A FEMALE BOXER.
The cabs pursued their way up Broadway until Forty-second Street was
reached, when they turned, the leading cab going up that street to Fifth
Avenue.
As the one containing the young woman turned the corner into that avenue
it halted. A young man stepped out from the shadow and entered the cab.
Patsy’s cab was at a discreet distance behind it, yet Patsy thought that
the young man was the same one with whom, earlier in the evening, on
Broadway, he had seen the young woman when she made the change in her
hair.
The cab now went on up Fifth Avenue, and at a slower pace than it had
previously been going.
Thus Sixty-eighth Street was reached, and, when near the corner, the cab
drew alongside the curbstone, the two occupants alighting and proceeding
on foot.
Patsy was out in a moment. As the two disappeared around the corner, he
ran at full speed; Chick, a little distance behind him, also following
rapidly on foot.
When Patsy reached the corner the pair were nowhere to be seen. For the
moment the young detective was at a loss to know what to do.
Thinking that if they had entered any one of the houses it must have
been one very close to the avenue, and that, if so, they would have
hardly had time to pass through the door, and were under the concealment
of a vestibule, he ran down the street hastily in the hopes that he
might discover them.
Just as Chick reached the corner, two figures leaped out at Patsy.
They were the pair he had been following.
The young man went at Patsy rather viciously, crying, as he did so:
“What are you following us for?”
Though the attack was unexpected, Patsy was not unprepared, and,
squaring himself, warded off the blow the young man had aimed at him.
It was apparent to Patsy in a moment that the young man was no novice at
the game of the fists.
Indeed, he was an adept in the art of boxing and, for a moment or two,
Patsy was kept quite busy in defending himself.
In the meantime, the young woman was a silent and inactive witness.
After the first few moments of surprise had passed, and, as he thought,
he had obtained the measure of the young man, Patsy changed his tactics
from defending himself to going at the other one fiercely.
He soon demonstrated his superiority, and was fast overcoming the young
man, when, to Patsy’s intense astonishment, the young woman danced up at
him in approved pugilistic fashion and landed a stinging blow in his
face.
The young detective was astonished at the force behind the blow. Though
he was busy with the young man, he did not fail to observe that the
young woman, lady, and daughter of wealth as she seemed to be, was,
nevertheless, a good deal of a boxer.
“Hello!” said Patsy to himself. “I have heard of these women athletes
among the swells, but this is the first one I ever saw.”
In the meantime, the young woman was dancing up, letting out a blow,
dancing away again to come back with another blow.
Some of these blows landed on Patsy’s shoulder and chest, blows which
the young fellow cared nothing for. But some of them came too close to
his eyes and mouth to be comfortable.
Patsy hardly knew how to deal with this assailant. While boxing with the
young man, he had warded off a number of the blows of the young woman,
and, though opportunity was given him, he had returned none, nor had he
even attempted to.
He could not bring himself to fight a woman, however annoying and
irritating she might be.
In the meantime, Chick had stolen down on the other side of the street,
and, perceiving the curious fight in which Patsy was engaged, was
doubled up with laughter.
His quick eye had shown him that Patsy was in no need of help so far as
the young man was concerned, and he believed that, as energetic as the
young woman might be, Patsy could find a way to evade her.
As a matter of fact, he wanted to be free to follow the young woman were
the two to escape Patsy.
This curious fight went on in that quiet street for some little time,
little or no noise being made, since the combatants did not speak.
At length Patsy, having become tired of the game, devoted himself wholly
to the young man without regard to the young woman. Finally, he got in a
blow on the young man that sent him down to the pavement.
Turning to the young woman as she came up to him, he caught her by the
wrists, and, holding her fast, said:
“It’s about time you stopped this.”
The young woman struggled to release herself, and found that she was as
a mere child in the grasp of the athletic and trained young detective.
It seemed as if she was more angry in finding herself so helpless in his
grasp than she had been before. She said:
“Release me. I command you. I’ll have you punished.”
Patsy merely laughed in her face, and, having shown her how helpless she
was, threw off her hands, saying:
“You can fight very well, my lady, so long as nobody fights back. Now
don’t try any more of it again, if you please.”
The woman’s anger was too great for her to speak. Suddenly she turned on
the young man, who was still lying as he fell, and hissed out:
“Get up, you coward! Do you leave me to be so insulted here?”
But the young man made no reply, and Patsy said:
“I must have hit him too hard.”
Disregarding the young woman, he went to the young man and bent over
him. He was unconscious. After trying to lift him to his feet, Patsy
said to the young woman:
“I cracked him harder than I thought, or else his head hit the pavement
when he fell. I’ll take him to the drug store around the corner.”
The young woman, forgetting her anger, went hurriedly to the young man.
Bending over him, she first felt his pulse and then his heart.
“You have killed him!”
But the next moment she peered eagerly into the eyes of the young man
and exclaimed:
“No. He’s coming to.”
She rubbed his forehead and chafed his hands.
“Who is he?” asked Patsy.
“My brother,” she replied, sharply.
After a while the young man was sufficiently restored to stand on his
feet when helped up by Patsy.
“You’ve done damage enough,” said the young woman, “and you can now go
away.”
“I’ll help you home with him,” said Patsy.
“No, I don’t want you to do that.”
She stood up and looked Patsy straight in the eyes and said:
“You shall not see me go home to-night. If you don’t go away, I shall
stay here, or else go somewhere where you can’t find me. I know you. You
are one of Nick Carter’s people. Go away. You can do nothing to-night,
and you can’t find out anything about me.”
Casting a glance about, Patsy was satisfied that he saw Chick on the
other side of the street. Indeed, he had been conscious during the time
that he was defending himself from the assault of this athletic brother
and sister that Chick had come down on the other side.
Believing that they did not know that Chick was ready to follow, he
thought it best to end the affair by walking off.
“All right, if you say so,” said Patsy. “Only, you might have said so
from the first, and not kept jabbing me in the face.”
He turned and sauntered up the street. Reaching the corner, he turned
backward and saw that the young man and woman were watching him.
He turned the corner and went out of sight.
No sooner was he gone than the pair hurriedly ran down the street to
about the middle of the block, and as hastily climbed the steps of a
rather imposing mansion, disappearing behind the doors.
If the pair thought they had done so undiscovered, they were greatly
mistaken, for Chick from his place had seen them and had carefully noted
the house they had entered.
Cautiously and stealthily, Chick crept down the street, and, reaching
the house, climbed the steps sufficiently to see the number. Then
perceiving that there was a doorplate on the door, he went up to the top
step, and, with a lighted match, found the name. It was merely that of
Rainforth.
The end had been gained. The young woman had been tracked to her home.
He went back to Fifth Avenue, and, turning the corner, came on Patsy
awaiting him there.
As soon as he saw the young detective he began to laugh.
“You’ve struck a new kind of a boxer, Patsy,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Patsy. “And she can hit, too. Hanged if I don’t
think she can hit harder than the young fellow she calls her brother.”
“Her brother?” asked Chick.
“That’s what she said he was.”
“Wasn’t it a stall?”
“They went into the same house together.”
“Perhaps so,” said Chick. “As a rule, however, brothers don’t usually
run around at this hour of the night with a sister.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Patsy. “Anyhow, they’re the queerest brother
and sister that I ever ran up against. Say, Chick, is it the fashion for
women to box?”
“I hear it is,” said Chick.
“Well,” said Patsy, “that little one is no fool at the game. And she has
got the pluck of a professional.”
“I got the name on the plate of the house they went into. It is
Rainforth.”
“Then you got the house they went into?” asked Patsy.
“Yes, and the number,” replied Chick. “Now we have got to find out
something about the people who live in that house.”
“Small chance of finding anything to-night, or rather this morning,”
said Patsy. “That’s a job for to-morrow.”
Patsy had hardly spoken these words when a policeman turned the corner,
and, seeing the two young men there, stopped, casting suspicious glances
at them.
“What are you loafing there for?” he asked.
Instead of replying, Chick said:
“Officer, is Sixty-eighth Street your beat?”
“Yes; and what of it?”
“Do you know all the families that live on Sixty-eighth Street?”
“Most of them.”
“Do you know a family by the name of Rainforth?”
“Yes; I know there is such a family there. But what is that to you?”
“We are two of Nick Carter’s people,” said Chick.
He made that fact plain to the officer, who quickly changed his manner,
and, from being suspicious, became confidential.
“Yes, I know that family Rainforth,” he said. “Rainforth is Colonel
Rainforth, a rich man, living on his money. A widower, and pretty old.”
“Who lives in the house with him?”
“A son and a daughter.”
The officer began to laugh and finally said:
“They are a queer pair, that son and daughter. They travel around
together late at night. I don’t know how many times I have seen them go
into the house at two or three o’clock in the morning.”
“Coming home from parties and receptions and balls, I presume,” said
Chick.
“Mebbe; but I don’t like that. It looks to me as if they had been
roaming. Say, the daughter is a thoroughbred. She does almost anything a
man does. She rides, and there isn’t any horse too bad for her. She rows
a boat, she works in a gymnasium, and I know for sure that she’s taken
boxing lessons. They say she’s awful good with her fists.”
“Is she straight?” asked Chick.
“Ain’t heard anybody say she wasn’t. She’s just queer; that’s all.”
This was all the officer could tell them, and, after a few more words,
he strolled away.
The two young men stood a while longer conversing, and were themselves
about to move away, when young Mr. Sanborn came tripping hurriedly along
the pavement.
Chick stopped him, saying:
“Mr. Sanborn, will you stop a moment?”
The young man stopped, and, perceiving who it was who had addressed him,
called them by name and laughed:
“A little too late for much conversation, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps it is,” said Chick; “but we want to have a little information
which we think you can give, and we don’t want to be asked why we want
it.”
“Oh,” said young Sanborn, “if it is a matter of business, I’ll give it
if I can, and I won’t ask why.”
“Will you tell us if you know a family of the name of Rainforth?”
“I know of a family of that name living down here in Sixty-eighth
Street.”
“Colonel Rainforth, a widower, with one son and a daughter?” asked
Chick.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me anything about the daughter?”
“I know her quite well,” said young Sanborn; “have known her a good many
years, and have never known anything against her.”
“Isn’t she rather queer?” asked Chick.
“Oh, I don’t know but that she is in some of the things she does. She
goes in for things that most of the young women do not. She rides,
fences, drives tandems and four-in-hands, shoots, is gymnastic, and
boxes--in fact, she goes in for all sorts of out-door sports. In that
way, she is one of the new women.”
“She and her brother are great chums?” asked Chick.
“There’s no doubt of that,” said young Sanborn. “They’re very chummy.
Travel together a good deal.”
Young Sanborn suddenly turned sharply on Chick, looking at him very
intently, and then said:
“Oh, I say, here! Why, yes, I forgot.”
He stopped a moment to think, and then said:
“I see that you have got onto a little thing that escaped my memory. A
year ago or more Julia Rainforth made a dead set for Ellison. She was so
sweet on him that she followed him up constantly, put herself in his way
to such an extent that people talked about it. But it’s all over, and
has been since the time the engagement of my cousin and Ellison was
announced.”
“You are sure of that?” asked Chick.
“There’s no doubt about it at all,” replied Sanborn, positively.
Chick had no further questions to ask, and, a few moments later, young
Sanborn went his way.
Turning to Patsy, Chick said:
“Well, Patsy, we’ve got something to report to the chief at last.”
Then, they, too, walked away in the direction of their homes.