was not a reputable character; but he was so very young and so very old
for his years that we all liked him very much nevertheless. He lived
in the extreme northern part of Philadelphia, where the cotton- and
woollen-mills run down to the river, and how he ever got home after
leaving the _Press_ building at two in the morning, was one of the
mysteries of the office. Sometimes he caught a night car, and sometimes
he walked all the way, arriving at the little house, where his mother
and himself lived alone, at four in the morning. Occasionally he was
given a ride on an early milk-cart, or on one of the newspaper delivery
wagons, with its high piles of papers still damp and sticky from the
press. He knew several drivers of “night hawks”—those cabs that prowl
the streets at night looking for belated passengers—and when it was a
very cold morning he would not go home at all, but would crawl into one
of these cabs and sleep, curled upon the cushions, until daylight.
Besides being quick and cheerful, Gallegher possessed a power of
amusing the _Press’s_ young men to a degree seldom attained by the
ordinary mortal. His clog-dancing on the city editor’s desk, when
that gentleman was upstairs fighting for two more columns of space,
was always a source of innocent joy to us, and his imitations of the
comedians of the variety halls delighted even the dramatic critic, from
whom the comedians themselves failed to force a smile.
But Gallegher’s chief characteristic was his love for that element of
news generically classed as “crime.”
Not that he ever did anything criminal himself. On the contrary, his
was rather the work of the criminal specialist, and his morbid interest
in the doings of all queer characters, his knowledge of their methods,
their present whereabouts, and their past deeds of transgression often
rendered him a valuable ally to our police reporter, whose daily
feuilletons were the only portion of the paper Gallegher deigned to
read.
In Gallegher the detective element was abnormally developed. He had
shown this on several occasions, and to excellent purpose.
Once the paper had sent him into a Home for Destitute Orphans which was
believed to be grievously mismanaged, and Gallegher, while playing the
part of a destitute orphan, kept his eyes open to what was going on
around him so faithfully that the story he told of the treatment meted
out to the real orphans was sufficient to rescue the unhappy little
wretches from the individual who had them in charge, and to have the
individual himself sent to jail.
Gallegher’s knowledge of the aliases, terms of imprisonment, and
various misdoings of the leading criminals in Philadelphia was almost
as thorough as that of the chief of police himself, and he could tell
to an hour when “Dutchy Mack” was to be let out of prison, and could
identify at a glance “Dick Oxford, confidence man,” as “Gentleman Dan,
petty thief.”
There were, at this time, only two pieces of news in any of the
papers. The least important of the two was the big fight between the
Champion of the United States and the Would-be Champion, arranged to
take place near Philadelphia; the second was the Burrbank murder, which
was filling space in newspapers all over the world, from New York to
Bombay.
Richard F. Burrbank was one of the most prominent of New York’s
railroad lawyers; he was also, as a matter of course, an owner of much
railroad stock, and a very wealthy man. He had been spoken of as a
political possibility for many high offices, and, as the counsel for a
great railroad, was known even further than the great railroad itself
had stretched its system.
At six o’clock one morning he was found by his butler lying at the foot
of the hall stairs with two pistol wounds above his heart. He was quite
dead. His safe, to which only he and his secretary had the keys, was
found open, and $200,000 in bonds, stocks, and money, which had been
placed there only the night before, was found missing. The secretary
was missing also. His name was Stephen S. Hade, and his name and his
description had been telegraphed and cabled to all parts of the world.
There was enough circumstantial evidence to show, beyond any question
or possibility of mistake, that he was the murderer.
It made an enormous amount of talk, and unhappy individuals were
being arrested all over the country, and sent on to New York for
identification. Three had been arrested at Liverpool, and one man just
as he landed at Sydney, Australia. But so far the murderer had escaped.
We were all talking about it one night, as everybody else was all over
the country, in the local room, and the city editor said it was worth
a fortune to any one who chanced to run across Hade and succeeded in
handing him over to the police. Some of us thought Hade had taken
passage from some one of the smaller sea-ports, and others were of the
opinion that he had buried himself in some cheap lodging-house in New
York, or in one of the smaller towns in New Jersey.
“I shouldn’t be surprised to meet him out walking, right here in
Philadelphia,” said one of the staff. “He’ll be disguised, of course,
but you could always tell him by the absence of the trigger finger on
his right hand. It’s missing, you know; shot off when he was a boy.”
“You want to look for a man dressed like a tough,” said the city
editor; “for as this fellow is to all appearances a gentleman, he will
try to look as little like a gentleman as possible.”
“No, he won’t,” said Gallegher, with that calm impertinence that made
him dear to us. “He’ll dress just like a gentleman. Toughs don’t wear
gloves, and you see he’s got to wear ’em. The first thing he thought
of after doing for Burrbank was of that gone finger, and how he was to
hide it. He stuffed the finger of that glove with cotton so’s to make
it look like a whole finger, and the first time he takes off that glove
they’ve got him—see, and he knows it. So what youse want to do is to
look for a man with gloves on. I’ve been a-doing it for two weeks now,
and I can tell you it’s hard work, for everybody wears gloves this
kind of weather. But if you look long enough you’ll find him. And when
you think it’s him, go up to him and hold out your hand in a friendly
way, like a bunco-steerer, and shake his hand; and if you feel that
his forefinger ain’t real flesh, but just wadded cotton, then grip to
it with your right and grab his throat with your left, and holler for
help.”
There was an appreciative pause.
“I see, gentlemen,” said the city editor, drily, “that Gallegher’s
reasoning has impressed you; and I also see that before the week is
out all of my young men will be under bonds for assaulting innocent
pedestrians whose only offence is that they wear gloves in mid-winter.”
* * * * *
It was about a week after this that Detective Hefflefinger, of
Inspector Byrnes’s staff, came over to Philadelphia after a burglar,
of whose whereabouts he had been misinformed by telegraph. He brought
the warrant, requisition, and other necessary papers with him, but the
burglar had flown. One of our reporters had worked on a New York paper,
and knew Hefflefinger, and the detective came to the office to see if
he could help him in his so far unsuccessful search.
He gave Gallegher his card, and after Gallegher had read it, and had
discovered who the visitor was, he became so demoralized that he was
absolutely useless.
“One of Byrnes’s men” was a much more awe-inspiring individual to
Gallegher than a member of the Cabinet. He accordingly seized his hat
and overcoat, and leaving his duties to be looked after by others,
hastened out after the object of his admiration, who found his
suggestions and knowledge of the city so valuable, and his company so
entertaining, that they became very intimate, and spent the rest of the
day together.
In the meanwhile the managing editor had instructed his subordinates
to inform Gallegher, when he condescended to return, that his services
were no longer needed. Gallegher had played truant once too often.
Unconscious of this, he remained with his new friend until late the
same evening, and started the next afternoon toward the _Press_ office.
* * * * *
As I have said, Gallegher lived in the most distant part of the city,
not many minutes’ walk from the Kensington railroad station, where
trains ran into the suburbs and on to New York.
It was in front of this station that a smoothly-shaven, well-dressed
man brushed past Gallegher and hurried up the steps to the ticket
office.
He held a walking-stick in his right hand, and Gallegher, who now
patiently scrutinized the hands of every one who wore gloves, saw that
while three fingers of the man’s hand were closed around the cane, the
fourth stood out in almost a straight line with his palm.
Gallegher stopped with a gasp and with a trembling all over his little
body, and his brain asked with a throb if it could be possible. But
possibilities and probabilities were to be discovered later. Now was
the time for action.
He was after the man in a moment, hanging at his heels and his eyes
moist with excitement.
He heard the man ask for a ticket to Torresdale, a little station just
outside of Philadelphia, and when he was out of hearing, but not out of
sight, purchased one for the same place.
The stranger went into the smoking-car, and seated himself at one end
toward the door. Gallegher took his place at the opposite end.
He was trembling all over, and suffered from a slight feeling of
nausea. He guessed it came from fright, not of any bodily harm that
might come to him, but at the probability of failure in his adventure
and of its most momentous possibilities.
The stranger pulled his coat collar up around his ears, hiding the
lower portion of his face, but not concealing the resemblance in his
troubled eyes and close-shut lips to the likenesses of the murderer
Hade.
They reached Torresdale in half an hour, and the stranger, alighting
quickly, struck off at a rapid pace down the country road leading to
the station.
Gallegher gave him a hundred yards’ start, and then followed slowly
after. The road ran between fields and past a few frame-houses set far
from the road in kitchen gardens.
Once or twice the man looked back over his shoulder, but he saw only a
dreary length of road with a small boy splashing through the slush in
the midst of it and stopping every now and again to throw snowballs at
belated sparrows.
After a ten minutes’ walk the stranger turned into a side road which
led to only one place, the Eagle Inn, an old roadside hostelry known
now as the headquarters for pothunters from the Philadelphia game
market and the battle-ground of many a cock-fight.
Gallegher knew the place well. He and his young companions had often
stopped there when out chestnutting on holidays in the autumn.
The son of the man who kept it had often accompanied them on their
excursions, and though the boys of the city streets considered him a
dumb lout, they respected him somewhat owing to his inside knowledge of
dog- and cock-fights.
The stranger entered the inn at a side door, and Gallegher, reaching
it a few minutes later, let him go for the time being, and set about
finding his occasional playmate, young Keppler.
Keppler’s offspring was found in the wood-shed.
“‘Tain’t hard to guess what brings you out here,” said the
tavern-keeper’s son, with a grin; “it’s the fight.”
“What fight?” asked Gallegher, unguardedly.
“What fight? Why, _the_ fight,” returned his companion, with the slow
contempt of superior knowledge.
“It’s to come off here to-night. You knew that as well as me; anyway
your sportin’ editor knows it. He got the tip last night, but that
won’t help you any. You needn’t think there’s any chance of your
getting a peep at it. Why, tickets is two hundred and fifty apiece!”
“Whew!” whistled Gallegher, “where’s it to be?”
“In the barn,” whispered Keppler. “I helped ’em fix the ropes this
morning, I did.”
“Gosh, but you’re in luck,” exclaimed Gallegher, with flattering envy.
“Couldn’t I jest get a peep at it?”
“Maybe,” said the gratified Keppler. “There’s a winder with a wooden
shutter at the back of the barn. You can get in by it, if you have some
one to boost you up to the sill.”
“Sa-a-y,” drawled Gallegher, as if something had but just that moment
reminded him. “Who’s that gent who come down the road just a bit ahead
of me—him with the cape-coat! Has he got anything to do with the
fight?”
“Him?” repeated Keppler in tones of sincere disgust. “No-oh, he ain’t
no sport. He’s queer, Dad thinks. He come here one day last week about
ten in the morning, said his doctor told him to go out ’en the country
for his health. He’s stuck up and citified, and wears gloves, and takes
his meals private in his room, and all that sort of truck. They was
saying in the saloon last night that they thought he was hiding from
something, and Dad, just to try him, asks him last night if he was
coming to see the fight. He looked sort of scared, and said he didn’t
want to see no fight. And then Dad says, ’I guess you mean you don’t
want no fighters to see you.’ Dad didn’t mean no harm by it, just
passed it as a joke; but Mr. Carleton, as he calls himself, got white
as a ghost an’ says, ’I’ll go to the fight willing enough,’ and begins
to laugh and joke. And this morning he went right into the bar-room,
where all the sports were setting, and said he was going in to town to
see some friends; and as he starts off he laughs an’ says, ’This don’t
look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does it?’ but Dad says it was
just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks that if he hadn’t said
what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn’t have left his room at all.”
Gallegher had got all he wanted, and much more than he had hoped
for—so much more that his walk back to the station was in the nature
of a triumphal march.
He had twenty minutes to wait for the next train, and it seemed an
hour. While waiting he sent a telegram to Hefflefinger at his hotel.
It read: “Your man is near the Torresdale station, on Pennsylvania
Railroad; take cab, and meet me at station. Wait until I come.
GALLEGHER.”
With the exception of one at midnight, no other train stopped at
Torresdale that evening, hence the direction to take a cab.
The train to the city seemed to Gallegher to drag itself by inches. It
stopped and backed at purposeless intervals, waited for an express to
precede it, and dallied at stations, and when, at last, it reached the
terminus, Gallegher was out before it had stopped and was in the cab
and off on his way to the home of the sporting editor.
The sporting editor was at dinner and came out in the hall to see him,
with his napkin in his hand. Gallegher explained breathlessly that he
had located the murderer for whom the police of two continents were
looking, and that he believed, in order to quiet the suspicions of the
people with whom he was hiding, that he would be present at the fight
that night.
The sporting editor led Gallegher into his library and shut the door.
“Now,” he said, “go over all that again.”
Gallegher went over it again in detail, and added how he had sent for
Hefflefinger to make the arrest in order that it might be kept from the
knowledge of the local police and from the Philadelphia reporters.
“What I want Hefflefinger to do is to arrest Hade with the warrant he
has for the burglar,” explained Gallegher; “and to take him on to New
York on the owl train that passes Torresdale at one. It don’t get to
Jersey City until four o’clock, one hour after the morning papers go to
press. Of course, we must fix Hefflefinger so’s he’ll keep quiet and
not tell who his prisoner really is.”
The sporting editor reached his hand out to pat Gallegher on the head,
but changed his mind and shook hands with him instead.
“My boy,” he said, “you are an infant phenomenon. If I can pull the
rest of this thing off to-night, it will mean the $5,000 reward and
fame galore for you and the paper. Now, I’m going to write a note to
the managing editor, and you can take it around to him and tell him
what you’ve done and what I am going to do, and he’ll take you back on
the paper and raise your salary. Perhaps you didn’t know you’ve been
discharged?”
“Do you think you ain’t a-going to take me with you?” demanded
Gallegher.
“Why, certainly not. Why should I? It all lies with the detective and
myself now. You’ve done your share, and done it well. If the man’s
caught, the reward’s yours. But you’d only be in the way now. You’d
better go to the office and make your peace with the chief.”
“If the paper can get along without me, I can get along without the
old paper,” said Gallegher, hotly. “And if I ain’t a-going with you,
you ain’t neither, for I know where Hefflefinger is to be, and you
don’t, and I won’t tell you.”
“Oh, very well, very well,” replied the sporting editor, weakly
capitulating. “I’ll send the note by a messenger; only mind, if you
lose your place, don’t blame me.”
Gallegher wondered how this man could value a week’s salary against the
excitement of seeing a noted criminal run down, and of getting the news
to the paper, and to that one paper alone.
From that moment the sporting editor sank in Gallegher’s estimation.
Mr. Dwyer sat down at his desk and scribbled off the following note:
“I have received reliable information that Hade, the Burrbank
murderer, will be present at the fight to-night. We have arranged it
so that he will be arrested quietly and in such a manner that the fact
may be kept from all other papers. I need not point out to you that
this will be the most important piece of news in the country to-morrow.
“Yours, etc.,
“MICHAEL E. DWYER.”
The sporting editor stepped into the waiting cab, while Gallegher
whispered the directions to the driver. He was told to go first to a
district-messenger office, and from there up to the Ridge Avenue Road,
out Broad Street, and on to the old Eagle Inn, near Torresdale.
* * * * *
It was a miserable night. The rain and snow were falling together, and
freezing as they fell. The sporting editor got out to send his message
to the _Press_ office, and then lighting a cigar, and turning up the
collar of his great-coat, curled up in the corner of the cab.
“Wake me when we get there, Gallegher,” he said. He knew he had a long
ride, and much rapid work before him, and he was preparing for the
strain.
To Gallegher the idea of going to sleep seemed almost criminal. From
the dark corner of the cab his eyes shone with excitement, and with the
awful joy of anticipation. He glanced every now and then to where the
sporting editor’s cigar shone in the darkness, and watched it as it
gradually burnt more dimly and went out. The lights in the shop windows
threw a broad glare across the ice on the pavements, and the lights
from the lamp-posts tossed the distorted shadow of the cab, and the
horse, and the motionless driver, sometimes before and sometimes behind
them.
After half an hour Gallegher slipped down to the bottom of the cab and
dragged out a lap-robe, in which he wrapped himself. It was growing
colder, and the damp, keen wind swept in through the cracks until the
window-frames and woodwork were cold to the touch.
An hour passed, and the cab was still moving more slowly over the
rough surface of partly paved streets, and by single rows of new
houses standing at different angles to each other in fields covered
with ash-heaps and brick-kilns. Here and there the gaudy lights of a
drug-store, and the forerunner of suburban civilization, shone from
the end of a new block of houses, and the rubber cape of an occasional
policeman showed in the light of the lamp-post that he hugged for
comfort.
Then even the houses disappeared, and the cab dragged its way between
truck farms, with desolate-looking, glass-covered beds, and pools of
water, half-caked with ice, and bare trees, and interminable fences.
Once or twice the cab stopped altogether, and Gallegher could hear the
driver swearing to himself, or at the horse, or the roads. At last they
drew up before the station at Torresdale. It was quite deserted, and
only a single light cut a swath in the darkness and showed a portion
of the platform, the ties, and the rails glistening in the rain. They
walked twice past the light before a figure stepped out of the shadow
and greeted them cautiously.
“I am Mr. Dwyer, of the _Press_,” said the sporting editor, briskly.
“You’ve heard of me, perhaps. Well, there shouldn’t be any difficulty
in our making a deal, should there? This boy here has found Hade,
and we have reason to believe he will be among the spectators at the
fight to-night. We want you to arrest him quietly, and as secretly as
possible. You can do it with your papers and your badge easily enough.
We want you to pretend that you believe he is this burglar you came
over after. If you will do this, and take him away without any one so
much as suspecting who he really is, and on the train that passes here
at 1.20 for New York, we will give you $500 out of the $5,000 reward.
If, however, one other paper, either in New York or Philadelphia, or
anywhere else, knows of the arrest, you won’t get a cent. Now, what do
you say?”
The detective had a great deal to say. He wasn’t at all sure the man
Gallegher suspected was Hade; he feared he might get himself into
trouble by making a false arrest, and if it should be the man, he was
afraid the local police would interfere.
“We’ve no time to argue or debate this matter,” said Dwyer, warmly.
“We agree to point Hade out to you in the crowd. After the fight is
over you arrest him as we have directed, and you get the money and the
credit of the arrest. If you don’t like this, I will arrest the man
myself, and have him driven to town, with a pistol for a warrant.”
Hefflefinger considered in silence and then agreed unconditionally. “As
you say, Mr. Dwyer,” he returned. “I’ve heard of you for a thoroughbred
sport. I know you’ll do what you say you’ll do; and as for me I’ll do
what you say and just as you say, and it’s a very pretty piece of work
as it stands.”
They all stepped back into the cab, and then it was that they were met
by a fresh difficulty, how to get the detective into the barn where the
fight was to take place, for neither of the two men had $250 to pay for
his admittance.
But this was overcome when Gallegher remembered the window of which
young Keppler had told him.
In the event of Hade’s losing courage and not daring to show himself in
the crowd around the ring, it was agreed that Dwyer should come to the
barn and warn Hefflefinger; but if he should come, Dwyer was merely to
keep near him and to signify by a prearranged gesture which one of the
crowd he was.
They drew up before a great black shadow of a house, dark, forbidding,
and apparently deserted. But at the sound of the wheels on the gravel
the door opened, letting out a stream of warm, cheerful light, and a
man’s voice said, “Put out those lights. Don’t youse know no better
than that?” This was Keppler, and he welcomed Mr. Dwyer with effusive
courtesy.
The two men showed in the stream of light, and the door closed on them,
leaving the house as it was at first, black and silent, save for the
dripping of the rain and snow from the eaves.
The detective and Gallegher put out the cab’s lamps and led the horse
toward a long, low shed in the rear of the yard, which they now noticed
was almost filled with teams of many different makes, from the
Hobson’s choice of a livery stable to the brougham of the man about
town.
“No,” said Gallegher, as the cabman stopped to hitch the horse beside
the others, “we want it nearest that lower gate. When we newspaper men
leave this place we’ll leave it in a hurry, and the man who is nearest
town is likely to get there first. You won’t be a-following of no
hearse when you make your return trip.”
Gallegher tied the horse to the very gate-post itself, leaving the gate
open and allowing a clear road and a flying start for the prospective
race to Newspaper Row.
The driver disappeared under the shelter of the porch, and Gallegher
and the detective moved off cautiously to the rear of the barn. “This
must be the window,” said Hefflefinger, pointing to a broad wooden
shutter some feet from the ground.
“Just you give me a boost once, and I’ll get that open in a jiffy,”
said Gallegher.
The detective placed his hands on his knees, and Gallegher stood upon
his shoulders, and with the blade of his knife lifted the wooden button
that fastened the window on the inside, and pulled the shutter open.