Dangerous Ground: or, The Rival Detectives

“But, Franz – ” begins Mamma, making a feint at remonstrance.

“You shet up!” he exclaims; “I’m runnin’ this. The gal’s been tried an’ condemned – jest leave her to me, an’ pass on to the next pint. Have ye got a hen-roost handy?”

“D’ye think we’re in our dotage, Franzy,” said Papa plaintively, “that ye ask us such a question? Did ye ever know us to be without two perches?”

“Well, is it safe, then?”

“If we kin git there without bein’ tracked, it’s safe enough.”

“Well,” said Franz, “we kin do that ef we git an early start, afore our prisoner is missed. As soon as it’s still enough, an’ late enough, we’ll mizzle.”

“Wot’s yer plan, Franzy?”

“Easy as a, b, c. You an’ the old woman lead the way, ter make sure that there won’t be nobody ter bother me, when I come after with the gal.”

“With the gal?”

“Yes; ye don’t want ter leave a dead gal here, do ye? Ye might be wanted agin, fer a witness.”

Papa winced and was silent.

“But, Franz, – ” expostulated Mamma.

“You shet up! I’m no chicken.” And Franz drew his dirk and ran his finger along the keen edge. “Here’s my plan: You two give me the bearings of the new hen-roost, an’ then start out, keepin’ a little ahead, an’ goin’ toward the drink. I’ll rouse up the gal an’ boost her along, keepin’ close enough to ye to have ye on hand, to prove that I’m takin’ home my drunken sister if any one asks questions. When we get near the drink, you’ll be likely to miss me.”

“Oh!”

“An’ after a while I may overtake ye, somewhere about hen-roost, alone!”

“Oh,” said Mamma, “you’ll finish the job in the drink?”

“I’ll finish with the drink but I’ll begin with this.” And he poised the naked dagger above Mamma’s head with a gesture full of significance.

“But the other,” said Papa, with nervous eagerness; “what shall we do with him?”

“The other,” replied Franz, slowly putting away his knife, “we will leave here.”

“What!” screamed Mamma.

“But – ” objected Papa.

“Are ye a pack o’ fools after all?” snarled Franz. “A dead cop’ll make us more trouble than a livin’ one. Ye kin kill ten ordinary mortals an’ be safer than if ye kill one cop. Kill ten men, they detail a squad to hunt ye up mebby. Kill one peeler, an’ you’ve got the whole police force agin ye. No, sir; we bring him out o’ that closet, and leave him ter take his chances. Before morning, we’ll be where he can’t track us; and somebody’ll let him loose by to-morrow. He’ll have plenty o’ time to meditate, and mebby it’ll do him good.”

There was a look of dissatisfaction in Mamma’s eyes; and Papa’s assent was feeble. But already this strong-willed ruffian had gained an ascendency over them, and his promptitude in taking Nance so completely off their hands, assured them that it would not be well to cross him.

Nevertheless, as they made their preparations for a midnight flitting, Papa and Mamma, unseen by Franz, exchanged more than one significant glance.

CHAPTER XXXI.

FLAMES

It was past midnight when the muffled figures of Papa and Mamma Francoise emerged stealthily from the tenement house, and took their way toward the river. Now and then they looked anxiously back, and constantly kept watch to the right and left.

A little way behind them, two other figures followed; the man half supporting, half dragging, a reeling, stupefied girl, and urging her along by alternate coaxing and threats.

Franz and Nance, poor Nance, going – whither?

Keeping the same path, and always the same brief space between them, the four moved onward until they were almost at the river. Then, in obedience to a low whistle, Papa and Mamma turned, passed the other two, and retraced their steps swiftly and silently.

When they had gone by, Franz Francoise turned and looked after them until their figures had vanished in the darkness.

Then he seized the arm of his companion, and hurried her around the nearest corner and on through the gloom; on till the river was full in sight.

Meanwhile Van Vernet, having been brought out from his closet-prison, lay upon the floor of the inner room at the lately-deserted Francoise abode, still bound, and gagged almost to suffocation, while, to make his isolation yet more impressive, Mamma had tied a dirty rag tightly about his eyes.

Left in doubt as to the fate that awaited him – unable to move, to see, or to use his voice, – Van Vernet lay as helplessly ensnared as if he were the veriest dullard and bungler, instead of the shrewdest and most daring member of the force.

They had transferred him from the closet to his present position in profound silence. He knew that they were moving about stealthily – he could guess, from the fact that but one door had been opened, and from the short distance they had borne him, that he was in the inner instead of the outer room – he had heard them moving about in the next room, and had caught the murmur of their voices as they engaged in what seemed a sharp dispute, carried on in guarded tones – then slower movements, sharp whispers, and finally retreating footsteps, and the careful opening and closing of a door.

After this, only silence.

Surrounded by the silence and darkness, Van Vernet could only think. What were their intentions? Where had they gone? Would they come back?

Bound and helpless as he was, and menaced by what form of danger he knew not, his heart still beat regularly, his head was cool, his brain clear.

“They dare not kill me,” he thought, “for they can’t bury me handily, and are too far from the river. They’d have to leave my body here and decamp, and they’re too shrewd thus to fasten the crime upon themselves. I wish I knew their plans.”

By and by, as the silence continued, he began to struggle; not with his bonds, for he knew that to be useless, but in an effort to propel himself about the room.

Slowly, with cautious feeling of his way, by bringing his head or feet first into contact with the new space to be explored, he made the circuit of the room; rolling from side to side across the dusty floor, bringing himself up sharply against the walls on either side, in the hope of finding anything – a hook, a nail, a projecting bit of wood – against which he might rub his head, hoping thus to remove the bandage from his eyes, perhaps the gag from his mouth.

But his efforts were without reward. The room was bare. Not a box, not a bit of wood, not a projecting hook or nail; only a few scattering rags which, as he rolled among them, baptized him with a cloud of dust and reminded him, by their offensive odor, of the foul cellar in Papa Francoise’s deserted K – street abode.

There was nothing in the room to help him. It was useless to try to liberate himself. And he lay supine once more, cursing the Fate that had led him into such a trap; and cursing more than all the officious, presumptuous meddler, the jail-bird and ruffian, who had thus entrapped him, Van Vernet.

“If I escape,” he assured himself, “and I will escape, I’ll hunt that man down! I’ll put him behind the bars again if, to do it, I have to renounce the prospect of a double fortune! But I won’t renounce it,” thought this hopeful prisoner. “When I find them again, and I will find them, I’ll first capture this convict son, and then use him to extort the truth from those old pirates – the truth concerning their connection with Alan Warburton, aristocrat. And when I have that truth, the high and mighty Warburton will learn what it costs him to send a black servant to dictate to Van Vernet!”

Easily conceived, this pretty scheme for the future, but its execution depends upon the liberation of Van Vernet and, just now, that seems an improbable thing.

Moments pass away. They seem like hours to the helpless prisoner; they have fitted themselves into one long hour before the silence is broken.

Then he hears, for all his shut-up faculties seemed to have merged themselves into hearing, a slight, a very slight sound in the outer room. The door has opened, some one is entering. More muffled sounds, and Vernet knows that some one is creeping toward the inner room. Slowly, with the least possible noise, that door also opens. He hears low whispering, and then realizes that two persons approach him. Are they foes or friends? Oh, for the use of his eyes – for the power to speak!

Presently hands touch him. Ah, they are about to liberate him; but why so silent?

They are dexterous, swift-moving hands; but his fetters remain, while the swift hands work on.

They are robbing him. First his watch; his pocket-book next; then shirt studs, sleeve buttons, even his handkerchief.

And still no word is spoken.

He writhes in impotent anger. His brain seems seized with a sudden madness. These swift, despoiling hands, the darkness, the horrible silence, appall him – fill him with a sort of supernatural terror.

The hands have ceased their search, and he knows that the two robbers have risen. He feels the near presence of one; the footsteps of the other go from him, toward the street.

A scraping sound; a soft rustle. They are gathering up the rags from the floor. The closet again: this time it is opened, entered. A moment’s stillness; then a sharp sound, which he knows to be the striking of a match. Another long silent moment. What are they doing?

Ah! the footsteps retreat. They go toward the outer room; creeping, creeping stealthily.

Now they have crossed the outer room. They go out, and the door is softly closed.

What does this mystery mean? Have they returned to rob him, and then to leave him? Will they come back yet again?

A moment passes; another, and another. Then a sickening odor penetrates to his nostrils, like the burning of some foul-smelling thing.

Crackle, crackle, crackle!

Ah! he comprehends now! The fiends have fired the closet! They have left him there to perish in the flames – the hungry flames that will wipe out all traces of their guilt!

Oh, the unutterable horror that sweeps over him! To die thus: fettered, blinded, powerless to cry for aid! A frenzied madness courses through his veins.

Crackle, hiss, roar!

The flames rise and spread. The door of the closet has fallen in, and now he feels their hot breath. They are closing around him; he is suffocating. He tugs at his fetters with the strength of despair. All is in vain.

Hiss! hiss! hiss!

His brain reels. He is falling, falling, falling. There is a horrible sound in his ears; his eyes see hideous visions; his breath is strangled; he shudders convulsively, and resigns his hold upon life!

CHAPTER XXXII.

“A BRAND FROM THE BURNING.”

There is a cry of alarm in the street below. The fire has broken through the roof, and so revealed itself to some late passer-by.

“Fire! fire! fire!”

Soon the space before the doomed building is swarming with people running, vociferating, cursing, jesting. Drunken men are there, haggard women, dirty, ragged children, who clap their hands and shout excitedly at this splendid spectacle.

It is useless to attempt to save the old tenement; they realize that. But its occupants – They have heard the alarm, and they come out hurriedly, en deshabille, pushing and dragging the children, screaming, and cursing each other and the world.

All on the lower floor are then safe. But the upper floor, and its occupants?

“Fire! fire! fire!”

No signs of life above stairs. No terrified faces at the windows. No flying forms down the rickety stairway. No cries for help from among the fast-spreading flames.

“Fire! fire! fire!”

They hear the tinkle of bells, the gallop of speeding hoofs upon the pavement.

“Ah!” cries an on-looker, “the fire boys are coming!”

“Too late, they are,” growls another; “too late, as usual.”

The engine approaches; and from the opposite direction comes a man, running swiftly, panting heavily, almost breathless.

The roof is all ablaze now; in a moment the rafters will have fallen in.

The panting new-comer stops suddenly before the door of the burning tenement, and glances sharply about. Near him is a half-dazed woman who has rushed to the rescue, as frightened women will, with a pail of water in her unsteady hand. The man leaps toward her, seizes the pail, dashes its contents over his head and shoulders, and plunging through the doorway, disappears up the stairs.

“Stop! Come back!”

“What a fool!”

“That’s the end of him!”

The on-lookers shout and scream. Exclamations, remonstrance, pity, ridicule – all find voice, and are all lost upon the daring adventurer among the flames.

The engine rushes up; the firemen spring to their work: useless effort. Nobody thinks of them, or what they do; all eyes are on the blazing upper story, all thoughts for the man who is braving the flames.

A crash from aloft; a cry from the multitude. The roof is falling in, and the gallant rescuer – ah! he is doomed.

But no; a form comes reeling out from among the smoke and fire tongues, comes staggering and swaying beneath a burden which is almost too much for his strength.

Then a triumphant yell rises from the multitude. They seize upon rescued and rescuer, and bear them away from the heat and danger. How they scream and crowd; how they elbow and curse; how they exclaim, as they bend over these two refugees from a fiery death!

The rescuer has sunk upon the ground, half suffocated and almost insensible; but all eyes are fixed upon the rescued, for he is bound, gagged and blindfolded!

What is he? Who is he? Why is he thus? They are filled with curiosity; here is a mystery to solve. For the moment the gallant rescuer is forgotten, or only remembered as they seek to avoid trampling upon him in their eagerness to obtain a view of the greater curiosity.

They tear off the fetters of the late prisoner. They wrest the bandage from his eyes. They remove the gag from his mouth. Then curiosity receives a fresh stimulus; exclamations break out anew.

“It’s a nigger!”

“No; look here!”

“Hello, he’s been playin’ moke!”

“He’s been blacked!”

“Look at his clothes, boys.”

“Jerusalem! he’s been robbed.”

Then they begin their efforts to bring him to his senses; partly for humanity’s sake, quite as much that they may gratify their curiosity.

“He’s dead, I reckon.”

“No; only smothered.”

“Stand back there; give us air.”

“Let’s have some water.”

“No, brandy.”

“Look; he’s coming to.”

He is “coming to”. He shudders convulsively, gropes about with his hands and feebly raises his head. Then respiration becomes freer; he draws in a deep breath, sits up and looks about him. He is bewildered at first; then memory reasserts herself. He sees the now almost-demolished tenement, the crowd of eager faces, and notes the fact that he is free, unfettered. He rises to his feet, and unmindful of the questions eagerly poured upon him, gazes slowly about him.

At last two or three policemen have appeared upon the scene. He shakes himself loose from the people about him, and strides toward one of these functionaries; Van Vernet is himself again.

The eyes of the crowd follow his movements in amazement. They see him speak a few words in the ear of one of the officers; see that worthy beckon to a second, and whisper to him in turn. And then, leaning upon the arm of officer number one, and following in the wake of officer number two, who clears the way with authoritative waves of his magic club, he passes them by without a word or glance, and soon, with his double escort, is lost in the darkness, leaving the throng baffled, dissatisfied and, more than all, astounded.

“And he never stops to ask who saved him!” cries a woman’s shrill voice.

“Oh, the wretch!”

“What shameful ingratitude!”

And now their thoughts return to the rescuer, the gallant fellow who has risked his life to save an ingrate.

But he, too, is gone. In the moment when their eyes and their thoughts were following Vernet, he has disappeared.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN THE CONSERVATORY

Several days have passed since the visit of Mamma Francoise to the Warburton mansion, with all its attendant circumstances; since the flight from the Francoise tenement, and Van Vernet’s rescue from a fiery death.

The Warburton Mansion is closed and gloomy. The splendid drawing-rooms are darkened and tenantless. The music-room is silent and shut from any ray of light. The library, where a dull fire glows in the grate, looks stately and somber. Only in the conservatory – where the flowers bloom and send out breaths of fragrance, and where the birds chirp and carol as if there were no sorrow nor death in the world – is there any light and look of cheer.

Yesterday, the stately doors opened for the last exit of the master of all that splendor. He went out in state, and was followed by an imposing cortege. There was all the solemn pomp, all the grandeur of an aristocratic funeral. But when it was over, what was Archibald Warburton more than the poorest pauper who dies in a hospital and is buried by the coroner?

To-day the doors are closed, the house is silent. The servants go about with solemn faces and hushed voices. Alan Warburton has kept his own room since early morning, and Leslie has been visible only to her maid and to Winnie French.

She is alone in her dressing-room, at this moment, standing erect before the daintily-tiled fire-place, a look of hopeless despair upon her countenance.

A moment since, she was sitting before the fire, so sad, so weary, that it seemed to her that death had left the taint of his presence over everything. Now, that which she held in her hand had brought her back to life, and face to face with her future, with fearful suddenness.

It was a note coarsely written and odorous of tobacco, and it contained these words:

We have waited for you five days. If you do not come to us before two more, they shall know at police headquarters that you can tell them who killed Josef Siebel. You see we have changed our residence.

Then followed the street and number of the Francoises’ new abode. There was no date, no address, no signature. But Leslie knew too well all that it did not say; comprehended to the full its hidden meaning.

She had not anticipated this blow; had never dreamed that they would dare so much. Standing there, with her lips compressed and her fingers clutching the dirty bit of paper, she looked the future full in the face.

Stanhope had bidden her ignore their commands and fear nothing. But then he never could have anticipated this. If she could see him; could consult him once again. But that was impossible; he had told her so.

For many moments she stood moveless and silent, her brow contracted, the desperate look in her eyes growing deeper, her lips compressing themselves into fixed firm lines.

Then she thrust the note into her pocket, and turned from the grate.

“It is the last straw!” she muttered, in a low monotone. “But there shall be no more hesitation; we have had enough of that. They may do their worst now, and – ” she shut her teeth with a sharp sound – “and I will frustrate them, at the cost of my honor or my life!”

There was no timidity, no tremor of hesitation in her movements, as she crossed the room and opened the door. Her hand was firm, her step steady, her face as fixed as marble; but it looked, in its white immobility, like a face that was dead.

She crossed the hall and entered the chamber occupied by her friend. A maid was there, engaged in sewing.

Miss French had just left the room, she said. Miss French felt oppressed by the loneliness and gloom. She had gone below, probably to the conservatory.

Winnie was in the conservatory, holding a book in one listless hand, idly fingering a trailing vine with the other. Her eyes, usually so merry and sparkling, were tear-dimmed and fixed on vacancy. Her pretty face was unnaturally woeful; her piquant mouth, sad and drooping.

She sprang up, however, with a quick exclamation, when Leslie’s hand parted the clustering vines, and Leslie’s self glided in among the exotics.

“Sit where you are, Winnie,” said Leslie, in a voice which struck her listener as strangely chill and monotonous. “Let me sit beside you. It’s not quite so dreary here, and I’ve something to say to you.”

Casting a look of startled inquiry upon her, Winnie resumed her seat among the flowery vines, and Leslie sank down beside her, resuming, as she did so, and in the same even, icy tone:

“Dear, I want you to promise me, first of all, to keep what I am about to say a secret.”

Winnie lifted two inquiring eyes to the face of her friend, but said no word.

“I know, Winnie, that you have ever been my truest, dearest friend,” pursued Leslie. “But now – ah! I must put your friendship to a new, strange test. I feel as if my secret would be less a burden if shared by a true friend, and you are that friend. Winnie, I have a sad, sad secret.”

The young girl turned her face slowly away from Leslie’s gaze, and when it was completely hidden among the leaves and blossoms, she breathed, in a scarcely audible whisper:

“I know it, Leslie; I guessed.”

“What!” queried Leslie, a look of sad surprise crossing her face, “you, too, have guessed it? And I thought it so closely hidden! Oh,” with a sudden burst of passion, “did my husband suspect it, too, then?”

“No, dear,” replied Winnie, turning her face toward Leslie but keeping her eyes averted; “no, I do not believe that Archibald guessed. He was too true and frank himself to suspect any form of falsity in another.”

“Falsity!” Leslie rose slowly to her feet, her face fairly livid.

Winnie also arose, and seizing one of Leslie’s hands began, in a broken voice:

“Leslie, forgive the word! Oh, from the very first, I have known your secret, and pitied you. I knew it because – because I, too, am a woman, and can read a woman’s heart. But Archibald never guessed it, and Alan – ”

She broke off abruptly, wringing her hands as if tortured by her own words.

But Leslie coldly completed the sentence. “Alan! He knows it?”

“Oh, yes. It began by his doubting your love for his brother, and then – the knowledge – that you cared – for him – ”

Across Leslie’s pallid face the red blood came surging, and a bitter cry broke from her lips; a cry that bore with it all her constrained calmness.

“That I cared!” she repeated wildly. “Winnifred French, what are you saying! God of Heaven! is that madness known, too?”

She flung herself upon the divan, her form shaken by a passion of voiceless sobs.

“Oh, Leslie, don’t!” cried Winnie, flinging herself down beside her friend. “We cannot always control our hearts; and indeed, dear, I do not blame you for loving him. Leslie,” lowering her voice softly, “it is no sin for you to love him, now.”

“No sin!” Leslie’s voice was regaining its calmness, but not its icy tone. “Winnie, you can say that? Ah! a woman can read a woman’s heart, and I have read yours: you love Alan Warburton.”

“I? no, no!”

“I say yes; and but for your Quixotic notions of loyalty and friendship, you would be his promised wife to-day. Winnie, listen; having begun another confession I will make my confidence entire. I never dreamed that you or – or Alan, guessed my horrible folly. I did not come to intrust to your keeping that dead secret. You tell me that it is no sin to love Alan now. Winnie, the greatest sin of my life has been that I promised to marry Archibald Warburton without loving him. But, at least, I was heart-free then; I cared for no other. We were betrothed three months before Alan came home, and I – . But let that pass; it is the crowning-point of my humiliation. I did love Alan Warburton. If I loved him still, I could not say this so calmly. Winnie, believe me; that madness is over. To-day Alan Warburton is to me – my husband’s brother, nothing more; just as I am nothing, in his eyes, save a woman who wears with ill grace the proud name of Warburton. This may seem strange to you. It will not appear so strange when you hear what I am about to tell. Alan Warburton’s egotism has cured me effectually. I am free from that folly, thank Heaven, but I shall never cease to hate myself for it. And my humiliation is now complete, since you tell me that Alan knew of my madness. But, Winnie, this is not what I came to tell you. I have another secret, dear, but this one is not like the other, a sin of my own making. It is a story of the craftiness of others, and of my weakness – yes, wickedness.”