Never-Fail Blake

by Arthur Stringer

  XVI

  Binhart was moved that night up into the hills. There he was installedin a bungalow of an abandoned banana plantation and a doctor wasbrought to his bedside. He was delirious by the time this doctorarrived, and his ravings through the night were a source of vague worryto his enemy. On the second day the sick man showed signs ofimprovement.

  For three weeks Blake watched over Binhart, saw to his wants, journeyedto Chalavia for his food and medicines. When the fever was broken andBinhart began to gain strength the detective no longer made the trip toChalavia in person. He preferred to remain with the sick man.

  He watched that sick man carefully, jealously, hour by hour and day byday. A peon servant was paid to keep up the vigil when Blake slept, assleep he must.

  But the strain was beginning to tell on him. He walked heavily. Theasthmatic wheeze of his breathing became more audible. His earliertouch of malaria returned to him, and he suffered from intermittentchills and fever. The day came when Blake suggested it was about timefor them to move on.

  "Where to?" asked Binhart. Little had passed between the two men, butduring all those silent nights and days each had been secretly yetassiduously studying the other.

  "Back to New York," was Blake's indifferent-noted answer. Yet thisindifference was a pretense, for no soul had ever hungered more for awhite man's country than did the travel-worn and fever-racked Blake.But he had his part to play, and he did not intend to shirk it. Theywent about their preparations quietly, like two fellow excursionistsmaking ready for a journey with which they were already over-familiar.It was while they sat waiting for the guides and mules that Blakeaddressed himself to the prisoner.

  "Connie," he said, "I 'm taking you back. It does n't make muchdifference whether I take you back dead or alive. But I 'm going totake you back."

  The other man said nothing, but his slight head-movement was one ofcomprehension.

  "So I just wanted to say there's no side-stepping, no four-flushing, atthis end of the trip!"

  "I understand," was Binhart's listless response.

  "I'm glad you do," Blake went on in his dully monotonous voice."Because I got where I can't stand any more breaks."

  "All right, Jim," answered Binhart. They sat staring at each other.It was not hate that existed between them. It was something moredormant, more innate. It was something that had grown ineradicable; asfixed as the relationship between the hound and the hare. Each wore anair of careless listlessness, yet each watched the other, every move,every moment.

  It was as they made their way slowly down to the coast that Blake putan unexpected question to Binhart.

  "Connie, where in hell did you plant that haul o' yours?"

  This thing had been worrying Blake. Weeks before he had gone throughevery nook and corner, every pocket and crevice in Binhart's belongings.

  The bank thief laughed a little. He had been growing stronger, day byday, and as his spirits had risen Blake's had seemed to recede.

  "Oh, I left that up in the States, where it 'd be safe," he answered.

  "What 'll you do about it?" Blake casually inquired.

  "I can't tell, just yet," was Binhart's retort.

  He rode on silent and thoughtful for several minutes. "Jim," he saidat last, "we 're both about done for. There 's not much left foreither of us. We 're going at this thing wrong. There's a lot o'money up there, for somebody. And _you_ ought to get it!"

  "What do you mean?" asked Blake. He resented the bodily weakness thatwas making burro-riding a torture.

  "I mean it's worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to you just tolet me drop out. I 'd hand you over that much to quit the chase."

  "It ain't me that's chasing you, Connie. It's the Law!" was Blake'squiet-toned response. And the other man knew he believed it.

  "Well, you quit, and I 'll stand for the Law!"

  "But, can't you see, they 'd never stand for you!"

  "Oh, yes they would. I 'd just drop out, and they 'd forget about me.And you 'd have that pile to enjoy life with!"

  Blake thought it over, ponderously, point by point. For not onefraction of a second could he countenance the thought of surrenderingBinhart. Yet he wanted both his prisoner and his prisoner's haul; hewanted his final accomplishment to be complete.

  "But how 'd we ever handle the deal?" prompted the tired-bodied man onthe burro.

  "You remember a woman called Elsie Verriner?"

  "Yes," acknowledged Blake, with a pang of regret which he could notfathom, at the mention of the name.

  "Well, we could fix it through her."

  "Does Elsie Verriner know where that pile is?" the detective inquired.His withered hulk of a body was warmed by a slow glow of anticipation.There was a woman, he remembered, whom he could count on swinging tohis own ends.

  "No, but she could get it," was Binhart's response.

  "And what good would that do _me_?"

  "The two of us could go up to New Orleans. We could slip in therewithout any one being the wiser. She could meet us. She 'd bring thestuff with her. Then, when you had the pile in your hand, I could justfade off the map."

  Blake rode on again in silence.

  "All right," he said at last. "I 'm willing."

  "Then how 'll you prove it? How 'd I know you 'd make good?" demandedBinhart.

  "That's not up to me! You're the man that's got to make good!" wasBlake's retort.

  "But you 'll give me the chance?" half pleaded his prisoner.

  "Sure!" replied Blake, as they rode on again. He was wondering howmany more miles of hell he would have to ride through before he couldrest. He felt that he would like to sleep for days, for weeks, withoutany thought of where to-morrow would find him or the next day wouldbring him.

  It was late that day as they climbed up out of a steaming valley intohigher ground that Binhart pulled up and studied Blake's face.

  "Jim, you look like a sick man to me!" he declared. He said it withoutexultation; but there was a new and less passive timber to his voice.

  "I 've been feeling kind o' mean this last day or two," confessedBlake. His own once guttural voice was plaintive, as he spoke. It wasalmost a quavering whine.

  "Had n't we better lay up for a few days?" suggested Binhart.

  "Lay up nothing!" cried Blake, and he clenched that determination by anoutburst of blasphemous anger. But he secretly took great doses ofquinin and drank much native liquor. He fought against a mentallassitude which he could not comprehend. Never before had that amplemachinery of the body failed him in an emergency. Never before had heknown an illness that a swallow or two of brandy and a night's restcould not scatter to the four winds. It bewildered him to find hisonce capable frame rebelling against its tasks. It left him dazed, asthough he had been confronted by the sudden and gratuitous treachery ofa life-long servant.

  He grew more irritable, more fanciful. He changed guides at the nextnative village, fearing that Binhart might have grown too intimate withthe old ones. He was swayed by an ever-increasing fear of intrigues.He coerced his flagging will into a feverish watchfulness. He becamemore arbitrary in his movements and exactions. When the chance came,he purchased a repeating Lee-Enfield rifle, which he packed across hissweating back on the trail and slept with under his arm at night. Whena morning came when he was too weak and ill to get up, he lay back onhis grass couch, with his rifle across his knees, watching Binhart,always watching Binhart.

  He seemed to realize that his power was slipping away, and he broodedon some plan for holding his prisoner, on any plan, no matter what itmight cost.

  He even pretended to sleep, to the end that Binhart might make aneffort to break away--and be brought down with a bullet. He prayedthat Binhart would try to go, would give him an excuse for the lastmove would leave the two of them lying there together. Even to perishthere side by side, foolishly, uselessly, seemed more desirable thanthe thought that Binhart might in the end get away. He seemedsatisfied that the two
of them should lie there, for all time, eachholding the other down, like two embattled stags with their hornsinextricably locked. And he waited there, nursing his rifle, watchingout of sullenly feverish eyes, marking each movement of thepassive-faced Binhart.

  But Binhart, knowing what he knew, was content to wait.

  He was content to wait until the fever grew, and the poisons of theblood narcotized the dulled brain into indifference, and then goaded itinto delirium. Then, calmly equipping himself for his journey, heburied the repeating rifle and slipped away in the night, carrying withhim Blake's quinin and revolver and pocket-filter. He traveledhurriedly, bearing southeast towards the San Juan. Four days later hereached the coast, journeyed by boat to Bluefields, and from that portpassed on into the outer world, where time and distance swallowed himup, and no sign of his whereabouts was left behind.