The box from japan, p.39
The Box from Japan, page 39
He raised the phone instrument and rang the Associated Air, Train, Bus and Water Lines Transportation Bureau. Again he used the emergency operator, for he was too ill at ease to try and strain his eyes over those columns of fine print in the gigantic directory. He asked at once for a “Travel Specialist,” one of those remarkably trained human robots whose brains were unlike the brains of any other kind of workers in the world. A voice answered him: “Travel Specialist talking.”
“What passenger plane services connect with Northern or Western Canada—from points either east or west of Chicago?”
“Several. But we’ve some right here in Chicago. The Northern Air Transport, the—”
“Wait. I don’t want to go via Chicago. I’ve got flier’s ‘jonah’ on Chicago air fields. I want to hop from an air field east or west of here.”
“New York? Well, there’s the Bronx and Manhattan Airways too—”
“Wait. No New York lines, please. I don’t want to stay on a damn train all the way to New York.”
“Well—er—just where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere. Northward, say. Into Canada.”
“Are you ready for travel now—are you asking as to future train and air schedules?”
“No, no, no. I’m packed and ready to go right now.”
“And where are you just now, please?”
“What the devil difference is it where I—oh well, I’m in the Union Station at Randolph Street and Outer Drive.”
“Thank you. That information would be essential to me. Wait one second, please.” Even this young man had to consult some sort of printed records to aid his phenomenal brain. But he evidently knew at once where and how to find those records in a jiffy. His answer came quickly.
“There’s a Junkers G-41 Amphibian flying boat leaves Toledo, on Lake Erie, at Pier No. 16, at 11 p.m. tonight. Goes straight to Hudson Bay without any stop. Lands on the bay at Ft. Edward, where Whale River empties into Hudson Bay, at 7 in the morning—that is, if there’s no fog over Central and Western Quebec. It carries chiefly executives of, and machine parts for, the Hudson Bay and Whale River Development Company of Toledo, Ohio. Goes north, though, only three times a week—Wednesday nights, Friday nights and Sunday nights. Would that do—or is it too far—”
“No. Hudson Bay looks fine to me. I’m—I’m working out a vacation itinerary. How’s the climate up there?”
“Perfect—at this season of the year. A bit lonely though. Outside of the development company workers, there are only trappers, Indians and so forth. There’s a small hotel, though, with wire service to Montreal, through which Chicago or New York can be gotten easily. The Algonquian House.”
“Good! Now you say this company-owned Junkers amphibian leaves Toledo tonight, eh? And they take passengers? What kind of service?”
“Regular high-class service, sir. Passenger quarters and berths right inside the wings themselves. Very comfortable, I assure you. The flying boat itself has a 75-foot long body, and is 16½ feet high. The overall wing span is 148 feet. Equipped also with inner and outer ’chutes. Two outer oil-burning motors of 400 horsepower each, and two central ones of 700 h.p. apiece. I’m sure you’d find it very comfortable. Electric-lighted berths, of course, and meals a la carte. If you’re willing to ride Train No. 101 on Trunk Line 33, out of Chicago, for only 5 hours—it goes to Buffalo, but makes no stop this side of Toledo—you can connect perfectly. The fare is—”
“The fare doesn’t matter,” growled Orski. “What matters is whether I can assuredly make the flying boat in time from the Toledo depot?”
“You don’t even have to cross Toledo in a cab, sir. Train 101, Trunk 33, detours slightly three nights a week to stop on a siding at Wharf 16, Lake Erie, before pulling into the main depot. Yes sir, to unload the registered mail and express necessitated by this big development company. The stuff is run right off the express car down a runway onto the waiting Junkers plane. So when you buy your ticket—or if you buy it on the train—be sure to get full passage through to Hudson Bay via H.B.D. Company’s Air Line. There’s a coupon on it which will pass you right through to the express car about a quarter of an hour out of Toledo—and all you have to do is to go down the runway with the express trucks and onto the waiting plane. It takes off immediately the train pulls out for the main depot.”
“Ah,” breathed Orski. “That describes the situation perfectly, I think. Now when does Train 101, Trunk No. 33, pull out?”
“Exactly one hour from now, sir. Seven-fifteen.”
“Good. O.K. Thanks.” And Orski hung up. He rubbed his hands together with some satisfaction, and nodded his head gravely.
He wasn’t in the big Union Depot at Outer Drive and Old Loop, however. Although he had ample time, more than ample time, indeed, to get there. But he did not intend to be in that depot unless—
He caught a sight of himself in a daintily gold-framed glass across the room. For a brief moment he thought of shaving that handsomely bearded face clean, but then he shook his head. To do that meant—it meant many undesirable things. It meant, for one thing, more cruising around the streets to hunt a barber shop. And precious time lost. For time now was precious indeed. Moreover, the shaven face was the identical face they would be looking for. Every man-jack of them had the visage of that beardless youth of 20 graven on his brutal brain, in addition to the face of the older man-about-town. That early photograph of him, he knew full well, was only too available to anyone who, suspecting or knowing the inside facts, might want to get a replica of it. A thousand copies of it had beyond doubt been made, as well as a thousand copies of that recent newspaper halftone. And that earlier face—the physiognomy of that beardless youth of 20—it differed very, very little, if at all, from the unshaven face that looked back at him. He knew that, likewise, only too well. The same thin lips in the same straight line; the same high cheekbones, the same hawklike, hooked nose. Gad, in these days of facial experts, why hadn’t he ever done with that nose as did people with scars—have it—
Scars! That gleaming and partly raised crisscross scar on his chin, covered entirely now by the black hairs of his trig beard. Why—the stupidest lout of them all was able to watch for a chin bearing such a screamingly telltale stigma. And was watching—this very minute. No, no shaving. For that was just what they expected.
If they were covering the depot. Which they undoubtedly were.
Now to be superlatively cautious about that very thing. For there was a possible way, a very cunning way. And why not? He knew Joe Dunneally as well as he might have known a brother, had he ever had a brother.
He dialed Emergency Operator again, and got the big new 30-story Union Railway Station at Outer Drive. He asked for Joseph Dunneally, and added to that name the title “General Depot Manager.” Again, however, he had to add, in response to a request for information about himself, “Mr. Dunneally’s personal friend in the Chicago Athletic Club, Mr. ‘O.’”
A second, and the girl replied: “Just a moment, sir. Mr. Dun neally’s finishing an important conversation on another wire. Hold the wire please.”
But as he waited, tensely, instrument clutched in his left fist, his free loose right hand, resting in his right hand coat pocket in that invariable posture he so often assumed, touched that cold round bit of brass. And he scowled ferociously. Must get rid of that. At once. Before some tailor might later find it in a pocket of this very suit, sent to be pressed—some hotel maid might run across it—in Canada—anywhere. They might be curious. Too curious. Then a newspaper story. British journalists scanning him, questioning him. His eyes roved vaguely about the room, seeking a place that would never be found by maid nor porter—Chicago maid and Chicago porter, at least—after he might leave even this little haven. There was none. And then, as his gaze swept past his feet, and he caught sight of an expensive perfecto in his vest pocket, his eyes smiled an infinitesimal bit, even though his face relaxed not an iota. He laid the instrument down, diaphragm upward, so that he would hear Dunneally’s voice arise from it the moment his friend came on the wire. Withdrawing the fat damp perfecto with one hand, he withdrew the brass medal with the other. He stuck the pin of the medal squarely into the compact cylinder of tobacco, and crushed the little catch on the medal itself into the side of the cigar. Now the medal clung on the under side of the perfecto like a little tenacious barnacle of some sort. He lighted the cigar, with a pocket lighter. Drew on it, several puffs. Its draught was, of course, imperfect now, but it caught its light and commenced, at least, to develop an ash. That was enough for his purpose. He held it between the fingers of his right hand, reflectively. And of a sudden he heard Dunneally’s voice, suave, polite, urbane, rising wraithlike from the instrument on the table below him.
“Yes?”
He seized the telephone, perfecto now gone out, held in the fingertips of his free hand. He made no further efforts to draw on the cigar.
“Alexis, Joe. Yes. Say, Joe, you’ve a stopless through train leaving for Toledo in a while, haven’t you? On Trunk Line 33?”
“Yes, but—”
Orski interrupted him.
“I may want to ask you a tremendously big favor, Joe, if it can be done. A matter of boarding it—outside the depot. But while I’ve got you on the wire, a newspaper friend of mine here wants me to ask you whether there’s been anything—well—suspicious—or unusual—around the depot this afternoon?”
“Well—well—well! You surprise me, Alexis. There has. And is! But don’t quote me. Gangsters. Hordes of ’em. The place has been teeming with ’em all afternoon. Singly and in pairs. They’re unmistakable, my chief of inspection tells me. He ought to know; he’s an ex-police officer himself. They’re stationed here one minute, he says, and gone the next. Some in one waiting room—some in another. Some on one train-shed level—some on another. Weaving in and out, dodging, and so far as I can make out, being continually supplemented with alternates. A couple of central office men dropped in an hour ago to look the station over—and pulled one of the rascals in—he had a loaded gun on him, and two hundred cash dollars to pay his fine with tomorrow morning in police court. They must be waiting for some incoming train—and—”
“Well whether they’re waiting for an incoming train, Joe, or an outgoing—well—party, what’s—what’s your explanation of it?”
“Same old story, Alexis, so far as I can see, as happened five or six years ago in the old LaSalle Street depot. Yes, when Chicago had a large number of separate railway stations. Some New York gunmen must have left New York, bound for Chicago to stir things up a bit in the Mala outfit, and the Mala outfit has been informed of it by grapevine telegraph! Near as I can guess it, anyway. These well-dressed hoodlums, though, appear to be minding their own business, for we’ve not had the sign of any friction in the station itself. Duffy, at headquarters, refuses to butt in with a general round-up unless something definite breaks. Between you and me, I think he’s been fixed. He claims he figures they’re not going to pull anything in the depot proper—that they’re merely out in full force today to trail somebody or else a lot of persons, and once away from the depot will bump off somebody—or several somebodies. You know his theory, Alexis, or at least his alleged theory, if he hasn’t been fixed: ‘Let the gangsters erase each other and save the overworked detective bureau.’”
Orski was quite silent. All except, however, for a deep sigh, a forlorn sigh indeed. What a cursed, damnable network they had spread. Every man-jack of them had been inducted into this greatest of all man-hunts—this man-hunt the causes of which were never to see print in an American newspaper. Now if only he hadn’t received that unmistakably couched warning—specific to the ten thousandth degree—intended for him—and him alone, of all the 6,000,000 people in Chicago—he might have hoped against hope that Dunneally’s theory was right, and— But no. That warning was succinct, unmistakable. And as one in a daze, he heard Dunneally’s voice coming to him again over the wire.
“But you were asking about that through Toledo train, Alexis, on Trunk Line 33. I want to warn you it’s leaving the station in five minutes now. On Track 17, ‘B’ Level. Its time of departure was advanced three-quarters of an hour, late last night. Are you near the station now? Or possibly you’re downstairs in the phone booths, eh? If you are, Alexis, better hop upstairs at once.”
“Gad no, Joe,” blurted Orski, aghast at this discomfiting information. “I—I’m not. I’m—I’m far, far from even Old Loop. I couldn’t—couldn’t—” He swallowed with difficulty “—get there within twenty-five minutes.”
“Just where are you, Alexis’” asked Dunneally, with businesslike abruptness.
“In—in Hyde Park,” said Orski, biting his thin lower lip fiercely. Damn the luck, anyway! He must get that train somehow, that one train which would, to all intents and purposes, run him straight through without a stop, without any dread possibilities of outside intervention, and literally deposit him snug and tight within the protecting wing of that giant Junkers flying boat, scheduled to dart tonight for the most uninhabited part of the far North. “I’m packed, Joe,” he added desperately. “‘All packed, and must—that is, I ought to—I have to go on that train. A fearfully vital business matter—by morning—at Hudson Bay.”
“Oh! Hudson—Bay, eh?” Dunneally appeared staggered. Then he spoke with sudden authoritativeness. “Alexis, if you’re packed and all ready, you can board it. I’m sorry to say that I’m not able to do anything for you whatsoever, on making an out-station stop. Only the Grand Mogul—the G.M. himself—yes, General Manager—could achieve a vital thing like that. But you say you do want to board it outside the depot. O.K., Alexis. You’re all set! It stops today at Englewood Station. Yes, Englewood Station, considerably less than 2 miles—less than a mile and a half, even—west of you. Special stop order, to take on the wife and child of the G.M. himself! Now get this, Alexis. It leaves here in—let’s see—in 4 minutes now. It uses up an even fifteen minutes exactly making Englewood Station. Yes, all the trains run at a very moderate speed within the city limits—so many switches and frogs, you see. So you’ve got nearly as good as twenty minutes, Alexis. You can connect easy as pie. Flag a cab right now. Tell your driver the Viaduct—Queen Victoria Road—a block north of 63rd Street.”
“And nobody knows—knows it’s to stop there?” asked Orski, hardly believing his ears yet.
“Nobody but the engineer—and conductor—and myself—and yourself,” returned Dunneally somewhat bewilderedly. “And the G.M.’s frau!”
“A thousand thanks, Joe. A million in fact. I’ll hop the short distance at once. Good-by and thanks again.” Orski did not even wait to re-deposit his instrument on its base. A glance at his wrist watch as though to assure himself that he was not dreaming such a perfect schedule of eventualities—and he knew at last that he had found the hole in the huge net. Englewood—Train No. 101—Wharf 16—Toledo—the waiting Junkers—Hudson Bay—Canada, King and order. Canada, safety and peace. Canada—a decent God-fearing land whose wide open spaces, as well as whose cities, were rigorously policed by the stern members of His Majesty’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police; a law-abiding land where an American gangster dared not even show the tip of his nose lest he find himself in a British gaol. The fox had worked his way through and past the baying hounds. Easy!
He grabbed up his bag and his velour hat, and cigar, still clutched between his fingers, slid out of the room and flew three steps at a time down the single flight of the thickly carpeted inner stairway. At the gilt-edged desk, he flung down his room key and a 50-cent piece. “Checking out,” he said hurriedly. “And the half-dollar’s for my phone calls.” With which he was out of the place in a jiffy. His cab was ticking away at the curb, a few feet off from the open end of the flapping canopy. He rounded the canopy with celerity, and tossed his bag into the cab as the driver hopped out and held open the door for him.
“Englewood railroad station, the Viaduct, Queen Victor—”
“Yeah, I know, gov’nor. That’s my stampin’ grounds. I’ll mosey you over there—”
“Mosey hell, you idiot,” snapped Orski. “You’ll burn up the streets. I’m making a—here—wait till I toss this damn stinking stogie in the sewer where it belongs.” He leaned a quarter way down from the running board on which he already had one foot, and with a neat, and presumably irascible flip of his hand, saw his partly burned perfecto, medal clinging fast and tight to its under surface, hurtle into the gaping orifice of a sewer opening adjacent to the cab, where it tumbled instantaneously out of sight, never to reappear again, as he knew full well. He stood erect, a little red-faced from bending over “Eat up the blocks now,” he warned. “I’m making a train out from there, a train that by rights,” he exaggerated, “is pulling out from the downtown depot right this minute—or will be in a few seconds. You’ve got fifteen full minutes—but not a confounded minute more—to make it. Now hop, man, hop. I’m—I’m making a close connection at—at Buffalo. Hop.”
