Beadle's Dime Library No. 391 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

Kate Scott, the Decoy Detective. as she was liable to be called upon at any hour, day or night. ‘a pe eeree room and its furniture requires } but little description. It was an apartment about nine feet by ten; | ‘a dormer window afforded light, and the only | furniture in the room was a small iron bedstead with an extremely hard mattress, a scanty ‘amount of bed-clothes, and a broken-backed | chair, a In the opinion of the servants, any sort of an ‘apartment was good enough for the vagabond | Italian boy. x Kate bolted the door securely, put out the | ‘small hand-lamp with which she had been sup- lied, and after an earnest prayer—a supplica- tion that Heaven might be kind enough to per- - mit her to unmask and punish the villain who had so cruelly wronged her innocent sister, re- ; But not to sleep, for she was strangely ner- ; “vous. ' She seemed to hear all sorts of strange noises to-night. I say ‘‘ seemed,” for the girl was sure it wasn’t anything but imagination. | Her room being away from all the rest of the _ occupied apartments, at the very top of the house, no one else sleeping on the same floor, it } “Was always as quiet as a tomb, with the excep- | tion that the shrill cries of the wild, free deni- gens of the shrubs and trees without came in _ through the window. Od And on this night in question, after Kate had | reclined upon the bed, the chorus without of the | _ nocturnal insects rose freely on the air. ' -~‘But there were other noises which appeared to be nearer at hand and which the girl could , not help paying attention to, although she felt . tolerably certain that her imagination had mag- _ nified something out of nothing. There was a slight breeze, and the old timbers of the stately mansion creaked as the wind play- | ed around its corners. _ $trange fancies were in the girl’s mind. _ She was working in the dark, for she had not | “the slightest conception of the plans of the vet- eran etective under whose directions she was 2 - <= 0.4 : &. And with the natural impatience of woman- _ kind she chafed at being thus kept in ignorance. “Tf he had only confided in meso that I would | beable to understand why it is necessary I _ should remain here,” she muttered, as she turned __restlessly on the hard bed. __ Many times since she has received Joe Phe- _ nix’s message, so mysteriously conveyed to her, _ had she uttered the sentence, and now having - nothing else to do but to think and ponder over _ the matter, she was decidedly inclined to blame the detective for not allowing her to understand i» the fare. _ “TT could only see him, I am sure I could | lt a him that it would be a great advantage _ toallow me to understand the programme. I __ know I could work to better advantage if I knew what I was doing. _ **¥es, yes, lam svre of it.” ‘Twenty times at least she expressed this idea, slightly varying the words, and at last, after ' nearly two hours had elapsed, she began to feel that slumber was beginning to weigh down her eyelids. ro Bind glad enough was she when she became _ onscious of this fact, for she felt strangely rest- _ Tess and excited; if she had been a believer in _ -presentiments, she would have imagined that ' some terrible danger threatened her, but as she had not the least faith in anything of the kind, she strove to dismiss the idea, _ And then, just as her senses reeled in the misty _ border-land which exists between wakefulness | ane sleep, a strange idea came to her. _ $he thought that the veteran detective had _ climbed to the top of the great oak tree which - grew so near the house that its branches brushed Hes inst her window and bending over so as to » ' ‘ ring his face almost against the glass, whis- pered: _/ * Don’t wo my girl, everything is goin on all right. am playing the deepest kind o _ # game, and it is absolutely necessary that you _ should not know what I am up to, for the 4 7 sl image move on your part would ruin my (2° he part_you are playing is a very import- «nt one indeed, _ *¥ou are the bait, my girl, to attract the ‘prey Iseek. You will lure them into the trap Per whieh I have set and then I will capture all of them at one fell swoop. “Of course you are risking your life, but ie oa be afraid, the trap is as perfect a one as Bs wit of man ever planned, and I shall not fail to make the haul. ae They will attempt to kill you and I will nab - them. -__In these strange sort of dreams all probability of course flies to the winds. _ Naturally, it was an utter impossibility for a _ -muscularly-built man like the detective to cling _ toaslender branch, not over half the size of his arm, and whisper through the glass of a os / ightl -shut casement. — Os, “and ‘tege too, after he rrmalolay a ee an - @ppeared, | . . * eed rary J a ie * ae OOO rc, No prosaic descending of the tree, but he pen let go his hold of the branch and van- is And then the girl thought that she grumbled a little to herself, saying: ‘* You might as well let me know just what I am doing if I am risking my life as. you say.” But this discontent was of short duration, for a new event drove it from her mind. She heard the stairs which led to the entry without creak under the weight of footsteps as- cending them, The noise came as clear and distinct to her ears as though she was standing at the head of the staircase. There seemed to be a regular army ascend- ing, for she could distinctly hear the measured tread of many footsteps. ‘* Ah, well, it doesn’t matter to me,” she said. ‘* They can’t get in here anyway.” The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and at iast they all halted just outside the door. ‘*They can’t get in—they can’t get in!” she kept repeating to herself, and she thought she laughed merrily when she reflected what a strong bolt there was upon the door. And then she heard the men without try the door, and to her horror it yielded to their touch and opened as easily as though the iron bolt were but a wedge of putty. Now she realized that she was in the em- braces of that grim and horrid, yet not tangible monster known as the nightmare. She strove to wake herself, for now she un- derstood she was fast in slumber’s chain, but the effort caused her terrible een Her tongue clove to the roof of ber mouth when she greene to speak, and she felt as though she would suffocate before she could re- lieve herself of the dread incubus. But she felt that if she could only utter a sound the monster would vanish into thin air, As she struggled, fighting this phantom of the imagination, there came a sudden interrup- tion. From an intangible foe she came suddenly upon a real one. Rude hands were laid roughly u spoonful of some strange-tasting forced into her mouth. Waking to reality she attempted to prevent herself from swallowing the decoction, but her assailant was on his guard against this action. The moment he squirted the fluid into her mouth, he compressed her nostrils so that she was obliged to swallow the drug. Wonderful was the effect it produced upon her, and almost instantaneous was the action. She was thrown at once into a sort of trance, conscious of all that was going on around her, and yet unable to move a muscle. Kate was as completely helpless as though clutched in the cold embrace of death itself, but the busy brain still worked steadily on. Two men were in the apartment; a bull’s-eye lantern which cne of them carried revealed this fact and also disclosed their identity. The two were the master of the mansion, [akong ap Andrews, and the secretary, Michael ones. n her; a iquid was CHAPTER XL. A FIENDISH PLAN. “THE job was more easily performed than I had anticipated,” remarked the secretary, with a hoarse chuckle. ‘*Oh, I did not think there would be an trouble about the matter,” Andrews replied. ‘* When I plan anything of this kind, I general- ly arrange it so carefully that in the execution everything goes like clock-work.” ‘‘Tn this case most certainly everything has worked to perfection.” ‘*' Yes; but come, we have no time to lose, for midnight is near at hand.” “That was a capital idea of yours—the loosening of the screw that held the bolt- socket, so that while it looked to be firm, yet the screw had so little hold of the wood that a finger’s pressure would force i ean the door,” vanced to the the secretary remarked, as he bedside. ‘Yes; if the bolt had been all right we should not have been able to get into the room without making noise enough to wake this plucky girl, who has so bravely thrust her head into the lion’s mouth.” eo If the drug had not transformed the girl into a marble-like statue, incapable of moving, she most certainly would have given a great start when she heard these words, for they showed her that her disguise had been penetrated, and that from playing the part of a spy, she had been transformed into a victim, Andrews held the lantern, but the hands of the secretary were not incumbered. | So, when he came up to the bedside, he stooped and lifted the motionless form of the girl in his strong arms without any trouble. Then, with the master of the mansion leading the way, the two quitted the apartment, the secretary carrying the girl. When the two gained the yong? without, Andrews led the way to a door at the further end of the passage from which the staircase was situated. With a natural curiosity Kate had tried this door when she first took up her quarters in the garret, but as it was apparently fastened, she concluded 1t was merely the door of some un- used closet, as from the position in which it was situated it did not seem possible that it could be the door to a room. But it stood open now, revealing that it led to a narrow staircase, The girl remembered now that there was a flight of stairs in the rear of the house used by the servants, but she had no idea that they led into the garret. Down this staircase went the two men, An- drews taking care to carefully lock the door af- ter him. And before leaving the apartment which had been occupied by the supposed Italian boy, he had taken pains to shoot the bolt back and re- store the catch to its normal condition, so that it did not show any signs that it had been tam- pered with. Straight to the cellar went the two. The house seemed to be wrapped in slumber, and not a single sound gave evidence that there was a soul in the mansion, In the cellar, through a secret door, so care- fully masked as to defy detection, they made their way into an underground passage, a nar- row way, damp and 7 calbaaenal excavated right through the solid earth. After this passage was traversed, and it occu- pees some minutes, the two entered another cel- ar, the secretary placed his burden upon a rude sort of table and uttered a cry of relief. Baris. | solid gal, now I tell you, Cap!” he exclaimed. The voice of the man had sounded familiar to Kate before now, and she had tried to remem- ber where she had heard it, or a voice like it, yet had not been successful in the attempt; but at this speech all of a sudden the truth flashed upon her. The speaker was one of the ruffians from whose power she had previously escaped. It was the notorious Four Kings. Oh! how blind she had been, but her eyes were opened now. Bernard Andrews, the polished gentleman, the master of Blithewood, was the Spider Cap- tain—the man who bad lured her sister away, masquerading under the name of Henry Tap- a n. ‘*Well, captain, this is the last act in the play, eh?” Four Kings remarked. “Yes, this is to be the wind-up, and a most excellent one it will be, too,” Andrews replied. ‘* In another hour the Set Captain and his trusty lieutenant, Four Kings, will disappear from this world never to be seen again by mor- tal man. ‘‘'You are the only one of the band that knows me in my real character—the link which con- nects me with the gang. ‘Now that I have secured the future by this wealthy marriage, it is not necessary that I should longer tread in the path of crime, and it is desirable that all who knew the Spider Captain—pals and detectives alike—should be- lieve that he has cashed in his checks, and gone to that bourne from whence no traveler returns. ‘* This old house and its secrets must vanish from existence, ‘“Under the stairs, yonder, are two bodies, dressed in the clothes that we used to wear when we met the gang, and with their faces disfigur- ed by bullet-wounds. ‘** Now take ae revolver and empty the con- tents into the body of this daring spy, and place the empty weapon under her. ‘* Then we will set fire to the old house. The room above is saturated with coal-oil so that it will readily burn. ‘* Amid the ruins the bodies will be found, and no doubt the falling timbers will preserve them so that they can be easily identified, ne se story of the tragedy then will be plain to all, ‘*This female decoy tracked the Spider Cap- tain to his lair, succeeded in killing the chief of the gang and his lieutenant, but lost her own life in the fight. ‘*Thus at one blow we destroy the sleuth- hound and at the same time gull the world into the belief that we are no more.” ‘* Beautiful! couldn’t be finer!” and Four Kings drew out his revolver as he spoke. ‘*‘ Yes, at one stroke we obliterate the past!” Andrews cried, in exultation. ‘‘But you haven’t counted Joe Phenix in!” cried a stern voice. A cry of horror came Cis the a of the two, and, turning, they beheld the detective, drawn revolver in hand, standing in the mouth of the secret doorway through which they had come. | Behind him were four armed detectives. ‘** Surrender! eo are my prisoners!” the bloodhound cri But the two were game to the backbone. With a vigorous kick Andrews sent the lan- tern flying into a corner of the room, while Four Kings discharged, his revolver at the in- truders, But the detectives anticipated the movement EOmMmicbDooks