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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Country Gentleman, 25 October 1924, with "The Hypocrites"
"Craig Kennedy on the Farm,
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1925
OUVREZ! Open up, Murat! Ouvrez!" I was too cold to do anything but stamp my feet and beat my hands. Kennedy, his ulster drawn close from the icy dampness that penetrated to the very marrow, impatiently rattled on the antiquated latch of the door of the old farmhouse not far from the Canadian border, in Quebec, just over the Vermont line.
No sound came from within—and there should have been a welcome.
Through blue lips I managed to chatter, "Force it, Craig! Let's get warm!" I, too, beat on the panels of the door.
Silence.
The soughing of the great evergreen branches over our heads made that silence only more intense, more foreboding. It seemed to suggest tragic possibilities behind that door.
Some time before Kennedy had been sent by the United States Government on the trail of a man-running an underground railroad from Canada into the States, a gigantic and growing conspiracy for smuggling in aliens in defiance of the new immigration law.
I had accompanied him not only because my paper had assigned me to write of it but more because I wanted to be near Kennedy. Many times his intrepidity, his forgetfulness of self in hunting down a criminal had made my presence of at least some slight value in situations of danger.
We had gone from Ontario into Quebec, spent several days in and about Montreal, thence on to the city of Quebec. At the Château Frontenac and about, Kennedy had met up with various Canadians, mostly farmers of the better class who had dropped into town.
ALWAYS his desire was to talk to farmers, both dirt and gentlemen farmers, those of the Province preferred. I couldn't see why that was necessary. What had farmers to tell of man-running? I was getting a little mystified. But in times like these during my association with Kennedy I have found that silence works better than inquisitiveness. When he is ready to inform me I find out. Never before.
Several times he had evidently thought the end of the search for the head of this conspiracy had come. He had felt he might catch his man in the next move. But the result would work out differently. The real chief seemed always to be a jump ahead of us. Craig had gone afield on many strange tips and I had become accustomed to it. This was merely the latest.
"I must see this man Murat before I go on, Walter. I'll get in—wait till he comes back." Craig turned to me with the optimism of a man who fears the worst.
Slowly he turned the lock with a skeleton key. Somehow, neither of us hurried now. There was something unseen that deterred, that prevented us from flinging open suddenly the door even after we knew the key had shot the bolt. Just as I raised my eyes to Kennedy's, his met mine. In both was the same fear. With a shrug Kennedy opened the door slowly now.
I gave a gasp. There, lying on the floor, such a sight! Murat, the old Canuck farmer, was dead!
That is the merciful way to tell it. For, what a story the old hunting knife which Kennedy picked up from the floor might have told. Perhaps, in a way, it is a good thing some of these inanimate witnesses are silent.
The room was small, with only necessary articles of furniture, the things ordinary and homely that would meet the requirements of a humble tiller of the soil. The ceilings were low and the floors rough. It was a man's room. There were guns cm the walls, and tools and boots lying about, betraying the convenient untidiness of the owner.
The fireplace was large and in it were the charred remains of many burnt papers. Long ago the fire had burned out. The room lacked even the beautifying glow of flames and their shadows. Nothing but that gruesome thing lying in blood on the floor.
I looked about hastily. There was every evidence of a struggle, a losing struggle for the silent crumpled figure at our feet. Chairs were upturned, the little table that had been prepared evidently for a simple, frugal breakfast was upset and most of the dishes had been broken.
A closet door stood wide open as if someone in haste had searched it and had not taken time to close it. In the closet were six wooden pegs driven two in each of the three walls. I gaped when I looked at the contents of this closet. It was a puzzle to me. There on the pegs, hanging neatly, were various costumes. What earthly use could a Canuck farmer have for these things?
I STUDIED the garments carefully. Here, was a lumberman's costume hanging next that of a priest. The brightly checked plaid of red and white relieved the somber tones of the robe. There were other costumes, too, four of them in all, hanging upon four of the six pegs, with all that went with each costume, such as scarfs and hats and shoes, also arranged neatly each over its peg or under it. The outfit of a guide, the suit of corduroy, with fur collar and deep pockets hung just as incongruously next that worn by a Jewish peddler, with a pack sitting on the closet floor under it.
None of the costumes seemed very old or much worn, and I wondered why they should be hanging in a Canuck farmer's closet. The man couldn't have been a costumer. People up there in that section of the country certainly cared nothing for masquerades. Kennedy smiled quietly at my surprise.
Through my nervous mind ran a parody of the old nursery rhyme: "Farmer, guide, peddler; priest—lumberjack—I stopped, unable to complete it.
Yet, what was this Murat? A suspicion flashed through my mind. Could this dead farmer have been the man runner? Or was it possible his death might have come from the hazards one meets in rum-running? It was strange to me that each costume seemed quite complete. Also my interest was stimulated after watching Kennedy. He examined everything most cautiously and carefully. I wondered what, if anything, he expected to find.
NEXT he searched through the fireplace rubbish without seeming there either to find anything. Yet his examination seemed to satisfy him.
My eyes would persist in wandering back to that thing on the floor. The man had not been dead many hours.
"Craig," I exclaimed finally, "there is more to this than appears. Surely, now, with this crime before me, you might take me into your confidence and explain.
"I might—simply," he returned, rising from the fireplace. "He knew too much. Murat was more than just an old Canuck farmer. He was one of the best and most trusted secret agents of the Canadian government, which is seeking to aid the United States in breaking up the man-running across the border. That is all."
Inside, too, the farmhouse was cold. Alternately we were, slapping our hands about our sides and hunting for something that might suggest a clue to the murderer.
Kennedy went to the door. "I think I had better notify the Canadian authorities immediately. We must go on. I must be on the right track—so far. He proves it." He nodded his head back toward the room. "Poor devil!"
I lowered my glance from the sullen, threatening snow-clouds scudding overhead. If Kennedy had made up his mind to follow a trail when it was warm, no quantity of snow or ice could stop him. Only, the wind made me draw the collar of my mackinaw closer about me.
"How are you going to let the police know?" I asked.
"Drive to the next farm. Almost every farmer up here has some kind of car. They can get over with the news while I follow the trail Murat was to take me along."
I was not enthusiastic over traveling anywhere in the face of the impending storm. Too many times I had seen these snows in the mountains, knew the discomforts and the dangers.
We drove silently over the rather neglected road a few hundred yards until we saw a man near a quaint old Quebec barn.
"Are you the nearest neighbor to Murat?" queried Craig.
The man looked up at us. Passing strangers who wanted to stop were uncommon enough and a chance to pick up some gossip was too good to let slip.
"Nigh as any." He was a lean, tall man, a Yankee who had come across the border. It seemed as if the characteristics of his farm had imbued his personality.
THE farm with its stony, light-colored soil betrayed lean harvests. But there was more than the usual eagerness in this man's countenance. Now I noticed a woman and some children, and another man walking rather excitedly about near the house in the distance.
"You ain't been seein' yet any man drivin' a new flivver car, eh?" There was anxiety, annoyance in the man's voice.
"No, I haven't. But there has been dirt done down the road at Murat's." Kennedy made the announcement abruptly and solemnly.
The man's face startled, grew a shade perceptibly more haggard, I thought, and in a quick voice hoarse from restrained emotion he asked, "What was it?" Without waiting for an answer he turned and waved his long, bony arms to the others. The family and the hired man responded with an awkward lope.
"Murat's been murdered!" shot out Kennedy. "I've come to your place for help. I must go on."
The man's shoulders squared, his eyes became slits of determination and suspicion. I may have imagined it, but I felt that the little group all at once became combative.
"He was expecting me, had news for me, but he had no chance to tell it." Kennedy unbuttoned his outside coat, turned one flap over and showed a small shield.
The old farmer leaned over determined to be certain it was a bona fide shield, that Kennedy had been regularly deputized by the provincial government.
He nodded, satisfied, straightened up. "Now, what can I do?"
"Go in your car and notify the authorities in the town."
"I can't. I tell you my car, a new flivver, was took this mornin'. That's why I was such a doubtin' man. You ain't seed it?"
The mention of his own misfortune loosed his tongue. He launched into a description of the flivver.
"I sent my oldest boy jest so soon as we found it was gone. Its motor number is 10342896." As he spoke he had fumbled in his pocket for an already soiled bill of sale. "We ain't got no telephones here. Most likely the fellow what took it'll get off with it. The boy ain't back yet."
"I must go on. Yet the police must know," repeated Kennedy in the dilemma.
Just then the farm hand stepped forward, pulling at his hat. "I be François, eh? I like Murat. He ver' good to me. I walk over by road and tell, eh?"
So it was determined. There was much advice as to route and where to stop for shelter in case the threatening snowstorm should break, and François was off.
For a few moments Craig lingered quizzing the old farmer about visitors, rum-running, hunting, winter sports in particular and the country in general.
"Yeh, lots of people comes up here for shootin'. But it allus 'pears to me like as more goes back than comes up, somehow. I don't know much 'bout that there rum-runnin'. 'Spose there's a lot of it, but my neighbors 'n' me bean't in it. Lots of cars goes by on this here back road loaded up, and sometimes if the cars ain't loaded up the people in 'em is!"
"Ever seen any fights with the rum-runners?"
"Never seed any. Hearn of some. Most o' them folk would rather lose their loads 'n their lives, I'm tellin' ye. Why, all they gotter do is jack up prices on the next load to make up the loss."
It was my turn to be the doubting man. Could this fellow know more than he was telling? Were we the gullible ones? Sometimes it is difficult not to distrust folks, and this was such a case. I wanted to believe in him, yet my better judgment told me to trust no one.
"Did I hear ye right when ye said ye was going to hit over the mountain road?" recollected our farmer, pointing significantly at the row of peaks before us.
Kennedy nodded. The old fellow put up his hand, studied the sky above. "I'd advise ye not." Again a suspicion flashed over my mind. Was there some reason for which he didn't want us to go?
"Them clouds means snow. A snowstorm with the wind in this quarter's awful on them mountains. I knows."
"Thanks. But I must go on. I think I'll be starting."
The old farmer shook his head dolefully. I must confess that I felt like relying on his sage advice.
"I've got to make it now, Walter," decided Craig. I knew it was urgent, and settled as far as Craig was concerned. We were off along the road with what speed we could make. However, Craig, who was usually so reserved in accosting strangers, now stopped a moment and passed the time of day with any he met. The conversation started with the hunting in the neighborhood, wild game and how one could best get it. Inquiries developed that no one much had gone through along the road except a traveling preacher and one or two other strangers. Still we kept on going southward in spite of our stops to gossip for a moment at a time. At first I had an idea that perhaps Craig was following a tip I knew nothing about, but presently the inquiries as to game and the people visiting up there and passing through made me feel that perhaps Kennedy himself was losing interest in the case. Before the murder of Murat we had always seemed to be a lap behind the man-runner chief. It had been annoying. Nor was I so keen to continue this wild-goose game among the hills of the Canadian border in the face of the oncoming storm. I wanted Kennedy to get the man-runner and the murderer of Murat. Somehow I felt they would be identical. But I wanted personal safety too.
Thus it was that soon we found ourselves approaching the Vermont border. Then I thought I began to see that the Green Mountains were his objective.
For some mysterious reason, it seemed to me, Craig was picking out the most wretched of roads. I had been up in this vicinity before and knew that some miles either way there were better roads.
It was getting grayer, darker all the time. What was Kennedy thinking of? I knew what the weather was up here. The winters were long and hard. It was high, and what was late fall farther down south was early winter up here. I was clinging to the side of the car, bracing myself in the seat. Still Kennedy kept on over that mountain road, which seemed to rise almost like a pass over a divide.
Suddenly I felt something wet hit my face. Snow at last! I put out my hand. There was a snowflake—on that mountain road, sinister, fraught with trouble and danger.
What if we should skid and go down the mountain side? Kennedy stopped long enough to get the chains from under the seat and clamp them about the tires.
The snow began piling up alarmingly. Soon I knew that if the road did not stall us, the snow would. But there was nothing else but to go ahead.
SUDDENLY behind us I heard a terrific crash. A huge tree had crashed over the road a hundred feet back just after we had passed along it.
Suddenly there loomed in the road ahead of us another fallen tree. No need of brakes. The snow piled up and jammed us.
Now we were in a trap, unable to go ahead, unable to go back. How long could we last in a storm like this?
Kennedy smiled a serious smile. Wind and snow were against starting a fire.
"I'm going to see if there's anything that might provide more shelter than this car," he muttered, starting off to reconnoiter.
He was several yards ahead of me, floundering in the drifts, when I heard his voice above the wind in the trees. A few feet ahead of him I could just make out through the blinding flakes some low shacks.
Once the place had been a lumber camp and evidently a busy one. Now doors were hanging on rusted hinges, broken windows made no effort to keep out the snow.
Imagine the thrill when we came upon an old cross-cut saw lying on the ground in one of the shacks. Craig picked it up as solicitously as if it were a nugget of gold, or the Kohinoor.
"A little oil and elbow grease, Walter, and we can get this saw to work. Do you know what that means?"
"Do I? Yes—we go on!"
Quickly Craig turned, made his way back to the car for oil and grease.
It had been a long time since I had taken an end of a cross-cut saw, and then only for fun. But when one's life is in danger, almost any kind of work comes easy. Kennedy at one end and I at the other, we set to work at that tree. The saw was not much, but it was good enough for us finally to get through the trunk.
With much heaving and shoving and coaxing we managed to topple the sawed-off top over the side where it hung, and it rolled a bit down the side of the mountain. Next we had to scoop the snow from about the car. Kennedy took the shovel. I used one of a couple of planks wrenched from the deserted shacks.
"We'll take the planks along, Walter. We may have to use them."
It was well we did, for their usefulness lasted until the rear wheels with their chains split them into matchwood, getting us out of sloughs of snow.
IT was slow traveling. Many times we had to stop and clear the way. But always we were getting on. At last we reached the other side of the mountain. What before had been a gradual ascent, hard to accomplish on the slippery road, now became a speedier descent.
We had not gone far down the other side when Kennedy suddenly drew my attention to other sounds above the wind. "Can you make that out, Walter?"
"Sounds like voices."
In a short time, in spite of being swallowed up in the storm, in the road ahead of us we could see a closed car, stalled.
Kennedy kept his motor running and we jumped out to see what was the trouble with these people. A young couple advanced to meet us. The girl showed the effects of her distressing experiences. The man nearly carried her through the drifted snow.
"What's the trouble?" called Craig.
"A tree—across the road—just ahead of us. There are more of us stalled—two other cars ahead." The man's voice was a bit shaky.
THERE were two other touring cars ahead, and lying across the road in front of the first was a tree larger even than the tree we had cut through already.
I tugged at Craig's arm. There in the first car was a preacher, alone now, kneeling in the snow, praying.
But it was the second car, back of his, that caught my eye. This was the car of McDonald, a rum-runner. There was no concealment about it.
"Sure, I'm bringin' it down. This is my Christmas stock for my customers in the cities down the Connecticut Valley." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, not unkindly. "That's the Reverend Jones, of the House of Gideon, he calls it. A regular fellow, though."
Kennedy was studying everybody and everybody was studying us. As we approached we had heard the preacher praying eloquently for deliverance. It is at such times that God seems closest.
"Come on, now," cried Kennedy. "You people all get together. Let's pool our resources, and make a fight for it."
"I'm on. My name's Soper—James Soper." This was from the young man with the girl. "Traveling salesman."
Kennedy smiled and nodded. "Mrs. Soper—"
The fellow's face flushed in spite of the, cold. I think he was going to accept it. But the girl would have none of it.
"No! I've been living a lie for the last three days and God has punished me for it!" she exclaimed hysterically. "If my end is only a few hours off, I'll not make it worse by adding one more lie. Oh, God, forgive me. I loved him so—and I thought it was all right, that no one else would suffer for my happiness." She broke from him and threw herself in the snow.
KENNEDY reached down to raise her up gently. "We all make mistakes, my girl. It's the brave people who are willing to admit them. Things may not be so hopeless. We'll probably be needing your help shortly to get out of all this trouble.
Kennedy's confidence and simplicity had stirred her.
"What can I do?" she cried. "Only let me help, let me do something until the end—whatever that may be. Don't touch me. I'll get up myself."
It was McDonald, the rum-runner, who brought us to a graver realization of our danger. "Did you know this region has wolves in winter? No? People scoff at the idea of it, but I know a man whose gasoline gave out one night on this pass. When they found what was left of him the coroner brought in a verdict of one word, 'Wolves.'"
Night would be on us before we realized it. Whatever was to be done had to be done quickly.
The preacher, Jones, was again on his knees in the snow. The presence of a man of God in times when death hovers near often lends courage and confidence to worldly men. I could see that Kennedy knew and felt the inspiration he would be to all the rest of us.
"Brothers, do you want me to stop praying?" He asked it gently.
"Go on! Go on! Pray!" I felt we all wanted his prayers. But this was the girl. "We all need it so!" she said.
I felt sorry for that girl, no matter now foolish she had been. She was plucky.
"Soper confided to me," the rum-runner had told. "She is a farmer's daughter up here somewhere. You can see she is mighty attractive. He is an agricultural machinery salesman. He came up to see her dad several times on business. That's how he met her. She fell in love with him, was wild at the thought of another winter coming on the farm. The end of it was that she up and left her home, eloped with him. They ain't married yet, and from what I figure she ain't likely to be married—to him. He ain't the marryin' kind."
I looked at the little group about us. The preacher on his knees in the snow, beseeching deliverance from on high; the bootlegger and the salesman starting toward the huge tree that blocked the road; the girl ready to do anything for all of us.
Unable to go ahead. Unable to go back. None of us had a thing to eat, nor any shelter except the cars.
I did not like the attitude of the salesman. I wondered if this elopement might not be a blind to cover some other serious offense.
I could not even yet quite get the man-running idea out of my head. I felt pretty sure that he was one who might know much about smuggling aliens, traveling about in his car as he did.
One thing Soper did not try to conceal, and that was fear. He was ready enough to do anything. But he showed a fear that all our efforts might be futile.
I did not center all my suspicions on Soper, though. There was the rum-runner, McDonald. Here was a master of the art of running in illicit goods. He might easily know more about running in aliens who in a pinch could help themselves than bottles that could not.
KENNEDY and I had not told the others yet of the cross-cut saw back in our car. Every face was disconsolate, hopeless, all except the half-frozen preacher's. Almost a light of divine inspiration radiated from his. Here, I felt, was a fine, firm character.
It was Craig who spoke. "We have something back in our car that means a great deal to all of us. "I don't say we'll get through before we freeze to death, but my cross-cut saw back in the car will help."
"Glory be!" sang out the preacher. "Sweet deliverance!"
Without a word both salesman and rum-runner started through the snow to our car. They were for starting right in on the tree.
"Nay, brethren." It was the preacher who stopped them. "God has sent our deliverers. Our prayers have been answered. Shall we take time to thank Him and ask His sustaining help to continue?"
Down on our knees in this almost waist-high drift, what matters it to us? Never have I heard such simple eloquence, such absolute faith that not a sparrow falls or a hair of the head is harmed.
Soper's glance would wander first to the preacher, then to the girl. His face was tense. The rum-runner's countenance was a puzzle, the face of a man penitent, for the things he had done and left undone.
THROUGH and above the wind the preacher's voice carried. "O God of the weak, the sinners and the penitent, hear Thou this prayer from Thy humble servant! Calm these winds, if it be Thy will. These poor lambs, lost in the snow on the mountainside, have strayed far from Thee. They are looking in the jaws of death! Succor them with Thy bountiful mercy. Forgive us all. We need it. If it be Thy will that we enter Thy presence in the loneliness and wildness of night and storm, be Thou our strength, our Guide. 0 Lord, we thank Thee for what may be our deliverance. Amen!"
The preacher stood up suddenly, arms outstretched in wild supplication. His voice rang over the mountainside. He was inspired. We watched him, fascinated.
Soper turned to the girl, still on his knees. "Jess, darling, forgive me for putting this marriage off. I love you!"
The girl looked at him, her soul in her eyes. "Jim, you mean it? If I have to die here on this mountain, I will be your wife, anyhow! I would rather be that and die—than live without you!"
They crept on their knees through the snow to the preacher.
He looked at them kindly. "What is it, children?"
Jess looked tenderly, shyly at her mate. "I'm a sinner, parson," gulped Soper. "I loved her, yes, but I was a scut. I didn't want to be tied down to any skirt. But I want to be a man, an honest man. We love each other. If we don't get through the pass, we want to meet God right. Please marry us."
The preacher smiled. He did not hesitate. The ceremony was a simple one.
"Look, Walter." I turned in the direction Kennedy's eyes indicated. There was the rum-runner pulling the cases out of his car. Bottle after bottle of Scotch he was flinging over the precipice.
Two regenerations enacted before us. I, too, felt myself lifted to the clouds.
"I want to lead a different life!" The rum-runner had finished, approached the preacher. "I'm through breaking laws. Tell me how I can be better!"
Soon we were all busy, by turns, Kennedy, and I with the alternate relief of the rum-runner and the salesman, while the Reverend Mr. Jones intermittently prayed. There was something about it that made us make quick work of the second tree.
IT was a slow cavalcade of snow-covered cars that wended its way down the mountainside. On down the road into the valley of Derby we continued. So exalted were our feelings that our spirits now rose above fatigue, pain and hunger.
A few miles farther down we came upon a crowd coming up the pass with shovels and ropes, and, best of all, hot coffee in vacuum bottles and sandwiches, a relief expedition looking for stranded strangers.
By the time we reached the little town of Derby we were an exhausted group of enthusiastic converts. Only the preacher showed no signs of fatigue. We stopped in the village square before the hotel.
"I have a brother near Derby. He'll be glad to see me. I've been the black sheep. Now I'm going back to the old place."
It was the rum-runner, McDonald, who was the first to leave us. Craig let him go his way, unrestrained.
"We're going across to that telegraph station and file a message with the news, even if the wires are down." This was from Jim Soper and Jess, Jim speaking. "And I'm going to take your advice, Kennedy; hunt up the local minister, get a license, have it regularly registered. Instead of no wedding, Jess, there'll be two!"
I thought I could begin to see what Kennedy was doing. He was putting these people on their new-found honor.
There were only two cars left now of our little cavalcade, the Gideon preacher's and ours. Kennedy looked at his engine, then lowered the hood. "Well, mine has stood up all right. I can go on."
THEN he slogged over to the car of the preacher of the Gideons. He raised the hood, looked at the motor. Slowly he put the hood down, and gravely faced us.
"That's strange—that motor number 10342896—that's a stolen car."
He did not seem to be in any hurry to go on, for a moment.
Then suddenly he shot out with his sharp staccato, "But it's not for that that I want you, parson. The government of the Dominion wants you for the murder of one of its most trusted agents. The United States Government wants you too.
"You're no more a preacher than I am. Not so much. You might be an actor. But I knew it all the time, that it was you, the head of the rum-runners. Your name is Rask—not Jones. You knew I was sent to catch you, although you didn't actually know me. You felt you had to keep on playing your part."
I gazed incredulously from Kennedy to Rask and back to Kennedy. "The fire on the hearth didn't burn out, Rask. It left part of a letter which I have here, from the chief of his service to Murat about six disguises they were transmitting to him as he had requested."
"Six?" I repeated. "But, Craig, there were only four hanging in the closet.
"You're right, Walter. Four. Six pegs. Murat wore the farmer's outfit, number five. And our fake Gideon preacher now has on number six! The outfits were itemized. I knew them all, anyhow. Only one was missing. Rask, it convicts you.
Kennedy paused, then went on, more as if speaking to himself. "Rask, you're a fine hypocrite. But I didn't want to collar you, expose you, too soon. I didn't want those other hypocrites to backslide—not yet, anyhow. I'd thank you to go on down to Burlington with me—quietly— and let me turn you over!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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