A DETECTIVE IN A BAD FIX.
Detective Hook flung his hand behind him.
Instantly a revolver, grasped firmly between his fingers, glittered in
the rays of the hanging lamp which shed its feeble light through the
hall of the Cherry street tenement in which he now stood at bay.
"Stand off, there, you fellows!" he shouted, sternly. "One step forward
and some one bites the dust!"
Crack!
The warning was unheeded.
In the wild western towns the rule is, "Shoot first and explanations
afterward."
With fatal result Caleb Hook had chosen the course in direct reverse of
this.
With the quickness of thought--in fact, even as the words had passed
his lips, a short, thick-set fellow, from the shelter of the doorway
connecting the passage with the room from which the men had emerged,
had drawn a revolver of the smallest caliber and discharged it at the
detective's head.
It made no more noise than an ordinary popgun, but, notwithstanding,
accomplished its fatal work.
A low cry escaped the lips of Caleb Hook. The revolver dropped from his
nerveless hand.
With one arm outstretched he clutched at the banisters, missed them,
clutched again, and pitched headlong to the foot of the stairs.
"Three cheers and a tiger for the man who fired that shot!" whispered
Callister, as all hands crowded about the inanimate form of the fallen
man. "Sam Cutts, old man, there's some life left in you yet. Now,
what's to be done with the carcass before the whole neighborhood comes
piling in?"
"Into the room with him--quick!" exclaimed Billy Cutts. "We are safe
there for a while, at all events. We do not even know that he is dead,
meddling fool that he is."
His instructions were instantly obeyed.
The body of the unfortunate detective was unceremoniously dragged into
the room adjoining, the door of which was immediately bolted from
within.
"Is he dead?" asked Billy Cutts, hoarsely. "By thunder, father, I
suppose you had to do it, but his death will kick up a Satan's own row
upon the force. The chief of police will never rest night or day until
he has run us down."
"Do it! Why, of course I had to do it!" replied the elder Cutts--a
grizzled reproduction of his hopeful son in appearance. "It's my
belief, gents, that that there iron lifter dropped down upon us by
mistake. He knew it, and was off to give us and the whole business away
to the captain of the nearest station before we had time to escape."
"Sam's about right," growled Reuben Tisdale. "I tell you, boys, this
is a serious snap. We've doctored this spy with a leaden pill, but who
can tell how many more of the same kind of cattle there is in hiding in
that room overhead? Who lives up there, anyway? Does any one know? Why
were we not told of that stovepipe hole?"
"Blest if I know," said Callister. "Cutts, you ought to be able to
tell--these are your rooms."
"Tell! I don't know no more about them what lives in the house than the
dead. I reckon it would pay to have some on us slip up and see."
"No, no!" whispered Callister, breathlessly. "What's done is done, and
can't be helped. It is my opinion the whole scheme has been overheard
through that confounded hole in the floor."
"Hold on, you fellows," put in Billy Cutts. "I'll go up-stairs and
reconnoiter. I'm a detective, don't you know, and if I catch on to
anything in the shape of the police I'll knock with my heel once hard
upon the floor. If you hear the signal light out, every mother's son
of you. Of course they won't think anything strange at seeing me come
snooping round."
Silently unbolting the door, he crept up the stairs, the others
listening breathlessly for the signal he proposed to give.
Through their own door--open on the crack--they could hear Cutts open
the door of the room above.
Evidently he had met with no opposition, for the sound of his footsteps
could be heard overhead walking about the room.
"Blame me if I don't think it was this cuss that was up there alone,
and no one else," muttered the elder Cutts, indicating the detective,
who lay white and still, dead to all appearance, in the midst of the
little group.
"He's wrong, Lije," whispered Tisdale to the stock-broker, who stood
by his side, a little apart from the rest. "I heard the footsteps of
two persons, at least, overhead there before that iron thing came down.
Luck has deserted us since my--my--you know what. I'm doomed to be the
Jonah of the gang."
"Hush, Rube, for Heaven's sake! Can't you let up on your infernal
croaking even in a strait like this? If the police are upon us, why,
we'll do the best thing that offers. If it's only this fellow, Hook,
why, Sam Cutts' bullet has settled him. But not another word now.
Here's Billy coming back."
The young detective, if one so unfaithful to his trust can truthfully
be so termed, entered at this moment with a smile of satisfaction on
his face.
"It's all right," he exclaimed, closing the door. "There ain't a soul
in the room up-stairs. It's fixed up roughly to look like housekeeping,
but it's my belief that it was hired by Hook for the simple purpose of
catching us. It's a common method with the profesh."
"Hadn't some one better inquire of the agent on the first floor?" put
in one of the men who had not spoken before.
"Some other time will do for that," said Callister, hurriedly. "What we
want to do now is to dispose of this body without further delay. We can
investigate later on."
"Well, and how do you propose to do it?"
"I rather guess we can fix that if we can get it through the alley
to the Donegal Shades--eh, Rube?" replied the broker, with a smile.
"After we've finished with Mr. Hook, he'll trouble us no more, I fancy.
It's too bad to deprive the New York police force of such a bright and
shining light, but then he had better have minded his own affairs."
"So I say," growled another of the gang--a rough-looking fellow. "These
blamed detectives don't give a hard working man no kinder show."
"Better be sure he's actually croaked before we bury him," grumbled
Tisdale, in his characteristic way.
"That's soon done," returned Callister. "I guess I'm doctor enough for
that."
He knelt beside the body and unbuttoned the coat and vest.
Placing his ear upon the detective's breast, he listened to the beating
of the heart.
But the heart of Caleb Hook had apparently ceased to beat. Nor did his
pulse give sign of any movement whatever.
"Dead as a door nail!" said the broker, laconically. "Say, Sam Cutts,
have you got such a thing as a big bag?"
"No, an' you don't want it," answered Cutts. "To carry that body
down-stairs in a bag! You must be crazy, man. That would never do at
all. We'll take him by the shoulders, two of us, and drag him along as
though he was blind drunk--paralyzed, don't you see--then no one will
suspect anything at all."
"Good! That's the very scheme. Now, then, gents, as it ain't always
best for a man to know too much, you had better say good-night, and
leave the management of this affair to Rube, Cutts and myself. I feel
sure that we have nothing to be afraid of now, for I am confident that
this fellow was working alone. If I find that I am wrong, some of us
will notify you, you may rest assured. Meanwhile, the appointment
remains the same as before, unless you hear to the contrary--Cagney's
sanctum, day after to-morrow night."
Several of the men now silently withdrew, leaving the two Cutts--father
and son--Callister and Tisdale with their victim.
The sound of their footsteps had scarce died away upon the carpetless
stairs when the stock-broker spoke again.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes," answered Cutts, the elder; "I should say we were."
"Then you slip round and give Pat the tip. We mustn't lose a moment,
once we start, and you are to see that all is prepared."
Billy Cutts, opening the door cautiously, left the room without a word.
For the space of perhaps ten minutes the three men stood motionless,
listening to every sound.
Overhead all was silent. There was no unusual noise about the house.
"That pop of yours is a daisy, Sam," whispered Callister. "It's my
opinion that the report of that shot was not heard on this floor. Come,
time's up. You take one arm, Rube, and I'll attend to the other. Sam
can give us a lift down the stairs."
Two minutes later a peculiar but by no means unusual sight might have
been observed in the alley leading from the side of the Cherry street
tenement through, by means of the gate pointed out by Jerry Buck to
Frank Mansfield, to the rear of the Donegal Shades on Catherine street,
opposite the old market building.
It was two men dragging between them a third, apparently in a state
of helpless intoxication, while a fourth man--a short, thick-set
fellow--brought up the rear.
If they were observed by any of the dwellers in the adjoining
tenements, it is safe to say that their appearance attracted no
attention at all, for such sights are far too common in that part of
the city to excite even passing remark.
The passage of the alley was made in safety--the gate was opened by
Cutts--in another moment they had entered the yard facing the residence
of the unfortunate Mrs. Marley, and in the rear of the Donegal Shades.
Two men stood ready to receive them by the side of a little flight of
steps leading down to an open cellar door.
One was Billy Cutts, the other P. Slattery, the proprietor of the
saloon, whose fiery shock of hair betrayed his identity at a glance.
"All O. K., Pat?" said Callister, in a whisper.
"You're right, it is; run him down, an' I'm wid yez in a jiffy. Begobs!
if it ain't that fly detective what shook me up on the Sunday morning
poor Mrs. Marley was murdered--an' phat ails you, Mister Tisdale? Howly
Mother, but you're as white as though you'd seen a ghost!"
"Hold your jaw and lead the way!" muttered the burglar, fiercely.
Slattery made no attempt at reply.
Running down the cellar steps, he motioned to the others to follow
without a word.
No sooner had they entered than he closed and locked the door, and
producing a match, lit a lantern which he held in his hand.
"This way, gents," he said, briefly, advancing through the cellar among
a heterogeneous mass of barrels and boxes and rubbish of all kinds.
Dragging the body of the detective between them, the others followed.
Suddenly the man Slattery paused, and stooping down, seized a great
iron ring in the floor.
A trap-door was lifted, disclosing a dark opening leading to unknown
depths below, out of which rushed a noisome stench causing the men by
its side to draw back with exclamations of disgust.
"Now, then, down wid him," whispered the proprietor of the Donegal
Shades. "It's as putty a grave as wan might ax for. Drop him in, byes,
an' it's done nice an' handy, only there's niver a praste to shrive
him--worse luck. We must bury the poor cuss widout book nor bell."
Raising the inanimate form of the detective between them, Callister,
Tisdale and Cutts dropped it into the darkness of the open trap, while
P. Slattery, letting go the iron ring, jumped heavily upon the lid.