Chapter VII

The Trapping of Birdy Edwards

As McMurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one and

very well suited for such a crime as they had planned. It was on the

extreme fringe of the town and stood well back from the road. In any

other case the conspirators would have simply called out their man, as

they had many a time before, and emptied their pistols into his body;

but in this instance it was very necessary to find out how much he

knew, how he knew it, and what had been passed on to his employers.

It was possible that they were already too late and that the work had

been done. If that was indeed so, they could at least have their

revenge upon the man who had done it. But they were hopeful that

nothing of great importance had yet come to the detective’s knowledge,

as otherwise, they argued, he would not have troubled to write down and

forward such trivial information as McMurdo claimed to have given him.

However, all this they would learn from his own lips. Once in their

power, they would find a way to make him speak. It was not the first

time that they had handled an unwilling witness.

McMurdo went to Hobson’s Patch as agreed. The police seemed to take

particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin—he who had

claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago—actually addressed him

as he waited at the station. McMurdo turned away and refused to speak

with him. He was back from his mission in the afternoon, and saw

McGinty at the Union House.

“He is coming,” he said.

“Good!” said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains

and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling

through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and politics had made

the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The more terrible,

therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had

risen before him the night before.

“Do you reckon he knows much?” he asked anxiously.

McMurdo shook his head gloomily. “He’s been here some time—six weeks at

the least. I guess he didn’t come into these parts to look at the

prospect. If he has been working among us all that time with the

railroad money at his back, I should expect that he has got results,

and that he has passed them on.”

“There’s not a weak man in the lodge,” cried McGinty. “True as steel,

every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.

What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I’ve a mind

to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating

up and see what they can get from him.”

“Well, there would be no harm in that,” McMurdo answered. “I won’t deny

that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come to

harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and though

he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort that

squeals. But still it is not for me to stand between him and you.”

“I’ll fix the old devil!” said McGinty with an oath. “I’ve had my eye

on him this year past.”

“Well, you know best about that,” McMurdo answered. “But whatever you

do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair is

settled up. We can’t afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of all

days.”

“True for you,” said McGinty. “And we’ll learn from Birdy Edwards

himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.

Did he seem to scent a trap?”

McMurdo laughed. “I guess I took him on his weak point,” he said. “If

he could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he’s ready to follow it

into hell. I took his money,” McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad of

dollar notes, “and as much more when he has seen all my papers.”

“What papers?”

“Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about constitutions and

books of rules and forms of membership. He expects to get right down to

the end of everything before he leaves.”

“Faith, he’s right there,” said McGinty grimly. “Didn’t he ask you why

you didn’t bring him the papers?”

“As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and Captain

Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!”

“Ay, I heard of that,” said McGinty. “I guess the heavy end of this

business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft when

we’ve done with him; but however we work it we can’t get past the man

living at Hobson’s Patch and you being there to-day.”

McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “If we handle it right, they can never

prove the killing,” said he. “No one can see him come to the house

after dark, and I’ll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now see

here, Councillor, I’ll show you my plan and I’ll ask you to fit the

others into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He comes at

ten. He is to tap three times, and me to open the door for him. Then

I’ll get behind him and shut it. He’s our man then.”

“That’s all easy and plain.”

“Yes; but the next step wants considering. He’s a hard proposition.

He’s heavily armed. I’ve fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to be

on his guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men in it

where he expected to find me alone. There is going to be shooting, and

somebody is going to be hurt.”

“That’s so.”

“And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township on

top of it.”

“I guess you are right.”

“This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room—same as

you saw when you had a chat with me. I’ll open the door for him, show

him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while I get

the papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how things are

shaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked papers. As he is

reading them I will jump for him and get my grip on his pistol arm.

You’ll hear me call and in you will rush. The quicker the better; for

he is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than I can manage. But

I allow that I can hold him till you come.”

“It’s a good plan,” said McGinty. “The lodge will owe you a debt for

this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the man

that’s coming after me.”

“Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit,” said McMurdo; but

his face showed what he thought of the great man’s compliment.

When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim

evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his Smith

& Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the detective was

to be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long deal table in the

centre, and the big stove at one side. At each of the other sides were

windows. There were no shutters on these: only light curtains which

drew across. McMurdo examined these attentively. No doubt it must have

struck him that the apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting.

Yet its distance from the road made it of less consequence. Finally he

discussed the matter with his fellow lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer,

was an inoffensive little man who was too weak to stand against the

opinion of his comrades, but was secretly horrified by the deeds of

blood at which he had sometimes been forced to assist. McMurdo told him

shortly what was intended.

“And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep

clear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning.”

“Well, indeed then, Mac,” Scanlan answered. “It’s not the will but the

nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at the

colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I’m not made for

it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the worse of

me, I’ll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves for the

evening.”

The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly respectable

citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces would have read

little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths and remorseless

eyes. There was not a man in the room whose hands had not been reddened

a dozen times before. They were as hardened to human murder as a

butcher to sheep.

Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the

formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a

long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible

fidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no

notion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter,

was a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression, and

a yellow parchment skin. He was a capable organizer, and the actual

details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting brain. The

two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows with

determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy, dark

youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of his

disposition. These were the men who assembled that night under the roof

of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.

Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened to

prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin and Cormac were

already half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their ferocity.

Cormac placed his hands on the stove for an instant—it had been

lighted, for the nights were still cold.

“That will do,” said he, with an oath.

“Ay,” said Baldwin, catching his meaning. “If he is strapped to that,

we will have the truth out of him.”

“We’ll have the truth out of him, never fear,” said McMurdo. He had

nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair

was on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever. The others

marked it and applauded.

“You are the one to handle him,” said the Boss approvingly. “Not a

warning will he get till your hand is on his throat. It’s a pity there

are no shutters to your windows.”

McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter. “Sure

no one can spy upon us now. It’s close upon the hour.”

“Maybe he won’t come. Maybe he’ll get a sniff of danger,” said the

secretary.

“He’ll come, never fear,” McMurdo answered. “He is as eager to come as

you can be to see him. Hark to that!”

They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested halfway

to their lips. Three loud knocks had sounded at the door.

“Hush!” McMurdo raised his hand in caution. An exulting glance went

round the circle, and hands were laid upon their weapons.

“Not a sound, for your lives!” McMurdo whispered, as he went from the

room, closing the door carefully behind him.

[Illustration: “Not a sound, for your lives!” McMurdo whispered.]

With strained ears the murderers waited. They counted the steps of

their comrade down the passage. Then they heard him open the outer

door. There were a few words as of greeting. Then they were aware of a

strange step inside and of an unfamiliar voice. An instant later came

the slam of the door and the turning of the key in the lock. Their prey

was safe within the trap. Tiger Cormac laughed horribly, and Boss

McGinty clapped his great hand across his mouth.

“Be quiet, you fool!” he whispered. “You’ll be the undoing of us yet!”

There was a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed

interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger

upon his lip.

He came to the end of the table and looked round at them. A subtle

change had come over him. His manner was as of one who has great work

to do. His face had set into granite firmness. His eyes shone with a

fierce excitement behind his spectacles. He had become a visible leader

of men. They stared at him with eager interest; but he said nothing.

Still with the same singular gaze he looked from man to man.

“Well!” cried Boss McGinty at last. “Is he here? Is Birdy Edwards

here?”

“Yes,” McMurdo answered slowly. “Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy

Edwards!”

There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room

might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a

kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white

faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set

motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a

bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window, while

the curtains were torn from their hangings.

At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged

for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him there with the

stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind

the sights. The Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.

“You’re safer there, Councillor,” said the man whom they had known as

McMurdo. “And you, Baldwin, if you don’t take your hand off your

pistol, you’ll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or by the Lord that

made me—There, that will do. There are forty armed men round this

house, and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you have.

Take their pistols, Marvin!”

There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles. The

men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat round

the table.

“I’d like to say a word to you before we separate,” said the man who

had trapped them. “I guess we may not meet again until you see me on

the stand in the courthouse. I’ll give you something to think over

between now and then. You know me now for what I am. At last I can put

my cards on the table. I am Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton’s. I was chosen

to break up your gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to play. Not a

soul, not one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that I was playing

it. Only Captain Marvin here and my employers knew that. But it’s over

to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!”

The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable

hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.

“Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my chance

of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and there are

sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this night. I’ll

tell you this, that when I was put upon this job I never believed there

was such a society as yours. I thought it was paper talk, and that I

would prove it so. They told me it was to do with the Freemen; so I

went to Chicago and was made one. Then I was surer than ever that it

was just paper talk; for I found no harm in the society, but a deal of

good.

“Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal valleys. When

I reached this place I learned that I was wrong and that it wasn’t a

dime novel after all. So I stayed to look after it. I never killed a

man in Chicago. I never minted a dollar in my life. Those I gave you

were as good as any others; but I never spent money better. But I knew

the way into your good wishes and so I pretended to you that the law

was after me. It all worked just as I thought.

“So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your councils.

Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They can say what they

like, so long as I get you. But what is the truth? The night I joined

you beat up old man Stanger. I could not warn him, for there was no

time; but I held your hand, Baldwin, when you would have killed him. If

ever I have suggested things, so as to keep my place among you, they

were things which I knew I could prevent. I could not save Dunn and

Menzies, for I did not know enough; but I will see that their murderers

are hanged. I gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that when I blew his

house in he and his folk were in hiding. There was many a crime that I

could not stop; but if you look back and think how often your man came

home the other road, or was down in town when you went for him, or

stayed indoors when you thought he would come out, you’ll see my work.”

“You blasted traitor!” hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.

“Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart. You and

your like have been the enemy of God and man in these parts. It took a

man to get between you and the poor devils of men and women that you

held under your grip. There was just one way of doing it, and I did it.

You call me a traitor; but I guess there’s many a thousand will call me

a deliverer that went down into hell to save them. I’ve had three

months of it. I wouldn’t have three such months again if they let me

loose in the treasury at Washington for it. I had to stay till I had it

all, every man and every secret right here in this hand. I’d have

waited a little longer if it hadn’t come to my knowledge that my secret

was coming out. A letter had come into the town that would have set you

wise to it all. Then I had to act and act quickly.

“I’ve nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes I’ll

die the easier when I think of the work I have done in this valley.

Now, Marvin, I’ll keep you no more. Take them in and get it over.”

There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed note to

be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission which he had

accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the early hours of the

morning a beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special

train which had been sent by the railroad company, and made a swift,

unbroken journey out of the land of danger. It was the last time that

ever either Ettie or her lover set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten days

later they were married in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as witness

of the wedding.

The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their

adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain they

struggled. In vain the money of the lodge—money squeezed by blackmail

out of the whole countryside—was spent like water in the attempt to

save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from one who knew

every detail of their lives, their organization, and their crimes was

unshaken by all the wiles of their defenders. At last after so many

years they were broken and scattered. The cloud was lifted forever from

the valley.

McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the

last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his fate. Fifty-odd

had various degrees of imprisonment. The work of Birdy Edwards was

complete.

And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There was

another hand to be played, and yet another and another. Ted Baldwin,

for one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys; so had several

others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For ten years they were out

of the world, and then came a day when they were free once more—a day

which Edwards, who knew his men, was very sure would be an end of his

life of peace. They had sworn an oath on all that they thought holy to

have his blood as a vengeance for their comrades. And well they strove

to keep their vow!

From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that it

was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he went under a

changed name to California, and it was there that the light went for a

time out of his life when Ettie Edwards died. Once again he was nearly

killed, and once again under the name of Douglas he worked in a lonely

canyon, where with an English partner named Barker he amassed a

fortune. At last there came a warning to him that the bloodhounds were

on his track once more, and he cleared—only just in time—for England.

And thence came the John Douglas who for a second time married a worthy

mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex county gentleman, a life

which ended with the strange happenings of which we have heard.

Epilogue

The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas was

referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at which he

was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.

“Get him out of England at any cost,” wrote Holmes to the wife. “There

are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has escaped.

There is no safety for your husband in England.”

Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from our

minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into our

letter box. “Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me!” said this singular epistle.

There was neither superscription nor signature. I laughed at the quaint

message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.

“Deviltry, Watson!” he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.

Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that a

gentleman wished to see Mr. Holmes, and that the matter was of the

utmost importance. Close at the heels of his messenger came Cecil

Barker, our friend of the moated Manor House. His face was drawn and

haggard.

“I’ve had bad news—terrible news, Mr. Holmes,” said he.

“I feared as much,” said Holmes.

“You have not had a cable, have you?”

“I have had a note from someone who has.”

“It’s poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he will

always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canyon to me. I told you that they

started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three weeks ago.”

“Exactly.”

“The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable from Mrs.

Douglas this morning:

“Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No one knows how

accident occurred.

“IVY DOUGLAS.”

“Ha! It came like that, did it?” said Holmes thoughtfully. “Well, I’ve

no doubt it was well stage-managed.”

“You mean that you think there was no accident?”

“None in the world.”

“He was murdered?”

“Surely!”

“So I think also. These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive nest

of criminals—”

“No, no, my good sir,” said Holmes. “There is a master hand here. It is

no case of sawed-off shotguns and clumsy six-shooters. You can tell an

old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty when I see

one. This crime is from London, not from America.”

“But for what motive?”

“Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole

unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A

great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction

of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer—an absurd

extravagance of energy—but the nut is very effectually crushed all the

same.”

“How came this man to have anything to do with it?”

“I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the

business was from one of his lieutenants. These Americans were well

advised. Having an English job to do, they took into partnership, as

any foreign criminal could do, this great consultant in crime. From

that moment their man was doomed. At first he would content himself by

using his machinery in order to find their victim. Then he would

indicate how the matter might be treated. Finally, when he read in the

reports of the failure of this agent, he would step in himself with a

master touch. You heard me warn this man at Birlstone Manor House that

the coming danger was greater than the past. Was I right?”

Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger. “Do

not tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that no one

can ever get level with this king devil?”

“No, I don’t say that,” said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be looking

far into the future. “I don’t say that he can’t be beat. But you must

give me time—you must give me time!”

We all sat in silence for some minutes while those fateful eyes still

strained to pierce the veil.