CHAPTER XIIIA DESPERATE BURGLARY.
Leaving Inez in charge of some of his trustiest confreres, Blodget hastened to the city, to disarm suspicion as well as to attend to an important robbery which he had already planned.
A previous arrangement with some of the principal members of the gang had assured Blodget that he should find plenty of aid in carrying out his views on that particular evening.
It was two o’clock as Blodget reached the door of the house that was connected with the gang, and a drizzly rain was beginning to fall which he saw and felt with pleasure, for he knew that it would materially aid him in his plans, as it would tend to clear the streets of stragglers, as well as to muffle any sounds that might otherwise betray the presence of himself and his companions.
‘All is well,’ he said. ‘This is my old good luck. Who knows but I may yet do a good stroke of business.’
Blodget was soon in the old house along with some half dozen of the most desperate and knowing thieves in San Francisco.
A dim light burned in the place, which was only just sufficient to let them see each other’s faces.
The falling of the rain upon one of the windows was the only sound that the night brought forth.
‘All’s right,’ said one of them. ‘Here’s Blodget.’
‘Yes,’ said another, ‘we shall now no doubt have a job to do.’
‘Yes, my lads,’ said Blodget, assuming an air of reckless jocularity, which he often thought proper to put on—‘yes, my lads, you will have a little job to do, and it is one that you will like too.’
‘Bravo!—bravo!’
‘You know me, and that it is not likely I should send you on a profitless expedition; but there are a few little arrangements to make before we start.’
‘Name them.’
‘I will. They relate, in the first place, to who is to have the command of these little expeditions?’
‘Oh, you, of course.’
‘Is that then thoroughly understood and agreed?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Very well, then. The next point is as regards the division of the spoil.’
‘Yes, that should be well understood.’
‘It must be well understood or I am off to find some others to help me in the matter. I have thought over my terms, and I do not, I assure you, intend to flinch from them.’
‘What are they?’
‘Listen, then. Let all the plunder be fairly divided into two parts, I will then take one part to myself and my friend, Kay, and you can divide the other among you in equal shares.’
The thieves looked rather blank at this proposition, and Blodget seeing that, added—
‘Well, if you don’t like that you have but to say so, and our bargain is at an end; but if I get all the information, and put up a robbery in the safe and quiet way that I can do it, I think myself entitled to the share I speak of, and I will have it too.’
‘Be it so, then,’ said the spokesman of the party, ‘I agree, and I’m sure I can say the same for my friends here. We all agree to it.’
The others seconded the words of their spokesman, so that Blodget found he had made a pretty good bargain with the thieves, and he set to work arranging the robbery with all the tact and all the ingenuity he could bring to bear upon such an enterprise.
When such an accomplished hand as Blodget took so much trouble, the result was all but certain.
‘Meet me, all of you,’ he said, ‘in half an hour’s time by the corner of Jackson- and Commercial-streets, and I will take you to the place. There will be no difficulty at all about it if you take care to comprehend what I wish each of you to do, and take care to do it as promptly as you possibly can.’
‘Trust us for that,’ said one. ‘We know we can depend upon you, so you have only to say what you wish and you will soon see it accomplished.’
With this understanding, then, Blodget left them to proceed to a junk store which he knew was always open, to a particular knock, at any hour of the night.
There Blodget bought a complete set of skeleton keys, besides such other little implements used in the art or profession of housebreaking, and concerning which the people of the shop asked him no questions.
Thus provided, then, he took his way to the corner fixed on, there to wait the arrival of his confederates.
He had not to wait long.
In the course of two or three minutes the four men that he had deputed there to wait him were upon the spot.
‘You are punctual,’ said Blodget.
‘We ought to be.’
‘How it rains,’ said one.
‘Yes; but that is all the better for us, you know,’ said Blodget.
‘It is indeed.’
‘I say,’ said another, ‘there is a watchman coming, and holding his hand before his lantern so as to get a good look at us.’
‘Confound him!’
‘Step aside,’ said Blodget, ‘I will confront him.’
A watchman who happened to be wakeful had chanced to see them all meet at the corner, and had hurried towards them, expecting that they were after no good.
‘Hilloa—hilloa!’ he said. ‘Come now, what do here at this time of night?’
‘What’s that to you?’ said Blodget.
‘What’s that to me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why, don’t you see who I am?’
‘Yes, that’s seen in a moment; you are a troublesome fool, but I don’t know why I should be bothered with you.’
‘Curse me, then, if I don’t lock you up. Come along, will you? Don’t resist, now. Come along.’
Blodget snatched the lantern from the hand of the watchman, and with one blow of it on the top of his head not only smashed the lantern but nearly stunned its owner, who lay sprawling on the ground, and calling out murder.
‘Jump on him!’ said Blodget.
‘Take his lantern,’ said one of the thieves, ‘and his rattle.’
‘Ah, his rattle,’ said Blodget, as he suddenly stood upon the fallen watchman, and nearly squeezed the life out of him. ‘I have it, and now come on. It seems to me as if he could not very well move now.’
This was the fact. The brutal assault that had been committed on the unfortunate watchman had really for a time deprived him of all power of speech or movement, and Blodget and his gang went on with perfect ease and composure.
‘This way,’ said Blodget, as he crossed the road to the back of some low stores. ‘This way.’
‘Hilloa!’ said another watchman, ‘did I hear a row?’
‘Yes,’ said Blodget, as he struck him such a blow in the face with the butt of a revolver he had in hand that he fell like a corpse.
‘He’s quieted,’ said Blodget.
The four thieves really looked at each other with some alarm, and one of them said—
‘You have a good kind of way of quieting people, Mr. Blodget, I rather think.’
‘Yes. But don’t call me Mr. Blodget; call me Captain, if you please; but if you use my name it may reach ears that it is not intended for.’
‘That’s right, Mr. —, Captain I mean. Are we near the place, though?’
‘Yes, close to it.’
‘Ah, what is that?’
The sharp whistle of a watchman broke upon the stillness of the night air.
‘This way—this way,’ said Blodget. ‘Let us hide for a moment or two.’
The five got under a doorway, and there they hid and let no less than four watchmen run past them in the direction of the sound of the whistle.
No more of the guardians of the night seemed to be coming that way, so that Blodget came forth from the hiding place with his friends and went quietly on.
All was dark, the guests had departed, and the street in which the lady resided was restored to its usual equanimity for the night.
There was not the least appearance of any light in any of the windows in the front of the house; but Blodget hardly supposed that such a residence would be left entirely without light in any of the rooms, so he fully expected that some of the back windows would no doubt show symptoms of the apartments being in some degree illuminated.
‘Halt! This is the house,’ he said.
‘All right, captain.’
‘Now attend to me all of you, and you will know what you have to do—I will manage to open the door, and then you will remain just within it on the watch.’
‘Yes, captain.’
‘You will take charge of the pantry, which I will point out to you, and possess yourself of all the portable plate.’
‘I’ll do it, captain.’
‘You, then, will ransack the rooms on the first floor.’
‘All’s right.’
‘And you will follow me.’
‘I’ll do it, captain. Now we know what we have all got to do, and can do it well.’
‘You can if you will; and remember that we all assemble here in the hall again as soon as possible, and that if the one who is to keep guard at the door sees proper to give an alarm, it shall be with a whistle such as no doubt in the night time will be distinctly heard by all of you.’
‘I have a whistle in my pocket,’ said the fellow, ‘that I’ll warrant you will all hear.’
‘Then that is settled; so now let us go to work.’
Blodget himself commenced the attack upon the door, and he did so with amazing tact.
With one of the picklocks he had in his possession he easily turned the lock of the door, and then he found that he was impeded by a couple of bolts and a chain.
To most persons these would have been rather insurmountable obstructions, but to him they only required a little time and skill and perseverance to overcome them.
With a fine and exquisitely tempered saw, which was so thin that he got it between the door and the joist, he managed to saw them both in two in a very short space of time.
The door was now only fastened by the chain.
‘Is it done now?’ asked one of the thieves.
‘Not yet.’
‘Soon?’
‘Yes. Why do you ask?’ said Blodget.
‘I think—I may be mistaken though—but I think some one looked out at one of the windows of the house opposite rather more earnestly than they ought to have done.’
‘The devil they did.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘A man or a woman?’
‘It is too dark to say.’
‘Curses on them, be it whom it may!’
‘Amen to that, captain.’
‘But you are quite sure you saw some one, be it man or woman?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Then go over two of you to the door, and wait there for a few moments while I work at this chain.’
‘And if any one comes out?’
‘Well?’
‘What shall we do?’
‘Do you ask me what you shall do while you have the use of your hands? It won’t do to make a noise, so I should say that the only thing open to you to do is to throttle any one who should appear.’
‘Throttle!’
‘Yes, and why not? Pray what business have the people opposite to interfere in my affairs, I should like to know?’
‘Well, certainly—but—but—’
‘Do you hesitate?’
‘No—no. Don’t be in a passion, captain. If it must be done, why, it is no use saying anything more about it, and it just will be done.’
‘I should imagine so.’
The two men who had been thus ordered over the way by Blodget went upon their errand; and although it is true they had at first rather started at the idea of throttling somebody who might be so very interfering and imprudent as to come from the opposite house, it is yet difficult to say whether after all, this admonition of Blodget was not very greatly increased by the off-hand manner in which he proposed to get rid of obstacles to the progress of the particular little enterprise upon which he was.
‘Curses on it,’ muttered Blodget to himself, ‘it seems as if I were fated to be thwarted to-night.’
He saw his two companions take up their station on the opposite door-step, and then he set to work upon the street-door chain.
It was rather a peculiar process by which he, Blodget, got rid of the obstacle to his progress.
Having sawed the bolts and opened the locks he could just get the street-door open as far as the slack of the chain would allow it to go, but although that was not above a couple of inches in all, yet it was sufficient for his purpose, as will be very quickly seen.
He took from his pocket a very peculiar shaped iron instrument, capable of very great extension as regarded length by other pieces fitting into it like the joints of a fishing-rod, only that the sockets were squared, so that they fitted quite tight and would not turn.
One end of this instrument he fixed in a link of the chain, and then he lengthened it about two feet, and fitted a cross piece on the end, so that he had a very good amount of leverage to work with.
Blodget gave this instrument about three rapid turns, and then the iron chain broke in two or three places and hung uselessly from the door in the passage of the house.
‘It is done,’ he said, ‘Come in.’
The two thieves who were still with him now crept into the hall, and at that moment Blodget heard a noise opposite.
He who had seen a head project from an opposite window had not been deceived. A man at the house opposite had chanced to see the persons on the door-step, and being a very cunning sort of individual, instead of giving a noisy alarm at once, which would have had the effect of scaring the thieves off, he thought he would gently slip out, and run to the nearest policeman and tell what he had seen.
With this view he had hurriedly dressed himself and slipped down stairs. He opened the door with the utmost caution, and then made a dart into the arms of the men, who were there waiting for him so quietly and patiently.
This sudden capture of the man from the opposite house was the noise that Blodget had heard opposite just as he had succeeded in removing the last obstacle to getting an entrance to the hall of the house.
The attack upon the man was so sudden, and withal so totally unexpected by that individual, that, for the moment, he was too terrified to cry out.
That moment was precious to him, for before he could recover presence of mind sufficient to have the least idea of what best to do, one of the thieves had him by the throat with such a clutch that he began to get black in the face.
Blodget ran over from the other side of the way in another moment.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
‘Somebody going, no doubt, to give an alarm,’ said the man who had hold of him.
‘Now is that possible?’ said Blodget.
‘It is, captain.’
‘Dear me, what interfering people there are in the world, to be sure. Has he a cravat on?’
‘Yes, captain.’
‘That will do.’
Blodget took the unfortunate man’s cravat from his neck, and in another moment wound it round again so tightly and tied it in a knot behind, that his doing more than just slightly breathe was out of the question.
‘Now,’ he added, ‘one slight tap on the head just to make him remember us, and all is well.’
The tap on the head that Blodget so facetiously called a slight remembrancer consisted in a severe blow with an iron jemmy, beneath which the victim fell to the ground as if he had been struck dead.
‘Push him into his own passage,’ said Blodget, ‘and then close his door quietly. It will be quite a pity to disturb the, no doubt, highly respectable family to which he belongs.’
This was done, and with so little trouble, too, had the whole affair been accomplished that the man was disposed of, and Blodget was back again to the house before one would have thought it possible to do so much.’
‘Now, come in all of you,’ he said.
‘Yes, captain.’
‘You did that well, captain.’
‘Hush, we will talk about that another time, when we have plenty of time to do so, for we have none now.’
‘Yes, captain.’
‘You know your separate directions now. Here we are in the house, and our grand object is, of course, to do our work here and then to get out of it as quickly as we can.’
‘Yes—yes, that’s it.’
‘A light!’
One of the thieves—it was the one whose appointed duty it was to go up stairs with Blodget—lit a loco foco match, and then as it burned up they all started, for one of the first things they saw was a servant apparently fast asleep, but, in reality, dead drunk in a huge chair.
‘Confound the rascal,’ said Blodget, ‘who now would have supposed he was so near to us?’
‘He sleeps.’
‘Are you sure of that? Is it a cat’s sleep?’
‘No, captain, that is a sound sleep.’
‘It looks sound.’
‘He is as drunk as blazes, captain, I can see. Ah, he has been at the decanters and bottles after the guests have gone.’
‘No doubt about that,’ said Blodget, with a smile; ‘and I don’t mind saying that it was a part of my calculation in this little affair, that the servants would be mostly drunk, and so in too deep a sleep to hear us, or to mind us if they did hear us.’
‘Ah, captain, you know how to act about it, if any one in the world does.’
‘What is to be done with this fellow?’ said one of them.
‘Nothing: let him be. Now furnish yourselves with lighted tapers, and let us set to work.’
Each of the thieves in the course of another moment had a little piece of lighted taper in his hand, and it had the advantage that it could be, by a little pressure of the finger and thumb, stuck on any convenient place in an instant.
‘Now, quick, all of you,’ added Blodget, ‘and you follow me.’
He spoke to the one whose appointed duty it was to do so, and then at two steps at a time Blodget ascended a staircase.
When they got to the first floor landing, Blodget and the man who was with him both stopped, and sitting down on the stairs, they drew rapidly over their boots, each of them a pair of thick worsted socks, so that their footsteps were really quite inaudible after that.
Neither did they leave any signs of footmarks any where, which otherwise, coming out of the wet street, they might have done; and any attempt to trace them beyond the first floor, after they had put on the socks, would have been very difficult indeed.
‘This a good dodge,’ whispered the thief to Blodget.
‘Yes, but still be as quiet as you can.’
‘I will.’
‘This way. This way.’
The thief was of rather a loquacious order of men. Perhaps, after all, he was a little terrified at the situation in which he found himself, but certainly he could not, or would not, obey Blodget’s injunctions to silence.
Blodget would, under any other circumstances, have quarrelled with him for his contumacy, but just then he did not think proper to do so, as he could not tell what emergency might arise in which he might require the best services of his companion, with good will to render them; so did he answer him, although it was as shortly as he possibly could, to be at the same time at all consistent with civility.
They made their way up to the second floor of the house, on which the sleeping apartments were situated.
On a gilt bracket, fixed about twelve feet high in the wall of the sort of corridor which ran the whole length of the house, Blodget saw a night lamp burning, and by its aid he was able to distinguish the different doors of the sleeping portion of the house.
The man who was with him, and who was named Ben, saw Blodget looking about him.
‘Don’t you know the room?’ he said.
‘Yes—oh, yes; all’s right.’
‘Well, that’s a comfort. Do you know, captain, that it ain’t pleasant to be so far off in the street?’
‘Why so?’
‘Because, if there should be a row, how are we to get off?’
‘Pshaw! I never contemplate anything of the sort.’
‘Oh, you don’t?’
‘No; and if you will but be a little cautious and careful in what you say, we shall do well enough.’
‘Trust me for that.’
‘Curse you,’ thought Blodget to himself, ‘for a chattering parrot. It is the last time I will take you with me upon an expedition of this sort.’
Blodget carefully now laid hold of the handle of the bed-room door, and gave it a quick, sharp turn at once. He knew that that was the best way to prevent it from making any rattling or squeaking sound.
The door remained fast.
Blodget turned the handle again to its proper position, and stood quiet for a moment.
It was quite clear that the bed-room door was fast on the inside in some way, and if it was a night bolt, the difficulty of getting rid of such an obstruction was rather serious.
That is to say, it was serious as regarded time, for he was well prepared with any means for getting over such an obstacle, if he had but the time given him to do it in.
‘Step this way,’ he whispered to the man who was with him.
‘Yes—yes.’
Blodget led him to the top of the staircase, and then added—
‘You will stay here till I come to you again—keep your eyes and your ears open. There is a night-bolt to the room door, and I have the job of cutting my way to it. It will take me five minutes.’
‘Yes—yes.’
‘Be vigilant and quiet.’
‘I will, Captain.’
‘And don’t stir from this spot.’
‘Trust me for that. I will sit down on the top stair here.’
Not a sound came from whoever slept in that apartment, and Blodget congratulated himself upon having got so far without his giving the smallest possible alarm.
Passing his arm through the little hole in the door, now, he carefully lifted the night-bolt, and the door was, in a moment, open.
‘It is done,’ thought he.
As he now paused for a moment he took a half mask of black crape from his pocket and put it over his face, so that he was effectually disguised and then he stepped back to the stair head where he had left his assistant, Ben.
Ben was still sitting on the topmost stair, and leaning forward to catch any sounds that might come from the lower part of the mansion.
Blodget placed his hand upon Ben’s shoulder, and whispered in his ear the one word—
‘Now!’
Ben started, and turning his head, the first thing he saw was the black mask, and not expecting it he gave such a start of surprise and terror that he was on his feet in a moment.
No doubt he thought his infernal majesty had all of a sudden found him out.
‘Murder!’ he said. ‘Oh, Lord; no!’
‘Silence, idiot!’ muttered Blodget, as he placed his hand over Ben’s mouth and cautioned him to quietness.
The sudden consternation of Ben all evaporated before the sounds of Blodget’s voice.
‘You cursed fool,’ said Blodget in his ear, ‘what do you mean by uttering an exclamation of that sort?’
‘I—I didn’t know.’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘No, captain; I think I was in a sort of a brown study, you see, and so I—’
‘Silence!’
‘Yes, captain.’
‘Who is there?’ said a voice from the room, ‘who is there?’
‘Hush,’ said Blodget as he clutched the arm of Ben, and they both stood like statues.
Ben shook in every limb.
‘Did you speak?’ said the voice again.
‘Be still,’ said Blodget. ‘Don’t move, on your life, Ben.’
‘I won’t. Oh—oh! It’s all—’
‘What?’
‘Up with us.’
‘No, fool, it is not if you keep yourself quiet.’
‘I will.’
Blodget ran back to the door in a moment, and he drew it close shut.
‘I’m sure I heard a voice,’ said the same person. ‘Kitty—Kitty, I say. The wench is fast asleep. Kitty, I say.’
‘Yes, madam,’ said a sleepy voice, and a door opened from the lady’s room into another smaller one that adjoined it, and a young girl, in her night dress, appeared.
‘Did you hear anything?’
‘Yes, ma’m.’
‘What?’
‘You call me, ma’m.’
‘Tut—tut! I don’t mean that; but did you hear anything else before I called you?’
‘No, ma’m.’
‘Well, I thought I did.’
‘You was a dreaming, ma’m, I suppose.’
‘I suppose I was. See if the night-bolt is all right, Kitty, before you go to bed again.’
‘Yes, ma’m.’
‘I feel so nervous to-night; I don’t know why.’
Blodget felt there was danger now unless he could adroitly put the night-bolt in its place again. The difficulty to do so without being seen, and in a hurry, too, without making any noise, was very great, but if any man living could do that, that man was Blodget.
Kitty, fortunately for him, was half asleep, and she shuffled along the floor in such an odd, devious kind of way, with her eyes scarcely open enough to see at all where she was going, that she gave Blodget every chance.
It happened, too, that as she went she completely obstructed the lady’s view of the door.
Blodget put his hand in the little orifice he had cut in the panel, and replaced the night-bolt.
He was only just in time.
‘Is it all right?’ said the lady.
‘Oh, yes, ma’m.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Yes, ma’m.’
‘Then it could not have been anything surely; I was dreaming. But it is no matter, you can go to bed again, Kitty. Dear me, what are you about now?’
Kitty had, in her half sleepy state, ran against the foot of the bed and shaken it well.
‘Eh? Oh, ma’m, I beg your pardon, I think I am a little drowsy, you see, ma’m.’
‘A little drowsy indeed! Plague take the girl, she is dead asleep. Go to bed directly.’
‘Yes, ma’m.’
Kitty did manage to steer herself now clear of the various articles of furniture in her mistress’s room, and to pass through the door that led to her own, and in another moment she was again fast asleep.
‘Dear me,’ said the lady, ‘I do feel nervous to-night, to be sure, and I don’t know why.’
Ting—ting—ting! went the little bell of her repeater watch as she pressed the spring of it.
‘Three o’clock,’ she said. ‘Well, I’d better try to go to sleep, I suppose, while I can.’
She did not utter another word, and in a few moments the most deathlike silence was in the room again.
Blodget put his hand in the little circular hole in the door, and drew up the bolt once more.
‘Curses upon all this delay,’ he said to himself, ‘we shall have the daylight upon us soon.’
This was indeed so, as another hour would without doubt bring the dawn, and then the situation of Blodget and his companions in iniquity would be rather perilous.
There were many other circumstances which rendered it desirable to be quick about the affair.
In the first place the collision with the watch had no doubt been, by that time, communicated, and no doubt the police were active.
Then again, as the man in the house over the way had after all only been stunned, there was no saying when he might sufficiently recover to give an alarm.
From all these reasons Blodget felt the necessity of bringing the job to a speedy end, and with such a determination he then crept very quietly into the lady’s bed-room.
In the dim light of the bedchamber, he looked like some evil spirit as he stood casting a broad shadow on the bed and its occupant.
For a moment, he considered what to do, and then he stepped up to the bedside and said:—
‘Give any alarm and you die—be still and you live! Be quiet—quite quiet, for your life’s sake.’
The terrified woman opened her eyes and uttered a faint cry.
‘Yes, ma’m,’ said Kitty from the next room.
‘Curse you!’ cried Blodget.
He took a revolver from his pocket, and held it to her head, saying in a calm tone:—
‘If you wish to save your life you will be quiet. It is your jewels, plate, and money I come for, not your life, but if you place it as an obstacle in the way, that obstacle must be removed. You understand me.’
‘A robber?’
‘Yes.’
‘A house-breaker?’
‘Just so.’
‘Yes, ma’m,’ said Kitty, blustering into the room with her eyes half shut as before. ‘Did you call me?’
‘Yes,’ said he, stepping up to her, and placing his hand right over her mouth; and then in her ear he said—
‘Kitty, if you speak one word or utter one scream, or make the least noise, I will cut your throat from ear to ear this moment.’
Kitty stopped short, and looked as if she had been suddenly turned to stone. Blodget placed her in a chair, and catching up a handkerchief, he tied it in her mouth, and round the back of her head, and so on to the back of her chair, like a bit.
‘Now be quiet,’ he said.
Kitty sat profoundly still; indeed, her faculties had received such a shock that it would be some time before she’d recover again.
The lady sat up in bed.
‘You wretch! What on earth do you want?’
‘Plate—jewels—money.’
‘There is my purse on the dressing-table—the plate is in the pantry down stairs.’
‘And in the little secret cupboard at the back of this bed, you know it is, madam.’
The lady uttered a groan.
‘I will trouble you to get up.’
‘Oh, no—no!’
‘But I say, oh, yes—yes. Now if you please.’
Without any further ceremony, Blodget took her by the arms, lifted her out of the bed, and put her on the floor. He then went to the door and cried, in a low tone—
‘Ben!’
‘I’m coming,’ said Ben, as he entered the room.
‘Keep watch over this lady, Ben.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And if she tries to get away, or if she gives alarm, you will be so good as to cut her throat, Ben.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And don’t make a bungling job of it while you are about it. If you have to do it all, do it with humanity—that is to say, do it at once and effectually.’
‘Oh, yes; trust me for that, captain.’
The lady was now really alarmed.
Ben took from his pocket a large clasped knife, the blade of which he opened in a ferocious kind of way with his teeth, and with that in his hand, he kept an eye upon her.
Blodget now sprang upon the bed, and tearing down some of the hangings from the back part of it, he saw a small square door in the wall. It was not fastened.
No doubt the secrecy of the position of that receptacle for valuables was much more relied upon by the lady than any sort of lock or fastening.
The fact was, that when once it was found out that that was the hiding place for the valuable property that could be put in it, the security was gone.
No lock or bolt could for many moments have added to it in any shape or way.
Blodget saw at once when he pulled open the door that he had received correct information. Immediately within the little square door were some shelves built in the thickness of the wall, and upon them a heap of property of a valuable and portable nature.
Bracelets—rings—necklaces—watches—spoons—gold quartz—and jewellery of all descriptions, met the gaze of the robber as he glanced upon the shelves.
‘All right,’ said he.
The lady was a bold woman, and she had kept her eye upon Blodget, and when she heard him say ‘All right,’ the thought that he had discovered all her most valuable property drove her to an act of defiance.
‘Thieves!’ she said, and she raised a loud scream.
‘Kill her!’ said Blodget.
Ben had sprung to his feet, and made for the door of the room, although he had his knife in his hand. The fact is, this fellow wanted the nerve to be a murderer when any one resisted at all. He might have been an assassin, but he had not the courage to engage in a struggle.
‘Kill her, I say!’ cried Blodget.
‘No, no!’ said the lady, and springing to her feet, she with a rush made her way into the servant’s room; and slammed the door shut in Blodget’s face.
‘Curses on her! you have let her escape.’
‘I could not help it,’ said Ben.
‘Here, there is no time to be lost now—she will rouse the neighborhood. Take this pillow-case, which I have filled with the swag. We must be content with it. I will see to her and be with you in a moment.’
‘Yes—yes, I will go—’
‘No further than the head of the stairs, though.’
‘No—no.’
Blodget made a rush at the door of the room into which she had retreated; but it was too strong for him, and by great good fortune there had chanced to be some very effectual mode of fastening it on the inside. Blodget heard a lumbering noise in the room, that he could not make out.
He called aloud,—‘No harm is intended you, and I will compromise the matter with you, if you will be quiet.’
Something rolled upon the floor, and then hit the door a great knock that shook it.
‘Confound her,’ said Blodget, ‘I know what she is doing now. She is piling the furniture against the door, and that was the bedstead. I say!’
Blodget heard a window thrown open, and then a voice calling out,—
‘Help!—help!—thieves!—thieves!—Murder!’
Blodget turned from the door. His eyes fell upon the young girl who was tied to the chair, and in a moment he rushed up to her and untied her head. Then shaking her to and fro, he said—
‘Listen to me. Do you hear me?’
‘Ye—e—es.’
‘Go to that door and call to your mistress that I have gone.’
‘Ye—e—es.’
‘At once, or I will cut your throat.’
The girl tottered to the door of the inner room, and called out in a loud voice,—
‘Mistress, they have gone now. They have gone now. Open the door. It is only me, Kitty.’
Kitty, in her fright, had done even more than Blodget had asked her. The dread of death had sharpened the wits of the girl, so that she had seen fully what was wanted of her, and she was willing at that moment to think that self-preservation was indeed the very first law of nature, even if it was taken in its most extended signification, and involved the destruction of another.
‘That is right,’ said Blodget, as the girl tapped upon the panel of the door of the inner room, and called to her mistress; ‘call her again, or you die!’
‘Mistress!’
‘Who calls?’
‘It’s me, ma’m!’
‘Kitty?’
‘Yes, ma’m!’
‘How came you free?’
‘Oh, they have run away, ma’m!’
‘Open the front window, then, and call out for the police at once, do you hear?’
‘Yes, ma’m!’
‘Tell her to open the door,’ said Blodget, ‘or mind your throat.’
‘Open the door, ma’m!’
‘No.’
‘Implore her to do so. Say you are hurt.’
‘Oh, I am hurt, ma’m! Do open the door.’
‘Hurt?’ said the lady, ‘You don’t mean that?’
Blodget heard from the voice that she must be just outside the door, or rather, we may say with more precision, just on the other side of it. Full of revengeful thoughts at the idea that she had endangered his safety by her obstinate, and what we would call heroic, resistance to be robbed, he determined on her destruction.
Placing a revolver within a couple of inches of the panel of the door, and close to the side of the face of Kitty, although at the moment the girl was too confused to see it, he fired.
The report was very stunning.
Kitty fell to the floor from fright with a loud scream.
‘Hush!’ said Blodget, as he held up his hands, in an attitude of listening. ‘Hush!’
All was still.
A deep groan came from the inner room.
‘Ha! ha!’ cried Blodget. ‘I have hit her!’
It was at that moment that a shrill whistle sounded through the house, and Blodget at once recognized it as the alarm that he had told the man whose duty it was to stay at the outer door of the house to give in case of danger.
‘It is all over,’ said Blodget, ‘and it will be a close touch now as regards escape.’
He made his way to the door of the room, and was out in the corridor in a moment.
‘Ben? Ben?’
‘Here I am, captain. Oh, Lord!’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing—only—only—’
‘Only what, idiot?’
‘I thought I heard somebody in trouble.’
‘How so?’
‘A pistol shot, captain, from your hands, I take it, is reason enough for that.’
‘No, it is not. When you hear a pistol-shot from me again do not take it into your head that somebody is in trouble.’
‘No?’
‘Certainly not; but you may pretty safely conclude that somebody’s troubles are over.’
‘Oh, Lord!’
‘Come away at once now—there is no time to lose. Take care of the bundle. Have you it?’
‘All safe.’
‘Follow me then.’
Blodget ran down stairs as quickly as he could, and by the time he got to the hall he found that the whole four of the thieves he had brought with him had assembled there, and were looking at each other by their little pieces of lighted taper with something like consternation.
‘What is the matter?’ said Blodget.
‘Oh, captain, it’s all up.’
‘What is all up?’
‘All up with us. There is a force in the street of police. They don’t seem to know which house it is, but they are on the look-out about something being amiss at one or other of the houses on this side of the way.’
‘Humph! What do you mean by a force?’
‘About a dozen of them.’
Blodget bit his lips.
‘Yes, and they are close outside too.’
‘No!’
‘Yes they are.’
‘I will satisfy myself. If it be only the ordinary watch I don’t think a couple of dozen of them ought to stop us from proceeding, and I will not permit them doing so either; but if they are some of these cursed Vigilance fellows, it is another affair.’
Blodget acted promptly. Nobody certainly could accuse him of want of courage or decision. He knew that the only way of discovering who were without was to take a good look himself; so, to the consternation and surprise of his comrades, he opened the street door and coolly looked out into the street.
A sudden rush was made at the door by a couple of men, and Blodget soon saw ten or twelve others not far off.
‘Hold hard there, hoss,’ said one of them. ‘Don’t shut that door again, my fine fellow, if you please.’
‘Ah, indeed!’ said Blodget, as he closed the door; but he was not quite quick enough, for a stick that one of the officers had with him had been pushed through the opening, and prevented the door from closing.
‘Ha, ha! it won’t do,’ cried the officer.
Blodget laid hold of the stick and called upon the others to do so. By their united force they pulled it out of the officer’s hand, half dislocating his wrist as he did so, for he had tied it with a strip of dry hide to his arm.
The door was closed in another minute, but it was only held by the lock, for Blodget had cut the bolts and had broken the chain, so that his situation with his four companions was anything but a very agreeable one.
‘Oh!’ said Ben, ‘I do begin to think as we have all dropped in for it at last.’
‘Not at all,’ said Blodget.
‘Not at all, captain? Why how the deuce are we to get out of this mess?’
‘I don’t call it a mess. There are two ways out of a house; one at the street door, and the other at the roof. Follow me.’
‘What, upstairs again?’
‘Yes, to be sure. Remember you are under my orders, and you may as well remember why, too.’
‘Why?’
‘Yes, why. Was it not because I knew more than you did, and could so take the command with more advantage to you as well as to myself? Come on; I will yet see you all safe out of this affair, you may depend upon it.’
They accordingly proceeded up stairs, where as Blodget anticipated, they found a scuttle affording an exit to the roof—through this they escaped, and scampering over the flat roofs of the adjacent houses, got safely off with their blood-bought booty.