Crime Report No. 872

Crime Report No. 872

By

Frank L. Packard. Lachine, Que.

From the Fonds of Frank L. Packard in the Library and Archives Canada. No publication found./drf Stillwoods.Blogspot.Ca          December 2018.

Chapter I.

“I would like the detail, inspector,”

The speaker, sitting with one leg crossed over the other, was a man of tremendous physique, muscular and hard, not an ounce of superfluous flesh upon him. The dark hair, slightly tinged with gray was closely cropped upon a head that even for a man of his great build, seemed at first glance, disproportionately large. The face was aggressive in its expression, the eyes, close together and very black, had a trick of narrowing into little slits as the eyelids almost closed over them in moments of preoccupation. The nose was sharply bent, and across the bridge was a deep hollow, as though a groove had been seamed out by some peculiar means. A long untrimmed moustache drooped over the mouth and straggled out two or three inches in length at the ends. The sleeve of the red tunic showed the sergeant’s stripes.

Inspector MacKenzie, with a glance at his subordinate, leaned back in his chair and his brows knitted into a frown. Before him on the desk lay a long official envelope, stamped “O. H. M. S.,” and in big type the printed address, ‘To the Officer Commanding Royal Northwest Mounted Police, Police Barracks, Calgary, Alberta.” Beside it were the several sheets of paper it had contained. The inspector reached forward, picked them up and shuffled them uncertainly in his hand.

“I don’t know sergeant; I don’t know what to say.” he said at last.

Sergeant Burton’s spurs jingled as he shifted his position, re-crossing his legs. “It’s like this, sir,” he urged, “I’ve sort of had my suspicions right along as to who was at the bottom of this devilish work. Now, I’m sure, and so I came this morning to ask to be especially detailed to the case. I hope you’ll see your way clear to it, sir.”

The O. C.’s fingers flicked the edges of a mass of papers in a file that was open on the desk. Crime Report Number 872 had already attained bulky proportions—and the case, so far as the police were concerned, was a little advanced. A bank robbery in the northern part of the province one day, another three days later, a hundred miles from the first, and again, within the same week, the proceeding repeated with the wanton killing of the bank manager added for good measure. One clue, and one only, the police had. The bank manager before he died, had described his assailant as a man who limped.

“You know him, sergeant?” said Inspector Mackenzie quietly. “Who is he?”

Sergeant Burton laughed grimly. “Who is he? Lord, he hasn’t any name, or rather, he goes by so many that names don’t count. He’s had a score, but generally he was known as Spider Jack, the Scorpion, and McMurtrey. That was in the old days, inspector, and, no offense to you sir, before you were in the force.”

“I’ve heard the names. Was he ‘wanted’ then?”

“He was, and bad. And—I—well, it was me he got away from.” There was a tinge of color in the sergeant’s face as he made the admission, and met the O. C.’s quick look of inquiry.

“Yes? What makes you so sure that the man we want now is the same one?”

Sergeant Burton unbuttoned his tunic and took out a letter. “I got it this morning,” he said, handing it to the inspector.

Inspector Mackenzie read it with a puzzled expression, then he re-read it aloud: “If your nose ain’t too bad, old pal, come along. I’ll make the start easy for you,” No date, no signature.

The “too” was heavily underscored, “I suppose there’s a story back of this,” said the O. C. “Let’s have it, sergeant.”

“I was a constable then, and with only a year’s service or so,” said Burton, fingering the band of his Stetson that was resting on his knee. “This devil had been making things hot when, I’ll admit it was pure accident, I ran into his camp one night out in the prairie and stuck him up. He was alone. We had his description and I figured there was a big, large bunch of glory coming to me, likewise a fat reward. We had a bit of a fight, and I winged him in the leg. That’s the limp he’s got now. Finally I got him tied up good and strong. It was pretty late and there was nothing to do but stay put until morning. Well, as I say, I was in a heavenly humour, and no end pleased with myself and that, with his smooth tongue, did the trick. He put it all over me, tossed and moaned, wound hurting, too tightly bound, and all that sort of thing. I was sorry for the poor devil with but the gallows staring him in the face, so I eased the cords off a little, but leaving them, as I thought, still tight enough to hold him securely. Then he quieted down and along in another hour I dropped off to sleep. When I woke up I was blinking into the barrel of my own revolver. I cursed him with a whole heart. I was pretty sore, and I could see mine coming to me when I got back to barracks and told the O. C., I had let the cuss escape. He made me put up my hands and lashed them behind me. Then he tied my feet and I lay there on my back. I was half-crying with rage. ‘I’ll get you yet, damn you!’ I snarled at him. ‘One of these days I’ll get you, and, by God, when I do, I’ll put a bigger hole in you than I did last night!’ He looked at me and then he laughed. I can see him now. ‘The hell you will!’ says he. ‘Well I’ve cleaned up pretty near the whole board around here. I’m no hog, so I’m going to move for other parts. But I’ll be back. I’ll be back some day, sonny, and when that time comes I’ll let you know if they’ve been fools enough to have kept a muttonhead like you in the force that long. Furthermore, I’ll perform under your nose, but not being a blooming philanthropist, I’ll take it upon myself to spoil your scent now. Likewise remembrances shouldn’t be all on one side, and I’d like you to have this in exchange for that little hole you were mentioning.’ The devil had stuck my rifle barrel in the embers of the campfire and had drawn it across my nose—and then he made his getaway. In the morning, a cowpuncher found me. That’s the yarn, inspector, and I’m not proud of it.”

Inspector Mackenzie, without a word, picked up a slip of paper that had been pinned to the various reports received from headquarters that morning dealing with Crime Report Number 872.

The words were few, grim and significant, written in penscript, and initialed by the commissioner. He handed it to the sergeant.

“Get that man!”

Three words—just three words! Sergeant Burton came to his feet as he read them, then his hand went to the salute and he swung toward the door.

“One minute, sergeant,” said inspector Mackenzie, detaining him. “I want to add a little to those instructions. Get that man, dead or alive, it doesn’t matter which. Get that man if it takes the rest of your days. Get that man if you have to follow him—to the pole!”

And Sergeant Burton followed.

The months had gone by, the winter had changed to summer, and still he followed relentless, doggedly, untiringly, after the man—who laughed at him! He had not picked up the trail himself, Spider Jack had supplied it out of sheer bravado. They had covered the western coast of Canada, then across the United States, through Mexico, and back to Seattle, Sergeant Burton always a little, just a little, behind.

At Seattle the messages Spider Jack had left here and there, ended with the letter sergeant found addressed to him at police headquarters. The postmark showed that it had been mailed in that city four days before. Burton read it, pulling at his moustache, smiling quietly:

“I’m getting sick of the silly game; ‘t’ain’t exciting enough. But you’ve seen something of the country, and I hope you enjoyed your trip. Now you’d better run along home, ‘cause it wouldn’t do for you to be out here all alone with nobody to look after you, and this is the last you’ll hear from yours truly. Ta, ta. Spider Jack.”

Day after day the sergeant, backed by the police force of the city, haunted the dives, the wharves and the saloons, with no result. And then, one night in a drinking hell, frequented by the dregs of the shipping district, he picked up the clue. A man seedy and apparently broke, a man who walked with a little limp, had shipped as deck hand on a coasting steamer bound for Skagway.

Burton flung down upon the table the price of another glass of the vile stuff served by the establishment. “Wish I’d known he was shady, an’ you’d be along,” whined his informant. “I’d have pumped him dry. Say, can’t you make it the price of two wets, gov’nor?”

The sergeant handed out the coin, and turning away, left the place. So that was it! Spider Jack’s funds had given out, and now, evidently, he was making for the gold country with the hope of striking a find. “’T’ain’t exciting enough, the silly game ain’t eh?” Burton muttered. “Well, my bucko, we’ll raise the ante and the limit’s the sky!”

The next morning Sergeant Burton left for Skagway. A fast boat enabled him to regain a few of the lost days, but he was still a week behind the other man when he arrived there, it was just a week too much, for as though the earth had opened and swallowed him up, Spider Jack had left neither sign nor trace behind him. The captain of the vessel on which the man had shipped supplied the only information.

“Sure I got your telegram,” he growled at Burton; “but it came too late. He stole away at night, the night we arrived, before we began to unload, the ratty swine, an’ be damned to him!”

“You’re up against it, sergeant,” they told him at police headquarters. “Your man never stayed around here for a minute. He’s struck out prospecting, or he’s batting from one mining camp to another. He may be heading across the whole of Alaska for Nome, or he may be pointing for the Yukon up Dawson way. It’s a toss up, with the odds just a bit in favor of the latter.”

A month, two months passed, and Burton was without the slightest trace of his man. Tramping, riding, roughing it, he had been working gradually north. Then came the news of a great gold find in the rivers and creeks beyond Dawson. Burton made his way slowly along following the rush, but it was winter again before he made Nugget Camp and late one night swung in through the door of the Emporium hotel. In his plain clothes and looking rougher than the twenty or thirty miners who were gathered in the room, Burton excited only the interest that would be manifested in the arrival of any stranger from the “outside.” Those who were not playing cards crowded around asking innumerable questions, interspersed with a systematic lining up before the bar between times. At last, questions exhausted, the conversation drifted to local topics.

Cal Roberts, the proprietor, dexterously slid a row of glasses along the bar. “All I got to say,” he remarked in an interval of silence, “is that feller’s pard that went through yesterday must have unlimited and sublime confidence in him, which same he ain’t entitled to judgin’ by his looks. I never heard nothin’ against ‘em, but I always put ‘em down for a pair of hard nuts. What’s yours, stranger? This is on the house.”

As Burton, who was addressed, indicated his choice, the man beside him spoke up. “Speakin’ of that,” said he, “it’s a damn queer time to be goin’ in with the summer wash-up!”

“That’s right, too,” agreed Roberts; then meeting Burton’s look of inquiry: “It’s only a feller came through yesterday from a claim up on Steele Creek, about thirty miles west of here. He’s got a pard that’s lame. The two of ‘em came in here with the rush, but neither of ‘em stayed. They didn’t seem to hanker after company and they went on and staked out on the creek. The feller that went through yesterday said he was goin’ down to Dawson to cash up, an’ I guess that’s right; likewise that he’d be back in a few weeks, which I ain’t so sure about. However, that’s their business. If his pard trusts him that away, ‘t’ain’t no skin off my hide.”

Not a muscle of Burton’s face moved as he threw some coin on the bar. “Fill ‘em up,” he said nonchalantly. “What is it, much of a camp up there on the creek?”

“Lord, no!” replied Roberts. ‘‘There’s nothin’ now but the shack belongin’ to those fellers. But there will be if their wash-up pans out anything big. One of our fellows from here went into Dawson yesterday, too. He’ll be back. He’ll get a line on what that chap cashes in. If he passes the word that it’s good, we’ll know it first an’ sally up there in a bunch, an’ do first choice stakin’.”

“Well,” said Burton, “of course I never saw either of the men, but it looks straight enough to me. One fellow’s lame you say, and a trip to Dawson this time of year on crutches ain’t what you’d altogether specify as an exhilarating experience. It looks natural enough to me that the other would go along in by his lonely.”

“Oh Kelly ain’t that bad, not by no means,” objected Roberts, “He don’t need crutches. He just walks with a sort of skip step, that’s all. I dunno as you’d even call him lame. Anyway, as I said, we’ve no flowers to buy; but the fact does remain, as Hurley there elucidated, it’s a queer time to cash in wash-ups.”

Burton said no more, but that night as he turned into his bunk there was a grim smile on his lips, and his fingers caressed his disfigured nose, as he repeated softly under his breath the threat he had uttered once years before when he lay bound and helpless by a camp-fire on the prairie: “I’ll get you yet! I’ll get you yet!” And just as it grew light Sergeant Burton of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, behind a team of six huskies, was heading west, with thirty miles of trail to cover stretching out before him.

The going was fair and he made good time but the short day was rapidly closing in as he struck the bank of the creek, here he stopped to get his bearings. He had asked directions from Roberts, who once had made the trip, asked him that morning just before leaving. Roberts, after supplying the information, had looked at him with a curious expression on his face. “Calculatin’ to take a chance an’ get in ahead of the bunch?” he had inquired. And Burton had answered: “Yes, I’m going to take a chance.”

To his right, a half mile away, was the sharp bend, almost a right angle, in the stream where the banks rose precipitously.

The shack should be just beyond on the other side of the creek. Burton crossed the ice and started in that direction, keeping steadily on until, having made the ascent where the bank rose, he saw below him the cabin he had come to find. He halted, feeling in the pocket of his fur coat to assure himself that his revolver was within easy reach. A thin curl of smoke was rising from the place.

The man was there. He went swiftly down the little hill straight to the door, pushed it quickly open, stepped inside shutting it behind him. There, muffled in furs from head to foot, his cap and the collar of his coat combining to hide his face, he stood, his right hand in his pocket.

At the sound of his entrance a man lying in a bunk rose up with a sluggish movement from beneath the blankets, propping himself on his elbow, staring with blinking eyes across the room.

A great thrill of exultation took possession of Burton at the sight of the other’s face, filling him with a fierce joy that sent the blood seething and pounding through his veins, flushing to his face, dyeing it red. His hand came out of his pocket, and with a quick movement, he covered the man before him with his weapon.

“You take both hands out from under that blanket!” Burton commanded, his voice ringing hard and sharp; then, as the man obeyed “So your name’s Kelly now, eh? Well, Kelly, Spider Jack, McMurtrey, Scorpion, or whatever you like, the silly game you didn’t find exciting enough is up!”

Spider Jack thrust his head forward between his shoulders, and peered at the sergeant. His laugh that followed was taunting and discordant. “Take off your hat,” he sneered. “Where’s your manners! I want to see your nose!”

“Look at it, then!” said Burton coolly, disclosing his face.

Again Spider Jack laughed. “I ain’t very well,” he said. “It’s a bit cold. I’d like to lie down an’ cover up again. I ain’t got any arsenal under the blanket. You can put up your gun.”

“I’ll look, my bucko,” returned Sergeant Burton quietly. And look he did, searching carefully. As he bent over his prisoner, he noted the gaunt, haggard face and burning eyes, and, devil as he knew the man to be, a feeling of pity mingled with admiration for the pure grit and gameness of the other, swept over him.

“Cover up, the—” he said, his voice a little softer. “You don’t look well. I’ll take ay chance you’ve nothing to do any harm with here.”

“Here nor anywhere else,” said Spider Jack harshly. “I’m cleaned out, guns, dust, nuggets—everything. By God, I’m flat. Throw another stick on that fire, will you? Last one I put on I had to crawl, I was so weak, an’ I got the chatters before I got back into the bunk.”

Burton poked up the fire and threw on some more wood, starting a blaze.

“Huh! That’s good,” said the man in the bunk. “It’s a wonder the skunk didn’t take the wood when he took the rest of the stuff.”

“Who, your pard?” demanded Burton.

“Yes the—” The sick man cursed long and bitterly, cursed in his hate until he was exhausted and lay back on the bunk. After a moment he sat up again. “We struck it big here,” be said. “Big! we knew it was comin’ good, but we didn’t know how good ‘till the clean-up was over. If we’d gone in with it then there’d have been a rush up that would have made bonanza look like skimmed milk. We didn’t want that ‘till we’d got all the claims we was entitled to staked out first. So we waited, prospectin’ for the choice lots, so I waited too long, that’s all. That measly coyote I didn’t figure into the calculations. I had him where I wanted him. I ran the ranch an’ I was boss, an’ I put the fear into him that was necessary to a clear understandin’. But, likewise, I didn’t figure on takin’ sick. Four or five days ago I came down bad, gettin’ weaker an’ weaker, an’ when he saw he hadn’t nothin’ more to be afraid of than if I was a puling kid, he loads everything onto the sled an’ he stands in that door an’ he say, ‘Ta, Ta!’ An’ now to sort of put in a dash of bitters an’ flavor it up a bit, along you come. Say, honest, Burton, ain’t that fierce?”

Burton did not answer. He looked at the flushed face, unshaven and dirty, the fever-burned eyes glowing out from beneath the low forehead over which the matted, straw-colored hair fell in long neglect; then his glance took in the room with hard comfort. Two bunks, one on each side, a table, a stove, two chairs, some tin pots and dishes, a box or two, and a few sticks of cord wood. That was all.

“Looks like it was my finish; eh?” said Spider Jack

“We start back, in the morning,” the sergeant answered.

“There ain’t much chance for me back there, eh, Burton?”

“You ought to know,” Burton replied.

“There ain’t any chance, I’m bound to swing, ain’t I? Answer me Burton, man to man. You know the evidence they’ve got against me.”

Burton stared curiously at the feverish excitement in the other’s face. “They’ve got you dead to rights on more counts than I can remember,” he said quietly.

“That’s right, I know it, I know it! Look here Burton, I’ll play you a game of seven-up to see whether I go back or not.”

Burton laughed shortly. “You’ve got your nerve!” he said.

“I’ll play you a game of seven-up to see whether I go back—or stay here—always!”

Burton from stooping over the stove straightened up with a jerk, and taking a step toward the bunk, peered into the man’s face. He drew back, his own face white at the grim meaning he had read in the other’s eyes. He shook his head.

“I’ve played a good many games, an’ I’ve played high,” went on Spider Jack, “but there was nothin’ to ‘em. I’d like to play a real game for a finish. Big enough to make you hold your breath an’ count the pips on the cards one by one.”

“No!” said Burton.

“I gave you a run for your money, Burton, you know I did. You’re sport enough to give me credit for that. If I win you can put a cartridge on the bunk, empty your revolver an’ leave it by the door an’ get out for ten minutes—just ten minutes, ‘twon’t take long.”

“No, I tell you!” shouted Burton fiercely.

“I played fair with you, an’ I kept my promise. See! Here’s the cards. I’ve been playin’ sol’taire.” Spider Jack held up a greasy pack and began to run them through his trembling hands.

“Come on! Come on!” he cried. “We’ll play a game that’ll make your heart pound. A game like you’ve never played before an’ never will again. I’ll—I’ll give you first deal.”

Burton made no reply. A card fluttered from Spider Jack’s fingers to the floor. Instinctively, he reached to pick up, then drew back his hand, shivering.

“What’s your orders?” demanded Spider Jack, abruptly.

“To get you dead or alive, “ said Burton hoarsely.

“You’re a grizzly lot, you fellows. That’s one reason, I think, why I staked up against you. Dead or alive, that’s it. What’s the difference?”

“You shut up!” cried Burton savagely. “I’ve told you no!”

For a time no word passed between the two men. Everywhere hung the heavy, intense silence of the wilderness, save only when a knot in the wood cracked sharply, or, outside, a dog yelped and snarled.

Suddenly Spider Jack flung out his arms imploringly, “Burton, Burton, give me a chance, give me a chance, give me a chance! I don’t want to go back there!”

“I can’t live anyhow. You’d never get me back there. Two thousand miles an’ me like this! I’d die like a dog, an’ you know it. My God, Burton, ‘t’ain’t human!”

The phrase gripped into Burton’s soul and he began to repeat it over and over to himself. ‘“T’ain’t human! ‘T’ain’t human! ‘T’ain’t human!”

“I ain’t askin’ much, not much. Just a chance to die here instead of on the trail or swingin’ at the end of a rope if we got through. Burton, you’re goin’ to give me my chance, ain’t you?”

The agony in the man’s voice was unendurable. “I can’t,” said Burton, chokingly.

“You must! You will! I’ve got to cash in one way or the other. You know that, Burton. Give me my chance. Don’t torture me. Man, don’t torture me! I’d die by inches on the road, I tell you. I’m dyin’ now.”

“’T’ain’t human! ‘T’ain’t human!”—the words were ringing in Burton’s ears. There was a dimness before his eyes; he brushed the moisture away with the back of his hand.

“I ain’t askin’ much, just a chance—mebbe I’d lose that, Burton, Burton, for God’s sake give me my chance!”

One glance Burton gave at the figure in the bunk, the rough, red flannel shirted shoulders from which protruded the thin neck where the veins stood out blue and ghostlike, throbbing, the gray, strained face, the beady brow, the eyes with a look in them like a dumb brute’s in mortal agony, then, the sweat standing out in great drops upon his forehead, he dropped his revolver on the table, jerked the door open, and passed out into the twilight.

For a space he half-walked, half-ran. Suddenly he shuddered and threw himself upon his knees, stopping his ears with his hands, then lifted them, clasped imploringly above his head and his lips, quivering, moved. “Dear Father God,” he whispered, “if I have done wrong, forgive me. I do not know. I do not know!”

That night Sergeant Burton closed the files of Crime Report Number 872 with the letter he wrote to the O. C. It was terse, briefly worded! “I beg to report that Spider Jack, alias the Scorpion, alias McMurtrey, alias Kelly, is dead.”

The End.

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