ESCAPE
Fibsy was at his wits’ end. And the wits’ end of Terence McGuire was at
some distance from their beginning. But he had scrutinized every step of
the way, and now he disconsolately admitted to himself that he had really
reached the end.
He had been shut up in the strange house nearly a week. He was most
comfortably lodged and fed, he had much reading matter supplied for his
perusal, though none of it was newspapers, and Kito offered to play
parchesi with him by way of entertainment. The Japanese was polite, even
kindly, but he was inflexible in the matter of obeying his orders. And
his scrupulous fidelity precluded any possibility of Fibsy’s getting
away, or even getting out of the rooms allotted to his use.
But when the boy rose one morning after a refreshing night’s sleep and
had a satisfying breakfast, and was at last locked in his room for the
morning, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and clinched his impotent
young fists in rage and despair.
“I gotta make me bean woik better,” he groaned to himself, the tenseness
of the situation causing him to revert to his use of street slang. “I
gotter get outen here, an’ most likely it’s too late now. I’m a nice
detective, I am, can’t get out the fust time I’m in a hole! Gee! I’m
gonta get out!”
Followed a long session of hard thinking, and then a gleam of light came
to him. But he needs must wait till Kito brought up his dinner.
And at noon or thereabouts, Kito came with the usual well-appointed tray
of good food.
Fibsy looked it over nonchalantly. “All right, Kite,” he said, “but say,
I gotta toothache. I wish you’d gimme a toothpick,—not quill,—the wooden
kind.”
Sympathetic and solicitous, the Japanese produced from his own pocket a
little box of his native toothpicks, of which Fibsy accepted a couple,
and pocketed them. And then, came the strategical moment. His purpose
must be effected while the Jap was still in the room. And it was. Sidling
to the half-open door, Fibsy called Kite’s attention to a dish on the
tray, and then thrust a toothpick quickly in beside the bolt of the lock,
and broke it off short.
In order to keep his jailer’s attention distracted, Fibsy then waxed
loquacious, and dilated on the glories of a wonderful movie show.
Kito listened attentively, and though he said no word about going to see
it, he inquired carefully where it was, and Fibsy’s hopes began to rise.
“But if ever you go, Kite,” he said, “you wanter see the very beginnin’,
’relse you lose all the fun.”
At last, Fibsy finished his dinner and the Jap took up the tray.
Breathlessly, but unnoticeably, Fibsy watched him, and as he went out of
the door, and turned the key in the lock, he didn’t notice that the bolt
didn’t shoot home as usual, but the door was really left unlocked.
Fibsy’s heart beat like a trip-hammer as he heard the catlike footsteps
go down stairs.
Unable to wait, he tried the door, and found it was open. He slipped out
into the hall. Down two flights, he could hear the Japanese, going about
his business. Warily, Fibsy crept down one stair-case. Then he stepped
into the front room on that floor. It was evidently the room of a grand
lady. Silver trinkets were here and there, but Fibsy’s quick eyes noted
that the bureau was dismantled, and there were no appearances of actual
occupancy.
“Mrs. Autchincloss is away fer the summer,” he said, sapiently. “Lessee
furder.”
It was a risk, but Kito rarely came upstairs so soon after dinner, so the
boy went through to the back room on the second floor.
“Bachelor,” he said, nodding his head at the appointments on the
chiffonier. “Stayin’ in town. Kinder Miss Nancy,—here’s a little sewin’
kit some dame made fer him. An’ the way his brushes an’ things is fixed,
shows he ain’t got no wife. So this ain’t Mr. Autchincloss. Well,
lemmesee. Writin’ table next. Not much doin’. Fixin’s all fer show. Spose
he writes down in the liberry. Wisht I could git down there. Here’s a lot
of his friends.”
Fibsy had spied a pack of snapshots and small photographs, and hastily
ran them over. They were all unknown faces to him, except one which
chanced to be the postcard of Judge Hoyt taken in Philadelphia station.
“Hello! The guy wot lives here is a frien’ o’ Judge Hoyt. No, not a
friend, but a nennermy. Cos, I dope it out, that friend guy’s locked me
up here fer fear I’ll help Judge Hoyt’s case. Oh, no, I dunno, as it’s
that. I dunno what it is. I wisht I could get word to Mr. Stone. If I
only dared use that telephone. But Kite would fly up here quicker’n scat!
Well, I’ll swipe this card, cos it looks interestin’.”
Then Fibsy, still with a wary eye on the hall door, searched the room and
its dressing-room and closets, and was rewarded by some further
discoveries, one of which was a dirk cane. This article was among a
number of other canes and umbrellas in the far end of a deep closet.
“Now, o’ course,” he mused, “maybe tain’t the right cane, an’ maybe ’tis.
But if it is, then this here’s the moiderer’s house, an’ he locked me in
cos he’s scared o’ me. Well, it’s all too many fer me. Hello, wot’s
this?” He opened a small door in the side of the deep closet. There
seemed to be an elevator shaft, with no car. As a matter of fact, it was
a laundry chute, but Fibsy was unacquainted with conveniences of that
sort, and didn’t know its purpose. But he saw at once that the shaft led
to the basement, and that it went upward, to a similar opening in the
room above. And the room above was his room!
Softly he crept back upstairs, and re-entered his room. He dislodged the
fragment of toothpick, and closed the door. If Kito discovered it was
unlocked, he couldn’t help that now. He went straight to his own closet,
and sure enough there was the same sort of a slide door, and it gave onto
the same chute, hung over it. At last a possible way of exit. Precarious,
for he had not yet decided on a safe way of descending a bare shaft, but
his mind was at work now, and something must come of it.
And his mind produced this plan. He knew where Kito was now. Always at
that time in the afternoon, the Japanese was in his own room in the rear
part of the first floor of the house. Previous desultory chat had brought
out this fact. And Fibsy’s plan was to make a soft bed at the foot of the
shaft and jump down. Dangerous, almost positively disastrous, but the
only chance.
“’Course I’ll break me bloomin’ back or legs or suthin’, but anyway the
horsepital’d be better’n this, an’ then I could get aholt of Mr. Stone.”
So, swiftly and noiselessly, he removed all the bedding from his bed, and
down the chute he threw the mattress, dropping on it the blankets and
pillows.
“Here goes!” he said, not pausing to consider consequences, and,
balancing for an instant on the ledge, he let himself go, and came down
with a soft thud on the pillows.
Whether it was because he relaxed every muscle and fell limply, or
whether it was because of a kind fate looking after him, he sustained no
injuries. Not a bone broke, and though the jar was stunning, he recovered
after a few minutes, and sat up half-dazed, but rapidly becoming alert,
and looking about him.
The semi-darkness of the shaft showed him the exit, and it proved to be
into the laundry in the basement of the house.
The rest was easy. Listening intently for a sound of Kito, and hearing
none, Fibsy deliberately walked out of the basement door, and into the
street.
He did not hurry, being desirous not to attract attention in any way, and
as he went through the area gate, he looked up and noted the number of
the house. It was as he had surmised, a house closed for the summer
during the absence of the family. The Japanese butler had been retained
as caretaker, and whoever was Fibsy’s captor, gave the orders. Kito was
so trustworthy and faithful, there could have been no chance of Fibsy’s
escape save by some such ingenious method as he had used.
“Only,” he blamed himself, “why the dickens didn’t I think of it sooner?”
Reaching the corner, he noted the street the house was on, but the
fashionable locality, in the upper West Seventies, was unfamiliar to him,
and he had no idea whose house he had been living in.
Nor had he had time to find out. An investigation of a street directory
might have told him, but he concluded to lose no time in communicating
with Fleming Stone.
But first, he telephoned his aunt to relieve the anxiety he knew she must
be feeling.
“It’s all right, Aunt Becky,” he announced, cheerily. “Don’t you worry,
don’t you fret. I’m on important business, and I’ll be home when I get
there. So long!”
Then he called up Fleming Stone’s office. The detective was not in, but
Fibsy made it so plain to a secretary that Mr. Stone must be found at
once, that the finding was accomplished, and by the time Fibsy in his
taxicab reached the office, Fleming Stone was there too.
“Terence!” exclaimed the detective, grasping the boy’s hand in his own.
“Come in here.”
He took the lad to his inner sanctum, and said, “Tell me all about it.”
“There’s such a lot, Mr. Stone,” began Fibsy, breathlessly, “but first,
how’s the trial goin’? I ain’t seen a pape since I was caught. I wanted
to get one on the way here, but I got so int’rested in this here
card,—say, look here. This is a pitcher of Judge Hoyt in the Philly
Station the day of the moider. You know he was in Philly that day.”
“Yes, he was,” and Stone looked harassed. “He certainly was. He wrote
from there and telegraphed from there and I’ve seen a card like the one
you have there, and that settles it. I wish I could prove he wasn’t
there.”
“Well, Mr. Stone, he prob’ly was there, all right, but this here picture
wasn’t took on that day.”
“How do you know?”
“De-duck-shun!” and Fibsy indulged in a small display of vanity, quite
justified by his further statement. “You see, this card shows the big
news stand in the waitin’ room. Well, the papers on the news stand ain’t
that week’s papers!”
“What?”
“No, sir, they ain’t. You see, I read every week ‘The Sleuth’s Own
Magazine’, an’ o’ course I know every number of that ’ere thing’s well’s
I know my name. An’ here, you see, sir, is the magazine I’m speakin’ of,
right here in the picture. Well, on it is a cover showin’ a lady tied in
a chair wit’ ropes. Well, sir, that roped lady was on the cover two weeks
after Mr. Trowbridge was killed, not the day of the moider.”
“You’re sure of this, Terence?” and Stone looked at the boy with an
expression almost of envy. “This is very clever of you.”
“Aw, shucks, tain’t clever at all. Only, I know them magazines like a
mother’d know her own children. I read ’em over an’ over. An’ I know that
picture on that cover came out more’n two weeks later’n what Judge Hoyt
said it did. I mean, he didn’t have that card taken of himself on the day
he said he did.”
“Motive?”
“That I dunno. I do know Judge Hoyt is tryin’ sumpin’ fierce to clear Mr.
Landon—has he done it yet?”
“No, Terence, but the trial is almost over, and I think the judge has
something up his sleeve that he’s holding back till the last minute. I
never was in such a baffling mystery case. Every clue leads nowhere, or
gets so tangled with contradictory clues that it merely misleads. Now
tell me your story.”
Fibsy told the tale of his imprisonment, and the manner of his escape. He
told the street and number of the house, and he told of his discovery of
a dirk cane in a cupboard.
“An’ Mr. Stone,” he went on, “I found the shoe the button came off of.”
“You’re sure it was a shoe button?” and Fleming Stone smiled at
recollection of the button that had been described as of several
varieties.
“Yes, sir. An’ every time I said that button was a kind of button that it
wasn’t, I was glad afterward that I said it. Yes, Mr. Stone it’s a shoe
button an’ in that same house I was in, is the shoe it useter be on.”
“Look out now, Terence, don’t let your zeal and your imagination run away
with you.”
“No, sir, but can’t you go there yourself, and get the shoe and the cane,
or send for ’em, and if they fit the cane mark in the mud, and if the
button I’ve got is exactly like those on that shoe, then ain’t there
sumpin in it, Mr. Stone? Ain’t there?”
The freckled face was very earnest and the blue eyes very bright as Fibsy
waited for encouragement.
“There’s a great deal in it, Fibsy. You have done wonderful work. In fact
so wonderful, that I must consider very carefully before I proceed.”
“Yes, sir. You see maybe the place where I was, might be the house of
that Mr. Lindsay, he’s a friend of Mr. Landon’s—”
“Wait a bit, child. Now you’ve done much, so very much, have patience to
go a little slowly for the next move. Do you remember what the inspector
told about the noises he heard when the Italian woman first telephoned
him about Mr. Trowbridge?”
“Yes sir, every woid. Rivetin’ goin on. Phonograph playin’ an’ kids
whoopin’-coughin’ like fury.”
“Well, from the Board of Health I’ve found the general location of
whooping-cough cases at about that time, now if we can eliminate others
and find the Italian ones—”
“Yep, I und’stand! Goin’ now?”
“Yes, at once.”
Calling a taxicab, they started, and Stone went to an Italian quarter
near 125th Street, where whooping-cough had been prevalent a few weeks
previous.
“Find the house, Fibsy,” he said, as they reached the infected district.
Unsmilingly, Fibsy’s sharp, blue eyes scanned block after block.
“New buildin’,” he said, at last, thoughtfully; and then, darting across
the street, to a forlorn little shop, he burst in and out again, crying,
“Here you are, Mr. Stone!”
Stone crossed the street and entered the shop. There was a swarthy
Italian woman, and several children, some coughing, others quarreling and
all dirty.
A phonograph was in evidence, and Fibsy casually looked over the records
till he found the rag-time ditty the inspector had recalled.
He called up headquarters and asked Inspector Collins if that were the
music he heard before. “Yes,” said Collins, and Stone shouted, “Hold that
wire, Fibsy, wait a minute,” and dragging the scared woman to the
telephone he bade her repeat the message she had given the day of the
murder.
“Same voice! Same woman!” declared the inspector, and Stone hung up the
receiver.
Then he soothed the frightened Italian, promising no harm should come to
her if she told the truth.
The truth, as she tremblingly divulged it, seemed to be, that some man
had come to her shop that afternoon, and forced her to telephone as he
dictated. She remembered it all perfectly, and had been frightened out of
her wits ever since. He had given her ten dollars which she had never
dared to spend, as it was blood money!
“Describe the man,” said Stone.
“I not see heem good. He hold noosa-paper before his face, and maka me
speak-a telephone.”
“How did he make you? Did he threaten you?”
“He have-a dagger. He say he killa me, if I not speak as he say.”
“Ah, a dagger! An Italian stiletto?”
“No, not Italiano. I not see it much, I so fright’. But I know it if I
see it more!”
After a few more questions, Stone was ready to go. But Fibsy sidled up to
the woman. “Say,” he said, “what you give your bambinos for the cough,
hey? Med’cine?”
“No, I burna da Vaporina, da Vap’ da Cressar lina——”
“Gee! Quite so! All right, old lady, much obliged!”
After that matters whizzed. On the ride down town, Fibsy told Stone much.
Stone listened and made that much more. The two acted as complements, the
boy having gathered facts which the man made use of.