"I don't know," said Mrs. Colter. "I never had one."
Mme. Storey made out not to notice the bluntness. "You drive yourself?" she asked with a stare.
"It's only a Ford," said Mrs. Colter.
Following the direction of her involuntary glance, I saw the car, a new sedan standing in a shed at the side of the house. I made a mental note of the licence number in case it should be required later.
"Fancy! You're braver than I am," said Mme. Storey.
"Oh, it's nothing in the country," said Mrs. Colter.
"How ever can you endure the country in the winter?"
"It suits me very well. I have too much to do to mope."
"Well, I suppose you have neighbours."
"They don't trouble me much; nor I them," said Mrs. Colter contemptuously. "We're from the city."
"Fancy!" said Mme. Storey. "Don't you pine for it?"
"No," said Mrs. Colter. "We were fed up with four-room flats."
"Fancy, only four rooms! And now you keep chickens. I believe it's very profitable."
Mrs. Colter gave her a wary glance through her lashes. "That's what city people think," she said. "We thought so when we came here. And went broke within a year. It's only since Mr. Colter left the hens to me, and took a job in town that we've been able to make out."
This story was not exactly borne out by the aggressive prosperity of the establishment. It appeared to me that Mrs. Colter dwelt a little too much on the humbleness of their circumstances.
"That your husband?" asked Mme. Storey, indicating an ornately framed crayon portrait hanging over the fire-place.
"As a young man," said Mrs. Colter. "But he's changed very little."
Mrs. Colter observed that the portrait hung a little askew, and went to straighten it. Evidently a notable housewife. When her back was turned to us, Mme. Storey gave me a glance, by which I understood that she wished me to pay particular attention to that face.
When I really looked at it I was startled. You know what crayon portraits are. Smug. But with the best will in the world to achieve smugness, the artist had not been able to hide the terrible distinction of this face. No common man, this. Handsome in a certain way; the thick neck and muscular shoulders suggested a fine physical specimen; but he had the hardest face I have ever beheld. One could conceive of such a man looking on at the death of his brother unmoved. When Mrs. Colter turned around, I glanced at her with a queer, new interest. Good heavens! what was it like to be married to a man without a soul. But she seemed to bear up under it pretty well. She was a hard one herself.
There was another lull in the conversation.
Ever since we had entered the room, something had been making me curiously uneasy. I couldn't tell what it was. Some mysterious intimation to the senses that all was not well in that house. At last, in the silence, it came to me; my hearing is very acute. The merest suggestion of a footfall overhead; the delicate, cat-like fall of a padded foot; wavering, here and there, silent; then back and forth again. It was the aimless effect which was so disturbing. My heart beat painfully.
Mme. Storey, feeling perhaps that my exclusion from the talk was becoming a little marked, addressed her next words to me: "Will you ever be able to forgive me for this, Estelle? You will think that we manage things very badly in the East."
"Not at all, my dear Maud," I answered as carelessly as I was able. "Anybody's car is liable to break down, East or West."
"Miss Chassard is from Cleveland," Mme. Storey said to Mrs. Colter with the mechanical smile that such a woman affects.
"Is that so?" said Mrs. Colter politely, but her cold look at me said plainly that she didn't give a hang for me or my native town either.
Mme. Storey yawned elegantly behind her hand, said: "Oh dear! There's nothing in the world so tiresome as just waiting around!...If you have anything particular to do, Mrs. Colter, don't let us keep you from it."
"Nothing particular at the moment," said Mrs. Colter. She sat down.
The move to get her out of the room, if such it was, had failed.
Every time there was a silence I heard the stealthy tread overhead. What was it? I was hopelessly confused. I had got the notion into my head, from Mme. Storey's peculiar glance, that the hard-faced individual over the fire-place was our man; in other words the smoke bandit. And I could well believe it. But what was he doing creeping about the room overhead like a distracted person? Not that man, surely, so hard, so imperturbable, so contemptuous. And why were the shutters closed? Colter must be a familiar character in the neighbourhood. I couldn't get it at all. One thing I was very sure of: I did not want to look in that room overhead. I clasped my hands in my lap to conceal their trembling.
Mme. Storey, continuing her pantomime of boredom, finally said: "Do you care if I smoke?"
Mrs. Colter, with a snap of her blue eyes that said she did care, said: "Not at all, if you've a mind to."
Mme. Storey, ignoring the look, produced a cigarette case from her little bag. "Have one?" she said, snapping it open.
Mrs. Colter's only reply was a sort of snort.
"Miss Chassard doesn't indulge either," said Mme. Storey blandly. She took a cigarette, and searched further through her bag. "I declare I have come away without any matches," she said.
I knew this was a lie, because she had smoked in the car on the way out.
"Could I trouble you, Mrs. Colter?" she asked with the offensive sweetness affected by the kind of woman she was portraying.
Mrs. Colter bounced up. We understood her to say the matches were in the kitchen.
The instant she was out of sight, Mme. Storey sprang into action, holding out a peremptory hand to me. There was nothing for it but to obey. In the hall alongside the stairs, a curtain hung down as it to conceal coats and hats.
"Look behind that!" Mme. Storey whispered. "Be quick!"
She herself ran half-way up the stairs, making no more noise than a skipping feather; looked, and ran back. In ten seconds we were back in the living-room and in our chairs. I had looked too.
Mme. Storey's face was all alight. "We're in luck, Bella," she whispered. "The key is in the door."
I could make nothing of that.
"Did you see anything?" she asked.
I nodded, feeling half sick with excitement. "Old black velure hat; dingy grey overcoat," I whispered huskily.
"Ha! that was what I wanted!" she said.
When Mrs. Colter came back with the matches, Mme. Storey was sitting there with her legs crossed, and her cigarette held impatiently in the air. What a woman! Lighting up, she deeply inhaled the smoke and let it float out of her nostrils. Mrs. Colter's face was a study.
Fortunately I was not required to do anything. I was demoralised inside. You see I had made up my mind that the thin-faced man with the black velure hat was nothing but a figment of Barron's imagination; and here was the hat! To be sure, there is more than one old velure hat in the world, but I knew from Mme. Storey's exclamation that this must be the hat. Well if he was the bandit, where did Colter come in? It was supposed to be a single-handed job. All I could do was to watch my mistress and wait for the next act in the drama. Suddenly the fog of my confusion was pierced by a little ray of triumph. Anyway, we had stolen a march on Barron!
The fitful conversation had been resumed. Amidst the empty chatter of a conceited woman, my mistress insinuated some shrewd questions, but Mrs. Colter as shrewdly evaded them. The insolent manner of her visitor kept the woman of the house in a simmer of exasperation, but it was clear that she never suspected us to be other than we seemed. How clever my mistress was! An ordinary person would have set out to conciliate the hard and wary Mrs. Colter, and would thereby certainly have aroused her suspicions.
Finally I saw a service car roll up and come to a stop behind our car. Now for the dénouement, I thought. With a great effort of the will I sought to quiet my shaking nerves.
"At last!" cried Mme. Storey jumping up. "Now you will soon be relieved of us, Mrs. Colt
er."
The woman murmured something polite, in which her hard eyes had no part.
"How can I ever thank you for your kindness!" cried Mme. Storey with palpable insincerity. "I wish I could repay you in some way...Can I buy some eggs?"
"Certainly, if you want," said Mrs. Colter coldly. "Eggs are high now."
"No matter," said Mme. Storey. "I'm sure the lady we're going to see would adore to have some fresh eggs—that is, if they are fresh."
"We don't keep eggs at this season," said Mrs. Colter with a bored air; "they're worth too much. I'll have to fetch them from the nests. The others have been shipped."
"Oh, goody!" cried Mme. Storey. "Think of having eggs out of the nest, Estelle!"
Mrs. Colter went out through the dining-room. Presently we heard the kitchen door close. Mme. Storey seized my hand, and pulled me towards the stairs. I dragged back in a panic of terror. The man would put up a frantic struggle, I thought, and only us two women! It seemed to me that Mme. Storey had taken leave of her senses.
"Wait...wait for the men!" I stammered.
Mme. Storey laughed a single note—astonishing sound in my overwrought ears! "Oh, we're not going to take him into custody," she said. "Come on!"
I followed her up the stairs blindly. A short turn around the landing, and we were at the door of the room over the living-room. Mme. Storey turned the key and softly opened the door. She kept her hand on the knob. On account of the closed shutters we could not see anything at first. But we heard the gasping breath of the creature inside. Then we saw him, arrested midway in his prowl to and fro. He crouched there, staring at us; his black hair hanging down over his shadowy, distended eyes.
There could be no doubt but that it was the same man who had so often been described; I saw the attenuated frame; the gaunt, sallow face with its long nose; the lank, black hair. He was wearing felt slippers. There was a bedstead in the room, with a mattress upon it, but no bedclothes. There was not a thing else in the room.
One long look, and Mme. Storey closed the door again, and softly turned the key. I was hopelessly confused in my mind.
"But why...but why?" I whispered.
"I want you to be able to testify that you saw him here," she said.
We returned downstairs. A moment or two later the woman came back with the eggs. I was in a daze. I found myself outside the house without any clear notion of how I got there.
As we went down the path I asked incredulously: "Are you going to leave him there?"
"For the present," Mme. Storey answered inattentively.
"But having seen us, he's warned now. They'll spirit him away!"
She merely smiled at me abstractedly. Her mind was far away; busy with some knotty problem.
We met Crider coming to tell us the car was ready. We started. At the first turn to the left we circled back towards New York. All the way back to town Mme. Storey was in a deep study, smoking one cigarette after another, and I dared not question her.
On reaching the office I was relieved to hear her give orders to Crider to have the house near Cranford watched throughout the night.
IX
But it seemed as if the precaution was taken too late; for that very night the blow fell. It is my habit to sleep with a window raised, and towards one o'clock I was awakened by a noise in the street. When I collected my senses sufficiently, I heard a raucous voice bellowing:
"Wuxtra-a-a! Wuxtra-a-a!" An indistinguishable murmur followed, then louder: "Wuxtra-a-a!!...Wuxtra-a-!!"
My heart leaped into my throat. The effect of such a bellowing in that quiet street of sleepers was nerve-shattering. Then I became hotly indignant. To think that such a thing should be permitted in a civilised city! I had not the least doubt that it was a hoax. But I began to reflect that this particular nuisance had been pretty well abated during the last few years. Formerly such false alarms were a regular feature of New York life. There must be something in it this time, I told myself, or the first policeman on his beat would have stopped the racket.
The noise came closer. "Wuxtra-a-a! Wuxtra-a-a!..." Then I distinctly heard the words: "Smoke Bandit!" I sprang out of bed, and, shoving my feet into slippers, threw a robe around me, and started down for the front door.
On the stairs I met several of the other boarders similarly attired, and I allowed one of the men, Mr. Steele, to show himself out on the stoop. He came back waving the paper over his head.
"The smoke bandit's caught!" he cried.
A little cheer went up from the knot of half-dressed people in the hall. I did not join in it, for I suspected the worst.
"Who caught him?" somebody asked.
"Barron!" cried Steele.
Knowing that I had a special interest in the case, Mr. Steele thrust the paper into my hands. I read in letters four inches high across the top:
SMOKE BANDIT CAUGHT
The rest of the paper was merely a reprint of one of the evening editions, with a square cut out of the middle of the page to allow for an insert in black-face type. Only twenty lines.
At 11:15 tonight the smoke bandit was nabbed by Walter A. Barron in the abandoned cemetery of St. Aloysius', South Brooklyn. Over two weeks ago Barron discovered the bandit's loot hidden in the disused receiving-vault of the old cemetery. The secret was kept, and ever since Barron and his men have been watching the spot night and day in expectation of the bandit's return. He came last night to stow away the proceeds of the Showalter robbery. Barron himself was on watch. The famous detective locked the iron gate of the vault on his man, and by pre-arranged signal fired his pistol in the air to summon his men who were waiting near by. When the young bandit realised that it was all up with him, he put a pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. He was dead when they dragged him out of the vault. Barron gave out that his name was Ralph M. Vallon of Brick Church, N. J. Vallon escaped from a mental sanatorium in West Orange on the night of December 11. He answers to the published description of the wanted man. As a result of one of the cleverest bits of work in criminal history, practically every dollar of the loot has been recovered. Further particulars will be found in the morning edition.
Sick at heart, I went back to my bed, leaving them all in their bath-robes and kimonos, excitedly threshing the matter out. Their pitying glances in my direction made me grind my teeth in bitter chagrin. Mme. Storey was a hundred times cleverer than the bull-headed Barron, and it drove me wild to think that Barron was able to make her look small in the public mind.
There was no further sleep for me. Shortly after daylight I was up again, and down at the corner, buying the morning papers. Divested of the usual repetitions and redundancies, the clearest account ran as follows:
Walter A. Barron is the greatest man in America this morning. He has destroyed the menace under which the whole financial world has been cowering during the past two months. Like a modern St. George, Barron has slain the dragon that threatened us all. The smoke bandit, cornered, lies dead by his own hand. Practically every dollar that he stole has been recovered.
Throughout all the excitement of the past weeks, Barron, a steady, dogged man, has been calmly pursuing his own course. From the first he has consistently been promising the public results, and now he has made his words good. Those who have intimated that he was talking in the air owe him handsome apologies. The events of last night further reveal that none of the other persons who have been busy investigating the affair has ever been within hailing distance of the truth. There is no one on the map today but Barron.
Nearly one hundred years ago a small cemetery was laid out on the banks of Callopus creek, a beautiful winding stream amidst silvan surroundings south of the rapidly growing city of Brooklyn. It was christened St. Aloysius'. The quaint coloured prints of that old time depict a beautiful spot with weeping willow trees hanging over the silvery stream, and a pretty wooden Gothic chapel by the entrance gates.
All that is changed now. The city spread with unlooked-for rapidity, and the cemetery filled up. The plea
sant stream became an evil-smelling canal, the fields disappeared under close-ranked factories and tenements. No permits for additional burials in St. Aloysius' have been issued for many years. The chapel burned down, and it was not worth while rebuilding it. Only the dead trunks of the willows remain, and the verdant grass was long ago choked by weeds. The spot bears an evil reputation in the vicinity. The superstitious believe it to be haunted by evil spirits. Such was the scene last night of the final act in the celebrated drama of the smoke bandit.
It now appears that the astute Walter A. Barron has been working all along on the theory that he would discover evidence of the bandit in a cemetery; an old and neglected cemetery, by preference. In and about New York there are many such places. In his patient search from one to another, Barron came at last to St. Aloysius'. There was an old receiving-vault there, dug into the side of the old creek-bank, lined and fronted with brick; closed by a gate of thick iron bars. Barron's falcon eyes informed him that the lock on the door had been tampered with. He had it opened.
J. G. Brannan, one of his operatives, was with him when he entered the place,—this was two weeks ago, but the secret has been carefully kept. A single glance inside revealed to them that they had reached their goal. A number of the glass bombs were strewn about, and the simple apparatus for making them. And this was not all. The musty receiving-vault was another Aladdin's cave. In a far corner was a pile of three suit-cases, each one bursting with greenbacks and yellowbacks of large and small denominations: $149,000 in all; or within a few hundreds of the total amount of the bandit's takings, previous to the Showalter robbery.
The money was removed, and the suit-cases left as found. It was at this juncture that Barron permitted himself to promise the public that the robber would be taken. From that moment there was never an hour that the vault was not under surveillance. It so happened that there was only suitable cover for one man; this was a niche between the cemetery wall and the trunk of a dead willow opposite the vault. The watcher was there, while his mates waited in a flat that had been hired on Fremont Street, a hundred yards distant. There were three men in all, and they stood watch, turn and turn about. On cold nights they relieved each other every hour. Barron himself stood his trick with the others. Two revolver shots was the agreed-upon signal in case the bandit returned to his lair.
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