Beadle's Dime Library No. 509 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

= > ~ * a 30 Old Falcon, the Thunderbolt Detective. contained a brief mention of the tragic sensa- tion in the vicinity of Yonkers, but without enough details to cause any special curiosity on the part of Mrs, Godlove and the rest, and the three members of the household who were in the secret were careful to keep their own counsel. Night came finding Therese in a very unsatis- factory condition of mind, for the exercise of her most cunning and persistent diplomacy throughout the day had resulted in her discov- ering just nothing at all of the mysterious in- valid guest, whose set of rooms was directly above the two occupied severally by Mayfield and herself, ‘‘ Wait till the promised French maid puts in an appearance,” she kept saying to herself. ‘‘Then, let Madame L’Enigme keep herself ber- metically sealed up in her seclusion as she may, I should be a poor Parisian not to beable to pump the maid for what there may be to learn.” But no maid put in an appearance, and at last bedtime came around with the new arrival as much of a mystery as at the outset, Maytield had retired early, apparently sick at heart by reason of what he construed as Henri- ette’s continued coldness toward him, Therese was on her way up-stairs when La Sauterelle came running outof a small room at the first landing in her night-dress, “Maman, may I not pass the night with dear Mile. Merrivale?” she cried, in her pretty mix- ture of French and English, ‘* She bas fallen quite in love with me, and will whisper me to i with pretty stories.” Therese was about to return a decided nega- tive to this request (notwithstanding that Retta had further propitiated her, although altogether unintentionally, by makiug a great deal of Mignon throughout her visit), when the room door opened again, and Miss Mervyn herself looked out. ‘*Do let her sleep with me, Mrs, Bertrande!” said Retta, pleadingly. ‘* We have taken such a liking to each other, Mignon and I.” Therese entered the room, leading the child by the hand, and closed the door. ** Oh, I have no objection, nademoiselle,” she replied. ‘‘ But, you mustn’t blame meif you regret the arrangement. The little imp is apt to be highly gymnastic in her sleep.” **T will take my chances, and thank you all the same,” murmured the young girl, drawing the child gently to her, while Therese withdrew. CHAPTER XLIV. THERESE’S HEROISM. RETURNING to her own room, which she bad uitted to go down-stairs but ashort time before, a Travadeuse kept herself awake by reading a novel until late in the night. Then, rising, and even drawing off her slippers to insure greater caution, she softly quitted her room and stolgup stairs There were two large, communicating rooms, front, on the next floor above, and these, chancing to be disengaged at the time of the new arrival—the mysterious invalid widow from abroad, with such irreproachable written recommendations, and yet whose mere personal appearance was as yet scarcely a known quan- tity in the gossip of the boarding-house—had given up to her exclusive accommodation. The rear rooms of the same floor were occupied by other boarders, with the exception of one at the back end of the passage, which had been temporarily assigned to Old Falcon, and was now occupied by the fair landlady herself. A dim light was burning in the passage, and there was not a sign of wakefulness from either one of the adjoining rooms. Nevertheless, Therese paused at the single door communicating with the mysterious in- valid’s apartments, from which a dim light is- sued through the open transom, and listened tong and intently. ot a sound, even of somnolent breathing from within. Presently, reaching up and clutching the edge of the transom frame, whose sash was tilted open, Therese, with the ease of her athletic training, drew her chin to its level, with a noise- lessly sustained effort of her muscular aims, and peered within. Me the dim, lowered light, La Travadeuse could just make out the outlines of an occupant of the bed, nearly shut away from view by the festooning curtain loops. But, that was all, though it struck her, ere ae compelled a relinquishment of her sus- pended attitude, that the outlines thus revealed under the drapery of the couch were those of a singularly large and robust form scarcely to be auticipated in an invalid widow from abroad, ex- cept in the case of an exceptionally tall and powerfully framed woman. However, this deduction did not amount to much, and, after listening for some time longer with her ear at the keyhole, without being re- warded by the hint of a movement from with- in, she slipped back, disappointed, to her -own room. ‘* However, I must not give up,” she thought to herself. ‘‘The eagleeyed detective would not have enforced this odd mission upon we without some profound suspicion as to the iden- tity of that invisible widow up yonder, and I . a “ must not prove myself unworthy of his con- | cious intimation that all was not well, confront- fidence. I shalllie here on my own bed, with my door ajar, and listen like a cat in the dark- ness till morning breaks, if needs be; but if any- thing is worth the finding out, I shall discover it, or gnaw my own beart out with trying.” She therefore adopted this suggestion, but soon found, with the absence of her novel and the light, ‘hat there was great danger of her dropping off to sleep in her unrelieved vigils. She accordingly aroused herself, lighted the lamp again, consoled herself with half-a-bottle of champagne from her private refrigerator, and, once more extinguishing the light, once more extended herself upon the couch at the half-ajar door, greatly refreshed and more de- termined to listen and watch out the night than before. But alas! the seductive stimulant, to which she was thoroughly accustomed, instead of re- inforcing her praiseworthy resolve, as it might bave done under less exhausting conditions, only served in the present instance to increase her sense of comfort and ease, and in less than ten minutes after the indulgence she was fast asleep. But the adventuress was alight sleeper, at the most, Fortunately, her varied and enterprising career had included experiences among the lion- hunters of Abyssinia and Algiers, the wild Turcomans of the Asian steppes, and the jungle- girt cities of the Indian peninsula, where so often the stake of one’s life trembles in the balance of the capacity to spring, ready-armed and with the faculties on the alert, out of slum- ber to confront unexpected perils. Apparently in the deadest hush of night, Therese suddenly awoke now, under analogous circumstances, The room was pitch-dark, the light in the ad- joining passage having been extinguished or gone out of its own accord, She silently arose in the darkness to a sitting posture on the side of the bed, thoroughly cog- nizant of her situation, and yet uncertain as to what had exactly awakened ber. Was it a stealthy step in the room above (the ‘* widow’s ” room), on the stair, or in the passage just outside her door, and creeping toward the adjoining one—that of Mayfield’s room? for that it was a step, and nothing else but a step, she felt assured, the uncertainty applying solely to its locality. She rather inclined to tbe last suggestion, that the step had passed on to Mayfield’s room, and she even seemed to vaguely associate with it another dreamily-caught sound, like the open- ing and closing of a door. After a moment's accustoming herself to the darkness, so that it was not so absolute as be- fore, she arose, and noiselessly made her way into the passage. There was no fanlight tothe door of May- field’s apartment, which was tightly closed, but she judged froma faint reflection perceptible between its lower edge and the sill that the in- terior was most probably more or less illuminat- ed by the moonlight. She applied her eye to the keyhole, but with- out result, Then she placed her light touch upon the door-knob, but besitated to turp it, while she felt that a deep flush was suffusing her face. That blush in the dark was creditable to La Travadeuse, nee Peggy Burkitt, the world-waif of the London slums, ‘* T cannot do it!” she thought, drawing back, with that creditable blush burnin in the dark, ‘‘ Mon jeune ange adore ! whether he ever return my love or not, never again shall I risk losing his respect.” She listened intently at the door, but not a sound came from the interior of the recom. Then she stole up the stairs to the poe above, in which a light had still been left dimly burning. Arriving once more at the door of the new arrival’s rooms, to her surprise, she found it partly ajar! No sound coming from within, she pushed it softly open. The couch was freshly deserted. She ascer- tained this by laying her hand on the depression made by its recent occupant, and discovering that it was still warm. 7 A hurried examination in the semi-darkness convinced her that the room and the one with which it communicated were alike de- serted, Then she turned up the light. For an instant the revelation thus made by an exhibition of the mysterious inmate’s personal belongings was such as to almost paralyze her. She had anticipated something extraordinary, to be sure, but this which was really revealed to her—well, it fairly took her breath away and held her riveted to the spot for an instant! Then she was gliding back and away, retrac- ing her steps, with clinched hands, knitted brows and the whole force of ber fearless, resolv spirit alight in the strong, energetic glow of her dark, comely face. As she was slipping by Mrs, Godlove’s door, it. suddenly opened. and the landlady herself, as though newly roused from sleep by some suspi- eee on ber cheeks | ed her. Mrs. Godlove looked terribly startled, and ber lips were already opened to emit a sharp cry or exclamation, when La Travadeuse clapped her hand over them just in time to enforce their silence. The next instant the mistress of the house was helpless and speechless m the iron grip of Vaventuriere du cirque. ‘Silence, on your life!” hissed the latter, in a barely audible ee through her clincbed teeth. ‘* Listen! our mysterious new arrival of last night—your invalid rich widow from abroad—is a monster in disguise, and Mr. May- field’s life is in danger! 1 have just made this appalling discovery, and am now on my way to save him. Do you understand ?” Mrs. Godlove managed to make a movement of assent. ** And you will not spoil all by crying out or uttering an exclamation?” A negative sign, ‘You are sure, cher Godlove, you are sure? Remember, it would not be safe to trifle with me pow!” And there was a perceptible tighten- ing of the iron erie. Yes, yes; cher Godlove was quite sure. If the truth must be told, in addition to having the breath nearly squeezed out of her body by that boa-constrictor grasp, she was nearly frightened out of her wits, As Therese suddenly released her, to glide away upon her errand, the handsome boarding- house mistress sunk into a confused heap of night-dress and curl-papers on the landing. Then a wild and spasmodic resolve convulsed her frame with what would pass muster for new courage. Should this detestably beautiful and coarsely- brave French creature save the beloved May- field unaided, and with the glory thereof un- shared? Never ! She arose silently, and glided after La Trava- deuse, who had already slipped down the stairs, and was just in the act of noiselessly passing into May field’s room. But, at this » eran ned: the Godlove came to another terrified pause, ° There was the shrill call of a screaming sort of whistle, and then, with a hoarse, tigerish kind of roar, Therese was seen to spring forward into the moonlighted room. ' A shout, a furious oath, then a scuffling, struggling sound; and when Mrs, Godlove reached the threshold at last, a terrible tableau was being enacted before her, CHAPTER XLV. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. A TERRIBLE moonlight tableau in the mys- terious dead of night, indeed, such as few well- regulated, not to say fashionable, saburban arene nee have ever furnished forth an equal, he mysterious invalid widow from abroad had suddenly been transformed into Joseph Mervyn, the desperate murderer-treasure-thief, caught with uplifted knife over the recumbent form of the unconscious and slumbering May- field, but now struggling furiously in the power- ful grasp of La Travadeuse, the woman ath- lete, The Adonis-like divinity student himself, starting, terror stricken and bewildered, out of his interrupted dreams, and already half-out of bed, but too amazed to more than stupidly gaze for the moment upon the dramatic scene. Lastly, an answering whistle, accompanied by an encouraging shout from the garden, and then an apparition of Old Falcon, the Thunder- boli Detective, climbing into view through the same window that first gave entrance to Jem Burkitt, the doom-marked fugitive convict, upon the theater of our stirring narrative less than six weeks previous, ‘* She-wolf! serpent! hell-cat!” snarled the in- terrupted assassin, struggling like a snared wild beast in the sp of Therese, and striving in vain to use his knife uponher. ‘‘ AmI to be cheated out of my final revenge, and into the hangman's clutch, and by a woman, too?” Therese’s sole answer was a terrible laugh. As well might he struggle against the slowly- tightening and bone-crusbing folds of the ser- pent-monarch of the Amazon primeval woods as escape from those beautifully-rounded yet in- vincible arms, ‘Hang on to him!” shouted Old Falcon, scrambling into the room. ‘*One minute more, brave Therese, and—” Then the murderer was felled like an ox, snap! click! and he was helpless, dazed on the floor, with the glittering ndeuffs on his wrists. But alas! a last convulsive down-thrust of bis cowardly knife had entered the bosom of the brave woman’s dressing-gown, and there she was, tottering in the moonlight, with her life- blood oozing out of her noble breast, and lac- ing the alabaster surface with its crimsoning streaks. | ‘“ A flesh-wound—no more!” she murmured, as Mrs. Godlove and otber frightened women including Henriette, with such bastily-snatched com |(¢ 100 . Q cy, —~-— -~ v c<S,com — wee ere