Against Odds: A Detective Story

'Wal, there – there was an alley next to the house, and acrost that was another house, and then a saloon. He went into the saloon.'

'Oh!' This was the answer I had hoped for. 'Pray go on, Mrs. Camp.'

'I'm goin' to. You know I said there was a man come and shet the door; wal, I got jest a glimpse of him at the door, and it kind o' started me, and I came by real slow, a-lookin' at the house. I noticed that every winder in the front was shet, and the curtains down, all but one, and that was the front one next the alley; that was open half-way and the curtain was up. I couldn't see inside, but jest as I came oppersite the winder a man's face popped right out of it for jest a minit, lookin' the way the other feller went, and then it popped out o' sight ag'in; but I had seen it square!'

'Who was it?' I demanded, now thoroughly aroused.

'It was that feller that was so perlite to Camp and me the time you was arristed; the Sunday-school feller.'

I started to my feet, and sat down again. She had been doing detective work indeed! I thought I could understand it all. This was the house we had for days suspected and watched, but the only one ever seen to enter it had been Greenback Bob. Doubtless the murder of the brunette made them so uneasy that, contrary to custom, Delbras had ventured out by day, probably to learn what he could of the movements of the officers. I turned to Mrs. Camp.

'Mrs. Camp,' I began earnestly, 'I am going to confide in you. Those men belong to a gang of robbers and murderers; we have been watching them for weeks. Fortunately, you have come upon them in such a way as to locate their hiding-place; you can help us very much if you will try to recall everything just as you saw it there, and will answer a few questions, when you have told your story. Or – is this all?'

'All! I guess it ain't all; an' I guess you won't need to ask many questions when I get through!' I nodded, and she went on rapidly:

'When I see that feller dodge back and shet the winder, I remembered what you had said about him and the others, and 'bout their tellin' me, to that office, how you was a detective yourself; and I jest sez to myself, says I, "I'm goin' to try an' git another look at that house;" so I went on past it till I come to a little store, and I went in an' bought ten cents' worth of green tea, and when I comes out I goes back, jest as if I was going home with my shoppin'. By the way, you ain't seemed to notice these new clo's.'

I had noted the black gown and cape-like mantle she wore, both plain, but neat and not an ill fit; and I had also wondered how she had happened to discard her old straw hat with the lopping green bows for the simple dark bonnet she wore, but she did not wait for my criticism.

'I'll tell you how't come,' she went on. 'I ain't blind, and I'd been a-noticin' the difference 'twixt my clo's and some of the rest of 'em; and I was specially took with them plain gownds them ladies wore that you interduced me to that day; an' I jest studied on it, and sort o' calkalated the expense, and then went up to the stores. I wanted a gray rig, like that Miss Ross had on, but I couldn't get none to fit, an' the young lady told me 't black was dredful fash'nable now, so I got this rig; an' 'twas lucky I did ter-day.'

What could she mean by this diversion? I was growing uneasy when she uttered the last words. 'Yes?' I said feebly.

'I s'pose you wonder what I'm drivin' at?' she queried. 'Well, it's comin'. Ye see, I was wearin' these clo's, and the goggles, as I call 'em, when I went sa'nterin' past that house; but I hadn't got to it, nor even to the s'loon yet, when a cab – one of them two-wheeled things, you know, with the man settin' up behind to drive.'

I nodded.

'Wal, it drove up, an' the man opened the door, right in front of that house, an' out got a woman; she was bigger than me, and all drest in black, an' she looked sort of familiar, an' jest as I was wonderin' who she made me think of, an' she was a-paying the driver, up comes another cab, tearin', and out hopped two fat, red-faced perlecemen, an' there was a little squabble like, an' the woman flung herself round so't I could see her face, an' then I knew her.'

She paused as if for comment, but I was now too much amazed for words.

'I knew her in a minit,' she resumed, 'an' it was that woman that come stridin' into that rug place in Cayrow Street that day. She hadn't no long swingin' veil on this time, and she didn't look nigh so big 'longside them big perlecemen. She had give up quiet enough when she seen she had to; an' they put her into the cab an' drove away, with t'other one behind 'em. I walked pretty slow, so as not to come right into the rumpus, an' I thought, as I come acrost the alley, that I see somethin' a-layin' by the side-walk on the outside. I looked round, and seein' that every last winder was as dark as black, I stooped down to look at the things, an' here they air.' And she shook out with one hand a long black veil which she had drawn from her pocket, and held out with the other the snake-like speaking-tube.

'I c'n see you're in a hurry,' she said, dropping the veil and tube into her lap, 'an' I'll git to the pint now, right off. I wa'n't never no coward, and I jest ached to find out what them fellows was up to. Mebbe if I'd stopped to think I wouldn't have run the risk, but while I stood there with them things in my hand a idee popped into my mind. I looked round; there wasn't a soul near me, an' the winders was all dark, so't nobody could see me from the house, and of course they hadn't seen the woman git arristed an' took away. We didn't look much alike, but I thought mebbe they'd let me in, thinkin' 'twas her; and when I got in I'd tell 'em I'd found the trumpet at their door, and p'r'aps, if I felt like it, I'd say I'd seen a gentleman to the winder that I was 'quainted with; that is if he didn't come to the door. Anyhow, I thought I'd try to make sure it 'twas him I see at the winder.'

I shuddered at her cool recital of such a daring venture; and yet I could see how, with her country training, she would see nothing so very serious or dangerous in thus thrusting herself into a strange house, gossip-like, 'to find out what was goin' on.' She took up the trumpet.

'I was used to these things,' she said, 'for my aunt on my mother's side used to live with me; she was a old maid an' she used one. Stone-deef she was, a'most, but I didn't think then o' usin' this. When I got onto the top step I felt 'most like runnin' off all of a sudden, but I set my teeth and give the bell a jerk. 'Twa'n't long before the door opened jest a crack, and I see an eye lookin' out. I meant to git inside before I said anything, so I kind o' give the speakin' trumpet, hangin' over my arm, a shake; it was 'most hid under the veil, you know; and then the door opened wider, and I see a woman. My! the palest, woe-begon'dest woman I'd ever see, 'most. "Oh!" she says, in a shaky, scairt sort o' voice, "come in quick." She looked so peaked and strange I jest stood starin' at her a minit, and all to once she reached out her hand and motioned to me; and as I stepped in she caught hold of the big end of the speakin' trumpet, and then I see that she thought I was deef; and quick as a wink it come to me to play deef 's long as I could – deef folks are allus makin' blunders – and then to 'polergize an' git out. So I stuck the tube to my ear.

'"You're the nurse?" she says through it, but not very loud, for a deef person, that is. "Louder," sez I. So she sed it real loud, an' I nodded.

'Then she motioned me to come into the room to the front, that I had seen the man look out of. It was 'most dark there, only there was a winder on the alley that 'peared to be all boarded up, only jest a slit to the top to let a little streak of light in. "Set down a minit," she says; an' when she let go of the trumpet her hand shook so't I could see it. She opened the door in the back of the room, an' I see there was a screen on the other side so I couldn't see the room, but I got up an' tiptoed to the door. The carpet was awful thick there an' in the hall, though it was old enough too.

'She hadn't shet the door tight, an' I heard her say, "Wake up, Bob." An' then a sort of question; an' she says ag'in, "The nurse has come after all, and you can go and sleep now." Then I heard a man say, "What made the old gal so late, blast her eyes! I'd go an' give her a good old blessin' if she wasn't sech a crank-mouthed jade." An' then he seemed to be stirrin', an' I 'most thought he was comin' in; but then he says, "Git her in here, an' then git me somethin' ter eat. I can't sleep when I'm so holler." "Won't you come in an' speak to her, Bob?" says the woman, "an' tell her 'bout the med'cin'; I'm so tired."

'Then I was scairt ag'in, though I declare I felt sorry fer that poor crittur of a woman.

'But the man snarled at her, and says, "Naw, I won't; I'm tired's you be. Hustle now, an' bring me the grub mighty quick."

'I scooted back to my chair then, and in a minit or so she come in an' motioned me to come into the other room. I see they had mistook me for some deef nurse, an' I begun to think I'd grabbed more'n I could hold, an' to wish I was out. But I went in, an' if ever a woman was struck all of a heap, 'twas me.'

She paused as if mentally reviewing the scene once more, and I fairly quivered with anticipation and anxiety for what the next words might develop.

'I had noticed that there was three winders on the alley side of the house,' she resumed, 'an' there bein' only one in the front room, of course I looked to see one sure in this, an' mebbe two, but there wasn't a winder; the wall on that side was smooth, only at the winder place was a kind of cubbard arrangement like, an' the room was lit by a kerosene lamp. It was furnished quite good, too; but in a corner on the bed laid a young man, as good-lookin' about as they make 'em; only he was dretful pale an' thin, an' he 'peared to be sleepin'.

'"There's yer patient," says the woman, through the tube. "There ain't nothin' to do now only ter give him drink, an' not let him talk if he wakes. He sleeps a good deal, an' when he wakes up he's out of his head, an' 'magines he's somebody else, an' ain't in his own house, an' all sorts of nonsense." She went to the bed an' stood lookin' at the sick man in a queer sort of way, an' she give a big long breath, as if she felt awful bad, an' then went out by a door that I knew went to the hall, an' I heard noises in a minit more, as if they come from the kitchin stove.

'Now I knowed she took me for a nurse and all that, but all the same I begun to think I'd better git out. I couldn't play nurse an' ask about that Sunday-school feller too, an' I thought I'd jest made a big blunder, an' I'd better git out 'thout waitin' for her to come back; an' jest then I heard a little noise, an' I looked round, an' the sick man had rolled over an' was lookin' at me straight, an' when he ketched my eye, he says, "Come here, madam, please." 'Twas a real pleasant voice, though weak, an' I went right up to the bed. He looked at me real sharp, an' sort of wishful, and then he says, "You look like a good woman."

'I didn't say nothin', an' he kep' right on, sort of hurried like. "I was not asleep when you entered," he says, "and I heard that poor woman. I am not insane, and this is not my home. You have come here to nurse me, but if you want money you can earn a hundred nurses' fees by going to a telegraph office and telegraphin' to – "

'Jest then there was a noise in the hall, an' he stopped, an' I picked up a fan an' stood as if I was a-fannin' away a couple of little moths that the lamp had drawed.

'Nobody came in, so I went to the door an' listened. Seemed as if I heard a door shet upstairs, an' I guessed the woman was taking up the cross man's dinner. So I went back to the bed. He laid still for a bit, and seemed listenin'; then he says:

'"I am a prisoner, and have been half-killed first, an' then drugged to keep me so. My people are wealthy. They will pay you royally if you'll help me; if you'll go to the nearest police-station an' give 'em a paper I will give yer, with my father's name, an' – " He stopped ag'in, an' shet his eyes quick as lightnin'; an' the next minit the pale woman came in quick, an' lookin' awful anxious. She went to the bed an' looked at the sick young feller, an' then she took hold of the trumpet and motioned me to listen. "Can you hear?" she says into it, not very loud. I nodded, an' looked to'rds the bed. "He sleeps real sound," she says, "and won't be likely to wake up, anyhow; I can't leave him alone to talk to you in another room. There's somethin' I forgot, an' some of them may come in any time now. Will you do a wretched woman a small kindness?" She looked at me awful wishful when she said that, an' I nodded my head ag'in.

'"They told me not to let you in unless you gave me a card, and I – I am so troubled I forgot to ask you for it at the door. Will you give me the card now, an' please not give me away to the boys? I can't stand no more trouble. I – I think it was your being so late made me forget. Why was it?"

'For a minit I was stumped, an' then an idee come to me. "Ter tell the truth," I says, as bold as you please, "I've been in a little trouble, an' I forgot that card. You see, I had to put off comin' here on account of a couple of perlecemen that was on the look-out fer me. I've only jest give 'em the slip." You see I thought when she heard that she'd make 'lowance fer the card, an' I wanted to talk more with that sick boy, fer I b'leeved he was tellin' the truth. But, my! she jumps up, lookin' scairt to pieces, an' she says:

'"The perlece! Do you think they will follow you? can they? Merciful goodness! we can't risk it. I'm almost broke down, but I'll call up Bob, an' you must go right away. Don't you see it won't do?" She snatched a key out of her pocket. "Come," she says. "Mercy, what a risk!" I had took off my glasses and laid 'em down on the table by the bed. I picked up the black veil I had dropped on the chair, and jest as she went to take the key out of the hall-door – she had to turn her back to do it – I went to the table and took up my glasses, and tried to ketch that poor boy's eye and make him a sign; but, my! he laid there with his eyes shet, an' sech a look of misery upon his poor face, an' all at once it struck me that I hadn't spoke once, an' that he hadn't noticed the trumpet till the woman come in, and then he thought he'd been a-beggin' help of a deef woman. But I hadn't no chance then, an' as soon as she'd picked out the key, she says, "I'll have to let yer out front. It won't do to risk your being seen coming out by any other way."

'The way was clear when I got out; but I most dreaded meeting one of them men som'ers, and I jest started straight to find you.'

'One moment,' I said hurriedly, as she now ceased. 'You spoke of Miss Jenrys – why did you think of going to her?'

'Why, she was nearest of anybody, an' I thought you was as likely as not to be there.'

CHAPTER XXXIV.

'EUREKA!'

AT twelve o'clock p.m. a party of men had gathered not far from the house where Mrs. Camp had made her singular discoveries; they came singly and by twos, from various directions, and their movements were so quiet as not to have disturbed the lightest of sleepers, however near, for with one exception all were trained to the business in hand.

When two of the party had made a careful reconnaissance of the premises they returned to the waiting group.

'There's the door and two windows at the front,' said one, 'and three windows on the alley, the middle one, as we know, boarded on the inside. At the back is a door opening upon a sort of shed, and a window in the same; and in the angle formed by the shed and the rear of the house proper is another window; on the inner side, opposite the alley, the wall is blank. There's no bed in the front room,' the speaker went on rapidly, 'though someone may bunk there. Of course there's a watcher in his room. Two of you must patrol the alley while Brainerd cuts out a pane or two of that closed-up alley window, to see if anything can be heard through the cracks of those inside boards, though it's probable they are padded to deaden sound. As for the upper rooms, they're sleeping there doubtless, and – '

'Don't forget,' interposed Brainerd in a low half-whisper, 'about those iron hooks outside those back windows. They're for something more than signalling; they're stout enough to support a rope with a man at the end, and the rope and the man are both inside, no doubt.'

'Four to the back then,' I said, 'and you, Jeffrys, take the lead; three to the alley, you and two others, Dave. If the thing's not accessible, divide to back and front. Lossing, can you and Murphy hold me on your shoulders while I try that window? Now, all to our places; and there ought to be a train soon over there; let's do our cutting under cover of its noise.'

The Illinois Central Railway was but a little distance from us, and we took our places to await the sound of its first train. But fortune, having baffled and hindered us again and again, seemed now to have relented toward us.

Before trying the window I crept up the steps to examine the lock of the door, and judge, if I could, of its security. Lossing, as he still preferred to be called, and Murphy, the policeman, were standing below me, one on either side of the steps, and as I stood at the door above them I turned and looked about me. All seemed quiet up and down that often unquiet street, and the lights from either direction hardly served their purpose there, a fact which had been considered, doubtless, in making choice of this place.

It was after midnight now, and as I heard, far away yet, the first faint rumble of the train, I put my hand upon the handle of the door.

Was it imagination, or did I feel a responsive touch upon the other side? I let my hand rest lightly upon the knob, and waited; then, suddenly, as the rumble of the train came nearer, I sprang down the steps, and, crouching at the side of Lossing, whispered across to Murphy, 'Lay low and be ready; someone's coming out.' There was no time for more words, but I never doubted the readiness of my two helpers, nor their quick comprehension of the situation.

As the rumble of the train came nearer, the door opened, almost without noise, and shut again; and softly, slowly, looking up and down the street, but not below him, almost within reach, a man came down the steps, paused an instant, and stood upon the pavement, to feel, before he could turn his head, a hard grip upon either arm, a cold pressure at the back of his neck, and simultaneously a low whisper:

'One sound and you are a dead man.'

It was all the work of an instant, and so quickly and quietly done that our friends in the alley were not aware of our capture until we had secured our prisoner and Lossing had gone to summon Dave.

Then, still in utter silence, we led our first capture across the alley, and Murphy flashed a dark-lantern in his face.

It was a pallid and cowardly countenance that the light revealed, and I was not surprised to recognise the man I had dubbed 'Smug' upon the day of my arrival at the World's Fair. He was trembling violently, and thoroughly cowed.

We had no difficulty in searching his pockets; he did not so much as remonstrate – perhaps because of the pistol I had now transferred to the hand of Lossing. By the light of the dark-lantern I selected from among a number of keys taken from his pocket a slender one, which, as it only needed the look upon his face to tell me, was the key to the street-door.

'Listen!' I said to him, holding the lantern high. 'It will be to your interest to help us, and you will find it so if you help to make what we are about to do as easy and quiet as possible. We know who are in that house, and if we can take them without noise and trouble, so much the better for them. The place is surrounded; they can't escape alive. Is anyone in the front room, lower floor?'

He shook his head sullenly.

'You were put there on guard – is it not so?' He blinked under the lantern's rays, and I saw that I was right. 'And you thought it would be quite safe to slip out for an hour or two; and so it would have been last night or the one before. Now, is Delbras on the second-floor front? You had better tell me!' He nodded sullenly. 'And Bob? Remember, your answers can't injure their case and will benefit yours. My word is good. Is Greenback Bob there?' Again the sullen fellow bowed his head. 'And how many more, exclusive of your prisoner?' The rascal started, and seemed taken with a new panic. 'You had better be quite frank,' I admonished. 'How many?'

He held up three fingers as well as the handcuffs would permit, and a moment later we had left him at the mouth of the alley, guarded by two officers, while we arranged for our attack.

One man was left to guard the rear, with full instructions covering any and all possible emergencies, and one was told off to guard the front entrance, while the remaining six were paired: Lossing with myself, at his own request; Dave and one officer, and Jeffrys with another. Murphy we had left with Smug, and in charge of the party without.

'Masters,' Lossing said, 'I want to be with the man that attacks Delbras. I owe it to him.' When Jeffrys had heard him he declared Delbras his prey. But I also had my word to say. Jeffrys might serve his warrant and bear off the captive from the city, but he could only take him when I had failed; and so it was arranged.

When all was ready we waited, six of us, upon the steps of the gloomy house, until after what seemed an hour, and was in reality ten minutes, had passed, and then a long freight train came rumbling cityward. As it came near I inserted the key in the lock carefully and turned it slowly, and without noise; and while the sound still covered our careful movements, we entered the hall, leaving the officer in charge of the door.

Then, when Dave and his companion had entered the front room and stood ready to move upon the watcher through the door behind the screen, trusting the other door to the watchful eye of the guard at the front, we crept upstairs, with that sidewise movement which insures one who has the patience to try it a silent if slow passage, to the top, in single file.

At the top we separated, and while we – Lossing and myself – took our places at the door near the front, Jeffrys listened at the two rear doors, to make sure of the location of his prey, and at a signal which the guard below passed on to Dave we moved, each armed with a dark-lantern, to the attack.

I could hear Lossing's breath close beside me as I carefully and slowly tried the knob of the door and found that it yielded silently.

The house was an old one, and we saw as we slowly opened the door that the lock was only a fragmentary one; there was on the other side only a handle like that without. Holding our lanterns low we glided in, and were half-way across the room when I raised the lantern and turned its light carefully toward the bed, from whence long guttural breathing told of a sleeper unconscious of our nearness. With lantern in one hand and pistol in the other, I made a forward step as I saw by the ray thrown across the bed the form and face of Delbras; and then, suddenly, beneath my foot, something cracked and burst with a sharp explosion.

Only a parlour match, but it brought the sleeper to a sitting posture, and broad awake in a moment. He did not seem to so much as have seen me, but his eyes and Lossing's appeared to meet and challenge each other, and quicker than I can tell it he had bounded from his bed, snatching something from under the pillow as he sprang – something that glittered in his hand as he hurled himself upon Lossing, and the two grappled and swayed, with the knife gleaming above their heads, held thus by the strong hand of the English athlete.

As I sprang to place my lantern upon the table at the bed's head, that it might help me to see and to aid Lossing, a shriek rang from the room at the rear, and the next moment I saw the knife sent flying from the hand of Delbras, and the two go down, still struggling. A moment I watched them struggling there, and then somehow the villain wrenched one hand free and gripped it with an awful clutch upon Lossing's throat; the next there arose from below a succession of screeches that might have issued from the throat of a bedlamite.

Once and again I had tried to interfere in Lossing's behalf, but the effort seemed useless, until, as the screams from below ceased suddenly, I sprang past the two, and, turning suddenly, struck at Delbras with my clubbed pistol. I had aimed at the arm clutching at my friend's throat, but a sudden movement brought the villain's head in sharp contact with the butt of the pistol, and his hold suddenly relaxed, and he lay stunned and at our mercy.