Ned gave scant heed to his work that day, so absorbed was he in
reviewing the last night's scenes, in considering his position, and
in anxious forebodings. Now and then he sought to comfort himself by
reflecting that doubtless the worst was over,--only Pete knew that
he had been to the theatre, and how could Pete, how could any one,
imagine that he had not come out with the other people behind the
scenes--employees, actors, and the many various supernumeraries--by way
of the side door?
After a time he became alarmed lest his manner betray the trouble that
beset him. Once when he opened the door of one of the editorial rooms
and called out "Copee!" to apprise the magnate presiding at the desk
that the printers were waiting, he was dismayed to hear, instead of his
wonted peremptory chirp, such a strained, sharp cry that he hardly
recognized his own voice.
A young man, trying to sustain the heavy draught upon the imagination
which writing a book-notice without reading the book must always
impose, turned from his work with a growl.
"That confounded boy's throat needs oiling! He is just one all-fired
creak!" he cried irritably.
The little rebuff wounded Ned as an intentional cruelty might have
done. His anxiety had made him sensitive and sore. Generally he felt
amply able to take care of himself, and his mental attitude toward
others might be described in the simple phrase, "Look out!" He was
usually ready and efficient in any work entrusted to him, but to-day he
was awkward, under foot, out of time and place, and very inattentive
and slow to understand. His pallid face wore a hunted, pleading look,
of which he was unconscious; and he was on the point of bursting into
tears when a momentary notice of it elicited a word of sympathy.
He had been sent to the "funny man's" desk in the adjoining room to
hurry him up. The "funny man," as the junior compositors called the wit
of the staff, did not mind being hurried. There was a laugh still in
his eyes as his pencil traced the final words. His face was so ruddy
as to accent the light tint of his blond hair as it blowsed over his
forehead. He was a robust man with a fine digestion, and the sight of
unhappiness was abhorrent to him.
"Hungry?" he asked with a comical intonation as the little devil waited.
Ned's face mantled with a sickly smile,--very readily, indeed, for the
"funny man's" reputation for wit was so well established that everybody
laughed at everything he said, and he did not have to crack a _bona
fide_ joke more than once or twice a year to sustain it. Thus he became
chary of his good things.
Ned's face was more pitiful with the sickly smile upon it than in
anxious gravity.
The good-natured man's finger and thumb were inserted in the pocket of
his waistcoat.
"Methinks," he said with mock seriousness, "methinks the goodly goober
is the fruit of the earth in which thy soul most delighteth."
He twirled a silver quarter of a dollar across the desk, and the devil
caught it.
"With best wishes for your digestion," said the "funny man" politely.
And the devil laughed again.
Little did either foresee the damage that coin was to do--even though
diverted from the purchase of peanuts.
For the devil felt the need of a change of air.
A proofreader and his copyholder, engaged in their trying exercises
hard by, had shown some impatience of this puerile dialogue carried on
at full voice. Being silently motioned out by the "funny man" with a
facetious air of mock mystery, Ned had nothing to do for a time after
rendering up his copy in the composing-room, but to lean on the sill of
the high window in the hall of the fifth story and await orders.
As he looked out he saw that the sun was tending toward the west,
the mansard roofs and domes and steeples defined sharply against the
dazzling cumulus clouds. The city stretched out so far beneath it that
one might fancy it must come to the ground within the corporate limits.
Ned loved to imagine that its fiery cresset, falling and falling, was
caught at last on the distant tower of the water-works, for always
as it disappeared behind those huge timbers the white effulgence of
the electric light burst suddenly forth and blazed there, the Sun of
Science, through all the dark midnights. It was, however, too early
as yet for this illusion. The golden lustre of the afternoon still
dominated the lengthening shadows; the church spires glinted; the
points of the myriads of lightning-rods burned as if tipped with living
fire; that fat, prosperous exile, the English sparrow, was yet up
and about, busy in the accomplishment of his equivocal mission here;
the cloud of smoke, rollicking out of the chimneys of a furniture
factory over the way, was white and gold and fawn-colored, and gleamed
iridescent against the azure sky; the shadow of this ethereal thing,
that itself had no substance, chased it hilariously down the street,
leaving, truant-like, the fires and the toiling men and the clanking
machinery below.
Perhaps the motion roused a sort of emulation in the jaded boy; perhaps
only the wind suggested the idea as it dipped over the tall chimneys
and softly touched his cheek with a cinder, and tossed his slightly
curling red hair.
"I ought ter go to the Pawk an' git some fresh air," he said. "That's
jes' what's the matter with me."
He fingered the coin in his pocket. It seemed singularly opportune that
it should have been given to him, for in conscience he could not spend
his small wages on car-fare, and the park was out of walking distance
unless he had plenty of time at his disposal.
In that interval between the day's work and the rush which precedes
going to press at night he made his way out, and was soon whizzing
swiftly along in the cable car toward the southern terminus of the road.
He sat quite undisturbed for a time, lulled by the monotonous motion,
finding the sunshine warm and cheery, and all forgetful of the fire
and last night's scenes. He was on the point of falling asleep in his
corner when he roused himself with a sudden start. Perhaps it was only
his guilty conscience that kept his fears alert, or perhaps it was
that odd, mesmeric sensation which one experiences when becoming the
subject of a steady, stealthy gaze. It has been described as a feeling
as if there were a cobweb on one's cheek. At any rate, Ned, sitting
bolt upright, knew, although he did not see, that a tall, thin man on
the opposite seat had just been keenly staring at him; but now this
stranger was gazing pensively out of the window.
Somehow his face seemed singularly familiar,--yet Ned could not at
once recollect having seen it before. Oddly enough, it brought back
the thought of last night's terrible scenes, of his heavy, felonious
secrets, the dismal black walls of the burned theatre, the distress of
many men thrown suddenly out of employment, the imagined despair of
the ruined owner. Where had he ever seen this man? Ned wondered. Why
should his face be thus associated with these suggestions?
Suddenly he remembered the gilded mask of Folly, the silly wink, the
knowing grimace! This was the man against whom he had run as he fled
from his own foolish fancy.
It seemed strange to him that he should meet this man at the scene of
the fire, and now again on the way to the park; but in a moment he was
arguing within himself that the encounter had no significance,--every
idler in the town had been that day to the burned theatre, and the park
was of course a public resort. It was only an accident. For what could
the man have to do with him?
"I'm so full o' secrets," he said to himself, "that I feel like a pack
o' dynamite,--ef anybody was ter tech me I believe I'd bust!"
The renewal of all his anxieties had destroyed the pleasure and the
expected benefits of the jaunt. In vain for Ned the trees, in their
fresh May verdure, leaned over the broad drives and walks, while the
young birds in the branches discussed with their parents the propriety
of postponing bed-time for half an hour longer. All the children were
still up, they argued,--and that was very true, for the park swarmed
with small specimens of humanity, and the perennial perambulator was on
the march. In vain the fountains tossed up their spray of rainbows. In
vain refreshing sounds came from the lake, where water-fowl splashed
in and out of the ripples, and the beat of oars sent a skiff skimming
about, and a swan, resting motionless on the reflection of the evening
sky, suggested the starry Swan whose element is the sky itself.
From the greensward and in the midst of beds of coleus, that gleamed
like huge jewels of garnet or topaz, rose a great pedestal of polished
granite, surmounted by a statue in bronze. It had been erected in honor
of some great man. Ned did not know of whom, and he had never cared
to ask. Now he looked at it speculatively as he sat down on a bench
opposite.
"An' what did he ever do to make him great?" he demanded of himself.
The answer came promptly from his sharp common sense, "Did right!"
There was the secret of greatness in a nutshell. For those great men
who were not good as well are certainly not honored for that wherein
they failed. Always what was done right predominated. And those men
who do right in the small details of the simplest daily life, although
the result may be inconspicuous, are as great as any who leave their
memory in bronze. Ned knew this,--that a printer's devil has as fine
an opportunity for heroism as he "who taketh a city." And he had been
ambitious morally as well as mentally.
"But what can I do now?" he thought. How could he tell his story, and
make reparation, and quiet his conscience without danger of being
believed the accomplice of the men who had stolen the money and the
star's diamonds, and burned the beautiful theatre, and ruined the
manager for their revenge and wicked malice? If he should confess that
he had choused the management out of half a dollar he impeached his
own honesty. Could he then consistently ask to be believed innocent of
other crimes?
Besides, what good would his confession do now? The rascals were no
doubt far enough away by this time. The theatre was burned, the money
and diamonds were gone, the manager was ruined; and Ned thought that
unless he held his tongue with unparalleled discretion he might be
punished for the crimes of the absconded scamps.
As he sat there, his elbows on his knees, his hat drawn down, his face
pale and grave, his hands holding his throbbing head, the fact that
he was troubled in his mind and tortured by his conscience was very
evident to a tall, quiet, thin man, with an unobtrusive manner and a
pensive aspect, who chanced to saunter by more than once.
Ned did not notice him, however. Only now and then by an effort he tore
his attention from the subject that so absorbed him, and upbraided
himself for wasting his opportunity for the beneficial influences of a
change of air, of scene, of thought that might of itself serve to solve
the problems which racked him. He lifted his head and addressed himself
to an earnest attempt to divert his mind. It was rare, since his life
was spent in vibration between the business portions of the city and
the tenement district, that he saw the equipages of people of wealth
and fashion, which now flashed by in quick succession. He noticed that
they were filled with the silken shimmer of dainty attire and bright
pink-and-white faces, which seemed to bloom in the delicate shadow of
the quivering lace or fringe of parasols; these parasols, being white
or violet or of roseate hue, were themselves of flower-like suggestion,
resembling some species of convolvuli. An automobile astonished his
gaze rather more than it surprised the sophisticated horses, but it
was to these animals he awarded the palm as a means of locomotion. In
them he felt a sort of proprietary interest. He noted the value of
their fine form; he appraised their glossy coats; he narrowed his eyes
to discriminate details of their harness, often so slight as to seem
barely to restrain their activities, and hiding no point of beauty
or grace. His infancy had been spent in a horse-raising country, but
his interest was really apart from memory, and only stimulated by
having heard his father's enthusiastic talk of notable favorites which
he had seen or shod, for the Scotch emigrant had first settled as a
wheelwright and blacksmith in New Arcady, Kentucky, and there he had
remained until the last few years of his life.
The sleek, whirling spokes, as they caught the light and glittered,
soon dazzled Ned's tired eyes; the gay voices that floated down to
him seemed all out of tune with the melancholy conditions of his
struggling, troubled existence. Only once did he look up with keen
and spontaneous attention; a tandem, a thing much in vogue in this
place, of fine blood bays went by like the wind,--so fast indeed that
he hardly recognized the manager and his elderly skeleton-like friend.
Ned rose from his seat to stare after them in doubt and eagerness, all
unmindful that a man on a bench in the shade of a tree opposite had
noted his excitement, and the identity of the parties who had elicited
it, and was steadily gazing at him.
Ned did not seat himself again, but began to wander along the shores
of the lake. There was all about it a hedge or border of the Southern
plant called _Yucca gloriosa_, and its bayonet-like leaves and tall
shafts with their white pendent liliaceous blossoms were reflected
in the smooth water, all as motionless as if the whole were some
softly vivid aquarelle. Presently a skiff, freighted with children,
came gliding along with ripples about its prow and a wake of foam in
which the reflections were lost for a time, the snowy blossoms only
gradually sketched anew on the surface as by some trembling, tentative,
unpracticed brush. The detective, now strolling along the broad drive,
could ill keep his eye upon the boy as he dawdled among the tall,
flowering spikes; even less when Ned abruptly came to a stand-still to
gaze fixedly upon the countenance of a swan, waddling in its ungainly
style up the green bank toward a small, daintily befrilled, rosy child,
who with her nurse's arm protectively about her waist, was making bold
to offer the bird a bit of cracker in disregard of the mandatory sign,
"Don't feed the Swans."
The detective found it yet more difficult to dispose of himself
appropriately when, as he still incidentally followed the boy, Ned
paused in further reaches of the park to gaze through a high fence,
which was constructed in a pretty, rustic fashion, and which served to
keep in a few deer. One of these had a fawn, and the little creature
was beside its mother. The boy had not known before that these
animals are dappled with white in early youth, and this indisputable
presentment of the fact brought him bolt upright against the fence,
where he stared in the interstices while both hands grasped the
structure.
The officer could not follow his example, without attracting attention,
for what is eminently sane in one stage of human development would
be evidence of an unbalanced mind in a more advanced age and a
different station of life. He was not, however, willing to pass on,
lest he lose sight of the boy; and something, he could not say what,
convinced him that there was an objective point in Ned's wanderings,
albeit he himself, perhaps, was as yet unconscious whither, in his
undiscriminated mental processes, his steps were tending. The officer
met the emergency by pausing in the middle of the road and taking out a
cigar. The wind was stirring anew, and thus he was enabled to make the
business of deliberately lighting it a longer operation than was really
necessary. More than one match flickered and was extinguished by the
freakish gusts, although he appeared to shield carefully the timorous
flame with his hand. This enabled him to stand still until Ned was once
more forging ahead, when the genteel-looking man in citizen's dress
again began to stroll along, swinging his cane and leisurely puffing
his cigar. He needed its solace, for a sharp nettling irritation was
beginning to be very prominent in his consciousness. "I'd rather shadow
a grasshopper than a boy," he said to himself, for there seemed to be
some chance to restrain the mere activities of the one, and he could
not be sure what the vagaries of the other implied. He prided himself
on his experience. He had outwitted noted crooks in his time. He felt
fully competent to divine any usual motive of flight or aggression or
craft or wickedness, but the interest of standing still as Ned was now
doing and kicking at a frog as it hopped from one side of the road to
the other was something he could not appreciate. It seemed so casual,
so inconsistent with any other motive than mere idle diversion, that he
would have been minded to leave Ned in this choice batrachian company
were he not lured on and on by the hope of finding the boy making an
effort to communicate with the older and more important conspirators
in the crime. The unique difficulties of the situation, too, appealed
to his vanity in invention. What to do while Ned was engaged with the
frog he did not, for one moment, know. The next, with a sentiment of
discovery, he drew out his watch, having observed a dial on the tower
of a small building down a glade so steep that the clock was not many
feet higher than his head as he stood on the hillside; he affected to
compare the timepieces and then to reset his watch, and to wind it
carefully anew. He had not completed this ruse, which he was exploiting
in the most natural manner possible, when Ned suddenly started forward
at a brisk pace and evidently with a definite goal in view.
The boy had all at once recognized the impulse in his mind to which
he had been unconsciously tending. He desired counsel. His nature was
frank, not secretive. He had only feared to divulge his knowledge of
the crime lest a worse thing befall him, and he distrusted the people
he knew, all more or less strangers to him and naturally devoid of any
special interest in him or his welfare. When in the longing to open his
heart he had thought of his mother, the impulse was checked by the
doubt of her capacity to cope with the situation. She was even more
ignorant of the ways of this world than he himself, he argued, for he
knew town life, while she, suspiciously restricting her intercourse
even with her nearest neighbors, was hardly more sophisticated now than
if she had never left her rural home in New Arcady, Kentucky, where
she was born. Moreover she would scold,--alack, for poor femininity!
She would ask him why he had done this, and why he had not done
that,--all irrevocable, all a part of the immutable past,--and withal
she would be as helpless as he himself to take up now the tangled
present and unravel its tortuous coils. If only his father had lived!
And so Ned suddenly bethought himself of certain of his father's old
friends,--friends in the sense of patrons in that far-away country home
he had left,--men whose horses he had shod, whose good opinion had been
his meat and bread, whose relinquished favor he had always regretted,
whose names and exploits were forever on his lips to the day of
his death. These were men of note in their section, of substance,
of sophistication, of breeding. How often had Ned heard his father
describe their genial traits, their lordly traditions, and liberal
ways! Doubtless these portraits of the rural magnates were idealized
under the softening touch of regretful memory and the roseate haze of
distance, but Ned did not appreciate this. He only realized that they
were of such station, character, and worldly knowledge as to render
them above suspicion and eminently capable of advising him accurately
as to his duty and danger in the matter. He thought they would believe
his story; they would befriend him and protect him. And what so easy
as to seek their advice and assistance! There in that deep cut lay the
railroad, the parallel steel bars even now jangling faintly with the
vibratory resonance of a far-off train. Should he leave at midnight
after his work was over, he would be in that bucolic paradise at noon.
Only a few hours' stay, and the night would bring him back, and till
all was over and explained, his mother might never know of his absence,
being pacified with the subterfuge of a press of work at the printing
office.
It was a compact, resolute little shadow, stepping decisively and
briskly along, that blurred and blotted out the dapplings of the
chestnut and maple leaves, all fair and fresh and whole, which were
imprinted by the sunshine in their graceful entirety on the smooth,
broad, sandy stretch that led to the little station. The determination,
though so suddenly taken, was definite in Ned's mind, and as he entered
the building and walked over to the ticket-seller's window he had not
a doubt as to his best course now. The man that the little aperture
framed was blond, clean-shaven, young, with a steel blue eye and a
cardigan jacket which he had donned to save the sleeves of the natty
coat hanging on a hook beside his desk, and indeed the frayed sleeves
of the jacket told of the wear and tear incident to driving a pen. He
fixed upon Ned those matter of course, disconcerting eyes peculiar to
the human automaton, whose business it is to do the same mechanical
thing a thousand times a day and to repeat the same mechanical words.
Ned demanded the price of a ticket, his little grimy paw already on
his cheap buckskin wallet, hid away among less valuable stowage in the
museum of his pockets.
"To New Arcady, Kentucky? Twelve dollars!" said the man. Ned felt
his hair rise,--more than a month's wages! And was he to beg or beat
his way back? The prospect in which he had begun to rejoice was
dwindling, fading, vanishing like a mirage! And it had been so hopeful!
He wondered, when he thought of this, might he not steal a ride
thither,--beat his way! Nay,--had he not yet enough of beating his way?
"Want the ticket? Then move on," said the ticket agent as Ned still
vaguely clung to the window, as if he thus kept a clutch on his
ephemeral hope. He shook his head, unclasped his hand, and slipped
away. "What can I do for you, sir?" the agent asked sharply of a
gentleman who was now standing silently at the window, seeming scarcely
less dazed and wool-gathering than Ned had been. "Oh, time-table?" The
automaton ungraciously flung it out, and went back to his writing with
an air which seemed to ask if all the fools who wanted to go nowhere,
and whom he wished were there, were coming this day to block up his
window, and interrupt his work, and impede traffic.
Ned left the tall, thin gentleman in the station building engaged in
the study of the time-table. But he did not long remain there. As the
dejected little lad, who had not realized how he had been upborne by
his secret hope of help and counsel from his father's old friends till
it was snatched from him, took his way along the darkening shadowy
paths, the tall man was once more swiftly afoot, and although he
passed Ned and walked openly in advance he was determined no more
to lose trace of the boy. The idea of quitting the city, which the
inquiry at the station had revealed, precipitated the necessity of
prompt action. Very little more time could now be accorded to the
line of investigation which the detective was pursuing,--the hope of
discovering the boy in communication with the incendiaries. It would
be necessary to arrest him forthwith, lest he escape from the town,
and with him vanish the only clue as yet developed of the origin and
perpetrators of the crime. Nevertheless the detective determined that
he would still seek in this limited interval to secure some inkling,
some vestige of a theory, that might lead to the unmasking of the
principals in this nefarious affair. Thus he was acutely conscious of
the patter of the small feet as they came nimbly along behind him;
when at last they began to lag he turned from the road and sat down on
a bench by the wayside, and there Ned noticed him for the first time
since they had been in the park, and remembered when and where he had
before seen him. Ned was relieved to observe as he passed that the man
seemed to take no heed of him. He did not even look up. Perhaps in his
turn Ned would not have again thought of the stranger, so frequently
encountered, had he not turned back as he reached the big iron gate
to gaze regretfully over the great green stretch of the park. The man
was just rising from the bench under the tree; he stretched his limbs
with much deliberation, caught up his cane and came slowly down the
broad walk toward the gate. He too was about to leave the place. Ned
could not have said why, but he determined that he would not ride back
to town in the same car. He loitered. There were two of the cable
double-cars waiting on the track. The foremost was nearly full of
passengers,--the other altogether empty.
"I'll take the car that he leaves," Ned said to himself. Impressed with
the idea that he was watched, he had half expected that the man would
hesitate and wait for him.
To his surprise the stranger strode past without so much as a glance
toward him and stepped upon the platform of the foremost car.
"I'm the biggest fool in town!" thought Ned in scorn for his terrors,
turning nevertheless toward the other car.
"Go on!" said the grip-man of the empty cable car. "This car is going
to turn in."
Ned went on, dismayed by the possibility that the man had noticed and
understood this effort to avoid him, but when he too stepped upon the
rear platform of the foremost car and the cumbrous vehicle started off,
he saw that the man had bought the evening paper and was already deeply
absorbed in its contents.
"He ain't even thinking about me," Ned reflected, much reassured. "He
ain't even looked ter see if I took the kyar or no."
The boy who had sold the paper still stood in the doorway. He was a
squabby little fellow of eight or ten, with carrot-tinted hair, a
broad, dirty, freckled face, a wide mouth with several front teeth
missing, a beguiling blue eye, and a persuasive lisp, although his
voice was keyed to a blatant whine. He scanned the faces of the men
in the car with a precocious attention and business tact at once
ludicrous and pathetic as he recited the headlines of the news
columns. There was something very appealing in his innocent and earnest
eyes and long list of enormities.
"All about the bloody murder at the wharf!" he sang out suddenly.
There was no response. The car whizzed on. Nobody talked. There was not
even smoking here, although from the "grip" visible ahead, the wind
brought back the fragrance of cigars.
"Executhion at the Jail-yard! Two murdererth on the thame gallowth!
Dying thpeech an' confethion!--Their neckth were broke!" he added
suddenly, the last clause of his own motion and by way of explanation.
His air demanded, who could resist such fascinating reading as that!
Still there was no response. That belled cat, the conductor, was taking
the fares, and ever and anon the sharp tones of his bell-punch jangled
on the air.
The disappointed little boy fetched a heavy sigh. He could remain on
the car fare-free as long as he was selling or seeking to sell his
papers, but if merely in transit he must pay like other people. It was
a long way back to the business portion of the town for those fat,
short legs, which had already been abundantly exercised to-day, and the
little boy racked his brains for more scareheads. Then with eternally
springing hope he blurted out:
"All about the grave robbery! Goulth still at large."
He cocked his beguiling eye up at a gray-bearded gentleman
distinguished by a mild, refined aspect and a clerical coat.
The old clergyman looked disgusted.
The boy had sold but one paper on this trip, and the car was already
approaching the outskirts of the town. There was a tremulo in his voice
which in any other person of his years, less hardy and self-reliant
than a newsboy, would have preceded a burst of tears. With him it only
preceded a shrill squawk:
"Gorham's theaytre burned,--latest detailth, total dethructhion!"
Ned winced. He thought of the fiery, impulsive owner. How would he
endure the loss, the humbled pride, the day of small things! With
the weight of the recollection of his own wrong-doing Ned felt as
if he were responsible for the moral ordeal as well as the material
disaster--although he had no concern with either--which the manager
seemed destined to encounter.
"Heavy Inthurance. New York Companies," the boy sang out unexpectedly.
Ned started as suddenly as if he had been shot.
"'Ere, boy," he said, fishing out of his pocket the change of the
silver quarter which the "funny man" had bestowed upon him. "Gimme that
paper."
The little fat boy in the door stared, his mouth open in astonishment
and exhibiting the vacant spaces where his teeth ought to be. He had
never known a small working boy such as Edward to buy a daily paper.
He thought Ned was guying him until he took another look at the
outstretched hand with the proffered nickel. Then he gravely handed
over the folded journal. The elderly gentleman of clerical aspect
looked down at Ned with a smile; he saw in the occurrence only an
amusing affectation of mannish tastes and habits. It had a far graver
meaning to another person in the car, who was openly staring at Ned,
with a new light kindling in his eyes and an expression of triumph in
the curl of his lip.
Ned was cowering back, making a feint of opening the paper, and yet
all a-quiver with the realization that he had betrayed himself. How
could a poor boy, such as he was, be supposed to take an interest in
Gorham's insurance? He feared his eagerness upon the mention of the
subject might intimate to the man--if this were really a detective who
had watched and followed him--that he possessed some knowledge of the
fire, connected with the question of insurance. It might even imply the
truth,--arson! Only he would be numbered with the incendiaries. He had
given the detective the clue,--Insurance!
Ned presently made an effort to seem to read the paper,--he could
not pin his mind to a single syllable. It was scant comfort to him
now--since he had given himself away--to know that the First Player and
he must have overheard _only a part_ of Gorham's conversation with his
friend, and that in refusing to renew his policy in the Rising Phœnix
Insurance Company because of a quarrel with the agent he had at once
placed the risk elsewhere. Thus the burned theatre was amply insured
in other companies, and Gorham's loss would be slight, comparatively
speaking, by reason of the disaster.
The lamp had been lighted in the car, although it was not yet quite
dark. Ned could see still as they whizzed along on some considerable
elevation the wide spread of the city stretching in dusky undulations
against the sky, which had now grown gray, portending rain. Beyond some
dip, full of roofs, massive blocks of business houses rose, frowning
and gloomy, while between surged smoke and dust in fantastic, haggard
clouds that suggested witches and demons and undreamed-of powers of
the air. The mazes of the telegraph and telephone wires now and then
became visible, meshed and webbed about the town as if it were caught
and held fast in the toils of some big scientific spider. Oh, it was a
dreary evening,--long did Ned remember it! Even the most commonplace
things had strange and sinister effects. The air was pulsing with
rhythmic vibrations; the earth throbbed tumultuously; from a square
railed inclosure in the middle of the street a column of black smoke
gushed suddenly forth as if spewed from the pits of hell, and a
locomotive was shrieking like a demon as it rushed out from the long
tunnel beneath the avenue where the cable car rolled heavily on and on,
its gong clamoring at every intersecting street, and now and again in
a tumult of jarring warning lest some enterprising vehicle usurp the
track.
Once more Ned looked at the detective. The detective was looking at
Ned. For that moment they understood each other.
But the sharp boy of a town is no match for the sharp man of a town.
The quiet personage in plain black clothes folded up his newspaper,
put it in his breast pocket, then turning slightly in his seat, looked
out of the window at the rows of decorous, even handsome residences
which they were now passing. The gilded numbers were distinct upon the
illuminated transoms, for within the gas was already lighted. He seemed
to scan each with interest, as if he sought some particular number.
Presently he rose, passed to the platform, quietly swung himself off,
and walked slowly and meditatively to the sidewalk.
Ned sat amazed as the progress of the car soon left him behind. He
began to think that he had been mistaken from the first,--that he had
neither been watched nor followed. The man had looked attentively
at him to be sure,--but what of that? The white-haired gentleman of
clerical aspect had also looked at him with interest. Ned felt quite
certain now that influenced by his own secret anxiety he had magnified
the danger, and fancied suspicion in every casual careless stranger.
He was sure that he had encountered no detective.
Ned could not see through the buildings on either hand. He could not
know that the few passers along a side street were staring in mild
surprise at a grave, genteel-looking man, dressed in black, who was
running at full speed as if for his life. When this man reached a broad
avenue parallel to the one which he had quitted he did not slacken his
pace, but plunged down another side street, then through an alley, and
out once more upon a thoroughfare. There he hailed a passing car and
sprang upon it. He had calculated time and distance very narrowly, for
as the car made a broad curve, turning down a street at right angles
with the avenue it had just traversed, it came upon the track close
behind a car with a blue light, the one which he had left not five
minutes earlier, which was still rolling down the street in a straight
line.
As he looked through the window at the vehicle in advance his sharp
eyes were quick to detect the slim little figure of the printer's
devil still sitting close to the door, and he felt that whether it were
instinct which had warned the boy or inadvertence on his own part in
bringing his surveillance too close, it had been cleverly counteracted.