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The Plain-Clothes Man
Upon landing in Denver in the middle of a day that seemed too brightand exhilaratingly bracing to be true, I had an adventure which, whileit had no immediate bearing upon my escape, is worthy of record becauseit led to a second hasty flight, and so became in a manner responsiblefor much that happened afterward.
As I left the train a squarely built man, sharp-eyed under the brim ofhis modish soft hat, was standing aside on the track platform andevidently scrutinizing each of the debarking passengers in turn. Someacute inner sense instantly warned me, telling me that this silentwatcher was a plain-clothes man from police headquarters; and his firstword when he stepped out to confront and stop me confirmed theforeboding.
"You're wanted," he announced curtly, twitching his coat lapel aside toshow his badge.
This was another of the crises in which I was made to feel the murdermadness leaping alive in blood and brain; but the publicity of theplace and the blank hopelessness of escape in a strange city made anythought of resistance the sheerest folly.
"What am I wanted for?" I asked.
"You'll find that out later. Will you go quietly, or do you want thenippers?"
The cooler second thought reassured me. It seemed entirely incrediblethat the news of the broken parole had already been put on the wires.In the natural order of things I should hardly be missed until after myfailure to report to the prison authorities at the month end shouldraise the hue and cry.
"I'll go quietly, of course," I conceded; and then I added the lie ofsham bravado: "I don't know of any reason why I shouldn't. You are theman who is taking all the chances."
With no further talk I was marched through the station building, outthe long approach walkway to the foot of Seventeenth Street, and so onup-town, the plain-clothes man keeping even step with me and indicatingthe course at the corner-turnings by a push or a wordless jerk of hishead.
As we went I was striving anxiously to invent a plausible story to betold at headquarters. It was an entirely new experience. Hitherto Ihad always told the plain truth, as the law required, and now I foundthe inventive machinery singularly rusty. But the wheels were made toturn in some fashion. By the time we were mounting the steps of theantiquated City Hall at the crossing of Cherry Creek, I knew prettywell what I was going to say, and how it must be said.
At first they gave me little chance to say anything. In theinspector's office my captor and two others got busy over a book ofnewspaper clippings, pictures and descriptions of "wanted" criminals.With wits sharpened now to a razor-edge, I came quickly to theconclusion that I had been mistaken for some one else. The conclusionwas confirmed when they took an ink-pad impression of the ball of myright thumb and fell to comparing it with one of the record prints.
After a time the inspector put me on the rack, beginning by demandingmy name.
Meaning to lie only when there should be no alternative, I told him ahalf-truth. Though every one at home called me "Herbert" and "Bert,"and it was as "James Herbert Weyburn" that I had been arraigned andconvicted, that was not, strictly speaking, my right name. I had beenchristened "James Bertrand," after my father. My mother had alwayscalled me "Jimmie," but for others the "Bertrand" was soon shortenedinto "Bert" and from that a few home-town formalists had soon evolvedthe "Herbert," a change which my own boyish and unreasoning dislike for"Bertrand" was ready enough to confirm. So, when the inspector askedme my name I answered promptly, "James Bertrand."
"Write it," was the curt command, and a pad and a pencil were shoved atme across the desk.
Since the name was two-thirds of my own, I was able to write it withoutany of the hesitation which might otherwise have betrayed me if I hadchosen a combination that was unfamiliar.
"Where are you from?" was the next question.
Here, as I saw it, was one of the holes in which a lie might beprofitably planted--profitably and safely. So I said, glibly enough:"Cincinnati."
"Street and number?"
I had given Cincinnati merely because I chanced to be somewhat familiarwith that city, and now I gave the location of a boarding-house nearthe river front where I had once stayed over-night.
"Where were you born?"
"In the country, about forty miles from Cincinnati."
"Traveling for your health, I suppose? Where's your baggage?"
I saw that I should have to call a halt somewhere, and this seemed asgood a point as any.
"See here," I broke out; "you've got the wrong man, and you know it,and I know it! You have no shadow of right to arrest me without awarrant. Neither have you any right to try to tangle me in mystatements so that I shall fall down and give you an excuse for lockingme up!"
"Say, young fellow--you cut all that out and quiet down!" advised theplain-clothes man who had nipped me at the railroad terminal.
"That's the one thing I shan't do!" I retorted boldly. "You havearrested me without authority, and now you are trying to give me thethird degree. You've got me here, and you may make the most ofit--until I can find a lawyer. Lock me up if you feel like it; and arewilling to stand for the consequences."
At this the three of them put their heads together and once morecompared the thumb-prints. Suddenly the inspector whirled upon me withhis lips drawn back and his hand balled into a fist as if he were goingto strike me.
"How about that little job you pulled off with a forged check inChicago last week?" he rapped out.
He was evidently counting upon the effect of a shock and a surprise,but, naturally, the ruse fell flat.
"I don't know anything about a forged check; and I was never in Chicagoin my life," I replied; and since both statements were strictly true Icould make them calmly and without hesitation.
For the third time they put their heads together. I think theinspector was for letting me go without further ado. But the man whohad arrested me was apparently still suspicious and unsatisfied. As acompromise they did the thing which determined my second flight. Theytook me into a room at the rear of the building; a barn-like place bareof everything save a screen and a tripoded photographer's camera; andwithin the next five minutes I had been posed and "mugged."
"Now you may go," said the harsh-voiced inspector; and I left thebuilding knowing that the Colorado capital had been effectually crossedoff in the list of possible refuges for me. With my photograph in thepolice blotter, discovery and recapture would be only a question oftime, if I should stay where I could be identified by the localauthorities. Once during my prison term I had seen an escaped manbrought back from far-away Alaska.
Since there was no immediate danger, however, there was time to planthoughtfully and prudently for a second disappearance. After alunch-counter meal, eaten in a cheap restaurant within a block or so ofthe City Hall, I made a round of the employment offices. In front ofone of them there was a bulletin-board demand for railroad gradelaborers on the Cripple Creek branch of the Colorado Midland.
At that time I knew next to nothing about the geography of the RockyMountain States, and the great mining-camp at the back of Pike's Peakwas merely a name to me; though the name was familiar, in a way,because the mine in which Abel Geddis had sunk his depositors' moneywas said to be in the Cripple Creek district. What chiefly attractedme in the bulletin-board notice was the announcement that freetransportation would be given to the work. With only a few dollars inmy pocket, the free ride became an object, and I entered the office.
The arrangement was easily made. I gave the agent his fee of twodollars, and let him put a name--not my own or any part of my own, youmay be sure--on his list for the evening shipment. It appeared to cutno figure with this employment shark that I bore none of the marks of asuccessful pick-and-shovel man. All he wanted or cared for was his twodollars and something on two legs and in the shape of a man to put intohis gang against the collected fee. I was told to show up at the UnionStation at six o'clock, sharp; and after spending the remainder of theafternoon wandering about th
e city, I reported as instructed, waspassed through the gates with some twenty-five or thirty other"pick-ups," and so turned my back upon the Queen City of thePlains--for a time.