The Valley of Fear: Chapter 7
Chapter 7
As McMurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one
and very well suited for such a crime as they had planned. It
was on the extreme fringe of the town and stood well back from
the road. In any other case the conspirators would have simply
called out their man, as they had many a time before, and emptied
their pistols into his body; but in this instance it was very
necessary to find out how much he knew, how he knew it, and what
had been passed on to his employers.
It was possible that they were already too late and that the work
had been done. If that was indeed so, they could at least have
their revenge upon the man who had done it. But they were
hopeful that nothing of great importance had yet come to the
detective's knowledge, as otherwise, they argued, he would not
have troubled to write down and forward such trivial information
as McMurdo claimed to have given him. However, all this they
would learn from his own lips. Once in their power, they would
find a way to make him speak. It was not the first time that
they had handled an unwilling witness.
McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed. The police seemed to
take particular interest in him that morning, and Captain
Marvin--he who had claimed the old acquaintance with him at
Chicago--actually addressed him as he waited at the station.
McMurdo turned away and refused to speak with him. He was back
from his mission in the afternoon, and saw McGinty at the Union
House.
"He is coming," he said.
"Good!" said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with
chains and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a
diamond twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard.
Drink and politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as
powerful man. The more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse
of the prison or the gallows which had risen before him the night
before.
"Do you reckon he knows much?" he asked anxiously.
McMurdo shook his head gloomily. "He's been here some time--six
weeks at the least. I guess he didn't come into these parts to
look at the prospect. If he has been working among us all that
time with the railroad money at his back, I should expect that he
has got results, and that he has passed them on."
"There's not a weak man in the lodge," cried McGinty. "True as
steel, every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that
skunk Morris. What about him? If any man gives us away, it
would be he. I've a mind to send a couple of the boys round
before evening to give him a beating up and see what they can get
from him."
"Well, there would be no harm in that," McMurdo answered. "I
won't deny that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to
see him come to harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over
lodge matters, and though he may not see them the same as you or
I, he never seemed the sort that squeals. But still it is not
for me to stand between him and you."
"I'll fix the old devil!" said McGinty with an oath. "I've had
my eye on him this year past."
"Well, you know best about that," McMurdo answered. "But
whatever you do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the
Pinkerton affair is settled up. We can't afford to set the
police buzzing, to-day of all days."
"True for you," said McGinty. "And we'll learn from Birdy
Edwards himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart
out first. Did he seem to scent a trap?"
McMurdo laughed. "I guess I took him on his weak point," he
said. "If he could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he's
ready to follow it into hell. I took his money," McMurdo grinned
as he produced a wad of dollar notes, "and as much more when he
has seen all my papers."
"What papers?"
"Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about
constitutions and books of rules and forms of membership. He
expects to get right down to the end of everything before he
leaves."
"Faith, he's right there," said McGinty grimly. "Didn't he ask
you why you didn't bring him the papers?"
"As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and
Captain Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!"
"Ay, I heard of that," said McGinty. "I guess the heavy end of
this business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old
shaft when we've done with him; but however we work it we can't
get past the man living at Hobson's Patch and you being there
to-day."
McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. "If we handle it right, they can
never prove the killing," said he. "No one can see him come to
the house after dark, and I'll lay to it that no one will see him
go. Now see here, Councillor, I'll show you my plan and I'll ask
you to fit the others into it. You will all come in good time.
Very well. He comes at ten. He is to tap three times, and me to
open the door for him. Then I'll get behind him and shut it.
He's our man then."
"That's all easy and plain."
"Yes; but the next step wants considering. He's a hard
proposition. He's heavily armed. I've fooled him proper, and
yet he is likely to be on his guard. Suppose I show him right
into a room with seven men in it where he expected to find me
alone. There is going to be shooting, and somebody is going to
be hurt."
"That's so."
"And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the
township on top of it."
"I guess you are right."
"This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big
room--same as you saw when you had a chat with me. I'll open the
door for him, show him into the parlour beside the door, and
leave him there while I get the papers. That will give me the
chance of telling you how things are shaping. Then I will go
back to him with some faked papers. As he is reading them I will
jump for him and get my grip on his pistol arm. You'll hear me
call and in you will rush. The quicker the better; for he is as
strong a man as I, and I may have more than I can manage. But I
allow that I can hold him till you come."
"It's a good plan," said McGinty. "The lodge will owe you a debt
for this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name
to the man that's coming after me."
"Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit," said
McMurdo; but his face showed what he thought of the great man's
compliment.
When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the
grim evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and
loaded his Smith & Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in
which the detective was to be trapped. It was a large apartment,
with a long deal table in the centre, and the big stove at one
side. At each of the other sides were windows. There were no
shutters on these: only light curtains which drew across.
McMurdo examined these attentively. No doubt it must have struck
him that the apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting.
Yet its distance from the road made it of less consequence.
Finally he discussed the matter with his fellow lodger. Scanlan,
though a Scowrer, was an inoffensive little man who was too weak
to stand against the opinion of his comrades, but was secretly
horrified by the deeds of blood at which he had sometimes been
forced to assist. McMurdo told him shortly what was intended.
"And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and
keep clear of it. There will be bloody work here before
morning."
"Well, indeed then, Mac," Scanlan answered. "It's not the will
but the nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go
down at the colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand.
I'm not made for it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will
think none the worse of me, I'll just do as you advise and leave
you to yourselves for the evening."
The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly
respectable citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces
would have read little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard
mouths and remorseless eyes. There was not a man in the room
whose hands had not been reddened a dozen times before. They
were as hardened to human murder as a butcher to sheep.
Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the
formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man
with a long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of
incorruptible fidelity where the finances of the order were
concerned, and with no notion of justice or honesty to anyone
beyond. The treasurer, Carter, was a middle-aged man, with an
impassive, rather sulky expression, and a yellow parchment skin.
He was a capable organizer, and the actual details of nearly
every outrage had sprung from his plotting brain. The two
Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows with
determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy,
dark youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity
of his disposition. These were the men who assembled that night
under the roof of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton
detective.
Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had
hastened to prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin
and Cormac were already half-drunk, and the liquor had brought
out all their ferocity. Cormac placed his hands on the stove for
an instant--it had been lighted, for the nights were still cold.
"That will do," said he, with an oath.
"Ay," said Baldwin, catching his meaning. "If he is strapped to
that, we will have the truth out of him."
"We'll have the truth out of him, never fear," said McMurdo. He
had nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the
affair was on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever.
The others marked it and applauded.
"You are the one to handle him," said the Boss approvingly. "Not
a warning will he get till your hand is on his throat. It's a
pity there are no shutters to your windows."
McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter.
"Sure no one can spy upon us now. It's close upon the hour."
"Maybe he won't come. Maybe he'll get a sniff of danger," said
the secretary.
"He'll come, never fear," McMurdo answered. "He is as eager to
come as you can be to see him. Hark to that!"
They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested
halfway to their lips. Three loud knocks had sounded at the
door.
"Hush!" McMurdo raised his hand in caution. An exulting glance
went round the circle, and hands were laid upon their weapons.
"Not a sound, for your lives!" McMurdo whispered, as he went from
the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
With strained ears the murderers waited. They counted the steps
of their comrade down the passage. Then they heard him open the
outer door. There were a few words as of greeting. Then they
were aware of a strange step inside and of an unfamiliar voice.
An instant later came the slam of the door and the turning of the
key in the lock. Their prey was safe within the trap. Tiger
Cormac laughed horribly, and Boss McGinty clapped his great hand
across his mouth.
"Be quiet, you fool!" he whispered. "You'll be the undoing of us
yet!"
There was a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed
interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his
finger upon his lip.
He came to the end of the table and looked round at them. A
subtle change had come over him. His manner was as of one who
has great work to do. His face had set into granite firmness.
His eyes shone with a fierce excitement behind his spectacles.
He had become a visible leader of men. They stared at him with
eager interest; but he said nothing. Still with the same
singular gaze he looked from man to man.
"Well!" cried Boss McGinty at last. "Is he here? Is Birdy
Edwards here?"
"Yes," McMurdo answered slowly. "Birdy Edwards is here. I am
Birdy Edwards!"
There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the
room might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The
hissing of a kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the
ear. Seven white faces, all turned upward to this man who
dominated them, were set motionless with utter terror. Then,
with a sudden shivering of glass, a bristle of glistening rifle
barrels broke through each window, while the curtains were torn
from their hangings.
At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and
plunged for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him
there with the stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine
Police gleaming behind the sights. The Boss recoiled and fell
back into his chair.
"You're safer there, Councillor," said the man whom they had
known as McMurdo. "And you, Baldwin, if you don't take your hand
off your pistol, you'll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or
by the Lord that made me--There, that will do. There are forty
armed men round this house, and you can figure it out for
yourself what chance you have. Take their pistols, Marvin!"
There was no possible resistance under the menace of those
rifles. The men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed,
they still sat round the table.
"I'd like to say a word to you before we separate," said the man
who had trapped them. "I guess we may not meet again until you
see me on the stand in the courthouse. I'll give you something
to think over between now and then. You know me now for what I
am. At last I can put my cards on the table. I am Birdy Edwards
of Pinkerton's. I was chosen to break up your gang. I had a
hard and dangerous game to play. Not a soul, not one soul,not my
nearest and dearest, knew that I was playing it. Only Captain
Marvin here and my employers knew that. But it's over to-night,
thank God, and I am the winner!"
The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was
unappeasable hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless
threat.
"Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my
chance of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand,
and there are sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail
this night. I'll tell you this, that when I was put upon this
job I never believed there was such a society as yours. I
thought it was paper talk, and that I would prove it so. They
told me it was to do with the Freemen; so I went to Chicago and
was made one. Then I was surer than ever that it was just paper
talk; for I found no harm in the society, but a deal of good.
"Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal
valleys. When I reached this place I learned that I was wrong
and that it wasn't a dime novel after all. So I stayed to look
after it. I never killed a man in Chicago. I never minted a
dollar in my life. Those I gave you were as good as any others;
but I never spent money better. But I knew the way into your
good wishes and so I pretended to you that the law was after me.
It all worked just as I thought.
"So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your
councils. Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They
can say what they like, so long as I get you. But what is the
truth? The night I joined you beat up old man Stanger. I could
not warn him, for there was no time; but I held your hand,
Baldwin, when you would have killed him. If ever I have
suggested things, so as to keep my place among you, they were
things which I knew I could prevent. I could not save Dunn and
Menzies, for I did not know enough; but I will see that their
murderers are hanged. I gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that
when I blew his house in he and his folk were in hiding. There
was many a crime that I could not stop; but if you look back and
think how often your man came home the other road, or was down in
town when you went for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he
would come out, you'll see my work."
"You blasted traitor!" hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.
"Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart.
You and your like have been the enemy of God and man in these
parts. It took a man to get between you and the poor devils of
men and women that you held under your grip. There was just one
way of doing it, and I did it. You call me a traitor; but I
guess there's many a thousand will call me a deliverer that went
down into hell to save them. I've had three months of it. I
wouldn't have three such months again if they let me loose in the
treasury at Washington for it. I had to stay till I had it all,
every man and every secret right here in this hand. I'd have
waited a little longer if it hadn't come to my knowledge that my
secret was coming out. A letter had come into the town that
would have set you wise to it all. Then I had to act and act
quickly.
"I've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes
I'll die the easier when I think of the work I have done in this
valley. Now, Marvin, I'll keep you no more. Take them in and
get it over."
There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed
note to be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission
which he had accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the
early hours of the morning a beautiful woman and a much muffled
man boarded a special train which had been sent by the railroad
company, and made a swift, unbroken journey out of the land of
danger. It was the last time that ever either Ettie or her lover
set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten days later they were married
in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as witness of the wedding.
The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their
adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain
they struggled. In vain the money of the lodge--money squeezed
by blackmail out of the whole countryside--was spent like water
in the attempt to save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned
statement from one who knew every detail of their lives, their
organization, and their crimes was unshaken by all the wiles of
their defenders. At last after so many years they were broken
and scattered. The cloud was lifted forever from the valley.
McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when
the last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his
fate. Fifty-odd had various degrees of imprisonment. The work
of Birdy Edwards was complete.
And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There was
another hand to be played, and yet another and another. Ted
Baldwin, for one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys;
so had several others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For
ten years they were out of the world, and then came a day when
they were free once more--a day which Edwards, who knew his men,
was very sure would be an end of his life of peace. They had
sworn an oath on all that they thought holy to have his blood as
a vengeance for their comrades. And well they strove to keep
their vow!
>From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success
that it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he
went under a changed name to California, and it was there that
the light went for a time out of his life when Ettie Edwards
died. Once again he was nearly killed, and once again under the
name of Douglas he worked in a lonely canon, where with an
English partner named Barker he amassed a fortune. At last there
came a warning to him that the bloodhounds were on his track once
more, and he cleared--only just in time--for England. And thence
came the John Douglas who for a second time married a worthy
mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex county gentleman, a
life which ended with the strange happenings of which we have
heard.
Epilogue
The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas
was referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at
which he was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.
"Get him out of England at any cost," wrote Holmes to the wife.
"There are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he
has escaped. There is no safety for your husband in England."
Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed
from our minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic note
slipped into our letter box. "Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me!"
said this singular epistle. There was neither superscription nor
signature. I laughed at the quaint message; but Holmes showed
unwonted seriousness.
"Deviltry, Watson!" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded
brow.
Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message
that a gentleman wished to see Mr. Holmes, and that the matter
was of the utmost importance. Close at the heels of his
messenger came Cecil Barker, our friend of the moated Manor
House. His face was drawn and haggard.
"I've had bad news--terrible news, Mr. Holmes," said he.
"I feared as much," said Holmes.
"You have not had a cable, have you?"
"I have had a note from someone who has."
"It's poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he
will always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canon to me. I told you
that they started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three
weeks ago."
"Exactly."
"The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable
from Mrs. Douglas this morning:
Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No one
knows how accident occurred.
IVY DOUGLAS.
"Ha! It came like that, did it?" said Holmes thoughtfully.
"Well, I've no doubt it was well stage-managed."
"You mean that you think there was no accident?"
"None in the world."
"He was murdered?"
"Surely!"
"So I think also. These infernal Scowrers, this cursed
vindictive nest of criminals--"
"No, no, my good sir," said Holmes. "There is a master hand
here. It is no case of sawed-off shotguns and clumsy
six-shooters. You can tell an old master by the sweep of his
brush. I can tell a Moriarty when I see one. This crime is from
London, not from America."
"But for what motive?"
"Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose
whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must
succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned
to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the
triphammer--an absurd extravagance of energy--but the nut is very
effectually crushed all the same."
"How came this man to have anything to do with it?"
"I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the
business was from one of his lieutenants. These Americans were
well advised. Having an English job to do, they took into
partnership, as any foreign criminal could do, this great
consultant in crime. From that moment their man was doomed. At
first he would content himself by using his machinery in order to
find their victim. Then he would indicate how the matter might
be treated. Finally, when he read in the reports of the failure
of this agent, he would step in himself with a master touch. You
heard me warn this man at Birlstone Manor House that the coming
danger was greater than the past. Was I right?"
Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent
anger. "Do not tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do
you say that no one can ever get level with this king devil?"
"No, I don't say that," said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be
looking far into the future. "I don't say that he can't be beat.
But you must give me time--you must give me time!"
We all sat in silence for some minutes while those fateful eyes
still strained to pierce the veil.
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