THE SURPRISING STRENGTH OF AUNTIE
At a signal from Josie, Markle and his companion were grabbed from
behind. The handcuffs were on the companion in a twinkling but with
tiger-like agility and strength Markle slipped from the grasp of the
detectives. Without a moment’s delay he sprang to the motorcycle,
seized Josie by the collar, pulled her from the saddle and hurled her
into the bushes by the wayside. He was in the seat and had the machine
started before his would-be captors could catch their breath.
“That’s what I get for trusting those stupid men,” muttered Josie as
she picked up her bruised and scratched little body from the blackberry
bushes where Markle had so ignominiously thrown her. “Thank God for
Auntie!” she devoutly added.
And now began one of the most exciting contests ever beheld. Markle,
of course ignorant of who the passenger was in the side car and
determined to get rid of her at any cost, said:
“Now old woman, I don’t want to kill you, but I will unless you do
exactly what I say. When we get a mile further on I am going to stop
this infernal machine and you are going to get quietly out. Do you
understand?”
The supposed old woman nodded. She began, however, to unbutton the
large white cotton gloves confining her muscular hands and unknotted
the bonnet ribbon tied under her chin. She moved her shoulders back and
forth in the bombazine gown, making sure there was plenty of room to
give them free play.
Bob Dulaney had been conceded by his regiment in the A. E. F. to be
the best wrestler among them. He had strength and agility and science.
He had never had to use his powers handicapped in a woman’s dress and
kerchief with a stiff sunbonnet but, in spite of the confining clothes
and the powerful build of Markle, he felt quite confident that he
could master him. He was conscious of his muscles rippling under his
feminine garb and as he drew off his gloves he gloried in the strength
of his great hands. Should he wait until Markle stopped the car or
would it be better to grapple with him immediately? Of course, an
immediate grapple would mean the detectives in the temporarily disabled
Ford would come to his assistance. The sporting blood in Bob’s veins
rebelled at this thought. He did not want any assistance. He preferred
to have the fight out single handed. He glanced at Markle. A handsome
fellow with a well set head and fine square jaw. His close cropped
iron-grey hair gave a touch of dignity to his appearance.
“Such a pity! Such a pity!” Bob thought. “Talent gone wrong, just as
little Josie said!” but he patted the handcuffs which Josie had placed
in the old lady’s reticule.
“Here’s where you get off!” said Markle, stopping his Indian. “Step
lively, old woman! I’ve no time to lose.”
The old woman reached out and grasping Markle around the middle she
lifted him from the saddle. For the first time in his eventful career
of systematized crime, Felix Markle was taken completely by surprise.
Knowing the ups and downs of his profession, he was ever ready for an
attack, but this bunchy old woman who had so meekly submitted to being
carried off had given him a shock. If she was not what she seemed,
why had she let him get away from the plain clothes men who might have
rendered assistance in the way of ready revolvers and handcuffs. All
this flashed through his mind as he struggled in the bear hug of the
mysterious female.
Markle was even stronger and more agile than Bob had thought him to be.
In spite of the hold he had on him from the back he wriggled around
and grappled with his foe. Back and forth they fought each one trying
to get the death grip on the other. The bombazine skirt was more of a
handicap than Bob had thought it would be. He had not realized before
how necessary his legs were in a fight. Strange to say the voluminous
skirts also got in Markle’s way and finally managed to trip him up.
They rolled in the dirt. With a great wrench Bob managed to pull up the
offending skirt and with all the strength and science he could command
caught the infuriated Markle in the death-like vise known as the body
scissors. In this grip, the opponent is held between the legs of one
who has obtained this advantage and by the play of the thigh muscles
the breath is slowly squeezed out.
As Markle’s head drooped Bob drew the handcuffs from his bedraggled
reticule and snapped them on his wrists. With his kerchief, no longer
snowy, he bound his ankles together.
“There, poor fellow, I fancy you would have been happier if I had not
let up when I did but had squeezed all the breath out of you,” Bob
panted.
The chug of the rejuvenated Ford was now heard and, after it, the
rumble of the truck. The Ford was breaking the speed limits in its
endeavor to come up with the Indian and its side car. Josie was wild
with impatience. It was all she could do to keep from slapping the
stupid detective who had let their quarry escape.
“It is what I get for trusting them,” she kept on saying to herself. “I
could have snapped the handcuffs on myself without using any force. And
now, poor Bob Dulaney may be killed or almost worse than killed, Markle
escaping and no scoop after all to speak of.”
The fight that had seemed to Bob Dulaney to last hours had in reality
only taken a few minutes, only long enough for the gasoline to be put
in the tank and the car to be backed out of the miry road, turned
around and started.
They found Bob sitting on the roadside by his captive burglar. He was
still in the bombazine gown but his wig and bonnet were gone. He had
found the pockets of his trousers under his skirts and had produced
therefrom cigarettes and matches and was contentedly smoking.
“Hurrah for Auntie!” cried Josie when she took in the situation as the
car slowed down. Tears of joy were in her eyes but a little lump of
sympathy in her throat. They lifted Markle into the truck. Life was
slowly coming back to him. He opened his eyes for a moment and then
closed them wearily. He murmured something but only Josie caught the
meaning of his whisper:
“Pet, poor little Pet!”
It was an easy matter to round up the gang of thieves when once the
master mind was not allowed to direct them. Markle was confined in
jail, there to await his trial. The holder of checks Nos. 82-6573 and
82-6574 when he applied at the New York baggage room was followed and
trapped and with him many others.
The books of Simpkins & Markle were inspected and, through them, the
furnished apartments were located and the stolen goods restored to
their owners. Poor Simpkins had learned a lesson not to shut his eyes
and get rich too quick. He was let off--having convinced the jury that
he was not dishonest--but merely stupid.
But to return to the wedding breakfast and the fortunes of Mary Louise:
Everything went off as it should have and the theft of the presents was
not discovered until the bride and groom were off on their honeymoon
and then Chief Lonsdale had the trunks brought from Somerville and, so
carefully had the things been packed by the experts, that not even one
piece of cut glass had been broken. The trunkful of things purloined
from the Wrights had also been held at the station and was returned
intact. Of course Elizabeth was blamed by her family when the whole
thing came out for having introduced them to such people but Elizabeth
only smiled, being very happy way down deep in her heart that Billy
McGraw was saved from the wiles of the beautiful Hortense.
The beautiful Hortense simply faded out of sight. By some occult means
she must have known of the pursuit of her husband and the vigilance
of the police in regard to herself. It may have been through a
confederate employed by the caterers who perhaps saw Josie and Bob
speeding away on the motorcycle. At any rate, she did not return to her
apartment, but as soon as the ceremony was over, she excused herself
to Mary Louise, regretting exceedingly not being able to be present
during the breakfast and sit at the bride’s table, but her poor Felix
was so miserable she must go to him. She tripped down the terrace and
as has been said, simply faded out of sight. The detectives who had
been set by the astute chief to guard the apartment and to arrest her
when she made her appearance had a long and unfruitful vigil. It seemed
strange that a beautiful woman dressed so strikingly in pale grey over
iridescent silk could in a town no bigger than Dorfield escape the
notice of everyone and disappear.
Bob Dulaney got, as he expressed it, “the scoop of his life.” He was
able to get his story in one of the big New York papers before the A.
P. got on to it, thereby reaping a reward in reputation as well as
money. The whole country rang with the daring scheme practiced by the
gang of thieves and Chief Lonsdale and his force received compliments
from every city. Josie asked not to be put in the papers as the one
who had really done the work.
“It isn’t newspaper notoriety I want,” she explained. “My father never
wanted that kind of credit. He just wanted to have the consciousness
that he had delivered the goods and to be sure he had the respect of
the profession. If it gets out I was active in this, I might lose my
chance to nab others by being the insignificant little person I appear.
It’s better for me to go on keeping the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with
Elizabeth. I can learn all kinds of things that I’d miss if I were
known to be a real detective. I am here if you need me,” she said to
Chief Lonsdale, and he smiled at her.
“How like your father you are, child!”
Markle had one consolation while he was in prison awaiting his trial:
he had the notebook which had belonged to Detective O’Gorman which he
had not yet been able to decipher. The long hours of solitary prison
life gave him the opportunity to put his whole mind on it and at
last he felt sure he had mastered the cipher. With painstaking care
he translated the first page. Then he sat and looked at it with an
expression on his handsome face that beggared description. After all
he had been fighting Fate and trying to escape his own sin. And this is
what he had translated:
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hide from Him, and under running laughter,
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat--and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet--
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note:
Spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained as they appear
in the original publication except as follows:
Page 25
‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Page 37
thinking of coming to setle in
thinking of coming to settle in
Page 41
in touch with all condiditions of folk
in touch with all conditions of folk
Page 43
to say that it was onnsense
to say that it was nonsense
Page 45
take no thought whatsover concerning
take no thought whatsoever concerning
Page 55
“What newspaper,”
“What newspaper?”
Page 107
No, not in the last!
No, not in the least!
Page 129
losing my precious household gods
losing my precious household goods
Page 138
May I came in?
May I come in?
Page 140
one bit of information suggets
one bit of information suggests
Page 155
pages from ‘Les Miserables’ in French
pages from ‘Les Misérables’ in French
Page 167
staid in Dorfield
stayed in Dorfield
Page 181
about a neighbor’s hins
about a neighbor’s hens
Page 209
stamped, addressed envelop
stamped, addressed envelope
End of Project Gutenberg's Mary Louise at Dorfield, by Emma Speed Sampson