Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 22/Number 2/The Fluctuating Package/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TRAIL OF THE WEASEL.
I SUPPOSE Weasel Morrison had something to say about me, Mr. Ruthven?" said McKenzie.
"He told me to tell you he was on your trail," answered Ruthven, "and he made threats as to what he would do. I wanted to warn you so you could take measures to protect yourself. The officers will take Morrison to Monte Carlo to-day. They will stop off here with the prisoner, hoping the crook will make some important confession."
Lois grew rigid in her chair. Her father stared at Ruthven keenly for a moment, then tossed his hands in helpless resignation. "What time will they get here?" he asked.
"Late this afternoon."
"At that time, then, my fortunes go to smash; but I shall not be the first man to sacrifice for a principle everything that makes life worth while. The hardest thing for me to bear is the unhappiness all this must bring to Lois." He turned tenderly to his daughter. "Don't you think," he asked, "that you had better leave us while I talk frankly with Mr. Ruthven? In so far as I may, I am going to discount the revelations Morrison intends to make. What I do will not help much, and it will not be pleasant for you to stay and hear all the dreary story gone over again, Lois."
"I shall stay, father," returned the girl firmly.
McKenzie made no further objection. "Mr. Ruthven," said he, folding and unfolding the two papers in his hands, "quite a number of years ago a man whom we will call Briggs lived in a large city in the East. He was a machinist, and accounted a good one; he was married and had one child, a daughter. Hard luck came to, Briggs, but through no fault of his own. Industrial depression swept the country, and he was thrown out of employment. He was dead broke, and there was no work to be had. Pawning what little property he had to keep his wife and daughter from starvation, he made his way to Chicago in the hope of finding better opportunities in the Middle West. In this he was disappointed, and his luck went from bad to worse. Then, one night, in the fifteen-cent lodging house where he made his headquarters, he met Weasel Morrison."
McKenzie paused, his eyes fixed reflectively on space. Presently he roused himself with a start and continued: "Morrison had come to the lodging house looking for a pal whom he wanted to help in 'pulling off a job.' Something about Briggs attracted him, and he tried to get Briggs to lend a hand in the criminal work, promising big returns. Briggs indignantly refused, and threatened to call the police. Morrison left him, then, and went away with a snaky smile—a smile that was confident and full of cunning. Two days later, Briggs got a letter from his wife begging for money and saying that she and the girl were close to starvation."
McKenzie paused for a moment, and then resumed his story: "That night Morrison came again, and renewed his offers. Briggs resisted them, as he had done before. Then another letter arrived from the East, from Briggs' daughter this time, saying that her mother was very ill and that there was nothing with which to pay the doctor or to buy food. Morrison presented himself once more, for he seemed to have a devilish insight into Briggs' affairs and was timely in his suggestions of crime. Briggs was near to yielding, but a sudden horror rose up in him and he spurned Morrison and his fiendish suggestions and fled from him and from temptation. Next day, in a crowd on State Street, a man's pocket was picked."
Again McKenzie paused, striving to keep calm. Then he continued: "As fate would have it, Briggs, in his tattered clothes, was in that crowd, and close to the man who had been robbed. The first thing he knew he was arrested and—most damning evidence of all—the stolen pocketbook was found in his possession. He was arraigned, his character was impeached by plain-clothes men who had seen him with Weasel Morrison, and Briggs would not give his real name because he wanted to save his wife and child from disgrace. He was sent to the penitentiary for five years—under the name of Luther Briggs. That innocent man, Mr. Ruthven, was Arlo McKenzie."
It was a simple recital, told in a voice broken with emotion.
Ruthven was astounded. "You—were sent to prison!" he exclaimed; "and for a crime you did not commit!"
"That is the truth, Mr. Ruthven," declared McKenzie earnestly, solemnly. "I was the victim of a fiendish plot. My wife died while I was in the penitentiary, and a brother—who believed me guilty and chose to abandon me—gave a home to Lois, provided for her as for his own child, and even sent her to Vassar College. When I came out of prison, I was bitter against the world. It would have been easy for me, then, to take the downward path, but Lois"—his voice was almost reverent—"became my mainstay. I came to Burt City, assumed my right name, and went to work at my trade. Later, Lois came on and joined me. Fortune has been kind. I have prospered in business and been honored politically, and the name of Arlo McKenzie is one with integrity and honor. But after this evening I shall be branded as an ex-convict, and black disgrace will cover me and mine."
His strong hands clenched spasmodically on the chair arm, although a fire of defiance burned in his eyes.
"This will not be!" breathed Lois quiveringly. "You will not be made to suffer for a wrong you never committed! Father, you have borne enough—you will not be asked to bear more!"
"I shall face what I must, and hope for the best."
"And is that all Morrison has against you?" asked Ruthven. "Just because you refused to help him in his criminal work, has he"
"Just a moment, please!" McKenzie interrupted. "A little more than a week ago I received a box of oranges from some unknown shipper. Inside the box was a package and a letter. The package contained tools. This is the letter. I want you to read it." He passed the white sheet to Ruthven, and the latter read:
- You've turned straight, I hear, and so has wily Nate, the flimflammer. Now I can use you, and if you breathe a whisper against me I can pull down your honors and emoluments like a house of cards about your ears. I want to send the inclosed tools to Dry Wash; and I dare not keep them in my possession, as an officer is after me. To be caught with them will spell disaster. And I guess you won't care to have them around, either. Nate Wylie is freighter for Thomas Barton, the cattle baron, at Dry Wash. He travels between the ranch and town. Wylie is no friend of mine, and would do nothing for me, but you have done him a good turn, and he would do anything for you. Send these tools on to him a week from Tuesday or Wednesday, by express, and tell him to keep them under cover until they are called for. Warn him that if he doesn't do this, I will smoke him out, and you, too. I don't care how you arrange the matter, just so it covers the work. I will be on Seventeen, that passes through Burt City at eleven a.m. one week from Wednesday. Be at the station to get word to me as to what you have done. Fail in this, and all Burt City shall know you for what you are. W. M.
Here was a fiendish threat, a double-edged sword suspended by a thread over McKenzie by the machinations of Morrison. It was like the scheming scoundrel, as Ruthven knew him.
"What did you do?" asked Ruthven, in a low voice.
"I was frantic," answered McKenzie. "What could I do? Morrison had found me out, and not only myself but poor Nate Wiley as well. Wiley and I were prison mates. When Wiley got out, after doing his time, he wrote to me, declaring that he was 'going straight' and wanted an honest job. I got it for him from Thomas Barton. Do you, can you, understand the position I was in?" asked McKenzie passionately.
"It almost killed me," he continued. "But I had on hand a kit of burglar tools, the mere possession of which was a crime. I counseled with Lois. We must get rid of them. How? All we could think of that would in any way spare Wiley and myself was by sending them along to Dry Wash. Later we could warn the law officers and have them guard against Morrison's prospective criminal operations. It was a heavy burden for us to bear, but we took the only course that promised possible safety for myself and Wylie. I was afraid to send the tools to Wylie direct; and, while I was cudgeling my wits for some way to get the tools to Dry Wash, along came those boots for Barton. I saw a way out, albeit a desperate way.
"I packed those boots myself. In another package, identically like the one containing the boots, I put the burglar tools. Then I took the boots to the office, prepaid the charges, and took a receipt. I asked the driver, Reeves, what the method was for handling outgoing packages. He showed me the whole of it, and I left him, having taken a blank waybill and a blank prepaid slip, and both were stamped by me in the express office like the ones on the original package. In filling in the waybill, I imitated Reeves' writing. Also I stuck the slips to the package of tools identically as Reeves had pasted them on the original package. The idea was to substitute the package of tools for the package containing the boots. The original package was left with Reeves after he had come from the westbound train, and I knew the package would not be sent out until the following day. That would give me time for the substitution, ample time; and only adroitness would be needed to put one package in place of the other."
"But what was the idea?" queried Ruthven, a bit puzzled.
"The idea was to let Morrison carry the package containing the boots, meet Wiley on his way from Dry Wash to the ranch, and exchange one package for the other. If Morrison were caught by the detective with a parcel containing a pair of boots, it would be infinitely better for him than being caught with the burglar kit. As for Wiley, since the package was addressed to Barton—whose integrity could not be questioned—if he was taken with the package of tools, he had a chance to escape suspicion. I wrote Wiley, telling him, in a covert way, what was expected of him. No one could read that letter and get anything against Wiley, Morrison, or me, I am sure."
Ruthven's mind was now plunged into the mysteries of weight, in the matter of the Barton package, and the adroitness of the substitutions. Temporarily he lost sight of the bearing of all this on the fortunes of McKenzie, and drove straight at the mystery.
"About half past three Tuesday afternoon," said Ruthven, "Summerfield weighed the Barton package. At eleven, according to Reeves, it had weighed six pounds. At three-thirty, according to Summerfield, it weighed eight pounds. How were the packages exchanged?"
"I did that," spoke up Lois wearily. "At three o'clock I called at the express office and walked behind the counter. Joe did not see me for a few minutes, as he was busy at his desk. I had a satchel which I was taking to father at the store. Inside the satchel was the package of—of burglar tools. I took out the eight-pound package and left it in place of the six-pound package, which I put in the satchel, and—and then I"
She dropped her face suddenly in her hands, stifling a sob. Her father gazed at her with sadness not unmixed with pride.
"My girl did that for me," he explained softly. "You can understand her feelings, I think, when duty to her father ran so contrary to her own character and—and ideas of loyalty to Summerfield. But we were planning only temporary deception; after the tools were out of our hands and in Morrison's again, we had already made our preparations to turn on the scheming crook. Lois," he admonished, "if you would not break my heart, be brave."
She flung up her head, tears sparkling on her cheeks. "I will, father," she answered. "Go on."
"In my haste to get rid of the burglar kit," proceeded McKenzie, "I had left out a jimmy, a special contrivance of Morrison's. It was necessary to get it into the counterfeit package. How was I to do that? I knew the location of the express storeroom, and I also knew that outgoing packages were usually put there when kept overnight. About four in the afternoon, with the original package under my coat, I skulked down the alley and came up to the rear of the express office. I could look through the window and see the package containing the kit of tools—it lay on a shelf within easy reach. The window was open. It was barred with cross rods, but I slipped one package through between the bars and removed the other in the same way."
"That," commented Ruthven excitedly, "left the six-pound package in the storeroom, and you had the eight-pound package once more in your possession. That is how the package was at the original weight when Reeves returned, and, at Summerfield's instigation, placed it on the scales. But that night," he added, "I called at the office to meet Miss McKenzie, and when the package was weighed by all three of us, it weighed nine pounds."
"The jimmy I had added accounts for the further increase in weight."
"How was that substitution made?"
"After I had placed in the package the instrument I had left out, in my hurry, I went back to the rear of the express office. I was alarmed and disappointed when I saw that the original package was not in the storeroom, and it was impossible to make the substitution there and then. I was at my wits' end—but again Lois helped me out."
"I remember," murmured Ruthven. "Summerfield had left the package out in the front office to investigate it further after he had finished his evening's work."
"Mr. Summerfield left me alone in the office when he went for ice cream," explained Lois, her eyes lowered, "and I handed the six-pound package out to father, who was on the sidewalk in front, and took from him the nine-pound parcel, placing it just where Joe had left the other.
"Oh, it was hard, hard!" she said chokingly; "I was there with you and Joe when the package was weighed and found to have increased to nine pounds, and I saw you place the penciled cross on it for purposes of identification. You both trusted me, and—and I was not worthy of that trust. But," she finished resolutely, "it was all for father—and his cause was a righteous one. I had to play the part I did."
"Lois told me later of the identification mark," proceeded McKenzie, "and I placed it on the original package. I was alarmed, of course, to learn that the Barton shipment was causing so much discussion in the office. If I could, I would have given up the whole thing then and there, and have substituted the original six-pound parcel for the last time and thrown the burglar's kit into a cistern, or got rid of it in some other way. But I dared not. I had gone too far, you understand, and there was a lingering hope that I might save Wylie and myself from the vengeance of Morrison.
"It was necessary to go on," he said despairingly, "absolutely necessary. Truly, we weave a tangled web when we start to deceive. And I was not yet through with my tinkering with the Barton shipment. About ten o'clock I received a telegram—this;" and he handed the yellow slip to Ruthven. The latter read:
- Inclose full canister with goods. M.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"For 'canister' read 'revolver,'" said McKenzie. "The term is used occasionally by crooks. In this instance, of course, Morrison used it to disguise the other word. He was sending the message to a storekeeper; hence, to others not informed, it must have seemed innocent enough. This request made it necessary for me to make another substitution. As I intended turning on Morrison later, by following all his instructions to the letter I hoped to escape some of the blame he would throw on me if matters went wrong for him. Also, I saw a chance to diminish his powers for evil.
"The revolver I secured by a night visit to the store. I filled the canister, but with blank cartridges. By way of the alley I went to the rear of the express office at dead of night, slipped back the old-fashioned sash lock that secured the window, and took out the overweight package and placed the six-pound parcel in its place. I went home to unwrap the kit of tools and pack the revolver with them; and when I wanted to return and exchange the two packages, a night watchman was roaming through the alley, and I was prevented. I gave up the attempt for the night.
"Next morning Lois took the early train for Williamsburg, and rode back from there on Seventeen. She insisted on going, and her plan was to meet Morrison and explain the situation, so that he would know just what had been going on, and what was expected of him. I described Morrison to her so that she would recognize him, and she had little difficulty in doing so. I was to be at the train, ostensibly to meet Lois, and I was to have a satchel containing the original package which I was to give to Morrison.
"I was at the station when Reeves drove up and unloaded the express matter for Seventeen. I had a chance—a desperate one—to make the substitution, and place the package with the revolver on the station platform and get the other one into the satchel. I was all unstrung, and it is a wonder I was not detected. Lois, when she got off the train, threw herself into my arms. 'I have explained everything to him, father,' she whispered; 'now give him the satchel and the Barton package, and let us be thankful we are at last rid of those terrible burglar's tools.' My relief in getting rid of that kit was as great as was Lois'. All that remained after that was to send the letter to Jenkins, the deputy sheriff at Dry Wash. I put it into the mail car on Seventeen.
"While I was at the station, waiting for the train to come, Reeves had weighed the package, and found that it now tipped the scales at ten pounds. I heard him excitedly telling Summerfield about it over the phone. From the station, I went directly home with Lois, for I was badly shaken and needed her comfort and counsel. All we could do, after that, was to wait; yes, and worry. Now you come and tell me that Morrison has been captured, and that he is to be here this afternoon and lay bare my prison record."
McKenzie got up. "That means," he went on huskily, "that all my years of work here in this new country have been thrown away. My friends and neighbors will know I am an ex-convict, and that Lois is the daughter of a man who has 'done time.'" He swayed, and his gaunt face was convulsed with sorrow and pain.
"To-night," he whispered, "I shall be ruined and disgraced—ruined and disgraced! The petty conjuring I did with that express package was wasted effort. It would have been better had I taken the burglar's kit to the Burt City sheriff, told him all just as I have told it now to you, Mr. Ruthven, and thus had the story come from my own lips. Now Morrison will tell it, and—and who knows whether"
His voice failed. Lois ran to his side, put an arm about him, and gently but firmly led him back toward the other room. Ruthven had also risen to his feet, his brain bewildered by all he had heard; but, deep in his heart, he was conscious of profound sympathy for Arlo McKenzie and his daughter.
Lois emerged alone from the rear room, and went straight to Ruthven. "You believe my father?" she asked.
"Absolutely," he answered; "and I am sorry for him—and for you."
"When—when you write Gwen, please make it easy for us," she begged.
"I shall not write Gwen anything about it," said he, "and I shall not speak to any one about it until Morrison has had his way. Then, when I do talk, it will be as a friend of Arlo McKenzie, and as a believer in him."
She caught b»th his hands.
"Oh," she murmured chokingly, "I felt that the man who had befriended Howard Millyar could not turn from father and me! Will you come this afternoon? Will you please be with us when Weasel Morrison faces father? I want you to know all that takes place, Mr. Ruthven."
"I will come," he said, and he went away.