A LINK IN THE CHAIN
I sprang to my feet. The darkness was instinct with nameless terrors.
The air was filled with nameless shapes. A spiritual horror surrounded
me, and I felt that I must reach the light or cry out. But before I had
covered the distance to the door, it was flung open and Corson stood on
the threshold; and at the sight of him my courage returned and my shaken
nerves grew firm. At the darkness he wavered and cried:
“What's the matter here?”
“She is dead.”
“Rest her sowl! It's a fearsome dark hole to be in, sor.”
I shuddered as I stood beside him, and brought the lamp from the bracket
in the hall.
Mother Borton lay back staring affrightedly at the mystic beings who had
come for her, but settled into peace as I closed her eyes and composed
her limbs.
“She was a rare old bird,” said Corson when I had done, “but there was
some good in her, after all.”
“She has been a good friend to me,” I said, and we called a servant from
below and left the gruesome room to his guardianship.
“And now, there's another little job to be done. There's one of my men a
prisoner down on Davis Street. I must get him out.”
“I'm with you, sor,” said Corson heartily. “I'm hopin' there's some
heads to be cracked.”
I had not counted on the policeman's aid, but I was thankful to accept
the honest offer. In the restaurant I found five of my men, and with
this force I thought that I might safely attempt an assault on the Den.
The Den was a low, two-story building of brick, with a warehouse below,
and the quarters of the enemy, approached by a narrow stairway, above.
“Step quietly,” I cautioned my men, as we neared the dark and forbidding
entrance. “Keep close to the shadow of the buildings. Our best chance is
in a surprise.”
There was no guard at the door that stood open to the street, and we
halted a moment before it to make sure of our plans.
“It's a bad hole,” whispered Corson.
“A fine place for an ambush,” I returned dubiously.
“Well, there's no help for it,” said the policeman. “Come on!” And
drawing his club and revolver he stole noiselessly up the stairs.
I felt my way up step by step, one hand against the wall and my shoes
scraping cautiously for a resting-place, while my men followed in single
file with the same silent care.
But in spite of this precaution, we were not two-thirds the way up the
flight before a voice shot out of the darkness.
“Who's there?”
We stopped and held our breath. There was a minute of silence, but it
was broken by the creak of a board as one of the men shifted his weight.
“There's some one here!” cried the voice above us. “Halt, or I'll shoot!
Peterson! Conn! Come quick!”
There was no more need for silence, and Corson and I reached the landing
just as a door opened that let the light stream from within. Two men had
sprung to the doorway, and another could be seen faintly outlined in the
dark hall.
“Holy Mother! it's the cops!” came in an awe-stricken voice at the sight
of Corson's star.
“Right, my hearty!” cried Corson, making a rush for the man, who darted
down the hall in an effort to escape. The two men jumped back into the
room and tried to close the door, but I was upon them before they could
swing it shut. Four of my men had followed me close, and with a few
blows given and taken, the two were prisoners.
“Tie them fast,” I ordered, and hastened to see how Corson fared.
I met the worthy policeman in the hall, blown but exultant. Owens was
following him, and between them they half-dragged, half-carried the man
who had given the alarm.
“He made a fight for it,” puffed Corson, “but I got in wan good lick at
him and he wilted. You'll surrinder next time when I tell ye, won't ye,
me buck?”
“Aren't there any more about?” I asked. “There were more than three left
in the gang.”
“If there had been more of us, you'd never have got in,” growled one of
the prisoners.
“Where's Barkhouse?” I asked.
“Find him!” was the defiant reply.
We began the search, opening one room after another. Some were
sleeping-rooms, some the meeting-rooms, while the one we had first
entered appeared to be the guard-room.
“Hello! What's this?” exclaimed Corson, tapping an iron door, such as
closes a warehouse against fire.
“It's locked, sure enough,” said Owens, after trial.
“It must be the place we are looking for,” I said. “Search those men for
keys.”
The search was without result.
“It's a sledge we must get,” said Owens, starting to look about for one.
“Hould on,” said Corson, “I was near forgetting. I've got a master-key
that fits most of these locks. It's handy for closing up a warehouse
when some clerk with his wits a-wandering forgits his job. So like
enough it's good at unlocking.”
It needed a little coaxing, but the bolt at last slid back and the heavy
doors swung open. The room was furnished with a large table, a big desk,
and a dozen chairs, which sprang out of the darkness as I struck a match
and lit the gas. It was evidently the council-room of the enemy.
“This is illigant,” said the policeman, looking around with approval;
“but your man isn't here, I'd say.”
“Well, it looks as though there might be something here of interest,” I
replied, seizing eagerly upon the papers that lay scattered about upon
the desk. “Look in the other rooms while I run through these.”
A rude diagram on the topmost paper caught my eye. It represented a road
branching thrice. On the third branch was a cross, and then at intervals
four crosses, as if to mark some features of the landscape. Underneath
was written:
“From B--follow 1 1-2 m. Take third road--3 or 5.”
The paper bore date of that day, and I guessed that it was meant to show
the way to the supposed hiding-place of the boy.
Then, as I looked again, the words and lines touched a cord of memory.
Something I had seen or known before was vaguely suggested. I groped in
the obscurity for a moment, vainly reaching for the phantom that danced
just beyond the grasp of my mental fingers.
There was no time to lose in speculating, and I turned to the work that
pressed before us. But as I thrust the papers into my pocket to resume
the search for Barkhouse, the elusive memory flashed on me. The diagram
of the enemy recalled the single slip of paper I had found in the pocket
of Henry Wilton's coat on the fatal night of my arrival. I had kept
it always with me, for it was the sole memorandum left by him of the
business that had brought him to his death. I brought it out, very badly
creased and rumpled from much carrying, but still quite as legible as on
the night I had first seen it.
Placed side by side with the map I had before me, the resemblance was
less close than I had thought. Yet all the main features were the same.
There was the road branching thrice; a cross in both marked the junction
of the third road as though it gave sign of a building or some natural
landmark; and the other features were indicated in the same order.
No--there was a difference in this point; there were five crosses on the
third road in the enemy's diagram, while there were but four in mine.
In the matter of description the enemy had the advantage, slight as it
was.
“Third road--cockeyed barn--iron cow,” and the confused jumble of
drunken letters and figures that Henry had written--I could make nothing
of these.
“From B--follow 1 1-2 m. Take third road--3 or 5”--this was at least
half-intelligible.
Then it came on me like a blow,--was this the mysterious “key” that the
Unknown had demanded of me in her letter of this morning? I turned sick
at heart at the thought that my ignorance and inattention had put the
boy in jeopardy. The enemy had perhaps a clue to the hiding-place that
the Unknown did not possess. The desertion of these headquarters swelled
my fears. Though Terrill, disabled by wounds, was groaning with pain and
rage at Livermore, and the night's arrests at Borton's had reduced the
numbers of the band, Darby Meeker was still on the active list. And
Doddridge Knapp? He was free now to follow his desperate plot to its end
without risking his schemes of fortune. The absence of Meeker, the date
of to-day upon the map, suggesting that it had but just come into the
hands of the enemy, and the lack of a garrison in the Den, raised the
apprehension that fresh mischief was afoot.
I was roused from my reverie of fears by confused shouts from down the
hall, and sprang hastily to the door, with the thought that the forces
of the enemy were upon us.
“Here he is! they've found him,” cried an excited voice.
“Yes, sir! here he comes!”
It was truly the stalwart guard; but two days had made a sad change in
him. With head bound in a bloody rag, and face of a waxy yellow hue, he
staggered limply out of one of the rear rooms between Corson and Owens.
“Brace up, me boy! You're worth ten dead men,” said the policeman
encouragingly. “That's right! you'll be yourself in a jiffy.”
Barkhouse was soon propped up on the lounge in the guard-room, and
with a few sips of whisky and a fresh bandage began to look like a more
hopeful case.
“'Twas a nasty cut,” said one of the men sympathetically.
“How did you get it?” I asked.
“I don't rightly know,” said Barkhouse faintly. “'Twas the night you
went to Mother Borton's last week. After I leaves you, I walks down a
piece towards the bay, and as I gets about to Drumm Street, I guess, a
fellow comes along as I takes to be a sailor half-loaded. 'Hello, mate,'
he says, a-trying to steady himself, 'what time did you say it was?' 'I
didn't say,' says I, for I was too fly to take out my watch, even if it
is a nickel-plater, for how could he tell what it was in the dark? and
it's good for a dozen drinks at any water-front saloon. 'Well, what
do you make it?' he says; and as I was trying to reckon whether it was
nearer twelve or one o'clock, he lurches up agin' me and grabs my arms
as if to steady himself. Then three or four fellows jumps from behind
a lot of packing-boxes there, and grabs me. I makes a fight for it, and
gives one yell, and the next I knows I was in a dark room here with
the sorest head in San Francisco. An' I reckon I've been here about six
days, and another would have finished me.”
Barkhouse's “six days” estimate provoked a smile.
“If you could get paid on your time reckoning,” remarked Owens in a
humorous tone, “you'd be well off, Bob. 'Twas night before last you got
took in.”
Barkhouse looked incredulous, but I nodded my support of Owens'
remarkable statement.
“However, you'll be paid on your own reckoning, and better, too,” I
said; and he was thereby consoled.
“Now, we must get out of here,” I continued. “Take turns by twos in
helping Barkhouse. We had better not risk staying here.”
“Right,” said Corson, “and now we'll just take these three beauties
along to the station.”
“On what charge?” growled the man addressed as Conn.
“Disturbing the peace--you've disturbed ours for sure--resisting an
officer, vulgar language, keeping a disorderly house, carrying a pistol
without a permit, and anything else I can think up between here and the
station-house. If that doesn't satisfy ye, I'll put ye down for assault
and robbery on Barkhouse's story, and ye may look out for a charge of
murder before ye git out.”
The men swore at this cheerful prospect, but as their hands were bound
behind them, and Corson walked with his club in one hand and his pistol
in the other, they took up the march at command, and the rest of us
slowly followed.