The Last Stroke: A Detective Story

The detective's face was very grave and he did not speak at once.

"Is it possible," she ejaculated, "that you find anything in the boy's story?"

Ferrars leaned forward and took her hand. "Miss Grant," he said gravely, "I believe that poor foolish Peter saw Charles Brierly's murderer."

He got up quickly. "Do you think the boy could be got to show you where he saw this apparition?"

"I asked him that. He thinks he might dare to go if he were protected by 'big mans.'"

"Then, arrange to leave your school for a short time, at, say two o'clock. I shall get Doran and his surrey. Have the boy ready – "

"Pardon me, I will say nothing to Peter. The surrey will be enough, he is wild to ride."

"That will be best then. I shall lose no time. I have a strong reason for wishing to see the precise place where this ghost appeared."

The sight of the surrey filled poor foolish Peter with delight, and he rode on in high glee, sitting between Hilda and Ferrars, whom he had learned to know, and like, and trust. When they were abreast of the hill Hilda bent over him.

"Now, Peter, tell me just where you saw that ghost."

Instantly the boy's face blanched and he cowered in his seat, but Ferrars with gentle firmness interfered. Peter would show him the place, and then he would drive away the ghosts. Ghosts were afraid of grown men, he averred. And at last, hesitating much, and full of fears, Peter was finally persuaded, yielding at last to Doran's offer to let him sit in front "and drive one of the horses."

As they reached the lower end of the Indian Mound, the boy's lips began to quiver and one arm went up before his face, while he extended the other toward the thickest of brushwood before described by Ferrars. "That's where," he whimpered. "It comed up out there."

"From among the bushes?"

"Ye-us."

"Did it have any feet?"

"Oh-oh! Only head and arms – ugh!"

"Turn around, Doran," said Ferrars sharply, and then in a lower tone to Hilda, "I shall go to the city to-night."

When Hilda reached her room, at the close of the school, she found this letter awaiting her, "left," Mrs. Marcy said, "by her cousin":

"Dear Cousin, – Even if you had been disengaged, I could have told you nothing except that what I have learned to-day impels me to look a little more closely to the other end of my line. For there is another end.

"Now that I shall have the two men on duty in the south end of the county, and with the doctor and Doran alert in G – , not to mention yourself, I can go where I have felt that I should be for the past week or more. Will you keep me informed of the slightest detail that in any way concerns our case? And will you do me one individual favour? I trust Mrs. J – may not leave this place until I see you all again, but should she do so, will you inform me of her intention at once? You see that I am quite frank. I should deeply regret it, if she went away before I could see her again. Destroy this.

"Yours hopefully,"Ferrars."

CHAPTER XV

REBELLION

May had passed, and June roses were in late bloom. The city was horrid with the warm sun-filtered air after a summer shower, and Robert Brierly looked pale and languid as he stepped from an elevator, in one of the great department houses wherein Ferrars had his bachelor quarters, and walked slowly to his door.

Possibly it was the warmth of a very warm June, or there may have been other causes. At any rate Frank Ferrars' face wore an almost haggard look in spite of the welcoming smile with which he held out his hand to greet his friend, for friends these two had grown to be during the past weeks. Friends warm and true and strong, in spite of the fact that the mystery surrounding the death of Charlie Brierly remained as much of a mystery as on the day when foolish Peter Kramer led the detective to the scene of his ghostly encounter.

There were dark lines beneath the keen gray eyes, which, Rob Brierly had declared, "compelled a man's trust," and the smooth, shaven cheek was almost hectic, symptoms which, in Ferrars, denoted, among other things, loss of sleep.

There was a moment of silence, after the men had exchanged greetings, and it seemed, almost, that each was covertly studying the other, and then Brierly tossed down his straw hat, and pulling a chair directly in front of that in which the detective lounged, said, abruptly:

"I shouldn't like to quarrel with you, Ferrars, but I've something on my mind, and I'm here to have it out with you."

"Oh! Then I am in it?" the detective spoke nonchalantly, carelessly almost, and as the other seemed hesitating for a word, he added: "Give us the first round, old man. I'm apprehensive."

"H – m! You look it. Ferrars, do you know that for weeks, ever since my return from Glenville, in fact, I have been under constant surveillance?"

"Constant sur – . Excuse me, it's not polite to repeat, Brierly, but what do you mean?"

"What I say. It's plain enough, somebody is watching me, following me day and night."

"Pshaw! You don't mean that, man!"

"But I do. And that is not all," he leaned forward and fixed his eyes upon those of his vis-à-vis as if watching for the effect of his words. "I have been slowly discovering that I am being controlled – constrained – in many ways."

"Upon my word!" Ferrars was leaning back in his chair with his face a mask, expressing nothing but grave attention. "Make it plainer, Brierly."

"I will. I'll make it so plain that there will be no room for misunderstanding. When I first came back from Glenville, I did not go out much, especially evenings, but when I did, I began to fancy that I was spied upon, followed, and, after a time, I became sure of it."

"Stop! When did you observe this first?"

"I think it was on the third night after my return. I was going down to the Lyceum Club rooms, when something caused me to glance at a fellow on the other side of the street. You know my eyes are good!"

"Unusually so."

"Well, I came out in a very short time, alone, and the same fellow was lounging so close to the entrance that I recognised him at once."

"A bungler, evidently."

"Perhaps. Well, I met two men whom I know, just outside, and they dragged me back with them. When at last I left the place, I started to walk home, and when I got upon the quieter streets I soon became conscious of some one keeping so evenly opposite me across the street, that I began to watch, and as the fellow glided, as quickly as possible under a street lamp, I recognised the same man."

"And you have seen him since?"

"Himself or another. A disguise is easy at night. I have been watched, at any rate, and followed again and again."

"Ah! And could you imagine his motive?"

"No." A look that was almost of anger crossed Brierly's face. "But I have wondered if it was the same as yours, and Myers, when you have contrived to keep me from going here and there, or doing this or that, unless accompanied by one or the other of you two."

He bent forward again after this utterance. His eyes seemed to challenge an answer.

But it did not come. Ferrars only sat with that look of grave inquiry still upon his face. He knew the man before him.

"Ferrars," exclaimed Brierly, when he saw that no answer, no defence, was to be made, "will you look me in the face and say that you, and Myers also, have not connived to keep me under your eyes? to accompany me when that was practicable, and to prevent my going when it was not? I can recall several occasions when – "

He stopped short, checked in his utterance by a sudden, subtle change in the face of Ferrars, who had not stirred so much as an eyelid, but who spoke at once quietly, but with a certain tone of finality, of decision.

"Brierly, do you believe that James Myers is your friend, in the full meaning of the word?"

"I do! It is not that I doubt, or that – "

"And do you believe," went on Ferrars, putting aside his protest with a peremptory gesture: "do you believe that, while thus far I seem to have failed in unravelling the mystery in which your brother's death seems enshrouded, I have given it my most faithful study, my time, thought, effort and labour? That, in short, I have been true to your interest at all times?"

"I know it. You have been all that and more. You must hear me, Ferrars. And I beg that you will answer me. Why am I watched, thwarted, cajoled? Why do you and Myers fear to let me out of your sight? A few weeks ago you found, or seemed to find, your chief interest in Glenville; you looked for clues, for developments, there; and yet, you have not visited Glenville since you left it so suddenly. Even your own personal interest has not drawn you there for a single day."

"By my 'personal interest' you mean what, Brierly?"

"You know what I mean. Pardon me, and do not misunderstand me. I could not fail to see that you were interested in Mrs. Jamieson, and why not?" While Brierly spoke, the detective arose and began to pace the floor with lowered eyelids and slow tread. Brierly watching him, was silent a moment, then he seemed to pull himself together and to speak with enforced calmness. "Ferrars, do you know what thought has taken possession of my brain until I cannot shake it off?"

"Assuredly not," going on with his promenade. "But I shall be glad to hear."

"I have begun to fear – yes, to fear – that you have found some reason for suspecting me, and that your horribly acute logic has even caused Myers to doubt too."

"Man!" Ferrars swung about and suddenly faced him. "Much meditation has surely made you mad. Now, in heaven's name, so far as may be, let us understand each other. First, you are utterly wrong."

"Ah!"

"Next, you speak of Mrs. Jamieson, and of my 'personal interest.' I admit, willingly, that I am interested in that lady. But my personal feelings and interests must be subservient for a time to your business."

"Pardon me."

"And now, I did leave Glenville to follow you, and see that you did not spoil my plans by any rashness."

"You are talking a puzzle!"

"Let me talk it out then, for you have forced my hand. But for this I should have gone on as before. And I did not dream that Mr. Myers and I were playing our game so stupidly, so openly; nor that you, owing to your present preoccupation, would prove so astute."

"You have not bungled, be sure of that. You have been most wonderfully keen and clever, but it was this very preoccupation, as you call it, my abnormal sensitiveness, in fact, which made me study your every word and set me searching for its hidden meaning; and so I could not fail to see that you were handling me, hedging me about, for some purpose."

"Ah! You have said the word, Brierly." Ferrars resumed his seat opposite the other, and his tone became once more composed. "We were trying to 'hedge you about,' to put up a wall between you and the assassin who killed your brother. Wait! Let me say it all. It is little enough. Do you remember telling me of an 'assault' upon your brother, made by footpads, not long before he came to Glenville?"

"Yes."

"It was that which gave me my first real clue. It confirmed one of the few theories that seem to fit, or cover, the case so far as known; but it wanted confirmation. I found nothing in Glenville that was in any way opposed to this theory which I was growing to believe in, but, on the other hand, I found nothing there to strengthen it. When you left that place, I meant to follow soon. Meantime I had confided my theory to Mr. Myers, who promised not to lose sight of you before I should arrive."

"But why? Why?"

"Because I then believed, as I do now, that that attack upon your brother last summer was the first act in the tragedy which has robbed you of him. I believed the plot to be far-reaching. It may be a case of vengeance, a family feud. The motive is yet to be discovered, but I will admit to you that I have had, from the first, a reason to think that the affair has not yet ended; and so, as soon as I could, I followed you to town. It was well that I did so. Before I had been your shadow forty-eight hours, I had proof that you were being otherwise watched and followed."

"Great heavens! And that is why – " He stopped short and bowed his head.

"That is why Myers and I have been such officious friends, why we have advised, remarked, and why I have tried to trace to his lair the man who has been your very frequent shadow."

"And you think he is – "

"The assassin himself or his tool."

"Good heavens! And you cannot guess his motive?"

"We might guess, of course, half a dozen motives. What I have hoped to find was something, some fact in your family history, your father's life, or your mother's, perhaps, that would fit into one of these guesses or theories, and make of it a probability."

And then the two went all over the array of possible reasons and motives, and Brierly again protested his lack of any knowledge which might serve as the feeblest of guides to the truth.

"There's one other thing," said Brierly, at last. "I want to know if the new man, whom Myers took on soon after you came to town, is one of your sleuths? He has annoyed me more than once by his persistent attentions."

Ferrars smiled. "I never supposed you a reader of the penny dreadful, Brierly," he said, "and 'sleuth' is a word which makes the actual detective smile, and which is not known to the professional vocabulary. Hicks is my man; yes. And he has followed you by day and night when you have not had the company of either Myers or myself."

Robert Brierly threw back his head and folded his arms. After a moment of silence he got up and stood before the detective.

"Ferrars," he said, "I owe you and my absent friend an abject apology for my unworthy suspicions, my impatience under restraint. And now, I beg of you, let this end. I am warned, and I do not think myself a rash man. I believe I can protect myself, and how can I endure the thought that I must be hedged about by this constant guardianship, which may last indefinitely? Withdraw Hicks, and give your own valuable time to better things. Rather than go about knowing myself so fenced in and guarded, I will lock myself up in the attic, and remain a recluse and invisible. Heavens, man! am I so stupid or cowardly a man not to be able to cope with an enemy whom I know to be in ambush at my very heels?"

CHAPTER XVI

"OUT OF REACH."

Much as Ferrars regretted Brierly's discovery, he was not much surprised by it, nor could he avoid or refuse an explanation. Robert Brierly was not a child. He was a strong man, and a brave one; and Ferrars, putting himself in the other's place, felt at once the force of his words, the right of his position; and, after a day or two, he withdrew Hicks from his post. At the same time he observed with surprise and some misgiving that the shadow was no longer on duty. With two trusty and able men, by turns, always on watch within sight of the Myers place, no glimpse of him had been seen for more than a week.

And then, like a lightning flash from a clear sky, the blow fell.

It was Sunday evening, and in the aristocratic uptown street where the Myers lived there reigned a Sabbath quiet, for the habitues of the little park beyond had left it with the fading twilight, and had already passed on their way townward.

Robert Brierly had been indoors since morning, and now, shortly after Mr. and Mrs. Myers had walked down the tree-shaded street, toward the church on the avenue three blocks away, he came out upon the broad front portico and stood for a moment looking idly up and down.

There had been concessions on both sides, since that interview between Brierly and Ferrars in which the former had demanded an explanation; and the withdrawal of Hicks had been but one of the results; another had been a promise, given by Brierly, whereby he pledged himself not to walk the city streets alone after dark, but if unaccompanied to take a cab, there being a stand only two blocks away, in the direction of the park.

These cabs, when wanted, were to be called by one of the servants, and to take him from the door; but on this Sunday night, as Brierly looked up and down with a growing wish to drive about town and have a talk with Ferrars, he remembered that on Sunday the servants were allowed to go out; all save one who must remain in charge, and decided that it would be absurd to stand there "like a prisoner bound by invisible chains" and wait for a chance to bring either carriage or policeman. He had received on the previous evening letters from Glenville, from Hilda and Doctor Barnes, and his curiosity had been aroused by the contents of both. He had not seen the detective for four days, and he fancied that he, too, would have had news from the little lakeside town; more explicit and satisfactory news, doubtless, than that contained in his own letters.

"How absurd!" he muttered, apropos of his own thoughts. "No doubt I'll meet a hack before I reach the corner," and he lighted a cigar and went down the steps, glancing, from sheer force of habit, for the street at that moment seemed quite empty, up and down, as he went toward the cab stand.

"I was sure of it," he said again, as he neared the corner, at the end of the block farthest from his home. "There they are, both of them."

He was looking ahead, where a cab was coming at a slow trot toward him, while around the corner, still nearer, a policeman had just appeared.

As the two men approached each other the officer, who had been looking toward the approaching cab, turned his face toward Brierly, just as he was passing under the glare of a street lamp, and stopped short.

"Excuse me, sir; this is Mr. Brierly, I believe?"

Brierly nodded.

"Mr. Brierly, may I have a few words with you? I have been lately put upon this beat, sir; changed from the next lower one; and there is something you ought, for your own safety, to know. Will you walk a few steps with me? I hardly like to stop; I ought to be at the next corner right now, in fact."

Brierly looked toward the approaching cab. "The truth is," he said, "I want very much to get that cab down town; otherwise – "

"Oh, I'll fix that, sir." And the officer took a step out from the curbstone and, standing under the glare of the light just above, held up his hand, and whistled shrilly. "Follow us a few steps, Johnny," he said to the driver. "You are wanted down town." Then, turning toward Brierly, "If you'll just step across the street after me, I'll tell you what you ought to know. It's a short story." And he crossed the street briskly, and paused on the opposite side to await the other.

"You see, sir," he began, as Brierly joined him, "we can walk slow for a few steps here, where all's quiet."

Brierly paused to look back. The cab was turning at the corner, and it followed them, at a snail's pace, and close behind, down the still and shady side-street. "You see, I've been noticing, for a couple of weeks, or maybe more, a fellow who just seemed to patrol the street next below this, almost as faithfully as I did, and for quite a time I wondered why; and thus I began to watch him, till I found that his promenades always took him round the corner, and seemed to bring him up right opposite the house you live in. I guess I ought to step a little brisker, sir; somebody's coming. The man was not very tall, and thick set like, and if I hadn't taken notice of him, at the first, almost, I might not have recognised him, for he changed his clothes almost every trip; sometimes dressing common, sometimes quite swell; but I knew him every time."

"Make it as short as you can, officer; we're almost at the corner."

"All right, sir." The man glanced back. "Your cab's here, all right, sir. I was just going to tell you how we came to arrest the fellow."

"Ah!" Brierly smiled in the dusk. It had puzzled Ferrars or seemed to, the sudden cessation of the spy's visits, and now he would be able to enlighten the detective. "You have him, then? This shall be worth something to you."

"I don't want a reward for doing a plain duty, sir. Just walk on ahead for a step; somebody's coming."

Preoccupied with the story, and without glancing behind, Brierly did as he was told, and had advanced not ten paces from the corner, when there was a swift blow, a fall and a cry, three pistol shots in swift succession, and the rattle of wheels; all so close together that the time could have been counted in seconds.

"Brierly! Are you badly hurt?" The revolver fell from the fingers of the man who had prevented the second blow, and put to flight the sham policeman, who had so deftly contrived his appearance, with the aid of the cab, between the rounds of the policeman proper, the latter now came up panting, his footsteps hastened by the shrill call of the whistle in the hands of the new or latest comer. And then the inmates of the neighbouring houses rushed out, and, for the moment, there was confusion, consternation and clamour.

"Is he dead?"

"How did it happen?"

"Was it a sandbag?"

"To think of a holdup on this street!"

"There was a carriage, I'm sure."

And then the policeman was flashing his lantern about among them, as he bade them stand back, and the rescuer, who looked like a workman in his Sunday clothes, looked up, from the place where he knelt, supporting the head and shoulders of the unconscious man, and said:

"Gentlemen, this is Mr. Brierly, Robert Brierly of 103 °C – Avenue; the Myers house, only two blocks away. He must be taken home at once. Has any one a cot? No, he must be carried." For at the name of the Myers house, a gentleman had proffered his carriage at once. "And, officer, call up help. If possible, that cab must be traced. Send to the stand just above and find out what cabs have left it within the past quarter hour. Let some one go ahead and bring Doctor Glessner from just opposite 1030. He's at home."

"How did it happen?" asked Mr. Myers, two hours later, when the injured man – his wounded head carefully dressed – lay, still dazed and in a precarious condition, in his darkened room, with a trained nurse in attendance.

Ferrars having seen his friend in his own room, and in the hands of the doctors, had not waited for their verdict, but had set off to put in motion his plan for hunting down the would-be murderer, and he had but now returned, full of anxiety for the fate of the sufferer.

"How did it happen? After all our precautions, too!"

"It's easy to tell how it happened," replied Ferrars with some bitterness. "It happened, first, because the enemy outwitted me, in spite of my cordon of guards; and, second, because Brierly lost patience and exposed himself."

"But how?"

"I can only give you my theory for that. He was alone in the house, eh?"

"Yes. We were both out when he went."

"He wanted, doubtless, to go to town. There was no servant at hand whom he wished to send, so he walked toward the hack stand, or so I suppose. At the corner he met a policeman, as he thought, of course, and so, for a moment did I. They stopped, spoke together, and the sham policeman hailed an empty cab that was close at hand; then they crossed the street, the cab following, and the policeman seemed to be doing the talking, as I saw when they passed under the light at the corner. I had suspected some new plot, from the fact that the spy had so suddenly disappeared, and I had watched your place, in person, for the past three nights."

"Oh! And that is why we have seen so little of you?"

"In part. Well, I made up my mind, when they walked away together down that tree-shaded cross-street, that there was something wrong. I was on the opposite side, and concluded to close up, seeing that the cab was getting very near and edging close to their side, against all rules of the road. I had got half way across, and was just behind the cab, when I saw Brierly step ahead of the other, and then came the blow. As I sprang forward the cabby gave a loud hiss and the scoundrel saw me, and sprang for the cab with his arm still uplifted for another blow. I fired twice running, the third time turning long enough to send another shot at him as he entered the carriage door. Then he was off. I think he was hit, once at least."

"He will be caught, don't you think so? A cab driving like mad through those quiet streets?"

"No. He will not be caught, I fear."

"But why?"

"Because he will have had a second vehicle, a carriage, no doubt, not far away, and he will leave the cab, which will slacken up for a moment for that, and then dash on."