Beadle's Dime Library No. 509 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

oo a .s Old Falcon, the Thunderbolt Detective. een monico’s, Mayfield strolled into one of the most fashionable of the down-town tailors, where he ordered three suits of expensive clothes, pay- ing for them in advance, ‘*T must be economical at the start,” he mut- tered, carefully buttoning from view a com- fortably-packed new pocketbook of liberal di- mensions. ‘* And now for a visit of inquiry to my mysterious little angel, Retta Merrivale.” And, stepping out of the tailor-shop be almost ran into the armsof Major Jack Falconbridge, otherwise Old Falcon. CHAPTER XV. OLD FALCON AGAIN. *‘ HALLO!” cried the detective. ‘* Ah!” was the rather breathless rejoinder. Nevertheless, Harvey responded with some warmth, not wholly bypocritical to the major’s hearty hand-clasp, so unaffectedly grateful-was he at having escaped the dreaded interview up to this point. ‘*T ran up to see you last night,” said the de- tective. ‘Perhaps you have uot been home since then?” ‘*Oh, yes; and Mrs. Godlove informed me of so having called. Deuced sorry, I am sure! he intimated it was something of importance,” ‘* Yes,” carelessly, ‘‘ but perhaps it isn’t so much so now,” Yet all the time Mayfield felt that he was not for an instant escaping the hawk-like scrutiny of the fierce, solemn eyes, at such odd variance with the smiling llps and facial bonhomie of the associative features. ‘*T am rather pressed for time just now, major,” said be. ‘* But can stillspare youa few minutes,” “That will suffice, I fancy. There were two or three things to say. Of course, you remem- ber Brummagem Bob’s deathbed?” ‘** T should say so,” ‘* Well, it wasn’t a death-bed, after all.” ** How?—a case of shamming? I would never have believed it.” ‘‘Neither would [. However, it wasn’t so bad as that. He simply got well—convalesced from the very jaws of death, and most unex- pectedly. Ll interviewed him in the prison yes- terday, or rather tried to. He’s dumber as a live man than he was as a half-dead one.” ‘*fam not surprised at that,” indifferently. ** Anything else, major?” ‘* Yes, last week I visited the dead man’s re- maining pal, Centerbit Grayton, in the New Jersey State Prison.” Half-weariedly: ‘‘Ah, yes; there was an- other one, now that you recall it to mind.” The detective eyed him yet more keenly, not to say disappointedly. ‘*Grayton was equally non-communicative,” he went on. ‘‘ But he flew into a terrible pas- sion, and his alarm was most manifest, when I recounted the strange circumstances attendant upon Burkitt’s death—chiefly anent the buried plunder, of course,” ‘* Oh, the deuce! that again?” with no little impatience, ‘Hold on! There is yet more, Mr, Mayfield, My clients, the curious Jaeob and Joseph Bis ‘imagine they have got a clew to the vanished heiress, Miss Henrietta Mervyn,” ** Still alive, eh?” ‘They think, or rather fear, as much, since her reappearance would, of course, cook their hopes for the missing treasure,” **Why should they be hunting up clews of her, then?” The detective laughed. ‘‘T suppose they go on the principle that there is nothing like being sure of one’s right to a for- tune beforehand.” ‘* They might better first make sure that there is a fortune.” ‘* Ah, you really think so? Well, again, they may think it worth while to unearth the heiress, and + sae" marry her, on the risk.” ‘True, if polyandry were legally admissible.” ‘*Of course, but one cousin could marry the girl at a time,” said the detective, laughing, ‘ But the oddest thing is that they imagine they have tracked the missing heiress somewhere up along your way.” “* Ah, indeed!” with yet more exasperating listlessness, ‘*'Yes; she was last indistinctly heard of as an obscure operative in some one or another of the river towns. The young men have been pursuing their inquiries, ratber hopelessly, to be sure, for a week or more,” Mayfield made his impatient gesture. ‘** But, my dear sir,” he asked, with a fatigued smile, ‘‘in what way can all this concern me?” ‘* Why, as the possessor of the treasure secret, you know—” But bere the young man, with a last wearied gesture, was re: abruptly away amid the crowded street (for the conversation was taking place on Broadway,) when Old Falcon perempt- orily caught him by the arm. ‘*One moment, ard one question, if you please?’ he demanded, with unwonted stern- ness, ‘* Let it be brief, then,” returned the other, -angrily. ‘‘There isa limit to endurance.” ““ My question is this: If you were the master of the stolen treasure’s secret—even if you may not have already appropriated some of the funds—would you, or would you not, deem yourself in honor bound to make known the discovery to the ruined banker’s sole legal heir, Miss Henrietta Mervyn, upon her coming to light with the presentation of ber claim?” Mayfield drew himself up with a baughtiness that did not misbecome him, “Sir, if you will put your hypothetical ques- tion in a less offensive form,” said he, coldly, ‘* I may condescend to answer it.” ‘* How? Oh, I see. Well, then, pray con- sider my suppositional question per se, without the parenthetie clause which has touched you, I see, on the raw.” ‘Tt touched my honor, if that is what you so elegantly term the raw.” ‘“*T crave an answer to m question in its original substance, Mr. Mayfield.’ ‘** You shall have it. I would consider myself absolutely in honor and conscience bound to make known the discovery under the circum- stances that you mention, Otherwise, I should be no true man, despicable in honorable eyes, hopelessly debased in self-contempt,” here was something simply and unassuming- ly noble in the enunciation of these words; for it must be remembered that the speaker, under the impression that there was small likelihood of their ever being put to the test, thoroughly believed in them himself, ‘Sir, 1 thank you,” said the detective, ‘I will even go further and add that I almost trust u. For all that, he followed the tall, graceful figure of the young man, as it was disappearing in the hurrying and mobile crowd, with some- thing discontented and unsatisfied in that pierc- ing, searching gaze of his, We will accompany the detective as he turned on his beel, and made his way to his dingy little cock-loft of an office in a near-at-hand building, while muttering to himself: ‘* Well, now for my two rascals, in place of the Tarrytown Adonis; if indeed he be a raszal, which I have yet to make sure of,” As he entered his office, two young men— the same who had looked so inquisitively at Retta Merrivale, and whose subsequent scrutiny had so puzzled Harvey Mayfield at the Yonkers railway station—who were smoking and loung- ing expectantly in the only unbroken arm- cbairs available, looked up and nodded lazily. ‘* So, gentlemen,” and the detective smilingly contented himself with a dilapidated office-stool for his own accommodation, ‘* you are here be- fore me, I see, hope I haven’t kept you long waiting.” ‘ ‘Yes, you have,” vouchsafed the elder and better favored of the cousins, Jacob Mervyn, yawning. ‘However, it doesn’t matter so much,” with a meaningless oath, ‘‘Not a deuced bit,” said Joseph, likewise with a gape, ‘tI say, maje, is there such a thing as a snifter of brandy or rum stowed away any where in this beastly den of yours?” ** No, there isn’t; understand that, once for all,” was the short and quieting response, with a steely suggestiveness of tone with which both young men had become more or Jess familiar. ‘So you couldn’t make anything of the clew I put you on.” ‘*Clew be blowed!” ejaculated Jacob: con- temptuously. ‘‘ The girl isn’t in the land of the living. We're more satisfied of that than ever before,” ‘* You bet!” supplemented Joseph. ‘t We only came to tell you so, old fel. However, you’re not to blame for putting us on the wrong scent.” ‘* No, we don’t blame you, maje,” continued Jacob. ‘Ta-ta!l You know where to find us should you light on anything worth considering, you know.” And they both took their departure in the lazy, loose-jointed manner of youths confirmed in ruinous habits and irregular lives. **T feel you lie, and I know you lie!” muttered the detective, looking at the door they had closed bebind them as if be would bore through it with his glittering eyes. ‘t However, you two will bear watching about as well as any pair of pro- fligate scoundrels that I know of,” He wade a dive into a sort of cabinet particu- lier, which was partitioned off from the rest of the office. When he reappeared, in a marvelously brief space of time, it was in the guise of a rather dudish young man-about-town, beneath which his best friend would not have recognized his actual identity. Then he was on the street in a flash, almost before the young men had well quitted the build- ing, and he was also fairly at their heels when, after a brief, aimless walk, they entered a bil- liard and beer saloon of a rather low character in a side-street west of Broadway. CHAPTER XVI, NEPHEWS OF THE DECEASED. As the young men seated themselves at the only unoceupied round table in the saloon, and signaled for beer, doubtless with the intention of engaging in private conversation, the dis- puilhed etective stolidly took the remaining : seat at the same table, and beckoned to a waiter with an excess of mute pantomime that might have appertained to a deaf and dumb man. Then he pointed out several articles on the bill of fare, and was presently supplied with Russ an caviare, rye bread and butter, and a sehoppen of Rhein wine and seltzer, which, after a dainty arrangement of his eye-glasses and a napkin, he proceeded to discuss at leisure, with apparently no interest whatever in his surround- ings. O eattnute: think you, Jake?” queried the younger, in an undertone. ‘* Dunno,” growled the other, ‘‘ Maybe onl a fresh,” And, leaning across the table, he ad- dressed some not over-polite commonplace to the seeming exquisite. No attention being evoked, be touched him on the arm, whereupon the other looked up amiably. ‘*[ beg your pardon, but did you do me the honor to address me, sir?” asked the latter, ad- justing his pincenez, holding bis knife and fork in suspension, and speaking in a _ peculiarly hushed, muffled, and far-away voice, Tbe young men both nodded, rather surlily,, in response, ‘* You will then excuse my apparent rudeness in not answering, I trust,” the caviare-eater went on, with increased good-bumor, ‘ You will understand that I couJd not have heard you. Though a long course of instruction bas enabled me to command the use of my vocal or- gans—they tell me I do pret. well at it,” with a proud little smile, ‘‘ though of course I must remain a stranger to whatever my voice may accomplish—what is meant by noise or sound must continue an unknown mystery tome, I was born a deaf-mute, as you will have doubt- less gpessed.” Here be dropped his knife and fork to produce a woite slate and pencil, which he politely ex- tended across the table. ‘“Write something that'll choke bim off,” growled Joseph, with the oath that seemed cus- tomary to his language, ‘*‘ Otherwise the blamed jackass may think we’re interested in bim,” Thereupon Jacob lazily scribbled on a slate: ‘'The remark made to you was of no conse- quence, Sorry for your misfortune.” The pretended deaf mute nodded gravely, re- turned the slate and pencil to his pocket and te sumed his bread and eaviare as unconcernetly as before, while from that moment the young men spoke together unreservedly, They were rather good-looking young fellows of twenty- seven and eight, 1, well-propor- tioned and naturally of vigorous mold; but the effects of reckless and unprincipled lives were apparent alike in their heavy, dissipated looks, their careless, unconventional manners, and a certain loudness in their dress, which was, nevertheless, of fashionable eut and expensive oaterial. ‘*Do you think we did perfectly right in hoodwinking that bloke of a detective?” said ne. : ‘‘Of course, What show would we bave at his bands, were he aware that Henrietta was brought to light.” ** But she wouldn’t be able to promise him more than we, ip the event of the stolen funds being found. Gad! nor so much either, We can at least afford him some axle-grease out of our beastly little annuities and faro winnings. But she—if really identical with the pretty o erative that we spotted, which is yet to be made sure of—she shouldn’t be able to offer him a rap, He would bave to undertake the entire treasure-search as a pure speculation,” | ‘* You haven’t judged Old Faleon right, That might not make any difference with him, , He is a conscientious man,” This seemed so comical to Joseph, the younger and more depraved-appearing of the cousins who bad been the listener, that he fairly rolle in his seat, laughing till the tears gushed out of his weak, blinking eyes, and only recovered Ble burying his nose in a second tankard of eer. “You'll excuse my smiling, Jake, I bope,” he managed to blurt out at last, ‘‘ Conscientious- ness in a detective! Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! Come, Jake, I like that, It’s dempition rich!” / ‘* It’s none the less true,” persisted the other, witb a frown attesting to its unpalatableness not- withstanding. ‘‘ Old Hawk considers us as ras- cals, and has been keeping a secret watch on us. accordingly from the very first. Rhos the question ever fairly offer itself to him as be- tween us and little Hetty Mervyn—the true and only heir, whom neither of us has clapped eyes on since she was a baby (unless the pretty operative of early this morning, whom we saw talking with that young. Mayfield chap, should prove the same)—he’d throw us over with no more compunction than if we were a pair o wharf-rats in the late ship’s hold,” Av Joseph also knitted bis brows now... wacactal “Tf [ thought that!” He clinched his band, a look that was not good to see coming into his face, ‘‘ But are you sure?” youtma ‘“Quite sure, Joe. Old Falcon js widely reputed as one of the few detectives who have achieved wonderful successes, without incur- — Gomicboo cS.Cc —> a