Free and Other Stories

FREE AND OTHER STORIES

he would not fire, for fear of killing either the engineer or fireman. Both engineer and fireman, at his command, then entered the car and blew open the money safe, throwing out the packages of bills and coin at his word, the while Rollins, realizing the danger of either trainmen or passengers coming forward, had been firing a few shots backward toward the rear coaches so as to overawe the passengers, and at the same time kept calling to purely imaginary companions to keep watch there. It was these shots and calls that had presumably sent the Governor and his staff scurrying to their berths. They also put the fear of death into the minds of the engineer and fireman and messenger, who imagined that he had many confrères on the other side of the express car but for some reason, because he was the leader, no doubt, preferred to act alone.

“Don’t kill anybody, boys, unless you have to,” is what Rollins said he called, or “That’s all right, Frank. Stay over there. Watch that side. I’ll take care of these.” Then he would fire a few more shots, and so all were deluded.

Once the express car door and safe had been blown open and the money handed out, he had now compelled the engineer and fireman to come down, recouple the engine, and pull away. Only after the train had safely disappeared in the distance did he venture to gather up the various packages, only since he had lost his bag and had no light, he had to fumble about and make a bag of his coat for them. With this over his shoulder, he eventually staggered off into the wood and marsh, concealing it under muck and stones, and then making for safety himself.

But, as it turned out, two slight errors, one of forgetfulness and one of eyesight, caused him to finally lose the fruit

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of his victory. The loss of the bag, in which he had first placed and then forgotten an initialed handkerchief belonging to his love, eventually brought about his capture. It is true that he had gone back to look for the bag, without, however, remembering that the handkerchief was in it, but fearing capture if he lingered too long, had made off after a time without it. Later a posse of detectives and citizens arriving and finding the bag with the initialed handkerchief inside, they were eventually able to trace him. For, experts meditating on the crime, decided that owing to the hard times and the laying-off of employees, some of the latter might have had a hand in it, and so, in due time, the whereabouts and movements of each and every one of them was gone into, resulting in the discovery finally that this particular ex-helper had returned rather recently to his semi-native town and had there been going with a certain girl, and that even now he was about to marry her. Also, it was said that he was possessed of unusual means, for him. Next, it was discovered that her initials corresponded to those on the handkerchief. Presto, Mr. Rollins was arrested, a search made of his room, and nearly all of the money recovered. Then, being “caught with the goods,” he confessed, and here on this day was he being hurried to O – to be jailed and sentenced, while Mr. Binns and Mr. Collins, like harpies, hovered over him, anxious to make literary capital of his error. The only thing that consoled Mr. Binns, now that this story was finally told, was that although he had failed to make it impossible for Collins to get it, when it came to the writing of it he would be able to outdo him, making a better and more connected narrative. Still, even here he was a little dubious. During this interview Collins had been making endless notes, putting down

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each least shade of Binns’s questioning, and with the aid of one or several of the best men of the News would probably be able to work it out. Then what would be left?

But as they were nearing O – a new situation intruded itself which soon threatened on the face of it to rob Binns of nearly, if not quite, all his advantage. And this related, primarily, to the matter of a picture. It was most essential that one should be made, either here or in the city, only neither Waxby nor himself, nor the city editor of the News apparently, had thought to include an artist on this expedition. Now the importance of this became more and more apparent, and Collins, with that keen sense he had for making tremendous capital of seeming by-products, suggested, after first remarking that he “guessed” they would have to send to police headquarters afterward and have one made:

“How would it do, old man, if we took him up to the News office after we get in, and let your friends Hill and Weaver make a picture of him?” (These two were intimates of Binns in the art department, as Collins happened to know.) “Then both of us could get one right away. I’d say take him to the Star, only the News is so much nearer” (which was true), “and we have that new flash-light machine, you know” (which was also true, the Star being but poorly equipped in this respect). He added a friendly aside to the effect that of course this depended on whether the prisoner and officers in charge were willing.

“No, no, no!” replied Binns irritably and suspiciously. “No, I won’t do that. You mean you want to get him into the News office first. Not at all. I’ll never stand for that. Hill and Weaver are my friends, but I won’t do it. If you want to bring him down to the Star, that’s different. I’ll agree to that. Our art

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department can make pictures just as good as yours, and you can have one.”

For a moment Collins’s face fell, but he soon returned to the attack. From his manner one would have judged that he was actually desirous of doing Binns a favor.

“But why not the News?” he insisted pleasantly. “Those two boys are your friends. They wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Think of the difference in the distance, the time we’ll save. We want to save time, don’t we? Here it is nearly six-thirty, and by the time we get back to the office it’ll be half-past seven or eight. It’s all right for you, because you can write faster, but look at me. I’d just as lief go down there as not, but what’s the difference? Besides the News has got a better plant, and you know it. Either Hill or Weaver’ll make a fine picture, and they’ll give you one. Ain’t that all right?”

At once he sensed what it was that Collins wanted. What he really understood was that if Collins could get this great train robber into the office of the News first, it would take away so much of the sheer necessity he would be put to of repeating all he had heard and seen en route. For once there, other staff members would be able to take the criminal in hand and with the aid of what Collins had to report, extract such a tale as even Binns himself could not better. In addition, it would be such a triumph of reporting – to go out and bring your subject in!

“No, it’s not,” replied Binns truculently, “and I won’t do it. It’s all right about Hill and Weaver. I know they’ll give me a picture if the paper will let them, but I know the paper won’t let them, and besides, you’re not doing it for that reason. I know

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what you want. You want to be able to claim in the morning that you brought this man to the News first. I know you.”

For a moment Collins appeared to be quieted by this, and half seemed to abandon the project. He took it up again after a few moments, however, seemingly in the most conciliatory spirit in the world, only now he kept boring Binns with his eyes, a thing which he had never attempted before.

“Aw, come on,” he repeated genially, looking Binns squarely in the eyes. “What’s the use being small about this? You know you’ve got the best of the story anyhow. And you’re goin’ to get a picture too, the same as us. If you don’t, then we’ll have to go clear to your office or send a man down to the jail. Think of the time it’ll take. What’s the use of that? One picture’s as good as another. And you can’t take any good pictures down there to-night, anyhow, and you know it.”

As he talked he held Binns’s eyes with his own, and all at once the latter began to feel a curious wave of warmth, ease and uncertainty or confusion creep over him in connection with all this. What was so wrong with this proposition, anyhow, he began to ask himself, even while inwardly something was telling him that it was all wrong and that he was making a great mistake. For the first time in his life, and especially in connection with so trying a situation, he began to feel an odd sense of ease and comfort, or as if surrounded by a cloud of something that was comfortable and soothing. This scheme of Collins’s was not so bad after all, he thought. What was wrong with it? Hill and Weaver were his friends. They would make a good picture and give him one. Everything Collins was saying seemed true enough, only, only – For the first time since knowing him, and in spite of all his opposition of this after-

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noon and before, Binns found himself not hating his rival as violently as he had in the past, but feeling as though he weren’t such an utterly bad sort after all. Curiously, though, he still didn’t believe a word that Collins said, but –

“To the News, sure,” he found himself saying in a dumb, half-numb or sensuously warm way. “That wouldn’t be so bad. It’s nearer. What’s wrong with that? Hill or Weaver will make a good picture seven or eight inches long, and then I can take it along,” only at the same time he was thinking to himself, “I shouldn’t really do this. I shouldn’t think it. He’ll claim the credit of having brought this man to the News office. He’s a big bluff, and I hate him. I’ll be making a big mistake. The Star or nothing – that’s what I should say. Let him come down to the Star.”

In the meantime they were entering O – , the station of which now appeared. By now, somehow, Collins had not only convinced the officers, but the prisoner himself. Binns could even see the rural love of show and parade a-gleam in their eyes, their respect for the News, the larger paper, as opposed to the Star. The Star might be all right, but plainly the News was the great place in the sight of these rurals for such an exhibition as this. What a pity, he thought, that he had ever left the

News!

As he arose with the others to leave the train he said dully, “No, I won’t come in on this. It’s all right if you want to bring him down to the Star, or you can take him to police headquarters. But I’m not going to let you do this. You hear now, don’t you?”

But outside, Collins laying hold of his arm in an amazingly genial fashion, seemed to come nearer to him humanly than he had ever dreamed was possible before.

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“You come up with me to the News now,” Collins kept saying, “and then I’ll go down with you to the Star, see? We’ll just let Hill or Weaver take one picture, and then we’ll go down to your place – you see?”

Although Mr. Binns did not see, he went. For the time, nothing seemed important. If Collins had stayed by him he could possibly have prevented his writing any story at all. Even as Binns dreamed, Collins hailed a carriage, and the six of them crowded into it and were forthwith whirled away to the door of the News where, once they had reached it and Collins, the detectives, and the bandit began hurrying across the sidewalk to that familiar door which once had meant so much to him, Binns suddenly awoke. What was it – the door? Or the temporary distraction of Collins? At any rate, he awoke now and made a frantic effort to retrieve himself.

“Wait!” he called. “Say, hold on! Stop! I won’t do this at all. I don’t agree to this!” but now it was too late. In a trice the prisoner, officers, Collins and even himself were up the two or three low steps of the main entrance and into the hall, and then seeing the hopelessness of it he paused as they entered the elevator and was left to meditate on the inexplicability of the thing that had been done to him.

What was it? How had this low brute succeeded in doing this to him? By the Lord, he had succeeded in hypnotizing him, or something very much like it. What had become, then, of his superior brain, his intellectual force, in the face of this gross savage desire on the part of Collins to win? It was unbelievable. Collins had beaten him, and that in a field and at a task at which he deemed himself unusually superior.

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“Great heavens!” he suddenly exclaimed to himself. “That’s what he’s done, he’s beaten me at my own game! He’s taken the prisoner, whom I really had in my own hands at one time, into the office of our great rival, and now in the morning it will all be in the paper! And I allowed him to do it! And I had him beaten, too! Why didn’t I kick him off the train? Why didn’t I bribe the conductor to help me? I could have. I was afraid of him, that’s what it is. And to-morrow there’ll be a long editorial in the News telling how this fellow was brought first to the News and photographed, and they’ll have his picture to prove it. Oh, Lord, what shall I do? How am I to get out of this?”

Disconsolate and weary, he groaned and swore for blocks as he made his way toward the office of the Star. How to break it to Waxby! How to explain! The exact truth meant disgrace, possibly dismissal. He couldn’t tell really, as he had hoped he might, how he had all but prevented Collins from obtaining any interview. Waxby would have sniffed at his weakness in a crisis, put him down as a failure.

Reaching the office, he told another kind of story which was but a half truth. What he could and did say was that the police, being temperamentally en rapport with Collins, had worked with him and against the Star; that in spite of anything he could do, these rural officers and detectives had preferred to follow Collins rather than himself, that the superior position of the News had lured them, and that against his final and fierce protest they had eventually gone in there, since the News was on the natural route to the jail, and the Star was not.

Now it was Waxby’s turn to rage, and he did – not at Binns, but at the low dogs of police who were always favoring the

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News at the expense of the Star. They had done it in the past, as he well knew, when he was city editor of the News. Then it had pleased him – but now –

“I’ll fix them!” he squeaked shrilly. “I’ll make them sweat. No more favors from me, by – ,” and rushing a photographer to the jail he had various pictures made, excellent ones, for that matter – only, what was the good? The fact that the News had the honor of making the first picture of this celebrity under its own roof, its own vine and fig-tree, was galling. As a matter of fact, Waxby by now was blaming himself for not having sent an artist along.

But to Binns the sad part was that Collins had him beaten, and that in the face of his self-boasted superiority. In spite of the fact that he might slave over the text, as he did, giving it, because of his despair and chagrin, all his best touches, still, the next morning, there on the front page of the News, was a large picture of the bandit seated in the sanctum sanctorum of the News, entirely surrounded by reporters and editors, and with a portion of the figure, although not the head, of the publisher himself in the background. And over it all in extra large type was the caption:

“LOAN TRAIN ROBBER VISITS OFFICE OF NEWS TO PAY HIS RESPECTS” while underneath, in italics, was a full account of how willingly he had visited the News because of its immense commercial, moral and other forms of superiority.

Was Binns beaten? Well, rather!

And did he feel it?

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