Корнелл Вулрич - Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 50, No. 5, October 10, 1936

“That’s no good. We won’t be around to testify — even if we surrender, I’m afraid.”

“Did he tell you how he got into this?” I asked Clarice to change a horrible subject.

“It’s weird,” she said. “ It seems that ten years ago, Mr. Farrell, who was Mr. Steele’s secretary, was a clerk in the office of the Soldiers’ Home. When Jonathan died, he remembered that Tommy Donnegan looked a lot like him and he called at the home and offered Tommy fifty thousand dollars and the chance to live like a king for the rest of his life. You can’t blame the poor old thing for accepting the offer.”

We laughed. I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock.

Bridgeman from the front window called out. “I see a car coming. It’s stopped down there. Six men are getting out. Look, they’re coming out of hiding, one, two, four, five of them.”

“Eleven to three,” said Dick. “We’ll make a good showing.”

“One of them’s coming up, waving a white handkerchief,” called Jim. “How about it?”

We were all at the window. “ It’s Maroni,” I exclaimed.

“ I recognize him,” Dick said grimly.

“Let me go out and meet him,” I pleaded.

“Go ahead. We won’t accept anything he proposes, of course.”

So I walked down the slope. Maroni recognized me, stopped in his tracks, and then came on.

“How are you, Joe?” I asked cheerfully.

He gazed at me with a poker face. “So you got away from the boys. I thought as much.”

“Cinch,” I said airily. “What’s on your mind, Joe?”

“Turn him over,” he replied. “Let him walk down this hill and I’ll take my boys back to Santa Barbara.”

“You mean when there’s no danger of hitting him, you’ll rush the house,” I came back. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“I’ll give you my word, Cody. I keep my word whatever else they say about me.”

“I don’t take your word, Maroni. We can stand you off. Ever hear of the Battle of Bunker Hill?”

“I don’t go in for history. Turn him loose and we’ll let you go. You’ve a dame with you. We don’t want to hurt her.”

“You don’t intend to let any of us go. Start your war, Maroni.”

“Okay,” he said with a scowl. “If Steele gets hit — well, he’s lived to a ripe old age. I’ll be right back, Cody.”

“I’ll save a slug of lead for you,” I promised him. He turned his back on me — more than I would have done with him — and walked down the slope. I ran back, zigzagging. Sure enough a couple of bullets came flying by. Dick fired a shot at Maroni but he was out of range. I told them the proposition and they all laughed.

“Let ’em come,” said Jim Bridgeman. “I won’t get the thousand but I’ve had a lot of fun.”

“Put it there,” said Dick. “So have I.”

“And I,” declared Clarice.

I didn’t say anything. I had a horrible pain in my heart when I looked at Clarice,

The gang below had spread out and began a dropping fire from behind rocks. We had sixty or eighty cartridges between us which ought to last as long as we’d need them. We decided to hold our fire until they made the rush.

It was a long time in coming. I could see Maroni moving round out of pistol range and apparently having trouble getting the boys nerved up to running up that slope.

He finally did what I didn’t think he had the nerve to do. He led the charge.

They came up slowly, darting from boulder to boulder and hiding behind the thick trunks of the Eucalyptus trees. Dick and Jim took pot shots at them but didn’t hit anybody. I waited. I was waiting for Maroni if he gave me a chance.

I had him spotted behind the nearest tree. It was about three hundred feet away. A long shot. I crouched there with my eyes just above the window sill figuring out where he’d next take cover. There was a boulder about twenty or thirty feet nearer the house and the same distance from his tree. He doubled over and made a run for it. I fired two shots and one of them knocked off his hat but he reached the boulder.

The others were creeping up and lots of bullets were coming through the windows and the stucco walls of the flimsily constructed if pretentious bungalow. One man lay stretched out in plain view. I don’t know who got him.

Maroni’s next move would be to a boulder twenty-five feet from his present rock and twenty feet closer. I trained my gun that way. He darted out. I fired, missed, he was half way, and the second shot got him. He pitched forward and lay flat on his face.

“Got Maroni,” I shouted. “He’s through for the day.”

“For life, by the looks of him,” called Dick. He fired as he spoke. “Damn it, I missed,” he exclaimed.

Jim fired two shots. “By Jimmy, they’re running away,” he yelled. “We-e-e-e!”

“There are cars coming,” called. Clarice. “I can see three cars away down the cañon.”

“The police,” said Dick glumly. “Our of the frying pan, into the fire.”

I nodded. “This may be a deserted cañon but the battle going on here must have been heard for miles.”

The enemy, in fact, were retreating down the cañon. They clustered by their car. The procession of cars coming up halted below the parked car and men with rifles piled out.

I saw one of Maroni’s band approach the riflemen. I saw him gesticulating wildly to the leader who paused and talked with him.

“ Well,” said Dick. “ No sense in fighting the State of, California. It’s jail sentences instead of death.” He thrust his automatic in his pocket.

“They’re disarming Maroni’s men,” cried Clarice shrilly.

“Of course,” said Dick. “They had no authority to wage war. But it’s only a formality. Patterson will take care of them.”

Leaving three riflemen to guard the Maroni outfit deprived of its weapons, the remainder, eight or ten in number, came steadily up the grade and turned into the private road. Dick and I and Jim stood in the center of the living room looking at each other despondently.

“Dick, Tim,” screamed Clarice. “ Upton Reynolds is with them. Look!”

We rushed in a body out upon, the porch, forgetting our prisoner. It was all right because nothing would have induced him to come out from under the bed.

The party halted forty feet from the porch and a big burly mustached man stepped forward.

“You are under arrest,” he shouted. “I’m the sheriff of this county. You are charged with abducting Jonathan Steele.”

“It’s a lie,” called Dick. “We have a man here who has been impersonating Jonathan Steele. Fetch him, Jim. Come up, gentlemen. We are law-abiding citizens. We’ve been besieged by gangsters. We have any citizen’s right to defend himself.”

The sheriff, accompanied by Upton Reynolds, who looked incongruous in a mob of rough, armed men, came forward.

“How are you, Upton, old top?” inquired Dick with his usual impudence.

Upton gravely shook hands with Clarice and Dick and me. “Let me introduce Colonel Edwards,” he said. “Colonel Edwards is superintendent of The Soldiers’ Home at Sawtelle.”

“Miss Barton,” exclaimed that gentleman, who was middle aged, mild looking and as uncomfortable in his surroundings as was Reynolds, “this is a most astonishing situation.”

“Here he is,” exclaimed Jim Bridgeman. He appeared, dragging the prisoner by one arm.

“By Jove,” exclaimed the Superintendent. “It’s Tommy Donnegan! Why, you old rascal!”

Tommy’s faded eyes widened, his legs began to shake but he clicked his heels together and made a military salute.

“How are you, Colonel Edwards?” he asked with a deprecating smirk.

There was a burst of laughter from the sheriff.