A JOYOUS MEETING.
By the time Colonel Dartwell’s story was told he and Jerry had landed in
the metropolis, and a hurried walk of a few minutes brought them to
Nellie Ardell’s apartment. Mrs. Flannigan was waiting for our hero,
having put both of the children to bed.
“An’ did ye find Miss Ardell?” she asked, quickly.
“No, Mrs. Flannigan. But I have found somebody else—the father of
little Dottie.”
“Indade, now! An’ ain’t that noice,” she exclaimed, glancing at Colonel
Dartwell’s well-dressed figure. “Well, the poor dear needs somebody, not
but what she got good care here,” she added, hastily.
Tears stood in the colonel’s eyes as he stepped up beside the bed upon
which Dottie lay. He took the white-robed figure up in his arms and
kissed her face.
“It is she,” he said, in a choking voice. “The living picture of her
dead mother!”
Dottie awoke with a start and was inclined to cry out. But Jerry and the
colonel quickly soothed her.
“I am your papa, Dottie; don’t you remember papa and big Ruth that used
to be with you?”
The little girl looked puzzled. Then she gave a cry.
“Papa! papa! I know you! I knew you would come to me! Oh, papa, don’t go
away again! Crazy Jim said you were dead! Oh, papa!”
And she clung to him convulsively. It was such an affecting scene Jerry
had to turn away, while Mrs. Flannigan, standing in the partly open
doorway, shed copious tears.
An hour later the children had again retired, and the colonel and the
young oarsman sat in the little kitchen talking.
“And you say you think Miss Ardell was abducted?” he said.
“I felt sure of it, sir. This Alexander Slocum wants to get her out of
the way on account of some property he is holding back from her. I am
interested in the same property.”
And Jerry told him the particulars of affairs so far as they concerned
Slocum.
“If the land in question is near Sacramento it ought to be of great
value,” said the colonel. “Property in that section is booming.”
“I want to find Nellie Ardell, sir. I am afraid he will do her bodily
harm. He might even kill her to get her out of the way.”
“I will help you all I can, Upton. You have done me a great service, and
I certainly owe the young lady much for taking my child in and caring
for her.”
Our hero and the colonel went over the matter carefully for fully an
hour and decided to start on a hunt as soon as it grew light. The
colonel offered to employ a detective and this offer Jerry readily
accepted.
Jerry passed several hours trying to sleep, and at the first sign of
dawn was up and dressed. The colonel had rested in an arm-chair, not
caring to separate himself from his child by going to a hotel.
Mrs. Flannigan was again called upon and readily agreed to take charge
of Tommy and Dottie once more. She took them to her own rooms and was
cautioned about letting strangers in.
“Don’t fear, they’ll not take ’em from me,” she said, and in such a
determined way that Jerry was compelled to laugh.
The call at a detective’s office was soon over, and it was not as
satisfactory as our hero had anticipated.
“You mustn’t expect too much,” laughed the colonel. “In spite of the
thrilling detective stories published, detectives are only ordinary men,
and cannot do the impossible. Mr. Gray will no doubt go to work in his
own way and do the best he can.”
Their next movement was to cross to Brooklyn. Here the pair started on
the hunt for the carriage that had carried Nellie Ardell off.
An hour was spent in a fruitless search. They were about to give it up,
when they saw a carriage coming down to the ferry that was covered with
dust and mud.
“That looks as if it had been out in the country a good distance,”
observed Colonel Dartwell. “I’ll stop the driver and see what he has to
say. It can do no harm.”
Walking up in front of the team he motioned for the driver to halt.
“Want a carriage, boss?”
“No, I want to know where you have been?” demanded the westerner.
At this question the driver seemed plainly disconcerted. He looked
around, and, seeing a clear space to his left, whipped up his animals
and sped off.
“He’s our man!” cried the colonel. “Come on, he must not escape us!”
He set off with all speed and Jerry followed. The driver drove as far as
the first corner and then had to halt because of a blockade in the
street.
“Come down here!” commanded Colonel Dartwell.
“I ain’t done nothin’,” growled the fellow. “You let me alone.”
“I asked you where you had been.”
“Up to the park.”
“Who did you have for a fare?”
“An old man.”
“That’s not true—you had two men and a girl.”
The carriage driver muttered something under his breath.
“I—I—who said I had the men and a girl?” he asked, surlily.
“I say so. Where did you take the young lady?”
At first the driver beat about the bush. But the colonel threatened him
with arrest, and this brought him around.
“Don’t arrest me, boss. I wasn’t in the game. The men hired me to take
’em out—that was all. They said the girl was light-headed and the place
was a private asylum.”
“Probably,” rejoined Colonel Dartwell, sarcastically. “Take us to that
place without delay. But stop—drive to police headquarters first.”
Very unwillingly the fellow complied. At the headquarters help was
procured in the shape of two ward detectives. All four of the party
entered the carriage and were driven off to effect Nellie Ardell’s
rescue.
It was with deep interest that Jerry accompanied Colonel Dartwell and
the officers of the law in the search for the missing young lady.
On through the crowded streets of Brooklyn drove the carriage, the
driver now apparently as willing to help the law as he had before wished
to evade it.
The carriage was turning into one of the fine thoroughfares when Jerry
caught sight of a figure which instantly arrested his attention. The
figure was that of Mr. Wakefield Smith.
“Stop!” cried the young oarsman to the driver of the carriage.
“What’s up?” demanded the colonel.
“Do you see that man over there by the paper stand?”
“Yes.”
“That is Wakefield Smith, the pickpocket.”
“Indeed! He ought to be arrested.”
“You know him to be a pickpocket?” questioned one of the detectives.
“I do. He robbed me of over twenty dollars. I got back ten dollars. He’s
a very smooth and slick worker.”
“I think I know that chap,” returned the detective. “Don’t he look like
Charley the Dude?” he asked of his companion.
“By Jove! that’s our man!” ejaculated the second detective. “I would
know him anywhere by that peculiar walk. He has grown a heavy mustache
since I saw him last.”
“Will you stop and arrest him?” asked Jerry. “He ought to be locked up.”
“We can get the policeman on the beat to attend to him. There is an
officer on the next corner. Just call him, Harrity.”
The carriage was brought up to the curb and our hero and the officers
alighted, the Colonel remaining behind to keep an eye on the driver.
Mr. Wakefield Smith was strolling down the street in a lordly way when
Jerry tapped him on the shoulder.
“So I’ve met you again,” he said.
The pickpocket turned and his face fell. But only for a moment; then he
gazed at the youth brazenly.
“I don’t know you, me boy,” he drawled in an assumed voice.
“But I know you, Mr. Smith,” rejoined Jerry. “I want the balance of my
money. I got ten dollars the night you were intoxicated, but that is not
enough.”
“Boy, you are talking riddles. I never saw you before.”
“I can easily prove it, I fancy.”
“It’s no use, Charley,” broke in the detective, who had followed him.
“We know you well enough.”
“And who are you?” asked the pickpocket, much disconcerted.
“I am a detective. You are the rogue known as Charley the Dude. You may
consider yourself under arrest.”
“This is an outrage!”
“Hardly.”
By this time the second detective had arrived with a policeman. At sight
of the bluecoat the pickpocket became nervous. Turning, he suddenly
started to run.
But the others ran for him, and soon he was handcuffed. Explanations to
the policeman followed, and the officer took him off, and Jerry and the
detectives continued on their way.
It may be well to state here that the pickpocket, whose real name was
Charles Heulig, was later on convicted of several crimes and sent to
state prison for a term of years. Jerry never received a cent of the
balance of the money due, but other events that followed made this loss
seem a trivial one.
[Illustration]