“Know what I’m here for?” he stammered.
“Yes. Nothing will be gained by dodging. You may as well make a clean breast of it. You’ve been faking these scare wreck reports—don’t lie about it; we’ve got the evidence. I want to know who is behind you. Who bribed you to do this thing?”
“Before God, Mr. Maxwell!” the culprit began, with the sweat rolling down his face; but Maxwell stopped him with a quick gesture.
“I’ve told you it was no use to try to lie out of it. I have here on my desk a letter which was taken from your coat pocket to-night, since you came on duty; a letter from which you were careful enough to tear the signature, but on which you were not careful enough to destroy the date line. In that letter the writer threatens to give you away to the New York police if you don’t get busy and give the newspapers a string of Nevada Short Line wrecks to write about. That is enough to send you over the road, but there’s more. The working wires east and west have been cut under the roof of this building, and leads taken off. The leads disappear in the wall back of your bunk-room. I don’t ask you what you have to say for yourself; I want you to tell us, right here and now, who planned the thing, and what it was intended to accomplish.”
Connolly had been slowly collapsing in his chair under the merciless fire of accusation, and a pasty pallor was driving the pink out of his round face.
“My God!” he gasped thickly; and then he repeated, “My God!” A silence crammed with threatenings settled down upon the small office-room. Suddenly it was broken by the sound of hurried footfalls in the corridor, and Tarbell was hurled half-way across the room when the door was flung open from without.
It was young Cargill, the engineer, who burst into the private office, and his lips were white.
“The Limited!” he broke out. “She’s overrun her orders at Corona and she’s due to meet Second Eighteen on the single track!”
It was the Government man who led the rush to the despatcher’s room, a rush in which even the fat culprit joined. In the wire office Davis had the key; his jaw was set and the perspiration was standing thickly on his forehead, but he had not lost his nerve. Calmaine, the chief clerk, was hanging over his shoulder, and outside of the railing the group of trainmen had grown to a breathless crowd, pressing to hear the latest word.
When Maxwell’s party pushed through the gate, Sprague was still in the lead, and his quick glance took in every detail of the scene. Like a flash he turned upon Tarbell, who was fumbling a pair of handcuffs in his pocket, and pinioned him in a grip that was like the nip of a vice.