"You knew my record when you hired me. Chief Callahan gave it to you, and I knew that he did. But that is neither here nor there; I want my letter, and I want you to say in it that I am leaving to look for a more favorable climate."
"And if I don't give it to you?—if I tell you to go straight plumb to hell?"
"In that case I shall take all the chances—all of them, mind you—-and write a letter to the Interstate Commerce Commission."
If the man had had a gun in his hands I believe he would have killed me. There was manslaughter in his little gray, pig-like eyes. But he recovered himself quickly.
"If you're that kind of a gink, I'm damned glad to get rid of you at any price," he rasped; and then went to the district manager's desk and wrote me the letter, "To Whom it may Concern," practically as I dictated it.
That ended it, and when the letter was signed and flung across the desk at me I lost no time in getting out of the noxious atmosphere of the place. But before I was well out of the yard it occurred to me that I had still left a loaded weapon in Mullins's hands. Though the threat of exposure might tie him and his grafting coal company up, he could still appeal to Callahan, who would doubtless find an excuse for arresting me before I could leave town. And once in the hands of the chief crook I should be lost.
Under the spur of this new menace I returned quickly to the coal office, with some inchoate idea of trying to bully the scoundrelly chief of police through the hold I had acquired upon the coal company. The office was empty when I reached it, and at first I thought Mullins had gone out. But at a second glance I saw that he was in the telephone closet, the door of which he had left ajar. Overhearing my own name barked into the transmitter, I listened without scruple.
"——Yes, Weyburn; that's what I'm telling you. He's flew the coop.… Yes, he knows something—too damned much.… No, I wouldn't snag him here; he might talk too loud and get somebody to believe him—some fool in a Federal grand jury, for instance. Let him go—with a plain-clothes man to find out where he heads for—and then wire that outfit that piped him off when he came here. That'll settle him."
There may have been more of it, but I did not wait to hear. Speed was my best chance now, and I slipped out noiselessly and ran for the railroad station. If I should be lucky enough to find a train ready to leave, I might yet hope to escape whatever trap it might be that the bookkeeper and his official accomplice were going to set for me.
Reaching the station I found that the first train through would be a westbound, and that it was not due for half an hour. The wait was painfully trying. I did not dare to buy a ticket for fear Callahan might have telephoned the ticket office. As the passengers for the expected train straggled in I sought vainly to identify the spy who was undoubtedly among them; and when the train thundered up to the platform I made haste to board it and to lose myself quickly in the crowded smoking-car. Later, when the conductor made his round, I paid a cash fare to the end of the division, forbearing to draw a full breath of relief until the cesspool city had faded to a smoky blur on the horizon.