The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories

by George Barr McCutcheon

  “Say, Wick,” began the marshal mysteriously, “I’m up a stump.”

  “What? Another?”

  “No; jest the same one. I almost got track of somethin’ today—not two hours ago. I met a man out yander near the cross-roads that I’m sure I seen aroun’ here about the time Rosalie was left on the porch. An’ the funny part of it was, he stopped me an’ ast me about her. Doggone, I wish I’d ast him his name.”

  “You don’t mean it!” cried Bonner, all interest. “Asked about her? Was he a stranger?”

  “I think he was. Leastwise, he said he hadn’t been aroun’ here fer more’n twenty year. Y’see, it was this way. I was over to Lem Hudlow’s to ask if he had any hogs stole last night—Lem lives nigh the poorhouse, you know. He said he hadn’t missed any an’ ast me if any hogs had been found. I tole him no, not that I knowed of, but I jest thought I’d ask; I thought mebby he’d had some stole. You never c’n tell, you know, an’ it pays to be attendin’ to business all the time. Well, I was drivin’ back slow when up rode a feller on horseback. He was a fine-lookin’ man ’bout fifty year old, I reckon, an’ was dressed in all them new-fangled ridin’ togs. ’Ain’t this Mr. Crow, my old friend, the detective?’ said he. ‘Yes, sir,’ said I. ‘I guess you don’t remember me,’ says he. I told him I did, but I lied. It wouldn’t do fer him to think I didn’t know him an’ me a detective, don’t y’see?

  “We chatted about the weather an’ the crops, him ridin’ longside the buckboard. Doggone, his face was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Finally, he leaned over an’ said, solemn-like: ‘Have you still got the little girl that was left on your porch?’ You bet I jumped when he said that. ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘but she ain’t a little girl now. She’s growed up.’ ‘Is she purty?’ he ast. ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘purty as a speckled pup!’ ‘I’d like to see her,’ he said. ‘I hear she was a beautiful baby. I hope she is very, very happy.’ ‘What’s that to you?’ says I, sharp-like. ‘I am very much interested in her, Mr. Crow,’ he answered. ‘Poor child, I have had her in mind for a long time,’ he went on very solemn. I begin to suspect right away that he had a lot to do with her affairs. Somehow, I couldn’t help thinkin’ I’d seen him in Tinkletown about the time she was dropped—left, I mean.

  “‘You have given her a good eddication, I hope,’ said he. ‘Yes, she’s got the best in town,’ said I. ‘The thousand dollars came all right every year?’ ‘Every February.’ ‘I should like to see her sometime, if I may, without her knowin’ it, Mr. Crow.’ ‘An’ why that way, sir?’ demanded I. ‘It would probably annoy her if she thought I was regardin’ her as an object of curiosity,’ said he. ‘Tell her fer me,’ he went on’ gittin’ ready to whip up, ‘that she has an unknown friend who would give anything he has to help her.’ Goshed, if he didn’t put the gad to his horse an’ gallop off ’fore I could say another word. I was goin’ to ask him a lot of questions, too.”

  “Can’t you remember where and under what circumstances you saw him before?” cried Bonner, very much excited.

  “I’m goin’ to try to think it up tonight. He was a rich-lookin’ feller an’ he had a heavy black band aroun’ one of his coat sleeves. Wick, I bet he’s the man we want. I’ve made up my mind ’at he’s her father!”

  Bonner impatiently wormed all the information possible out of the marshal, especially as to the stranger’s looks, voice, the direction taken when they parted company and then dismally concluded that an excellent opportunity had been hopelessly lost. Anderson said, in cross-examination, that the stranger had told him he “was leavin’ at once fer New York and then going to Europe.” His mother had died recently.

  “I’ll try to head him off at Boggs City,” said Bonner; and half an hour later he was off at full speed in the big machine for the county seat, a roundabout way to Bonner Place. The New York train had gone, but no one had seen a man answering the description of Anderson’s interviewer.

  “I’m sorry, Rosalie,” said Bonner some time later. He was taking her for a spin in the automobile. “It was a forlorn hope, and it is also quite probable that Mr. Crow’s impressions are wrong. The man may have absolutely no connection with the matter. I’ll admit it looks interesting, his manner and his questions, and there is a chance that he knows the true story. In any event, he did not go to New York today and he can’t get another train until tomorrow. I’ll pick up Mr. Crow in the morning and we’ll run up here to have a look at him if he appears.”

  “I think it is a wild goose chase, Wicker,” Rosalie said despairingly. “Daddy Crow has done such things before.”

  “But this seems different. The man’s actions were curious. He must have had some reason for being interested in you. I am absolutely wild with eagerness to solve this mystery, Rosalie. It means life to me.”

  “Oh, if you only could do it,” she cried so fervently, that his heart leaped with pity for her.

  “I love you, Rosalie. I would give my whole life to make you happy. Listen, dearest—don’t turn away from me! Are you afraid of me?” He was almost wailing it into her ear.

  “I—I was only thinking of the danger, Wicker. You are not watching the road,” she said, flushing a deep red. He laughed gaily for the first time in months.

  “It is a wide road and clear,” he said jubilantly. “We are alone and we are merely drifting. The machine is alive with happiness. Rosalie—Rosalie, I could shout for joy! You do love me? You will be my wife?”

  She was white and silent and faint with the joy of it all and the pain of it all. Joy in the full knowledge that he loved her and had spoken in spite of the cloud that enveloped her, pain in the certainty that she could not accept the sacrifice. For a long time she sat staring straight down the broad road over which they were rolling.

  “Wicker, you must not ask me now,” she said at last, bravely and earnestly. “It is sweet to know that you love me. It is life to me—yes, life, Wicker. But, don’t you see? No, no! You must not expect it. You must not ask it. Don’t, don’t, dear!” she cried, drawing away as he leaned toward her, passion in his eyes, triumph in his face.

  “But we love each other!” he cried. “What matters the rest? I want you—you!”

  “Have you considered? Have you thought? I have, a thousand times, a thousand bitter thoughts. I cannot, I will not be your—your wife, Wicker, until—”

  In vain he argued, pleaded, commanded. She was firm and she felt she was right if not just. Underneath it all lurked the fear, the dreadful fear that she may have been a child of love, the illegitimate offspring of passion. It was the weight that crushed her almost to lifelessness; it was the bar sinister.

  “No, Wicker, I mean it,” she said in the end resolutely. “Not until I can give you a name in exchange for your own.”

  “Your name shall one day be Bonner if I have to wreck the social system of the whole universe to uncover another one for you.”

  The automobile had been standing, by some extraordinary chance, in the cool shade of a great oak for ten minutes or more, but it was a wise, discreet old oak.

  CHAPTER XXX

  The Hemisphere Train Robbery

  Anderson Crow lived at the extreme south end of Tinkletown’s principal thoroughfare. The “calaboose” was situated at the far end of Main Street, at least half a mile separating the home of the law and the home of the lawless. Marshal Crow’s innate love for the spectacular alone explains the unneighbourliness of the two establishments. He felt an inward glory in riding or walking the full length of the street, and he certainly had no reason to suspect the populace of disregarding the outward glory he presented.

  The original plan of the merchantry comprehended the erection of the jail in close proximity to the home of its chief official, but Mr. Crow put his foot flatly and ponderously upon the scheme. With the dignity which made him noticeable, he said he’d “be doggoned ef he wanted to have people come to his own dooryard to be arrested.” By which, it may be inferred, that he expected the evil-doer to choose his own arresting place. />
  Mr. and Mrs. Crow were becoming thrifty, in view of the prospect that confronted them, to wit: The possible marriage of Rosalie and the cutting off of the yearly payments. As she was to be absent for a full month or more, Anderson conceived the idea of advertising for a lodger and boarder. By turning Roscoe out of his bed, they obtained a spare room that looked down upon the peony beds beyond the side “portico.”

  Mr. Crow was lazily twisting his meagre chin whiskers one morning soon after Rosalie’s departure. He was leaning against the town pump in front of the post-office, the sun glancing impotently off the bright badge on the lapel of his alpaca coat. A stranger came forth from the post-office and approached the marshal.

  “Is this Mr. Crow?” he asked, with considerable deference.

  “It is, sir.”

  “They tell me you take lodgers.”

  “Depends.”

  “My name is Gregory, Andrew Gregory, and I am here to canvass the neighbourhood in the interest of the Human Life Insurance Company of Penobscot. If you need references, I can procure them from New York or Boston.”

  The stranger was a tall, lean-faced man of forty or forty-five, well dressed, with a brusque yet pleasant manner of speech. His moustache and beard were black and quite heavy. Mr. Crow eyed him quietly for a moment.

  “I don’t reckon I’ll ask fer references. Our rates are six dollars a week, board an’ room. Childern bother you?”

  “Not at all. Have you any?”

  “Some, more or less. They’re mostly grown.”

  “I will take board and room for two weeks, at least,” said Mr. Gregory, who seemed to be a man of action.

  For almost a week the insurance agent plied his vocation assiduously but fruitlessly. The farmers and the citizens of Tinkletown were slow to take up insurance. They would talk crops and politics with the obliging Mr. Gregory, but that was all. And yet, his suavity won for him many admirers. There were not a few who promised to give him their insurance if they concluded to “take any out.” Only one man in town was willing to be insured, and he was too old to be comforting. Mr. Calligan was reputed to be one hundred and three years of age; and he wanted the twenty-year endowment plan. Gregory popularised himself at the Crow home by paying for his room in advance. Moreover, he was an affable chap with a fund of good stories straight from Broadway. At the post-office and in Lamson’s store he was soon established as a mighty favourite. Even the women who came to make purchases in the evening,—a hitherto unknown custom,—lingered outside the circle on the porch, revelling in the second edition of the “Arabian Nights.”

  “Our friend, the detective here,” he said, one night at the close of the first week, “tells me that we are to have a show in town next week. I haven’t seen any posters.”

  “Mark Riley’s been goin’ to put up them bills sence day ’fore yesterday,” said Anderson Crow, with exasperation in his voice, “an he ain’t done it yet. The agent fer the troupe left ’em here an’ hired Mark, but he’s so thunderation slow that he won’t paste ’em up ’til after the show’s been an’ gone. I’ll give him a talkin’ to to-morrer.”

  “What-fer show is it?” asked Jim Borum.

  “Somethin’ like a circus on’y ’tain’t one,” said Anderson. “They don’t pertend to have animals.”

  “Don’t carry a menagerie, I see,” remarked Gregory.

  “’Pears that way,” said Anderson, slowly analysing the word.

  “I understand it is a stage performance under a tent,” volunteered the postmaster.

  “That’s what it is,” said Harry Squires, the editor, with a superior air. “They play ‘As You Like It,’ by Shakespeare. It’s a swell show. We got out the hand bills over at the office. They’ll be distributed in town tomorrow, and a big batch of them will be sent over to the summer places across the river. The advance agent says it is a high-class performance and will appeal particularly to the rich city people up in the mountains. It’s a sort of open-air affair, you know.” And then Mr. Squires was obliged to explain to his fellow-townsmen all the known details in connection with the approaching performance of “As You Like It” by the Boothby Company, set for Tinkletown on the following Thursday night. Hapgood’s Grove had been selected by the agent as the place in which the performance should be given.

  “Don’t they give an afternoon show?” asked Mrs. Williams.

  “Sure not,” said Harry curtly. “It isn’t a museum.”

  “Of course not,” added Anderson Crow reflectively. “It’s a troupe.”

  The next morning, bright and early, Mark Riley fared forth with paste and brush. Before noon, the board fences, barns and blank walls of Tinkletown flamed with great red and blue letters, twining in and about the portraits of Shakespeare, Manager Boothby, Rosalind, Orlando, and an extra king or two in royal robes. A dozen small boys spread the hand bills from the Banner presses, and Tinkletown was stirred by the excitement of a sensation that had not been experienced since Forepaugh’s circus visited the county seat three years before. It went without saying that Manager Boothby would present “As You Like It” with an “unrivalled cast.” He had “an all-star production,” direct from “the leading theatres of the universe.”

  When Mark Riley started out again in the afternoon for a second excursion with paste and brush, “slapping up” small posters with a celerity that bespoke extreme interest on his part, the astonished populace feared that he was announcing a postponement of the performance. Instead of that, however, he was heralding the fact that the Hemisphere Trunk Line and Express Company would gladly pay ten thousand dollars reward for the “apprehension and capture” of the men who robbed one of its richest trains a few nights before, seizing as booty over sixty thousand dollars in money, besides killing two messengers in cold blood. The great train robbery occurred in the western part of the State, hundreds of miles from Tinkletown, but nearly all of its citizens had read accounts of the deed in the weekly paper from Boggs City.

  “I seen the item about it in Mr. Gregory’s New York paper,” said Anderson Crow to the crowd at Lamson’s.

  “Gee whiz, it must ’a’ been a peach!” said Isaac Porter, open-mouthed and eager for details. Whereupon Marshal Crow related the story of the crime which stupefied the world on the morning of July 31st. The express had been held up in an isolated spot by a half-dozen masked men. A safe had been shattered and the contents confiscated, the perpetrators vanishing as completely as if aided by Satan himself. The authorities were baffled. A huge reward was offered in the hope that it might induce some discontented underling in the band to expose his comrades.

  “Are you goin’ after ’em, Anderson?” asked old Mr. Borton, with unfailing faith in the town’s chief officer.

  “Them fellers is in Asia by this time,” vouchsafed Mr. Crow scornfully, forgetting that less than a week had elapsed since the robbery. He flecked a fly from his detective’s badge and then struck viciously at the same insect when it straightway attacked his G.A.R. emblem.

  “I doubt it,” said Mr. Lamson. “Like as not they’re right here in this State, mebby in this county. You can’t tell about them slick desperadoes. Hello, Harry! Has anything more been heard from the train robbers?” Harry Squires approached the group with something like news in his face.

  “I should say so,” he said. “The darned cusses robbed the State Express last night at Vanderskoop and got away with thirteen hundred dollars. Say, they’re wonders! The engineer says they’re only five of them.”

  “Why, gosh dern it, Vanderskoop’s only the fourth station west of Boggs City!” exclaimed Anderson Crow, pricking up his official ear. “How in thunder do you reckon they got up here in such a short time?”

  “They probably stopped off on their way back from Asia,” drily remarked Mr. Lamson; but it passed unnoticed.

  “Have you heard anything more about the show, Harry?” asked Jim Borum. “Is she sure to be here?” What did Tinkletown care about the train robbers when a “show” was headed that way?

/>   “Sure. The press comments are very favourable,” said Harry. “They all say that Miss Marmaduke, who plays Rosalind, is great. We’ve got a cut of her and, say, she’s a beauty. I can see myself sitting in the front row next Thursday night, good and proper.”

  “Say, Anderson, I think it’s a dern shame fer Mark Riley to go ’round pastin’ them reward bills over the show pictures,” growled Isaac Porter. “He ain’t got a bit o’ sense.”

  With one accord the crowd turned to inspect two adjacent bill boards. Mark had either malignantly or insanely pasted the reward notices over the nether extremities of Rosalind as she was expected to appear in the Forest of Arden. There was a period of reflection on the part of an outraged constituency.

  “I don’t see how he’s goin’ to remove off them reward bills without scraping off her legs at the same time,” mused Anderson Crow in perplexity. Two housewives of Tinkletown suddenly deserted the group and entered the store. And so it was that the train robbers were forgotten for the time being.

  But Marshal Crow’s reputation as a horse-thief taker and general suppressor of crime constantly upbraided him. It seemed to call upon him to take steps toward the capture of the train robbers. All that afternoon he reflected. Tinkletown, seeing his mood, refrained from breaking in upon it. He was allowed to stroke his whiskers in peace and to think to his heart’s content. By nightfall his face had become an inscrutable mask, and then it was known that the President of Bramble County’s Horse-Thief Detective Association was determined to fathom the great problem. Stealthily he went up to the great attic in his home and inspected his “disguises.” In some far-off period of his official career he had purchased the most amazing collection of false beards, wigs and garments that any stranded comedian ever disposed of at a sacrifice. He tried each separate article, seeking for the best individual effect; then he tried them collectively. It would certainly have been impossible to recognise him as Anderson Crow. In truth, no one could safely have identified him as a human being.

  “I’m goin’ after them raskils,” he announced to Andrew Gregory and the whole family, as he came down late to take his place at the head of the supper table.