On Secret Service

Painfully but persistently the man in convict's clothes pressed forward. When the sun was a little more than halfway across the heavens he glimpsed a cabin tucked away on the side of a mountain spur not far away. At the sight he pressed forward with renewed vigor, but distances are deceptive in that part of the country and it was not until nearly dark that he managed to reach his destination.

In fact, the Stiles family was just sitting down to what passes for supper in that part of the world – fat bacon and corn bread, mostly – when there was the sound of a man's footstep some fifty feet away.

Instantly the houn' dog rose from his accustomed place under the table and crouched, ready to repel invaders. Old Man Stiles – his wife called him Joe, but to the entire countryside he was just "Old Man Stiles" – reached for his rifle with a muttered imprecation about "Rev'nue officers who never let a body be."

But the mountaineer had hardly risen from his seat when there was a sound as of a heavy body falling against the door – and then silence.

Stiles looked inquiringly at his wife and then at Ruth, their adopted daughter. None of them spoke for an appreciable time, but the hound continued to whine and finally backed off into a corner.

"Guess I'll have to see what et is," drawled the master of the cabin, holding his rifle ready for action.

Slowly he moved toward the door and cautiously, very cautiously, he lifted the bolt that secured it. Even if it were a revenue officer, he argued to himself, his conscience was clear and his premises could stand the formality of a search because, save for a certain spot known to himself alone, there was nothing that could be considered incriminating.

As the door swung back the body of a man fell into the room – a man whose clothing was tattered and whose features were concealed under a week's growth of stubbly beard. Right into the cabin he fell, for the door had supported his body, and, once that support was removed, he lay as one dead.

In fact, it wasn't until at least five minutes had elapsed that Stiles came to the conclusion that the intruder was really alive, after all. During that time he had worked over him in the rough mountain fashion, punching and pulling and manhandling him in an effort to secure some sign of life. Finally the newcomer's eyes opened and he made an effort to sit up.

"Wait a minute, stranger," directed Stiles, motioning his wife toward a closet in the corner of the room. Mrs. Stiles – or 'Ma,' as she was known in that part of the country – understood the movement. Without a word she opened the cupboard and took down a flask filled with a clear golden-yellow liquid. Some of this she poured into a cracked cup on the table and handed it to her husband.

"Here," directed the mountaineer, "throw yo' haid back an' drink this. Et's good fur what ails yer."

The moment after he had followed instructions the stranger gulped, gurgled, and gasped as the moonshine whisky burnt its way down his throat. The man-sized drink, taken on a totally empty stomach, almost nauseated him. Then it put new life in his veins and he tried to struggle to his feet.

Ruth Stiles was beside him in an instant and, with her father's help, assisted him to a chair at the table.

"Stranger," said Stiles, stepping aside and eying the intruder critically, "I don't know who or what you are, but I do know that yo' look plumb tuckered out. Nobody's goin' hungry in my house, so fall to an' we'll discuss other matters later."

Whereupon he laid his rifle in its accustomed place, motioned to his wife and daughter to resume their places at the table, and dragged up another chair for himself.

Beyond a word or two of encouragement to eat all he wanted of the very plain fare, none of the trio addressed the newcomer during the remainder of the meal. All three of them had noted the almost-obliterated stripes that encircled his clothing and their significance was unmistakable. But Stiles himself was far from being convinced. He had heard too much of the tricks of government agents to be misled by what might prove, after all, only a clever disguise.

Therefore, when the womenfolk had cleared away the supper things and the two men had the room to themselves, the mountaineer offered his guest a pipeful of tobacco and saw to it that he took a seat before the fire where the light would play directly upon his features. Then he opened fire.

"Stranger," he inquired, "what might yo' name be?"

"Patterson," said the other. "Jim Patterson."

"Whar you come from?"

"Charlestown first an' Morgantown second. Up for twelve years for manslaughter – railroaded at that," was Patterson's laconic reply.

"How'd you get away?"

At that the convict laughed, but there was more of a snarl than humor in his tone as he answered: "Climbed th' wall when th' guards weren't lookin'. They took a coupla pot shots at me, but none of them came within a mile. Then I beat it south, travelin' by night an' hidin' by day. Stole what I could to eat, but this country ain't overly well filled with farms. Hadn't had a bite for two days, 'cept some berries, when I saw your cabin an' came up here."

Stiles puffed away in silence for a moment. Then he rose, as if to fetch something from the other side of the room. Once behind Patterson, however, he reached forward and, seizing the stubble that covered his face, yanked it as hard as he could.

"What th' – ?" yelled the convict, springing to his feet and involuntarily raising his clenched hand.

"Ca'm yo'self, stranger, ca'm yo'self," directed the mountaineer, with a half smile. "Jes' wanted to see for myself ef that beard was real, that's all. Thought you might be a rev'nue agent in disguise."

"A rev'nue agent?" queried Patterson, and then as if the thought had just struck him that he was in the heart of the moonshining district, he added: "That's rich! Me, just out of th' pen an' you think I'm a bull. That's great. Here" – reaching into the recesses of his frayed shirt – "here's something that may convince you."

And he handed over a tattered newspaper, more than a week old, and pointed to an article on the first page.

"There, read that!"

"Ruth does all th' reading for this fam'ly," was Stiles's muttered rejoinder. "Ruth! Oh, Ruth! Come here a minute an' read somethin' to yo' pappy!"

Patterson had not failed to note, during supper, that Ruth Stiles came close to being a perfect specimen of a mountain flower, rough and undeveloped, but with more than a trace of real beauty, both in her face and figure. Standing in front of the fire, with its flickering light casting a sort of halo around her, she was almost beautiful – despite her homespun dress and shapeless shoes.

Without a word the convict handed her the paper and indicated the article he had pointed out a moment before.

"Reward offered for convict's arrest," she read. "James Patterson, doing time for murder, breaks out of Morgantown. Five hundred dollars for capture. Prisoner scaled wall and escaped in face of guards' fire." Then followed an account of the escape, the first of its kind in several years.

"Even if you can't read," said Patterson, "there's my picture under the headline – the picture they took for the rogues' gallery," and he pointed to a fairly distinct photograph which adorned the page.

Stiles took the paper closer to the fire to secure a better look, glanced keenly at the convict, and extended his hand.

"Guess that's right, stranger," he admitted. "You're no rev'nue agent."

Later in the evening, as she lay awake, thinking about the man who had shattered the monotony of their mountain life, Ruth Stiles wondered if Patterson had not given vent to what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief at that moment. But she was too sleepy to give much thought to it, and, besides, what if he had?..

In the other half of the cabin, divided from the women's room only by a curtain of discolored calico, slept Patterson and Stiles – the former utterly exhausted by his travels, the latter resting with keen hair trigger consciousness of danger always only a short distance away. Nothing happened, however, to disturb the peace of the Stiles domicile. Even the hound slept quietly until the rosy tint of the eastern sky announced another day.

After breakfast, at which the fat-back and corn bread were augmented by a brownish liquid which passed for coffee, Stiles informed his guest that he "reckoned he'd better stick close to th' house fer a few days," as there was no telling whether somebody might not be on his trail.

Patterson agreed that this was the proper course and put in his time helping with the various chores, incidentally becoming a little better acquainted with Ruth Stiles. That night he lay awake for several hours, but nothing broke the stillness save a few indications of animal life outside the cabin and the labored breathing of the mountaineer in the bunk below him.

For three nights nothing occurred. But on the fourth night, Saturday, supper was served a little earlier than usual and Patterson noted just a suspicion of something almost electrical in the air. He gave no indication of what he had observed, however, and retired to his bunk in the usual manner. After an hour or more had elapsed he heard Stiles slip quietly off his mattress and a moment later there was the guarded scratch of a match as a lantern was lighted.

Suspecting what would follow, Patterson closed his eyes and continued his deep, regular breathing. But he could sense the fact that the lantern had been swung up to a level with his bunk and he could almost feel the mountaineer's eyes as Stiles made certain that he was asleep. Stifling an impulse to snore or do something to convince his host that he wasn't awake, Patterson lay perfectly still until he heard the door close. Then he raised himself guardedly on one elbow and attempted to look through the window beside the bunk. But a freshly applied coat of whitewash prevented that, so he had to content himself with listening.

Late in the night – so late that it was almost morning – he heard the sounds of men conversing in whispers outside the cabin, but he could catch nothing beyond his own name. Soon Stiles re-entered the room, slipped into bed, and was asleep instantly.

So things went for nearly three weeks. The man who had escaped from prison made himself very useful around the cabin, and, almost against his will, found that he was falling a victim to the beauty and charm of the mountain girl.

"I mustn't do it," he told himself over and over again. "I can't let myself! It's bad enough to come here and accept the old man's hospitality, but the girl's a different proposition."

It was Ruth herself who solved the riddle some three weeks after Patterson's arrival. They were wandering through the woods together, looking for sassafras roots, when she happened to mention that Stiles was not her own father.

"He's only my pappy," she said, "my adopted father. My real father was killed when I was a little girl. Shot through the head because he had threatened to tell where a still was hidden. He never did believe in moonshining. Said it was as bad as stealin' from the government. So somebody shot him and Ma Stiles took me in, 'cause she said she was sorry for me even if my pa was crazy."

"Do you believe that moonshining is right?" asked her companion.

"Anything my pa believed was the truth," replied the girl, her eyes flashing. "Everybody round these parts knows that Pappy Stiles helps run the big still the rev'nue officers been lookin' for the past three years. Two of 'em were shot not long ago, too – but that don't make it right. 'Specially when my pa said it was wrong. What you smilin' at?"

Patterson resisted an inclination to tell her that the smile was one of relief and replied that he was just watching the antics of a chipmunk a little way off. But that night he felt a thrill of joy as he lay, listening as always, in his bunk.

Things had been breaking rather fast of late. The midnight gatherings had become more frequent and, convinced that he had nothing to fear from his guest, Stiles was not as cautious as formerly. He seldom took the trouble to see that the escaped prisoner was asleep and he had even been known to leave the door unlatched as he went out into the night.

That night, for example, was one of the nights that he was careless – and, as usually happens, he paid dearly for it.

Waiting until Stiles was well out of the house, Patterson slipped silently out of his bunk in his stocking feet and, inch by inch, reopened the door. Outside, the moon was shining rather brightly, but, save for the retreating figure of the mountaineer – outlined by the lantern he carried – there was nothing else to be seen.

Very carefully Patterson followed, treading softly so as to avoid even the chance cracking of a twig. Up the mountainside went Stiles and, some fifty feet behind him, crouched the convict, his faded garments blending perfectly with the underbrush. After half a mile or so of following a rude path, Stiles suddenly disappeared from view – not as if he had turned a corner, but suddenly, as if the earth had swallowed him.

After a moment Patterson determined to investigate. When he reached the spot where he had last seen Stiles he looked around and almost stumbled against the key to the entire mystery. There in the side of the mountain was an opening, the entrance to a natural cave, and propped against it was a large wooden door, completely covered with vines.

"Not a chance of finding it in the daytime unless you knew where it was," thought the convict as he slipped silently into the cave. Less than thirty feet farther was an abrupt turn, and, glancing round this, Patterson saw what he had been hoping for – a crowd of at least a dozen mountaineers gathered about a collection of small but extremely efficient stills. Ranged in rows along the sides of the cave were scores of kegs, the contents of which were obvious from the surroundings.

Pausing only long enough to make certain of his bearings, the convict returned to the cabin and, long before Stiles came back, was sound asleep.

It was precisely four weeks from the day when the buzzard noted the man on the side of the mountain, when a sheriff's posse from another county, accompanied by half a dozen revenue officers, rode clattering through Maymead and on in the direction of the Stiles cabin. Before the mountaineers had time to gather, the posse had surrounded the hill, rifles ready for action.

Stiles himself met them in front of his rude home and, in response to his challenge as to what they wanted, the sheriff replied that he had come for a prisoner who had escaped from Morgantown a month or so before. Stiles was on the verge of declaring that he had never heard of the man when, to his amazement, Patterson appeared from the woods and surrendered.

The instant the convict had gained the shelter of the government guns, however, a startling change took place. He held a moment's whispered conversation with one of the revenue officials and the latter slipped him a spare revolver from his holster. Then – "Hands up!" ordered the sheriff, and Stiles's hands shot above his head.

Leaving three men to guard the cabin and keep watch over Old Man Stiles, whose language was searing the shrubbery, the remainder of the posse pushed up the mountain, directed by the pseudoconvict. It took them some time to locate the door to the cave, but, once inside, they found all the evidence they wanted – evidence not only directly indicative of moonshining, but the two badges which had belonged to Douglas and Wood and which the mountaineers had kept as souvenirs of the shooting, thus unwittingly providing a firm foundation for the government's case in court.

The next morning, when Commissioner Chambers reached his office, he found upon his desk a wire which read:

Stiles gang rounded up without the firing of a single shot. Direct evidence of complicity in Woods-Douglas murders. Secret still is a secret no longer.

The signature to the telegram was "James Reynolds, alias Jim Patterson."

"Jim Patterson," mused the commissioner. "Where have I heard that name… Of course. He's the prisoner that broke out of Morgantown a couple of months ago! Jimmy sure did lay the local color on thick!"

"But," I inquired, as Quinn paused, "don't you consider that rather a dirty trick on Reynolds's part – worming himself into the confidence of the mountaineers and then betraying them? Besides, what about the girl?"

"Dirty trick!" snorted the former Secret Service agent. "Would you think about ethics if some one had murdered two of the men you work next to in the office? It was the same thing in this case. Jimmy knew that if he didn't turn up that gang they'd probably account for a dozen of his pals – to say nothing of violating the law every day they lived! What else was there for him to do?

"The girl? Oh, Reynolds married her. They sometimes do that, even in real life, you know. As I said, they're living out in the Middle West, for Ruth declared she never wanted to see a mountain again, and both of them admitted that it wouldn't be healthy to stick around within walking distance of Tennessee. That mountain crowd is a bad bunch to get r'iled, and it must be 'most time for Stiles and his friends to get out of jail.

"It's a funny thing the way these government cases work out. Here was one that took nearly three months to solve, and the answer was the direct result of hard work and careful planning – while the Trenton taxicab tangle, for example, was just the opposite!"

VIII

THE TAXICAB TANGLE

We'd been sitting on the front porch – Bill Quinn and I – discussing things in general for about half an hour when the subject of transportation cropped up and, as a collateral idea, my mind jumped to taxicabs, for the reason that the former Secret Service operative had promised to give me the details of a case which he referred to as "The Trenton Taxicab Tangle."

"Yes," he replied, reminiscently, when I reminded him of the alliterative title and inquired to what it might refer, "that was one of the branch cases which grew out of the von Ewald chase – you remember Mary McNilless and the clue of Shelf Forty-five? Well, Dick Walters, the man who landed von Ewald, wasn't the only government detective working on that case in New York – not by some forty-five or fifty – and Mary wasn't the only pretty woman mixed up in it, either. There was that girl at the Rennoc switchboard…

"That's another story, though. What you want is the taxicab clue."

If you remember the incidents which led up to the von Ewald affair [continued Quinn, as he settled comfortably back in his chair] you will recall that the German was the slipperiest of slippery customers. When Walters stumbled on his trail, through the quick wit of Mary McNilless, there wasn't the slightest indication that there was such a man. He was a myth, a bugaboo – elusive as the buzz of a mosquito around your ear.

During the months they scoured New York in search for him, a number of other cases developed. Some of these led to very interesting conclusions, but the majority, as usual, flivvered into thin air.

The men at headquarters, the very cream of the government services, gathered from all parts of the country, were naturally unable to separate the wheat from the chaff in advance. Night after night they went out on wild-goose chases and sometimes they spent weeks in following a promising lead – to find only blue sky and peaceful scenery at the end of it.

Alan Whitney, who had put in two or three years rounding up counterfeiters for the Service, and who had been transferred to the Postal Inspection Service at the time of those registered mail robberies in the Middle West – only to be detailed to Secret Service work in connection with the von Ewald case – was one of the bitterest opponents of this forced inaction.

"I don't mind trouble," Whitney would growl, "but I do hate this eternal strain of racing around every time the bell goes off and then finding that some bonehead pulled the alarm for the sheer joy of seeing the engines come down the street. There ought to be a law against irresponsible people sending in groundless 'tips' – just as there's a law against scandal or libel or any other information that's not founded on fact."

But, just the same, Al would dig into every new clue with as much interest and energy as the rest of the boys – for there's always the thrill of thinking that the tip you're working on may be the right one after all.

Whitney was in the office one morning when the phone rang and the chief answered it.

"Yes," he heard the chief say, "this is the right place – but if your information is really important I would suggest that you come down and give it in person. Telephones are not the most reliable instruments in the world."

A pause followed and the chief's voice again:

"Well, of course we are always very glad to receive information that tends to throw any light on those matters, but I must confess that yours sounds a little vague and far-fetched. Maybe the people in the taxi merely wanted to find a quiet place to talk… They got out and were away for nearly two hours? Hum! Thanks very much. I'll send one of our men over to talk to you about it, if you don't mind. What's the address?"

A moment or two later, after the chief had replaced the receiver, he called out to Whitney and with a smile that he could barely conceal told him to catch the next train to Trenton, where, at a certain address, he would find a Miss Vera Norton, who possessed – or thought she possessed – information which would be of value to the government in running down the people responsible for recent bomb outrages and munition-plant explosions.

"What's the idea, Chief?" inquired Al.

"This young lady – at least her voice sounded young over the phone – says that she got home late from a party last night. She couldn't sleep because she was all jazzed up from dancing or something, so she sat near her window, which looks out upon a vacant lot on the corner. Along about two o'clock a taxicab came putt-putting up the street, stopped at the corner, and two men carrying black bags hopped out. The taxicab remained there until nearly four o'clock – three-forty-eight, Miss Norton's watch said – and then the two men came back, without the bags, jumped in, and rolled off. That's all she knows, or, at least, all she told.

"When she picked up the paper round eleven o'clock this mornin' the first thing that caught her eye was the attempt to blow up the powder plant 'bout two miles from the Norton home. One paragraph of the story stated that fragments of a black bag had been picked up near the scene of the explosion, which only wrecked one of the outhouses, and the young lady leaped to the conclusion that her two night-owls were mixed up in the affair. So she called up to tip us off and get her name in history. Better run over and talk to her. There might be something to the information, after all."

"Yes, there might," muttered Whitney, "but it's getting so nowadays that if you walk down the street with a purple tie on, when some one thinks you ought to be wearing a green one, they want you arrested as a spy. Confound these amateurs, anyhow! I'm a married man, Chief. Why don't you send Giles or one of the bachelors on this?"

"For just that reason," was the reply. "Giles or one of the others would probably be impressed by the Norton's girl's blond hair – it must be blond from the way she talked – and spend entirely too much time running the whole thing to earth. Go on over and get back as soon as you can. We can't afford to overlook anything these days – neither can we afford to waste too much time on harvesting crops of goat feathers. Beat it!"

And Whitney, still protesting, made his way to the tube and was lucky enough to catch a Trenton train just about to pull out of the station.

Miss Vera Norton, he found, was a blond – and an extremely pretty one, at that. Moreover, she appeared to have more sense than the chief had given her credit for. After Whitney had talked to her for a few minutes he admitted to himself that it was just as well that Giles hadn't tackled the case – he might never have come back to New York, and Trenton isn't a big enough place for a Secret Service man to hide in safety, even when lured by a pair of extremely attractive gray-blue eyes.

Apart from her physical charms, however, Whitney was forced to the conclusion that what she had seen was too sketchy to form anything that could be termed a real clue.