Beadle's Dime Library No. 386 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 oe “Bully!” ‘*Ha! Youspotted the man I’ve been shadow- ing at the theaters?” ‘He skipped inter the Brunswick twenty minutes arter you stuck me here.” “On foot?” *““No. Druv up in a coupe.” ‘Could you make out the rig?” “Kin a duck swim? Black-an’-yaller, mud- spattered cab, no number visible; one hogs, a big dapple-gray, lookin’ badly winded; driver a sawed-off, mutton-chop whiskers, no livery.” Hawk started. ‘The same outfit from which the girl’s body was thrown!” he said to himself. ‘Hardly a doubt remains, My man and the murderer must be one and the same! ‘““You were sure of the man?’ he continued, aloud. F ‘* Sure pop, boss, The same oldish swell you once showed me comin’ out of the Casino.” ** Describe him.” ‘*Tall as a lamp-post, pussy as a hogshead; black beard, off-color eyes, with a scowl in ’em; short, black hair, bristlin’ up like a hog’s back; evenin’ dress; shirt-front sparkler like a Tam- many Hall headlight.” ‘‘Good! You must have been close to him.” ‘* Only left my post here once, to foller him inter the hotel. Heard him assigned to Room Eighty-six. Tried to see what name he'd regis- tered. Was cussed by night-clerk an’ kicked out by porter what was about to shoulder his traps.” ‘Traps! He had luggage, then?” ‘“‘ Big steamer trunk, two grip-sacks, an’ a hat- box,” “Strange, strange! I can’t understand that. You then returned to your post?” ‘© You bet, boss!” ‘“And the man has not quitted the hotel since?” ‘Not by any front door or winder, boss; an’ Tm ’bettin’ on it!” ‘‘Nixey, you have done well,” said Hawk, dropping some money in the little fellow’s hand. ‘‘Change your togs to those of a district messen- ger, and get your breakfast.” ‘“What then, boss?” and the money was pock- eted like a flash. ‘‘ Report to officer in charge of Gotham Flats, 16 Montauk place, next to top floor, and wait.” The boy jerked his forelock, with a comical scrape of the foot and toss of his box from one shoulder to the other, and sped away like an arrow. Hawk Heron was familiar with the appoint- ments, employees and internal arrangements of nearly every prominent hotel in New York. It was the fashionable breakfast hour as he strolled, with admirably-assumed carelessness, into the Brunswick. Not wishing to even hint the nature of his errand, he did not examine the register, but merely nodded to the clerks and passed on, ‘“‘Wourth floor, Room Eighty-six,” he said ina low tone to the attendant, as he entered the ele- vator. There was no other passenger. ‘““End of main passage, last room to right,” said the attendant, as he landed our hero on the fourth floor, and received a couple on their way down to breakfast. Hawk had the main passage to himself, though he heard a chambermaid singing at her work in a cross-passage near at hand. He was about starting back for Room EHighty- six when he noticed that the attendant had in- advertently left open the door leading into the elevator shaft. He was closing it when a low, guttural ex- clamation, like an oi but half-suppressed growl, caused him to look up. Then he gave an exclamation in his turn, and stood rooted to the spot, his hand on the door, his foot at the edge of the empty shaft’s abyss. Coming directly toward him, with swift, cat- like steps, from the direction of Room Highty- six, was the very man he sought, though now in fashionable walking-dress! Not an iota of the description was bere The towering, portly frame, the coal-black beard, mustache and hair, the latter evidently bristling up under his hat, the serpent-like, fiery eyes. wAN tallied alike with the many characters in one whom he was seeking—whom he had so longed to meet face to face. ; It was this terrible concentration of criminal personalities in one person, springing so unex- ectedly before him like a vision of hatred and pat that had paralyzed the detective for an instant. ; But he was speedily himself again, and with reason, for the giant was now upon him. ‘Dog of a detective!” snarled the latter, as they instantly closed in a life-and-death grapple at the mouth of the shaft. ‘* You have sleuthed me down at last, but it is to your ruin.” ‘We'll see about that!” gasped Hawk, re- liant in his own herculean strength, but feeling as if in a grizzly s hug as pe bay and strug- gled on the giddy verge. ‘* Monster! no crimi- mal ever yet esca from out my actual clutch.” } , “ Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the giant, in his low, deadly way, while tightening his enormous rrip. ‘'Foolhardy boy; wouldst try thy cal- ow strength against Count Kotzka the Prob- eribed ?” | Scarcel withstan wrench. He felt it—knew it. But with despair and an- guish at his heart, the indomitable detective’s instinct was still uppermost. ‘‘ Villain! you then confess your identity?” he panted. ‘‘In your personality I have then tracked all those crimes— the crimes of long ago, the foreign forgeries, the murder of Olga and a moment longer could Hawk Heron that boa-like embrace—that lion-like -her mother, this morning’s attempts on my own life—to their single hideous source?” ‘All, all!and a hundred others you dream not of!” hissed the colossus, at last, by an irre- sistible wrench whirling him from his foothold out over the shaft. ‘‘ Ha, ha, ha! Fool! idiot! I can afford a confession now—now, with your life in the hollow of my hand! Close your eyes, Hawk Heron! Your hour has struck!” ‘** Coward!” ‘* As you please. But hark you, Hawk Heron, the vulture of your bosom emblem (do you re- member how I pricked it there in the old, old days?) turns at last upon his falcon foe, to dash him forever from his haughty hight!” ‘** Monster!” ‘* Ha, ha, ha! Look your last upon the world, Hawk Heron, for now, now it is done with thee!” The next instant Hawk felt himself hurled into the depths. His enemy cast but one glance down the shaft, and then, with a repetition of his low-voiced, ghoulish chuckle, disappeared, This awful struggle had taken place so swiftly and quickly that the attention of no one else had been attracted. Even the chambermaid’s song in the adjoining passage had proceeded uninterruptedly. Hawk heard it still from where he desperately hung down in the shaft, after clutching by a lucky chance the wire door leading out into the floor directly below, and his fancy invested its aor merriment with a mocking, derisive one. Then a fresh horror threatened. He was still breathless and hardly able to maintain his clinging grip on the door, when he heard the slightly rumbling sound of the ascend- a elevator. oo weak to spring for the rising wire rope, too exhausted even to call out for assistance, he must, unless relieved, inevitably be crushed to death! ‘* Heaven help me for a final effort!” he groan- ed, ‘‘or that scourge of humanity may pursue his red career unchecked to the very end. Fortunately, his last effort was specessful. He managed to get his toes upon the ledge, while maintaining a side-hold with his left hand, and in this new position slid back the door with his right. Just as he stepped forth in safety, the elevator, which would else have ground him to death, shot'up past the opening with resistless force, ‘‘Not halt a minute has elapsed since our struggle!” muttered our hero, rushing toward a staircase which he knew to he the only one com- municating with Room Eighty-six on the floor above. ‘‘ The villain hasn’t had time to escape by the staircase. He must have returned to his room.” Up he started, three ene at a time, and with the greed of vengeance in his heart. Still, to make assurance doubly sure, he paus- ed to question the singing chambermaid in the intersecting passage above, ‘* Lawk, sir! there’s no one uses the staircases nowadays, with the elevator so convenient!” was the girl’s response to his first query. ‘‘Would you have noted any one going toward yonder staircase within the last three minutes?” ‘¢ Indeed, I would, sir! Nota soul has passed along this passage for a good hour, and there’s oe other by which the staircases could be got 0. Feeling sure that she was not deceiving him, Hawk thanked her, and turned into the main passage. It was wholly deserted. “ At last!” he said to himself, drawing a long breath. white Passing, not without a shudder, the opening in the shaft, he marched straight to the door of Room Eighty-six. : His teeth were clinched, his glance like the glint of a bayonet, his grip locked like a vise on the mat ne a derringer in his right-hand trows- ers et. e paused an instant outside the door. Some one was stirring within, and a husky voice, which he thought familiar, was humming a surly “Villain! it is my turn now!” shouted the de- tective, bursting into the room, pistol in hand, ‘‘ Surrender this instant, or-—or—” The words died on his lips, and he steod reoted to the floor. The sole occupant of the room had suddenly turned from his half-completed toilet before the one ae apparently no less astounded than Hawk himself, / te Hawk Heron, the Falcon Detective. An enormously tall and stout man, it is true, but a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon blonde, with short, tumbled yellow hair, neutral-tinted e es, and a rather careless, good-humored, béardlens face, though now, naturally enough, a trifle startled and indignant, ** What the deuce does this mean?” he exclaim- ed. ‘Only a pistol, eh? But where’s your bow- ie-knife and tomahawk, you know?” Heron pocketed his weapon mechanically, end began stammering an apology. ‘*Oh, don’t mention it, since it’s doubtless a mere custom of the blasted country, you know !’* coolly interrupted the stranger, resuming his toilet. ‘‘ Of course, yow’re a lunatic.” ‘‘But P’'m nothing of the sort—I’m only the victim of an infernal mistake!” cried Hawk, while secretly admiring the other’s coolness, ‘ I apologize with all my heart, and my name is awk Heron, at-your service.” The stranger suddenly dropped his brush and comb, and stretched out both his hands in the most cordial manner, ‘What! you don’t say so?” he exclaimed. ‘“ Why, my dear boy, I am delighted to meet: ou!” ‘‘ Can it be possible?” stammered Hawk, though now with a glimmering of the truth. ‘Really, you know!” “Your name?” “‘ Jack Blithers, of Scotland Yard, London, at your service, my boy!” ‘** The deuce! I might have known you by your photograph,” Then Hawk returned Blithers’s greeting with interest, and at once plunged into his story of explanation, which the other seemed to hear with unaffected astonishment. CHAPTER IV. FORMING AND VANISHING LINKS. “WELL, my boy, this is simply astonishing— Bi geal Ee Such was Mr. Blithers’s comment at the con- clusion of Hawk’s story. ‘Tt beats anything in the old country no end, you know!” he went on, while dusting off his coat. ‘But, of ccurse, the big rascal couldn't have come out of this room,” **Of course not,” said Hawk. ‘ And, harrine: size and shape, you don’t resemble him in the least.” ‘Thanks; [ should hope not.” “‘Oh, [ meant no offense! But where in thun- der could he have come from or vanished to?” ‘* How should 1 know? But I'll tell you what, my boy. IV’ll be down in five minutes, and we can talk the matter over while you are bresxk- fasting with me.” Hawk accepted the invitation, though he had already breakfasted, and then made an excuse to precede Mr. Blithers down-stairs, His first care was to inspect the register. ‘John H. Blithers, Scotland Yard, London,” broadly decorated the line that was filled out by the assignment to Room Eighty-six. Hawk did not essay to question the clerks, but sought out the bead porter, whom he knew to be on duty from midnight to noon. ““When did Eighty-six arrive?” he queried, slipping him a fee. ‘It’s Barnum’s escaped giant, Eighty-six is, sure!” said the porter, with a grin. ‘‘ He was here soon afther daylight, in a coupe, wid a raw-boned gray horse, frish from the steamer.” ‘What luggage?” ‘“A howlin’ big trunk, two valises an’ a leather hat-box, your honor.” ‘“‘ Any particular incident in connection with the arrival?” “Divil a bit, save that 1 hustled out a spalpeen of a bootblack that was thryin’ to read what the towerin’ gintleman wrote in the rigister.” ‘‘ Was the gentleman dark or fair?” ‘Be gob, an’ I couldn’t say, sor, as his mug was muffled out of sight the minute afther he ot under the gas-lights, an’ I was, moreover, usy wid the traps,” 9 Did you recognize the driver of the coupe?” ‘Only to recognize him as an utter stranger, your honor. An under-sized mon, wid a jair of thim murtherin’ British mutton-chop whisk- ers, an’ divil of a livery or brass button.” dy Thanks. Pray, say nothing of my inqui- ries, ‘* Divil a word, your honor.” Hawk strolled out to the vestibule of the main entrance. “Strange, strange!” he muttered, glancing about him. ‘Could the villain whom Nixey described as entering here have effected a change while passing through this vestibule, and thc appeared at the desk as blonde, beardless Mr, Biithers, of Scotland Yard! Hardly possible! And yet the porter corroborates Nixey in every other particular to a dot, I can’t make it out! For once in my life, I am teetotallv, irredeem- ably mixed up!” ere a bell-boy brought word that Mr. Blithers was waiting. — If Hawk had retained a suspicion of there being any mysterious connection between his many-sided criminal, whom he had heretofore - » comicbooks