Old Cap. Collier
LIBRARY
FIVE-CENT EDITION.
No. 262.
MUNRO'S PUBLISHING HOUSE.
24 & 26 VANDEWATER STREET, NEW YORK.--AUGUST 22, 1887.
5 Cents.
OLD CAP. COLLIER LIBRARY IS ISSUED SEMI-MONTHLY.--BY SUBSCRIPTION $2.00
PER ANNUM.
_Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by NORMAN L.
MUNRO, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.
C._--[_Entered at the Post Office, N. Y., as Second Class Matter._]
THE SPRUCE STREET TRAGEDY:
OR,
Old Spicer Handles a Double Mystery
BY THE AUTHOR OF "OLD SPICER."
[Illustration: WHEN AT LAST HE RELEASED HIS HOLD HER SPIRIT HAD GONE TO
JOIN THAT OF HER MURDERED HUSBAND.]
The Spruce Street Tragedy;
OR,
OLD SPICER HANDLES A DOUBLE MYSTERY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "OLD SPICER."
COPYRIGHTED 1887, BY NORMAN L. MUNRO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE SPRUCE STREET MURDER.
CHAPTER II. OLD SPICER VISITS THE SCENE OF THE MURDER.
CHAPTER III. OLD SPICER BEGINS AN INVESTIGATION.
CHAPTER IV. OLD SPICER CONTINUES HIS INVESTIGATIONS.--THE SECRET VAULT.
CHAPTER V. SETH STRICKET MAKES HIS REPORT.
CHAPTER VI. HORRIFIED WATCHERS--IN THE TUNNELS AND VAULT.
CHAPTER VII. TWO IMPORTANT AND INTERESTING CHARACTERS.
CHAPTER VIII. BARNEY HAWKS REVEALS A TERRIBLE SECRET--TRAPPED.
CHAPTER IX. THE SITUATION CHANGED--OLD SPICER STARTS FOR NEW YORK.
CHAPTER X. ON THE EVE OF A TERRIBLE CRIME.
CHAPTER XI. A DOUBLE MURDER--AN UNCEREMONIOUS VISIT.
CHAPTER XII. BARNEY AND JAKE START FOR NEW YORK.
CHAPTER XIII. OLD SPICER AND KILLETT IN TAYLOR'S SALOON.
CHAPTER XIV. JIM TAYLOR MAKES HIS APPEARANCE.
CHAPTER XV. THE TRUE STORY OF THE MURDER.
CHAPTER XVI. OLD SPICER INTERVIEWS CORA BELL.
CHAPTER XVII. JIM TAYLOR IS ARRESTED.
CHAPTER XVIII. OLD SPICER'S SPEAKING-TUBE.
CHAPTER XIX. DETECTIVES IN A TIGHT SPOT.
CHAPTER XX. JAKE KLINKHAMMER'S POCKETBOOK--OLD SPICER SURPRISED.
CHAPTER XXI. CHAMBERLAIN'S MYSTERIOUS FRIEND--A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE.
CHAPTER XXII. CHAMBERLAIN'S CAPTURE.
CHAPTER XXIII. ON BOARD THE BOUNCING BETSEY.
CHAPTER XXIV. IN NO MAN'S BAY--MAG'S HOVEL.
CHAPTER XXV. A SURPRISE PARTY.
CHAPTER XXVI. CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPRUCE STREET MURDER.
"Hark! I thought I heard the outside door open and shut."
"No, it was nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, Seth."
"What time is it now, Spicer?"
"Half-past seven."
"Half-past seven, and George not here yet!"
"He don't seem to have shown up, that's a fact."
"What can be keeping the fellow?"
"There you've got me, Seth. He's usually prompt enough, you know."
"That's so, old man; but I tell you what, if we're going to take hold
of this case at all, we ought to be getting to work."
"I fully agree with you, and am most anxious not to lose the next
Eastern-bound train."
"Confound it. I wish George would come. I don't want the regular men to
get in ahead of us."
"It isn't that that I care so much about," said Old Spicer, quietly;
"but I _do_ hate to see a good case all muddled up."
"And so do I," exclaimed Stricket. "It makes me mad even now when I
think of the way they managed such splendid cases as the Jennie Cramer,
Rose Ambler, and half a dozen others like them."
"Did you hear who was going over to Stony Creek this morning?"
"Only Willett, so far as I could learn; and perhaps Medical Examiner
Gaylord, of Branford."
"Well, I----"
"Hark! what's that? The outside door this time, eh?"
"You're right; he's come at last. Yes, that's George Morgan's
footstep." Then, as some one knocked at the door of the room, "Come
in, George," and a young man of some twenty-six or twenty-seven years
entered.
"I'm glad to see you, George," continued the old detective, as the
new-comer sank wearily into an arm-chair; "but I should have been
better pleased to have welcomed you half an hour earlier."
"Yes," exclaimed Seth Stricket, quickly; "for goodness' sake, what's
kept you, George?"
"My excuse for not being on time is a good one," responded George
Morgan, gravely. "If it were not so, I think you both know me well
enough to believe I wouldn't have occasion to offer any."
"I am sure of that," nodded Old Spicer.
"And so am I," added Seth; "but let's hear it all the same."
"Well, you know it was agreed among us, before we parted last night,
that I should see Chief Bollmann before joining you this morning."
"Yes, that was the arrangement," assented Old Spicer.
"Of course, he wouldn't be at his office in the police building as
early as six o'clock."
"Not likely," laughed Stricket.
"So, knowing that," continued George, "I started at once for his
residence, No. 40 Sylvan Avenue."
His two listeners nodded.
"I went out George Street, expecting to turn off either before, or at
least when, I reached York, but was so busy with my own thoughts that I
had crossed York and was well on toward Spruce before I knew it."
"Well?"
"When I came to myself and saw where I was, I turned into Spruce
Street, and walked toward Oak."
"For Heaven's sake, George," exclaimed Stricket, impatiently, "where
are you driving to? Do get to Sylvan Avenue some time this morning."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Seth," replied the young man, with a grave
smile; "but I am getting to the meat of my story, and to my excuse,
pretty fast now."
"Let's have it then."
"Do you remember what used to be, and what is still called by some, the
Turn Hall, on Spruce Street?"
"I do, very well," said Stricket. "The property belongs to old Mother
Ernst, and she keeps a saloon--a fearfully low place--in the basement."
"You're right in one particular, Seth; it's low enough, in all
conscience--clean under ground."
"I've heard of the woman," said Old Spicer. "She lives and sleeps in
that low basement; in fact, it is said, she hardly ever shows herself
above ground nowadays."
"That's true," affirmed Stricket; "she's seventy-two or -three years
old, and she's lived in that damp basement so long, she's got the
rheumatism the worst way, so that she can hardly waddle--has to use a
cane."
"Well," continued George, "a milk-wagon was standing in front of the
house, and just as I arrived abreast of the place, the milkman, Julius
Smith, of East Haven, came rushing up the outside basement steps, his
face as white as a sheet, his eyes bulging from their sockets, and his
hair, so far as I could see it, fairly standing on end.
"'I say, my man, what's the matter with you?' I demanded, seizing him
by the arm, and giving him a shake to start up his ideas a little.
"'Matter? matter?' he gasped; 'matter enough--murder's the matter!'
"'What's that?' I demanded, sternly; 'what's that you say, sir?'
"'I say the old woman lies murdered on a lounge, in her saloon down
there,' and he pointed down the stone steps.
"'What! Mrs. Ernst murdered?' exclaimed a voice at my side.
"I looked round, and saw that we had been joined by Henry M. Cohen, the
watchmaker; and in less than a minute more there were at least a dozen
people about us."
"You went into the house, of course, George?" said Old Spicer,
inquiringly.
"Yes; the milkman, Cohen, and I entered the room where the dead body
was stretched on the sofa."
"You got a good look at it, then, before it was disturbed?"
"Yes, when we first entered the old woman was lying on her left side,
with her face to the wall."
"Had she been dead long, do you think?"
"Some hours, I should say--five or six, at least."
"Why do you think so?"
"I felt of her limbs; they were as cold as a stone."
"Had she been shot or stabbed?"
"Neither. Suffocated or chloroformed, it seemed to me."
"Was she bound and gagged?"
"Yes, sir; her hands were tied together at the wrists with an ordinary
pocket handkerchief. Her heavy woolen-stockinged feet were also tied
together; another handkerchief encircled her shins. Around her throat
and head was wrapped a sheet. That part of it which encircled the neck
made a bandage so tight that it must have stopped her breathing soon
after it was put into use. Her mouth was partially filled with another
handkerchief."
"Hum," mused Old Spicer, "the murderers were well supplied with
handkerchiefs, it seems."
"Yes, sir; and of this last one--the gag--I shall have more to say by
and by. The ends of it so fell across her breast that, I should think,
in her desperate struggle to breathe, she had probably forced the
larger part of the handkerchief from her mouth."
"Were there no signs of blood?"
"There were a few drops on this very handkerchief, evidently from her
nose; and I thought I discovered a bruise and a little blood on the
back of her head."
"Then there had been something of a scuffle?"
"Well, as to that I can't exactly say. A superficial examination of the
hands and head of the dead woman revealed no other signs indicative of
a struggle or blows. Even at her throat, where generally, you know,
finger-nail imprints are to be found on a person who has been strangled
to death, there were no such confirmatory evidences of a struggle."
"How was she dressed, George?" asked Stricket.
"The clothes she had on," Cohen said, "were those she usually appeared
in when at home."
"Were they disarranged in any way?"
"That portion of her attire that covered her breast had been torn
apart, and a search made presumably for a pocket-book or a roll of bank
bills which was believed to be secreted there."
"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Stricket, "the job must have been done by some one
who knew the old woman, for there's where she always carried a good
share of her money."
"That's not conclusive," said Old Spicer, with a shake of the head.
"It's a well-known fact that many women carry their purses under the
bosom of their dress."
"Yes," said George, "I've had occasion to notice that myself."
"Well," said Stricket, who was very much interested, "go on. What else
did you notice?"
"I saw one of her great heavy black slippers on the floor at the foot
of the sofa; the mate was on the right foot. On the sofa, alongside the
dead body, was a black walking-stick."
"Ah!" said Stricket, "that has been her constant companion for the past
fifteen years. Without it she couldn't have hobbled across her saloon."
"Were the rooms themselves very much disturbed?" asked Old Spicer.
"If the whole basement and its contents had been lifted right up and
then scattered by a cyclone it could not have been in a more confused
condition. I tell you, gentlemen, a house and its contents were never
more thoroughly ransacked. Why, the solitary bedroom, where Cohen said
Mrs. Ernst had slept for the past quarter of a century, was actually
turned inside out. The bedtick was ripped open, and what it inclosed
had been very industriously examined.
"The murderer or murderers made pretty thorough work of it, eh?" said
Stricket, inquiringly.
"Of the bed?"
"Yes."
"From the way they went through it, Seth, I have precious little doubt
they had good reason to believe the old woman had a big pile of money
hid in the stuffing of that ticking."
"Oh-ho! and do you think they found it?"
"They may have found some, but not enough to satisfy them."
"How do you know that?"
"From the way they went at the rest of the furniture. For instance,
one of those queer, old-fashioned bureaus, such as the hunter for the
antique delights to discover, stood in the bedroom. Every drawer of it
had been rifled, and the various articles, none of which appeared to be
very valuable, strewed the floor.
"Any other piece of furniture that seemed to be a receptacle for hidden
wealth of the occupant of the basement was completely overhauled. In
the front room not a box, or a bundle, or a drawer, or a pail, or a
corner was overlooked by the greedy eyes of the criminals. They meant
business, I can tell you."
"Were any of the regular authorities on the ground before you came
away?" asked Old Spicer, suddenly.
"Yes, the coroner, a police captain, and two or three detectives were
there."
"Have they any idea who did the deed?"
"Not the slightest; they are completely at sea."
"Have you formed any theory yourself, George?"
"Well, to confess the truth, I have, sir."
"Let's hear it."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I should like to hear your opinion before
I venture to express mine."
Old Spicer was silent for a moment, then he abruptly exclaimed:
"I should like to visit the scene of this tragedy. Suppose we go to
Spruce Street at once, gentlemen."
"What! and give up the Stony Creek affair?" exclaimed Stricket, in
astonishment.
"Not necessarily," was the reply.
"But I don't understand, Mark."
"I have an idea," rejoined Old Spicer, quietly, "that in this instance,
the shortest road to Stony Creek lies through Spruce Street."
"Thunder!" ejaculated George Morgan, "I believe you are right."
"Come, then, let us be off at once," and a moment later the three
detectives left the house.