosey along where they ain’t no jails.

“Spot,” he added, outside of Duffel City, “I got to write a letter to that Widow Henderson.”

The dog looked up at Big Scar’s moving lips.

“I put that kale in a tomato can by th’ side of her house, Spot. I’ll write her where it is. If she’d been a he miser I’d of kept it.”

Spot barked once, joy fully.

“Shut up!” snarled Big Scar. “I ain’t lookin’ for sympathy.”