JOHNNY LA PORTE IS BROUGHT TO BOOK.
That is how Miss Amy Holmes was brought to judgment. I had managed her
by stratagem, and extracted the truth from her under false pretenses.
The weapon that I brandished above her head was a reed of straws, but it
sufficed. My pretended knowledge of her past history had served my
purpose.
What her secret really was, and is, I neither know nor care. She is a
woman, and when a woman has stepped down from her pedestal the world is
all against her. The law may safely trust such sinners and their
punishment to Dame Nature, who never errs, and never forgives, and to
Time, who is the sternest of all avengers.
After hearing her story, I sent my second telegram to you, and then my
third; and after assuring myself that the girl had told the truth
concerning Nellie Ewing, I telegraphed to the office, giving the hints
which Wyman acted on.
I should not have liked Wyman's task of going to those two honest
farmers and telling them the truth concerning their daughters; but I
should not have been averse to the other work.
I can imagine Johnny La Porte, under the impression that he was
preparing for a day's lark, oiling his curly locks, scenting his pocket
handkerchief, and driving Wyman, in whom he thought he had found a boon
companion, to Sharon, actually flying into the arms of the avengers, at
the heels of his own roadsters. I should have driven over that ten miles
of country road, had I been in Wyman's place, bursting with glee,
growing fat on the stupidity of the sleek idiot at my side.
But Wyman is a modest fellow, and given to seeing only the severe side
of things, and he says there is no glory in trapping a fool. Possibly he
is right.
I should like to have seen Johnny La Porte when he was brought,
unexpectedly, before 'Squire Ewing and Farmer Rutger, to be charged with
his villainy, and offered one chance for his life. He had heard the
Grovelanders talk, and he knew that the despoilers of those two
Groveland homes had been dedicated to Judge Lynch.
Small wonder that he was terror-stricken before these two fathers, and
that under the lash of Wyman's eloquence he already felt the cord
tightening about his throat.
I don't wonder that he whined and grovelled and submitted, abjectly, to
their demands. But I do wonder that those two fathers could let him out
of their hands alive; and I experienced a thrill of ecstasy when I
learned that Wyman kicked him three times, with stout boots!
That must have been an unpleasant journey to New Orleans. The two
farmers, stern, silent, heavy of heart, and filled with anxiety. La
Porte, who was taken in hand by Wyman, writhing under the torments of
his own conscience and his own terror, and compelled to submit to his
guardian's frequent tirades of scorn and contempt, treated, for the
first time in his life, like the poltroon he was.
I found the two girls at the address given by Amy Holmes; and, more to
spare the two farmers the sight of her, than for her sake, I did not
compel her to repeat her story in their presence, but related it myself
instead.
It's not worth while to attempt a description of the meeting between the
two girls and their parents. Mamie was, at first, inclined to rebel; but
Nellie Ewing broke down completely, and begged to be taken home. She was
pale and emaciated, a sad and pitiful creature. Her father was overcome
with grief at sight of the change in her. He could not trust himself to
speak to her of Johnny La Porte; and so--what a Jack of all trades a
detective is--he called me from the room and delegated to me the
unpleasant task.
I did it as well as I could. I told her as gently as possible that
Johnny La Porte was in New Orleans, and asked if she wanted to see him.
She cried for joy, poor child, and begged me to send for him at once.
And then I told her why we had brought him; he was prepared to make what
reparation he could. Did she wish him to make her his wife? She
interrupted me with a joyful cry.
"Would he do that? Oh, then she could go home and die happy."
In that moment I made a mental vow that this dying girl, if she could be
made any happier by it, should have not only the name of the young
scoundrel she so foolishly loved, but his care and companionship as
well.
I assured her that he was ready to make her his lawful wife, but could
not tell her that he did it under compulsion.
After a long talk with 'Squire Ewing, during which I persuaded him to
think first of his daughter's needs, and to make such use of Johnny La
Porte as would best serve her, I went back to the hotel, where we had
left the young scamp in charge of Wyman, and a little later in the day
the ceremony was performed which made Johnny La Porte the husband of the
girl he had sought to ruin.
Not long after this I invited the young man to a _tete-a-tete_, and he
followed me somewhat ungraciously into a room adjoining that in which
his new wife lay.
"Sit down," I said, curtly, motioning him to a chair opposite the one in
which I seated myself. "Sit down. I want to give you a little advice
concerning your future conduct."
He threw back his head defiantly; evidently he believed that he was now
secure from further annoyance, and no longer within reach of law and
justice.
"I don't need your advice," he said, pettishly. "I have done all that
you, or any one else, can require of me."
"Mistaken youth, your conformity with my wishes is but now begun."
"You can't bully me, now," he retorted. "I have married the girl, and
that's enough."
"It is _not_ enough! it is not all that you will do."
"You are a liar."
I took him by the shoulders, and lifting him fairly off his feet shook
him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then I popped him down upon the chair he
had refused to occupy, and said:
"There, you impudent little dunce, if you want to call me any more
names, don't hesitate. Now, hear me; you will do _precisely_ what I bid
you, now, and hereafter, or you will exchange that smart plaid suit for
one adorned with horizontal stripes, and I'll have that curly pate of
yours as bare as a cocoanut."
[Illustration: "I took him by the shoulders, and lifting him fairly off
his feet shook him as a terrier shakes a rat."--page 379.]
"The law,"--he began.
"The _law_ may permit you to break the marriage vow you have just taken,
but _I_ will not."
"You?" incredulously.
"Yes, _I_," I retorted, firmly. "The law of this mighty country, made by
very wise men, and enacted by very great fools, is a wondrous vixen. You
have stolen 'Squire Ewing's daughter, and for that the law permits you
to go unhung. You have stolen 'Squire Ewing's horse, and for that, the
law will put you in the State's prison."
"His horse--I!--" the poor wretch gasped, helplessly.
"Exactly. The horse! and you! You see, the daughter has been found, but
the horse has _not_."
"But--I can prove--"
"You can prove nothing. I know all about the affair. _You_ carried
Nellie Ewing away in your own carriage. _You_ handed her pony over to an
accomplice. I have, at my finger's ends, testimony enough to condemn you
before any jury, and the only thing that can save you from the fate of a
common horse-thief, is--your own good behavior."
"What do you want?" he said, abjectly.
"I _want_ to see you hung as high as Haman. But that poor girl in the
next room wants something different, and I yield my wishes to hers. She
is so foolish as to value your miserable existence, and so I give you
this one chance. Go home with your wife, not to your home, but hers, and
remain there so long as she needs or wants you. Treat her with
tenderness, serve her like a slave, and try thus to atone for some of
your past villainy. Quit your old associates, be as decent and dutiful
as the evil within will let you. So long as I hear no complaint, so long
as your wife is made happy, you are safe. Commit one act of cruelty,
unkindness, or neglect, and your fate is sealed. And, remember this, if
you attempt to run away, I will bring you back, if I have to bring you
dead."
He whined, he blustered, he writhed like a cur under the lash. But he
was conquered. 'Squire Ewing behaved most judiciously. Poor Nellie was
foolishly happy. Mamie Rutger, too, became our ally, and, after a time,
La Porte, who loved his ease above all things, seemed resigned, or
resolved to make the best of the situation. I think, too, that he was,
in his way, fond of his poor little wife. Perhaps his conscience
troubled him, for when a physician was called in by the anxious father,
her case was pronounced serious, and the chances for her recovery less
than three in ten. The physician advised them to take her North at once,
and they hastened to obey his instructions.
Our next care was to quiet Fred Brookhouse, for the present, and punish
him, as much as might be, for the future.
Accordingly, Brookhouse was arrested, on a trumped-up charge, and locked
up in the city jail, and then Wyman and myself gave to the Chief of
police and the Mayor of the city, a detailed account of his scheme to
provide attractions for his theater, and took other measures to insure
for the Little Adelphi a closer surveillance than would be at all
comfortable or welcome to the enterprising manager.
Brookhouse was held in jail until we were out of the city, and far on
our way Northward, thus insuring us against the possibility of his
telegraphing the alarm to any one who might communicate it to Arch, or
Ed. Dwight, and then, there being no one to appear against him, at the
proper time, he was released.
Amy Holmes remained a prisoner at the hotel, conducting herself quite
properly during the time of her compulsory sojourn there; and on the day
of our departure I paid her a sum equivalent to the week's salary she
had lost, and bade her go her way, having first obtained her promise
that she would not communicate with any of her accomplices; a promise
which I took good care to convince her it would be safest to keep.
She was not permitted to see either Mamie or Nellie, and she had no
desire to see the other members of the homeward-bound party. And thus
ended our case in New Orleans.