It was learned to-day that a well-known crook had been
successful recently in securing a position as a
servant at Mr. Gordon Blair's at Scarsdale. Last
evening one of the guests missed her valuable pearl
necklace. In the excitement which followed the burglar
made his escape, leaving the necklace behind him. The
perpetrator of this bold attempt is the notorious
Fatty Welch, now wanted in several States as a
fugitive from justice.
"By gum!" repeated the operator, throwing down the paper. Then he went
to the drawer and took out a small bull-dog revolver, which he
carefully loaded.
"Br-r-clink!--br-r-clink!" went the track, as the train swung round the
curve outside New Haven. The brakes groaned, the porters waked from
troubled slumbers in wicker chairs, one or two old women put out their
arms and peered through the window-shades, and the train thundered past
the depot and slowly came to a full stop. Ahead, the engine panted and
steamed. Two gnomes ran, Mimi-like, out of a cavernous darkness behind
the station and by the light of flaring torches began to hammer and tap
the flanges. The conductor, swinging off the rear car, ran into the
embrace of a huge Irishman. At the same moment a squad of policemen
separated and scattered to the different platforms.
"Here! Let me go!" gasped the conductor. "What's all this?"
"Say, Cap., I'm McGinnis--Central Office, New York. You've got a burglar
on board. They're after wirin' me to make the arrest."
"Burglar be damned!" yelled the conductor. "Do you think you can hold me
up and search my train? Why, I'd be two hours late!"
"I won't take more'n fifteen minutes," continued McGinnis, making for
the rear car.
"Come back there, you!" shouted the conductor, grasping him firmly by
the coat-tails. "You can't wake up all the passengers."
"Look here, Cap.," expostulated the detective, "don't ye see I've got to
make this arrest? It won't take a minute. The porters'll know who
they've got, and you're runnin' awful light. Have a good cigar?"
The conductor took the weed so designated and swore loudly. It was the
biggest piece of gall on record. Well, hang it! he didn't want to take
McGinnis all the way to Boston, and even if he did, there would be the
same confounded mix-up at the other end. He admitted finally that it was
a fine night. Did McGinnis want a nip? He had a bottle in the porter's
closet. Yes, call out those niggers and make 'em tell what they knew.
The conductor was now just as insistent that the burglar should be
arrested then and there as he had been before that the train should not
be held up. He rushed through the cars telling the various porters to go
outside. Eight or ten presently assembled upon the platform. They filled
McGinnis with unspeakable repulsion.
The conductor began with car No. 2204.
"Now, Deacon, who have you got?"
The Deacon, an enormously fat darky, rolled his eyes and replied that he
had "two ole women an' er gen'elman gwine ortermobublin with his
cheffonier."
The conductor opined that these would prove unfertile candidates for
McGinnis. He therefore turned to Moses, of car No. 2201. Moses, however,
had only half a load. There was a fat man, a Mr. Huber, who travelled
regularly; two ladies on passes; and a very thin man, with his wife, her
sister, a maid, two nurses, and three children.
"Nothin' doin'!" remarked the captain. "Now, Colonel, what have _you_
got?"
But the Colonel, a middle-aged colored man of aristocratic appearance,
had an easy answer. His entire car was full, as he expressed it, "er
frogs."
"Frenchmen!" grunted McGinnis.
The conductor remembered. Yes, they were Sanko's Orchestra going on to
give a matinée concert in Providence.
The next car had only five drummers, every one of whom was known to the
conductor, as taking the trip twice a week. They were therefore counted
out. That left only one car, No. 2205.
"Well, William, what have you got?"
William grinned. Though sleepy, he realized the importance of the
disclosure he was about to make and was correspondingly dignified and
ponderous. There was two trabblin' gen'elmen, Mr. Smith and Mr. Higgins.
He'd handled dose gen'elmen fo' several years. There was a very old
lady, her daughter and maid. Then there was Mr. Uberheimer, who got off
at Middletown. And then--William smiled significantly--there was an
awful strange pair in the drawin'-room. They could look for themselves.
He didn't know nuff'n 'bout burglars in disguise, but dere was "one of
'em in er mighty curious set er fixtures."
"Huh! _Two_ of 'em!" commented McGinnis.
"That's easy!" remarked the mollified conductor.
The telegraph operator, who read Laura Jean Libbey, now approached with
his revolver.
McGinnis, another detective, and the conductor moved toward the car.
William preferred the safety of the platform and the temporary
distinction of being the discoverer of the fugitive. No light was
visible in the drawing-room, and the sounds of heavy slumber were
plainly audible. The conductor rapped loudly; there was no response. He
rattled the door and turned the handle vigorously, but elicited no sign
of recognition. Then McGinnis rapped with his knife on the glass of the
door. He happened to hit three times. Immediately there were sounds
within. Something very much like "All right, sir," and the door was
opened. The conductor and McGinnis saw a fat man, in blue silk pajamas,
his face flushed and his eyes heavy with sleep, who looked at them in
dazed bewilderment.
"Wot do you want?" drawled the fat man, blinking at the lantern.
"Sorry to disturb you," broke in McGinnis briskly, "but is there any wan
else, beside ye, to kape ye company?"
Wilkins shook his head with annoyance and made as if to close the door,
but the detective thrust his foot across the threshold.
"Aisy there!" he remarked. "Conductor, just turn on that light, will
ye?"
Wilkins scrambled heavily into his berth, and the conductor struck a
match and turned on the Pintsch light. Only one bed was occupied, and
that by the fat man in the pajamas. On the sofa was an elegant
alligator-skin bag disclosing a row of massive silver-topped bottles. A
tall silk hat and Inverness coat hung from a hook, and a suit of evening
clothes, as well as a business suit of fustian, were neatly folded and
lying on the upper berth.
At this vision of respectability both McGinnis and the conductor
recoiled, glancing doubtfully at one another. Wilkins saw his advantage.
"May I hinquire," remarked he, with dignity, "wot you mean by these
hactions? W'y am I thus disturbed in the middle of the night? It is
houtrageous!"
"Very sorry, sir," replied the conductor. "The fact is, we thought _two_
people, suspicious characters, had taken this room together, and this
officer here"--pointing to McGinnis--"had orders to arrest one of them."
Wilkins swelled with indignation.
"Suspicious characters! Two people! Look 'ere, conductor, I'll 'ave you
to hunderstand that I will not tolerate such a performance. I am Mr.
McAllister, of the Colophon Club, New York, and I am hon my way to
hattend the wedding of Mr. Frederick Cabot in Boston, to-morrow. I am to
be 'is best man. Can I give you any further hinformation?"
The conductor, who had noticed the initials "McA" on the silver bottle
heads, and the same stamped upon the bag, stammered something in the
nature of an apology.
"Say, Cap.," whispered McGinnis, "we've got him wrong, I guess. This
feller ain't no burglar. Anywan can see he's a swell, all right. Leave
him alone."
"Very sorry to have disturbed you," apologized the conductor humbly,
putting out the light and closing the door.
"That nigger must be nutty," he added to the detective. "By Joshua!
Perhaps he's got away with some of my stuff!"
[Illustration: "Wot do you want?" drawled the fat man, blinking at the
lantern.]
"Look here, William, what's the matter with you? Have you been swipin'
my whisky. There ain't two men in that drawin'-room at all--just one--a
swell," hollered the conductor as they reached the platform.
"Fo' de Lawd, Cap'n, I ain't teched yo' whisky," cried William in
terror. "I swear dey was two of 'em, 'n' de udder was in _dis_guise. It
was de fines' _dis_guise I eber saw!" he added reminiscently.
"Aw, what yer givin' us!" exclaimed McGinnis, entirely out of patience.
"What kind av a disguise was he in?"
"Dat's what I axed him," explained William, edging toward the rim of the
circle. "I done ax him right away what character he done represent. He
had on silk stockin's, an' a colored deglishay shirt, an' a belt an'
moccasons, an' a sword an'----"
"A sword!" yelled McGinnis, making a jump in William's direction. "I'll
break yer black head for ye!"
"Hold on!" cried the conductor, who had disappeared into the car and had
emerged again with a bottle in his hand. "The stuff's here."
"I tell ye the coon is drunk!" shouted the detective in angry tones.
"He can't make small av _me_!"
"I done tole you the trufe," continued William from a safe distance, his
teeth and eyeballs shining in the moonlight.
"Well, where did he go?" asked the conductor. "Did you put him in the
drawin'-room?"
"I seen his ticket," replied William, "an' he said he wanted to smoke,
so he went into the Benvolio, the car behin'."
"Car behind!" cried McGinnis. "There ain't no car behind. This here is
the last car."
"Sure," said the conductor, with a laugh; "we dropped the Benvolio at
Selma Junction for repairs. Say, McGinnis, you better have that drink!"