While Graham hesitated between these mixed emotions, a footstep sounded behind him. Graham turned quickly to find himself facing a burly man in uniform, who held a leveled revolver.
“What you doing here?” the man demanded.
“Nothing,” retorted Graham huskily. “Just lookin around.”
“Yeah? At four o’clock in the morning?”
“I just landed in town. Motor accident out on the road -“
“Tell that to the Judge. I’m pinching you. Come along!”
Complete weariness was having its effect. Without a word, Graham Wellerton submitted to the officer’s order. He found himself marching back toward the main street, down an alleyway to the old town jail. The journey ended when Graham collapsed upon a battered cot in a barred cell.
When the officer had left, Graham rolled over wearily upon the cot. His long tramp showed its results. Forgetful of all but fatigue, Graham Wellerton fell asleep. The brightness of morning was the next waking impression that he gained.
SOMEONE was shaking the barred door. Graham looked up to see the man who had arrested him. The officer ordered him to come along. Graham obeyed. He was taken into a small courtroom where a handful of men were gathered.
Graham recognized the justice of the peace. Old Silas Schuble had been his father’s friend. He noted another elderly man whom he knew: Harwin Dowser, Southwark’s principal lawyer. Dowser was evidently here to take up some other case, for he did not express interest as Graham was brought up before Justice Schuble.
“Vagrancy is the charge,” said the officer who had brought Graham to the courtroom. “I found this man wandering around the town at four in the morning.
“Name?” quizzed Schuble, sharply, looking at Graham.
“George Gruger,” said Graham quietly.
“What defense do you offer?” quizzed the justice.
“None,” returned Graham, in a dull tone. “I was just hiking through town.”
Schuble eyed the young man sharply. Graham repressed a smile when he noted that the justice did not recognize him. To Graham, that was an achievement. His memory of his father had touched his pride. He did not want to be recognized while in Southwark.
“Unless you can give some account for your presence here,” declared Schuble severely, “I shall be forced to sentence you for vagrancy.”
“I don’t mind,” returned Graham.
“Thirty days in jail,” decreed the justice.
As the officer led him from the courtroom, Graham noted that Harwin Dowser was eying him curiously. Graham met the lawyer’s gaze with an indifferent glance. Dowser turned away. Moodily, Graham, allowed himself to be conducted back to his cell.
Much though he detested the town of Southwark, he was to be its guest for the coming month. The irony of the situation was impressive on that bright morning. Graham could not help but smile.
He had escaped the law on many occasions when he had been engaged in dangerous crime; this time, when he had been committing no offense, he had been arrested and sentenced.
Graham felt his hatred for the town of Southwark increasing beyond its former measure. He realized that he was a man from the past, a stranger no longer recognized in the town where his father once had been the most prominent citizen.
Whatever his career elsewhere might have been, Graham had never done a wrong within the bounds of Southwark. Yet this was his reward - in the one place where he had lived an honest life.
Graham Wellerton had come home after years of wandering. Unwelcomed, unrecognized, he had been sentenced to jail on a charge of vagrancy. Graham Wellerton did not care. His mob had gone over to Wolf Daggert - that connection was ended.
As for Carma, Southwark was the last place in all the world where she would look for Graham!
CHAPTER X
THE SAMARITAN
Two dozen men were tramping along a rough road. Behind them came three others, armed with rifles. A command sounded from the rear; the gang fell out at the side of the road. One of the guards opened a huge box that was standing beside a tree. Each of the two dozen men advanced in turn to take out a pick.
Methodically, the road gang fell to work. Under the watchful eyes of the armed guards, these prisoners began their daily toil. Pick points clicked upon stone. Snatches of conversation began.
Road work in this county was no sinecure, yet it lacked the barbarity so popularly supposed to dominate all chain gangs. Two dozen short-term prisoners, under the supervision of several competent guards, were allowed reasonable privileges so long as they kept busy with their picks. Graham Wellerton, drafted to this toil, found it an annoyance rather than a hardship. He was in his fifth day of service and he had taken his temporary fate in a philosophical manner.
He paid very little attention to words uttered by the other prisoners, but today, something that he heard made him listen for further information.
“Out in Grand Rapids,” one man was saying. “The paper that I seen was a coupla days old -“
A pick clicked in interruption. Then came a question that told more.
“You say the cops plugged seven of ‘em?” a man was asking. “Didn’t none of ‘em get away?”
“It wasn’t the cops,” Graham heard. “That’s the funny part of it. When the holdup started -“
Words were intermittent as they came to Graham’s ears, but the young man caught the important details of the story as he labored away with his pick.
A squad of armed marauders had entered the Riverview Trust in Grand Rapids, a few nights ago. Before they had been able to engineer the holdup, shots had broken loose. The sight of dropping raiders was the first token of the contemplated robbery.
The shots had been delivered from the semidarkness of the street. Mobsmen had started to flee; they had been shot down. Others had dashed into the bank to be met by watchmen and tellers. Police had arrived to find seven victims.
It seemed that mutiny must have broken out in the ranks of the raiders during the crucial moments of the attack. There was no other explanation for the startling result. The case was a baffling one.
GRAHAM WELLERTON was grim as he swung the pick. He knew the answer to this frustrated crime. The broken attack was a repetition of the Parkerside disaster in New York, where Wolf Daggert and his henchmen had been repulsed.
The Shadow!
Somehow, that master of crime detection had learned Graham’s schemes. He had arrived in Grand Rapids ahead of the raiders. Had Graham still been in command of his men, he would have gone down with his mobsters.
Graham chuckled in sarcastic fashion. He realized now that Wolf Daggert had done him a good turn. By usurping the leadership, Wolf had put himself in a mess. The evil-faced gang leader had walked into the trap intended for Graham.
Seven men in the gang. Graham made a mental calculation. His own men had numbered nine. Wolf, with Garry, made two more - a total of eleven. That left four at large. Graham growled his contempt of the situation.
He was glad that three of the four had escaped; but he was positive that he knew the identity of the fourth man - Wolf Daggert himself. The cowardly gang leader had played his old trick of staying back with a few reserves while the main mob attacked.
“Around the corner,” muttered Graham. “That’s where he was - the yellow cur.”
As Graham marveled at The Shadow’s skillful cunning, he realized that Wolf had been in luck. The Shadow had been expecting a mob headed by Graham Wellerton - a leader who went with the advance. The Shadow had arranged to break up such an attack.
