'EUREKA!'
AT twelve o'clock p.m. a party of men had gathered not far from the
house where Mrs. Camp had made her singular discoveries; they came
singly and by twos, from various directions, and their movements were
so quiet as not to have disturbed the lightest of sleepers, however
near, for with one exception all were trained to the business in hand.
When two of the party had made a careful reconnaissance of the
premises they returned to the waiting group.
'There's the door and two windows at the front,' said one, 'and three
windows on the alley, the middle one, as we know, boarded on the
inside. At the back is a door opening upon a sort of shed, and a
window in the same; and in the angle formed by the shed and the rear
of the house proper is another window; on the inner side, opposite the
alley, the wall is blank. There's no bed in the front room,' the
speaker went on rapidly, 'though someone may bunk there. Of course
there's a watcher in his room. Two of you must patrol the alley while
Brainerd cuts out a pane or two of that closed-up alley window, to see
if anything can be heard through the cracks of those inside boards,
though it's probable they are padded to deaden sound. As for the upper
rooms, they're sleeping there doubtless, and----'
'Don't forget,' interposed Brainerd in a low half-whisper, 'about
those iron hooks outside those back windows. They're for something
more than signalling; they're stout enough to support a rope with a
man at the end, and the rope and the man are both inside, no doubt.'
'Four to the back then,' I said, 'and you, Jeffrys, take the lead;
three to the alley, you and two others, Dave. If the thing's not
accessible, divide to back and front. Lossing, can you and Murphy hold
me on your shoulders while I try that window? Now, all to our places;
and there ought to be a train soon over there; let's do our cutting
under cover of its noise.'
The Illinois Central Railway was but a little distance from us, and we
took our places to await the sound of its first train. But fortune,
having baffled and hindered us again and again, seemed now to have
relented toward us.
Before trying the window I crept up the steps to examine the lock of
the door, and judge, if I could, of its security. Lossing, as he still
preferred to be called, and Murphy, the policeman, were standing below
me, one on either side of the steps, and as I stood at the door above
them I turned and looked about me. All seemed quiet up and down that
often unquiet street, and the lights from either direction hardly
served their purpose there, a fact which had been considered,
doubtless, in making choice of this place.
It was after midnight now, and as I heard, far away yet, the first
faint rumble of the train, I put my hand upon the handle of the door.
Was it imagination, or did I feel a responsive touch upon the other
side? I let my hand rest lightly upon the knob, and waited; then,
suddenly, as the rumble of the train came nearer, I sprang down the
steps, and, crouching at the side of Lossing, whispered across to
Murphy, 'Lay low and be ready; someone's coming out.' There was no
time for more words, but I never doubted the readiness of my two
helpers, nor their quick comprehension of the situation.
As the rumble of the train came nearer, the door opened, almost
without noise, and shut again; and softly, slowly, looking up and down
the street, but not below him, almost within reach, a man came down
the steps, paused an instant, and stood upon the pavement, to feel,
before he could turn his head, a hard grip upon either arm, a cold
pressure at the back of his neck, and simultaneously a low whisper:
'One sound and you are a dead man.'
It was all the work of an instant, and so quickly and quietly done
that our friends in the alley were not aware of our capture until we
had secured our prisoner and Lossing had gone to summon Dave.
Then, still in utter silence, we led our first capture across the
alley, and Murphy flashed a dark-lantern in his face.
It was a pallid and cowardly countenance that the light revealed, and
I was not surprised to recognise the man I had dubbed 'Smug' upon the
day of my arrival at the World's Fair. He was trembling violently,
and thoroughly cowed.
We had no difficulty in searching his pockets; he did not so much as
remonstrate--perhaps because of the pistol I had now transferred to
the hand of Lossing. By the light of the dark-lantern I selected from
among a number of keys taken from his pocket a slender one, which, as
it only needed the look upon his face to tell me, was the key to the
street-door.
'Listen!' I said to him, holding the lantern high. 'It will be to your
interest to help us, and you will find it so if you help to make what
we are about to do as easy and quiet as possible. We know who are in
that house, and if we can take them without noise and trouble, so much
the better for them. The place is surrounded; they can't escape alive.
Is anyone in the front room, lower floor?'
He shook his head sullenly.
'You were put there on guard--is it not so?' He blinked under the
lantern's rays, and I saw that I was right. 'And you thought it would
be quite safe to slip out for an hour or two; and so it would have
been last night or the one before. Now, is Delbras on the second-floor
front? You had better tell me!' He nodded sullenly. 'And Bob?
Remember, your answers can't injure their case and will benefit yours.
My word is good. Is Greenback Bob there?' Again the sullen fellow
bowed his head. 'And how many more, exclusive of your prisoner?' The
rascal started, and seemed taken with a new panic. 'You had better be
quite frank,' I admonished. 'How many?'
He held up three fingers as well as the handcuffs would permit, and a
moment later we had left him at the mouth of the alley, guarded by two
officers, while we arranged for our attack.
One man was left to guard the rear, with full instructions covering
any and all possible emergencies, and one was told off to guard the
front entrance, while the remaining six were paired: Lossing with
myself, at his own request; Dave and one officer, and Jeffrys with
another. Murphy we had left with Smug, and in charge of the party
without.
'Masters,' Lossing said, 'I want to be with the man that attacks
Delbras. I owe it to him.' When Jeffrys had heard him he declared
Delbras his prey. But I also had my word to say. Jeffrys might serve
his warrant and bear off the captive from the city, but he could only
take him when I had failed; and so it was arranged.
When all was ready we waited, six of us, upon the steps of the gloomy
house, until after what seemed an hour, and was in reality ten
minutes, had passed, and then a long freight train came rumbling
cityward. As it came near I inserted the key in the lock carefully and
turned it slowly, and without noise; and while the sound still covered
our careful movements, we entered the hall, leaving the officer in
charge of the door.
Then, when Dave and his companion had entered the front room and stood
ready to move upon the watcher through the door behind the screen,
trusting the other door to the watchful eye of the guard at the front,
we crept upstairs, with that sidewise movement which insures one who
has the patience to try it a silent if slow passage, to the top, in
single file.
At the top we separated, and while we--Lossing and myself--took our
places at the door near the front, Jeffrys listened at the two rear
doors, to make sure of the location of his prey, and at a signal which
the guard below passed on to Dave we moved, each armed with a
dark-lantern, to the attack.
I could hear Lossing's breath close beside me as I carefully and
slowly tried the knob of the door and found that it yielded silently.
The house was an old one, and we saw as we slowly opened the door
that the lock was only a fragmentary one; there was on the other side
only a handle like that without. Holding our lanterns low we glided
in, and were half-way across the room when I raised the lantern and
turned its light carefully toward the bed, from whence long guttural
breathing told of a sleeper unconscious of our nearness. With lantern
in one hand and pistol in the other, I made a forward step as I saw by
the ray thrown across the bed the form and face of Delbras; and then,
suddenly, beneath my foot, something cracked and burst with a sharp
explosion.
Only a parlour match, but it brought the sleeper to a sitting posture,
and broad awake in a moment. He did not seem to so much as have seen
me, but his eyes and Lossing's appeared to meet and challenge each
other, and quicker than I can tell it he had bounded from his bed,
snatching something from under the pillow as he sprang--something that
glittered in his hand as he hurled himself upon Lossing, and the two
grappled and swayed, with the knife gleaming above their heads, held
thus by the strong hand of the English athlete.
As I sprang to place my lantern upon the table at the bed's head, that
it might help me to see and to aid Lossing, a shriek rang from the
room at the rear, and the next moment I saw the knife sent flying from
the hand of Delbras, and the two go down, still struggling. A moment I
watched them struggling there, and then somehow the villain wrenched
one hand free and gripped it with an awful clutch upon Lossing's
throat; the next there arose from below a succession of screeches that
might have issued from the throat of a bedlamite.
Once and again I had tried to interfere in Lossing's behalf, but the
effort seemed useless, until, as the screams from below ceased
suddenly, I sprang past the two, and, turning suddenly, struck at
Delbras with my clubbed pistol. I had aimed at the arm clutching at
my friend's throat, but a sudden movement brought the villain's head
in sharp contact with the butt of the pistol, and his hold suddenly
relaxed, and he lay stunned and at our mercy.
When Lossing, not much the worse for his tussle but somewhat short of
breath, had risen and shaken himself together, I said: 'He's only
stunned and will soon come to. Shoot him if he stirs before I come
back.' And I ran to the room in the rear.
What had happened there can be soon told.
When Jeffrys opened the door of the rear room, which did not boast a
lock, he saw a lamp burning dimly upon a shelf in a corner; upon the
bed opposite a woman and a man, both sleeping, and under the one
window a coil of rope ladder, as if ready for use.
The face of the woman was ghastly pale, and her sleep must have been
very light, for suddenly she opened her eyes, and seeing the officers,
uttered the cry, which at first only caused her lord and master to
growl out an oath and turn over; whereupon she clutched at him wildly
and cried to the men to leave them; they would give themselves up if
only the officers would withdraw and permit them to rise and dress.
The man, meantime, seemed to awaken slowly, and to be dazed and
stupid, and he paid little heed to his wife's cries as he dragged
himself to a sitting posture.
'You'd better get up,' said Jeffrys sternly, 'and give up. You're all
in for it.'
Possibly the shrieks that came from below at that moment convinced
him, for he answered with a scowling face: 'I guess I know when I'm
beat. If you'll shet the door, or turn yer backs so my wife can get
up, I'll be quiet enough. Shet up, Sue!'
'All right,' said Jeffrys; and the two officers drew back from the
door, and Jeffrys, drawing it half-shut, said, with his eye upon the
man, 'Now, the lady first,' and pistol in hand he waited.
The one window was opposite the door and the bed close beside it, so
that the half-closed door concealed from Jeffrys both window and
woman. He heard her spring up, and at the instant, almost, a slight
scraping sound, then suddenly, at the very moment when I stepped from
the farther room, the light went out--there was a bound, an oath, a
shrill whistle, and, as I reached the door, the flash of a bull's eye,
and two pistol-shots came close together.
As I sprang into the room the light revealed an open window, with the
rope ladder half out, half in, and upon the floor beneath it Greenback
Bob, with Jeffrys kneeling upon his breast, and the attendant officer,
with pistol aimed and bull's-eye in hand, at his head. Upon the bed,
weeping and moaning piteously, lay the woman, her face buried in the
pillow. I went to her and put a hand upon her arm; she lifted toward
me the most woeful face it has ever been my lot to see, and said, with
mournful apathy:
'Don't fear--I don't want to escape! I knew the end must be near.' And
she dropped back with an air of utter exhaustion upon her pillow.
I turned to assist Jeffrys in securing Greenback Bob, who, now that
his pretence of stolid apathy had failed him, was an ugly customer to
deal with, and who was resisting with all his strength and filling the
air with blasphemy. It was necessary to secure him hand and foot, and
we had but just completed the task when Dave came bounding up the
stairs.
'Eureka!' he cried. 'It's a complete catch; and Trent's alive, and the
happiest man in Chicago, or the world. Hello!'
He had glanced at the prostrate counterfeiter, and his last
exclamation was in answer to a voice from the room where I had left
Lossing guarding the senseless Delbras.
Following Dave's significant gesture, I went with him to the door of
the room, where, to my surprise, Delbras, his face quite bloodless
with rage and weakness together, was slowly dressing himself under the
sternly watchful eye and steadily aimed pistol of Sir Carroll Rae.
The latter had gathered the garments together while Delbras lay
unconscious, keeping a watchful eye and ready weapon the while, and
had placed them close at his side, first removing from a pocket a
small sheathed knife. And now, with his own weapon in hand and those
of Delbras collected on the table at his side, he was compelling the
Frenchman to make his toilet at the point of the pistol, and his set
face left in the mind of the enraged and baffled rascal no room to
doubt him when he said:
'Unless you have put on those garments within a reasonable time I will
call a pair of policemen to dress you; and if you make one sound or
movement other than in obedience I will shoot every bullet in this
weapon into your body, and do it with pleasure.'
'How was it?' I asked Dave while this toilet was proceeding, and we
stood ready for the trick or attempt at resistance we more than half
expected from the Frenchman.
'I guess you heard it about all. Trent lay there wide awake, mighty
blue, and too weak to lift his head; and a big negress was half-dozing
in her chair by the bedside, with a pistol at her elbow. She made a
grab for it, and yelled, as you probably heard. Trent was assaulted
and half-killed, nursed back to life for what there was in it, and has
just come to his senses, awfully weak, but game enough to resist their
efforts to make him appeal to his father for a big ransom. That's all
I've had time to hear.'