The tall man sat down and relaxed, leaning his trim, broad shoulders back against the seat. He was a fine-looking man between thirty-five and forty, with a hawk-like, yet boyish face. After a covert scrutiny of his seatmate from deep-set, keen dark eyes, he drew down his felt hat somewhat over his forehead and seemed to compose himself for a nap.
While he sat in this position with his eyes closed, the stout man looked him over, studying his face and clothes — apparently puzzled. The tall, athletic man was neatly dressed, but, somehow or other, he seemed to give his clothes distinction and seemed not to get from the clothes the setting proper for such a trim, handsome fellow.
The forward door of the coach opened, and the conductor, spectacles perched on the top of his nose, came in, followed by an assistant.
When the door opened, Durkee, the tall man, opened his eyes and began leisurely to reach into his pockets for ticket or money. From the first pocket his hand came out empty, and an odd expression came across his face. He sat upright and hastily, but without flurry, searched for the necessary tender. Presently, he gave a shrug of the shoulders and sat back. He was a man of the world — that was clear — but, notwithstanding, he was mentally squirming as the conductor, a grizzled-haired man with a stiletto eye and a very short, but polite tongue, collected from one man and then another.
Durkee gave an inaudible breath of embarrassment and vexation as the official at length stood next to him, actually touching him as he leaned over to give a mere glance at the stout man's punched slip tucked in the hold in the seat ahead.
"Ticket, sir," said the conductor.
Durkee looked up, a slight smile on his dark, handsome face.
"I came away in a hurry," he said, "and I haven't a red cent on me as far as I can find."
There was just a moment of silence, and Durkee felt that embarrassment which any man, no matter how practiced a traveler he may be, feels when he is without funds and left to the mercy of a man who daily has to judge between humbugs and innocents.
"We stop at Framingham, sir, I'm sorry, but"—
"Beg pardon," interposed the stout man, turning to Durkee with a smile. "Where you going?"
"Boston?" answered Durkee.
"What's the tax, Doctor?" inquired the stout man, blandly.
The conductor named the price and prepared a rebate slip and passed it to the stout man when he had paid Durkee's fare.
"I haven't even my watch on," said Durkee when the conductor had passed on. "I'm very much obliged to you."
"Don't mention it, my friend. I've been in similar predicaments."
They conversed for a little while on general topics of the time — cautious on the subject of politics — but presently lapsed into silence and rode on for ten or fifteen minutes without speaking.
"Live in Boston?" asked Grant, breaking the silence.
"No," returned Durkee. His tone was not of rebuff, but he volunteered no information about himself. "By the way," he said, at length, "if you'll give me your name and address, I'll send you my fare."
Mr. Grant waved his hand and uttered a little laugh.
"That's all right," he said.
"It's not all right," declared the other, mildly emphatic. "There's no reason why you should pay my fare."
Mr. Grant half turned and looked his seatmate over with a marvelously quick glance.
"If that's the way you feel about it. Mister," he said slowly, "it may be you can do a little bit of a favor for me."
Durkee in his turn eyed his seat-mate again in a furtive manner, his deep-set, sharp eye missing nothing. A little curve appeared at the corners of his mouth — but went quickly away.
"The fact is, I'm in a mean little fix," said Grant. "I suppose I can rest in confidence upon your word of secrecy if you don't care to help me?"
"Yes — if I pass my word," responded Durkee.
"And do you pass the word?" asked the other, quickly.
"Yes."
"Well, this is the case. Maybe you've heard of the Pelton bank robbery a few days ago?"
"No," said Durkee. "Don't recall hearing about it."
The stout man looked surprised, seemed about to say something, then apparently changed his line of thought and speech.
"Well, there was one there, and they say the robbers got away with about — I think about twenty thousand, or something like that. There was a lot of talk about some of the town police being mixed up in the business, and some of the — er, officers are in a peck of trouble over it."
"All news to me," asserted the tall man, carelessly.
"The truth is, Mister, I'm one of the officers there in Pelton, and definite charges have been made against me. In fact, confidentially, I was to be arrested, and I'm on my way to Boston to see some friends — high-up fellows who can do things See?"
"Yes."
"As I say, the fellows are out to 'get' me — it's a frame-up back there, you see — and I got a feeling that I may be pinched in the South Station. Now, you can see — any man of good sense knows how these things go — that if I don't get to my friends first I'll be in a pretty pickle. That'd be a trump play against me. I don't want to be caught in Boston and sidetracked and have it come out in the Boston papers and copied at home."
"I don't blame you," commented Durkee, looking at the other from the corner of his eye, a thrill running through him.
"No, I don't think anybody can blame me," said Grant — "anybody who knows about politics. Now, the idea that came to me was this — that you and I put on a pair of handcuffs and give those fellows the slip in the station, just as if you were taking me down. Get the idea?"
"Yes, but I don't carry such articles with me — not as a rule," responded Durkee, with a grin.
"Well, I always do, of course. Do you think you could help me. through the crowd, taking the part of an officer conducting me to the authorities?"
Durkee smiled, looking at the other covertly with a queer light back in his keen eyes.
"Suppose I can't bluff the thing through, my friend, if you're right and someone's waiting for you? — what then?"
Grant turned and looked squarely at him for an instant.
During that, instant all the humor was absent from his blue eyes, in its place a hard, very hard look.
Then he laughed shortly, that odd gleam disappearing.
"Why," he said, at length, "I'll release you and do the best I can."
"They might hold me under the circumstances. Couldn't blame them much. It's pretty risky. Mister, I should say."
Grant looked out of the window for a few moments and then turned back to the other, failing to see the look of satisfaction or triumph — or whatever it was — that passed over Durkee's face.
"I shall be glad to give you say. fifty dollars, young man. I mean, of course, this in addition to your fare," he supplemented, jokingly.
"I don't see that it can do much harm, anyway," remarked Durkee, rather carelessly. "The only danger is that they might make things unpleasant for me."
"Oh, I'll see that you don't get in wrong, anyway."
"Well, then, I'll try to help you out," promised Durkee. "Got 'em?"
After a careful glance about. Grant produced a pair of handcuffs. He clicked one hold on his left wrist, and then Durkee, after a slight hesitation, linked his thin, sinewy, long-fingered hand to the other's.
In this fashion they rode the rest of the way to Boston, avoiding the subject which linked them together and chatting casually on various matters of interest to ordinary citizens.
II
The express stopped at Huntington Station. A few people got off, and a few got on. Two broad-shouldered, keen-eyed men, obviously together, came into the smoking-car by way of the forward door and came down looking from left to right. They noted Grant and Durkee and the bond that held them, and without comment passed on, swiftly, but in a very business-like way.