“Let these wreck-wagons in on the siding. Find Blacklock and tell him to get orders to follow you to Brewster as second section. Pull out as quick as you can. You’re ten minutes off time, right now!”
In the drawing-room of the rear sleeper of the limited, Maxwell closed the door on his guest and himself, passed his cigar-case, lighted a fresh cigar in his own behalf, and said nothing until after the short shifting stunt had been worked out and the Apache Limited was once more racing on its way westward. Then he opened up.
“You’ve got it now, Calvin; the thing that has been smashing more nerves for us than we can afford to lose. Of course, you understand what has happened. That blood-curdling report of an accident was a fake wire; God only knows where it came from, or who sent it.”
“And there have been others?” queried Sprague.
“A dozen of them, first and last. It began about a month ago. Sometimes it’s merely foolish; at other times it’s like this—a thing to bring your heart into your mouth.”
“And you mean to say you haven’t been able to run it down?”
“Run it down? If there is anything we haven’t done it’s some little item that has been merely overlooked. We’ve had about all of the company detectives here, first and last, and the best of them have had to give it up. There is nothing to work on; absolutely nothing. This wire to-night purported to come from Angels; as a matter of fact, it may have come from anywhere east of Brewster and this side of Copah. When we come to examine the Angels operator, we’ll probably find that he doesn’t know a thing about it—not a thing in the wide world.”
“Yet it was a real wire?”
“Calmaine, my own chief clerk, took it from the sounder and wrote it down. It seems that Connolly, the night despatcher, had gone out for a moment and Calmaine was holding down the wires for him. I saw the message before we left. The call and signature were all right, and the exact time, nine-thirteen, was given.”
“Wire-tappers?” suggested the listener, who had grown shrewdly sympathetic.