Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

“Oh, a hell of a lot of it; say, fifteen thousand dollars’ worth.”

The man in brown was taken aback at the mention of such large figures. Kerrigan was eying him up, not missing a trick.

“Well,” answered the stranger, “that’s a pretty big order, but I guess I can fix you up all right. Could you come for the stuff yourself?”

“Yeah,” answered the Wolf. A pause. Then: “Where?”

“Well, I could deliver it to you at an old farmhouse outside of Rutland, Vermont, if that wouldn’t be too far for you to come. You see, I don’t like to take a chance on bringing so much down here to New York. I been doin’ quite a business lately with my two partners, and the agents might be on to me.”

Kerrigan feigned indecision. At length he said:

“Well, the agents won’t bother me. I’ll come up to Vermont. Just where is the place?”

The stranger gave Kerrigan detailed directions as to how to reach a deserted farmhouse situated along a lonely road ten miles out from Rutland.

“You can’t miss it,” he concluded. “It’s a big place and sets far back from the road. It ain’t been occupied in years.”

“What time will I see you there?” asked Kerrigan.

“Eleven o’clock sharp to-morrow night — will that be satisfactory to you?”

“Yeah, that’ll be O K. I’ll be there.”

“You’ll have the cash with you?”

“I’ll have fifteen thousand in my pocket. What’s your name?”

“Phelps — Ned Phelps.”

The following night, at eight o’clock, Kerrigan and Agent Ray Connolley alighted from a train in Rutland. The night was pitch black. A storm was brewing.

The two agents hired a decrepit automobile and drove over ten miles of lonely country roads and finally arrived at a spot where a deserted old house sat far back from the road. A stretch of woods began in the rear of the place.

“This must be it, Ray,” opined the Wolf. “Now, here’s what we’d better do: I’ll take you back down the road and leave you at that gas station we just passed and then I’ll come back here. If I don’t return to the gas station by eleven thirty, you come after me. I want to handle this baby alone because if he sees you anywhere around he’s sure to blow.”

“But he might turn out to be a tough egg when he finds out who you are,” ventured Connolley.

“He won’t turn out to be half as tough as I am,” replied the Wolf.

So Kerrigan drove Connolley to the gas station, about a quarter of a mile back toward Rutland, left him there, and returned in the machine to the old farmhouse. He parked his car in from the road, alighted and walked into the dark, deserted structure. With the aid of his flashlight he saw that the floors were bare and that there was not a piece of furniture in the place. The wind whistled ominously through innumerable cracks in the sides of the house and any one but Kerrigan, there alone, would have been frozen by fright.

After completing his explorations, the Wolf took a seat on the floor of what had once been a parlor, drew his overcoat collar up around his neck, and proceeded to wait for eleven o’clock.

A couple of minutes before eleven o’clock the dozing Kerrigan was awakened by the noise of an old flivver, which pulled up in front of the house. He went to the front door and there saw the man who had sold him the dope in New York coming up the porch steps.

“Well,” said Phelps, “I see you got here all right.”

“Yeah,” said the Wolf, smiling, “I’ve had a pretty cold wait; been here since ten.”

The peddler, still sporting his natty brown outfit, led Kerrigan back into the house, lit a couple of candles which he had brought with him and then drew a gun on the little agent.

“Are you a narcotic man?” snapped Phelps.

“Lord, no,” replied Kerrigan: “What made you think that?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure — and I ain’t sure yet!”

With that, Phelps, holding his gun in his right hand, ran his other hand through the Wolf’s hip, jacket and overcoat pockets, but found no trace of what he was looking for — a gun. Kerrigan, however, had his trusty automatic with him, but it was reposing in the left-hand arm pit of his jacket. That’s where the Wolf always carried his gun. It was placed in such a manner that the barrel pointed downward and the handle stuck out from the arm pit, making a quick draw quite simple. And, let it be recorded, one of the late Jim Kerrigan’s many specialties was a quick draw.

“Well,” said Phelps, after his examination of the agent’s person had been completed, “I guess you’re all right. But if I’d found out you was an agent, I’d knock you off in a minute... Got the money for the stuff?”

Kerrigan produced a roll of greenbacks and handed them over to the man in brown. The latter counted them, by the aid of candlelight, pronounced the sum “fifteen thousand iron men; just right” and then told Kerrigan to come outside with him.

“We got the stuff in two suitcases in the machine here,” said Phelps, indicating the flivver.

When Kerrigan approached the machine, he noticed two men sitting in silence in the rear of the car. He had not anticipated dealing with three dope runners!