Beadle's Dime Library No. 509 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

-back door 26 Old Falcon, the Thunderbolt Detective. the accursed detective, and the youthful un- known would assuredly be found dead amid the treasure-boxes, She believed this, too, and could still speak with comparative complacency with him, their murderer—could still contem- plate the tragic disclosure in store for her with- out shrinking away from him in supreme horror and disgust! Good! Then her fancy for May- field must, indeed, have been transient and su- perficial; and he, Joseph Mervyn, was in reality without a rival, after all. “Il think you will find that your fears are witbout foundation,” he said, with hypocritical earnestness. ‘Still, twenty hours, or there- abouts, is a long time to live and breathe en- tombed in such a hole.” ‘* Ah!” with a sort of gasp, “‘ you acknowledge chat?” ‘*T must do so. Still,” quite cheerfully, ‘‘I continue to hope for the best, for your sake.” ** Thank you,” in a low voice. ** Then you think it best to adhere to the hour originally fixed?” be Yes,” ‘Good, then, So beit. I shall call at Mrs. Kelly’s for you at, say, a quarter to ten.” **'You may do so,” **(Good-by till then.” hand, She placed her own in its palm without a per- ceptible shudder, so rejoiced was she to have him take himself off. He paused au instant with her hand in his, then pressed it wildly to his lips, and, with a last gloating look, disappeared in the direction of the public square, whose boundary was once morse near at hand. Nevertheless, as Henriette, with a feeling of inexpres:ible relief, turned out of the grove and up the rising bank to rejoin Therese and the de- tective, Joseph watched her retreating figure from a distance with a sinister aud yet satisfied He was holding out his gaze. **f shall, nevertheless, be beforehand with you at the corpse-guarded treasure-cave, my fair cousin,” he muttered to himself. ‘‘ Time enough between dusk of evening und two hours later on in which to feather my individual nest pretty thoroughly with a portion of the funds; though all will doubtless be mine when I shal have made you my wife, as I swear you shall one day be—fate willing and the devil not ob- jecting!” With that he turned off through the public grounds, and swiftly strode away. CHAPTER XXXIX, AN UNLOOKED - FOR EVENT, As the twilight shadows began to thicken over the neglected orchard of the haunted cottage, Harvey Mayfield, who had sore his guard with tireless conscientioness throughout the day, be- ete one of his regular rounds of observation rom the mouti of the secret passage roundabout the immediate vicinity of the house. Scarcely had he cast his eyes toward the pub- lic road before he remarked the figure of a man stealthily coming up the walk. Something instinctively told him that this man was Joseph Mervyn, thoughit was too dark to distinguish his face. He immediately slipped behind a tree, with his oyee riveted on the approaching figure. ‘*T can divine the scoundreil’s object,” he said to himself. ‘‘In spite of his kegs eet with Retta for the later hour, he would first line his own pockets secretly from the treasure; and doubtless even the thought of his having to en- counter our three supposed dead bodies in the cistern-hole does not trouble him in the least, Ah, I thought so!” The man had turned off to go around to the and now his features were plainly distinguishable as those of Joseph eae But suddenly, much tothe watching Mayfield’s astonishment, another figure started up in the first one’s path, and sternly confronted him, cudgel in hand. In another instant, after the rapid exchange of a few words, whose purport Mayfield could not catch, these two men were engaged in a des- perate hand-to-hand conflict. | It was speedily ended by the repeated flash of a knife in the dimness, and then the cudgel- wielder was seen to fall, without a groan, The victor leaned over his fallen victim, seem- ed to be satisfied that life was extinct, and then, wiping his reeking knife on the matted turf at the side of the path, stole on to the kitchen door with much increased stealthiness, as if half an- ticipating a fresh interruption, As he disappeared into the house, Mayfield both mystified and appalled, hurriedly slipped away from hisown concealment and examined the motionless figure lying on the grass, The man was quite dead, having been twice ruthlessly stabbed in the region of the heart, A man of forty, or thereabouts, with dark and sinister, though not unintelligent, features frozen now in an impotent scowl; roughly and poorly dressed, apparently in cast-off garments never intended for. him; and with shapely, delicate hands, hetokening, however, recént hard toil to which they could scarcely have been thoroughly accustomed. . eos i Setnasittiguedlinineiaeeentasien dacthins pt IL A tty . . a: , ee - ry tL di ’ me RE * apie Ss a “ee —*, LAs fs Te he RE dR A. RE Suddenly the explanation of this mystery flash- ed into the young man’s brain, like a revela- tion. This man was perhaps one of Jem Burkitt’s two pes who had assisted him in the robbery, and he had been on guard outside the cottage, doubtless while the other one was at work in the cellars, unearthing the treasure they had helped Burkitt to bury away there more than a twelvemonth previous, The pals, he remembered, were Brunimagem Bob, whom he had seen apparently at the point of death in the Sing Sing prison hospital, but who had (according to information vouch- safed by Old Falcon, the detective) subsequent- ly recovered, and the master-criminal of the trio, Manning Gravton, otherwise the Centerbit, who had been doing a life-term in the New Jersey State Prison. The pair had doubtless joined each other, after effecting their several escapes, and met on this fateful occasion for the purpose of getting at their ill-gotten gains. The dead man was Grayton, inasmuch as his face was wholly unfamiliar to Mayfield, who re- membered Brummagem Bob’s personality quite distinctly; and the worker inside, over whose operations he had thought to stand guard, was doubtless Bob himself. This solution of the mystery came upon May- field, as has been intimated, in a single flash. Then came the slower aiter-thought, the humiliating reflection: ‘‘ What sort of lynx- pak bull-dog guard must J have kept over the charge intrusted to my fidelity, when these two jail-birds have been able to carry on and almost mature their operations, so to speak, under my very nose?” Mayfield could not abstain from scratching his head and indulging in self-reproachful, if not self-contemptuous, reflections, the very reverse of comforting or reassuring. ‘* However,” he thought to himself, in a con- solatory way, “‘let me not forget that these es- caped convicts, besides being more wary and cunning than the average, must necessarily have overreached the systematized guards of two State Prisons before they effected a similur- ly hoodwinking process in my own unprofes- sional and unsophisticated case.” With such poor comfort as was to be ex- tracted from this line of thought, he made ro more delay, but drew his revolver, and noise- lessly followed Joseph Mervyn into the haunted cottage, in comparative readiness for witnessing yet another interruption of the latter’s inten- tions, with regard to which Joseph himself could have but vague premonitions. Mayfield was not disappointed. The dull sounds of a pick anda spade at work in the small north cellar could be heard at the head of the steps. Joseph Mervyn had doubtless already heard them, and stolen down the steps to investigate, ing his revolver yet more resolutely, Mayfield followed, In the second or middle cellar he came to an observant pause, Standing croucbingly at the opposite door- way, and gazing so intently into the north cel- lar beyond as to be wholly oblivious of any danger to his rear, was Joseph Mervyn, knife in and, Mayfield could see directly over him into the further compartment, which was quite brightly lighted by two lanterns, swinging from nails in the wall over the bowed head of a man busily at work in the ground over the buried cistern ld, more than half of the Jast excavation being al- ready more than half emptied. The worker had thrown off his coat, to the eg of a coarse prison undershirt under- neath. He presently desisted from his work in order to wipe his dripping brow on his sleeve. The coarse features thus upturned to the light were instantly recognized by Mayfield as those of the convict, Tip Barker, alias Brummagem Bob, notwitstanding that they were now in far sturdier guise than when he had last seen them staring up, so white and emaciated, from their hospital pillow, ‘* Drat the job!” the fellow was heard to solilo- quize aloud, as, half in the hole, he leaned pant- ingly on the handie of his spade. ‘‘ An’ yet it looks as though the ground ought to have set- tled more solid-like in this ’ere hole since more’n a year. The Lord knows how Centrebit an’ me an’ poor Jem stamped it down arter we had planted the swag! Howsomever, it will only show up the more sweet-like for only the pair on us to divide.” He once more bent to his work, but had hardly driven the spade again into the loose earth be- fore Joseph Mervyn pounced upon him without a word, and buried the knife into his shoulder. The surprised convict uttered a half-yell of mingled fright and bewilderment, but, being a powerful and courageous man, leaped almost In- stantly up out of the trench, and, hcg despe- rately wounded and unarmed, engaged bis as- sailant in a terrific struggie for the mastery. For the moment, Mayfield could only look on, helplessly appalled, and not knowing what to think or do, The rae ag was brief, though bloody. How- soever the in : : ferior of his convict adversary in a a strength and even address, Joseph, besides bein the sole or of a deadly weapon, seem inspired with a ruthless and murderous despe- rateness on the verge of maniaval frenzy Steadily, swiftly, again and again from out of the whirling, piel reeling combat, the knife-blade rose and fell, and was apparently driven home. At last Joseph stumbled backward, measuring his full length into the bottom of the trench, with the form of the convict on top of him. But the latter had received his death-stroke at last. A gasp, a groan, and a final tremor of the limbs, and all was over. Laboriously ridding himself of his horrid bur- den, and leaving the murdered man’s body in the pit in lieu of his own, Joseph scrambled to his feet, and looked down over bis person with a string of muttered oaths. Though unwounded, he was literally covered with blood from bead to foot. His face, however, though frightfully pale, was stern and remorseless still, its only modify- ing expression being a look of keen disappoint- ment. “A pretty figure, truly, to escort a young lady into the enjoyment of her new-found for- tune!” he muttered, loudly enough for the ob- servant and horrified Mayfield to distinguish the words, ‘* Curse the luck! who could bave fore- seen such a beastly double interruption? This will knock out my original plan of feathering my own nest out of the swag before affording Henriette a glimpse of it down below there— doubtless with the corpses of the suffocated trio holding solemn guard over it. But, worse than that, how shall I rid myself of these gory stains, and at the same time be prepared to explain this new complication to Henriette? Curse it! what shall I do?” He threw away the bloody knife, which until now he had kept mechanically clutched in bis hand, and, seating himself i the heap of up- turned earth, after daintily lake a spot bearing no marks of the encounter, fell to think- ing bard. Presently his face cleared. ‘**T have it!” he exclaimed, ‘‘ Rather a rough shipiece 2 I fancy, but infinitely better than none at all. He rose determinedly, seized one of the lan- terns, and passed with it through an adjoinin cellar, too absorbed in his new purpose to loo either to the right or left. Otherwise he might bave noticed the horrified Mayfield, crouched far to one side, in a remote corner, but with his revolver in readiness for use should he be discovered. Mayfield heard the murderer pass on 4 the rickety steps; and then, a few minutes later, heard him retracing his way much more slowly and laboriously, as though trailing a heavy and cumbersome burden. The criminal’s fresh object was speedily ap- parent, When he repassed through the middle cellar, he was bearing in his arms, while still retaining hold of the lantern, the dead body of the con- vict who had been so suddenly killed in the pathway above. Mayfield again curiously peered into the little north cellar, as Joseph disappeared with his eo. burden therein, and watched what fol- owed with no little curiosity intermingled with his horror. Flinging down the corpse, Joseph coolly and methodically proceeded to change clothing with it. His first victim had bled comparatively little, from the one sure thrust that had so abruptly sent bim to bis last account, so that bis gar- ments, though ill-fitting and threadbare, were not perceptibly stained, In the course of half an hour the cunning murderer had effected the desired change somewhat to his satisfaction, The greater part of hisown outer garments, which had been blooded out of all recognition of their original fine quality and fashionable cut, were transferred to the dead man: while the latter’s poor apparel was utilized for the re- covering of his own person, whick thereby as- suredly looked more presentable though some- what more uncouth than before, He then picked up the knife, and, after de- positing the body at the edgeof the excavation, doubled its lifeless hand around the hilt, so as to make it appear that both convicts had died in a terrible struggle with each other, the one in tbe bottom of the pit by repeated blows, and the other as if by fallitjg accidentally upon his own knife in the moment of assured victory. ‘*There!” muttered the murderer, contem- lating his work with a grim smile, ‘ It might be better, but I fancy I shall be able to make it do. Now a little water to cleanse these red stains from my hands, and it will doubtless be time to set out for my appointment with Hen- riette.” He consulted his watch. “The deuce! nearly balf-past nine already?” He turned on his heel and rapidly quitted the awful scene, Mayfield shrinking, unobserved as before, into a dark corner, as the scoundrel again strode through the middle cellar, ‘ Eomicbooks J —~ Sir 4 . a . ‘ od A - hae eS Spee > 2D a fi - Wee ree