Beadle's Dime Library No. 509 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

ee Old Falcon, the Thunderbolt Detective. 5 eyed detective could not supply these breaks and deficiencies, with blotter before him, to study over at his leisure and I must not forget that he could only have carried away this dis- jointed word-puzzle in his memory. His mem- ory would be exceptionally photographic to have preserved if with any advantage to him- self. My fears have played the fool with my reason. This side of death’s door, and out- side of Manning Grayton, the Trenton life- prisoner’s, close-locked breast, I am the sole possessor of the secret, worth more than three hundred thousand dollars, unless Jem Burkitt jotted down a misleadiug fiction, which I am not prepared to believe.” Here there was a knock at the door. He hastily thrust both blotter and writing ina drawer, locked it, and opened to the sum- mons. ‘‘Have you got such a thing as a match, monsieur?” said a seductively agreeable voice, ** There is none in my room, which is next door to yours, and Iam too lazy to go down-stairs.” And the speaker, Mlle, Therese Bertrande, otherwise La Truvadeuse, or The Whirlwind, in a perfect love of a loose, richly-embroidered crimson wrapper, of a pronounced Mother Hubbard pattern, and witha freshly twisted cigarette between her pearly teeth, which were shown at their best by the smile-lighted parting of her ruby lips, floated languidly into the room, and sunk with a charming little sigh into its easiest chair, Onl7 discontented for a moment, and rather mystified than irritated, the aspirant for divinity laurels bowed politely, and supplied the match as requested. While lighting her cigarette, the lady motion- ed him to close the door, and be seated himself, ‘* Your breakfast companion has doubtless told you who I am, eh?” she said, with an airy self-assurance, when he had complied. Mayfield bowed an affirmative. ‘* Ah!’ she went on; *‘then it only remains for me to explain my present intrusion, That can be partly done ina few words. Young sir, you have captivated my fancy, I like you, and when I like I love, and when I love l gratify my wbim. See?” Mayfield grew grave and distant, but her next words were enough to upset the equanimity of a Sphinx. ‘* There is another reason,” she went on, fixing her splendid eyes upon him, ‘* why I should seek this interview, in private, and without delay.” ‘* May L inquire the reason, ma’m?” ‘* Certainememt, mon beau monsieur. The escaped convict of this morning, with whom you held a parley of some importance, previous to his leaping out of yonder window to his death, was—my father !” CHAPTER VI. LA TRAVADEUSE, HARVEY MAYFIELD could at first only stare blankly, as if doubting the evidences of his sen- ses, in the face of this astounding declaration, whieh his eccentric lady visitor had, however, announced, without a particle of emotion or im- pressiveness, but with the most naive and insou- ciante air in the world. ‘* Your—your father?” he stammered. ** Yes, Monsieur Harvey Mayfield,” responded La Travadeuse, with afresh smile. ‘‘ You see I have found out your full name already, What won’t a woman’s sudden fondness venture fora man? However, I must look out for the fair but somewhat passee Godlove. Green in her eye already, and at her age, too! Mon Dieu! why she might almost be your mother, my poor boy! He arrested her unseemliness with one of his abrupt characteristic gestures, ‘You doubtless either jest or rave,” he ex- claimed, ‘‘ That cSnvict your father?” She nodded lazily, taking the cigarette in her fingers, to allow the smoke to curl out and up- ward from between her red lips in pretty spirals, ‘*Excuse me, ma’m, if—but you are a lady and my guest, though a self-invited one.” And he shrugged his shoulders significantly, Therese Bertrande gave alow rippling little laugh, most melodiously the reverse of what might be suggested by her cyclonic surname, ‘* You ought to have been a Frenchman, mon jils—the national gesture seems to the manner born with you,” said she, most amiably, ‘* How- ever, I like you quite as well as you are.” ‘* You quite overcome me, ma’m,” ‘* Don’t let me, please; there’s a good child, Turn your eyes, rather, yonder to the partition wall between your room and mine; and you may perceive a little crevice in the plastering, sug- gestive of a peep-hole in a sudden emergency.” **1 don’t doubt its existence, since you vouch for it,” was the very gracious response. ‘ But I never suspected it until now.” ‘Nor 1 till this morning at break of day. Mon ami, listen! Iam a wretched sleeper in a strange bed, and last night was the first of my occupancy in yonder, as you have doubtless guessed or been informed. **T was aroused out of probably a forty-second cat-nap by voices on this side the partition. *“Your room here, facing the east, is before- hand with mine in appro g the first glim- merings of the new day. - ‘*T was apprised of this, monsieur, not by an mental calculation as to our relative astronomi- cal bearings in the domiciliary way, but by the faint first light shining in upon me through that crack in the dividing wall, which, on the other side, is close to the head of my bed, on the side occupied by my own luxurious form, ‘‘My little angel, my Mignon, was lost in dreams on the further side—sleeping like a veritable little pig, as is her custom. “T always occupy the inside of a couch, mon ami, ‘ Odd, too, considering that my constant bedfellow is a mere child, and my own daughter at that, eh? But then, I suppose it is from long habit, you will say, inseparable from hymeneal relations when my last husband—my adorable but somewhat ill-tempered Alphonse de Ber- trande—was still in my good graces; for like enough the poor fellow is still alive and kicking somewhere, though he did love brandy to dis- traction, my friend, to distraction,” ‘“*T shall say nothing whatever as to your manner of sleeping, your Alphonse, or anything else!” interposed the young man, with growing irritation. Though his port experience of New York free life had left him by no means saint-like where women were concerned, the easy abandon and matter-of-fact self-assurance of his visitor was but little to his taste, which was naturally cul- tivated and refined, notwithstanding her un- deniable attractions: and he was, moreover, in an exasperating state of suspense over what she might or might not have seen and overheard of that eventful early morning interview. ‘* Ah, monsieur,” continued Therese, with gentle reproof, ‘‘it is well that I am thoroughly in love with you, or your impatience, as being perhaps outre, if not impolite, might go far to- ward disenchanting me. ‘But you must not again forget that [ama woman, and must needs tell my story in my own way. Otherwise I might be displeased. And I don’t at all mind confessing, mon cher, that when | am displeased—well, my sobriquet of The Whirlwind is not solely applicable in a pro- fessional sense—I am simply a holy terror at such times,” Mayfield so far recovered his good humor as to burst out laughing, after which he politely tendered her another match for the ignition of a fresh cigarette that she had been manipulating at her pretty fingers’ ends, ** Merci, mon cher!” she went on, quite gay- ly. ‘*Ab, you can be polite as any Parisian, if you but will, and I shall love you all the better for it. Peste! where was I? Well, at all events, I discovered my peep-hole, and availed myself of it. Ah, the shock when I recognized in your ruffianly zebra-striped interlecuteur my own father—the author of my being!” But the recollection of it only caused ber to grow a trifle more serious as she wenton: ‘ Imagine my agitation, monsieur. I badn’t seen him since my fourteenth year, when in London (I was ragged little Peggy Burkitt then, ignorant, dirty, a heathen of the slums, with but one skirt, a circus rider’s discarded dress-waist, and half a pair of shoes to my name) he sold me, the scelerat! the slave-dealer! to Monsieur Pon- pon, the mountebank, Though perhaps I ought not to complain, for it was my start in life. Ponpon not only launched me on my career, but in three years’ time he had married me, drunk himself into the narrow house with absinthe, le pauvre diable antique! and left me his monkey-show, trained dog and the spring- mortar gun, with which I still perform my sole original human-cannon-ball act, ‘** However, one doesn’t like the recollection, mon ami, of having been sold, especially by one’s progenitor, though, to be sure, he was ter- ribly hard-up at the times, and, having beaten my mother to death in our garret, the year pre- vious, he doubtless naturally enough found me somewhat burdénsome on his hands, However, one has their painful reminiscences, monsieur, as I remarked; so you can imagine my agitation of this morning. *‘Tonnerres de ciel!” her eyes blazed; “I remembered my mother—myself, But that I felt his fate was upon him, I could have burled him back as a bone to the jail-hounds with my own hands!” ‘*Oh, it was in that way that you were agi- tated by te unlooked-for recognition?” ex- claimed Mayfield, who could no longer doubt the earnestness and veracity of her strange dis- closure. t ** Parbleu! Can yon doubt it?’ in affected surprise. ‘‘ I should say so!” ‘** Could you—could you hear, no less than see, what passed®’ asked the young man, with no little anxiety. She nodded brightly, all her sty Mab inc ‘* At first, no, monsieur—or but the sound of your voices, without their meaning; but, after- ward, when I had mastered my peep-hole, eve word, every syllable. Oh, mon cher Harvee !” clapping her hands, with dancing eyes; ‘* but we shall be happy, you and I alone, with all that monev! The bird-eyed detective—yes, I saw and heard his efforts to pump you, too— shall whistle for the grab-share he is aching for. My love, my darling! for youand I alone the buried wealth. I shall baveanew set of dia- monds! And my Mignon, ma petite La Sau- terelle, my little grass hegre neither shall she be forgotten. She will look charming in a parure of turquoise. Mon Dieu! we shall be rich, we shall be joyous!” And, flinging away the stub of her cigarette, La Travadeuse sprung from her chair and be- gan the execution of a pas seul, witha furore that was positively enchanting. But, Mayfield was exasperated beyond bounds. What! had he but fought the expertness of the detective away from his precious secret, only to have it gripped by this devil-may-care adven- seer he thought was little short of mad- ening. < Fave done with this unseemliness!” he cried. ‘* What! you are beside yourself. Even sup- posing the convict’s story to be true, think you that I would avail myself of a confessedly stolen treasure? You saw me nip the detective’s hopes in the bud by burning up the written directions under his nose at breakfast this morning.” ‘*'Yes, yes!” without relinquishing, but rather increasing her Terpsichorean antics; “‘ just as if ou hadn’t committed them safely to memory forehand, Fie, mon cher ami, fie! you would keep all for yourself, when I love aud adore you by But listen, Therese. The absurdity of all this, the—’ ‘* Dame!” have done, my love! But you do but jest with me. Ah, we shall be so rich, so blest, you and I—not forgetting La Sauterelle! Kiss me, embrace me, my duke, my prince, my caliph of the hundred thousand little gold purses!” And she fairly caught him in her arms, and whirled him round and round with her in the fantastic mazes she was pursuing. Humiliated and indignant, no less than furi- ous, the young man struggled to release himself, but a woman isn’t a rope-dancer and human cannon-ball for nothing. Sinewy and athletic as he was, La Trava- deuse’s muscularity and agility were in keeping with her beauty. Her plump, round arms were but fleshy sheaths of an iron strength. He was as achild in ber grasp. Round and round she flew with him in the mad dance, her gay laugh- ter rippling out between the intervals when her lips were not showering kisses upon his dazed face, till suddenly the room door was burst open, and there was an end, Confusion worse confounded, for the hapless young man at least! Mrs. Godlove stood at the doorway, worse than angry, an ill-conceaJed jealous fury in face and mien, and peeping in from behind, the grinning little face of La Sauterelle! ‘* All my fault, chere madame, all mine!” laughed Therese, sinking back in her chair in semi-convulsions of delight. ‘‘ But, only look at my dear Harvee, ame! What color in his handsome cheeks! what brilliancy in bis fine hac ig ae Pe s2% Bs Nae yourself to madame and my dau r as my engage, my husband to be.” J . "e CHAPTER VII. BETWEEN TWO FIRES, MAYFIELD's furiously angry and superlative- ly disgusted appearance was a sufficient refuta- tion of the adventuress’s effrontery for even the pretty boarding-house mistress’s satisfaction, one would suppose, though there was still a shocked, resentful look in the latter’s hazel eyes, ‘Madame Bertrande,” said Mrs, Godlove, in a voice that she strove in vain to render calm, ‘this strange conduct of yours will only serve to facilitate what I was on my way to your room to conimunicate to you.” Mlile., or Madame, Bertrande, whichever it might be, elevated her eyebrows, and, having about laughed herself out, proceeded to the pre- paration of a fresh cigarette. ‘*Dame! and what might you wish to say to ine, chere madame?” she naively inquired, ‘** That I shall require your room at the earliest moment that you can secure accommodations elsewhere,” was the prompt response, ‘* Ht pourquoi—and for what reason, chere madame?” ‘* Don’t chere or dear me, if 1, please!” ex- claimed the widow, though still struggling to retain her temper. ‘“‘I’m not French enough to like it, Your professional character bas just been made known to me, Mrs, Bertrande, by one of my boarders, who chanced to recognize you at luncheon.” “This is interesting. He must bave seen me in Paris.—Harvee, my angel,a match for m ‘igarette, please.—I have not appeared in th country? ma belle Godlove, you must anepe stand,” Pa rar Rr had b a an Rt ie his oughtft ~possession, 4 and pre- sented the match, under mute protest, as it were, ‘No need to have been in Paris,” said Mrs, Godleve, contemptuously, ‘‘to recognize pro- fessionally a circus performer—or an artiste au cirque, as perhaps you would prefer to call it—” ‘“ Yes, that is the more modish expression, ehere Godlove.” gently parenthetized Therese. ‘‘Whose portrait, in divers costumes, the re-- Eomilecbooks : —