“Won’t it be frightfully lonely?”
“At times.”
She wanted to cling to him now, dreading the time when she would have to go back to her compartment.
She felt the trainmen must have a master key which could open even a bolted door—in the event of sickness, or if a passenger rang for help. There must be a master key which would manipulate even a bolted door. And if trainmen had such a key, the man who had searched her compartment would have one.
Frank Hardwick, before he died, had warned her. “Remember,” he had said, “they’re everywhere. They’re watching you when you don’t know you’re being watched. When you think you’re running away and into safety, you’ll simply be rushing into a carefully laid trap.”
She hoped there was no trace of the inner tension within her as she smiled at the man on her right. “Do tell me about the cattle business,” she said…
All night she had crouched in her compartment, watching the door, waiting for that first flicker of telltale motion which would show the doorknob was being turned. Then she would scream, pound on the walls of the compartment, make sufficient commotion to spread an alarm.
Nothing had happened. Probably that was the way “they” had planned it. They’d let her spend one sleepless night, then when fatigue had numbed her senses…
The train abruptly slowed. She glanced at her wristwatch, saw that it was 5:55, and knew the train was stopping for the man who had inherited the cattle ranch. Howard Kane was the name he had given her after she had encouraged him to tell her all about himself. Howard Kane, twenty-eight, unmarried, presumably wealthy, his mind scarred by battle experiences, seeking the healing quality of the big, silent places, the one man on the train whom she knew she could trust.
There was a quiet competency about him, one felt he could handle any situation—and now he was getting off the train.
Suddenly a thought gripped her—“They” would hardly be expecting her to take the initiative. “They” always kept the initiative—that was why they always seemed so damnably efficient, so utterly invincible.
They chose the time, the place and the manner—give them that advantage, and…
There wasn’t time to reason the thing out. She jerked open the door of the little closet, whipped out her plaid coat, turned the fur collar up around her neck, and, as the train eased to a creaking stop, opened the door of her compartment and thrust out a cautious head.
The corridor was deserted.
She could hear the vestibule door being opened at the far end of the Pullman.
She ran to the opposite end of the car, fumbled for a moment with the fastenings of the vestibule door on the side next to the double track, then got it open and raised the platform.
Cold morning air, tanged with high elevation, rushed in to meet her, dispelling the train atmosphere, stealing the warmth from her garments.
The train started to move. She scrambled down the stairs, jumped for the graveled roadbed by the side of the track.
The train gathered speed. Dark, silent cars whizzed past her with continuing acceleration until the noise of the wheels became a mere hum. The steel rails readjusted themselves to the cold morning air, giving cracking sounds of protest. Overhead, stars blazed in steady brilliance. To the east was the first trace of daylight.
She looked for a town. There was none.
She could make out the faint outlines of a loading corral and cattle chute. Somewhere behind her was a road. An automobile was standing on this road, the motor running. Headlight sent twin cones of illumination knifing the darkness, etching into brilliance the stunted sagebrush shivering nervously under the impact of a cold north wind.
Two men were talking. A door slammed. She started running frantically.
“Wait!” she called. “Wait for me!”
Back on the train the fat man, fully dressed and shaved, contemplated the open vestibule door, then padded back to the recently vacated compartment and walked in.
He didn’t even bother to search the baggage that had been left behind. Instead he sat down in the chair, held a telegraph blank against a magazine, and wrote out his message:
THE BUNGLING SEARCH TRICK DID THE JOB. SHE’S LEFT THE TRAIN. IT ONLY REMAINS TO CLOSE THE TRAP. I’LL GET OFF AT THE FIRST PLACE WHERE I CAN RENT A PLANE AND CONTACT THE SHERIFF.
Ten minutes later the fat man found the porter. “I find the elevation bothering me,” he said. “I’m going to have to leave the train. Get the conductor.”
“You won’t get no lower by gettin’ off,” the porter said.
“No, but I’ll get bracing fresh air and a doctor who’ll give me a heart stimulant. I’ve been this way before. Get the conductor.”
This time the porter saw the twenty-dollar bill in the fat man’s fingers.
Seated between the two men in the warm interior of the car, she sought to concoct a convincing story.
Howard Kane said, by way of introduction, “This is Buck Doxey. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name last night.”
“Nell Lindsay,” she said quickly.
Buck Doxey, granite-faced, kept one hand on the steering wheel while he doffed a five-gallon hat. “Pleased to meet yuh, ma’am.”
She sensed his cold hostility, his tight-lipped disapproval.
Howard Kane gently prodded for an explanation.
“It was a simple case of cause and effect,” she said, laughing nervously. “It was so stuffy in the car I didn’t sleep at all.
“So,” she went on quickly, “I decided that I’d get out for a breath of fresh air. When the train slowed and I looked at my wristwatch I knew it was your stop and…Well, I expected the train would be there for at least a few minutes. I couldn’t find a porter to get the vestibule open, so I did it myself, and jumped down to the ground. That was where I made my mistake.”
“Go on,” he said.
“At a station you step down to a platform that’s level with the tracks. But here I jumped onto a slanting shoulder of gravel, and sprawled flat. When I got up, the step of the car was so far above me…Well, you have to wear skirts to understand what I mean.”
Kane nodded gravely. Buck turned his head and gave Kane a quartering glance.
She said, “I guess I could have made it at that if I’d had sense enough to pull my skirt all the way up to the hips, but I couldn’t make it on that first try and there wasn’t time for a second one. The train started to move. Good heavens, they must have just thrown you off!”
“I’m traveling light,” Kane said.
“Well,” she told him, “that’s the story. Now just what do I do?”
“Why, you accept our hospitality, of course.”
“I couldn’t…couldn’t wait here for the next train?”
“Nothing stops here except to discharge passengers coming from a division point,” he said.
“But there’s a…station there. Isn’t there someone on duty?”
“Only when cattle are being shipped,” Buck Doxey explained. “This is a loading point.”
“Oh.”
She settled back against the seat, and was conscious of a reassuring masculine friendship on her right side, a cold detachment on her left side.
“I suppose it’s horribly ravenous of me, but do we get to the ranch for breakfast?”
“I’m afraid not,” Kane said. “It’s slow going. Only sixty feet of the road is paved.”
“Sixty feet?”
“That’s right. We cross the main transcontinental highway about five miles north of here.”
“What do we do about breakfast?”
“Well,” Kane said, “in the trunk of the car there’s a coffee pot and a canteen of water. I’m quite certain Buck brought along a few eggs and some ham…”
“You mean you stop right out here in the open and cook?”
/> “When yuh stop here, you’re in the open, ma’am,” Buck said and somehow made it seem his words were in answer to some unjustified criticism.
She gave him her best smile. “Would it be impertinent to ask when?”
“In this next coulee…right here…right now.”
The road slanted down to a dry wash that ran east and west. The perpendicular north bank broke the force of the north wind. Buck attested to the lack of traffic on the road by stopping the car squarely in the ruts.
They watched the sun rise over the plateau country, and ate breakfast. She hoped that Buck Doxey’s cold disapproval wouldn’t communicate itself to Howard Kane.
When Buck produced a battered dishpan, she said, “As the only woman present I claim the right to do the dishes.”
“Women,” Buck said, “are…” and abruptly checked himself.
She laughingly pushed him aside and rolled up her sleeves. “Where’s the soap?”
As she was finishing the last dish she heard the motor of the low-flying plane.
All three looked up.
The plane, which had been following the badly rutted road, banked into a sharp turn.
“Sure givin’ us the once-over,” Buck said, his eyes steady on Kane’s face. “One of ’em has binoculars and he’s as watchful as a cattle buyer at a loading chute. Don’t yuh think it’s about time we find out what we’ve got into, Boss?”
“I suppose it is,” Kane said. Before her startled mind could counter his action, Buck Doxey picked up the purse which she had left lying on the running-board of the car.
She flew toward him.
Doxey’s bronzed, steel fingers wrapped around her wet wrist. “Take it easy, ma’am,” he said. “Take it easy.”
He pushed her back, found her driving license. “The real name,” he drawled, “seems to be Jane Marlow.”
“Anything else?” Kane asked.
“Gobs of money, lipstick, keys and…Gosh, what a bankroll.”
She went for him blindly.
Doxey said, “Now, ma’am, I’m goin’ to have to spank yuh if yuh keep on like this.”
The plane circled, its occupants obviously interested in the scene on the ground below.
“Now—here’s something else,” Doxey said, taking out a folded newspaper clipping.
She suddenly went limp. There was no use in further pretense.
Doxey read aloud, “ ‘Following the report of an autopsy surgeon, police, who had never been entirely satisfied that the unexplained death of Frank Hardwick was actually a suicide, are searching for his attractive secretary, Jane Marlow. The young woman reportedly had dinner with Hardwick in a downtown restaurant the night of his death.
“ ‘Hardwick, after leaving Miss Marlow, according to her story, went directly to the apartment of Eva Ingram, a strikingly beautiful model who has however convinced police that she was dining out. Within a matter of minutes after entering the Ingram apartment, Hardwick either jumped or fell from the eighth story window.
“ ‘With the finding of a witness who says Frank Hardwick was accompanied at least as far as the apartment door by a young woman whose description answers that of Jane Marlow, and evidence indicating several thousand dollars was removed from a concealed floor safe in Hardwick’s office, police are anxious once more to question Miss Marlow. So far their efforts have definitely not been crowned with success.’
“And here’s a picture of this young lady,” Buck said, “with some more stuff under it.
“ ‘Jane Marlow, secretary of scientist who jumped from apartment window to his death, is now sought by police after witness claims to have seen her arguing angrily with Frank Hardwick when latter was ringing bell at front door of apartment house from which Hardwick fell or jumped to sidewalk.’ ”
Overhead, the plane suddenly ceased its circling and took off in a straight line to the north.
* * *
—
As the car proceeded northward, Buck put on speed, deftly avoiding the bad places in the road.
Jane Marlow, who had lapsed into hopeless silence, tried one more last desperate attempt when they crossed the paved road. “Please,” she said, “let me out here. I’ll catch a ride back to Los Angeles and report to the police.”
Kane’s eyes asked a silent question of the driver.
“Nope,” Buck said decisively. “That plane was the sheriff’s scout plane. He’ll expect us to hold you. I don’t crave to have no more trouble over women.”
“All right,” Jane said in a last burst of desperation, “I’ll tell you the whole story. Then I’ll leave it to your patriotism. I was secretary to Frank Hardwick. He was working on something that had to do with cosmic rays.”
“I know,” Doxey interrupted sarcastically. “And he dictated his secret formula to you.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, “but he did know that he was in danger. He told me that if anything happened to him, to take something, which he gave me, to a certain individual.”
“Just keep on talking,” Buck said. “Tell us about the money.”
Her eyes were desperate. “Mr. Hardwick had a concealed floor safe in the office. He left reserve cash there for emergencies. He gave me the combination, told me that if anything happened to him, I was to go to that safe, take the money and deliver it and a certain paper to a certain scientist in Boston.”
Buck’s smile of skepticism was certain to influence Kane even more than words.
“Frank Hardwick never jumped out of any window,” she went on. “They were waiting for him, and they threw him out.”
“Or,” Buck said, “a certain young lady became jealous, followed him, got him near an open window and then gave a sudden, unexpected shove. It has been done, you know.”
“And people have told the truth,” she blazed, “I don’t enjoy what I’m doing. I consider it a duty to my country—and I’ll probably be murdered, just as Frank Hardwick was.”
“Now listen,” Kane said. “Nice little girls don’t jump off trains before daylight in the morning and tell the kind of stories you’re telling. You got off that train because you were running away from someone.”
She turned to Kane. “I was hoping that you would understand.”
“He understands,” Buck said, and laughed.
After that she was silent…
Overhead, from time to time, the plane came circling back. Once it was gone for nearly forty-five minutes and she dared to hope they had thrown it off the track, but later she realized it had only gone to refuel and then it was back above them once more.
It was nearly nine when Buck turned off the rutted road and headed toward a group of unpainted, squat, log cabins which seemed to be bracing themselves against the cold wind while waiting for the winter snow. Back of the buildings were timbered mountains.
The pilot of the plane had evidently spotted the ranch long ago. Hardly had Buck turned off the road than the plane came circling in for a landing.
Jane Marlow had to lean against the cold wind as she walked from the car to the porch of the cabin. Howard Kane held the door open for her, and she found herself inside a cold room which fairly reeked of masculine tenancy, with a paper-littered desk, guns, deer and elk horns.
Within a matter of seconds she heard the pound of steps on the porch, the door was flung open, and the fat man and a companion stood on the threshold.
“Well, Jane,” the fat man said, “you gave us quite a chase, didn’t you?” He turned to the others.
“Reckon I’d better introduce myself, boys.” He reached in his pocket, then took out a wallet and tossed it carelessly on the desk.
“I’m John Findlay of the FBI,” he said.
“That’s a lie,” she said. “Can’t you understand? This man is an enemy. Those credentials are forged.”
“Well, ma’
am,” the other newcomer said, stepping forward, “there ain’t nothing wrong with my credentials. I’m the sheriff here, and I’m taking you into custody.”
He took her purse, said, “You just might have a gun in here.”
He opened the purse. Findlay leaned over to look, said, “It’s all there.”
“Come on, Miss Marlow,” the sheriff said, “You’re going back in that plane.”
“That plane of yours holds three people?” Findlay asked.
The sheriff looked appraisingly at the fat man. “Not us three.”
“I can fly the crate,” Findlay said. “I’ll take the prisoner in, lock her up and then fly back for you and…”
“No, no, no!” Jane Marlow screamed. “Don’t you see, can’t you realize, this man isn’t an officer. I’d never get there. He…”
“Shut up,” the sheriff said.
“Sheriff, please! You’re being victimized. Call up the FBI and you’ll find out that…”
“I’ve already called up the Los Angeles office of the FBI,” the sheriff said.
Kane’s brows leveled. “Was that because you were suspicious, Sheriff?”
“Findlay himself suggested it.”
Jane was incredulous. “You mean they told you that…?”
“They vouched for him in every way,” the sheriff said. “They told me he’d been sent after Jane Marlow, and to give him every assistance. Now I’ve got to lock you up and…”
“She’s my responsibility, Sheriff,” Findlay said.
The sheriff frowned, then said. “Okay, I’ll fly back and send a deputy out with a car.”
“Very well,” Findlay agreed. “I’ll see that she stays put.”
Jane Marlow said desperately, “I presume that when Mr. Findlay told you to call the FBI office in Los Angeles, he gave you the number so you wouldn’t have to waste time getting it through an operator, didn’t he?”
“Why not?” the sheriff said, smiling good-humoredly. “He’d be a hell of an FBI man if he didn’t know his own telephone number.”
The fat man fished a cigar from his pocket. Biting off the end and scraping a match into flame, he winked at the sheriff.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 69