Part 2 - Chapter 7

The Trapping of Birdy Edwards

As McMurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one
and very well suited for such a crime as they had planned. It
was on the extreme fringe of the town and stood well back from
the road. In any other case the conspirators would have simply
called out their man, as they had many a time before, and emptied
their pistols into his body; but in this instance it was very
necessary to find out how much he knew, how he knew it, and what
had been passed on to his employers.

It was possible that they were already too late and that the work
had been done. If that was indeed so, they could at least have
their revenge upon the man who had done it. But they were
hopeful that nothing of great importance had yet come to the
detective's knowledge, as otherwise, they argued, he would not
have troubled to write down and forward such trivial information
as McMurdo claimed to have given him. However, all this they
would learn from his own lips. Once in their power, they would
find a way to make him speak. It was not the first time that
they had handled an unwilling witness.

McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed. The police seemed to
take particular interest in him that morning, and Captain
Marvin--he who had claimed the old acquaintance with him at
Chicago--actually addressed him as he waited at the station.
McMurdo turned away and refused to speak with him. He was back
from his mission in the afternoon, and saw McGinty at the Union
House.

"He is coming," he said.

"Good!" said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with
chains and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a
diamond twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard.
Drink and politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as
powerful man. The more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse
of the prison or the gallows which had risen before him the night
before.

"Do you reckon he knows much?" he asked anxiously.

McMurdo shook his head gloomily. "He's been here some time--six
weeks at the least. I guess he didn't come into these parts to
look at the prospect. If he has been working among us all that
time with the railroad money at his back, I should expect that he
has got results, and that he has passed them on."

"There's not a weak man in the lodge," cried McGinty. "True as
steel, every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that
skunk Morris. What about him? If any man gives us away, it
would be he. I've a mind to send a couple of the boys round
before evening to give him a beating up and see what they can get
from him."

"Well, there would be no harm in that," McMurdo answered. "I
won't deny that I have a liking for