Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1918-08-15
AmuSementS Galore

crowding rush the rest of us followed.
and closed the door behind me. We
stood in space to one end of the
stage, with it's occupants plainly Wis
ible through some cheaply painted
wings.
Before us stretched narrow pas
sage, midway Of which wooden
stairway ran upward. McKabe dart.
ed straight for this.
But instead of mounting he ran
around it to small door half hidden
in shadows, set into what appeared to
be closet built in under the slant Of
the stairs. A spring-lock held it shut.
McKabe twisted back the latch and
dragged it open. The interior yawned
empty of anything save shadows, as it
seemed.
The detective drew a pocket-flasn
and swept it inside, along the walls,
and over the floor. There at our feet
the light showed a metal ring and a
square of boards, which, unlike the
rest of the floor, were free from dust.
Here we are" he exclaimed, and
stopped down, grasping the ring and
dragging up the trap-door to expose a
yawning hole like the mouth Of a
mine-shaft, and the dimly lighted up.
per rungs of what appeared to be a
vertical ladder.
"Come on" he directed shortly.
Letting the trap door fall back on
its hinges out of the way, he lowered
himself upon the ladder and began to
descend. Dual went second and Shell
don third, and l came last.
l had to admire the nerve of the lit
tie plain-clothes man fas / crept down
the ladder. Here he was advancing
into an admittedly unknown region of
tangled passages and alleys dug be-
meath the city as calmly as he might
have walked it's streets. He was a
cool little pickle all right, was Nc
Kabe.
/ reached bottom in a moment or
two and joined the others.
1t was dark down there as the tomb,
the only light the brilliant point of
McKabe's flash as he threw it over the
flood and walls. And it was foul, in
describably foul, with an odor Of de-
composition, and a smell of sewers
and rotting life. / felt my feet sink
into spongy surface which sensed
was soggy earth, sour from lack Of
sunlight. The beam Of the search
light showed walls shining damply
with moisture and ceiling stained
with the damp, from which dropped
down the bulb of an electric lamp.
There's light said McKabe's
voice, "but blessed if 1 know where
the switch is. Probably upstairs"
He swept the light to the ground at
our feet and showed it black, and
blotched with patches and streaks of
white.
When they were in here last
month the boys made 'em throw lime
around" the detective continued.
Thought maybe it would swesten
the smell. If it did, l don't quite
sense it. Hello! Look here!"
He dropped the light close to the
floor, and bending forward we saw
the outline of feet pressed into the
wet earth o. the passage. Not only
that, but they were the marks of shod
feet, and, judging from their size,
those of man.
Reich's, for a guess" declared
McKabe. Where's his next one?
oh here. Good ways off. He was
still runnin'. Well we got to chance
IT. Well follow these tracks. Come
on"
We started onward. A second light
spIang up, and ! realized that Dual
had drawn pocket-torch also, and
was advancing side by side with Nc
Kabe.
So We went forward down the pas
sage, following the tracks.
ITO be Conrinued.)