Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 532 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

ee 22 Jack Javert, the Independent Detective. “ Hot ho! is this the old Monte of the old _ the chief spider of the great web, had preceded League ?” laughed Xerxes, bim, and that he had struck without mercy and Iam Monte, but by the nine gods, I’m no _ to the bitter death. fool.” nillions,” To go forward would be to find Lady Pan- ** You don’t want your share of the general’s | ther or Zubiano a mutilated corpse within four walls. ‘“‘ T don’t want to exchange my freedom for a| She was the woman whom he had promised little cell with an iron bedstead if for noth- | to rur down for Nora Raymont, bent on ven- ing else.” *¢ You had Javert in your grip as I had Cap- tain Pygmy. You looked over the transom you ? say. ‘ Yes.” ‘* You were armed?” ‘*T always am.” ** And yet you come bither and say that if the web doesn’t catch and dispose of Javert imme- diately you will quit the game. Why didn’t | ' geance for the general’s death, He had found her trail since his miraculous escape from Cap- tain Cinnabar’s web, long since in ashes, and when he was nearly ready to straighten out the last tangle of the skein of mystery, the Californian had stepped in with his strong and. The city shadow did not remain long on his first halting spot in the dark room. His hand moving along the wall found a door you spin a web in a cloud of smoke when every- '! the knob of which turned easily in his grasp, thing was in your favor—” ‘* When I was hanging to the door, eh?” “ Yes ? *T might have been caught before I reached the street. I repeat that 1’m no fool, Xerxes,” Monte said the last words with such ill grace that Xerxes resolved not to further irritate him with a reply. ‘“* A truce to this,” put in Captain Cinnabar. ** The sleuth will be attended to and the millions will be divided according to the old agreement. We can go several steps further on the trail be- fore day. Monte will go back to his late quarry —Javert and the girl. Xerxes will return to his prisoner.” ** You want to know what has become of Cap- tain Pygmy, I see.” “ I do.” ‘*Ts the little man that dangerous?” ‘‘ He is important enough to be looked after.” ‘Then, he shall be found, But you, captain?” Cinnabar smiled. “‘T play the gentleman in kids.” **Tn the night?” asked Xerxes, ‘Yes, and in daylight, too. If you have any- thing to report, come here by ten to-morrow, and if I am not in, write it out in the old cipher and leave it in the side-board.” A short time afterward the room was empty and the lights were out. For all this a dim gleam came in from the lamp on the street, and fell weirdly upon a door in the wall, All atonce this door opened and a man step- ped forth, He was the person who had entered the room while Monte was waiting for Cinnabar and ere after his adventure on the detective’s trail. ‘The spy has gone back to the trail, has he?” smiled this man. ‘‘ Xerxes intends to follow Capcain Pygmy the dwarf through his trance, and the king spider of the web is about to turn entleman! think I know what it means, ora is going to havea visitor. Captain Cinna- bar is about to play a hand with the claws under the velvet. Fresh from his terrible stroke in the house on Y—— street, he intends to throw another card which will put the gang a long ways forward on the road to victory. But what did he do to Zubiano the Sorceress? Did he really break the power of the woman who killed General Raymont? Ab! captain, | want to see the destruction wrought by your merciless web,” Another minute had not joined its vanished fellows when the sleuth of Gotham was on the street again. He was soon beyond the neighborhood, and if either of the spider trio had followed him he would have been seen to halt some time after- ward in front of a house whose very outward appearance, grim and dark in the morning light, told of a mystery—the mystery of death beyond the door. ‘“‘This is the scene of the captain’s swoop,” murmured the detective. CHAPTER XXX, WHAT THE DETECTIVE FOUND. THE sleuth of Gotham had come to the house he was neering for the purpose of looking be- ond its threshold and upon the secrets it held in its keeping. If he had the means of entering Captain Cin- nabar’s place at will, be was not so fortunately situated with Zubiano’s house, The front door did not welcome him by un- closing at his look, and thus shut out he was ob- liged to make his way to an alley in the rear of the premises and thence to the house through the cramped back yard. It was a burglar-like mode of gaining his ends but the detective persevered, and a loose sash allowed him to drop to the floor of an unlighted room beyond. Not a sound disturbed the solitude of the witch’s house. The detective stood statue-like in the gloom _ for several minutes and listened, then he leaned inst a wall and drew his shoes. e had been in strange houses before, but he had never entered one with the same feel- ings which now held full possession of bim. Captain Cinnabar’s report bad prepared him for something startling and terrible. He knew that the captain of the gold league— and he leaned across another step. If be had heard little Lucy’s story of how she had lifted the curtain which suns between her and Juliette dead in her chair, be must have recalled it as he opened the door of the second chamber. absence did not check the eager ferret. He went forward several paces and stopped. There was no light in this room, but its | His hand touched a table and when he moved it, it came in contact with a porcelain receptacle Instantly the detective took out a match and felt it with a finger. for matches. | It was one of the noiseless kind, Ina moment he drew it deliberately across one side of the receiver, and saw the little light burst forth. | Something seemed to tell him that he was on | the scene of Captain Cinnabar’s swoop. He held the match in a position that served to feed the flame, and when it was burning freely he pushed it forward and looked, | All at once an exclamation broke from the detective’s throat. Nineteen men out of twent would have fallen back, but he held bis ground. | He was face to face with the tenant of the | room, and so close as to almost touch her. A velvet-armed chair of ample dimensions | stood by the table, It contained a woman whose arms half bare were lashed to the sides of the chair. Her head was thrown back against the crim- son backing, and cords of the kind that pin- ioned her arms passed round her neck, The detective saw that he stood before Lady Panther, and the dreadful stare in her eyes riveted on the ceiling with the deathly pallor | that covered the face, told him that Captain | Cinnabar had not visited her in vain, The match flickered and dropped while he | looked, and as the horrible picture faded into darkness again, the sleuth struck a second light and turned on the gas. Now he saw the tableau in all its grim color- ing, and again for a second he gazed at it like a man pinioned by a spell. | ‘* Dead, of course!” ejaculated the detective. | ‘‘ The California spider made bis web sufficiently | strong this time. But the bammer of retri- bution will break it when the time comes, And the time is almost here.” The city ferret cut the cords that held the woman’s head against the chair, move. **Dead!” he repeated. I verily believe that Captain Cinnabar left breath in this body when he went away.” In another second the sound of a latch fell upon the detective’s ears, He started back from Zubiano and turned in time to see the portal open and to stand face to face with a frightened young girl who appeared ready to drop to the floor in a swoon, ‘‘Stand where you are!” cried the sleuth, going forward. ‘* You see what is before you. What do you know about the crime?” She fell back at the touch of his hand, but she was not permitted to fly. ‘Tt is my mistress—Zubiano!” she gas he drew her forward. ‘“*The man came ** What man?” ‘*Captain Cinnabar.” ‘¢Then, he was here before?” ‘*He was. We repulsed him with the cone.” ** What is the cone?” ‘* Zubiano knew—I do not,” was the answer, “TT threw it upon him at her bidding, and he tore the door open in his agonies and plunged headlong into the street. It was something ter- rible to see the work of the cone. But who are you?—the companion of Captain Cinnabar?” “Tam Javert.” The girl fell back and looked at the detective while her eyes filled with wonder and triumph. ** Then, if you are Javert, Iam glad you came when you did,” said she at last. “Why, girl?’ ‘‘ Because my mistress is dead. You are Ja- vert the detective. You are in Nora’s employ and consequently Zubiano’s enemy. You can take her now, Captain Javert, but she will uot see the triumph of the girl whom she hates.” ** Nora?” ‘* Nora.” 7 ‘*When did you go away?” asked the detec- ve, , as ack!” { ‘*1t must have been but a short time before Captain Cinnabar came.” ** Are you sure he did this?” Javert pointed toward the woman in the chair as he spoke, “Ofcourse. Although I did not see the deed, , 1 know whose hand delivered the blow. Zubi- ano had secrets, besides her magic, which she zealously kept from me; but I know that she was a giantess in the Spider Chief’s march to success. [I am not familiar with her past ca- reer, She made no confidante of me, but her | hand was soft to those who were her friends, but, full of nettles for her foes.” Javert’s grasp relaxed a degree, and the witch’s maid drew back. Before he fully knew that she had slipped away she was gone, and he was once more alone wita the man spider’s victim, Javert went to the door and heard footsteps heap soon died away somewhere above his ead. He left the sorceress to herself. ‘The girl knows more than she has told,” said he. ‘I want a certain object which Zubi- ano is known to possess, Mariette said that the woman who visited Raymont that fatal morn- ing wore aserpent-headed ring. Does the maid kno here it is?” The detective found a flight of steps just dis- cernible in the dim light that pervaded the chamber, and in another moment he was half- way up. At the top of the flight he stopped undecided, but a second later the flashing of a light ahead took him forward. The door which he reached stood slightly ajar, and he saw the bent figure of the maid in the room beyond. She seemed intent on the inspection of a small cabinet which stood open before her, and the de- tective watched her steadily. ‘* She told me once that if the web ever held her, to give the contents of the private case to the flames without examination. The time has come, and I have but to keep my sacred prom- ise with the dead!” At this moment the hands of the maid diving into the cabinet brought ap a number of pack- ages, the most of which were bound with tape sealed with crimson wax. ‘These are no more for the detective down- stairs than they were for Captain Cinnabar, the death-spider,” she said aloud. ‘* Zubiano was more than the person she professed to be. She killed to get even and practiced magic to get money. er secrets, I say, were not mine, and I’m willing to keep them by fire from the de- tectives who want to make fame and fortune,” The girl drew a match sharply across the top of the open lid of the cabinet, and as the flame leaped up she held it down toward a lot of paper which was prompt to catch the blaze. The following moment, though, she sprung up with a cry, for a hand falling over her shoulder had clutched the paper and smothered the in- cipient flame! Tt was the hand of Javert! ‘*No! not this way, girl,” said he as he caught ber wrist and saw her face change from white to scarlet. ‘‘I am too near the end of the bunt to be baffled by a match!” but it did not | Ede maid fell back the length of his arm, and en by a violent jerk tore loose and went flying “‘T came too late, for | down the steps like a frightened specter. Javert followed in a twinkling, to find the door of the dead room shut and bolted. \ CHAPTER XXXII, THE LINK FOUND. JAVERT had to smile when he found himself thus turned on and frustrated by the young irl. - If he could have looked beyond the door he would have seen her standing erectin the mid- dle of the room with her eyes full of defiance, and with her blood at the boiling point though her face was white. He believed that he was oe enough to force 'the door by throwing himself against it, but what would he gain by such a procedure? Nothing. He adopted the more pacific course and went back up-stairs to the room where he had sur- prised the maid over the contents of the cab- inet. They lay where she had left them in her flight and the partially-burned paper over the heap showed him how near they had come to de- | struction. In a moment he was going through’ the va- rious packages. Some were closely sealed and others quite open, asif they were not of much importance. he detective became absorbed in his search before he wus aware of being so. Suddenly a puff of smoke came in at the door | which be had left ajar. | It seemed to fill the space about bim with a i¥ eg that instantly choked up his lungs. | In aninstant Javert was on his feet, and as he turned, a hissing, sputtering object fell against his bosom and broke into a hundred pieces! | ‘* You shall experience Captain Cinnabar’s agony, Detective Javert!” exclaimed a voice Eomicbooks 2 Se