He remembered now having seen a freight track just outside of town during their walk from the station to the hotel. He estimated that it was not more than a mile or two away. It had been a long time since he had ridden a freight, and he would probably be the first person ever to jump a freight with twenty thousand dollars in his hand. But...
So he struck out in the direction of the freight track, heading for the only out-transportation in Jennerville. He hiked along the road, the valise hitting against his leg. He didn’t know where the freight
he’d catch might go, but he didn’t care. He looked back. The road was empty. Now he cut across a field. After going a short distance, he came upon the tracks. They curved out and around the town, making a great loop. As he hurried along, he cursed his own face, that its likeness had been sent around the country, put before the eyes of millions of people. It was known even in such a place as Jennerville. He was certainly going to have to think of some better way of disguising himself.
He sat down amid some rocks and waited for a train. Time dragged. He smoked cigarette after cigarette until he crushed his empty pack and threw it away. The wind seemed to be blowing shadows through the tall grass when at last he began to hear the freight. He jumped up and stared down the tracks. It was coming slowly around the bend, from the direction of the town. He had evidently taken the long way around to it, but that was all right too. The train was picking up speed and Frank began to run toward it, lest it have mounted too great an amount of speed for him to be able to board it. He ran through the high grass below the embankment and then, as the engine came roaring overhead, he scrambled up the embankment and began running alongside of the immense rattling cars. He reached out his free hand and grabbed hold of a rung of the iron ladder on the nearest boxcar. His other hand was occupied with the valise and it was impossible for him to get it up to the ladder. He ran along with the train, desperately trying to keep up with it, one hand gripping the ladder, the valise swinging out behind his running figure.
He would have let go then — it seemed impossible to go on — but, looking down he was horrified to see they were crossing a trestle over a pouring river. The waters rushed and churned below. His fingers on the ladder suddenly froze, suddenly they were clutching life itself. The train’s increasing speed was pulling his legs out from under him. He couldn’t let go, and he couldn’t hang on with the one hand without being dragged to death. His head jerked around and his eyes glared as he realized that his other hand — acting almost independently of the rest of him — had released the valise and that it was plummeting toward the remorseless waters. He never saw it strike. With his now disencumbered hand, he twisted himself around and grabbed onto the ladder and was able to lift his legs up. Hand over hand he climbed up and reached the roof of the car and collapsed there, panting. As the train cleared the trestle he looked back at the foamy white water that had swallowed his money. He watched it until it had become a distant gray ribbon in the distance.
Hours earlier, at about the time Frank had sat down to wait for the freight, the old couple stood in the police station. The man from the museum was there, and several policemen, one a sergeant.
“Are you certain?” the sergeant asked the dusty caretaker.
The man nodded his head vigorously. “I’m one hundred per cent certain,” he said, staring fiercely at the old couple. “They was the only ones in today. Just by luck I happened to notice it, after they’d gone. It was either them or the fellow they was with.”
“Oh dear,” the old woman said. “I don’t want to get poor Mr. Stein in any trouble. Yes, it was I. I couldn’t help it. I’m very sorry. I just couldn’t help it.” And she opened her bag and took out a small piece of clay pottery that she had stolen from the museum.
“Oh, mother,” the old man said sadly, shaking his head, “you promised you wouldn’t do that anymore if we went on this trip.”
Wanted: A Respectable Victim
by C. B. Gilford
One may board at a rooming house, but it is not likely that one will be bored in the process. This is simply because the inhabitants of such an establishment are all determined to get their fill of hot biscuits before they’re cool or gone.
Celestine Carter sat at the escritoire, her quill pen poised over the paper. Now and then, as she sought to compose, the tip of the feather went to her old, wrinkled, dry lips, and her teeth — still her own — gnawed upon it.
“Shall we word it the same as last time, Victoria?” she asked finally.
Victoria Carter, Celestine’s younger sister by half a dozen years, stood by, her brows knit under her stylish gray coiffeur. She was vigorous and spare and straight in maroon silk that was just a trifle gayer than her sister’s black.
“We may as well,” Victoria answered. “I think our wording is discreet and not too misleading. What was it we said the last time? Ah yes, I think I remember. ‘Gentleman. In middle sixties and in good health. Must be refined, cultured, dignified, personable. Reply by letter, enclosing picture.’ Then a box number, of course. I think that was what we said last time, and it worked out very well.”
“Oh yes,” Celestine agreed, “it worked out excellently.”
“Then write it down, dear. ‘Gentleman...’ Oh no, wait a moment. Better make it, ‘Single gentleman...’ ”
Justin Gravelle perused the want ad section more out of habit than with real hope. He had few marketable skills, and his age did not favor him. But he was near the end of his resources, his last two suits were threadbare and his meals for some time now had been skimpy and unappetizing.
When he first read the advertisement which began, “Single gentleman,” he could scarcely believe his eyes or his imminent good fortune. It was almost as if a fairy godmother and Santa Claus had conspired to a solution of Justin Gravelle’s insoluble problem.
He rose and strode to the dingy, clouded mirror that hung over the scarred and decrepit dresser. In the dim light — but perhaps flattering for its very dimness — he scanned his reflection with relative objectivity.
“Dignified, personable,” it had said. Justin Gravelle drew himself up to his full height of six feet, thrust out his still manly chest, assumed the pose that had been so effective in the twenties when he had played fathers and fathers-in-law to some famous Juliets and Desdemonas. The picture he saw in the mirror pleased him. He was more than dignified. He was real.
“Refined, cultured,” it had said. He smiled almost with disdain. Couldn’t he recite entire Shakespearean scenes? Couldn’t he claim some renowned past acquaintances? And couldn’t he, for that matter, imagine a few others?
“Personable.” He strutted back and forth before the mirror, giving to view first one profile, then the other, emphasizing his erect carriage, his aquiline nose, his luxuriant crop of silvery hair. Then he smiled, displaying teeth not badly stained, since long ago economy had dictated only a sparse use of tobacco. If “personable” meant “handsome,” Justin Gravelle decided, he was rather eminently qualified.
“Free board and room.” He was aware, as he rolled the tasty words about in his mouth, of a grumbling, semi-emptiness in his abdominal region. Spurred by it, he sat down instantly and penned an eloquent reply. “Dear Box 747...”
Victoria and Celestine Carter were obviously more than pleased by the aspect of their visitor. Justin Gravelle perceived this pleasure in the ladies, and it sparked a response in his own breast. He had always been one who rather enjoyed matinee audiences, and the feminine contingent, bless their hearts, had always liked him. This fresh display of. admiration gave him a feeling of aliveness that he had not experienced in many a long year, and he basked and scintillated in the warmth of it.