# The Man With The Lantern

Extracted from Collier's weekly, 19 Feb 1916, pp. 5–7, 28, 30–32.
THE MAN WITH THE LANTERN
BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK SNAPP
"In Indiana all things are different."—The Book of Hoosier Wisdom"
"WHERE you make your mistake," said Burgess, "is in assuming that unusual experiences come to people who look for them. It's the unexpected that makes life interesting, though of course you've got to be ready when the hour strikes. An honest detective will always admit that luck's a big element in his game, and the crooks themselves are superstitious about it. I'd tell you some stories along that line if you hadn't been so insulting all evening. The trouble with you fellows is that you wouldn't know an adventure if it came up and hit you with a club; what you'd do in such an event would be to telephone for the police and beg the reporters for Heaven's sake to keep your names out of the papers."
They accepted his reproof meekly, for they knew that a great many curious things happened to Burgess, though only his most intimate friends ever heard of them. They had formed the habit—a dozen of them—of dining together at the University Club on the last Saturday night of every month, chiefly to hear his modest recitals of the adventures that were always befalling him. To be sure, they talked politics, discussed books, the state of trade, and gossiped a little about their neighbors; but by general consent Webster G. Burgess, president of the White River National Bank, sat at the head of the table, and there had been few meetings since these dinners were instituted at which he didn't have a good story to tell.
In spite of the fact that he was one of the richest men in the State and had many interests besides the White River National, Burgess managed to have a pretty good time. He had a real feeling for the underdog, as his directorship in the Released Prisoners' Aid Society proved; and if he sometimes used questionable means to circumvent the law in his zealous efforts to befriend criminals who appealed to him for aid, it is to be said for him that his motives were those of a sincere humanitarian who believed that the weak and erring should have a second and even a third chance. One of his best friends was Tom Hill, the Secret Service veteran, who is known and admired wherever the Hoosier language is spoken; and he had several times pitted his wits against Hill's to the detective's discomfiture.
"Of course, Web, if we all cultivated the society of crooks as you do, and hid them in our houses when our wives were out of town, and did other things that are just a little shady, we might turn up here once a month with yarns like yours," said Billy Kemp, the steel-castings manufacturer, who was one of the beat customers of Burgess's bank.
"And if we traveled round as much as Web," said Ramsay, the surgeon, "instead of sitting on our jobs, we'd be likelier to find the thin ice he's always skating on. The trouble with the rest of us is that we're all so highly respectable that we don't dare expose ourselves to temptation the way Web does."
A cold chill crept down his spine as he saw what bank the check was drawn on
"For that insult," said Burgess good-naturedly, "I'll fine you a hundred dollars which I'll turn into the Prisoners' Aid Society. Now, you've all got the idea that because Thursday night prayer meeting is still well patronized in Indianapolis and all good women go to market on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, nothing amusing ever happens here except candidates for the vice presidency and little things like that. But you're all wrong, as I've tried to prove to you ever since we began having these little parties. Visitors are always asking why Indiana is a literary center, and the real reason is that the Hoosiers are different and do things differently. We can't brag about it, of course; but when pressed we've got to admit it. Why, my grandfather used to shoot wild turkeys up there where the Art Institute stands, and it takes the breath out of you to think of all the things that have happened here since Henry Ward Beecher was pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church. Just a block from here is the big flat General Wallace built with money he got out of books he wrote sitting in a rocking chair under a beech tree over at Crawfordsville. We see Riley riding around in his big touring car every day, and the whole American people bought his poems to pay for it! Over here on Pennsylvania Street is the house where good old 'Tark' wrote 'Beaucaire,' 'Penrod,' and 'The Turmoil,' and he's probably at work right now writing other things the folks are waiting for. Dr. Gatling, who invented the machine gun, lived here; Robert Louis Stevenson's wife once lived just around the corner from this club. I tell you the Hoosiers are different, and this town is different from any other town of its size in the world."
"Speaking of wild turkeys," interposed Goring, the engineer, "Hugh Landon still gets meat for his annual possum dinner right off his place out there where you can almost hear the striking of the courthouse clock."
"Let Web alone; he's only rehearsing a speech for the next dinner of the Indiana Society of Chicago," remarked Kemp with a yawn.
Burgess scowled and went on:
"The best fun I've ever had has been right here at home, so Ramsay's dig about my chasing around looking for trouble is all bosh. You might think that just sitting in a bank and saying no to you fellows when you try to borrow more money than you're entitled to is about all there is to the banking business. But even in a bank a lot of strange things happen."
"Yes," laughed Ramsay; "we all remember how you entertained that counterfeiter in the directors' room, and smuggled him out the back way while Cap Hill was waiting to nab him in the lobby. Of course you justified that on the ground that your friend had done all the time he was entitled to, and you were fortifying him with good resolutions about his future conduct as you hustled him off toward Chicago."
"Don't give it away," said Burgess with a grin of satisfaction, "but that fellow has been at work on my farm in Tippecanoe County ever since and living straight. But I will repeat that banking isn't the commonplace business you think it is." He hesitated, and his eyes fell upon a window of the private dining room where they were sitting at ease. He lighted a fresh cigar deliberately, walked round the table, and sat down closer to the window. "Even a bank ledger," Burgess continued, "isn't altogether as commonplace as it sounds. I don't want you to get the idea that I look over all the customers' checks in the hope of getting something on them, but as all our talks here are confidential I'll just mention one account that I'll admit I've been watching lately. It's a case of an elderly woman who came to the bank six months ago and deposited fifty thousand dollars—an unusual amount for a strange woman to have. I didn't see her, but she introduced herself to Cooper, the cashier, and explained herself satisfactorily. She seemed very anxious to get rid of the money, which was in Chicago exchange issued by a New York bank. All this is against the ethics ol the business, but I'll tell you who it was. It was Miss Catherine Raymond of that Raymond family that used to own a farm near town on the Millersville road. Old Caleb Ramond ran a private bank here away back before the war, weathered the bad times of the seventies, and along about 1890 moved to Connecticut, where he came from originally, carrying a nice wad with him. He had only the one child, who was an old maid when they left here, and she's easily seventy now. Her father died long ago. She told Cooper she was moving back for the sake of old associations. She was born here, in a house on Tennessee Street—now Capitol Avenue—along there where all the automobile shops are. She remarked that she had known my father, which she undoubtedly did, and promised to come in again in a few days. That was six months ago, and she hasn't been back since. I asked some of the old citizens about her, but she hadn't made herself known to any of them, and I made inquiries at the hotel she had given as her address, but she had left a few days after opening her account."
"You and I would do our work much easier," said Burgess, "if these confounded amateurs only kept their hands off. They make the business dangerous"
"A very comfortable sort of customer," said Billings, the dry-goods merchant, "providing she hasn't checked out all the money."
"That," said Burgess, "is the queerest thing about it. Her first check came in a week after she opened her account. It was payable to bearer and called for a thousand and some odd dollars and cents. A respectable-looking woman presented it. The signature tallied exactly with the writing on the card the old lady had filled out for our file, and the check was paid, of course. Ten days later the same woman presented another check, this time for a little less than fifteen hundred dollars. The amounts were always in odd sums—to allay suspicion perhaps, if there's really anything wrong about it. The withdrawals continued until now she's drawn out about seven thousand dollars."
"There oughtn't to be anything mysterious about that," remarked Ramsay. "All you'd have to do would be to have one of the clerks step out from behind the counter and follow the woman who brought the check, or you might hold it up and ask her to tell Miss Raymond you wanted to see her. As you don't seem equal to your responsibility in the matter, I'll move over to the bank and do the job for you."
"Thank you, Ramsay. We all know that you're a very clever person, but I've already tried following her. The first time the woman walked straight to a department store, took the elevator to the dressmaking department, and while the clerk who followed her was trying to find some excuse for being there she went down by the stairway. The next time I sent our bank officer in plain clothes. She got on a street car in front of the bank, rode to the station, and bought a ticket for Greenfield. My man followed her all right enough, but, knowing Greenfield was the first stop for that train, he thought he had a snap. All trains stop in the yards, as he should have known, but when he woke up she had slipped from the car and was dodging ahead of a long freight, and when it passed she wasn't in sight. That proved that she knew she was being watched, and I gave orders that she should be held the next time she came, but of course she hasn't been back. Another check came in yesterday, though. It was for only seventeen dollars and had been cashed at a downtown drug store that does business with us. The druggist didn't know anything about it except that a man had offered it in payment of two dollars' worth of stuff. As he recalled having seen the man before and the amount was small, he took a chance on it."
THE dining room was at the rear of the club on the second floor. Burgess's eye had caught the glimmer of a light on a roof two blocks away, and as he talked he was trying to mark the locality. As he turned for another glance, the light vanished.
"We'll forgive your first serious error," said Kemp, stretching himself lazily, "but the second time the woman showed up you should have had a snapshot taken of her. But go on with the rest of it."
"Well, that's about all there is, except that a New York trust company has a man here now trying to find Miss Raymond. I told him what I've told you only this afternoon. It seems that the trust company holds a nice bunch of securities for her account—several hundred thousand dollars' worth of good stuff. The income has been piling up, and they've grown curious as to what's become of her."
"She probably autographed a lot of blank checks on your bank and then went out and got run over by an automobile," suggested Ramsay. "The average daily mortality from motor accidents in this town is scandalously high. Miserly old woman, hiding from her greedy relations and that sort of stuff. Probably buried at the county's expense. But go ahead; I want to know the answer."
They all began chaffing Burgess about the loose management of a bank that paid out checks to bearer on an account carried by a woman who might be dead for all anybody knew. Ramsay complained bitterly of the tameness of the story. Burgess rose and stared indifferently across the dark roofs beyond and then turned round with a bored look on his face.
"Sorry, but I'd nearly forgotten," he said, taking out his watch, "that I'd promised the Manufacturers' Club to look in at their dinner about this time, so I must be running along."
"You had no business to make any such engagement," protested Fanning, the wholesale druggist. "It's against the rules for any member of this table to leave until twelve o'clock."
"And going to a silly dinner where men make speeches who don't know how isn't an excuse," said Williams, the broker.
"And you haven't proved to us yet that interesting things really happen right here at home," said Burke. "If you insist on going to that dinner, you've got to hurry back, and we'll wait here till you come. If something exciting happens at the dinner—if some critical manufacturer throws a bottle at that senator who's going to talk about the Monroe Doctrine—that will make an acceptable story; and if the infuriated diner misses the senator and lands on you, please hurry back so we can watch Ramsay patch you up."
"I've told you a hundred times," said Burgess, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his dinner coat, "that the biggest moose always jumps up just where you're not expecting him, and you can't order an adventure as you do a cocktail or a taxi. But just to contribute to the gayety of nations, I'll undertake to furnish an exception to prove the rule. I promise to be back here in an hour or so with as good a story as I've ever told you—something brand-new that hasn't been in the papers. I give you my word of honor that I don't know what it will be, but if it's no good I'll pay the check for the dinner, though it isn't my turn. While I'm gone you may tear my moral character to pieces as much as you like, or you may dissect all the stories I've ever told here and say they were lies I made up just to make myself look like a hero. I leave you alone with your bad manners; I couldn't do anything meaner!"
"There are eleven of us," said Kemp, "and well make it a hundred apiece to your hundred that you don't bring in anything worth while. Is it a trade?"
"Have your checks ready," Burgess returned; "and don't kick when I come back for your money."
"Here's good luck, Web," cried Burke, lifting a highball glass and shaking it so the ice clinked derisively.
"And don't keep us waiting all night," mocked Ramsay. "If you do, we'll appoint somebody else to go out and look for a story."
Burgess left the room with the lazy, indifferent air with which he strolled about his bank after the morning hour of desk work that he particularly hated.
IT was cool for mid-May and a drizzling rain was falling when Burgess reached the street. He debated whether he shouldn't go to the Manufacturers' dinner for an hour and then return to the club, acknowledge that he had been bluffing, and submit to his friends' raillery at his failure. He had told the truth when he said that his adventures were all a matter of chance, and he had left the table with no idea that anything unusual would happen to him. But the light that had attracted his attention from the club window had mildly interested him from the fact that, as near as he could place it, it had flashed from the roof of a row of houses that he had inherited from his father. At times they had been thrown together in twos and used as boarding houses, but they had steadily deteriorated as the value of the land increased. He had just sold them to a company that proposed erecting an apartment house, and Burgess supposed the wreckers had gone to work. It was a reasonable assumption that they might be working at night, but he decided to satisfy himself of the origin of the light before going to the dinner.
He left the club by a side door, and glanced up at the club windows where, he ruefully reflected, his friends, having turned him out into the wet, were undoubtedly having a good time.
He checked his pace as he reached the houses, which in Civil War times had been the center of the best residential district. He had sold the property for a good price, and he viewed its dingy front with a sense of satisfaction that he had got rid of it.
THE second house from the end of the row seemed to be occupied; the windows of the others were dark and filled with "For Rent" signs. As Burgess passed, the door of the last house in the line closed softly. He continued on to the alley that bisected the block and glanced back. The street was very quiet, and no other pedestrian was in sight. He slowly retraced his steps, and as he again reached the empty house the same slight click of a latch caught his attention. It was not his affair if some one was using the house as a hiding place and waiting for a chance to leave, but his curiosity was aroused, and he ran up the steps and stood for a moment inside the entry. A shade left by the last tenant filled the glass in the upper half of the door. He listened a moment and, hearing nothing but the monotonous beat of the rain, seized the knob and set his weight against the door.
It opened so readily that he pitched forward into the arms of a man who flung him back into the hall. The door closed quickly, and as he thrust out his hands blindly they were caught and held in a tight grip. "So you're at it again, Web!"
Burgess gasped with relief as he recognized the voice of his captor. "So it's you, Hill!"
"Very much so," replied the Secret Service man dryly. "Up to your old tricks, I see."
"Not guilty this time, Tom," Burgess replied.
Hill released his hands and bade him make as little noise as possible.
"These walls are a foot thick," said Burgess; "I used to own the property, and I know."
"Then I've a good notion to tie you up and leave you here all night to play with the rats."
"I shouldn't like that," said Burgess; "and besides I promised some fellows at the club I'd be back pretty soon with a good story."
"That's no excuse for meddling in my business. You thought you'd follow me around and see if something wouldn't happen, did you? Why don't you stay in your club where you belong and invent your stories if you must have 'em?"
"Not when I see anything so interesting as a lantern making signals on the roof of a house two blocks away!"
Hill sniffed. "You're going to be found dead some day, as I've often warned you, if you don't stop sticking your nose in my business. I've a good notion to call the police and have you run in for trespassing; or I might put you through the mill myself for interfering with a government officer."
"I'm not going to interfere, Tom; that's on the level. Let me in on this, and I'll promise to be good."
"You don't know what the word means! What about the lantern you thought you saw on the roof? You can't see the roofs of these houses from the club windows."
"Don't try to bluff me. Of course I saw it, from the back window on the second floor. You've been camped here watching somebody, and that light was a signal."
Burgess heard a grunt as the two men went down.
"You must stop reading detective stories, Web," said Hill. "They're written for boys and not for grown men. There hasn't been any lantern on this roof."
"All right," observed Burgess ironically; "if you didn't see the light, then there wasn't any."
A faint tap at the rear of the house interrupted them.
Hill stole away, but was back in an instant and they resumed their colloquy in the dark hall.
"That's Towne, who's helping me on this job. We're all set to pinch two phony money workers in the next house. When I saw you fooling around outside I thought you might be one of the bunch trying to feel me out. But I guess maybe we can use you if you'll behave yourself."
"All right, Tom. I hadn't been following you, and if you hadn't monkeyed with the door I shouldn't have stopped. If you don't mind my saying it, that was pretty coarse work."
"Cut it out! I saw you pass and knew you'd stop if you thought there was a chance of getting your head cracked. I opened the door the second time just as a teaser."
Burgess accepted this meekly.
"I didn't know crooks took chances on a neighborhood like this."
"There are a good many things you don't know," said Hill.
He seized Burgess by the arm and guided him through the hall to the kitchen where Burgess kicked a piece of abandoned stove-pipe with a force that sent it booming and clattering against the wall.
"If you spoil this haul, I'll punch your head," snapped Hill, his grip tightening.
He struck a match so that Towne, his assistant, and Burgess might have a look at each other.
"I'm going to tackle the front door of the next house and Towne will stand by at the rear. I want you to go back to the alley fence and watch the upper windows. Don't make a fuss unless you see something. Here's a gun to play with, but don't do anything foolish He thrust an automatic into Burgess's hand and hurried away.
Burgess dropped the gun into his overcoat pocket, and Towne led him out the back door, where, after shoving him rather precipitately toward the fence, he disappeared.
The yard that ran behind the houses was undivided, Burgess remembered as he stumbled through the litter and established a beat for himself along the fence and began patrolling it. The rear windows of the house which Hill had designated as the habitation of counterfeiters presented a blank appearance, but he watched them steadily. He did not wholly relish the station Hill had assigned him. Nothing very stirring was likely to happen, he reflected, as Hill usually planned his raids very carefully, and no doubt within a few minutes he would have captured his men and be carting them off to jail. Still, the fact that he had left the club and walked immediately into a counterfeiting raid would be enough of an adventure to win his wager.
Five minutes passed, then ten and nothing had occurred. The drizzle changed to a steady downpour that seemed to concentrate upon him with particular malevolence. His pumps shipped water and his silk socks clung soggily to his feet. Twenty minutes had passed, he judged, and he went to the rear door to see whether Towne was still on guard. The man had left his post without giving notice of his intentions; and this struck Burgess as rather unfriendly, but remembering Hill's instructions he returned to the fence and resumed his contemplation of the windows.
The shade of one of them was pulled back cautiously, and an instant later a woman opened the window and thrust her hand into the rain. The light of a gas jet on the wall outlined her clearly. She was still peering out when a man stepped into the picture and caught her roughly by the shoulder. He was a big, burly fellow, clean-shaven and with a thick thatch of dark hair, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Burgess heard his voice raised in abuse.
"I told you not to open that window," he said sharply. "You go back to the front of the house and stay there."
Burgess saw him reach for the gas bracket and turn off the light and a moment later heard the rattle of the sash as he closed the window.
"I told you not to open that window"
The incident puzzled Burgess. Sufficient time had elapsed for Hill to have forced his way into the house by the front door and made his arrests, but from all appearances the occupants had not been disturbed, though the man's conduct indicated that he was anxious to avoid observation. Towne's disappearance also troubled him.
Burgess set his back doggedly against the fence with every intention of obeying Hill's orders until the detective reappeared. A back yard is a very lonesome place on a rainy night, and he began moving about trying to find a point from which he could see the club, but no perspective offered. The light that filtered in from the arc lamp at the corner made it barely possible to distinguish near-by objects in the yard. The rain was falling through a thin fog that gave an eerie appearance to everything in sight. This interested him for a moment; thieves must of necessity be expert in judging the range and density of light. He must ask some of his friends in the underworld about this....
HE was roused by shots in the street followed by shouts and the quick patter of feet. He ran to the kitchen door, thinking Towne might have returned, but Hill's assistant was nowhere visible. There were no sounds from the house, and he assumed that Hill had met with trouble at the entrance and that the men he was seeking had beaten him down and bolted.
The street was now thoroughly awake. Men were calling excitedly; a police whistle piped shrilly. Burgess was cheered by this manifestation of activity; after all, something might happen. As he curbed an inclination to dash round the house into the street and investigate the cause of the uproar he heard furtive steps in the alley back of him. Then through the mist he saw a man poise for a moment on the top of the fence and drop silently into the yard. A noisy pursuing party charged through the alley. Some one fumbled at the gate and flung it open.
"I tell you he never crossed the street," shouted some one.
"Well, you got one of 'em, anyhow," remarked another of the pursuers.
This philosophic utterance evoked a profane rejoiner from Hill.
"He wouldn't have been fool enough to cross the street; who was it saw him come this way?"
The individual who had seen the fugitive cross the street maintained a discreet silence. Hill snapped out contemptuously at the unknown meddler who had led him on a wrong scent. Then he bawled Burgess's name several times. Crouching behind a barrel in a fence corner, Burgess made no answer. Hill ordered two of his volunteer assistants to search the yard and hurried away. Evidently fearing they might miss something by remaining behind, the searching party lingered a moment and departed hastily round the house toward the street.
Burgess's spirits rose rapidly. Very likely Hill had been using the empty house merely as a point from which to observe the counterfeiters he had traced to the boarding house opposite. He had been peering out through the glass door preparing to make his arrests when Burgess passed, and fearing another exhibition of his friend's playfulness had captured him and hit upon the ruse of stationing him in the dismal back yard merely to get rid of him. As a fitting reward for this duplicity, the raid on the boarding house had failed of its purpose. The rumpus in the street when one of the men bolted had angered the Secret Service man, who prided himself upon executing the law's commissions with as little fuss as possible. Hill was rattled or he wouldn't have followed a crowd of boys on a false trail.
The manner in which Hill had bawled his name added to Burgess's delight in the situation; Hill wanted somebody to vent his rage on, and he, Webster G. Burgess, had no intention of revealing himself to become the target for Hill's wrath.
Several blocks away another cry arose faintly, and Burgess heard the crowd scamper. Peace reigned in the yard. Burgess changed his position noiselessly and breathed freely once more. The water from a broken-down spout sent a stream across the yard, and this was gurgling disagreeably about his feet. The steady rainfall had soaked his overcoat and the drip from his hat brim tickled his nose, but he felt immensely pleased with himself. Of all his jokes on Hill this was the best.
The detective had warned Burgess repeatedly that if he persisted in projecting himself into the affairs of criminals and interposing himself between them and the police he would ultimately get a bullet for his pains. The present occasion offered an excellent opportunity for realizing the detective's expectations. For somewhere, quite near him, lay the counterfeiter—an armed desperado, as evidenced by his exchange of shots with the detective. But Burgess was willing to hazard a good deal for a chance to laugh at Hill; and by capturing the fugitive unassisted he would silence forever his scoffing friends. The counterfeiter was ignorant of his propinquity, and it would not be difficult, he argued, to surprise him and bear him off in triumph to the club. He slipped his hand into his pocket and fondled Hill's automatic confidently while he peered anxiously through the mist.
His eyes swept again the dim outlines of the occupied house and caught a glimmer of light on the roof. It was quite possible that the tenant of the occupied house had been repairing a leak and had returned to his task after observing the disturbance in the street. Burgess continued his watchful waiting and was rewarded a moment later by seeing a dull blur, imaginably the figure of a man creeping stealthily along the roof. The light vanished, and a slight stirring near at hand brought his attention back to the yard.
THE counterfeiter was stealing cautiously toward the house from the rear of the yard. As he passed within a few feet of Burgess's position behind the barrel, his silhouette as it wavered in the gray mist disclosed a tall man with a round hat pulled low on his head. Burgess stood erect, drew out the automatic, and prepared to attack the counterfeiter. He crept after the retreating figure, flourishing the gun to straighten the kinks out of his arm. If it was the fugitive's plan to enter the empty house. Burgess meant to halt him at the kitchen door—he would not risk an attack in the open yard where the man might bolt again and repeat the trick he had played on Hill. The counterfeiter had almost reached the shadow of the house, and Burgess, close behind him, leveled his revolver; but his command to halt was arrested by the sudden opening of the kitchen door and the appearance of a man with a lantern. This was disturbing, for it was hardly likely that Hill or his man Towne had come back, as the sounds of pursuit were still remotely audible, and the Secret Service men were presumably fully occupied elsewhere. The communicating doors between the houses made it possible to pass from one to the other, Burgess remembered, and he assumed that the man he had seen on the roof was passing out through the empty house.
The counterfeiter had disappeared as the lantern sent a wavering gleam from the half-opened door and was extinguished. The newcomer turned toward the occupied house, moving deliberately. Burgess heard his step, though he was barely distinguishable in the deep shadows. Then another man rose directly in front of him and toppled him over with startling suddenness.
Burgess heard a grunt as the two went down together. Hill's fugitive had evidently been hiding close to the house and, mistaking the man with the lantern for one of his pursuers, had flung himself upon him. The whole incident was like a ghostly pantomime on a darkened stage. Burgess stole nearer to watch the fight, his sporting instincts pleasantly stimulated. The counterfeiter was evidently a desperate crook. His cleverness in dodging Hill and the spirit with which he gave battle to the stranger were emphatic proof of this.
NOW that the first shock of surprise had passed, the man the counterfeiter had attacked seemed to be giving an excellent account of himself. The advantage of weight was in his favor, but his assailant was the more active. They rolled over each other repeatedly and then, finding himself on top, the lighter man made an effort to escape. But his antagonist seemed in no haste to part with him. He caught him by the legs, jerked him to the ground, and after striking him several times on the head dragged him toward the empty house.
The kitchen door flew back with a bang and the two disappeared. Instantly the victor returned, groped for his lantern, and darted back into the house.
Burgess crept to the window eager to witness the outcome. It was plain enough that the man from the occupied house had no intention of summoning the police to take charge of the intruder, and this in itself was an interesting circumstance, indicative of some lawless purpose of his own in which he feared frustration.
Burgess pressed his face to the wet glass; all was quiet within. The big fellow relighted his lantern and passed it along the crumpled figure of the counterfeiter, who lay on his side with his face turned away from the window. A motorist's raincoat covered him to the heels. His captor glanced toward the door, a puzzled look on his face. Then with sudden decision he walked to the corner of the kitchen and raised a door set evenly into the floor. His inspection of the cellar seemed to satisfy him. He set down his lantern under the sink as far from the window as possible and began dragging his prisoner toward the opening. As Burgess heard the creaking of the cellar steps under the weight of the two men a fleeting thought of his friends at the club, waiting for his reappearance and prepared to ridicule him for his failure to return with something to justify his reputation as a dashing and venturesome character, moved him to action. He sprang into the room, gained the cellar door at a bound, and slammed it shut. He sat upon it, seized a padlock that hung open from the hasp, thrust it through the staple, and snapped the lock just as the door heaved violently beneath him. He stepped off to test the security of the lock without his weight. The door rattled, but seemed in no danger of yielding. The cellar windows were barred, he remembered with satisfaction.
He found a cigar in his pocket, lighted it, and looked at his watch. It was half past eleven, and he had been gone from the club just forty-five minutes. The assaults upon the door continued, but less violently now that the first fury of the prisoner had abated.
He stepped into the yard and glanced up at the adjoining house. He heard the thump of weights in the frame as a window was opened and saw the blurred outline of the woman's head.
"Sam!" she called.
"All right," Burgess answered.
This apparently satisfied her, and she hurriedly closed the window. He returned to the kitchen, where the door continued to strain under the pressure from below. Leaving the lantern behind and closing the door, he began feeling his way through the hall. When he reached the front door he turned back the shade and peered through the grimy glass into the street. The neighborhood had regained its usual tranquillity, and the boarding house where Hill had sought the counterfeiters presented a virtuous front to the world. The noise in the cellar was scarcely audible, and he began crawling upstairs, pausing after each dismaying creak of the planks to wait for any signs from above that his approach was attracting attention.
The sound of voices heard quite plainly through the door connecting the front rooms of the two houses at once corrected his impression that the woman was alone. A thin penciling of light defined the upper edge of the sagged door, and through the old fashioned lock he saw that the key was turned on the inside. With his ear pressed against the crack, he was able in a moment to differentiate two voice:
"Hurry, now, dearie, and sign just once more. We're going away just as soon as Sam comes back. It'll be nice in the country, and you'll feel a lot better there."
"How many of these have I signed, Mary?" This in a weak, querulous voice at once intensified Burgess's curiosity. "I've lost all track of them; my money must be all gone by this time.
"Oh, you've got lots of money left. Sam and I are spending all you give us to make you happy and comfortable.
"Well, that's all I can do now. My hand shakes so I can hardly write. It must be that medicine. I sleep so much I lose all track of time."
"Don't trouble, dearie; the sleep's good for you. And we're going to a quiet place where you'll soon be well again. I've got to finish packing now. We're going for a nice automobile ride just as soon as Sam comes. Go to sleep now; that's a dear. I'll unlock the door. Maybe Sam will come this way. Don't be afraid, dearie."
The perspiration was trickling down Burgess's face. He held his breath as the woman crossed the room and turned back the key. Apparently she had taken pains to guard against Sam's sudden appearance, but having now completed her business wished to leave the way clear for his return.
Burgess followed her steps as she went downstairs. It was possible that the assaults on the cellar door would attract the woman's attention if she went into her own kitchen, but even if she learned of her companion's plight it would be some time before she could free the prisoners.
A FAINT moan inside the door aroused him to the importance of acting quickly. He made sure the automatic was in easy reach and turned the knob. The room into which he stepped was dimly lighted by a gas bracket set between two windows. A strapped trunk and a dismembered iron bed with its parts tied with cord lay on the bare floor. A frail old woman seated in a rocking chair by the table under the light turned slowly and regarded him with a dull stare. She wore a long lilac wrapper. One arm rested on the table, and her fingers played restlessly with a small ink bottle. Her fine dark eyes continued to rest upon Burgess vacantly as he crossed the room, and a look of bewilderment slowly crept into them as he stood beside her.
"I thought it was Sam," she said faintly, and her lips twitched into a plaintive smile; "but I see now it's the doctor. I don't like your medicine, doctor; it makes me sleep too much. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll never really wake up. But" (a crafty look came into her eyes) "I know more than they think I do."
She slowly raised her arms, unfastened a button of her wrapper, and drew out a slip of paper. After a glance at the door she caught Burgess by the sleeve. "You may as well have this," she whispered. "Sam and Mary have got too much already. This is quite confidential, you understand."
He swung round to the light and unfolded the paper. A cold chill crept down his spine as he saw that she had given him a check on his own bank for $1,ll0.22, payable to bearer and signed by Catherine Raymond. He thrust it into his pocket and looked at the woman again. The smile had gone from her face; one small, emaciated hand played restlessly with a quaint, brooch that held her collar together; her eyes stared at him unseeingly.
"You are Miss Raymond?" he whispered close to her ear.
She fixed her eyes upon him drowsily. "Yes," she murmured.
"Who is Sam?" he asked.
"Sam? Why you know Sam, doctor; he's Mary's husband. They're old family servants; you know that, of course. When I sold the place at Litchfield and came back here, I didn't want to leave them. I have been ill; very ill."
Her head drooped, then she roused herself and looked at him fixedly. Her brows knit and her eyes opened and closed several times with the effort of memory. Her hand plucked at his sleeve. "You are not the doctor—I see I was mistaken. I really don't know you, do I—" she ended with a pitiful, despairing sigh.
"I'm a friend come to help you," he whispered, clasping her hand reassuringly. "Stay quietly here till I come back. Don't tell Mary I've been here—you understand?"
Comprehension flashed in the dull eyes for an instant and she nodded.
He retraced his steps to the lower hall of the empty house and let himself out by the front door. When he reached the corner drug store he ran into a police sergeant who called him by name.
"Been with Cap Hill to-night?" asked the officer, grinning as he surveyed Burgess's muddy trousers and dented derby with a professional eye.
"Off and on, Martin—mostly off."
He was blowing from his run and his bedraggled appearance justified the careful scrutiny the sergeant was giving him. "Cap's been looking for you," remarked the sergeant.
"I should think he would be," Burgess replied.
"He's afraid you got in bad somewhere," said Martin.
"Oh, nothing like that!"
"Well, he's sent out an alarm and the whole force is looking for you. I'll just call up headquarters and tell 'em you're all right."
"Hill should worry," returned Burgess easily. "No doubt they've been telephoning my house and scaring my wife to death. But, Martin—"
He dropped his bantering air and told the sergeant all he thought necessary of the finding of Catherine Raymond.
"The Raymond woman we've been tipped off to look for!" gasped Martin.
"Yes; but we can't stand here talking about it. They've got her doped and are all set to haul her off somewhere. I'll call my wife and tell her to get ready to take care of Miss Raymond or the night. My car's waiting for me at the club, and I'll send for it to come here and pick me up. Go to the house—the second one from the west end of yhe row—and take good care of the old lady till I get there—in about five minutes. The woman in charge is all ready to bolt, but for God's sake don't let her get away."
He went into the drug store and called the club first and gave the order for his car to be sent, and was still perspiring in the booth trying to satisfy Mrs. Burgess that he was not insane when the machine drew up at the curb. As an afterthought he called the club again and gave the clerk orders to seek Hill by telephone at a list of places he suggested and ask the Secret Service man to go to the club immediately.
When he returned to the house Martin had, he found, obeyed his instructions strictly. The woman had resisted his advance into the house with much sound and fury, and the officer had been obliged to muzzle and handcuff her before getting upstairs.
"The old lady is all right," he explained. "She was asleep when I left her a minute ago."
MRS. BURGESS had made a room ready, and the family doctor was on the spot when Burgess and the chauffeur carried the freed prisoner into the house. A trained nurse had been summoned and was on the way. Burgess felt that his presence at home was not required after Miss Raymond had been placed in the guest room and the physician had taken charge of her. Mrs. Burgess did not share this feeling. Still, it was better to have a strange woman brought to the house at midnight than to be called from bed to receive the body of a dead husband, and this she had frequently remarked to her adventurous spouse was exactly what would happen one of these days.
Burgess hastily divested himself of his wet clothing, and, rehabilitating himself in full evening togs, turned over in his mind the most effective manner of relating his adventures to the men who were waiting for him at the club....
Jeers greeted him as he appeared at the dining-room door. He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and regarded them good-naturedly.
"He's been home and dolled himself all up," taunted Fanning, noting his change of raiment.
Burgess waved a hovering Jap from the room and selected a cigar with deliberate care while they continued their derisive comments on his reappearance.
"Since I left here one hour and fifteen minutes ago," he began slowly, "several little things have happened, and if you fellows will promise not to blab I'll tell you the story."
SOMETHING in his manner caused them to sit erect and give attention. He began with his meeting with Hill and of the detective's ruse to get rid of him by setting him to watch the windows of the empty house, and of the rapid succession of incidents that led to his discovery of Miss Raymond. They crowded closer about the table as the narrative developed, told in the clean-cut sentences Burgess used when he addressed a directors' meeting. He was half an hour bringing his story down to the transfer of Miss Raymond to his own house. As he paused a waiter knocked and handed him a card.
"Tell Captain Hill to come up," he said.
They welcomed Hill joyously and made room for him at the end of the table.
"Well, Web, you look pretty fresh for this hour of the night," said Hill, accepting a cigar.
"Considering that you planted me in a nasty back yard to watch a house you weren't at all interested in, and that I spoiled a suit of clothes doing it, just to accommodate you, I feel pretty good," said Burgess.
"You always try to be helpful," said the detective tolerantly, "and I like to use you when I can."
"You understand, Tom, that ordinarily I wouldn't do anything to injure your reputation; you know that. But I was just a little bit sore over the trick you played on me, and it's in my low nature to get even when I can."
"That's all right, Web," the detective assented cheerfully.
"Oh, thunder, Web, go back to the beginning and tell the whole story over again," said Fanning; "and put in more details. We want Hill to check you up."
Burgess thereupon repeated his story, amplifying some parts of it, and dwelling now more particularly upon the capture of the counterfeiter by the man from the empty house and his own part in clapping the cellar door shut upon both men.
They exclaimed in surprise and doubt at these additions, and turned from him to Hill, who sat smoking.
"Where's Ramsay?" Burgess asked, for the first time noting the surgeon's absence. "It was that expensive carver of human flesh who was so keen about sending me out into the wet to get myself into a scrape so he could kid me about it."
"Ramsay went out right after you did and said he'd be back later," some one explained. "He must have gone home."
Hill regarded the lighted end of his cigar with fixed attention and bade Burgess go on.
"Well, here's the key to the padlock and here's your gun," Burgess resumed patronizingly. "Your counterfeiter—the one who got away from you—is locked up in the cellar of that house, and as the kidnaper who shares his dungeon may murder him I advise you to call in a few policemen and go down and fish them out. It would be decent of you to buy me a cheap cigar sometime to pay me for my trouble in nailing your man for you; and I hope you will pardon the suggestion that you might have better success in your life work if you didn't make so much noise. That street scene you staged over there was enough to wake all the crooks in town."
Hill examined the key critically and pushed it back across the table.
"Thanks, Web, but I'm afraid this won't do me any good. And this gun isn't loaded; I shook the cartridges out while I was talking to you in the hall." He paused and glanced about the table significantly. "I didn't want to take a chance of Web's killing somebody, but if I had his luck I wouldn't do anything but play the races. I'm getting a little old, Web, and they may be calling me down to Washington any day to hand in my papers; but I'm not quite the dead one you think I am. I got both counterfeiters, and they're now in jail. The one who bolted I nabbed five minutes after I yelled for you in that yard. I admit I was worried when you didn't show up after the fireworks, and I was misled by some of the fools who always turn up when there's anything doing, but it didn't last long. The counterfeiter was never in that yard. He skipped across Meridian Street and hid in the Blind Asylum grounds where I picked him out of a lilac bush." This was greeted with loud laughter. Burgess affected an ease he did not feel.
"You make mistakes, Web," continued the detective, "in not finishing up your jobs as you go along. That's the first law of this business. Old Martin isn't altogether a fool. You didn't tell him about the two fellows in the cellar; you were saving that for me, but after you took the woman away he sent a flock of bicycle men humping to the house to look it over and take charge of things, and of course they found the men in the cellar. I was at the police station when they arrived. Incidentally they picked up a machine in the alley that was waiting to cart the old lady away. That was what the big chap was signaling for with his lantern when you saw it from these windows, but the rumpus we made getting our men scared the auto away till the lantern showed up again on the roof. No doubt one of the gents you locked in the cellar is the pal of the woman who had been keeping the old lady in pickle, just as you say; but the other is no counterfeiter—not by a long shot!"
HILL was having his innings, and he deliberated to prolong Burgess's agony. The room was very quiet as they all waited for the detective to conclude.
"I'm always sorry, Web, to spoil a good story, but these are the facts. You thought you had a big joke on me and you wanted to spring it before these friends of yours; and that's all right. But it seems that another gentleman who had been eating and drinking too much club food thought he'd be smart, too, and go out and have some story-book adventures. He struck the street down there just as the row started when I tackled the boarding house. He'd heard you talk so much about having fun with me that he thought he'd see if he couldn't do something in the same line. The crowd mistook him for the man I was chasing and he hid in the yard where I left you and mixed up with that big kidnaper, thinking he was the man I'd lost. The kidnaper didn't take any chances, but chucked him in the cellar. Then you jumped in and locked up both of 'em."
"Ramsay!" they chorused.
"Ramsay, or what's left of him," replied Hill. "He's pounded up some and his clothes are spoiled. You see when the kidnaping party couldn't get out he amused himself by trying to kill Ramsay. Oh, don't have fits! I identified Ramsay when they brought him into headquarters in a patrol wagon and explained things as I imagined they had happened, and did my best to satisfy the newspaper boys. It would be nice, though, if some of you'd call up the papers and tell 'em Ramsay wasn't beaten up in a drunken scrap somewhere. That's what he looked like."
BURGESS rose and gave a tug to his waistcoat. "I'm sorry about Ramsay," he said contritely; "I'll have to square it with him some way. But it's all your fault, Hill. If you'd played square with me, Ramsay wouldn't have got his head smashed."
"Don't beef!" admonished the detective. "I'll admit that you've done a pretty job to-night, considering your general weak-mindedness."
"I believe it's the sentiment of the meeting that you've made good for once," said Kemp consolingly; "and, unless there's objection" (he glanced about the room), "we'll pay the bet. A month from to-night I'll give the dinner, and we'll have Ramsay here, if he's out of the hospital, and you, too, Hill, if you'll honor us, and I'll see to it that Ramsay doesn't shoot Web in the meantime."
Burgess went to the telephone and satisfied himself by a coversation with the police surgeon that Ramsay was not seriously injured. He was feeling better when he returned to the table and made a neat pile of their checks.
"There's just one thing about it, Tom," he remarked to Hill; "you and I would do our work much easier if these confounded amateurs only kept their hands off. They make the business dangerous."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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