Perhaps some of the blame should rest upon the barbaric habit of having Sunday dinner in the middle of the afternoon.
Had it been evening when Hawkins and his better half sat down to dinner with us, it would not, naturally, have been daylight; and much unpleasantness might have been avoided, for the gas had not yet been turned on in the modeled Hawkins residence, and an inspection would have been impossible.
Again, I may have started the trouble myself by bringing up the subject of the renovations.
“Yes, the work's all done,” said Hawkins, with a more genial air than he usually exhibited when that topic was touched. “I tell you, it's a model home now.”
“Particularly in containing no new inventions by its owner,” added Mrs. Hawkins.
“Oh, those may come later,” said the gifted inventor, casting a complacent wink in my direction.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” replied the lady rather tartly. “We escaped with our lives when the house was wrecked, but next time——”
“Madam,” flared Hawkins, “if you knew what that house——”
Just here my wife broke in with a spasmodic remark anent the doings of the Russians in Manchuria, and a discussion of the merits of Hawkins' inventions was happily averted.
But the spunky light didn't die out of Hawkins' eye. He appeared to be nursing something beside wrath, and when we arose from the table he remarked shortly:
“Come up to the house, Griggs, and smoke a cigar while we look it over.”
“And note the charm of the inventionless home,” supplemented his wife.
“Inventionless fiddlestick!” snapped Hawkins as he slammed the door behind us. “It's a wonder to me that women weren't created either with sense or without tongues.”
I made no comment and we walked in silence to the Hawkins house.
It had been done over in a style which must have made Hawkins' bank account look like an Arabian grain field after a particularly bad locust year; but beyond noting the general beauty of the decorations, I found nothing remarkable until we reached the second floor.
There, as we gazed from the back windows, it struck me that something familiar had departed, and I asked:
“What's become of the fire-escape?”
“Don't you see, eh?” said the inventor, with a prodigiously mysterious smile.
“Hardly. Have you made it invisible?”
“No and yes,” chuckled Hawkins. “What would you say, Griggs, to a fire-escape that you kept indoors until it was needed?”
“I should say 'nay, nay,' if any one wanted me to use it.”
“No, I mean—oh, come up-stairs and I'll show it to you at once.”
“Show me what, Hawkins?” I cried, detaining him with a firm hand. “Is it another contrivance? Has it a motor? Does it use gasolene or gunpowder or dynamite?”
“No, it does not!” said the inventor gruffly, trudging toward the top of the house.
“There!” he exclaimed when we had reached the upper floor. “That's it. What do you think of it?”
It was a device of strange appearance. It seemed to be a huge clothes-basket, such as is used for transportation of the family “wash,” and it was piled with what appeared to be the remains of as many white sun-umbrellas as could have been collected at half a dozen seaside resorts.
“What is it?” I said with a blank smile. “Junk?”
“No, it's not junk. That mass of ribs and white silk which looks like junk to your unaccustomed eye constitutes a set of aeroplanes or wings.”
“But the other thing is merely the common or domestic variety of wash-basket, is it not?”
“Well—er—yes,” admitted Hawkins with cold dignity. “That happened to be the most suitable thing for my purpose in this experimental model. Now, you see, when the wings are spread the basket is suspended beneath just as the car of a balloon is suspended from a gas-bag, and——”
“Aha! I see it all now!” I cried. “You fill the basket, point it in the right direction, and it flaps its wings and flies away to the washlady!”
“That, Griggs,” sneered Hawkins, “is about the view a poor little brain like yours, permeated with cheap humor, would take. Really, I don't suppose you could guess the purpose or the name of that thing if you tried a week.”
“Candidly, I don't think I could. What is it?”
“It's the Hawkins Anti-Fire-Fly!” said the inventor.
“The Hawkins—what?” I ejaculated.
“The Anti-Fire-Fly!” repeated Hawkins enthusiastically. “Say, Griggs, how that will sound in an advertisement: 'Fly Away From Fire With The Anti-Fire-Fly!' Great, isn't it?”
“So it's a fire escape?”
“Certainly,” chuckled Hawkins, digging around among the ribs and bringing into tangible shape what looked like several sets of huge bird-wings. “No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more children being thrown from fifth story windows! No, siree! All we have to do now is to place the Anti-Fire-Fly on the window-sill, spread the wings, jump into the basket, push her off, and——”
“And drop to instant death!”
“And float gently away from the fire and down to the earth!” concluded Hawkins, opening the window and shoving out the basket until it fairly hung over the back yard. “Just watch me.”
“See here!” I cried. “You're not going to get into that thing?”
“I'm not, eh? You watch me!”
Hawkins had clambered into the basket before I could lay a hand on him.
“Now!” he cried, giving a push with his foot.
My breathing apparatus seemed to go on strike. Hawkins, basket, wings, and all dropped from the window.
For an instant they went straight toward the earth; then, like a parachute opening, the wings spread gracefully, the descent slackened, and Hawkins floated down, down, down—until he landed in the center of the yard without a jar.
Really, I was amazed. It seemed to be either a special dispensation of Providence or an invention of Hawkins' which really worked.
A minute or two later he had labored back to my side, up the stairs, with the aerial fire-escape on his back.
“There!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that?”
“It certainly seems to be a success.”
“Well, rather! Now come up to the roof and have a drop with me. We'll go into the street this time, and——”
“Thank you, Hawkins,” I said, positively. “Don't count me in on that. I'll wait for the fire before dabbling with your Anti-Fire-Fly.”
“Oh, well, come with me, anyway. I'm going down once more. You've no idea of the sensation.”
It was a considerable feat of engineering to persuade the Anti-Fire-Fly into passing through the scuttle, but Hawkins finally accomplished it, and pushed the contrivance to the edge of the roof.
“Now that thing will carry a small family with ease and safety,” he said proudly. “Just sit down in the basket and feel the roominess. Oh, don't be afraid. I'll come, too.”
“Yes, it's very nice,” I said somewhat nervously, after crouching beside him for a moment. “I think I'll get out now.”
“All ri—oh! Here! Wait!” cried Hawkins, grabbing my coat and pulling me back. “Sit down!”
“What for?”
“The—the—the wings!” stuttered the inventor. “The—the wind!”
“Great Scott!” I shouted as a sudden breeze caught the wings and tilted the basket far to one side. “Let me out!”
“No, no!” shrieked Hawkins wildly. “You'll break your neck, man! We're right on the edge of the roof now, and——”
And we were over the edge!
There was the street—miles below! Sickening dread choked me. I closed my eyes and gripped the basket as the accursed thing swayed from side to side and threatened every instant to precipitate us on the hard stones.
But it grew steadier presently. I looked about.
There was Hawkins hanging on for dear life, and white as death, but still serene. There, also, were numerous graveled roofs—some twenty feet below.
We were going up! Also, I was startled to note that the high wind was driving us down-town at a rapid pace.
“See here, Hawkins!” I said. “What does this mean?”
“M-m-means that a big wind has caught us,” replied the inventor with a sickly smile.
“And when do you suppose it's going to let go of us?”
“Well—we—we may be able to catch one of those high roofs over there,” murmured Hawkins with assurance that did not reassure. “You—you know we can't go up very far, Griggs. This thing was not built for flying.”
“For anything that wasn't made for the purpose, it's doing wonders,” I retorted. Then a sudden puff sent us up fully ten feet. “Heavens! There goes our chance at those roofs!”
“Dear me! So it does!” muttered the inventor as we sailed gracefully over the chimney-tops. “How unfortunate!”
“It'll be a lot more unfortunate when we pitch down into the street!” I snarled.
“Now, Griggs,” said Hawkins argumentatively as we sped down-town on the steadily rising wind, “why do you always take this pessimistic view of things? Can't you see—is it beyond your little mental scope to realize that we have fairly fallen over a great discovery, something that men have been seeking for ages? Don't you comprehend, from the very fact of our being up here and still rising that these wings accidentally embody the vital principles of the dirigible——”
“Oh, dry up!” I growled as we flitted swiftly past a church steeple.
Hawkins regarded me sadly, and I sadly regarded the street below and tried to assimilate the fact that we were two hundred feet above the ground and rising at every puff of wind; that we were in a crazy clothes-basket, suspended from a crazier pair of wings, absolutely at the mercy of the breeze and likely at any moment to drop to eternal smash!
I did realize, without any effort, that my lower limbs were developing excruciating shooting pains from the cramped position.
The time passed very slowly. The houses below passed with astounding rapidity.
I thought of our wives, sitting calmly in my home, ignorant of our plight. I wondered what their sentiments would be when some kindly ambulance surgeon had brought home such fragments of Hawkins and me as might have been collected with a dust-pan and brush.
I wondered whether the accursed Anti-Fire-Fly would dump us out and flutter away into eternity, to leave our fate unexplained, or whether it would accompany us to our doom and be found gloating over the respective grease-spots that would represent all that was mortal of Hawkins and myself.
And at about this point in my meditations, I noted that we were sailing over Union Square.
“Isn't it fine?” cried Hawkins enthusiastically. “You never came down-town like this before, Griggs.”
“I never expect to again, Hawkins,” I sighed.
“Why not? Why, Griggs, this thing is only the nucleus of my future airship, and yet see how it floats! Oh, I've thought it all out in the last five minutes. It's astonishing that it never occurred to me before. Now, these wings, you see, are so constructed——”
“See here, Hawkins,” I said, “do you mean to say that you expect to get out of this thing alive?”
“Certainly,” replied the inventor in astonishment. “There's no danger. I can see that now, although I was a trifle startled at first. It's only a matter of minutes when we shall go near enough to one of those big office buildings to grab it and stop ourselves.”
“And clamber down the side—twenty or thirty stories?”
“And even if we can't land, we shan't fall. The construction of these wings is such——”
“Oh, hang the construction of your wings!” I cried. “We're going right toward the bay—suppose the wind dies down and lets us into the water?”
“Well, these wings are water-proof, you know,” said Hawkins. “They might——”
“Yes, and the bay might dry up, so that we could walk back if we escaped being broken in pieces, Hawkins,” I sneered.
Hawkins subsided. The breeze did not.
It was one of the most impolitely persistent breezes I have ever encountered. It seemed bent on landing us in New York harbor, and before many minutes we were suspended high above that expansive, and in some circumstances, charming body of water.
{Illustration: “Before many minutes we were suspended high above that expansive, and in some circumstances charming, body of water."}
Furthermore, having wafted us something like a quarter of a mile from shore, it proceeded to die out in a manner which was, to say the least, disheartening.
Hawkins grew paler by perceptible shades as we progressed, ever nearer the water and farther from hope; and it was not until I opened my mouth to vent a few last invidious criticisms of him and his methods that the inventor's face brightened.
“By Jove, Griggs! Look! That ferry-boat! That fellow on the roof! He's got a boat-hook! Hey! Hey! Hey! you!”
The individual gazed aloft and nearly collapsed with astonishment.
“Catch us!” bawled the inventor frantically. “Catch the basket with that hook! We want to come aboard! Hurry up!”
The boat was going in our direction and rather faster. The man on the roof seemed to comprehend. He reached up with his hook. He leaped a couple of times in vain.
And then we felt a shock which told of our capture! I breathed a long, happy sigh.
In dealing with Hawkins' inventions, long, happy sighs are premature unless you are positive that your entire anatomical structure is complete, and likewise certain that the contrivance lies at your feet in a condition of total wreck.
The basket was suspended from a thin, steel frame, from which several dozen stout cords rose to that idiotic pair of wings. When we were fairly caught, Hawkins cried:
“Now, Griggs, stand up and catch the frame and pull the whole business down with us. And you, down there, pull hard! Pull hard, now!”
I seized the steel frame on one side, Hawkins on the other, and we pulled. And the man with the boat-hook pulled. And at the psychological moment the wind rose afresh and pulled at the wings with a mighty pull!
Some seconds of dizzy swirling in the air, and the clothes-basket portion of the Anti-Fire-Fly lay on the roof of the ferry-boat, while Hawkins and I hung far above, entangled in the cords and clutching them wildly and rising steadily once more!
“Great Caesar's ghost!” gurgled the inventor. “This is awful!”
“Awful!” I gasped when breath had returned. “It's—it's——”
“Lord! Lord! We're going straight for Staten Island. Don't move, Griggs.”
“I can't,” I said. “I'm caught tight here. Good-by, Hawkins.”
“We're—we're not done for yet,” quavered that individual. “We may hit land. But isn't—isn't it terrible?”
“Oh, no,” I groaned. “It's all right. No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more throwing children from——”
“Don't joke, Griggs,” wailed Hawkins. “I will say I'm sorry I got you into this.”
“Thank you, Hawkins,” I said, nearly strangled by a cord which persisted in twisting itself about my neck. “So am I.”
Conversation lagged after that. For my part, I was too dazed and too firmly enmeshed in the cords to say much.
I fancy that the same applied to Hawkins, but he happened to be facing ahead, and now and then he called back bulletins of our progress.
“Getting nearer the island,” he announced after some ten minutes of the agony.
A little later: “Thank Heaven! We're almost over land!”
And still later, when I had been choked and twisted almost into insensibility by the eccentric dives of the affair and the consequent tightening of the cords, he revived me with:
“By George, Griggs, we're sinking toward land!”
I managed to look downward. Hawkins had told the truth. The wind was indeed going down, and with it the remains of the Anti-Fire-Fly.
Beneath appeared a big factory, its chimney belching forth black smoke in disregard of the Sabbath, and we seemed likely to land within its precincts.
“I knew it! I knew it!” Hawkins cried joyfully. “We're safe, after all, just as I said. We'll drop just outside the fence.”
“Thank the Lord,” I murmured.
“No! No! We'll drop right on that heap of dirt!” predicted Hawkins excitedly. “Yes, sir, that's where we'll drop. D'ye see that fellow wheeling a wheelbarrow toward the pile? Hey!”
The man glanced up in amazement.
“Farther down every minute!” pursued Hawkins. “I knew we'd be all right! Maybe the Anti-Fire-Fly isn't such a bad thing after all, eh?”
“Maybe not,” I sighed. “But I'll take the red-hot ladder.”
“Go ahead and take it,” chattered the inventor. “We're not thirty feet from the ground and steering straight for that dirt-pile. Yes, sir, the wind's gone down completely. Hooray!”
“Hey, youse!” shouted the man with the wheelbarrow, somewhat excitedly.
“Well?” bawled Hawkins.
“Steer away from it!” continued the workman, waving his arms at the pile.
“We can't steer,” replied Hawkins cheerfully. “But it's all right.”
“The poile! The poile! Sure, we've just drew the foire, an' thim's the hot coals! Be careful o' the cinder poile!”
“What did he say?” asked Hawkins superciliously.
“'Be careful of the cinder pile,' I think.”
“Oh, we won't hurt your old cinder pile!” called the inventor jocosely, as the wreck of the Anti-Fire-Fly swooped down with a rush.
“But the cinders!” howled the man. “Bedad! They're into it! Mike! Mike! Bring the hose! The hose!”
And wewereinto it.
A final rush of air and we struck the pile with a thud. And for my part, I had no sooner landed than I bounced to my feet with a shriek, for that cinder pile was about the hottest proposition it has ever been my misfortune to meet.
The cords were all about me, and as I pulled wildly in one direction, I could feel Hawkins pulling as wildly in the opposite.
“Let go! Let go, Griggs!” he screamed. “Come my way! Lord! I'm all afire! Come, quick!”
“I'm not going to climb back over that infernal heap!” I shouted. “You come this way!”
“But my feet! They're burning, and——”
A mighty stream of water knocked me headlong to the ground. Sizzling, steaming on the red-hot cinders, it caught Hawkins and hurled his panting person to the other side, Anti-Fire-Fly and all. Mike had arrived with the hose.
After a period of wallowing in water and mud I regained my feet.
Hawkins was already standing a little distance away, torn, scorched, drenched, black with cinders and staring wild-eyed about him.
“Why—why—Griggs,” he mumbled, “what—did—we——”
“Oh, we flew away from fire with the Anti-Fire-Fly!” I said.
Such was the end of the Anti-Fire-Fly.
Attired in such of our own raiment as had survived the cinder pile and the hose, and in other bits of clothing contributed by kindly factory workmen, we took the next boat for New York, and a cab thereafter.
We reached home in time to see the ladies mounting the Hawkins' steps, presumably to investigate the reason for our prolonged inspection.
For a few moments they seemed quite incapable of speech. Mrs. Hawkins was the first to regain the use of her tongue.
“Herbert,” she said in an ominously calm tone, “what was it this time?”
Hawkins smiled foolishly.
“It was the Hawkins Anti-Fire-Fly,” I said spitefully. “Fly away from fire with the Anti-Fire-Fly, you know. Tell your wife about it, Hawkins.”
Then Mrs. Hawkins addressed her husband and said—but let that pass.
We have all the essential facts of the case as it is. Moreover, a successful author told me last week that unhappy endings are in the worst possible taste just now.
Hawkins and his wife had been just one month in their new house.
My memory on that point is particularly clear, for the Executive Committee of the Ladies' Missionary Society met at Hawkins' home the very day they moved in officially; and it had been hanging over me, more or less, that the next assembly of that body was to be held at my own residence.
Not that I am in any way unsympathetic as to church work and benighted savages and such matters; but when half a dozen women get together and discuss a few heathen and a great many hats and similar things, the solitary man in the house is apt to feel——
At any rate, when I saw Mrs. Hawkins enter my door that evening, the first of the Executive Committee to arrive, I experienced a sinking sensation for the moment. Then I secured my hat, mumbled a few excuses, and disappeared, to see how Hawkins was spending the evening.
The inventor himself answered my ring.
“Ah, Griggs,” he remarked. “Committee talk you out of the house?”
“Something of the sort,” I admitted.
“Glad you came in. There's something I want to—but hang up your hat.”
“Hawkins,” I said, closing the door, “why do you pay a large overfed English gentleman to stand around the premises if it's necessary for you to answer the bell? I'm not much on style, you know, but——”
“William? Oh, it's his night out,” laughed Hawkins. “I believe the cook and the girls have gone, too, for that matter.”
“Then we're altogether alone?”
“Yes,” said the inventor comfortably, pushing forward one of the big library chairs for my accommodation, “all alone in the house.”
“And it's a mighty nice house,” I mused, gazing into the next apartment, the dining-room. “That's a splendid room, Hawkins.”
“Isn't it?” smiled Hawkins, drawing back the heavy curtains rather proudly. “Most of the little wrinkles are my own ideas, too.”
“That sideboard?” I asked, indicating a frail-looking but artistic bit of furniture built into the wall.
“That, too—combination of sideboard and silver-safe.”
“Safe!” I laughed. “You don't keep the silver in there?”
“Why not?”
“My dear man, any one could pry that door off with a pen-knife.”
“Admitted. But supposing your 'any one' to be a burglar, he'd have to get to the door before he could pry it off, would he not, Griggs?”
“Burglars do not, as a rule, find great difficulty in entering the average house,” I suggested.
“Aha! That's just it—the average house!” cried the inventor. “This isn't the average house, Griggs. The burglar who tries to get into this particular house is distinctly up against it!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, sir! The crook that attempts a nocturnal entrance here has my sincere and heartfelt sympathy.”
“Hawkins' Patent Automatic Burglar Alarm?” I suggested.
“What the deuce are you sneering at?” snapped the inventor. “No, there's no patent burglar alarm in this house.”
“Hawkins' Steel Dynamite-Proof Shutters?”
Hawkins ignored the remark and busied himself lighting a cigar.
“Hawkins' Triple-Expansion Spring-Gun?” I hazarded once more.
“Oh, drop it! Drop it!” cried Hawkins. “Positively, Griggs, your efforts at humor disgust one. In some ways, you are as bad as a woman. Go back and sit with the Executive Committee.”
“What's the connection?”
“Why, the thing I expected to show you in a few minutes is the very same one which my wife fought against for two weeks, before she let me put it into operation peacefully!” Hawkins burst out. “There's where the connection comes in between your degenerate little wits and those of the generality of women.”
“If it was an invention, I don't blame your wife one little bit, Hawkins,” I said. “I can see just how she must have felt about——”
“There's the evening paper, if you want to read,” spat forth the inventor, poking the sheet across the library table.
Therewith he turned his back squarely upon me and settled down to a book.
It wasn't polite of Hawkins.
Indeed, after a short space the situation waxed distinctly uncomfortable; and although I am pretty well accustomed to the inventor's moods, I must admit that in another five minutes I should have cleared out had it not been for a rather unexpected happening.
Hawkins was sitting near the window—in fact, his chair brushed the hangings. As I sat gazing pensively at the back of his neck, a sudden breeze swayed the curtains above him.
There was an undue amount of swishing overhead, it seemed to me. Something near the top of the window, and concealed by the hangings, rattled distinctly; simultaneously a gong struck sharply somewhere up-stairs.
Hawkins whirled about, a most remarkable expression on his lately sullen countenance. As nearly as I could analyze it, it was a mixture of joy, excitement, and trembling expectancy.
“One!” he exclaimed.
The bell struck again.
“Two!” cried Hawkins. “By Jove! That's——”
Crash!
Out of the curtains something dropped heavily on the inventor!
For an instant it held the appearance of a grain sack, but there was something distinctly solid about it, too, for it dealt Hawkins a resounding whack upon his cranium before it rolled to the floor.
“Phew!” he gasped, sinking back into his chair caressing the bump with an unsteady hand. “That—that did startle me, Griggs!”
“I shouldn't wonder,” I smiled. “What on earth did you have concealed up there?”
“Aha! You'd never guess,” remarked Hawkins, his ill-humor departed.
“No, I don't believe I should,” I mused, staring at the pile of canvas on the floor. “Did the painters leave it?”
“They did not,” replied Hawkins coldly. “That, Griggs, is the Hawkins Crook-Trap!”
“Hawkins—Crook-Trap!” I repeated.
“That's what I said,” pursued the gentleman. “Possibly—now—it may not be past your understanding to grasp why I feel so secure about that flimsy little silver-safe.”
“I think I see. The burglar, presumably, comes in at the window, is knocked senseless by your trap, and next morning you find and capture him as you go down to breakfast?”
“Nothing of the sort. Look here.” Hawkins picked up the affair.
As he grasped the end, the thing hung downward and showed itself to be a long canvas bag, fully large enough to contain the upper half of the average man. It was distended, too, by ribs, and appeared to be of considerable weight.
“There she is—just a bag, telescoped and hung on a frame above the window. The burglar steps in, the bag is released, drops over him, these circular steel ribs contract and clutch his arms like a vise—and there you are! How's that for an idea, Griggs?”
“Looks good,” I assented.
“Moreover, the same spring which releases the ribs breaks a bottle of chloroform,” continued the inventor enthusiastically. “It runs into a hood, is pressed against the burglar's nose, and two minutes later the man is stark and stiff on the floor!
“Meanwhile the annunciator bell tells me what window has been opened. I ring up the police—and it's all over with the man who tried to break in.”
“It sounds all right,” I admitted. “Why didn't it do all that just now?”
“Just now? Oh—you mean—just now?” stammered the inventor. “Well, it did do practically all of that, didn't it? The window wasn't opened, anyway—it was the breeze that knocked down the thing. Furthermore, the ones on this floor aren't adjusted yet—I only got them from the fellow who made them to-day.
“But up-stairs they're all fixed—chloroform and all, ready for the burglar. I tell you, Griggs, when this crook-trap of mine is on every window in New York City, there'll be a sensation in criminal circles!”
“Very likely. How much does it cost?”
“Um—well—er—well it cost me about—er—one hundred dollars a window, Griggs, but——”
“About twenty windows to the average house,” I murmured. “Two thousand dollars for——”
“Well, it won't cost a tenth of that when I'm having the parts turned out in quantities,” cried Hawkins, with considerable heat. “Why under the sun do you always try to throw a wet blanket over everything? Suppose it does cost two thousand dollars to equip a house with my crook-trap? If a man has ten thousand dollars' worth of silverware, he'll be willing enough to spend——”
I laughed. It wasn't meant for a nasty laugh at all—it was simply amusement at the inventor's emotionalism. But it riled Hawkins.
“Where the devil does the joke come in?” he thundered. “If I——”
“Hush!” I cried.
“I won't hush! I——”
“Two!” I counted. “Be quiet.”
Hawkins calmed down on the instant.
“Was—was it the bell?” he whispered.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
The gong up-stairs had chimed six times and stopped.
I stared at Hawkins, and Hawkins at me, and the inventor's countenance went white.
Far above, the evening calm was disturbed by a stamping and threshing noise, punctuated now and then by a muffled shout.
“There!” cried the inventor. There was a wealth of satisfaction in that one word.
“Well, somebody's caught,” I said.
“You bet he is!” replied Hawkins, with a nervous chuckle. “Six bells—that's the top story back—one of the servants' rooms. Somebody must have thought the house deserted and come in from the roof.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! The intruder wasn't submitting to the caresses of the crook-trap without a struggle. Also, from the volume and vigor of the racket, it was painfully clear that the intruder was a robust individual.
“Well?” said Hawkins, still staring at me with a rigid smile.
“Well?”
“Well, we've got to go up there and capture him,” announced the inventor, gathering himself for the task. “Come on.”
“Not just yet, thank you. We'll let the chloroform get in its work first.”
“But don't you want to see the thing in actual operation?”
“Hawkins, if any one could have less curiosity about anything than I have about seeing your crook-trap in operation——”
“All right, stay down here if you like. I'm going up.”
“Suppose your burglar gets loose?” I argued. “Suppose he has a big, wicked revolver, and learns that you're responsible for the way he's been handled?”
Hawkins walked resolutely and silently toward the stairs. As for me, curiosity as to his fate bested my judgment. I followed.
As we neared the top of the house, the thumping and hammering grew louder and more vicious; and when we finally stood outside the door, the din was actually deafening.
“That's—that's either William's room or the cook's,” said Hawkins, with a slight quaver in his tones. “He's going it, isn't he?”
“He certainly is. Let's stay here, Hawkins.”
“No, sir. I'm going in to watch it. He's not loose, that's sure.”
Hawkins opened the door very gently.
Inside, the room was dark—not pitch dark, but that semi-gloom of a city room whose only light comes from an arc lamp half a block away.
The air was heavy and sickening with the fumes of chloroform. They fairly sent my head a-reeling, but their effect upon the burglar seemed to have been nil.
Over by the window a huge form was hurling itself to and fro, from wall to wall and back again, in the frantic endeavor to gain freedom. The bag enveloped his head and shoulders, but a mighty pair of arms within the bag were straining and tearing at the fabric, and a couple of long, muscular legs kicked madly at everything within reach.
Every few seconds, too, a puffed oath added spice to the excitement, as the captive wrenched and strained.
On the whole, the scene was a bit too gruesome to be humorous. As a rule I can see the funny side of Hawkins' doings; but the fun departed from this particular mess at the thought of what would happen when the colossus finally emerged from the bag and commenced operations upon Hawkins and myself—neither of us athletes.
“He's caught, isn't he, Griggs?” stuttered Hawkins, clutching my arm.
“For the moment,” I replied. “But come—let's get an officer. If that canvas gives——”
“Gives!” sneered the inventor. “Why that canvas——”
“Gawd! If I gets yer!” screamed the man in the bag.
“Oh, great Caesar!” gulped Hawkins. “It's—it's getting horrible, isn't it?”
“Aha! I heard yer then, ye cur!” roared the captive.
Hawkins' hand on my arm shook violently.
“We—we'll have to do something with him,” he whispered. “What shall it be? We've got to subdue him, somehow or other.”
“Why not let the chloroform work while we go out and get a couple of policemen?”
“Well, you see, it doesn't seem to be working, Griggs. Don't know why, but—phew! Did you hear that rip?”
I had heard it. I had also seen the silhouette of a long arm appear against the dim light of the window.
“Oh, Lord!” gasped Hawkins. “It's given somewhere! We'll have to squelch him now inside of ten seconds or—what the deuce shall I do, Griggs?”
“Take a chair and stun him,” I replied. “That's all I can suggest. And personally I don't care for the job.”
“Well—somebody's got to do something,” groaned the inventor, seizing one of the bedroom chairs. “If ever he gets loose—say, where are you going, Griggs?”
“Just into the hall,” I said. “I'm going to light the gas and watch the battle from a safe distance.”
Hawkins clutched his chair and stared at me like a man in a nightmare. His expression reminded me of the day when, as a boy on the farm, I took the hatchet and started out to kill my first chicken. I felt just as Hawkins looked that evening in the dark doorway of the bedroom.
“D'ye suppose it'll kill him?” he choked. “Griggs, do you think——”
A long rip resounded from the darkness. A triumphant shout followed.
Hawkins turned swiftly, raised his chair, and darted toward the man in the bag.
There was a crash, a shout, a dull blow, and a heavy fall—and just then I managed to light the gas.
Literally, I caught my breath and rubbed my eyes. For a few seconds the scene dumfounded me past action; but shortly I hurried into the apartment and struck another light.
Hawkins was stretched upon the floor groaning. His entire face seemed to have suffered violent impact with some unyielding body, and both hands covered his nose, from which the life-blood flowed freely.
And across the room, sitting against the wall, his large person decorated by sundry steel hoops and shreds of canvas, sat—William, the Hawkins' butler, staring dazedly into space!
Between them lay the chair.
“Oh, Griggs, Griggs, Griggs!” moaned the inventor. “Come quick! Get my wife! I'm done for this time! He's finished me!”
“Hawkins!” I cried, shaking him. “Did he——”
“Never mind him—let him escape,” replied Hawkins, faintly. “Just get my wife before I go. Good-by, old friend, good-by.”
“Mr.—'Awkins!” gasped the butler, his senses returning.
“What!” shrilled the inventor, sitting bolt upright, black eyes, swelled face, and all completely forgotten. “Is that you, William?”
“Yes, sir,” stammered the man. “Was—was it you I hit, sir?”
“Was it!” yelled Hawkins, struggling to his feet. “Look at this face! What the deuce did you mean by it?”
“Beg—beg pardon, sir, but did you—did you sorter strike me with a chair, sir?”
“I—well, yes, William, I did.”
“Well, I, not knowing of course as it was you, sir, I sorter hit back. But have you got the thief, sir?”
“The what?”
“Indeed, yes, sir. There's one in the house. I was attacked here—right in this here very room. See here, sir, this bag! Just as I opened the window, he kem behind me, sir, threw it over my head, and tried to chloroform me, sir—you can smell it, sir.”
“Yes. All right,” said Hawkins, briefly, with what must have seemed to the man a strange lack of interest.
“You see, sir, whoever the rascal was, he must 'a' known as I intended going out this evening, sir, and that the house would be empty like. So in he sneaks from the roof, bag and all, and waits. And when I kem up the stairs, instead of going out, sir——”
“All right. That'll do. I understand,” muttered Hawkins. “No one threw a bag over you. It was a new—er—sort of burglar alarm—just had it put up to-day.”
“Burglar alarm!” cried the butler, staring at the remnants from which he was slowly extricating himself.
“Yes!” snapped Hawkins. “And don't stand there mumbling over it, William!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here,” said the inventor, “is a—er—twenty-dollar note. You will immediately forget everything that has happened within the last half hour.”
“Yes, sir,” responded the butler, with a wide smile.
Hawkins led the way down-stairs. In the bathroom he paused to lave his much abused features; and by the time he had finished, my own features had had a chance to regain something like composure.
Once more in the library, which we had deserted some twenty minutes before, Hawkins threw himself rather limply into a chair.
“Well, well, well!” he muttered. “Now, who under the sun could have foreseen that?”
I forebore remarks.
“William ought to be in the prize-ring,” continued the inventor sadly. “But he's a bright chap. He'll keep his mouth shut. Lucky—er—nobody else was in the house, wasn't it?”
“How are you going to account to Mrs. Hawkins for those black eyes?”
“Oh—we can say that we were boxing and you hit me. That's easy.”
“She'll believe that, too, Hawkins,” I said, gazing at the battered countenance. “You look more as if you'd had a collision with an express train.”
“Oh, she'll believe it, all right,” said the inventor cheerily. “For once—just for once, Griggs—something has happened which my better half won't be on to. You'll see I'm right. There isn't a clue.”
“Well, perhaps,” I sighed.
“And now let's have some of that old Scotch. I feel a little weak.”
We loitered into the next apartment—the dining-room. We turned our footsteps toward the sideboard. We stopped—both of us—as if transformed to stone.
The door was off the silver-safe. The drawers lay about the floor. And the little safe itself was as empty as the day it left the cabinet-maker!
“D-d-d'you see it, too?” cried Hawkins in a scared, husky voice.
“Yes,” I replied, stooping to look into the safe. “It must have been a sneak-thief, Hawkins. Every vestige of your beautiful service is gone!”
The inventor glared long at the wreck.
“And now that's got to be explained,” he muttered at last, continuing his journey to the sideboard. “How can I get around it?”
He poured out a generous dose of the Scotch, imbibed it at a swallow, and shuffled drearily back to the library, where he dropped once more into a chair and stared through fast-swelling eyes at the glazed tile fire-place.
And I? Well, just then I heard Mrs. Hawkins' step on the vestibule flooring without; she had returned for the minutes of the last meeting.
The bell rang. I walked quickly upstairs to call up the police and notify them. It wasn't my place to answer that bell, with William in the house.