The Luck of the Mounted Part 26

The huge manacled prisoner emerged, and shuffled awkwardly towards the inner room, closely attended by his armed escort.

Slavin and Yorke, seated together at one end of the table, arose as Gully entered. Standing curiously still, as if carved in stone, their bitter eyes alone betraying their emotions, silently they gazed at the huge, gaunt, unkempt figure that came shambling towards them.

Gully halted and stared long and fixedly at the relentless faces of the two men whose grim, dogged vigilance had led to his undoing. Over his blood-streaked, haggard face there swept the peculiar ruthless smile which they knew so well; and he raised his manacled hands in a semblance of a salute.

"_Morituri te salufant_!" he muttered in his harsh, growling ba.s.s--the speech nevertheless of an educated man.

"Eh, fwhat?" queried Slavin vaguely. The cla.s.sical allusion was lost on him, but Kilbride and Yorke exchanged a grim, meaning smile as they recalled the ancient formula of the Roman arena. McSporran pushed forward a chair, into which Gully dropped heavily. Chin cupped in hands, and elbows resting on knees he remained for a s.p.a.ce in an att.i.tude of profound thought. The inspector, resuming his chair at the table, motioned his subordinates to be seated, and reached forward for some writing materials.

"All right, now, Gully!" he began, in a hard, metallic tone. "What is it you wish to say?" All waited expectantly.

Apparently with an effort Gully roused himself out of the deep reverie into which be had sunk, and for a s.p.a.ce he gazed with blood-shot eyes into the calm, stern face of his questioner. Then, with a sort of dreamy sighing e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, he roused himself and, leaning back in his chair, began the following remarkable story. He spoke in a recklessly earnest manner and with a sort of deadly composure that startled and impressed his hearers in no little degree.

"Listen, Inspector," he said. "A good deal of the story I'm going to tell you has no bearing on the--the--the--case in hand. There's no use in you taking all this down. I understand procedure"--he smiled wanly--"therefore, with your permission I'll go ahead, and you can construct a brief statement on your own lines afterwards, which I will sign."

Kilbride bowed his head in a.s.sent to the other's request.

"The name I bear now," began the prisoner,--"'Ruthven Gully'--is my real name, though knocking around the world like I've been since I was a kid of sixteen, and the many queer propositions I've been up against in my time, why--I've found it expedient to use various aliases.

"For instance"--he eyed the inspector keenly--"I wasn't known as 'Gully'

that time Cronje nailed us all at Doornkop, Kilbride, in 'ninety-six. . . ."

Kilbride uttered a startled oath. Shaken out of his habitual stern composure he stared at the man before him in sheer amazement. "Good G.o.d!" he cried, "The 'Jameson Raid!' . . . Now I know you, man!--you're--you're--wait a bit! I've got it on the tip of my tongue--Mor--Mor--Mordaunt, by gad! . . . that's what you called yourself then. Ever since I sat with you on that case I've been turning it over in my head where in ever I'd fore-gathered with you before. It was your moustache which fooled me--you were clean-shaven then. . . Well, Well! . . ."

He was silent awhile, overcome by the discovery. "Aye!" he resumed in an altered voice, "I've got good cause to remember you, Mor--Gully, I mean.

You certainly saved my life that day . . . when we were lying in that _donga_ together. I was. .h.i.t pretty bad, and you stood 'em off. You were a wonderful shot, I recollect. I saw you flop out six Doppers--one after the other."

He turned to Slavin. "Sergeant!" he said quietly, "You'd better leave the leg-irons on, but remove his handcuffs--for the time-being, anyway. . . ." He addressed himself to the prisoner with a sort of sad sternness. "It's little I can do for you now, Gully . . . but I can do that, at least. . . ."

Slavin complied with his officer's request. Gully's huge chest heaved once, and he bowed his head in silent acknowledgment of Kilbride's act of leniency.

"All right! go ahead, Gully!" said the latter.

The prisoner took up his tale anew. "As I was saying--I left the Old Country when I was sixteen. No need to drag in family troubles, but . . . that's why. . . . Well! I hit for the States. Montana for a start off, and it sure was a tough state in 'seventy-four, I can tell you. That's where I first learned to handle a gun. I knocked around between there and Wyoming and Arizona for about nine years, and during that time I guess I tackled nearly every kind of job under the sun, but I punched and rode for range outfits mostly.

"Then I was struck with a fancy to see the South, and I drifted to Virginia. I'd been there about two years, working as an overseer on a tobacco plantation, when I got a letter from our family's solicitor recalling me home. My eldest brother had died, and the estate had pa.s.sed on to me. Where, Inspector?--why, it was at Castle Brompton, a quiet little country town in Worcesters.h.i.+re.

"Well! I'd had a pretty rough training--living the life of a roustabout for so many years, and I guess I kind of ran amuck when I struck home. I played ducks and drakes with the estate, and the end of it was . . . I got heavily involved in debt. There seemed nothing for it but to up-anchor, and to sea again in my s.h.i.+rt. So, my fancy next took me to Shanghai, where I obtained a poorly-paid Civil Service job--in the Customs. I stuck that for about a year, and then I pulled out--disgusted. The next place I landed up in was, if anything, worse--the Gold Coast. From there I drifted to the Belgian Congo. I was there for nearly two years doing--well! perhaps it's best for me not to enter into details--we'll call it 'rubber.' It's a cruel country that--one that a man doesn't exactly stay in for his health, anyway; for a bad dose of fever nearly fixed me. It made me fed up with the climate and--the life. So I pulled out of it and went down country to the Transvaal. That's how I came to get mixed up in 'The Raid,' Inspector.

I was in Jo'burg at the time it was framed up, so I threw in my lot with the rest of you.

"Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to go back to the States and the range life again. I was properly fed up with Africa. So--back I went there--to Montana again. I punched for one or two cow-outfits awhile, and then came a time when a deputation of citizens came and put it up to me if I'd take on the office of Deputy-Sheriff for ---- County, where I happened to be working. I suppose the fact of my being a little more handy with a gun than most had impressed some of them. Things were running wild there just then, and for awhile I tell you, I was up against a rather dirty proposition. I and my guns certainly worked overtime for a stretch, till I got matters more or less s.h.i.+p-shape. I had the backing of the best people in the community luckily, and eventually I won out.

"Then--when the inevitable reaction set in with the peaceable times that followed, somehow I managed to get in bad with some of them. They had no more use for me or my guns. I was like a fish out of water. I decided to pull out, for a strange hankering to see England and my old home again came over me. So I resigned my office and headed back to the Old Country. . . ."

At this point in his narrative, Gully dropped his head in his hands and rocked wearily awhile ere continuing haltingly: "It was the mistake of my life--ever going back--to a civilized country. For a time I strove to conduct myself as a law-abiding British citizen--to conform to the new order of things, but--I had been amongst the rough stuff too long. I was out of my sphere entirely.

"One day, in a hotel at Leeds, I got into a violent quarrel with a man--fellow of the name of Hammond. It was over a woman. He insulted me--in front of a crowd of men at that--and finally he struck me.

Hitherto I'd taken no back-down from any man living, and I guess I forgot myself then and kind of ran amuck--fancied I was back in Montana again.

Consequence was--I threw down on him in front of this crowd and shot him dead.

"Of course I was arrested and charged with murder in the first degree; but as it was adduced at my trial that I'd received a certain amount of provocation, I was sent down for fifteen years. I'd done little over six months of my time in Barmsworth Prison when I and two of my fellow convicts framed up a scheme to escape. It takes too long to go into details how we worked it. I made my get-away, though I had to abolish a poor devil of a warder in doing so. The other two lost out. One got shot and the other was caught some days later--as I read in the papers.

"Well! I managed to reach the States again, and eventually came over this side of the line. As I had been convicted and sentenced under the alias which I had adopted while in England--my real name never coming out--I resumed my name of Gully again when I settled down here. My relatives, what few I possess, have never known of my conviction and imprisonment. All the time I was in England on my second trip I was clean-shaven, but on returning to the States I let my moustache grow once more. As you said, Kilbride--it is a very effectual disguise. Will one of you give me a drink, please? My mouth's pretty dry with all this talking."

Yorke got up and brought him a gla.s.s of water, and he drank it down with a murmur of thanks.

"Now!" he said, continuing his narrative: "I'm coming to the worst part of all. You'll all wonder I've not gone mad--brooding; but I've got to go through with it. When I settled down here I honestly did struggle hard to live down my past and start afresh with a clean sheet. I borrowed some money from an old ex-sheriff friend of mine in Montana--which loan, by the way, I have paid all back--every cent--and bought"--he gazed gloomily at Kilbride--"what was my home. But somehow . . . Fate seems to have dogged me and tripped me up in the end.

Until last January everything was going well with me. As Slavin and Yorke here can testify . . . I was conducting myself fairly and squarely with all men.

"Then--one day Yorke brought that Blake and Moran case up in front of me.

Both of these men I'd met before, but they didn't recognize me again--not absolutely. I usually contrived to keep pretty clear of them for reasons which will appear obvious later. I'm coming to that. Moran I recognised as a former Montana tough who used to hang around Havre--bronco-buster, cow-puncher, and tin-horn by turns. Many a time I've caught him sizing me up, in Cow Run and elsewhere--mighty hard, too, but he never seemed to be sure of me. Once he did chance a feeler, but I just twirled my moustache, a la Lord Tomnoddy, and bluffed him to a finish.

"Larry Blake"--a ruthless gleam flickered momentarily in Gully's deep-set, shadowy eyes--"Larry Blake, I recognized as the son of the Governor of Barmsworth Prison--old Gavin Blake. Sometimes this young fellow used to come around with his father, when the old gentleman was making his daily tour of inspection. I well remember the first time I saw him--young Larry. I was chipping stone in the quarry, amongst a gang, with a ball and chain on. I'd been in about two months then. The Governor was showing some visitors around, and his son was with him.

They were staring at us like people do at wild animals in a show. I was pointed out to them, and my recent crime mentioned. I remember young Blake eying me with especial interest. He came out to Canada and hit these parts about two years after I'd located here.

"Well! now and again when we'd run across each other I'd find him looking at me in a queer, vague fas.h.i.+on, too; but I felt safe enough with him; like I did with Moran--until this case came up. After it was over, he and I happened to be alone, and, in a round-about way, he began asking me questions. He did it so clumsily, though, that my suspicions were aroused at once. Of course I bluffed him--or thought I had--easily for the moment, but one day I happened to be in the Post Office getting my mail when, amongst a bunch of letters on the counter I saw one addressed to 'Gavin Blake, Esq., Governor of Barmsworth Prison, England.' Old Kelly, the postmaster, having his back to me at the time, fumbling around the pigeon-holes, I promptly annexed this letter and slipped it into my pocket.

"When I opened it up my suspicions were verified. Young Blake wrote to his father that he'd come across a man whom he could almost swear to as being one of the three convicts who'd broken out of Barmsworth some years back. He asked what steps he'd better take in the case--if the original warrant issued for me could be forwarded to the Mounted Police, and so on. He said his intentions were to try and gain further evidence, and in the meantime to confide in no one about his suspicions until he received definite instructions what steps to take.

"I guess the devil must have got a good grip on me again after I'd read that letter. It seemed no use trying to redeem the past with outsiders like young Blake making it their business to b.u.t.t in and lay one by the heels. Anyway, like Satan at prayers, I didn't feel like being coolly sacrificed when my years of honest effort were drawing near their reward in the shape of a fairly prosperous ranch--just at the whim of a lazy, profligate young busy-body.

"From that hour Larry Blake was practically--'gone up.' I'd deliberately made up my mind to put him out of business on the first convenient opportunity that presented itself. That opportunity came on the night he was fighting with Moran in the hotel. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. I'll admit it was a devilish idea, but I was desperate.

Of course things didn't shape out as I'd planned--Moran's alibi for instance, or that hobo, Drinkwater.

"I know to you it will only appear sheer nonsense on my part ever to start in attempting to justify my--my abolishment of him. But this--what I am going to tell you--is the absolute truth of what happened. In the first place--when he spotted me bringing Moran's horse into the stable that night--although I was mad and man-handled the poor devil at the time--I felt fairly easy in my mind later, thinking he would drift out of town next day, after the manner of his kind. But when he was brought up in front of me afterwards, I realized the serious predicament I was in."

He turned to Slavin. "Sergeant!" he went on: "I'll admit I was feeling pretty queer when you were examining that man--especially about the smelling of drink business. I'd slipped him a snort of whiskey after you'd gone down to Doctor c.o.x's to get those papers signed. I told him to keep his mouth shut if he was questioned about any horse or man--and that I'd get him off if he obeyed my instructions. Of course he didn't know what all this was for. He had no opportunity of knowing--never did know, though I fancy he thought it was a case of horse-stealing. Anyway, my promises and the drink made him my ally at once. Only human nature for him to side with me against the Police. As you know, Sergeant, you can get more definite results from that cla.s.s of man by a drink bribe than by all the threats and promises in the world.

"My original intention in taking him out to my place was to slip him twenty dollars or so, and head him adrift westward, and so out of things.

But after we got home and I put the proposition up to him, the beggar began to a.s.sert himself and get bold and saucy--tried to blackmail me for an unheard of amount--threatening he'd go and tell you everything if I didn't come across, and all that. Finally I lost my temper with him and gave him a good slap across the face. He happened to be outside the house bucking wood at the time, and, when I hit him, he came for me with the axe. I only jumped back just in time, as he struck. I threw down on him and put him out of business right-away then, realizing I was up against it."

Gully halted for a s.p.a.ce and leaned his head in his hands. "G.o.d!" he muttered presently, "what nights I've had! I've killed many men in my time, but those two--I hated framing up all that business on you fellows next day--those tracks and the bill-folder, and all that useless chasing for a week, but it seemed to me to be the only plausible bluff I could run on you, under the circ.u.mstances. Now, are there any more things you don't understand? Any questions you'd like to ask me?"

"Yes!" queried Slavin. "How did you get to Calgary that night--after you'd missed the nine-thirty eastbound. Jump a freight, or what? You were seen to get on the train. . . ."

"I know that," said Gully slowly, "I did it for a blind. I walked through the coaches and slipped out again at the far end of the platform--in the dark. No! I didn't jump a freight, Sergeant. I was tempted to; but on second thoughts the idea made me feel kind of uneasy.

Perhaps you'll be dubious of this, but, as a fact, I took a 'tie-pa.s.s'--walked it all the way to Calgary on the track. I was about done when I made s.h.a.gnappi Point, beating my pa.s.sage through all that snow. I bought a new pair of cow-puncher's boots while I was in town.

You remember I was wearing them when I returned. I had the overshoes wrapped up as a parcel and packed them back to the ranch and burnt them--and Drinkwater's boots."

"How about that Savage automatic?" said Yorke, "the one you shot those dogs with yesterday? We've got your Luger, but where's the Savage gun?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Gully wearily, "of course I had two guns. I never used to pack the Luger around--afterwards, well! . . . for obvious reasons. You'll probably find the Savage in the cellar at my place--that's if it isn't buried, like I nearly was."

There was a long silence, broken only by the scratch, scratch, of the inspector's pen, as he rapidly indited a formal statement for the prisoner to sign. Once during its composition he halted for a brief s.p.a.ce and, leaning back in his chair, gazed long with a sort of dreary sternness at the huge, unkempt figure before him.

"Gully," he said slowly, "whatever in G.o.d's name put it into your head to stand off the Police in the way you did? Shooting those two poor chaps and nearly putting the kibosh on five others! Whatever did you hope to gain by it? You must have known it was absolutely impossible for you to make your get-away from us. Why, man! we had you cornered like a wolf in a trap. It was worse than silly and useless and cruel for you to act in the way you did!"

"Oh, my G.o.d! I don't know!" moaned Gully, rocking despondently with his head in his hands. "I must have gone clean mad for the time being. . . ." He gazed gloomily at Slavin and Yorke, muttering half to himself: "What little things do trip a man up in the end! The best laid schemes o' mice and men! But for my shooting those cursed dogs yesterday you'd never, never have suspected me. The whole thing would just have been filed and forgotten in time--would just have remained one of those unfathomable mysteries. Directly after I'd thrown down on those curs I realized what a d----d bad break I'd made--what my momentary loss of temper was going to cost me. I could tell by the way you all looked at me what was in your minds. . . ."