Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 501 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

20 trace had yet been discovered, it was in a gen- erally hopeful vein, and concluded with a prom- ise to send additional word once every hour dur- ing the night. The next interruption was when the house- maid brought a suspicious looking missive, sealed in a thick muslin-lined envelope, and ad- dress *‘ Mr, Edgar Willard,” which she said had just been handed in at the kitchen door by a rough-looking muffled-up man, who had then at once hurried away amid the beating storm, The girl was dismissed and then Mr. Gray looked up with a keenness of interest that was something of a consolation for the interruption. ‘* Aha!” he muttered, with his eyes on the let- ter in his son-in-law’s hands, ‘‘ the sign from the rascal as I predicted; I’m betting on it!” Edgar broke the envelope, and scanned its contents, with a brow of gloom, “You are right, sir!” he exclaimed. ‘‘ Was there ever such unheard-of impudence? It is positively so vast as to be mysterious.” Edna tremblingly read over her father’s shoulder the missive—a scrawl in pencil—now in bis hands. It was as follows: “Of course, I am the kidnapper, in spite of my bluffing it out at the Webbs’. Now what are you going to do about it? Neither child nor nurse shall be suffered to come to any injury, as yet. But they are safely at my orders,in an asylum that even Springsteel Steve, old fox as he is, will exert him- self in vain to discover; and it is in my power to have the kid either abused or destroyed by a mero word at any hour, Thisis the second string to m bow, and should it fail me, I shall at once fall bac on my original threat, and denounce you publicl as the murderer of Miser John Willard, even thoug my own skin shall not wholly escape. ** But it is not likely to fail me, and my own safety is assured, “Tl have changed my terms, which are now as follows: Twenty thousand in casb, accompanied by your written declaration, over your signature, and witnessed by your wife and father-in-law (all in the family, you see,) to the effect that I, Lawrence O'Meara, am, to the best of your knowledge and belief, totally innocent of the so-called Bleak Hol- oy Senne, by which said John Willard came to his * Have the money and declaration ready for de- livery into my hands (at such time and place as you shall Maman’ be advised on by me) within one week trom this present 18th day of October 188—, or two culminating misfortunes shall be hurled un- relentingly upon you, the one preceding the other in the following order: * First, you shall receive indubitable proof that your missing son and heir is forever beyond recov- ery, through the instrumentality of death. ** Second, you will be under arrest, at my formal instance, charged with the sole, unassisted murder of your grandfather, John Willard, of Willard Manse, five years ago, _ “A word to the wise is sufficient, This is the last communication you will receive in writing from me. You shall next hear from me only to satiety my de- mand in full, or to feel the fulfillment of my threat. “ You Know WuHo.”’ Edna lifted up a blanched and horrified face from the perusal of this cold-bloaded and ap- palling epistle. ‘This scrawl can be used against him,” she faltered. ‘*He acknowledges himself as the kidnapper of my child! Let the fiend be arrest- ed at once,” The ex-detective reluctantly shook his head. ** What!” she exclaimed, wildly. ‘‘Sball he not be convicted out of his own writing-—out of his self-accusation?” ** {mpossible!” **Oh, my father, do not say that! my anguish, my wrongs! im sible!” ‘*I must say so! Do you think the villain would have thus put his written demand in our hands, if it had involved danger to himself?” * But why—why?” ‘It is unsigned; even the handwriting is pur- posely a but half-legible scrawl. He could deny the whole thing, even stigmatize it as a foul plot designed to injure him, and laugh at us for our ap hag " * It is true,” assented Edgar, gloomily. ‘‘ He has not been such a fool as to give himself wey. | ‘** But my baby—he will kill my baby!” ** Nonsense!” cried the old detective. ‘* He neither will nor can do anything of the sort. The little dumpling shall be restored to you in short order.” ‘* Ah, but in the mean time—in the mean time?” And the unhappy mother stretched out her piste with an indeseribable pathos in their sug- gestion, ‘‘My daughter, you must have patience and bear up! Do you forget that Mary, the good nurse, is still with the child?” Patience, indeed, and under such circum- stances! **Patience? Patience scorned of devils! This is Sets eat be aceram rn acaaterie bering woman's rrow ; happier things.” Face Edna burst into a wild laugh. ‘“* Mary, the gad and faithful nurse, indeed!” she wailed, ‘‘ Did she not once already permit the child to be snatched out of her hands? Oh, my baby—imy baby!” Consider Do not say that it is a a i . ; ? ’ 4 ; ——EEE as eee ~——— owe hn Pine oor ee hit ; ‘ <8) + Springsteel Steve. , : Stricken nature could do no more, and she was already in hysterics, Willard at once carried his*wife to her room, summoning the housemaid and others of the women to her assistance, and the physician was sent for without further delay. lt was only late at night, and after the un- happy mother had been thrown into temporary unconsciousness of her misery, that the wretch- ed husband and his father-in-law again seated themselves in the library, with a last effort to shake off their dejection of spirit. ** It is hardly any use,” said the old detective, helping himself with unaccustomed liberality out of the decanter that had been set between them. “I had something of a story to tell, but the gist of itis all knocked out of me, ever,” dubiously, ‘it wasn’t much of a story, after all,’ Edgar also helped himself to the spirits, with a commendably determined effort to shake off his gloom, ‘*T am certain that I shal] be interested in it, though,” said he, ‘ Come, father-in-law, you sha’n’t be interrupted again. You must, at least, have got a glimpse of the dead man’s double in your wanderings, so that your in- credulity in his existence,is permanently shaken by this time.” ‘No, I didn’t, and that is the marvel of it all, my son,” ‘* What! not even saw him?” ‘““No; but my credulity was all right, you must remember, before I started on my wild- goose chase—that is, as to the existence of the man-double, mind you, the twin business, you know.” ‘** Well, let me have the story.” i CHAPTER XXX, WAITING. ** As I said before,” said Springsteel Steve, ‘* there isn’t much of a story, my boy. I some- how thought there was, but there isn’t, ‘* What substance can there be to the story of a search that ends in nothing, or in bald in- formation as to what may be expected in the future? ‘** Since I started out I have been on the mys- terious treasure-bunter’s track at seven different seaside resorts, without clapping eyes on him, ** Sometimes he would have been seen at this oe only the night before; then at that place i@ would have made cautious inquiries of the hotel people as to the general trend of the coast; and then again, he would have just taken pas- sage in some fishing sloop for some out-of-the- way beach away off among the beating waves, where I only followed him to find that he had skipped away, after prospecting with his divin- ing-rod and digging up the sand a bit. ‘At last I sortof weakened in my actual pur- suit, and took to gathering up such information as I could obtain of the crank’s characteristics, ‘** Boiled down and filtered out, my boy, they amount to just this: ‘No matter where or how he flits along the seaboard, there is this governing eccentricity, or method in bis madness, as we'll suy. ‘He always suddenly disappears from his coastwise search at irregular intervals, and is .seen or heard of no more, ‘* Do you know the conclusion that I at last tumbled to? It was this: “The treasure-seeking crank is invariably ‘ dragged back to this Bleak Hollow vicinity, as by an irresistible magnet.” ‘* Well?” inquired Willard, after a long pause, ‘* Well, I concluded it was better to lie in wait for him here than to continue chasing along the ovean beaches in bis uncertain track. ‘** Directly after replying to your telegram to- day, at Long Beach, though I had a notion of following my ignis fatuus along up toward Newport, something told me I had better be heading back for the manse. I did so, my boy, and here I am,” “Thank God it is so!” exclaimed Willard, sare “You at last thoroughly believe in our double, then, and think you can succeed in cocnering him?’ ** Undoubtedly.” ** Who and what do you take him for?” “A half-er twin brother of your dead aceite is very existence might have n a closely-guarded family secret, you know, trad allowed to escape at last through the death of your the poor devil’s jailer for a lifetime, without any one suspecting the secret. Such strange things have come to light before,” ‘*True. But how could the crazy twin—with- out money and deprived of the close watch to which he had perhaps been accustomed from in- Eey ‘he r How- | ‘* Well, it ds a little outre or bizarre, as a Frenchman might say,” admitted the other, randfather, who had doubtless been | ‘* Might not the double be also the murderer?” Willard stared. ‘*Tt is a wild supposition, I know,” continued the detective, ‘* but not absolutely preposterous, ‘* We will say that the crazy twin has been kept in close and secret confinement by his saner brother from infancy—or say by their father, until he could transmit the secret charge to your grandfather, ‘*Re has this treasure-seeking freak as his ruling idiosyncrasy,. So had your grandfather, | for that matter, as we know. But it probably | exists in the lunatic in a more objectionable | form, that is for the most part restrained, | ** Well, on that very eventful evening of five years ago, we will say that our lunatic twin slips out of his confinement, and enters the ad- | joining bedroom, | ‘Perhaps he is not so crazy as he might be. | At all events, there is an unexpected illumina- | tion. His counterpart jailer, the miser twin | (secretly returned from one of bis own treasure- | een freaks), lies sleeping and helpless before im, | ‘* The lunatic double at once murders bis saner | prototype, chuckles over his good-luck, grabs what money he can, and disappears, to alter- nately follow out his harmless mania, and haunt the grounds here to his heart’s content; his very existence unsuspected; and O’Meara and his two pals chance to effect their felonious entrance shortly after ony. to find their miser already murdered to their bands, “There you are, my boy! What do you think of it? ‘*Nothing whatever,” was the prompt re- joinder. ‘‘The theory is too utterly fantas- tical] ork far-fetched to be worth a moment’s thought, b with his dry little whan ‘* But there must bea twin in the case, and a live one, too, or there is no accounting for the dead man’s double.” ‘* Yes, that much is certain. Even Miss Raw admits it at last,” ‘* ‘What! ed that ks pee Edgar did so now, ‘¢ What do you think of it all?” he asked, when he bad finished. ‘* Wait a little,” said the detective, who bad listened to the account with intense interest. ** A deep woman and an odd one, my son! But she let out more to you two than she did to me. Iam trying to analyze her.” ‘*But you can’t doubt, I supposes, that she’s a regular vulture—a cormorant of grasping ava- riciousness?” ‘*T do doubt that.” ‘* What! when she coolly demanded of me one- half the estate, as the price of her safeguard secret, ‘*' Yes; it may have been a bluff,” “A bluff?” “Certainly. At all events, her private contempt and disli who doubtless even at this moment believes her in some degree his tool?” ‘* No; I can’t deny that.” “By the way, did that seem sincere in the woman?” ‘* Perfectly so. What ever else she may be, Miss Raw is not much of a hypocrite,” ‘*T am glad to have you own that.” “Why?” ‘ os Well, there is something to be hoped from er.” Willard shook his head. ‘‘f am afraid not,” said he, seems to be made of iron.” “A good metal, my boy, especially when nel Age You know the old saying, True as steel. ‘Yes, true toitself. The idea of Miss Raw being true or generous in any other sense seems to me particularly absurd,” ‘Well, we can only wait. She, at all events, peer? limited you to one week’s time, as O'Meara as, ‘*That is your advice, then? Simply to wait,” ‘Yes; forthe present.” ‘* Still, we might as well cofsider possibilities beforehand,” rs By all means; nothing like being prepared.” ‘Well, the bare idea of yielding to Miss Rows demand is not to be thought of for ar in- stant? ** Certainly not.” . ‘‘ Nor to O’Meara’s demand?” ** Still less than to hers,” Willard drew a long breath. “We'll imagine the worst,” said he, But, by the way, I am just remind- ou baven’t had the opportunity to he result of the interview with that ou won't deny “The woman “ Sup- fancy—have successfully masaueraded in this | pose I] am at last arrested on O’Meara’s accus- way for the past five years, while preserving his own secret? And that, too, wit lent death and subsequent burial?” ‘* Ask me something easier, my boy. The fu- ture can alone explain that.” And then, after a moment's pause, Springsteel exclaimed: ‘ By eunitey it’s a strange thought that just occurs me, | ** What is it?” , ad ek | ation?” ; ile being | thoroughly cognizant of my grandfatuar’s vio- | to pursue, until advised to the contrary **Good! you have then one ans idan course 'y me,” ‘** What is it?” ‘To preserve absolute silence, even as to denial of your guilt.” — / What!” safety, but your sprery acqnittal of the charge shall follow your strict observance of this a¥s b 5 . | at cor e for O'Meara, | ‘Edgar, I swear to you that not only our -. X ‘.* ' , ey eh orale: } ul * ay? ’ % wt > % i ed r i¢cbooks.com ‘ 7 : @