Walker of the Secret ServicePost, Melville Davisson
General
Walker of the Secret Service
Post, Melville Davisson
Secret service -- Fiction
Mooney used to laugh about it; about the ridiculous appearance the
creature presented and what he had done. He had pulled an empty mail
sack down over the man’s head and shoulders and left him there; and
there he had been found three hours later when the train pulled into
one of the central cities of the west. The German had not moved and
the mail sack was still pulled down over his shoulders when the
train men at the station came into the car.
The man had been laughed out of the service and had gone from one
undertaking to another, until, finally, destiny established him here
in this boarding house to meet Mooney when he should arrive ill in a
hired cab.
Mooney, as I have said, knew the man instantly, but it was not
likely that the man recognized the awe-inspiring bandit in his sick
lodger. But he looked at Mooney as at some person whom he had seen,
and the highwayman knew that it was only a question of time until
his host would be able to place him.
The impressions of fright are conspicuously vivid.
It was certain that this man’s mind retained the precise picture of
the one who had put him into such abject terror. The picture would
be clear in every detail. Time does not blur impressions like this.
It would be merely a question of the mental connecting up of his
impressions about this lodger whom, he felt, he had seen somewhere,
and the identity of the highwayman who had put him so desperately
into fear.
It was then that Mooney sent the telegram to Maggie. He got the
German to take it out to the telegraph office, and he awaited her
arrival. He did not send for a doctor. He knew perfectly well that
death was on him. He had contracted the swift deadly pneumonia which
at that time was devastating the country like a plague.
Maggie reached the city that evening and Mooney told her what to do.
He pointed out that the German lodging-house keeper had already hit
upon his identity and the house was being watched, for he had
noticed a window across the street, back of a barber shop, that
always had the shade pulled down. The window was visible from his
bed and he could see, by watching it, that this shade moved
occasionally.
He observed it closely and at one time saw a man’s hand, which was
all the evidence a person like Mooney needed. He knew perfectly well
that the German had recognized him and reported the fact to the
police.
He explained it all to Maggie when she came in. She knew then that
she would be shadowed when she went out of the house. He told her,
precisely, what he wished her to do.
It was about five o’clock in the afternoon.
Maggie presently left the house and was of course shadowed. She went
along the street until she came to a doctor’s office. She rang the
bell and entered. This destination seemed reasonable to the
plain-clothes man who was keeping her in sight. This was precisely
what one summoned to the bedside of an ill man would be expected to
do; go at once for a physician.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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