The Black Box Part 18

"Get on the wheel as quick as you can," Quest directed. "Here, I'll give you a hand."

He stooped down to unfasten the straps which held the spare wheel. It was one of his rare lapses, realised a moment too late. Almost in his ears came the hoa.r.s.e cry:

"Hands up, guvnor! Hands up this second or I'll blow you to h.e.l.l!"

Quest glanced over his shoulder and looked into the face of Red Gallagher, raised a little above the level of the road. He had evidently been hiding at the foot of the perpendicular bank which divided the road from the track level. A very ugly little revolver was pointed directly at Quest's heart.

"My mate's got you covered on the other side of the road, too. Hands up, both of you, or we'll make a quick job of it."

Quest shrugged his shoulders, threw his revolver into the road and obeyed.

As he did so, the other man stole out from behind a bush and sprang for the chauffeur, who under cover of the car was stealing off. There was a brief struggle, then the dull thud of the railway man's rifle falling on the former's head. The chauffeur rolled over and lay in the road.

"Pitch him off in the bushes," Red Gallagher ordered. "You don't want any one who comes by to see. Now lend me a hand with this chap."

"What do you propose to do with me?" Quest asked.

"You'll know soon enough," Red Gallagher answered. "A matter of five minutes' talk, to start with. You see that hand-car house?"

"Perfectly well," Quest a.s.sented. "My eyesight is quite normal."

"Get there, then. I'm a yard behind you and my revolver's pointing for the middle of your back."

Quest looked at it anxiously.

"You have the air, my red friend," he remarked, "of being unaccustomed to those delicate weapons. Do keep your fingers off the trigger. I will walk to the hand-car house and talk to you, with pleasure."

He sprang lightly down from the road, crossed the few intervening yards and stepped into the hand-car house.

Gallagher and his mate followed close behind. Quest paused on the threshold.

"It's a filthy dirty hole," he remarked. "Can't we have our little chat out here? Is it money you want?"

Gallagher glanced around. Then with an ugly push of the shoulder he sent Quest reeling into the shed. His great form blocked the doorway.

"No," he cried fiercely, "it's not money I want this time. Quest, you brute, you dirty bloodhound! You sent me to the pen for five years--you with your cursed prying into other people's affairs. Don't you remember me, eh? Red Gallagher?"

"Of course I do," Quest replied coolly. "You garrotted and robbed an old man and had the spree of your life. The old man happened to be a friend of mine, so I took the trouble to see that you paid for it. Well?"

"Five years of h.e.l.l, that's what I had," the man continued, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng, his face twitching with anger. "Well, you're going to have a little bit more than five years. This shed's been burnt down twice--sparks from pa.s.sing engines. It's going to be burnt down for the third time."

"Going to make a bonfire of me, eh?" Quest remarked.

"You can sneer, my fine friend," the man growled. "You've had a good many comfortable years of wearing fine clothes and smoking twenty-five-cent cigars, swaggering about and hunting poor guys that never did you any harm. This is where we are going to get a bit of our own back. See here!

We are locking this door--like that. It's a lonely bit of the line. The man in the tower never takes his eyes off the signals and there ain't a soul in sight. Me and my mate are off to the section house. Two minutes will see us there and back. We're going to bring a can of oil and an armful of waste. Can you tell what for, eh? We're going to burn the place to a cinder in less than three minutes, and if you're alive when the walls come down, we'll try a little rifle practise at you, see?"

"Sounds remarkably unpleasant," Quest admitted. "You'd better hurry or the boss will be back."

Gallagher finally slammed the door. Quest heard the heavy footsteps of the two men as they turned towards the section house. He drew a little case from his coat pocket.

"Just as well, perhaps," he said softly to himself, "that I perfected this instrument. It's rather close quarters here."

He opened what seemed to be a little mahogany box, looked at the ball of black substance inside, closed it up, placed it against the far wall, untwisted the coil, stood back near the door and pressed the b.u.t.ton. The result was extraordinary. The whole of the far wall was blown out and for some distance in front the ground was furrowed up by the explosion. Quest replaced the instrument in his pocket, sprang through the opening and ran for the tower house. Behind him, on its way to New York, he could see a freight train coming along. He could hear, too, Red Gallagher's roar of anger. It was less than fifty yards, yet already, as he reached the shelter of the tower, the thunder of the freight sounded in Quest's ears.

He glanced around. Red Gallagher and his mate were racing almost beside it towards him. He rushed up the narrow stairs into the signal room, tearing open his coat to show his official badge.

"Stop the freight," he shouted to the operator. "Quick! I'm Sanford Quest, detective--special powers from the chief commissioner."

The man moved to the signal. Another voice thundered in his ears. He turned swiftly around. The Irishman's red head had appeared at the top of the staircase.

"Drop that signal and I'll blow you into bits!" he shouted.

The operator hesitated, dazed.

"Walk towards me," Gallagher shouted. "Look here, you guy, this'll show you whether I'm in earnest or not!"

A bullet pa.s.sed within a few inches of the operator's head. He came slowly across the room. Below they could hear the roar of the freight.

"This ain't your job," the Irishman continued savagely. "We want the cop, and we're going to have him."

Quest had stolen a yard or two nearer during this brief colloquy.

Gallagher's mate from behind shouted out a warning just a second too late.

With a sudden kick, Quest sent the revolver flying across the room, and before the Irishman could recover, he struck him full in the face.

Notwithstanding his huge size and strength, Gallagher reeled. The operator, who had just begun to realize what was happening, flung himself bodily against the two thugs. A shot from the tangled ma.s.s of struggling limbs whistled past Quest's head as he sprang to the window which overlooked the track. The freight had already almost pa.s.sed. Quest steadied himself for a supreme effort, crawled out on to the little steel bridge and poised himself for a moment. The last car was just beneath. The gap between it and the previous one was slipping by. He set his teeth and jumped on to the smooth top. For several seconds he struggled madly to keep his balance. He felt himself slipping every minute down to the ground which was spinning by. Then his right heel caught a bare ledge, scarcely an inch high. It checked his fall. He set his teeth, carefully stretched out his hand and gripped the back of the car. Then his knee touched something--a chain. He caught it with his other hand. He lay there, crouching, gripping wherever he could, his fingernails breaking, an intolerable pain in his knee, death spinning on either side of him....

Back behind the tower, Red Gallagher and his mate bent with horrified faces over the body of the signalman.

"What the h.e.l.l did you want to plug him for?" the latter muttered. "He ain't in the show at all. You've done us, Red! He's cooked!"

Red Gallagher staggered to his feet. Already the horror of the murderer was in his eyes as he glanced furtively around.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEST JUMPS FROM THE SIGNAL TOWER ON TO THE FAST MOVING TRAIN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PAIR OF MYSTERIOUS HANDS PLACE THE BLACK BOX ON QUEST'S TABLE.]

"I never meant to drop him," he muttered. "I got mad at seeing Quest get off. That man's a devil."

"What are we going to do?" the other demanded hoa.r.s.ely. "It's a quiet spot this, but there'll be some one round before long. There goes the d.a.m.ned signals already!" he exclaimed, as the gong sounded in the tower.

"There's the auto," Gallagher shouted. "Come on. Come on, man! I can fix the tire. If we've got to swing for this job, we'll have something of our own back first."

They crawled to the side of the road. Gallagher's rough, hairy fingers were still trembling, but they knew their job. In a few minutes the tire was fixed. Clumsily but successfully, the great Irishman turned the car round away from the city.

"She's a hummer," he muttered. "I'll make her go when we get the hang of it. Sit tight!"

They drove clumsily off, gathering speed at every yard. Behind, in the shadow of the tower, the signalman lay dead. Quest, half way to New York, stretched flat on his stomach, was struggling for life with knees and hands and feet.