The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 194

He arose from a camp-stool where he was wont to make himself comfortable from six o'clock until midnight on watch, picked up his lantern, turned up the light and stepped down to the edge of the road. He always remained on watch at the same place - at one end of a long stretch which autoists had unanimously dubbed The Trap. The Trap was singularly tempting - perfectly macadamized road bed lying between two tall stone walls with only enough of a sinuous twist in it to make each end invisible from the other. Another man, Special Constable Bowman, was stationed at the other end of The Trap and there was telephonic communication between the points, enabling the men to check each other and incidentally, if one failed to stop a car or get its number, the other would. That at least was the theory.

So now, with the utmost confidence, Baker waited beside the road. The approaching lights were only a couple of hundred yards away. At the proper instant he would raise his lantern, the car would stop, its occupants would protest and then the county would add a mite to its general fund for making the roads even better and tempting autoists still more. Or sometimes the cars didn't stop. In that event it was part of the Special Constables' duties to get the number as it flew past, and reference to the monthly automobile register would give the name of the owner. An extra fine was always imposed in such cases.

Without the slightest diminution of speed the car came hurtling on toward him and swung wide so as to take the straight path of The Trap at full speed. At the psychological instant Baker stepped out into the road and waved his lantern.

'Stop!' he commanded.

The crackling-chug came on, heedless of the cry. The auto was almost upon him before he leaped out of the road - a feat at which he was particularly expert- then it flashed by and plunged into The Trap. Baker was, at the instant, so busily engaged in getting out of the way that he couldn't read the number, but he was not disconcerted because he knew there was no escape from The Trap. On the one side a solid stone wall eight feet high marked the eastern boundary of the John Phelps Stocker country estate, and on the other side a stone fence nine feet high marked the western boundary of the Thomas Q. Rogers country estate. There was no turnout, no place, no possible way for an auto to get out of The Trap except at one of the two ends guarded by the special constables. So Baker, perfectly confident of results, seized the phone.

'Car coming through sixty miles an hour,' he bawled. 'It won't stop. I missed the number. Look out.'

'All right,' answered Special Constable Bowman.

For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes Baker waited expecting a call from Bowman at the other end. It didn't come and finally he picked up the phone again. No answer. He rang several times, battered the box and did some tricks with the receiver. Still no answer. Finally he began to feel worried. He remembered that at that same post one Special Constable had been badly hurt by a reckless chauffeur who refused to stop or turn his car when the officer stepped out into the road. In his mind's eye he saw Bowman now lying helpless, perhaps badly injured. If the car held the pace- at which it pa.s.sed him it would be certain death to whoever might be unlucky enough to get in its path.

With these thoughts running through his head and with genuine solicitude for Bowman, Baker at last walked on along the road of The Trap toward the other end. The feeble rays of the lantern showed the unbroken line of the cold, stone walls on each side. There was no shrubbery of any sort, only a narrow strip of gra.s.s close to the wall. The more Baker considered the matter the more anxious he became and he increased his pace a little. As he turned a gentle curve he saw a lantern in the distance coming slowly toward him. It was evidently being carried by someone who was looking carefully along each side of the road.

'h.e.l.lo!' called Baker, when the lantern came within distance. 'That you, Bowman?'

'Yes,' came the hallooed response.

The lanterns moved on and met. Baker's solicitude for the other constable was quickly changed to curiosity.

'What're you looking for?' he asked.

'That auto,' replied Bowman. 'It didn't come through my end and I thought perhaps there had been an accident so I walked along looking for it. Haven't seen anything.'

'Didn't come through your end?' repeated Baker in amazement. 'Why it must have. It didn't come back my way and I haven't pa.s.sed it so it must have gone through.'

'Well, it didn't,' declared Bowman conclusively. 'I was on the lookout for it, too, standing beside the road. There hasn't been a car through my end in an hour.'

Special Constable Baker raised his lantern until the rays fell full upon the face of Special Constable Bowman and for an instant they stared each at the other. Suspicion glowed from the keen, avaricious eyes of Baker.

'How much did they give you to let em' by?' he asked.

'Give me?' exclaimed Bowman, in righteous indignation. 'Give me nothing. I haven't seen a car.'

A slight sneer curled the lips of Special Constable Baker.

'Of course that's all right to report at headquarters,' he said, 'but I happen to know that the auto came in here, that it didn't go back my way, that it couldn't get out except at the ends, therefore it went your way.' He was silent for a moment. 'And whatever you got, Jim, seems to me I ought to get half.'

Then the worm - i.e., Bowman - turned. A polite curl appeared about his lips and was permitted to show through the grizzled mustache.

I guess,' he said deliberately, 'you think because you do that, everybody else does. I haven't seen any autos.'

'Don't I always give you half, Jim?' Baker demanded, almost pleadingly.

'Well I haven't seen any car and that's all there is to it. If it didn't go back your way there wasn't any car.' There was a pause; Bowman was framing up something particularly unpleasant. 'You're seeing things, that's what's the matter.'

So was sown discord between two officers of the County of Yarborough. After awhile they separated with mutual sneers and open derision and went back to their respective posts. Each was thoughtful in his own way. At five minutes of midnight when they went offduty Baker called Bowman on the phone again.

'I've been thinking this thing over, Jim, and I guess it would be just as well if we didn't report it or say anything about it when we go in,' said Baker slowly. 'It seems foolish and if we did say anything about it it would give the boys the laugh on us.'

'Just as you say,' responded Bowman.

Relations between Special Constable Baker and Special Constable Bowman were strained on the morrow. But they walked along side by side to their respective posts. Baker stopped at his end of The Trap; Bowman didn't even look around.

'You'd better keep your eyes open tonight, Jim,' Baker called as a last word.

'I had 'em open last night,' was the disgusted retort.

Seven, eight, nine o'clock pa.s.sed. Two or three cars had gone through The Trap at moderate speed and one had been warned by Baker. At a few minutes past nine he was staring down the road which led into The Trap when he saw something that brought him quickly to his feet. It was a pair of dazzling white eyes, far away. He recognized them - the mysterious car of the night before.

'I'll get it this time,' he muttered grimly, between closed teeth.

Then when the onrus.h.i.+ng car was a full two hundred yards away Baker planted himself in the middle of the road and began to swing the lantern. The auto seemed, if anything, to be traveling even faster than on the previous night. At a hundred yards Baker began to shout. Still the car didn't lessen speed, merely rushed on. Again at the psychological instant Baker jumped. The auto whisked by as the chauffeur gave it a dextrous twist to prevent running down the Special Constable.

Safely out of its way Baker turned and stared after it, trying to read the number. He could see there was a number because a white board swung from the tail axle, but he could not make out the figures. Dust and a swaying car conspired to defeat him. But he did see that there were four persons in the car dimly silhouetted against the light reflected from the road. It was useless, of course, to conjecture as to s.e.x for even as he looked, the fast receding car swerved around the turn and was lost to sight.

Again he rushed to the telephone; Bowman responded promptly.

'That car's gone in again,' Baker called. 'Ninety miles an hour. Look out!'

'I'm looking,' responded Bowman.

'Let me know what happens,' Baker shouted.

With the receiver to his ear he stood for ten or fifteen minutes, then Bowman hallooed from the other end.

'Well?' Baker responded. 'Get 'em?'

'No car pa.s.sed through and there's none in sight,' said Bowman.

'But it went in,' insisted Baker.

'Well it didn't come out here,' declared Bowman. 'Walk along the road till I meet you and look out for it.'

Then was repeated the search of the night before. When the two men met in the middle of The Trap their faces were blank - blank as the high stone walls which stared at them from each side.

'Nothing!' said Bowman.

'Nothing!' echoed Baker.

Special Constable Bowman perched his head on one side and scratched his grizzly chin.

'You're not trying to put up a job on me?' he inquired coldly. 'You did 'see a car?'

'I certainly did,' declared Baker, and a belligerent tone underlay his manner. 'I certainly saw it, Jim, and if it didn't come out your end, why - why -'