The Wire Devils

by Frank L. Packard

The Hawk's eyes, under cover of his newspaper, reverted to the man at the desk. The minutes passed—five, ten of them. The man's hours were long undoubtedly, and usually there were two in charge of the news-counter, which might perhaps account for the man's weariness, and the profound slumber that was possible even in such an uncomfortable position! The Hawk turned to the editorial page of his newspaper. There were almost two hours before No. 18 was due, and, though he had a little business of a purely personal and intimate nature to transact before then, there was time in abundance and to spare, and it might possibly be utilised as profitably here as anywhere else. In any case, there was usually an editorial diatribe, interesting principally for the virulent language in which it was couched, anent the Hawk and the Wire Devils, with whose leadership he, the Hawk, was universally credited. The Hawk smiled thinly. If leadership was vested in the lion's portion of the spoils, then MacVightie, and Lanson, and the newspapers, and the public generally were unquestionably right—but, since those spoils had been snatched from under the noses of the Wire Devils, thanks to his possession of their secret code, the Wire Devils and the Ladybird in particular, that peer of the underworld who, as he had discovered a few nights ago, was the moving spirit of the gang, held a very different and even more decided opinion on the subject!

He folded the paper over, and sprawled himself out lazily on his seat—but if the editorial in question was on the sheet before him, he did not see it. The man at the desk raised his head, yawned, stretched himself, and, as though wearily resuming his work, reached into a small drawer that stood open in the upper section of the roll-top desk, took out a pad of paper, and began to write.

Still another five minutes passed; and then the man tossed his pencil away from him, and reached out for the telephone at his elbow. But now he seemed to hesitate, then evidently changed his mind. He pushed back his chair, stood up, tore the sheet of paper on which he had been writing from the pad, replaced the pad in the drawer, closed the drawer, and, turning quickly, opened the office door. He came down the narrow space behind the news-counter itself, stepped out into the waiting room, glanced hurriedly about him, and, breaking suddenly into a run, disappeared through the waiting room door in the direction of the platform.

The Hawks lassitude seemed suddenly to have vanished. In a flash he had covered the few feet of space that separated his seat from the doorway of the news-counter, and now, crouched low, hidden by the counter itself, he darted silently for the little office, gained it, wrenched open the drawer of the desk—and over the Hawk's set, tense features there flickered again that curious smile. Faint, muffled, but none the less distinctly, there came from the interior of the drawer, which, as he reached in his hand, he found was open through to the wall, the clicking of a telegraph sounder. But, while he listened, the Hawk was working with breathless haste. His fingers closed on the pad of paper, and tore off the topmost sheet. Without folding or crushing the paper, he laid it carefully inside his vest, buttoned his vest over it again, closed the drawer of the desk noiselessly—and in another instant was lolling again in his seat in the waiting room, apparently immersed once more in his newspaper.

It had taken the Hawk a matter of less than a minute to go and come, but for all that his margin of safety had been small. The man returned almost instantly, and again entered the office. The Hawk, finding that for once the editorial which might have afforded him a genuine, if passing, interest, was absent, turned another page of the paper, spent a few minutes in the somewhat unprofitable perusal of what proved to be massed columns of “Help Wanted” and “Situations Vacant” advertisements, and, finally, throwing the paper down on the seat beside him, got up leisurely, and strolled out through the main entrance of the station to the street.

The Hawk crossed the road, and slipped into the lane that was almost opposite the station. This being accustomed ground to the Hawk, he made his way quickly along in the blackness, reached the first intersecting street, dove through the doorway of the dirty and squalid three-story building, the ground floor of which was occupied by a saloon, and, mounting the narrow staircase, entered the room that was directly over the saloon on the first landing. The Hawk locked the door behind him. If his temporary abode in Selkirk City could be so designated, the Hawk was at home.

He switched on the electric light, drew a chair up to the cheap and somewhat dilapidated table that stood against the wall opposite the door, and from under his vest took out the sheet of paper he had purloined a few minutes before. He spread it out eagerly before him on the table, scanned it closely, and into his dark eyes there came a half mocking, half triumphant gleam.

“I thought so!” murmured the Hawk. “He didn't dare telephone it. I thought the messages must be coming in pretty hot to-night—the other fellow must have gone up to the East End to shoot some mighty important reply back, or else he'd never have left his pal short-handed. It's no wonder I never tumbled to that lay until the Ladybird opened the bag! I didn't recognise those news-counter fellows, did I? Why should I? They're new ones just breaking into the game, or they'd never have pulled a fool stunt like this!”

The Hawk bent over the paper. In places the impression left by the pencil was faint and, indeed, illegible, and had not come through from the upper sheet at all; but the Hawk patiently and painstakingly settled himself to his task. The first few lines were but a confused and, to all outward appearances, meaningless jumble of letters run together—one of the Wire Devils' code messages. And here, if this had been all, the Hawk would have been hopelessly astray; but lower down on the sheet the man had decoded the cipher, and here, where letters and words were too faintly impressed on the paper or were missing altogether, the Hawk was able to supply them by following the general sense of the message. He began by tracing over the impressions carefully with a sharp lead pencil, and at the expiration of a few minutes was staring, a grim smile on his lips, at the following:

“Gold transferred to No. 18 at Momleigh. Keep away from Limited. Probably big posse on No. 18. Every man will join Number One on Train 18 to-night. Those boarding No. 18 at Selkirk must on no account excite suspicion. All other details to stand.”