When Egypt Went Broke, Holman Day [free ereaders .txt] 📗

the course of a bit of philosophizing on the situation:
"I suppose that, when you look at it straight, it's stealing, what I'm doing. I've seen a lot of big gents pass through that state prison, serving sentences for stealing. Embezzlement, forgery, crooked stock dealing--it's all stealing. They were tempted. I've been tempted. I've fell. I ain't an angel, any more than those big gents were. And you know what I told you about mourners chirking up, after the first blow! I figure it's the same way in the bank case. They have given up the idea of getting the money back. They're still sad when they think about it, but they keep thinking less and less every day. They've crossed it off, as you might say."
The two who were bound in that peculiar comradeship were out on the crag where they could look down upon the distant checker board of the village. Vaniman, in the stress of the circumstances, wondered whether he might be able to come at Wagg on the sentimental side of his nature.
"The little town must have gone completely broke since the bank failure. Innocent people are suffering. If that money could be returned--"
He did not finish the sentence. Mr. Wagg was most distinctly not encouraging that line of talk.
"Look here, Vaniman, when you got away with that money you had hardened yourself up to the point where you were thinking of your own self first, hadn't you?"
The young man did not dare to burst out with the truth--not while Wagg was in the mood his expression hinted at.
Wagg continued: "Well, I've got myself to the point where I'm thinking of my own self. I'm as hard as this rock I'm sitting on." In his emphasis on that assertion Wagg scarred his knuckles against the ledge. "After all the work I've had in getting myself to that point, I'm proposing to stay there. If you try to soften me I shall consider that you're welching on your trade."
Wagg made the declaration in loud tones. After all his years of soft-shoeing and repression in a prison, the veteran guard was taking full advantage of the wide expanses of the big outdoors.
"What did I do for you, Vaniman? I let you cash in on a play that I had planned ever since the first barrow of dirt was dumped into that pit. There's a lifer in that prison with rich relatives. I reckon they would have come across with at least ten thousand dollars. There's a manslaughter chap who owns four big apartment houses. But I picked you because I could sympathize with you on account of your mother and that girl the papers said so much about. It's a job that can't be done over again, not even for the Apostle Peter. Now will you even hint at welching?"
"Certainly not!"
But that affirmation did not come from Vaniman. It was made in his behalf by a duet of voices, bass and nasal tenor, speaking loudly and confidently behind the two men who were sitting on the ledge.
The younger man leaped to his feet and whirled; the older man struggled partly upright and ground his knees on the ledge when he turned to inspect the terrifying source of sound.
So far as Vaniman's recollection went, they were strangers. One was short and dumpy, the other was tall and thin. They wore slouchy, wrinkled, cheap suits. There was no hint of threat in their faces. On the contrary, both of the men displayed expressions of mingled triumph and mischief. Then, as if they had a mutual understanding in the matter of procedure, they went through a sort of drill. They stuck their right arms straight out; they crooked the arms at the elbows; they drove their hands at their hip pockets and produced, each of them, a bulldog revolver; they snapped their arms into position of quick aim.
Wagg threw up his hands and began to beg. Vaniman held himself under better control.
But the men did not shoot. They returned the guns to their pockets and saluted in military fashion, whacking their palms violently against their thighs in finishing salute.
"Present!" they cried. Then the dumpy man grinned. Wagg had been goggling, trying to resolve his wild incredulity into certainty. That grin settled the thing for him. It was the same sort of a suggestive grin that he had viewed on that day of days in the prison yard.
"Number Two-Eight-Two!" he quavered.
"Sure thing!" The dumpy man patted the tall man's arm. "Add one, and you have Number Two-Eight-Three--a pal who drew the next number because we're always in company."
"And we're here because we're here," stated the other.
The short man fixed his gaze on the ex-cashier. "You don't realize it yet, but this is more of a reunion than it looks to be on the surface. You two gents have seen how we're fixed in the gun line, and we hope the understanding is going to make the party sociable."
"You may be thinking that this is only another case of it being proved how small the world is, after all," remarked the tall man. "Not so! Not so! We have followed you two because we have important business with you. We have had a lot of trouble and effort in getting here. Bear that in mind, please!"
The new arrivals were quite matter-of-fact and Wagg was helped to recover some of his composure. "The two of you are three-year men--robbery in the nighttime," he declared, out of his official knowledge. "What in blue blazes are you doing outside the pen?"
"Attending to the same business as you are--after a slice of the bank coin," replied the short man, carelessly.
Wagg got to his feet and banged his fists together. "Do you dare to walk right up to a guard of the state prison and--and--" He balked in his demand for information; Mr. Wagg was plainly afflicted with a few uncomfortable considerations of his own situation.
"We do!" the convicts declared in concert. Then the dumpy man went on: "And whatever else it is you're wondering whether we dare to do, we'll inform that we dare. Once on a time we had occasion to express our opinion of a bank. I wrote out that opinion and left it where it would be seen. Not exactly Sunday-school language, but it hit the case." He turned away from Vaniman's frenzy of gasping interrogation. He confined his attention to Wagg. "A prison guard, say you? You're a hell of a guard!"
"Opinion indorsed!" said the other convict.
For a few moments there was complete silence on the summit of Devilbrow. Somewhere, on an upland farm in the distance, a cow mooed. Then a rooster challenged all comers.
"That's the word, old top!" agreed the tall man. "It expresses my feelings," He clapped his hands against his legs and cried in his tenor, imitating the singsong of the rooster, "We're here because we're he-e-ere!"
Then he and his fellow sat down on a ledge outcropping that overtopped and commanded the position of the other men. The convicts surveyed Vaniman and Wagg with a complacent air of triumph. "Are you willing to take things as they stand, or do you feel that you can't go ahead till your curiosity has been scratched?" inquired the short man.
"Curiosity!" stormed the ex-cashier. "Do you dare to call the feeling I have in me curiosity?" He thumped his fist against his breast.
"And how about my feelings, with escaped convicts racing and chasing all over this country?" shouted the guard. "What has happened to that prison since I've been off my job?"
"One at a time!" The dumpy man put up his hand to shut off the stream of questions that were pouring from Wagg. "The young fellow has his innings first. He has more good reasons for rearing and tearing. It's easy enough to get out of a state prison when you have a trick that can be worked once." He winked at Wagg. Then he directed his remarks strictly at Vaniman.
"I'm going to talk free and open. We're all in the same boat. We're a couple of pots, and both of you are kettles, all black. Now, listen! I'm Bill." He stuck his finger against his breast and then tagged with it his pal at his side. "He's Tom. Bill and Tom have been humble and hard-working yeggmen, never tackling anything bigger than country stores and farmers' flivvers. Once on a time they were in a barn, tucked away waiting for night, and they heard a man running a double shift of talk--beating down the farmer on the price of cattle and blowing off about gold coin hoarded by the bushel in a rube bank."
Stickney's unruly mouth! Vaniman understood. "So, says Bill to Tom: 'Why not go up like everything else is going up these days?' Says Tom to Bill: 'I'm on.' We took our time about it, getting the lay of the land. We went down to the big burg to buy drills and soup and pick up points on how to crack a real nut. Equipment up to that time had been a glass cutter and a jimmy for back windows and padlocks."
He was humorously drawling his confession. He stopped talking and lighted a cigarette. Impatience that was agony urged Vaniman, but he controlled himself. Wagg did not venture to say anything. His thoughts were keeping him busy; he was mentally galloping, trying to catch up with the new situation.
"And let me tell you that when Bill and Tom got back up here, they had colder feet than the weather accounted for. General headquarters, that camp!" He jerked thumb gesture toward the log cabin. "It had been our hang-out in times past when we operated in this section. Handy place! Finally got up courage enough to go to the job. Fine night for it! Deserted village. Peeked into Town Hall and saw the general round-up. Light in the bank. Bill was boosted up by Tom and got a peek over the curtain. One fellow inside adding figures--much taken up. Bank-vault door wide open. Front door unlocked. Crawled in. Kept crawling. Crawled into bank room. Grille door wide open. Bill up and hit fellow with rubber nob-knocker--it snuffs, but is not dangerous. Tom is handy by with the chloroform--always carried it for our second-story work."
The young man began to stride to and fro, striving by using his legs to keep from using his tongue.
The narrator snapped the ash off his cigarette. "Bill and Tom looked at each other. Did they expect such easy picking? They did not. The stuff had been fairly handed to 'em. They dragged the stuff out--all the sacks of it. Transportation all planned on. Couple of handsleds such as we had seen leaning up against the houses in the village. Slipped the fellow into the vault with his hands tied and shut the door with a trig so that he couldn't kick it open right away. Idea was that anybody stepping in later would think he had gone home; we intended to put out the light; nothing desperate about us; we wouldn't shoot the bolts. Bill said to Tom that there'd be a hunt for the fellow when he failed to show up at home, wherever he lived, and he'd sure be pulled out of the vault in good season. Thoughtful, you see! Not bloody villains. Simply wanted time for our getaway. Slow pulling up this hill with handsleds! But we slit a bag to make sure of what we would be pulling. And we kept on slitting bags. And--" the short man shook his head and sighed. "You say it, Tom. I'm trying to be sociable in this talk with these gents--showing a full and free spirit in coming across with the facts. But I don't trust myself!"
"Nor