Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-06-26
A MESSAGE BY GAS PIPE

a story If can. I've been q quiet man
most Of my life and haven't had much to
diverge me from the even tenor of my
way. but one time. I came very near 1t.
1t happened ten years ago when had a
job in New York, and not a dozen blocks
from Madison Square I boarded in the
section between the square and the New
York Central station, and my job was a
day one, letting me off at pm I had a
nice room and being fond of books I used
to pass NEST of my evenings at home read
ing. 1 had an easy chair that pulled up
close under the gas jet, and there have
sat many night reading until midnight or
later. 1t was in quiet street, away from
street car and other night reckets, and 1
felt good deal as If l were in q country
town after IL o'clock.
"One night as I sat reading I was dis
turbed by hearing peculiar knocking on
my gas pipe. very faint and indistinct. but
quite persistent At first 1 bought 1t might
be some one in my own house. but waited
to hear other movements and as the noise
continued I made an examination of the
house and found the few people who lived
reading and the noise continued. Around
the corner block away they were laying
some gas pipe. and thought 1t might be
there A dozen men were on the night
about half an hour after 1 had heard the
first tapping, but 1t was rather more to get
a glass of beer for nightcap than for
Information the noise that disturbed
me- The men were moving lot Of earth
preparatory to cutting the main and the
pipe was not yet exposed, but they said
they would be down to it in an hour or
less.
Il said nothing about my disturbance
but after l got my beer l went back and
began to get ready for bed. The rapping
still continued. though family. and I was
curious enough to put my ear close to the
gas burner and listen to it. Then what
was merely curiosity BEFORE Immediately
became the most intense interest, for the
tapping was nothing more than the ticking
Of some one who understood telegraphy, and
the call was the one word help repeated
over and over again. Quick as a flash 1
caught up tack hammer lying on my
known. What is tt? 1 asked and the an
swer came back at once. Thank Cod 1
knew, however, that that was not the an
swer to my question. and in response to
my further questions the unknown pro-
ceeded to tell me that she was a woman
shut up in house whose location she did
not know, except that it was not very far
from a railroad station, for the people with
her had put her in a carriage at the train
that day and driven her to the place in
about half an hour, though whether they
had taken her around town to confuse her
or not she could not say. She said the last
town she knew of being in was Buffalo as
she had heard the sleeping car porter tell
a passenger. She had come there from
Ietfolt, where she naQ been In some KIND
of an institution. and her home before
that had been in another institution near
chicago. Previous to that she had lived in
various places and had been across the
ocean once or twice, when she was a little
girl. and for three or four years she had
lived in St. Louis
when five years old she lived in some
pleasant town in the south, whose name
she could not recall. and here she remem-
bered to have lived with her father and
mother in a fine house. Her mother died
there. and then something happened which
she did not understand. and after that she
had been spirited all over the world She
mad received good education and had
learned biography, typewriting. photog-
raphy and anything else she cared to take
up. and had been treated well. though al
ways as a prisoner. and had never made
any acquaintances except such as her cap
tors brought to her.
ION many occasions she had attempted
to communicate with the authorities but
she was SO ignorant Of the methods to pur-
sue and Of localities that she had never
been able to do so. AS for telling her
troubles to any one whom she had met,
she had never been able to do so, further
than to excite in them the suspicion that
she was crazy. ana the surveillance upon
her was on that account. The thought of
finding the way out by her knowledge of
telegraphy had never come to her until
the day on the night of which 1 was the
recipient of this strange message, and she
had hit upon 1t by reading a story in
municating with his friends on the outside
by striking on the door, while all the
prison officials never once thought what
their prisoner was doing. She had been
tapping on her gas pipe for three hours
before l had responded. and she expressed
herself as happy in the belief that now,
after all these years of mystery and wan
derng. she would learn the true story of
her life, and a lot more of the same kind,
which l heard with the most intense in
terest, and insisted on her telling me, SO 1
could tell the police captain when should
go after him in a very few minutes to
come and hear her strange story, or part
of 1t, at least, for himself.
She was then, as nearly as she could
judge, twenty-one years of age, and when
she was twenty-one something was going
to happen to her-she didn't know what
but from the little she could catch from
those with her, and the unusual precau-
tons they had been taking recently. she
was very much in dread that something
evil was coming to her. She asked me
what town she was then in, and when
told her it was New York she begged me
to make search for her, as she had
learned that whatever was going to hap
pen to her would happen in New York, be-
cause she had overheard them say New
York was so big that"
And right there" said the operator, in
terrupting himself, 1.-The tapping ceased,
or, rather. it was SO obscured by a louder
knocking that could hear nothing of It,
and in few minutes all was still. The
men at work had cut the MAN, and all
communication with my unknown victim
Of some Internal plot other was sun
dered forever.
''Of course. 1 told the police. but what
good would that do? Think Of how any
houses are near the railroad station
in New York city, and how utterly futile |
1t would be to find that finite needle In that
infinite haystack."
The Dreary Desert of Thibet.
Recent publications Of tie Russian Geo