Paul Thorne - The Secret Toll

"I'm damned if I give up a cent! I'll die first!"

"You very likely will. Others have. To refuse these people is the first step toward suicide."

"But are the police so impotent that a gang like this one can operate unmolested right under their very noses?"

"The police are efficient in ordinary cases. These people, however, operate mysteriously. So far, the police have been helpless."

The two men who thus discussed a criminal clique which was extorting money from prominent and wealthy citizens were seated in an exclusive Michigan Avenue club. From their deeply upholstered leather chairs they looked out across the busy street, with its hundreds of automobiles and strolling pedestrians, to the green lawns and leafing trees of Grant Park, awakened into renewed life by the soft breezes and warm sunshine of early June.

To the first speaker, Robert Forrester, lately returned from army service in Europe, and familiar with the privations, struggles and horrors of the great war, it seemed ridiculous that a band of criminals could endanger life in the heart of this bustling, crowded, well-policed city. Yet the threat was in his hand, and his older and presumably wiser companion assured him that they could make good the threat.

Robert Forrester was a young man of thirty – tall, dark and broad shouldered; his face deeply tanned by long army service. As a member of an old and wealthy family, of which he was the sole male survivor and head, Forrester might have followed the path selected by many of his boyhood chums and spent his life in the pursuit of pleasure or more or less indifferent occupations. He had chosen, however, to become a civil engineer; was graduated with honors, and had taken active part in the completion of several big railroad projects before the great war.

When the United States entered the war he at once enlisted and went to France as an army engineer. He had been home now for several months and was planning to resume work in his profession at the first opportunity. The financial and business condition of the country did not favor large construction work at this time, so he was still lingering in Chicago, spending much of his time at the club, where he could keep in close touch with some of the far-sighted and influential men who planned and made possible the big undertakings which would give him the opportunity he sought.

His companion and confidant of the moment, Frederick Prentice, was past middle age. The possessor of large, inherited wealth, he was totally unlike the younger and more energetic man. He had never entered business, and the only times he ever condescended to visit a business office were occasioned by infrequent plunges into speculation through a broker friend, or the necessity of calling on his lawyer.

In his easy-going, well-financed existence he had had few problems or worries. To Prentice the easiest way out was the logical course.

Forrester knew this as well as any man, and was therefore little inclined to heed the well-meant advice which Prentice was giving him – to yield without a murmur to the outrageous and exorbitant demand that had been made upon him.

The young man opened the clenched hand in which he had crushed the warning message when making his vehement declaration. He smoothed out the offending paper on his knee and glared at it – reading again the words that enraged him more each time he studied them. The message was crudely hand-printed on a square of ordinary wrapping paper such as can be found in any store. At the top was the rough drawing of a human skull. Forrester read the words aloud.

"On the other side," declared Forrester, "we lived and tramped and fought with spies and informers at our elbows. Enemy agents, ready to turn a dastardly trick at any moment, were on every hand. Though conditions were just ripe for them, sooner or later we spotted them – practically every one. Do you mean to tell me that here, in a peaceful, law-abiding city, with trained police and intelligent detectives, we can't run down a blackmailing crew like this one?"

"That is exactly what has happened," said Prentice.

"And you want me to believe that every one of the victims has given up without a fight; that no real effort has been made to apprehend these desperadoes?"

"My, no!" exclaimed Prentice. "Several of the men threatened went to the police. The police put their best men on the case for weeks, but so far as I know, they never discovered a worth while clue."

"What happened to those men who resisted?" inquired Forrester.

"They either finally acceded to the demands, or were found dead. That is why I warned you to pay and say nothing. Remember, Bob, you have been away for a long period, while I have stayed on right here in the city a greater part of the time. I know exactly what has transpired in this matter; I speak from actual experience ."

"Experience?" questioned Forrester, noting something significant in the stress which Prentice laid on his last words.

"Young man," said Prentice, shaking a finger at Forrester, "you may have had wider experience with some angles to life than I have had. On the other hand, I possess the calmer judgment that comes with advancing years. And I know more about this situation than you do. I advise you to draw ten thousand dollars from that ample bank account of yours, put it in that tree before midnight Saturday, and consider yourself lucky to get off so easily."

"I'll not do it!" declared Forrester.

Prentice extended his hand. "Let me see that paper, Bob," he requested. The paper was handed over and Prentice studied it carefully.

"Yes," commented Prentice, slowly, as he handed back the message. "It is unquestionably from the same people. That is a duplicate of the warning which I received."

"Did you get one, too?" exclaimed Forrester.

"A year ago – just about this time," divulged Prentice. "In fact, so far as I know, I was the first man upon whom the demand was made. When I went to the police about it, they claimed that it was the first time anything of the kind had come to their attention."

"Tell me about it, Prentice," urged Forrester.

"I will," agreed Prentice. "After you have heard my experience, you will realize more fully why I have told you to pay and say nothing.

"As I said before, it was just about this time last year that a duplicate of that notice was fastened to my front door with a knife. A maid found it when she went to bring in the morning paper, and presented it to me at the breakfast table. I had much the same feeling that you have regarding it; although I did not take it quite so seriously. As a matter of fact, I regarded it as a joke, until a few days later a second warning came in the mail.

"I had, of course, destroyed the first warning, but the second I took to the police, and laid the matter before them. They arranged with me to try to trap these people. The night that my time expired I took a dummy package and placed it in that tree. The police kept watch in the woods all night without seeing or hearing anyone. In the morning, they found the package still in the tree, but attached to it was a note stating that these people were not to be fooled, and allowing me three days in which to pay or take the consequences.

"For two weeks after that the police watched the tree, and a detective accompanied me whereever I went. There was no attack upon me, and the police assured me that it was undoubtedly the practical joke of some friend. They withdrew my detective guard and I thought the matter had ended.