THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE BENEATH THE CHURCH-YARD WALL.
"Come, speak up! Are you dumb? What are you doing at the door of the
Webster Bank at this hour of the night?"
It was Mr. Caleb Hook, the famous New York detective, who spoke, as he
seized Frank Mansfield by the coat-collar and jerked him violently into
the dark hallway which formed the rear entrance to the bank.
At the same instant the forms of the three policemen were to be seen
filling the open door.
Even as he spoke the detective threw the full glare of a dark lantern
upon the pale and frightened countenance of the boy who stood trembling
in his grasp.
"I--I--work in the bank," he stammered, brokenly. "I wanted---- I am
the assistant cashier. I came here with my friend, Detective Cutts, to
try the door and see that all was right."
It was a bold stroke, but a useless one.
Detective Hook laughed in his face.
"Well, and where is Cutts?" he asked, sneeringly.
"He was here a moment ago, just outside the door. I went into the bank
and found that the vault had been blown open, and turned to call him in
as you seized me on the steps."
"I don't see him anywhere around," said the detective, coolly, at the
same time pulling Frank toward the door, and looking quickly up and
down Rector street.
It was deserted.
Cutts, the strange woman, and the two young fellows who held her down
had alike disappeared.
There was nothing to be seen save the dark outlines of Trinity Church,
the old burial ground about it, and the white flakes of the ever
falling snow.
And the heart of Frank Mansfield sank within him as the full meaning of
his perilous position burst upon his bewildered brain.
The bank robbed--Cutts and his companions gone.
Who would believe his story, now that he had been caught almost in
front of the rifled vault?
"Now look here, young fellow," said the detective, "you might just
as well own up and tell the truth. Where are your pals? Who are you?
What's your name?"
"My name is Frank Mansfield. I'm assistant cashier of the bank."
There was nothing to be gained by attempting to conceal his identity;
Frank saw that at a glance.
"I thought as much," replied the detective grimly, "and I'm a little
behind time, I see. But you don't answer my other question. Where are
your pals?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Spread yourself, you Jones and Brady," exclaimed the detective,
turning suddenly upon the officers. "Examine every doorway, one of you,
the other make for the church-yard wall. Schneider, you come with me.
We'll soon see what's been going on in here. This comes from the folly
of the chief in keeping me so long engaged. I might have been here an
hour ago at the very least."
He turned quickly upon the boy as he spoke, and without a word of
warning snapped a pair of handcuffs about his wrists.
"Move on ahead there," he exclaimed, pushing Frank before him into the
hall. "You say this bank has been robbed. I believe you. Show me what
you have done."
The vault door, wrenched out of all shape and hanging by one hinge, the
burglar's tools, the books and papers scattered upon the floor around,
were quite answer enough without a word from the wretched Frank, who
stood trembling by his side.
The detective surveyed the scene grimly.
"I was born a day too late, it seems," was all he said.
Then, turning toward his youthful prisoner, he gazed intently upon his
face.
"You and your friends have made a clean job of it here, young man," he
said, at length.
Frank stared at him dumbly.
Could he hope to win the hand of Edna Callister after such a fatal slip
as this?
What was he to do?
What should he say?
Ah, if he had but heeded the warning voice of that mother who had knelt
before him in the snow!
But no! He had for the meanest of motives, money, been willing to
violate the confidence and trust reposed in him by the officers of the
bank, and this was his reward.
Not without his fair share of natural shrewdness, Frank at once
perceived that his only hope lay in silence and a strict adhesion to
the story he had told, which to a certain extent was true.
He had come to the bank with Cutts--as for his reason for so doing, he
determined to keep that to himself, for the present, at least.
"Well," said the detective, "why don't you speak?"
"Because I've nothing to say. I've told you all I know."
"Do you persist in the statement that you came here with Mr. Cutts?"
"I do."
"For what reason?"
"I've already told you that."
"To see that all was right about the bank?"
"Yes."
"Is that your business?"
"Not particularly. We had been spending the evening together, and
happened to be passing, and I thought I would try the door."
"Mistake added to wrong doing."
Lies never yet availed any man in an emergency.
Better by far would it have been for the boy if he had confessed his
fault and told the simple truth.
"And upon entering you found things as we see them now?" continued the
detective, with an incredulous air.
"Yes."
"Do you carry a key to those doors?"
"Yes. Both the cashier and myself have keys."
"Suppose you give them to me."
Frank motioned toward his pocket, into which Detective Hook now thrust
his hand, drawing forth the keys, and embracing the opportunity to
search the boy thoroughly at the same time, but finding, as a matter of
course, nothing to further indicate any connection with the affair.
He examined the keys attentively, and turning, tried them in the lock
of the door.
One of them fitted perfectly.
The detective appeared surprised.
"You told the truth, then, my boy," he said, regarding the handsome
face of the youth before him meditatively as he spoke. "I don't know
what to make of this. Either you are other than what you seem to be, or
I've been most outrageously sold."
"I assure you, sir," exclaimed Frank, plucking up a spirit, "that I am
just what I tell you, as any officer of the bank can testify, if you
will take the trouble to ask. The janitor of this building knows me.
Were it only daylight, I could prove my identity in a dozen ways. What
has become of Cutts and those who were with him, I am sure is more than
I can tell, but I----"
"Ha! Then there were others here besides Cutts and yourself?"
A deep flush overspread the countenance of the boy.
Here was a fatal slip.
Until now he had relied upon Cutts' desire to shield himself to be
cautious in what he might say, but as for Ed Wilson and Jim Morrow,
who were nothing more or less than two very fast young clerks in a
neighboring steamship office, he saw instinctively that he could hope
to exercise no control whatever with them.
But there was no use in trying to conceal anything from the keen eyes
of the detective, now fixed upon him as though seeking to read his
inmost thoughts.
"Yes, there were two other fellows with us," he answered, with evident
reluctance.
"Who were they?"
"Acquaintances of mine."
"And their names?"
"Wilson and Morrow."
"Hem! And they, likewise, seem to have disappeared, most unluckily for
you."
"So it seems," said Frank, gloomily. "I'm sure I don't understand it
any more than you."
"We'll understand it better by and by," replied the detective, quietly.
"Meanwhile, think the matter over, if you will allow me to offer my
advice, and make up your mind to tell the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. You'll find it will pay you better in the end."
"Schneider," he added, turning abruptly to the policeman who had been
a silent witness to the scene, "take this young man to the New Church
street station, and let him be held until I come."
"Very good, Mr. Hook," replied the officer.
Without another word he took Frank by the arm and led him through the
hall and out into the street.
The snow was still falling, sidewalk and roofs, church-yard and wall,
everything within range of the eye, was clothed in a mantle of white.
"Now, den, de nex' question is how ve not our necks already preak,"
muttered the officer, with a strong German accent, as he moved heavily
down the sloping sidewalk toward New Church street, which skirts the
rear of the burial ground at the bottom of the hill.
For he was a clumsy man, and had evidently no wish to measure the
length of his Teutonic form upon the slippery walk beneath his feet.
"Keep close beside me, young feller," he added, releasing his hold
upon Frank's arm, the better to steady himself by aid of the hand-rail
separating the sidewalk from the sunken areas before the basement shops
with which this block on Rector street is lined. "You notings can do
mit tem pracelets on your hands, so dere's no use in trying to run."
"I'm not running to-night," replied Frank, shortly. "Lead on, I shall
follow; you need have no fear."
"Nein, you go ahead, den I keeps you in sight," said the policeman,
pushing the boy before him. "You gets not pehind me ef I knows vat I
do."
Frank made no reply, but plowed his way on through the snow, Officer
Schneider following close in his rear.
At a word from that individual, upon reaching New Church street,
he turned to the right and moved slowly along the wall of Trinity
church-yard, here rising high above their heads.
To the left rose the structure of the elevated railroad, to the right
the wall itself, the iron railing still surmounting it, from which
hung, depending, clusters of the snow-covered vines.
Not a soul was to be seen moving about them.
The street was deserted for as great a distance as the eye could reach.
They had hardly proceeded half the length of the wall, when, proceeding
apparently from the clustered vines above them, a shrill, piping sound
was heard.
It was precisely such a sound as bats are sometimes heard to make just
at nightfall as they go whizzing through the air.
"Vat in tonder ish dat?" exclaimed Officer Schneider, coming to a
sudden halt, and looking up into the air.
Again the strange sound broke upon the stillness of the night a little
ahead of them through the thick mass of falling snow.
Both Frank and the policeman had now checked their steps close to the
church-yard wall.
At the recurrence of the sound, forgetting for the instant that he had
a prisoner on his hands, Officer Schneider moved a few steps in advance
of the boy, and raising his head, tried to peer in among the clustered
vines, all laden with snow, which overhung the iron fence upon the top
of the wall, leaving the boy standing behind.
"I can't see notings," he muttered, "but dere's something crooked going
on up dere. Dis is not de first time nor de second I hear dot sound.
Who goes up mit dem valls on top, I'd schust like to know?"
Now this was a little private mystery of the officer's own, this
self-same bat-like sound.
Several times previous to the present occasion had he heard it, and----
Hello!
And what ails Officer Schneider now?
Enough to make him stare as he does, and shower all the German
imprecations known to his vocabulary upon the air around.
For the handcuffed prisoner, whom he supposed to be standing so close
to him that it was only necessary to reach out and touch him, had
during that one moment in which he had raised his head to the top of
the wall above him, from which proceeded the bat-like sound, most
mysteriously vanished.
There were his footprints on the snow-covered walk, nor was there other
prints anywhere to be seen upon the smooth surface of the street, save
those made by the boy and himself, and pointing up--not down the street.
And this was all.
His handcuffed prisoner, who could not by any possibility have advanced
a dozen steps through the snow in the brief space of time during
which the policeman's attention had been withdrawn, had strangely,
marvelously disappeared.