A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
The boys were so tired from their day's adventures, and their travel
that they did not need a bit of paregoric to make them sleep, as Nat
expressed it, while he was undressing. They left the connecting doors
open between their rooms, and, after putting their money and
valuables under their pillows, soon fell into deep slumbers.
It was about two o'clock in the morning when a dark figure stole
along the corridor and came to a halt outside the door leading to
Jack's room.
"Doesn't make much difference which one I go in, I s'pose," was a
whispered comment from the man, who was the same that had ridden up
with the boys in the elevator.
There was a slight clicking about the lock. Then something snapped.
"No go that time," whispered the man. "Try another key."
He selected one from among a bunch he held in his hand, and inserted
it in the lock of the door leading to Jack's room. This time there
was a different sort of click,
"That's the time I did it," the intruder remarked softly. "Now to see
if I can't get some of the money they made me lose on that other
deal."
Cautiously the man pushed open the door a few inches. It did not
squeak, but, even when he had ascertained this, the thief did not
enter at once. He paused, listening to the breathing of the three
boys.
"Sound asleep," he muttered. "No trouble. This is easy."
On tiptoes he entered the room. The lights were all out but enough
illumination came in from the street lights through the windows, to
enable the intruder to see dimly. He noted that the connecting doors
were open.
"Easier than I thought," he muttered. "Now if they're like other
travelers they have everything under their pillows. If they only knew
that is the easiest place to get anything from! Pillows are so soft,
and you can get your hand under one without waking up the slightest
sleeper, if you go slow and careful."
Up to the bedside of Jack the man stole. At every other step he
stopped to listen. He moved as silently as a cat.
"I fancy the laugh will be on the other side this trip," the man
murmured. "I ought to get considerable from all three of them."
By this time he had come so near to where Jack was sleeping that he
could put out his hand and touch the bed. An instant later his
fingers were gliding under the pillow. They grasped a leather
pocketbook. Had it been light enough a smile of satisfaction could
have been seen on the face of the thief in the night.
"Number one," he remarked in a soft whisper.
He moved into the next room, taking care not to stumble over a chair
or stool. He easily secured Nat's valuables, and then ventured into
John's apartment.
"Ten minutes more and I'm through," the burglar thought.
When he got to John's bedside, he listened for a few seconds. The
Indian student could be heard breathing in his slumbers, but at the
sound the man hesitated.
"A slight sleeper," was his unspoken comment. "Liable to wake up on
the slightest alarm. I've got to be careful."
His trained observance, despite the evil purpose to which it was put,
had at once told the intruder that John was a light and nervous
slumberer. Nevertheless the thief decided to risk it. He moved his
hand, inch by inch, under John's pillow. A shadow would have made no
more noise. It took him nearly twice as long as it had to get the
pocketbooks from Nat and Jack, but at length he was successful.
Holding the three in his hand he made his way to the door whence he
had entered.
"I think I'll just take a look at what sort of a haul I made, before
I leave here," the man said. "No use carting a lot of useless stuff
away."
There was a dim light burning in the hall, nearly opposite Jack's
door. Half concealed by the portal the man paused just within the
room and looked over the contents of the pocketbooks.
"Plenty of bills," he observed.
He took the money out and made it into one roll, and this he held in
his hand. Rapidly he went through the other compartments of the
wallets. He came across the queer card which Mr. Liggins had given
Jack.
"Might as well take that along," he said to himself. "No telling what
it is, but it might come in handy. I might want to pretend I belonged
to the order, for it looks like a lodge emblem. I'll stow that away."
The thief laid the wallets and the money down on the floor, while he
reached in a pocket to get a card case in which he carried his few
valuables. He placed the odd bit of pasteboard inside this.
"Now to toss the wallets aside and skip with the cash," he murmured,
and suiting the action to his words he began to move softly into the
corridor.
It was a good thing that nature had endowed John with a nervous
temperament, and had made him a light sleeper. For, at that instant,
or maybe a little before, some peculiar action on the Indian's nerves
conveyed a message to his brain.
It was not a clear and definite sort of message, in fact it was
rather confused--in the same shape as a dream. John seemed to be
riding a big cow pony down a steep incline, after a big buffalo on
whose back sat a dark, smooth-shaven man. The same man, John thought
in his dream, he had seen in the elevator that evening.
And while John was riding for dear life after the buffalo, he thought
he saw the strange man turn back and go to where the three boys had
left their coats on the grassy bank of Lake Rudmore. John fancied he
gave up his pursuit of the buffalo to leap off and run to where the
thief was stealing his own and his comrades' possessions.
The shock of leaping from the back of a swiftly running pony, and
rolling head over heals as a result, awoke John, or, rather, the
peculiar action of his dream did. He sat up in bed with a jump, just
in time to see the thief putting the money into his pocket, and, with
the three wallets, steal out into the corridor.
It must have been the continuance of the dream that made John act so
quickly. He leaped out of bed, half asleep as he was, and, with a
yell that sounded enough like an Indian warwhoop to startle his two
companions, he made a dash for the man.
Out of the room and down the dimly lighted hall dashed the Indian
student. Before him fled the thief.
"Stop!" yelled John.
"What's the matter?" cried Jack, sitting up in bed and rubbing the
sleep from his eyes. "Is the place on fire?"
"What's the matter? Have we missed the train?" Nat demanded to know.
"Thieves!" was all John replied.
By this time several guests of the hotel had awakened and there were
anxious inquiries as to what was going on. The thief sped down the
long corridor, with John, clad only in his nightdress, after him. The
fellow tossed the wallets down, but the flat way in which they fell
told John the intruder had taken their most valuable contents from
them.
Well for the Indian that he was a fleet runner. Few there were who
could have distanced him, and certainly the rascal who was out of
training in athletic lines could not. A few more strides, and John
grabbed the man by the coat.
"Now I've got you!" the Indian shouted.
A moment later the two went down in a heap, the man's legs having
slipped from under him. But, even in the fall, John did not let go
his hold. The man kept one hand in his pocket. In the flickering
gaslight the Indian saw this, and rightly guessed that there the
money was.
Quick as a flash John slipped his hand in and found the man was
grasping something tightly.
"Let go!" the fellow growled.
"Not much!" exclaimed John. "I'm after our money!"
"I'll--I'll--cut you!" panted the thief.
"Police! Murder! Fire!" yelled a woman outside of whose door the
desperate struggle was now going on.
With a great effort John loosened the hand that clenched the money.
Then the Indian drew out the bills. The thief tried to grab them
back. As he did so John tried to get up, having accomplished the main
part of his purpose, that of saving his own and his chums' money.
But, as he did so, the thief gave a roll, to get on top. This brought
him to the edge of a flight of stairs, and, a second later the two
were rolling down.
Bump! Bump! Bump! they went until they reached a landing. John's head
struck the baseboard, and, for a moment he was stunned. There was a
rush of feet in the corridor above.
"Hold him! We're coming!" was the cry.
John heard dimly. Then a blackness seemed to come over him. The
lights faded away. He just remembered thrusting his hand containing
the bills into his pocket, and then he fainted away.
The thief, with nimble feet, was half way down the second flight of
stairs by now, for, finding the hold of his captor loosened, he made
the best of his opportunity.
"Have you got him, John?" yelled Jack.
"Hold him until I come!" shouted Nat.
They had both run out into the hallway in time to see John pursuing
the thief. They reached the top of the stairs just as the fellow
fled.
The thief, as he ran down the stairs, cast up one look. Jack Ranger
saw him, the light from a gas jet in the lower corridor shining full
on the man's face.
"Professor Punjab! Hemp Smith!" exclaimed Jack, as he recognized the
fakir who called himself Marinello Booghoobally.
"Did he get away?" asked Nat, coming up just then.
"Yes, and I guess he's killed John," said Jack, his heart failing
him.