Melville Davisson Post
I.
IAM tired of your devilish hints, why can’t you come out with it, man?” The speaker was half angry.
Parks leaned forward on the table, his face was narrow and full of cunning. “Mystery is your long suit, Hogarth, I compliment you.”
“You tire me,” said the man; “if you have any reason for bringing me here at this hour of the night I want to know it.”
“Would I be here in the office at two o’clock in the morning, with a detective and without a reason? Listen, I will be plain with you. I must get Mr. Mason out of New York; he is going rapidly, and unless he gets a sea-voyage and a change of country he will be in the mad-house. He is terribly thin and scarcely sleeps any more at all. No human being can imagine what a monster he is to manage, or in what an infinitely difficult position I have been placed. When we came here from Paris, after the unfortunate collapse of the canal syndicate, the situation that confronted me was of the most desperate character. Mr. Mason was practically a bankrupt. He had spent his entire fortune in a mighty effort to right the syndicate, and would have succeeded if it had not been for the treachery of some of the French officials. He had been absent so long from New York that his law practice was now entirely lost, and, worst of all, this mysterious tilt of his mind would render it utterly impossible for him ever to regain his clientage. For a time I was in despair. Mr. Mason was, of course, utterly oblivious to the situation, and there was no one with whom I could advise, even if I dared attempt it. When everything failed in Paris, Mr. Mason collapsed, physically. He was in the hospital for months; when he came out, his whole nature was wrenched into this strange groove, although his mind was apparently as keen and powerful as ever and his wonderful faculties unimpaired. He seemed now possessed by this one idea, that all the difficulties of men were problems and that he could solve them.
“A few days after we landed in New York, I wandered into the court-house; a great criminal had been apprehended and was being tried for a desperate crime. I sat down and listened. As the case developed, it occurred to me that the man had botched his work fearfully, and that if he could have had Mr. Mason plan his crime for him he need never have been punished. Then the inspiration came. Why not turn this idea of Mr. Mason to account?
“I knew that the city was filled with shrewd, desperate men, who feared nothing under high heaven but the law, and were willing to take desperate chances with it. I went to some of them and pointed out the mighty aid that I could give; they hooted at the idea, and said that crime was crime and the old ways were the best ways.”
Parks paused and looked up at the detective. “They have since changed their minds,” he added.
“What did Mr. Mason think of your method of securing clients?” said Hogarth.
“That was my greatest difficulty,” continued Parks. “I resorted to every known trick in order to prevent him from learning how the men happened to come to him, and so far I have been successful. He has never suspected me, and has steadily believed that those who came to him with difficulties were attracted by his great reputation. By this means, Mr. Mason has made vast sums of money, but what he has done with it is a mystery. I have attempted to save what I could, but I have not enough for this extended trip to the south of France. Now, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” answered the detective, “you want to find where his money is hidden.”
“No,” said Parks, with a queer smile, “I am not seeking impossible ventures. What Randolph Mason chooses to make a mystery will remain so to the end of time, all the detectives on the earth to the contrary.”
“What do you want, then?” asked Hogarth, doggedly.
Parks drew his chair nearer to the man and lowered his voice. “My friend,” he said, “this recent change in the administration of the city has thrown you out on your uppers. Your chief is gone for good, and with him all your hopes in New York. It was a rout, my friend, and they have all saved themselves but you. What is to become of you?”
“God knows!” said the detective. “Of course I am still a member of the agency, but there is scarcely bread in that.”
“This world is a fighting station,” continued Parks. “The one intention of the entire business world is robbery. The man on the street has no sense of pity; he grows rich because he conceives some shrewd scheme by which he is enabled to seize and enjoy the labor of others. His only object is to avoid the law; he commits the same wrong and causes the same resulting injury as the pirate. The word ‘crime,’ Hogarth, was invented by the strong with which to frighten the weak; it means nothing. Now listen, since the thing is a cutthroat game, why not have our share of the spoil?” Hogarth’s face was a study; Parks was shrewdly forcing the right door.
“My friend,” the little man went on, “we can make a fortune by a twist of the wrist, and go scot-free with the double eagles clinking in our pockets. We can make it in a day, and thereafter wag our heads at fortune and snap our fingers at the law.”
“How?” asked the detective. The door had broken and swung in.
“I will tell you,” said Parks, placing his hand confidentially on the man’s shoulder. “Mr. Mason has a plan. I know it, because yesterday he was walking up Broadway, apparently oblivious to everything. Suddenly his face cleared up, and he stopped and snapped his fingers. ‘Good!’ he said, ‘a detective could do it, and it would be child play, child play.’”
Hogarth’s countenance fell. “Is that all?” he said.
“All!” echoed Parks, bringing his hand down on the table. “Is n’t that enough, man? You don’t know Randolph Mason. If he has a plan by which a detective can make a haul, it is good, do you hear, and it goes.”
“What does this mean, Parks?” said a voice.
The little clerk sprang up and whirled round. In his vehemence he had not noticed the door-way. Randolph Mason stood in the shadow. He was thin and haggard, his face was shrunken and unshaven, and he looked worn and exhausted.
“Oh, sir,” said Parks, gathering himself quickly, “this is my friend Braxton Hogarth, and he is in great trouble. He came here to ask me for help; we have been talking over the matter for many hours, and I don’t see any way out for him.”
“Where has the trap caught him?” said Mason, coming into the room.
“It is an awful strange thing, sir,” answered the clerk. “Mr. Hogarth’s only son is the teller of the Bay State Bank in New Jersey. This morning they found that twenty thousand dollars was missing from the vault. No one had access to the vault yesterday but young Hogarth. The cashier was in this city, the combination was not known to any others. There is no evidence of robbery. The circumstances are so overwhelming against young Hogarth that the directors went to him and said plainly that if the money was in its place by Saturday night he would not be prosecuted, and the matter would be hushed up. He protested his innocence, but they simply laughed and would not listen to him. The boy is prostrated, and we know that he is innocent, but there is no way on earth to save him unless Mr. Hogarth can raise the money, which is a hopeless impossibility.”
Parks paused, and glanced at Hogarth, the kind of glance that obtains among criminals when they mean, “back up the lie.”
The detective buried his face in his hands.
“The discretion of Fate is superb,” said Mason. “She strikes always the vulnerable spot. She gives wealth if one does not need it; fame, if one does not care for it; and drives in the harpoon where the heart is.”
“The strange thing about it all, sir,” continued Parks, “is that Mr. Hogarth has been a detective all his life and now is a member of the Atlantic Agency. It looks like the trailed thing turning on him.”
“A detective!” said Mason, sharply. “Ah, there is the open place, and there we will force through.”
The whole appearance of the man changed in an instant. He straightened up, and his face lighted with interest. He drew up a chair and sat down at the table, and there, in the chill dark of that November morning, he unfolded the daring details of his cross-plot, and the men beside him stared in wonder.
II.
About one o’clock on Thursday afternoon, William Walson, manager of the great Oceanic Coal Company, stepped out of the Fairmont Banking House in the Monongahela mining regions of West Virginia. It was pay-day at his mine, and he carried a black leather satchel in his hand containing twenty thousand dollars in bills. At this time the gigantic plant of this company was doing an enormous business. The labor unions of the vast Pennsylvania coal regions were out on the bitterest and most protracted strike of all history. The West Virginia operators were moving the heavens in order to supply the market; every man who could hold a pick was at work under the earth day and night.
The excitement was something undreamed of. The region was overrun with straggling workmen, tramps, “hobos,” and the scum criminals of the cities, and was transformed as if by magic into a hunting-ground where the keen human ferret stalked the crook and the killer with that high degree of care and patience which obtains only with the man-hunter.
William Walson was tall, with short red beard and red hair, black eyes, and rather a sharp face; his jaw was square, bespeaking energy, but his expression was rather that of a man who won by the milder measures of conciliation and diplomacy. For almost a month he had been taxing his physical strength to the uttermost, and on this afternoon he looked worn and tired out utterly. He walked hurriedly from the bank door to the buck-board, untied the horse, raised the seat, and put the satchel down in the box under the cushion, then climbed in and drove away.
The great plant of the Oceanic Coal Company was on a branch of the railroad, some considerable distance from the main line by rail, but only a few miles over the hills from the Fairmont Junction. William Walson struck out across the country road. The sun shone warm. He had lost so much sleep that presently he began to feel drowsy, and as the horse jogged along he nodded in his seat.
About a mile from the town, at the foot of a little hill in the woods, a man stepped suddenly out from the fence and caught the horse by the bridle. Walson started and looked up. As he did so the stranger covered him with a revolver and bade him put up his hands and get out of the buck-board. The coal dealer saw in a moment that the highwayman meant what he said, and that resistance would be folly. He concluded also that he was confronted by one of the many toughs at large in the neighborhood, and that the fellow’s intention was simply to rob him of his personal effects and such money as he might have in his pockets; it was more than probable that the man before him had no knowledge of the money hidden under the seat and would never discover it.
“Tie your horse, sir,” said the highwayman.
Walson loosed the hitch strap and fastened the horse to a small tree by the roadside.
“Turn your back to me,” said the robber, “and put out your hands behind you.” The coal dealer obeyed, thinking that the fellow was now going through his pockets. To his surprise and astonishment the man came up close behind him and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.
“What do you mean by this?” cried Watson, whirling round on his heels.
The big man with the revolver grinned. “You will find out soon enough,” he said. “Move along; the walking is good.”
William Watson was utterly at sea. He could not understand why this man should kidnap him, and start back with him to the town. What could the highwayman possibly mean by this queer move? At any rate it was evident that he had no knowledge of the money, and Walson reasoned shrewdly that, if he remained quiet and submissive, the vast sum in the buck-board would escape the notice of this erratic thief.
The two men walked along in silence for some time; the highwayman was big, with keen gray eyes and a shrewd face; he seemed curiously elated. When the two came finally to the brow of the hill overlooking the town, Walson stopped and turned to his strange captor; he was now convinced that the fellow was a lunatic.
“Sir,” he said, “what in Heaven’s name are you trying to do?”
“Introduce you to your fellows in Sing Sing, my friend,” answered the highwayman. “The gang will be glad to welcome Red Lead Jim.”
It all came to the coal dealer in a moment “Oh, you miserable ass!” he cried, “what an infernal mistake! My name is William Walson, I am the manager of the Oceanic Coal Company, there is twenty thousand dollars in that buck-board. I must go back to it or it will be lost. Here take off these damned handcuffs, and be quick about it.” And he literally danced up and down in the road with rage.
His companion leaned against the fence and roared with laughter. “You are a smooth one, Red, but the job and your twenty thousand will keep.”
Walson’s face changed. “Come,” he said, “let us get this fool business over,” and he began to run down the hill to the town, his captor following close beside him.
Men came out into the street in astonishment when they saw the strange pair. Walson was dusty and cursing like a pirate. He called upon the crowd that was quickly gathering, to identify him and arrest his idiotic kidnapper. The people explained that Mr. Walson was all right, that he was a prominent citizen, that it was all some horrible mistake. But the fellow hung on to his man until he got him to the jail. There the sheriff freed Walson and demanded an explanation. The mob crowded around to hear what it all meant. The stranger seemed utterly astonished at the way the people acted. He said that his name was Braxton Hogarth, that he was a New York detective, an employee of the Atlantic Agency; that he was trailing one Red Lead Jim, a famous bank cracker who was wanted in New York for robbery and murder; that he had tracked him to West Virginia, and that coming suddenly upon William Walson in the road he had believed him to be the man, had arrested him, and brought him at once to the town in order to have him extradited. He said that if Walson was not the man it was the most remarkable case of mistaken identity on record. He then produced a photograph, to which was attached a printed description. The photograph was an excellent likeness of Walson, and the description fitted him perfectly. The coal dealer was dumbfounded and joined with the crowd in admitting the excusableness of the detective’s mistake under the very peculiar circumstances, but he said that the story might not be true, and asked the sheriff to hold the detective in custody until he was fully convinced that everything was as Hogarth said. The detective declared himself perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, and William Walson secured a horse and hurried back to his buck-board.
The perilous vocation of Hogarth had inured him to tragic positions. He was thoroughly master of his hand and was playing it with quiet and accurate precision. He asked the sheriff to telegraph the agency and inform it of the situation and said that it would immediately establish the truth of his statement.
That night the mining town of Fairmont was in an uproar. The streets were filled with excited men loudly discussing the great misfortune that had so strangely befallen the manager of the Oceanic Coal Company. It had happened that when William Walson returned to his buck-board, after his release by the sheriff, he found the horse lying dead by the roadside, and the buck-board a heap of ashes and broken irons. The charred remains of the satchel were found under the heap of rubbish, but it was impossible to determine whether the money had been carried away or destroyed by the fire. A jug that had lately contained liquor was found near by. All the circumstances indicated that the atrocious act was the malicious work of some one of the roving bands of drunken cutthroats. But the wonder of it all was the coincidence of the detective and the glaring boldness of the fiend “hobos.”
The Atlantic Agency of New York, answered the sheriff’s telegram immediately, confirming Hogarth’s statement, and referring to the District Attorney of New York and the Chief of Police; These answered that the agency was all right and that its statement should be accepted as correct. Finally, as a last precaution, the sheriff and the president of the Oceanic Coal Company talked with the New York Police Chief by long-distance telephone. When they were at length assured that the detective’s story was true, he was released and asked to go with the president before the board of directors. Here he went fully over the whole matter, explaining that the man, Red Lead Jim, was a desperate character, and for that reason he had been so severe and careful, not daring to risk the drive back to town in the buck-board. When asked his theory of the robbery, he said that the first impression of the people was undoubtedly correct, that the country was full of wandering gangs of desperate blacklegs, that the money being in paper was perhaps destroyed by the fire and not discovered at all by the thugs in their malicious and drunken deviltry.
The board of directors were not inclined to censure Hogarth, suggesting that after all he had perhaps saved the life of William Walson, as it was evident that the drunken “hobos” would have murdered him if he had been present when they chanced upon the horse and buck-board. Nevertheless, the detective seemed utterly prostrated over the great loss that had resulted from his unfortunate mistake, and left for New York on the first train.
III.
The following night two men stepped from the train at Jersey City and turned down towards the ferry. For a time they walked along in silence; suddenly the big one turned to his companion. “Parks,” he said, “you are a lightning operator, my boy, you should play the mob in a Roman drama.”
“I fixed the ‘hobo’ evidence all right, Hogarth,” answered the other, “and I have not forgotten the trust fund,” whereupon he winked at his big companion and tapped on the breast of his coat significantly.
The detective’s face lighted up and then grew anxious. “Well,” he said, lowering his voice, “are we going to try the other end of it?”
“Why not?” answered the little clerk. “Don’t we need the trust fund doubled?”
IV.
The great gambling house of Morehead, Opstein, & Company was beginning to be deserted by the crowd that had tempted the fickle goddess all night long to their great hurt. It was now four o’clock in the morning, and only one or two of the more desperate losers hung on to play. Snakey the Parson, a thin delicate knave, with a long innocent, melancholy face, was dealing faro for the house. “Snakey” was a “special” in the parlance of the guild; his luck was known to come in “blizzards”; if he won, to use the manager’s language, he won out through the ceiling, and if he lost, he lost down to his health. For this reason Snakey the Parson was not a safe man as a “regular,” but he was a golden bonanza when the cards went his way, and to-night they were going his way.
The stragglers drifted out one by one and the dealer was preparing to quit the table when the door opened and two men entered: one was a little old man with a white beard and a lean, hungry face; the other was a big, half-drunken cattle drover. The two came up to the table and stood for a moment looking at the lay-out. A faint smile passed over the face of Snakey the Parson, he knew the types well, they were western cattle-shippers with money.
“How high do ye go, mister?” said the little man.
“Against the sky,” answered the dealer, sadly.
“Then I’ll jist double me pile,” said the little old man, reaching down into his pocket and fishing up a roll of bills wrapped in a dirty old newspaper. He counted the money and placed it upon the table.
The dealer looked up in astonishment. “Ten thousand!” he said.
“Yep,” answered the old man, “an I want ter bet hit on the jack er spades.”
The dealer pushed a stack of yellow chips across the table.
“No, siree,” said the player, “you don’t give me no buttons. I’ ll put my pile on this side and you put your pile on t’other side, and the winner takes ‘em.”
Snakey the Parson wavered a moment. It was against the rules, but here was too good a thing to lose. He turned, counted out the money, and placed it on his right, and began to deal from the box. The cards fell rapidly. For a time the blacks ran on the side of the house. Suddenly they changed and the queen and the ten of spades fell on the left. The dealer saw the card under his thumb and paused. The keen eyes of the old man were fixed on him. He determined to take the long chance, knowing that the loss was only temporary; and the jack of spades came up and fell on the side of the stranger.
With a whoop of joy the old man clutched the money. “I am going to try her agin!” he cried.
“Hold on,” said the big cattle-drover, pushing up to the table; “my wad is as good as you; it is my turn now.”
The dealer grinned. “You can both play, gentlemen,” he said, speaking with a low, sweet accent.
“No, we can’t,” muttered the drover, with the childish obstinacy of a half-drunken man. “I want the whole shooting match to myself; he can have the next whirl at her.”
Thereupon the drover dragged a big red pocket book from somewhere inside his coat, took out a thick, straight package of bills, and laid it down on the table.
“How much?” said the dealer, running his finger over the end of the package.
‘”Same as Abe’s,” said the drover.
“Here,” said the little old man, peevishly, “if you won’t let me play, bet my roll with yourn,” and he pushed the ten thousand of his own money to his companion, and placed the money, which he had won from the bank, in his pocket. The drover took the money and piled it up on the ace of spades.
The dealer’s face grew pensive and sweet; it was all right this time; he was going to round off the night with a golden coup d’ état. He opened the safe behind him, counted out twenty thousand in big bills, and piled it up on one side of the bank. Then he opened the box and began. The old man wandered around the room; the big, half-drunken cattle-shipper hung over the table. Snakey, the Parson scarcely saw either; he was intent on manipulating the box, and his hand darted in and out like a white snake. Suddenly the ace of spades flew out, and fell on the side of the house. The quick dealer clapped his left hand over the box and put out his right for the player’s money. As he did so, the big drover bent forward and thrust a revolver into his face.
“No, you don’t,” he growled, “this is my money and I will not leave it, thank you.”
Snakey the Parson glanced at the man and knew that he had been fooled, but he was composed and clear-headed. Under the box on the right were weapons and the electric button; he began to take his right hand slowly from the table.
“Stop!” said the drover, sharply, “that game won’t work!”
The dealer looked up into the player’s face, and dropped his hands; he was a brave man, and desperate, as gamblers go, but he knew death when he saw it; his face turned yellow and became ghastly, but he did not move.
The drover took up his money from the lay-out, and handed it to the old man. He used his left hand only, and did not take his eyes from the gambler’s face. The old man thrust the bundle of bills in his pocket, and hurried from the room. The gambler sat rigid as a wax figure. The drover waited until his companion had sufficient time to get thoroughly away from the house; then he began to move slowly backward to the door, keeping the gambler covered with the weapon. The faro dealer watched every move of the drover, like a hawk, but he did not attempt to take his hand from the table; the muzzle of the revolver was too rigid; it was simply moving backward from his face in a dead straight line. At the door the drover stopped, drew himself together, then sprang suddenly through and bounded down the stairs.
Snakey the Parson touched the electric button, and as the drover rushed into the street, two policemen caught him by the shoulder.
V
Well,” said the Police Chief, “I am tired of making an ass of myself; Mr. Mason says this cattle drover has committed no crime except a petty assault, and if he is right, I want to know it. That man beats the very devil. Every time I have sent up a case against his protest the judges have pitched me out on my neck, and the thing has got to be cursedly monotonous.”
The District Attorney smiled grimly, and turned around in his chair. “Have you given me all the details?” he said.
“Yes,” answered the official, “just exactly as they occurred.”
The District Attorney arose, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked down at the great man-hunter; there was a queer set to his mouth, and the merest shadow of a twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, my friend,” he said, “you are pitched out on your neck again.”
The official drew a deep breath, and his face fell. “Then it is not robbery?” he said.
“No,” answered the attorney.
“Well,” mused the Police Chief, “this law business is too high for me. I have spent my life dealing with crimes, and I thought I knew one when I saw it; but I give it up, I don’t know the first principles. Why, here is a fellow who voluntarily goes into a gambling house, plays and loses, then draws a revolver and forcibly takes away the money which, by the rules of the play, belongs to the house; robs the dealer by threatening to kill him; steals the bank’s money, and fights his way out. It cannot matter that the man robbed was a lawbreaker himself, or that the crime occurred in a gambling house. It is the law of New York that has been violated; the place and parties are of no importance. Here is certainly the force and the putting in fear that constitute the vital element of robbery; and yet you say it is not robbery. You have me lost all right.”
“My dear sir,” put in the District Attorney, “the vital element of robbery is not the force and terror but is what is called in the books the animus furandi, meaning the intention to steal. The presence of this felonious intent determines whether or not the wrong is a crime. If it be not present there can be no robbery, no matter how great the force, violence, or putting in fear, or how graven serious, or irreparable the resulting injury.
“It is true indeed that the force and terror are elements, but the vital one is the intent. If force and violence one takes his own property from the possession of another, it is no robbery; nor is it robbery for one to take the property of another by violence under the belief that it is his own, or that he has some right to it, or by mistake or misunderstanding, although vast loss be caused thereby and great wrong and hurt result.”
“I have no hope of ever understanding it,” said the Police Chief; “I am only a common man with a short life time.”
“Why, sir,” continued the attorney, “it is as plain as sunlight. Robbery is compounded of larceny and force. It is larceny from the person by violence, but in order to constitute it the property must be taken from the peaceable possession of the party and it must be taken animo furandi. Neither of these happened in the case you state, because the faro dealer, by means of an unlawful game, could not secure any color of right or title to the money which he should win by it. Therefore the money taken was not his property, and could not have been taken from his peaceable possession.
“In the second place, this vital element of robbery, the animus furandi, is totally wanting, for the reason that the player, in forcibly seizing the money which he had lost, was actuated by no intention to steal, but, on the contrary, was simply taking possession of his own property, property to which he had a full legal right and title.”
“But,” put in the officer, “there was the other ten thousand which the old man won, they got away with that; if the game was unlawful they had no right to that.”
“True,” said the lawyer. “The old man had no title to the ten thousand which he had won, but he did not steal it; the dealer gave it to him of his own free will, and the old man had it in his possession by the full voluntary consent of the dealer some time before the resort to violence. There was clearly no crime in this.”
“Damn it all!” said the Police Chief, wearily, “is there no way to get at him, can’t we railroad him before a jury?”
The District Attorney looked at the baffled officer and grinned ominously. “My friend,” he said, “there is no power in Venice can alter a decree established. The courts have time and again passed upon cases exactly similar to this, and have held that there was no crime, except, perhaps, a petty misdemeanor. We could not weather a proceeding on habeas corpus ten minutes; we could never get to a jury. When the judge came to examine the decisions on this question we would go out, as you expressed it, on our necks.”
“Well,” muttered the Police Chief, as he pulled on his coat, “it is just as Randolph Mason said, out he goes.”
The attorney laughed and turned to his desk. The officer crossed to the door, jerked it open, then stopped and faced round. “Mr. District Attorney,” he said, “won’t there be hell to pay when the crooks learn the law?” Then he stalked through and banged the door after him.
The District Attorney looked out of the window and across the street at the dirty row of ugly buildings. “Humph!” he said, “there is something in that last remark of the Chief.”
VI.
Braxton Hogarth, detective, member of the Atlantic Agency, in good standing, now, by right of law and by virtue of his craft, restored to his freedom and identity, stepped back and was swallowed up by the crowd.
The great ocean liner steamed out from the port of New York on its pathless journey to the sunny south of France. Randolph Mason sat in an invalid chair close up to the rail of the deck; he was grim, emaciated, and rigidly ugly. His body was exhausted, worn out utterly long ago, but the fierce mysterious spirit of the man was tireless and wrought on unceasingly.
For a time he was silent, his eyes wide, and his jaw set like a wolf trap. Suddenly he clutched the rail and staggered to his feet.
“Parks,” he muttered,—”Parks, this ship is worth a million dollars. Come with me to the cabin and I will show you how it may be wrested from the owners and no crime committed; do you understand me, Parks? no crime!”
Note.—For the purpose of a complete demonstration, two situations are here combined. In the first, the crime of robbery was committed, but in such a manner as to completely evade an inference of the animus furandi, although it was in fact present and obtained. In the second, there was no robbery, the animus furandi being entirely absent, although it apparently existed in a conspicuous degree.