THE SECRET TELEGRAM
“Alex, will you work for me three or four hours to-night?” requested the Bixton night operator of Alex one evening late in October. “I have just had an invitation to a surprise party at Brodies’, and wouldn’t care to miss it.”
Alex agreed willingly. “I’ll be right in line then for the latest news of the chase,” he declared. For an attempt had been made that morning to rob the Farmers’ Savings Bank at Zeisler, a posse had been sent from Bixton to aid in the pursuit of the robbers, and reports from the hunt were being anxiously looked for.
“Take care you don’t get in line for any bullets,” laughed the operator as he left. “It’s your weakness, you know, to get mixed up in any excitement that’s going on within a mile of you.”
To Alex’s disappointment hour after hour passed, however, and brought no further word, either of the pursued, or the pursuers. Finally, just before midnight, hearing Zeisler “come in” on the wire to report the passing of a freight, Alex reached for the key, determined to inquire.
As he did so footsteps sounded on the silent platform without, the waiting-room door opened, and two strangers appeared at the ticket-window. Glancing in, they turned to the office door, and entered.
“Hello, youngster,” said the taller of the two, cordially, leaning over the parcel-counter. “What’s the news from the man-hunt?”
“I was going to ask Zeisler just as you came in,” replied Alex, turning again to the key.
“Well, never mind, then. Just tell them they were captured here, instead.”
“What! Captured here?” exclaimed Alex.
“That’s it. About an hour ago, just north, by the Bloomsbury posse. Sheriff O’Brien sent us down with the news, so you could send word up and down the line and call in the other posses. No need of them plugging around all night.”
But, instead of complying, Alex suddenly turned more fully toward the two men. “What posse did you say you were with?”
“Bloomsbury! Bloomsbury!” said the smaller man, impatiently.
“Bloomsbury! Don’t you mean Bloomsburg?”
“Well, what thundering difference—” The taller man flashed a warning gesture, and in an instant Alex understood.
He was face to face with the bank robbers themselves!
For a moment he stared from one to the other in consternation. Then, sharply recovering himself, he turned quickly back to the key. But he was too late. He had betrayed his discovery.
Both men laughed. “Your surmise is correct, my young friend,” said the taller man, lightly. “We are the gentlemen who were forced to leave Zeisler so hurriedly this morning.
“But don’t let that make any difference,” he continued, producing a revolver and placing it significantly on the counter before him. “Go right ahead with the message.
“Or wait, give me a blank, and I’ll write it, so you will be sure to have it right.”
“Oh, hold on,” interposed his companion. “Now that he knows who we are, how do you know he will send the message as you write it, and not just the other thing—give us away?”
The first speaker threw down his pen. “Well, I’m an idiot. That’s so.”
He thought a moment, then, turning toward Alex, eyed him sharply an instant, and said: “Youngster, I’ll give you a dollar a word if you will give me your solemn promise to send this message just as I write it.”
A bare instant Alex hesitated, while the tempter whispered that it would mean thirty or forty dollars for a few minutes’ work, and that everyone would take it for granted he had been compelled to send it. Then abruptly he leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “I couldn’t do it,” he said quietly but positively.
“Oh, you couldn’t, eh, Goody-goody?” exclaimed the smaller man, with a snarl, catching up the revolver and pointing it at Alex’s head. “Now could you do it?”
The taller man caught his arm. “Don’t be a fool, Jake. After all, we couldn’t be sure he wasn’t fooling us even if he took the money.
“Look here, I have a scheme.”
They stepped back and spoke together in low tones for a moment; then the taller turned again to Alex, who meantime had remained quiet in his chair, futilely endeavoring to think of some means of spreading the alarm.
“I suppose you are not the only operator at this station, kid?”
“No; there is a day and a night operator. I am only ‘subbing’ for the night man,” responded Alex, wondering.
“Where is he?”
“At a party.”
“Where is the day man?”
“At his boarding-house. But you couldn’t get either of them to do it,” Alex declared confidently, thinking he had caught the drift of their purpose.
“Never mind what we could or what we couldn’t. Where does the day operator board? Is it far?”
Momentarily Alex had a mind to refuse to tell; then, on the thought that suspicion might be aroused if one of the robbers went to rout the day man out, he replied, “About a quarter of a mile,” and described how the house could be reached.
Again the two men held a whispered consultation, and at its conclusion the smaller man hurriedly left.
“Now I suppose you are wondering what we propose doing with the day operator,” said the tall man, with a grin, when they were alone. “Well, it’s so good I think I’ll tell you. One of the cleverest getaway schemes you ever heard of, and my own idea. Can you guess?”
Alex shook his head. “If it’s not to send the message—and which I know he won’t—I don’t know.”
The robber laughed. “You are going to send the message, and he is going to stand just outside the door here and tell us letter by letter just what you make the instruments say. See?”
Alex uttered an exclamation. And, strange as it may seem, it was not entirely of chagrin, for the striking originality and ingenuity of the plan immediately appealed to his own peculiar genius for getting over difficulties.
“And then,” continued the talkative safe-breaker, “we will tie you both in your chairs, cut the wires, then flag the night express, and depart for the East like respectable citizens, and by the time you have been found and the wires restored we will be well out of danger.
“Now, I claim there is some class to that scheme. What?”
Despite himself, Alex could not forbear a smile, even while he at once saw that to defeat the plan would be almost an impossibility. Nevertheless, as the bank robber turned his attention to a time-table, Alex determinedly addressed his wits to the problem.
Presently, as he sat looking at the telegraph instruments for an inspiration, he started. That last First of April joke he had played on his father! The cut-off arrangement of wires was still in place beneath the instrument table! Could he not use it?
He determined to see whether the connections were still in order. Fortunately he was sitting close to the table, with his feet beneath. Making a move as though tired of his position, he crossed one foot over the other, and sank a little lower in the chair. Then, the change having brought no comment from the man at the counter, he carefully reached out the upper foot, found the two wires and pressed them together. Immediately came a click from the instruments.
It was in working order! With hope Alex at once addressed himself to its possibilities, and soon a suggestion came. “Yes, I believe I could do it,” he told himself with satisfaction. “I’ll make a try anyway. So much for never giving up.”
At that moment the footfalls of the returning robber and those of another sounded on the platform without. Both men were talking, and as they entered the waiting-room Alex heard the evidently still unsuspecting Jones say: “Funny, though. I never heard of the boy being troubled with his heart before.”
“COME ON! COME ON!” EXCLAIMED THE MAN IN THE
DOORWAY.
The next moment Jones’s casual tones changed to a sharp cry of fright, and Alex knew that the robber had revealed himself. “Now you keep your tongue between your teeth, and do exactly what you are told, young man, or you get this! You understand?
“Now turn about—your back toward the office door—so.” The door was flung open, and the robber appeared standing sideways, his gun in his hand, pointing at the day operator, who was just out of Alex’s sight.
“Now what you are to do is to read off letter by letter what this young shaver in here sends on the wire. You are a tab on him. You understand?”
In a trembling voice Jones responded in the affirmative.
“And the first one of you who appears to do anything not straight and aboveboard gets daylight through his head,” he added, raising his voice for Alex’s benefit. Then, addressing his partner, he said: “Give the kid the message, Bill.”
The tall man leaned over the counter and tossed the blank on the table before Alex.
“Who will I send it to first?” asked Alex.
“The sheriff, Watson Siding.”
“All right. But first, you know, I have to call him,” explained Alex, somewhat nervously, now that the critical moment had come. “His call is WS.”
Therewith he began slowly calling, that Jones might read off each letter as he sent it, “WS, WS, WS, BX.”
“WS, WS—”
“I, I,” answered WS.
“WS answers,” interpreted Jones.
Steadying himself with a deep breath, Alex proceeded to carry out his plan. Carefully reaching forth with his foot beneath the table, he pressed the two wires together, then loudly clicked his key. The instruments, thus “cut out,” of course failed to respond.
“The wire appears to have opened,” announced Jones. “Probably the man at WS has opened his key while getting a blank or a pen.”
Again Alex clicked the key as though in a futile effort to send, then leaving it open, thus holding the instruments on the table “dead,” began ticking his foot against the impromptu key beneath the table.
And while the instruments at Bixton remained momentarily silent, the surprised operator at Watson Siding read in draggy but decipherable signals the words:
“Read every other word.”
“Come on! Come on!” exclaimed the man in the doorway, turning suspiciously. Immediately Alex withdrew his foot and closed the key, and at the resulting audible click Jones announced: “The wire has closed. He can send now.”
“All right. Come ahead,” commanded the short man, impatiently.
Then very deliberately, with a pause after each word, seemingly to enable Jones to interpret, but really to give himself time to send another word, unheard, beneath the table, Alex sent on the key, and Jones read aloud, the following message:
“Sheriff,
“Watson Siding:
“Safe-blowers have been captured near here. Call in your posse.
“(Signed) O’Brien,
“Sheriff Quigg County.”
What the at first puzzled and then thunderstruck operator at Watson Siding read off his instrument ran very differently. It read:
“Safe THEY blowers ARE have HERE been IN captured STATION near INTEND here. GOING call OUT in BY your NIGHT posse. EXPRESS.
“(Signed) ’PHONE O’Brien, “BACK Sheriff HERE Quigg QUICK County.”
A moment after giving his “OK” the Watson Siding operator was at the telephone calling for Bixton central.
Meantime, having thus sent the message to WS to the bank-breakers’ satisfaction, Alex proceeded to call and send it by turns to Zeisler, Hammerton, and other stations on the line. Sending slowly, to make the most of his time, it was within fifteen minutes of the hour the express was due when Alex had sent the last of the messages.
“Now you can step in and see your friend,” said the man in the doorway, addressing Jones, who appeared, white and trembling, and coming behind the counter, dropped into a chair facing Alex. The speaker then once more disappeared, and presently an opening click of the instruments told the nature of his errand. The wires had been cut.
He soon returned, and rummaging about, while the taller man stood guard over them, he found some ropes, and proceeded to bind Alex and the day operator tightly in their chairs.
Just as the task was completed there came a long-drawn whistle from the west. Both robbers promptly turned to the door. “Well, good night, gentlemen,” said the smaller, grimly. “Much obliged for your kind services.”
“And I would just pause to repeat,” said the taller, jocosely, “that there is some class to this getaway scheme, should any one ask you. Good night.”
“Yes, there is class—but it isn’t first!”
Uttering a cry the two bank robbers staggered back from the door, and with a bound the deputy sheriff and a constable were upon them, bore them to the floor, and after a brief but terrific struggle disarmed and handcuffed them.
“Yes,” said the sheriff, rising, and with his knife quickly freeing the two prisoners, “there was class to it, but it was second.
“Our young friend here takes ‘first.’”
“HOW DID YOU DO IT, SMARTY?” SNAPPED THE SHORTER MAN.
The robbers turned upon Alex with furiously flashing eyes. “How did you do it, smarty?” snapped the shorter man.
Alex laughed, kicked one foot beneath the table, and the instrument responded with a click. “A little First of April trick. What do you think of it?”
Whatever the two renegades might have said through their gritting teeth, there was no doubt as to what the sheriff and the others thought. Nor the bank officials at Zeisler, when, a day later, there came to Alex a highly commendatory letter and a check for two hundred dollars.
But better even than this, in Alex’s estimation, a few mornings after the chief despatcher called him to the wire and announced his appointment as night operator at Foothills, a small town on the western division.