"I didn't believe in them any more than you until to-night, but, after what we saw, what is a man to think?"
"I tell you it's a trick. This house has the reputation of being haunted, brought about by my own nocturnal searches within its walls. Some one saw us enter, and followed us to give us a scare."
Tisdale shook his head incredulously.
"Absurd," he said, with emphasis. "You saw the thing as well as I. What did it look like? Answer me that."
"Well, I must admit that it looked like Maria."
"I should say so. Wasn't it her face, her form, her dress? Do you suppose a man can forget the form of his wife? I tell you no. Not if he lived to be a thousand years old. Besides, I saw the mark of my fist upon her forehead, poor girl. Great God, to think that I should have struck her dead at my feet! She who once loved me more than all else on earth."
"Rube, you are acting like a perfect child!" exclaimed Callister, impatiently. "Here we are standing directly upon the verge of a precipice, as it were, and you give way like this. Detectives are on our track, man; the capture of Joe Dutton, unless he can be silenced most effectually, is likely to prove a fatal blow to us, and what we want is money—money alone will pull us through; without it all my influence in the business world will go for naught."
"Well, you have money, folks say. Use it—it is as much to your interest as the rest of us."
"Have I? So you say. Let me tell you, Rube Tisdale, that my stock operations of the last year have left me a well-nigh ruined man. I depended upon this bank affair to put me on my feet again. It has failed. If you had only preserved that parchment more carefully, every dollar of old Mansfield's wealth would now be within our grasp."
"Oh! stow that!" cried Tisdale, angrily. "What's the use of throwing all the blame on me? The bank affair proved a failure, didn't it! The parchment was lost, through my carelessness, I'll admit. Let's face matters as they are, and make the best of them we can. Come, let's be off out of this. We can do no more here to-night."
Callister blew out the lantern and opened the door.
"I go," he said, sulkily, "but, mark you, Rube, I shall return again. In a month's time, under the will of Jeremiah Mansfield, which fortunately is recorded in the Surrogate's office, even if you did lose the original, this house and all it contains belongs to me, if I can only catch that cub of a boy and turn him over to the law. Once in my possession, I'll raze it to the foundation stones but I'll discover the secret hidden by its moldering walls."
He slammed the door behind them, and descending the piazza steps, started down the avenue leading to the Fort Washington road beyond, regardless of the pelting rain, his companion following without a word.
Hard as it had poured all day long, and now far into the night, not at any time had the storm assumed such violence as now.
The water fell about them in torrents, the wind swept through the tops of the tall oak-trees with a wild, unearthly moan.
Now what possessed the man Tisdale to pause before he had advanced ten paces from the old mansion, and turn to survey its gloomy front once more, is something we cannot tell.
But turn he did, and simultaneously with the movement there broke from his lips a wild, unearthly yell.
"Lije! For God's sake! There she is again!"
And Elijah Callister also turned.
From out of the darkness before him there shot a blaze of light.
The door of the old mansion stood wide open.
The piazza, the great hall, and even the staircase beyond, were to be seen illuminated with the brightness of day.
And there, in the midst of that blaze of light, upon the threshold of the door itself, stood the form of the dead Mrs. Marley, pale and rigid, with one thin, white finger pointing directly toward himself and his frightened companion who with chattering teeth stood trembling by his side.
For one instant only the apparition maintained its place.
The next, and all was darkness again.
With a loud cry of terror Reuben Tisdale sprang down the avenue, and was lost from view among the trees, while his companion, now scarcely less alarmed, hurriedly followed in the direction of the gate.
MR. CALLISTER'S CLERK.
"Ketchum & Bustem, eight hundred Wabash common, buyer three!"
"All right, Ketchum & Bustem—there you are."
Out of a little hole in the glass partition, which divided the interior of Mr. Elijah Callister's office, Room 62, —— Building, Broad street, from the portion which was open to the outside public, a hand was thrust, passing back a receipt book to the waiting messenger of the well-known firm of Ketchum & Bustem, brokers on Broadway.
As no further messengers appeared, the transactions of Mr. Callister upon the board that day having been small, the door of the glass partition was presently thrown open, and a young man, neatly dressed, with a pen thrust behind his ear appeared, and began to walk up and down the office with a meditative air.
He was to all appearance of some twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age, certainly not over thirty at the most.
Tall and straight, with light hair, which he wore long about the neck, and mustache and side whiskers, trimmed in the latest style.
Now, as the office was vacant, save for his own presence, this new stock clerk of Mr. Callister's—for it is this young man who has secured the position in the stock broker's office, the advertisement of which had attracted the keen eyes of Detective Hook, fell to thinking, and, as is the foolish custom of some people when alone, thinking aloud:
"And so this is the beginning of my third week here," he muttered, as he paced the office floor up and down, in momentary expectation of the return of his employer from the closing of the Stock Exchange, "and so far all goes well. Mr. Callister certainly does not suspect me—has not from the first. That letter of Hook's procured from his cousin, the president of the Exchange, did the business; he hired me without the least suspicion in the world.
"And to think that I should have been able to play this part for two whole weeks," he continued; "but I have done it, and I flatter myself that it has been well performed. Not for a moment has this man mistrusted that I am other than what I seem, while on my part I have learned much that will be invaluable——"
Here his reflections were interrupted by the entry of the broker himself.
He was as suave and sleek as ever. To use an old-fashioned expression, butter could not have melted in his mouth.
"Ah, Mr. Maxwell, you are alone, I see. Although forced by circumstances to remain indoors, you are enjoying the beautiful afternoon, I trust?"
"I am, Mr. Callister, as well as one can from the window away up here above the street."
"Just so, Mr. Maxwell. My offices are somewhat elevated, but so much nearer to Heaven, my dear sir—so much nearer to Heaven—and when you come to consider, there is much that is beautiful in the thought. Have Ketchum & Bustem reported that lot of Wabash?"
"Yes, sir."
"And Brownell & Popkins the Brazilian sixes?"
"Yes, Mr. Callister. Those were reported an hour ago."
"Very good, Mr. Maxwell—very good, indeed. I have some important papers to prepare, and shall now retire to my private office. If any one calls, show them in."
"Very well, Mr. Callister."
"And, Maxwell?"
"Sir."
"Should you feel so inclined, I should be pleased to see you at our prayer-meeting to-morrow night, at the Tenth Baptist Church. I take the deepest interest in the welfare of all young men."
Thereupon, Mr. Elijah Callister, smiling blandly, entered his private office, closed and locked the door.
"You old hypocrite!" muttered the clerk, shaking his fist at the oaken panels. "You miserable, canting fraud. Never would I have believed you to be what you are had I not witnessed your duplicity and double dealing now daily for the past two weeks with my own eyes."
And the assumed Mr. Maxwell, in whom no one, not even, we venture to say, Caleb Hook himself, had he not been in the secret, would have recognized our young friend, Frank Mansfield, resumed his seat at the desk behind the glass partition, and began figuring away upon a large book of accounts.
Yes, it was Frank Mansfield.
Detective Hook's plan had succeeded to the letter.
For two weeks he had been an inmate of the business office of the man who had plotted his ruin.
And during that short lapse of time many things had occurred.
Let us narrate them briefly, as they are highly essential to a correct understanding of subsequent events.
In the first place, the matter of the Webster bank robbery remains still a mystery. It is generally believed that Frank Mansfield was at least a participant in the crime, a guilty tool of the thieves.
From the moment of his escape from Officer Schneider, the whereabouts of that young gentleman have been a matter of mystery to the world.
When, through the accident which had happened to Detective Hook, the burglar Joe Dutton had been captured with his basket of stolen dollars at the Catherine Market, it had been thought by the police authorities that a speedy solution of the mystery was at hand.
They were mistaken.
During the four days of his confinement in the Tombs the captured criminal could not be persuaded to utter a word.
On the morning of the fifth day burglar Joe Dutton was found lying dead upon the floor of his cell.
Upon the same day occurred the funeral of the murdered Mrs. Marley.
Through some unknown source a lot had been purchased in a suburban cemetery. Detective Hook and Frank Mansfield, concealed within a closed carriage, were the sole mourners who followed to the grave.
Not the slightest clew to the perpetrator of this cowardly murder had been obtained by the police, but then they had not exerted themselves very violently, you see.
Mrs. Marley was only a poor, half crazy woman—there was no money in the case.
But in the busy rush of New York already were these matters well-nigh forgotten.
The robbery of the Webster bank, the disappearance of Frank Mansfield, and the murder of Mrs. Marley were all things of the past.
Maxwell, the clerk, had been engaged at his books not over an hour—and even that short space of time had sufficed to bring the short winter's day nearly to a close—when the office door again opened and a flashily dressed young man smoking a long cigar entered.
"Callister about?" he asked, with an air of general proprietorship of the whole establishment.
Mr. Maxwell peeped through the little round opening in the glass partition and immediately opened the door.
"He's in, but very busy," he replied, stepping into the outer room.
"Tell him Detective Cutts wants to see him, will you, young feller?" said the individual with the cigar.
Now the appearance of Mr. Billy Cutts, police detective, as a visitor at the stock broker's office caused the newly engaged clerk no surprise.
The fact was, Detective Cutts had been a daily caller upon Mr. Callister for more than a week.
Of the nature of the man's business Maxwell, the clerk, was unaware, but it appeared to be involved in much mystery, and was invariably conducted behind locked doors.
"Mr. Cutts, sir," said the clerk, as the door of the broker's office was opened in response to his knock.
"Show him in, Mr. Maxwell. Show him in," was the bland reply.
And during that momentary glimpse of the interior of the private office, the assumed Maxwell saw that the desk was littered with papers and large drawings, closely resembling architects' plans, strange things to be seen in a stock broker's office, to say the least.
Detective Cutts had not been closeted with Mr. Callister ten minutes, when the door of the outer office opened again, and a sweet, womanly voice was heard inquiring for the broker without the glass partition.
As the voice fell upon the ears of the disguised Frank Mansfield his heart seemed to rise in his throat.
It was the voice of Miss Edna Callister, loved by him as deeply as her father was despised.
By the earnest advice of Detective Hook, to whom the young man had confided his tender feelings for this beautiful girl, Frank had refrained from visiting the object of his affection or holding any communication with her at all.
Difficult and trying as this had been, it was certainly a wise precaution, as can be readily seen.
How much under the influence of her father the girl might be it was impossible to tell.
Not that Frank loved her the less for the wrong that parent had attempted to do him. But he now saw things by a new and less selfish light than ever before.
Had he the right to aspire to the affections of the daughter, when against the father he was working night and day?
The severest test to which his disguise had yet been subjected was now about to occur.
Could the eyes of love be deceived?
There was no time to hesitate, and Frank, mastering all his self-control, stepped from behind the glass partition into the office beyond.
"Mr. Callister is engaged just at present, miss. Will you please to give me your name, and I will let him know that you are here."
"Say to him that Miss Callister would like to see him," replied the young lady, her clear blue eyes resting upon the face of the clerk.
"Please be seated. I will inform him at once."
"Edna, you here!" exclaimed the broker, in tones of surprise, as he hurriedly emerged from the office, closing the door carefully behind him, not, however, without enabling the watchful eyes of the disguised clerk to catch a glimpse of Detective Cutts poring over the plans upon the desk within.
"Yes, father," replied the girl, coldly, "I am here, as you see."
"Mr. Maxwell, oblige me by stepping out into the hall a moment," said the broker, hurriedly. "I wish to speak with my daughter alone, and Mr. Cutts is too busy to be disturbed."
Frank obeyed.
Evidently Mr. Callister had forgotten the open fan-light above the door, which afforded ample opportunity for any one in the hall outside who chose to stand close beneath it and listen to hear every loud word spoken within. Otherwise he might have lowered his voice a trifle, perhaps even have spoken less harshly than he did.
"What brings you here, girl?" were the first words the listener heard. "How many times have I told you not to come to this office?"
"It makes no difference," was the reply of the daughter, in clear, ringing tones. "I come here because I choose to come. Knowing you as I do, father, I have long since ceased to love you. Can you then expect me to obey?"
"I'll find means to force obedience if you don't give it willingly. What do you want?"
"To know what you have done with Frank Mansfield."
"Impertinent jade! Why do you come to inquire of the movements of that young rascal from me? I have told you already that I know nothing of him at all. His companions, the bank robbers, could tell you, perhaps. Hunt them out and ask them."
"I am convinced from the remark you let fall in my presence last night that you know more of Frank than you choose to tell. He left me to come to you for the purpose of asking your consent to our marriage, and has not been seen since. What have you done with him, I ask again?"
"Oh, yes, he has. You forgot the trifling fact that your beloved was caught in the act of robbing the Webster Bank."
"I don't believe it—I will never believe it. I demand to know what you have done with Frank. I know only too well that it is for your interest to put him out of the way."
"You are a silly fool!" the voice of the father was heard to angrily exclaim. "Go back to your dolls and your playthings. If I catch you here again I will lock you up on bread and water for a month."
To this speech there was no reply, but at the same instant the door of the office opened.
The disguised listener drew hurriedly back.
He was not quick enough, however, to avoid coming face to face with the daughter of his employer.
Their eyes met.
It was for an instant only, but in that instant the pale face of the girl blushed rosy red.
Love penetrates all disguises.
Frank saw instantly that his was no longer of avail so far as those loving eyes were concerned.
"Shall I assist you to the elevator, Miss Callister?" he asked, quietly, stepping to her side.
"If you please, sir."
And they stood together by the door of the elevator shaft, the car at that moment being seen descending from the story above.
Suddenly the girl, extending her dainty, gloved hand grasped that of the youth within her own.
"I still visit the old place," she whispered, hurriedly. "Oh, Frank, to know that you are alive and well lifts a great load from my heart. Never doubt that it still beats alone for you."
The door is flung open—the elevator has come.
The door is closed—the elevator has gone.
And Frank Mansfield, turning, beheld the tall form of Elijah Callister regarding him malevolently from the threshold of the open office beyond.
JERRY BUCK PLAYS THE PART OF A DETECTIVE AGAIN.
It was after eight o'clock when Mr. Elijah Callister left the —— Building, Broad street, by the side door opening upon Exchange Place, and the night had turned off cold.
Detective Cutts was still with him, and buttoning their overcoats about them, both hurried off in the direction of William Street, with the air of men having business on hand.
As for Frank Mansfield, he had left the office of the stock-broker a good three hours before, with his mind full of doubts and fears.
"My daughter is quite capable of taking care of herself, Mr. Maxwell," the broker had said in his usual oily tones, as Frank returned to the office after the little scene enacted at the elevator door. "In future I beg you will be less attentive to any ladies who may chance to favor my office with a visit."
With this rebuke he had shut himself up in the private office with Mr. Billy Cutts again, and was seen no more up to the usual hour for closing the office, when Frank, without attempting to even say good-night, simply put on his hat and walked out, wholly undetermined as to whether his hasty communication with Miss Edna Callister had been overheard.
As the stock broker and the detective hurried along the southerly side of Exchange place—we mean the side where the street dealers in government bonds spend their entire time during business hours in leaning against the iron railings of the basement offices awaiting customers for their wares—there crept out from a doorway a ragged, shivering newsboy, hugging a great bundle of the evening papers tightly under his arm.
Shooting a hasty glance at the men before him, he bounded ahead over the icy sidewalk, shouting at the top of his voice:
"Fo'rt Commercial, Nooiz or Telegram! Evenin' papers, gents?"
Evidently the "gents" were disinclined for the evening paper, for Callister, rudely pushing the boy aside, crossed William street and paused opposite the great stone building occupied by the Lispenard Bank, one of the wealthiest of the wealthy financial institutions in New York.
For an instant only the pause was made; but during that instant the stock broker, with a hurried glance up and down the street—there was no one but the newsboy in sight, and he was half a block away—unrolled a stiff paper plan which he took from under his coat, and giving one end of it to Cutts to hold, pointed first at the plan and then at the building of the Lispenard Bank again.
"Fo'rt Commercial! Nooiz! Telegram or German! Evenin' paper, gents?"
Again the newsboy stood by their side, looking almost over their shoulder at the plan they held between them, as he thrust his bunch of papers in the broker's face.
"No, you young imp!" exclaimed Callister. "These newsboys are thicker than flies about here. I tell you, Billy, there's no trouble about it—no trouble at all. An entrance can be effected as easy as rolling off a log. And as to money, why, good Lord, it's the clearing house, you know, and there's always money there. Come, let's get down and show these to your father, and see what he thinks of the idea."
He rolled up the plans hastily, and putting them under his overcoat, moved off up William street toward Wall, the detective keeping pace by his side.
At that moment the newsboy crept out from under the shadows of the Custom House fence and followed them, dodging from one side of the street to the other, calling his papers, and occasionally stopping to sell one, but always keeping the forms of Messrs. Cutts and Callister plainly in view.
"I've got yer now, yer sly old rat!" he muttered, as he crossed Wall street close at their heels. "An', by gracious, I orter after all the time I spent a-watchin'. I seen them papers wat's got the picter of the Lispenard bank onter them. If she an' me don't spoil yer little game this time 'twon't be no faalt of Jerry Buck's, an' don't yer forget it!"
Who "she was" did not appear as yet.
Certainly, in his present position, Master Jerry Buck was playing the part of a detective quite alone.
Down William street to Liberty, down Liberty to its junction with Malden Lane, down Malden Lane to Pearl street the men advanced, all unconscious of the ragged youth who followed close at their heels.
Turning to the left, they kept along Pearl street, beneath the shadows of the great structure of the elevated railroad, nor did they make another turn until Franklin Square was reached.
And when they passed beneath the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge and entered Cherry street, smelling of a thousand and one ill odors, suggestive of anything save the luscious fruit from which its name is derived, Jerry Buck was still behind them.
He had ceased to call his papers now, but stood silently watching them from between two empty trucks drawn up by the side of the curbstone, as they entered the very house on the easterly side of Cherry street, just beyond Catherine, which he had pointed out to Frank Mansfield upon the occasion of their Sunday morning visit to the Catherine Market as the one into which the burglars of the Webster Bank had disappeared.
No sooner had the two men passed through the doorway than the newsboy, pulling his tattered felt hat low down over his eyes, quietly crossed the street, entered the house himself, and crept silently after them up the rickety stairs, just in time to see Detective Cutts, the man paid by the City for the detection of crime, and Mr. Elijah Callister, the pious brother of the Tenth Baptist Church, disappear within the rear room on the second landing of the tenement, the door of which was immediately closed.
Then Jerry Buck, giving utterance to a peculiar chuckle, slipped past the door, mounted still another pair of stairs and tapped lightly upon the panels of the door of the room immediately above.
It was presently opened, and a woman's head and shoulders thrust out into the hall.
"Is that you, Jerry?"
"Yes, missus, it's me."
The door was softly opened wide and closed again, the boy slipping into the room.
"Them fellers meets down-stairs again to-night, missus. They means business this time, and no mistake."
"Is he there?" asked the woman.
"You bet! Didn't I jest see him go in! I've been a-layin' for him, a-followin' of him since five o'clock. Cutts the detective is with him, too."
"You are a good boy, Jerry," said the woman, tears springing to her eyes. "God will reward you for what you've done for me."
"Do you think so, missus? 'Twan't much, after all. When I seed you a-tryin' to jump inter the river I stopped you. When you told me yer troubles, an' how that old mean snide, Callister, had robbed your husband and killed him, an' how he had treated you an' was a-tryin' to treat yer boy, why I jest took a-holt an' helped yer, an' the rest has come about of itself."
For reply, the woman stroked the boy's tumbled hair, and then, as if moved by some sudden impulse, stooped and kissed him.
"Looka here!" exclaimed Jerry, half pleased, half ashamed. "I never had no one do that to me before, but then you seem somehow jest as though you were my own mother, so I suppose it's all right."
"And you never knew your mother?" asked the woman, regarding the boy with a wistful air.
She was a person who had evidently seen much sorrow.
Tall and thin, with gray hair tied tightly in a knot behind her head, poorly but respectably dressed, there was about her an unmistakable air of refinement, indicative of quite a different position in life from the one in which we now find her.
For surely the carpetless room, cheap table and chairs, the little stove and scanty display of common dishes through the half open closet door were indicative of anything but plenty and comfort, to say the least.
But they were miles and miles ahead of anything Jerry Buck was accustomed to, and he regarded them with an almost respectful air, as he replied:
"No, missus, I never had no father nor mother as I remember. I've always lived about the streets."
"But you must have some early remembrances," continued the woman. "Can't you tell me what they are?"
"Yes, some other time. Them fellers have been in the room below for full five minutes. If we are a-goin' to ketch onto their racket, we'd better be about it, I should say."
And as he spoke Jerry Buck, creeping behind the stove, threw himself flat on his stomach upon the uncarpeted floor, close by the mouth of a small round hole, through which in some former time, when the house had been occupied by the old Quaker families once resident in this part of New York, a stove-pipe had passed, conveying heat to this upper chamber from the room beneath.
A thin sheet of paper covered the opening upon the ceiling in the room below them, through which a light could be seen shining dimly and the sounds of men's voices distinctly heard.
The woman now seated herself likewise upon the floor, and, in common with the boy, bent over the hole.
Had they been in the chamber beneath them, they could not have heard the words of its occupants more plainly.
Sound rises, as is well known to every one. Through the round opening every syllable uttered fell with startling distinctness upon their ears.
"I tell you the job's an immense one, Rube, whether Sam Cutts can see it or not."
"That's old Callister," murmured Jerry in a low whisper.
"Hush!" replied the woman, speaking in tones equally low, at the same time holding up her hand. "I know his wicked voice only too well, I'm not likely to forget the voice of one who has brought the ruin he has done upon me and mine."
"Well, I'm not kicking," came a man's voice up the tube.
"The plan looks all right, and Lije talks all right. It's a big scheme on paper, but the question is, won't it prove another Webster bank affair? Providin' it works, will there be enough shug in the vault to pay us for our trouble? That's what I want to know in advance."
"Why, it's the Clearing House for all the other banks, man," replied Callister's voice, impatiently. "There's always money, thousands upon thousands, in the vaults of the Lispenard bank, I'm a director in it myself, and I guess I ought to know."
"And these plans——"
"Are drawn from personal knowledge of the interior of the bank and its vault. Let me tell you, Sam Cutts, this is the biggest thing of the kind I ever put you on to. Billy here knows that I'm giving it to you straight."
"Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!" Both Jerry Buck and the woman were upon their feet in an instant.
The rapping was upon the door of the room in which the listeners were.
"Who can it be!" whispered the woman, turning pale.
"Give it up. Better throw suthin over the hole while I open the door an' see. It's some of the neighbors have come to borry suthin', most like, or a peddler mebbe."
"Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!"
The boy hastily crossed the room, and turning the key, cautiously opened the door upon the crack.
Instantly a man sprang into the room, and seizing Jerry by the shoulders with a vise-like grip, clapped one hand over his mouth.
FRANK VISITS COTTAGE PLACE.
Cottage Place is one of the by-ways.
No man in his sober senses would attempt to describe it otherwise.
Starting from Bleecker street, and running in a winding manner south-easterly to Houston, it affords with its snug little dwellings, its blossoming gardens in the grass-plat centers before the low, red brick cottages, from which it derives its name, a quiet abode for a few old-time families of moderate means, whose necessities compel them to live and maintain some show of respectability in this most undesirable quarter of New York.
But the flowers do not blossom in the winter before the brick dwellings of Cottage Place, and as the evening we are about to speak of is that of the day upon which Miss Edna Callister visited her father's office in Broad street, winter is the season with which we have to deal.
It was still early—the factory whistles had not yet blown for six, when the lithe, well-dressed figure of Maxwell, Mr. Callister's new clerk might have been seen to drop from a Bleecker street car, and, turning into Cottage Place, enter the gate of the snug little cottage bearing the number "9" over its doorway, and hastily ring the bell.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was already dark, he seemed to display a familiarity with the house and its surroundings which indicated with perfect plainness that this was by no means his first visit.
Standing upon the little stoop while awaiting the answer to his ring, the eyes of the young man wandered toward the windows of the first or parlor floor, which, as the house was without basement, stood but slightly raised from the level of the ground.
The blinds were thrown back, but the curtains were drawn, a light burning brightly, suggesting a comfortable, home-like interior within.
"I wonder if she's there," escaped the young man's lips as he gazed upon the curtains. "I feel sure she is, and though I am acting in direct opposition to Mr. Hook's express instructions, I know, I could stand it no longer—I had to come.
"Dear Edna! Never did I fully realize the depth of love until now. Never——"
The door was opened suddenly.
A stout, motherly-looking woman stood gazing inquiringly upon his face.
"Mrs. Brown! It's an age since I've seen you. Is Edna here to-night!"
The young man had sprung eagerly forward, extending his hand toward the woman as he spoke.
"Edna! Who are you, sir? I don't know what you mean."
Frank Mansfield laughed.
All eagerness to meet once more the girl he loved, he had for the moment forgotten his disguise.
"Mrs. Brown, don't you know me?"
"It's Frank Mansfield's voice. Can this be you?"
"It's no one else, auntie," replied Frank, laughing, at the same time closing the door behind him. "I forgot that my face had changed."
"I should have never known you," replied the woman, doubtfully. "She's inside, and expecting you, Frank. But, good gracious me! I don't know whether I'm doing right or wrong to let you meet here so. What a terrible scrape you've got yourself into! We thought you had run away."
"Not yet, auntie, not yet. When I get ready to do such a thing as that I shall let you, my dear old nurse, into the secret first, now you may depend. But where is she? In the little parlor as usual? I'm just dying to hold my darling in my arms again."
The woman threw open a door without a word, displaying a small but neatly furnished room.
"Edna!"
The daughter of Elijah Callister stood before the open grate.
Frank rushed toward her with extended hand.
"My love! my darling!" he cried, impetuously. "Thank God, we are together again!"
The young girl drew back.
Her face was pale, her bosom heaved—there were tears resting in her eyes.
"One moment," she said, with an evident struggle. "It seems to me, Frank Mansfield, that, before admitting you to your old-time place in my heart, some explanation is due to me."
At the same instant the door was heard to close.
Mrs. Brown had discreetly retired, leaving the lovers alone.
Frank drew back abashed.
"I thought after what you said this afternoon—" he began, hesitatingly.
"That I stood ready to receive you, without explanation, on your old footing? No, sir, nothing of the sort! I have some questions to put to you before that can be done."
"Edna, I am yours—yours body and soul! Ask me what questions you please."
"Then, sir, where have you been during all these weeks? You stand accused of a terrible crime before the world. If you are innocent, why have you not communicated with me? Why have you not come to tell me so before?"
"Edna, I am innocent. I swear it before Almighty God and you, the woman I love."
"I believe it. I maintained it against my father, against all the sneers and reproaches that he heaped upon your name. But when day after day passed, and I heard nothing from you, what was I to believe? What am I to believe now, finding you in my father's office and in disguise?"
For the space of a moment Frank stood gazing upon her beautiful form in a maze of perplexity and doubt.
What should he do? What should he say?
To betray his plans to the daughter of his enemy was to frustrate them. He could see it at a glance.
"Hook was right," he thought, bitterly. "I have made a mistake. I ought not to have come at all."
He gazed sadly upon the girl for an instant, and then taking his hat from the table upon which he had thrown it, motioned to withdraw.
"Edna, I—I——"
He stood hesitating now, his hand upon the knob of the door.
Instantly the girl's manner changed.
Springing forward, she threw herself in the arms of her lover, and burst into a flood of tears.
"Frank! Frank! Don't go. I can forgive anything, everything, but your slight to me."
"My slight to you, dearest?"
He led her gently toward a sofa near the window, and seated himself by her side.
"It's weeks since I have seen you, Frank. In your trouble could you not trust me?"
"Can you trust me, little girl?" he cried, clasping both her hands within his own.
"Can you trust me, when I tell you that I did not rob the Webster Bank, that I am not guilty of the terrible crime with which the newspapers have had me charged?"
"Frank, I can trust you in anything; but only think! It is three weeks since you left me in this very room—left me to seek my father and ask his consent to our marriage. I have not seen you since."
"Dearest. I could not help it. I saw your father. He refused my request. I—I—that is—I have been so situated that I could neither see nor communicate with you since."
The cheeks of the youth blushed red as he spoke.
The memory of his dissipation and folly in the presence of this innocent girl seemed to crowd upon him with crushing force.
How unworthy he was of love like this? How——
But his thoughts were interrupted.
Edna Callister had spoken again.
"Frank, I believe your innocence firmly," she said, in clear, decided tones, "I believe it first because I know your heart, second, because—because—oh, how can I say it! Because—Frank, you will not betray me—because my father tries to make me think you guilty, and I know my father to be a very wicked man."
"Edna!"
"It is true, Frank. You know it is true. It is my firm belief that he is at the bottom of a plot against you, and that you know this to be the fact. Is it not so?"
"Edna, I cannot tell you."
"But you must. I insist upon knowing. It is because you have discovered his baseness at last, because you know what I say to be true that you have kept away from me, and hate me for all I know. It is for this reason that you are watching him in his office in this disguise."
"Edna, I love you and shall love you always, no matter what your father may be to me. I promise faithfully—— Hark! what noise was that?"
It was the sound of some one without the window tapping gently upon the pane.
Rising hastily, Frank strode to the window and raised the shade.
"Great Heaven! again!"
With face the color of death the young man leaped back from the window, the perspiration starting in great drops from his pallid brow.
"Look—look! Do you see her?" he breathed, hoarsely, pointing with one finger toward the window facing which both the lovers now stood.
"Why, Frank, it's your mother! What in the world can she be doing here?"
It was a woman who stood in the little courtyard without, her face pressed against the pane.
It was the strange woman who has already figured very prominently in this tale—the mother of Frank Mansfield, whom he believed as firmly as he believed in his own existence to be now lying in her grave.
The face, form, figure were all the same.
The apparition of Trinity church-yard stood before him now.
With one hand, she struck the window feebly as with the other she raised what appeared to be a piece of paper before the eyes of the astonished pair.
Then, laying the paper against the glass, she drew back into the darkness and disappeared.
"Remain where you are, Edna!" cried Frank, springing toward the door. "In a moment I will return."
He was in the street in an instant.
Too late!
The woman was nowhere to be seen.
But there upon the window-sill, leaning against the glass, still rested a folded parchment, affording the most positive evidence of her presence before the house.
Search was useless.
Whoever the strange creature might be—if a being of this world indeed—she had but to turn the corner of Bleecker street to lose herself in the crowd.
With his mind filled with a thousand doubts and fears, Frank seized the parchment and returned to the room.
Without speaking a word he strode toward the table, and spread it out beneath the lighted lamp.
His eyes had scarce rested upon it than he uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise.
And no wonder.
It was the description of the treasure hidden by old Jeremiah Mansfield, his grandfather, which lay before him.
As though a gift from Heaven, it had been restored to him.
He had watched and waited.
The missing parchment had been placed in his hands.
AN UNTIMELY OCCURRENCE—CALEB HOOK DISCOVERED.
"Hist—hist, Jerry Buck!" whispered Detective Hook as he slipped through the door opened by the newsboy. "You are a smart lad—a bright lad—to track those fellows as you have. I watched you do it, but, having got them into close quarters, we must put our heads together and find out what's going on in the room below."
Both Jerry Buck and the woman drew back in startled surprise.
The appearance of the detective thus unexpectedly, was, to judge from the countenances of both, anything but welcome to them.
For the moment even the ready wit of the Bat seemed to desert him, and he glanced from the face of the woman, who stood motionless behind the stove with her foot covering the hole in the floor, to that of Caleb Hook with an appearance of deep perplexity, not unmingled with fear.
"I don't know what you mean, mister. I——"
"Stop, Jerry. This is no time to lie. You know me well enough. Have you forgotten the morning at the Catherine Market—my visit to the Bats in the Wall?"
"Well, s'pose I hain't? What's that got to do with it? This here's a private room. What call have you got to run your nose in here?"
"One moment, Jerry," said the detective, coolly pushing the boy aside and advancing into the room.
"Madam, your most obedient," he continued, bowing respectfully to the woman. "My name is Hook. I am a police detective and the best friend Frank Mansfield has got. May I trouble you to tell me who and what you are?"
The woman trembled before him.
A wild, hunted look overshadowed her face; her eyes wandered restlessly about the room.
"I harm no one, sir," she murmured. "I only wish to be let alone that I may complete the work of vengeance which I have begun against the man who has brought so much misery to me and mine."
"Just so, madam, just so," answered Caleb Hook, soothingly. "You refer to Mr. Callister, no doubt, who is now in the room below. I stand ready to help you in your work if I can."
"But you are the detective who arrested my—Frank, I mean."
"I did, but I have stood his friend from that night until now. I am anxious to help him and all belonging to him. Are you not the person to whom I spoke at the Trinity church-yard wall on the night of the arrest? Did you not tell me that Frank Mansfield was your son, and that he robbed the Webster bank?"
"No, no, I was mistaken. I was mad!" exclaimed the woman, springing forward wildly. "I have no son, he robbed no bank. Go away and leave me alone."
"'Tain't no use to make him mad, missus," whispered the newsboy. "Frank trusts him an' I guess the best thing will be for us to trust him too."
"You are right, Jerry," said the detective quietly. "Neither this good lady nor yourself have anything to fear from me."
"Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! You can just bet your life the detective will never get into this little racket—never in the world."
From the room below these words, accompanied by loud and boisterous laughter, suddenly burst forth, the sound finding easy passage through the uncovered stove pipe hole in the floor.
The effect upon the woman was electrical.
Advancing quickly toward Caleb Hook, she grasped him by the hand.
"That's his voice," she whispered wildly. "Help me to bring that man to the hangman's scaffold and I'll fall down and bless you on my bended knees. It is Elijah Callister that robbed me of my husband; it is he who robbed me of my reason, and would have robbed me of my son. Oh, if I could only trust you, sir! If I could only trust you! How can a weak woman like myself, with no other help than that of this faithful boy, hope to bring justice upon his sinful head alone."
"You may trust me fully, madam. I too have a grievance against Elijah Callister. Will you help me to bring him into the grasp of the law which he has so long defied?"
"Yes—yes! Let them hang him as high as Haman! Oh, that I could only dance on his grave!"
She spoke wildly—excitedly. That her mind was far from clear was plainly to be seen.
That she hated Elijah Callister with a deep and bitter hatred was equally plain.
Caleb Hook, watching her closely, saw all this, and understanding that his opportunity had come, proceeded to grasp it at once.
"Tell me what you know, and you shall do it!" he said, emphatically. "I swear that your desire shall be fulfilled! Who and what is this smooth-spoken Callister—that's what I want to know?"
"Who is he?" cried the woman. "He is a hypocrite, a liar, a murderer, a thief! I have been watching him for weeks, and I know what I say is true. He is the man who concocted the robbery at the Webster bank, and tried to throw the crime upon my son."
"Ah! Then you are Mrs. Mansfield, the mother of Frank? I thought as much from the first."
"Yes—yes; they locked me in an asylum, but I outwitted them and got away, but too late to save my boy from harm. They drew the net around him, but I will tear it off. I will live to see those wretches swing for their crimes when Frank is rich and prosperous. I say it, sir, and I mean it. God will grant a mother's prayer!"
She fumbled at her dress as she spoke these words, and producing a package of greasy, worn papers, thrust them into the detective's hand.
"Read—read!" she exclaimed, her eyes darting to the right and left more wildly than before. "I have written it all down for the world to read when my work is done. But you, who love my boy, shall read it now."
"Say, mister, don't try to talk to her no more," whispered the boy, pulling Hook slyly by the coat. "She always goes on like that when she gets talking about these here things. It's my opinion she's a little off."
"I'll read them carefully, and return them in due time, my dear lady," replied the detective, in a quiet tone, taking the hint. "What we have to do now is to find out what's going on in the room below if we can. It's my belief those fellows are up to no good."
"You can just bet your life on that, Mr. Hook," whispered the newsboy. "They're concocting a scheme to rob the Lispenard bank. I caught on to it through the hole. Just you come over here and listen for yerself. Look a-here, missus, it's all right; you can just set down there and be as quiet as you can. Him an' me'll attend to this here business alone."
Sinking into a chair, the woman, burying her face in her hands, began muttering wildly to herself, while Jerry, taking the detective by the arm, drew him toward the hole behind the stove.
"There, boss, just you put your ear down there," he whispered. "There's a hull raft of them fellers down below, and them that busted the vault of the Webster Bank's among 'em too. I seed 'em an' I know 'em. I was a-tryin' fer to foller 'em up meself fer ter help her along"—he gave a jerk with his thumb toward the woman behind them—"but since you've dropped onto me an' are disposed to help, I'll just turn the hull business over to you, fer you ought to understand it better nor me."
"Quite right, Jerry," whispered Hook, throwing himself flat upon his stomach and bending over the hole in the floor, while the newsboy, less clumsily, did the same.
Beneath, voices in earnest discussion could be plainly heard; the voice of that pious and most excellent man, Mr. Callister, being prominent above the rest.
"And so it's fixed for the day after to-morrow. We are to meet at Cagney's at eleven o'clock, where I shall await your return from the bank with a bigger haul, unless I'm greatly mistaken, than we ever made before."
A look of triumph overspread the face of Caleb Hook as those words, spoken in the voice of the stock-broker, fell upon his ear.
"Jerry!" he whispered, softly.
"Well, boss?"
"Run around to the Oak street station and tell Captain McGinty to send me five of his best men without an instant's delay. Quiet now! Not a particle of noise as you value your life."
"I'm fly, boss," whispered the boy, drawing himself cautiously into an upright position.
As he did so his legs swept over the hole.
Crash! Bang!
A heavy body had fallen through the stove-pipe hole, into the room below.
It was the iron stove-lifter, which a moment before had rested quietly upon the floor by Jerry's side.
In his movement to rise the legs of the boy had come in contact with it, sweeping it across the hole.
The intervening covering of thin paper was broken on the instant.
With a loud crash the stove-lifter, sweeping down through the opening, had fallen like a bomb-shell into the midst of the men assembled in the room below.
There was a sudden exclamation in the voice of Callister.
Then all was as silent as the grave.
Like a flash Caleb Hook was upon his feet.
"Take care of her, Jerry," he whispered. "Lock the door after me and open to no one. I shall head them off at the front entrance. Great Cæsar! how unfortunate! But I'll clap the bracelets on that villain Callister even if the rest escape."
He flung open the door and darted toward the stairs, Jerry Buck locking it behind him as he passed.
Scarce had he descended half the flight connecting with the floor below, when a door was suddenly flung open and four men sprang out into the passage dimly illuminated by a single hanging lamp.
"There he is!" exclaimed one of the men—the smallest, in whom the detective instantly recognized his companion on the force, Mr. Billy Cutts—"there's the fellow who dropped us his card. Gentlemen, this is my friend, Detective Hook. He has come to pay us an evening call!"
A DETECTIVE IN A BAD FIX.
Detective Hook flung his hand behind him.
Instantly a revolver, grasped firmly between his fingers, glittered in the rays of the hanging lamp which shed its feeble light through the hall of the Cherry street tenement in which he now stood at bay.
"Stand off, there, you fellows!" he shouted, sternly. "One step forward and some one bites the dust!"
Crack!
The warning was unheeded.
In the wild western towns the rule is, "Shoot first and explanations afterward."
With fatal result Caleb Hook had chosen the course in direct reverse of this.
With the quickness of thought—in fact, even as the words had passed his lips, a short, thick-set fellow, from the shelter of the doorway connecting the passage with the room from which the men had emerged, had drawn a revolver of the smallest caliber and discharged it at the detective's head.
It made no more noise than an ordinary popgun, but, notwithstanding, accomplished its fatal work.
A low cry escaped the lips of Caleb Hook. The revolver dropped from his nerveless hand.
With one arm outstretched he clutched at the banisters, missed them, clutched again, and pitched headlong to the foot of the stairs.
"Three cheers and a tiger for the man who fired that shot!" whispered Callister, as all hands crowded about the inanimate form of the fallen man. "Sam Cutts, old man, there's some life left in you yet. Now, what's to be done with the carcass before the whole neighborhood comes piling in?"
"Into the room with him—quick!" exclaimed Billy Cutts. "We are safe there for a while, at all events. We do not even know that he is dead, meddling fool that he is."
His instructions were instantly obeyed.
The body of the unfortunate detective was unceremoniously dragged into the room adjoining, the door of which was immediately bolted from within.
"Is he dead?" asked Billy Cutts, hoarsely. "By thunder, father, I suppose you had to do it, but his death will kick up a Satan's own row upon the force. The chief of police will never rest night or day until he has run us down."
"Do it! Why, of course I had to do it!" replied the elder Cutts—a grizzled reproduction of his hopeful son in appearance. "It's my belief, gents, that that there iron lifter dropped down upon us by mistake. He knew it, and was off to give us and the whole business away to the captain of the nearest station before we had time to escape."
"Sam's about right," growled Reuben Tisdale. "I tell you, boys, this is a serious snap. We've doctored this spy with a leaden pill, but who can tell how many more of the same kind of cattle there is in hiding in that room overhead? Who lives up there, anyway? Does any one know? Why were we not told of that stovepipe hole?"
"Blest if I know," said Callister. "Cutts, you ought to be able to tell—these are your rooms."
"Tell! I don't know no more about them what lives in the house than the dead. I reckon it would pay to have some on us slip up and see."
"No, no!" whispered Callister, breathlessly. "What's done is done, and can't be helped. It is my opinion the whole scheme has been overheard through that confounded hole in the floor."
"Hold on, you fellows," put in Billy Cutts. "I'll go up-stairs and reconnoiter. I'm a detective, don't you know, and if I catch on to anything in the shape of the police I'll knock with my heel once hard upon the floor. If you hear the signal light out, every mother's son of you. Of course they won't think anything strange at seeing me come snooping round."
Silently unbolting the door, he crept up the stairs, the others listening breathlessly for the signal he proposed to give.
Through their own door—open on the crack—they could hear Cutts open the door of the room above.
Evidently he had met with no opposition, for the sound of his footsteps could be heard overhead walking about the room.
"Blame me if I don't think it was this cuss that was up there alone, and no one else," muttered the elder Cutts, indicating the detective, who lay white and still, dead to all appearance, in the midst of the little group.
"He's wrong, Lije," whispered Tisdale to the stock-broker, who stood by his side, a little apart from the rest. "I heard the footsteps of two persons, at least, overhead there before that iron thing came down. Luck has deserted us since my—my—you know what. I'm doomed to be the Jonah of the gang."
"Hush, Rube, for Heaven's sake! Can't you let up on your infernal croaking even in a strait like this? If the police are upon us, why, we'll do the best thing that offers. If it's only this fellow, Hook, why, Sam Cutts' bullet has settled him. But not another word now. Here's Billy coming back."
The young detective, if one so unfaithful to his trust can truthfully be so termed, entered at this moment with a smile of satisfaction on his face.
"It's all right," he exclaimed, closing the door. "There ain't a soul in the room up-stairs. It's fixed up roughly to look like housekeeping, but it's my belief that it was hired by Hook for the simple purpose of catching us. It's a common method with the profesh."
"Hadn't some one better inquire of the agent on the first floor?" put in one of the men who had not spoken before.
"Some other time will do for that," said Callister, hurriedly. "What we want to do now is to dispose of this body without further delay. We can investigate later on."
"Well, and how do you propose to do it?"
"I rather guess we can fix that if we can get it through the alley to the Donegal Shades—eh, Rube?" replied the broker, with a smile. "After we've finished with Mr. Hook, he'll trouble us no more, I fancy. It's too bad to deprive the New York police force of such a bright and shining light, but then he had better have minded his own affairs."
"So I say," growled another of the gang—a rough-looking fellow. "These blamed detectives don't give a hard working man no kinder show."
"Better be sure he's actually croaked before we bury him," grumbled Tisdale, in his characteristic way.
"That's soon done," returned Callister. "I guess I'm doctor enough for that."
He knelt beside the body and unbuttoned the coat and vest.
Placing his ear upon the detective's breast, he listened to the beating of the heart.
But the heart of Caleb Hook had apparently ceased to beat. Nor did his pulse give sign of any movement whatever.
"Dead as a door nail!" said the broker, laconically. "Say, Sam Cutts, have you got such a thing as a big bag?"
"No, an' you don't want it," answered Cutts. "To carry that body down-stairs in a bag! You must be crazy, man. That would never do at all. We'll take him by the shoulders, two of us, and drag him along as though he was blind drunk—paralyzed, don't you see—then no one will suspect anything at all."
"Good! That's the very scheme. Now, then, gents, as it ain't always best for a man to know too much, you had better say good-night, and leave the management of this affair to Rube, Cutts and myself. I feel sure that we have nothing to be afraid of now, for I am confident that this fellow was working alone. If I find that I am wrong, some of us will notify you, you may rest assured. Meanwhile, the appointment remains the same as before, unless you hear to the contrary—Cagney's sanctum, day after to-morrow night."
Several of the men now silently withdrew, leaving the two Cutts—father and son—Callister and Tisdale with their victim.
The sound of their footsteps had scarce died away upon the carpetless stairs when the stock-broker spoke again.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes," answered Cutts, the elder; "I should say we were."
"Then you slip round and give Pat the tip. We mustn't lose a moment, once we start, and you are to see that all is prepared."
Billy Cutts, opening the door cautiously, left the room without a word.
For the space of perhaps ten minutes the three men stood motionless, listening to every sound.
Overhead all was silent. There was no unusual noise about the house.
"That pop of yours is a daisy, Sam," whispered Callister. "It's my opinion that the report of that shot was not heard on this floor. Come, time's up. You take one arm, Rube, and I'll attend to the other. Sam can give us a lift down the stairs."
Two minutes later a peculiar but by no means unusual sight might have been observed in the alley leading from the side of the Cherry street tenement through, by means of the gate pointed out by Jerry Buck to Frank Mansfield, to the rear of the Donegal Shades on Catherine street, opposite the old market building.
It was two men dragging between them a third, apparently in a state of helpless intoxication, while a fourth man—a short, thick-set fellow—brought up the rear.
If they were observed by any of the dwellers in the adjoining tenements, it is safe to say that their appearance attracted no attention at all, for such sights are far too common in that part of the city to excite even passing remark.
The passage of the alley was made in safety—the gate was opened by Cutts—in another moment they had entered the yard facing the residence of the unfortunate Mrs. Marley, and in the rear of the Donegal Shades.
Two men stood ready to receive them by the side of a little flight of steps leading down to an open cellar door.
One was Billy Cutts, the other P. Slattery, the proprietor of the saloon, whose fiery shock of hair betrayed his identity at a glance.
"All O. K., Pat?" said Callister, in a whisper.
"You're right, it is; run him down, an' I'm wid yez in a jiffy. Begobs! if it ain't that fly detective what shook me up on the Sunday morning poor Mrs. Marley was murdered—an' phat ails you, Mister Tisdale? Howly Mother, but you're as white as though you'd seen a ghost!"
"Hold your jaw and lead the way!" muttered the burglar, fiercely.
Slattery made no attempt at reply.
Running down the cellar steps, he motioned to the others to follow without a word.
No sooner had they entered than he closed and locked the door, and producing a match, lit a lantern which he held in his hand.
"This way, gents," he said, briefly, advancing through the cellar among a heterogeneous mass of barrels and boxes and rubbish of all kinds.
Dragging the body of the detective between them, the others followed.
Suddenly the man Slattery paused, and stooping down, seized a great iron ring in the floor.
A trap-door was lifted, disclosing a dark opening leading to unknown depths below, out of which rushed a noisome stench causing the men by its side to draw back with exclamations of disgust.
"Now, then, down wid him," whispered the proprietor of the Donegal Shades. "It's as putty a grave as wan might ax for. Drop him in, byes, an' it's done nice an' handy, only there's niver a praste to shrive him—worse luck. We must bury the poor cuss widout book nor bell."
Raising the inanimate form of the detective between them, Callister, Tisdale and Cutts dropped it into the darkness of the open trap, while P. Slattery, letting go the iron ring, jumped heavily upon the lid.