Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

A flash of lightning between the oily black clouds revealed the Shevlin homestead. Cyrus stumbled to the front porch and beat upon the door with his fists. After a minute’s deadly silence an angry voice boomed:

“Who is it pounding upon doors at this hour of the night?”

“Me,” retorted Cyrus weakly. “Cyrus Steep.”

The door was flung open. Old man Shevlin himself stood there, holding a smoking lamp, his long white nightgown flapping about his bony ankles.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Don’t you know me? I’m Cyrus Steep, the man who was here for his vacation last year. Remember?”

Shevlin’s fierce eyes smoldered with suspicion.

“What are you doing here now?”

Cyrus had regained some of his confidence. He straightened himself with an effort, pulled at his dripping clothes and replied:

“I decided at the last minute to take my vacation early this year. I didn’t have time to let you know. I just hopped on the train and came on out. Thought, of course, that I could get a horse and buggy at the station, but I couldn’t. So I walked. I was determined to get here to-night.”

“Hump,” said Old Man Shevlin. “Well, come in. We ain’t fixed for boarders yet, but I guess ma can take care of you all right.” He stared at Steep keenly. “A good hot cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt you right now. You look like you’re all tuckered out.”

“I am,” said Cyrus wearily.

Later he sat in the kitchen and dried his clothes and drank the fresh, strong coffee made by Ma Shevlin. It renovated his nerves, gave him new confidence in himself. He patted the fifty thousand with an air of assurance. He had negotiated the first hurdle. The rest would be easy.

“Curious time to go vacationing,” said Shevlin, sitting with his slippered feet on the oven door. “What is there to do at this time of the year?”

“I needed a change,” smiled Cyrus. “I was getting stale on the job. It makes little difference to me what I do. Just want to be away from everything. By the way, do you get the city papers in Hayden?”

“Nope. Folks out here aren’t much on reading. A feller came through here and tried to sell ’em the papers, but he couldn’t make a go of it”

Cyrus sighed with relief. He confidently expected his picture to appear upon the front pages of the metropolitan papers on the morrow.

“Oh, well,” he said, “I guess I’ll be better off cut off from things entirely.”

“Probably,” agreed Old Man Shevlin.

When the coffee pot was emptied, Cyrus was shown to his room and began to peel off his mud-stained, wrinkled clothing. Old Shevlin hesitated in the doorway.

“Didn’t bring no luggage?”

“No,” retorted Steep, exasperated by the man’s persistence. “As I explained, I made up my mind in a hurry and had to catch the train. I didn’t have time to go to my rooms for my things. I’ll make out all right.”

The farmer wagged his shaggy head, turned away and closed the door.

Steep sat down on the bed, sick at heart. He had bungled the job. He had made a simple affair into a complicated matter that had attracted attention. Sooner or later he would be found out. Sooner or later they would catch him, unless he changed his tactics.

What an awful fool he had been. This was the last place in the world for a fugitive, this lonely farmhouse, with its suspicious, prying people.

Downstairs a telephone bell jangled nervously. Cyrus felt the loose flesh on his backbone creep. What could this be? He was at the door listening intently.

Old Man Shevlin, muttering curses, was padding over the lower floor in his bare feet.

“Hello,” he boomed. “Yes. That so?” His voice fell from an angry bellow to a tone of friendly conversation. “Sure. Come on up. I’ll help you do the job. What’s that? Sure, I’ve got a shotgun.”

He hung up and moved away into the back part of the house, and Cyrus heard him fumbling in a drawer.

The little teller sat, shivering and shaking, on the bed. He was lost. Shevlin was probably sitting outside the door at this very minute with a weapon in his hand, waiting to take the life of the man who dared to steal fifty thousand dollars from the great First National Bank. And when the deed was done the farmer would get a reward for making an end of such a desperate criminal.

“Blood money,” said Cyrus. “They’d do it for the blood money.”

Who-ee-ee!

The wind struck a loose end of the metal guttering and it vibrated like a harsh harp. Downstairs Cyrus heard sounds of pattering feet, hoarse whispers, the rattling of chains. A half an hour passed. The teller staggered to his feet and looked out the window.

Far down the muddy road he saw the twin eyes of an approaching automobile, blinking through the rain as the machine ground and snorted its way toward the farm.

A posse. Cyrus shivered like a man with the ague. He might be lynched, hanged to one of those dark naked trees in the yard.

The machine stopped in front of the house and several men got out, blobs in the gloom. Cyrus noted, with a catch in his breath, that they all carried rifles. The front door banged open.

“Hello, sheriff,” said Shevlin. “Well, come on, let’s go get our man.”