SHADOWED by a DETECTIVE

VIRGINIA CHAMPLIN

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105—A Bite of An Apple, and Other Stories. By Nicholas Carter.
104—A Past Master of Crime; or, Detective Bush’s Clever Work. By Donald J. McKenzie.
103—A Queer Case. By Nicholas Carter.
102—Bruce Angelo, the City Detective. By Judson R. Taylor.
101—The Stolen Pay Train and Other Stories. By Nicholas Carter.
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93—The Adventures of Harrison Keith, Detective. By Nicholas Carter.
92—Van, the Government Detective. By Judson R. Taylor.
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87—Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men.
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81—Wanted by Two Clients. By Nicholas Carter.
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79—The Sign of the Crossed Knives. By Nicholas Carter.
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63—The Chevalier Casse-Cou. By Fortune DuBoisgobey.
62—A Fair Criminal. By Nicholas Carter.
61—The Maltese Cross. By Eugene T. Sawyer.
60—A Chase Around the World. By Mariposa Weir.
59—A Millionaire Partner. By Nicholas Carter.
58—Muertalma, or the Poisoned Pin. By Marmaduke Dey.
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56—At Thompson’s Ranch. By Nicholas Carter.
55—His Great Revenge, Vol. II. By Fortune DuBoisgobey.
54—His Great Revenge, Vol. I. By Fortune DuBoisgobey.
53—An Accidental Password. By Nicholas Carter.
52—The Post Office Detective. By George W. Goode.
51—The Los Huecos Mystery. By Eugene T. Sawyer.
50—The Man from India. By Nicholas Carter.
49—At Odds With Scotland Yard. By Nicholas Carter.
48—The Great Travers Case. By Dr. Mark Merrick.
47—The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. By Fergus Hume.
46—Check No. 777. By Nicholas Carter.
45—Old Specie, the Treasury Detective. By Marline Manley.
44—The Blue Veil. By Fortune Du Boisgobey.
43—Among the Nihilists. By Nicholas Carter.
42—The Revenue Detective. By Police Captain James.
41—John Needham’s Double. By Joseph Hatton.
40—The Mountaineer Detective. By C. W. Cobb.
39—Among the Counterfeiters. By Nicholas Carter.
38—The Matapan Affair. By Fortune Du Boisgobey.
37—The Prairie Detective. By Leander P. Richardson.
36—The Crime of the Opera House, Vol. II. By F. Du Boisgobey.
35—The Crime of the Opera House, Vol. I. By F. Du Boisgobey.
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33—The Convict Colonel. By Fortune Du Boisgobey.
32—A Mysterious Case. By K. F. Hill.
31—The Red Lottery Ticket. By Fortune Du Boisgobey.
30—The Bag of Diamonds. By George Manville Fenn.
29—The Clique of Gold. By Emile Gaboriau.
28—Under His Thumb. By Donald J. McKenzie.
27—The Steel Necklace. By Fortune Du Boisgobey.
26—File No. 113. By Emile Gaboriau.
25—The Detective’s Triumph. By Emile Gaboriau.
24—The Detective’s Dilemma. By Emile Gaboriau.
23—Evidence By Telephone. By Nicholas Carter.
22—The Champdoce Mystery. By Emile Gaboriau.
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20—Caught in the Net. By Emile Gaboriau.
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18—The Gamblers’ Syndicate. By Nicholas Carter.
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14—Caught in the Toils. By Nicholas Carter.
13—The Mysterious Mail Robbery. By Nicholas Carter.
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1—A Klondike Claim. By Nicholas Carter.

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[Pg 1]

SHADOWED BY A DETECTIVE

OR

THE WOMAN IN WAX

BY

VIRGINIA CHAMPLIN

NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, Publishers
238 William Street

[Pg 2]

One evening, in the winter of 1865, a grand ball was given at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. It was at the house of Miss Ada Ricard, the new star in the great American city, but a star whose brilliancy the profane knew only by reflection, for her life was enveloped in mystery, and she was never seen in any public place.

All that was known of her past was that she had been married to a wealthy merchant in Buffalo, James Gobson, a brutal individual, whose matrimonial yoke she had succeeded in throwing off, but who had left her certain ineffaceable souvenirs of his affection.

Gobson, in fact, who adored his wife, and was very jealous of her, had one day so abused her that after the violent scene she was left with one ear [Pg 6]torn and one tooth the less. It is true she concealed the cut on her pretty ear behind a huge diamond, but she had always refused to replace the pearl lacking in the jewel casket of her rosy lips.

“By this,” she said, “I shall never be likely to forget what a husband costs, and if any mad ambition or foolish love is about to make me forget it, it will be sufficient to smile at myself in the glass to recall the past.”

Thus armed against her own weakness, she boldly launched herself into a life of flirtations. Being worth from ten to twelve thousand dollars through her husband, she made her debut by expending them even to the cents in order to establish herself in luxurious surroundings, knowing that men, in their pride, attach as much value to the splendor of the temple as to the charms of the idol.

Having done this, and having her beauty as her only capital, she was careful not to waste it on the first comer; she waited patiently, seldom showing herself abroad, absolutely refusing all homage until a certain Thomas Cornhill, the proprietor of inexhaustible oil wells, seemed worthy of her heart.

Unfortunately, three months after, Thomas Cornhill suddenly died, and Miss Ada, though bereft, was left with one hundred thousand dollars in ready money, and an equal sum in jewels.

Ada mourned him for a few weeks; then, having an essentially practical mind, she changed her retinue of servants before the advent of Willie Saunders, an immensely rich cracker-merchant, who soon succeeded poor Cornhill.

[Pg 7]

When Willie Saunders found his homage accepted, he was greatly flattered. He was a stout man of about fifty, sensitive, simple and vain. He truly adored Ada, and believed himself tenderly beloved by her. Therefore, ready to listen to all her caprices, he made only a few remarks for form’s sake when she told him about the masquerade ball she wished to give, but he was very jealous. He knew Ada was sought by many adorers, among whom was a certain Edward Forster, a colonel in the Union Army, and one of the most fascinating gentlemen in New York high life.

However convinced the worthy cracker-merchant might be of Ada’s love, he naturally supposed that her adorers, Forster first of all, would profit by this evening to pay her more attention than agreeable to himself, and it troubled him. But the pretty, wicked little creature managed so artfully that Saunders did not long resist.

Besides, she was a wonderful creature, and the upstart-millionaire had high stakes to play for. A blonde, with large, steel-blue eyes and a tall, admirable figure, with the feet and hands of a child; with a laughing mouth, bold-faced, and fearing nothing, Ada Ricard had every attraction to lure the man of the world. The memory of her former husband sometimes disturbed the young woman in her new life. Having retained the recollection of his brutal love and jealousy, she also remembered with terror that he swore to avenge himself for her leaving him. But, since arranging the money settlements, she had not heard of him, and even his [Pg 8]friends in Buffalo did not know what had become of him. One fine morning he made a fortune, and went West. He was last heard from at San Francisco, where Saunders told her he was living a fast life, evidently trying to drown recollection.

Ada’s mind was now at rest, and never had she been so gay as at the masked ball. Many women in good society had ventured to attend in order to get a near view of the mysterious and powerful beauty.

Toward eleven o’clock the parlors of the ex-Mrs. Gobson presented a truly picturesque appearance. Every period, every class of society, and every legend were represented, from the companions of Christopher Columbus to the trappers of the far West, and from Mephistopheles to the Venetian harlequin. Among the women there was a dazzling display of precious stones and dominos of every color. Ada Ricard herself wore the splendid costume of an Indian woman of the time of the Spanish conquest. In her ears she had diamonds worth ten thousand dollars, around her throat a triple necklace of pearls of at least equal value, and on her arms and wrists very heavy bracelets of massive gold.

All the men who knew her only by sight, and the women who had heard so much of her, literally devoured her with admiring eyes. Saunders, who was to give five or six thousand dollars toward this ball, did not take his eyes off of her.

Looking very grotesque in the dress of a Highlander, he tried every moment to draw near her, but Ada reminded him by a word, look or gesture [Pg 9]that she wished to devote herself wholly to her guests, and he docilely moved away, uttering a sigh which was charitably answered by bursts of laughter by those of his friends who were acquainted with his weakness.

The ball, which had been rather quiet for two or three hours, had become very lively, even noisy.

Soon the buffets were pillaged, the champagne flowed in streams; a few masks fell off, and Miss Ada Ricard, readily refraining from reminding her guests of what was good form—for all this noise could only do the greatest honor to her reputation—thought only of getting away as far as possible from the hubbub.

She had just taken the arm of one of her adorers instead of that which the unfortunate Saunders had offered, and was proceeding toward a little boudoir where some quiet people had taken refuge, when a formidable hurrah caused every head to turn toward the door.

It was the entrance of three Sioux Indians that had excited the enthusiasm of the company.

They indeed deserved this reception, for they were really superb in their horribly truthful costumes, in which nothing was lacking, neither the head-dress of feathers, the tomahawk, nor scalping-knife, nor even in the belt, half a dozen scalps, sinister trophies of late raids.

Ada Ricard turned and added her applause to that of the company; then, like them, she tried to recognize those who had chosen this curious disguise; but she did not succeed.

[Pg 10]

No doubt, not caring particularly to tattoo their faces, the three mysterious personages wore masks which wholly concealed their features, and to every question they answered only with guttural cries and exclamations which completely changed their voices. After opening a passage through the crowd, they reached the mistress of the house, and, drawing her away from the friend who was accompanying her, they began to perform around her in a circle a fantastic dance which gradually brought her to the main hall.

Supposing, like every one else, that the Sioux Indians were three admirers, Ada gayly watched their contortions and dance, and was the first to burst into laughter, when the tallest of the three masks seized her in his arms and, lifting her as if a child, bore her to the threshold of the door.

Standing before her captor, his two companions chanted a war-song and swung their tomahawks as if to protect his flight.

One would have thought him a great chief carrying away his squaw according to the customs of the Indians of the plains.

This joke was so thoroughly American that the crowd accepted it with ringing bravos.

Suddenly the warrior who bore the young woman faced about and, leaping with one bound, sprang out upon the steps of the house, whose doors were wide open, and then into a splendid landau which was standing before the door.

The two Indians who had followed him had quickly climbed the box, and the carriage, the [Pg 11]coachman no doubt having received his orders, immediately set off at a double-quick gallop.

This kidnapping had been so quickly performed, that no one would have had time to prevent it if they had attempted it.

Of Ada Ricard’s guests, moreover, not one had thought seriously of it excepting the unhappy Saunders, whose jealousy, always on the watch, made him think the conduct of the three masks very queer.

He attempted to approach Ada Ricard, but his friends restrained him in spite of his grotesque supplications; and, when she disappeared in the arms of the Indian, he hastened to the balcony of the house, where the enthusiasm reached delirium on the departure of the carriage.

A tremendous hurrah covered the silvery laugh of Miss Ada when she found herself being enveloped in the fur pelisse which one of the Sioux had flung over her shoulders, and the unfortunate cracker-merchant, who was dragged away from the balcony, had immediately become the pivot of a comical dance in the middle of the drawing-room.

What no one heard, was the cry of amazement or fright uttered by Miss Ada Ricard the moment the carriage rattled along the pavement of East Twenty-Third Street.

When the friends of Mr. Saunders, exhausted by their war-whoops and dancing, deigned to grant a little respite to their victim by opening the circle which they had pitilessly formed around him, the big man, half-crazed and breathless, sank upon a lounge, listening absently to those who were trying to console him. He not only suffered through his love, but his vanity was equally wounded, for he did not doubt that his misfortune would be known all over New York the next day, and that he would become an object of public ridicule. It seemed to him that Ada must have connived with her kidnappers, being too blind to suppose that violence had been done her. But who were those men with whom the unfaithful woman had consented to be an accomplice in the scene that covered him with ridicule? For whose benefit had this kidnapping been made? For one of her adorers, no doubt, but which one? He was so completely absorbed in his meditations and despair that he did not perceive that the guests were disappearing one by one, and only the voice of Ada’s maid brought him to himself.

He raised his eyes, the parlors were deserted, and he was left alone in the room from which the woman he loved had so strangely disappeared.

[Pg 13]

On recognizing Ada’s maid, he felt the satisfaction of a man whose anger, long restrained, can at last vent itself on some one.

“Ah! you at least can explain to me what all this means,” he cried, springing up and seizing the maid by the arm.

“I!” answered Mary, somewhat alarmed, and trying to disengage herself from Saunders’ grasp. “I! how should I know any more than you?”

“Did you not recognize those masks?”

“I saw them only while they were carrying off madam.”

“Did not Ada receive any letters during the day?”

“None whatever.”

“Nor a call?”

“You know very well that she receives only you.”

“Then you have no cause for suspicion?”

“None.”

“It is incredible. Your mistress and you are two cheats.”

Saying this, the merchant gave Mary a push, and, having arisen as quickly as his corpulence would permit, strode up and down the parlor.

At the very grotesque contrast between the disturbed face of the stout man and his Highland costume, whose short frock displayed his large bare legs, the maid could no longer restrain herself and burst into laughter, crying:

“Heavens, sir! how droll you look. If madam could see you what fun she would have.”

Made furious by this remark, which turned the dagger round and round in his wound as if with [Pg 14]delight, Saunders approached the insolent girl to strike her; but he probably felt that he would gain nothing by threats and violence, for he suddenly softened and said:

“Come, my little Mary, be good now. Haven’t I always been kind to you? If you will tell me where madam has gone I will give you one hundred dollars.”

“If you were to give me one thousand dollars,” answered the maid saucily, “I could not give you exact information, for I know nothing myself; but give me the one hundred dollars all the same and I will tell you something that will comfort you.”

The love-sick merchant quickly drew out of the little leather bag that danced upon his stomach, from his Scotch wallet, the sum demanded, and handed it to Mary, who took it, slipped it into her corsage, and continued:

“Do you know, sir, that I have an idea that this affair was done on a wager. You know how many are in love with madam, but she loves you too much to deceive you, and has always refused the most splendid offers. Three of her admirers, therefore, wished to avenge themselves upon her and you, and so have carried her off. It won’t accomplish much, for you know madam isn’t a woman to be made to do what she does not wish. They, no doubt, have taken her into some house in the neighborhood, from which she will find a way to escape if they try to retain her by force. Before noon she will be back here.”

“Yes, you are right,” said Saunders, somewhat [Pg 15]consoled; “that is how it will be; but I swear to you that they shall pay for this joke. Suppose I go and notify the police?”

“Are you crazy? Madam will be back before a detective can find a trace of her. I should not be astonished if Forster was at the bottom of it.”

“Colonel Edward?”

“That’s the man. He is dead in love with madam, although she never would receive him.”

“I will go to his house at once.”

“That would be absurd, for it certainly is not to his own house that he has taken Miss Ada.”

“What shall I do then?”

“Go to bed and rest, but change your dress first. You don’t intend, I suppose, to walk around in that costume all day,” and Mary, to prevent herself from laughing again, bit her lips until they bled.

“Of course not,” he answered, glancing into the mirror which gave him back his burlesque image; “but you must send me word as soon as Ada returns.”

“I promise you.”

“Then send for a carriage.”

Mary hastened to send one of the servants to the nearest carriage stand, and a few moments later, after giving a thousand commands to the young girl, the poor lover carefully wrapped in his cloak, and heaving the loudest of sighs, sank back out of sight in a corner of the carriage.

“Fool!” muttered Mary for farewell, as Saunders disappeared from sight; “if you see your lady-love to-day I shall be greatly surprised.”

[Pg 16]

And without taking notice of what was passing below-stairs, where the festivity that had been interrupted in the parlor was being noisily continued, the servant re-entered Ada Ricard’s apartments and shut herself in.

During the scenes we have just described, the landau that bore away the young woman, on leaving Twenty-third Street turned to the left, and proceeded along First Avenue toward the eastern part of the city.

The deepest silence had not ceased to prevail inside of the carriage, and it had been rolling on half an hour when the coachman suddenly stopped his horses.

The neighborhood was dark and silent.

The two Indians, who had mounted the box, sprang down upon the sidewalk, exchanged a few words with the mask, by the side of which still sat Miss Ada, and then, darting toward a neighboring narrow street, vanished in the darkness.

The landau resumed its course, and soon reached the first houses of Yorkville, a locality of bad repute, where in miserable shanties was huddled a large population, mostly composed of Irish.

It was the retreat of innumerable pickpockets, malefactors and rag-pickers of the great American city, and is attached to one side of it like an incurable leper. Honest people hardly dare venture, even in daylight, through this horrible locality, which extends to the banks of the East River, almost opposite Blackwell’s Island, where the prisons and hospitals are.

[Pg 17]

Having reached the entrance of Yorkville the carriage stopped a second time, the man who was inside alighted, bearing in his arms the young woman whom, with an oath, on account of the bad weather, he informed that they had at last arrived. He gave an order to the coachman, and the latter, turning his horses, drove back at a gallop. As for the unknown man, still laden with his precious burden, he walked rapidly to a lane a few steps distant.

The place was evidently familiar to him, for without hesitating a moment, although it was very dark, he reached a small house, the door of which was opened at his first touch, and which he quickly closed behind him.

In less than a quarter of an hour the same person reappeared in the street, wearing a large hooded cloak, which concealed his previous disguise, but he no longer carried his lady companion. She was walking at his side, choosing as well as she could in the darkness the cleanest places on the sidewalk, and drawing her furs closely around her, for the night was chilly. They walked thus in the direction of the East River without exchanging a word. Soon they reached the banks, which were deserted, there being nothing to be seen but the lights of the steamboats which ploughed its waters night and day.

The unknown descended to the edge of the water to a little boat which, no doubt, he expected to find there, jumped in first, then offered his hand to the young lady, who embarked without hesitation, and [Pg 18]seated herself in the stern, while her companion took possession of the oars. Ten minutes later, by skilful rowing, the boat drifted along Blackwell’s Island, then, bearing to the left, moved to the opposite bank. In order to row at his ease, the amateur sailor had thrown off his cloak. The persons in this boat made a fantastic sight, being composed only of an Indian and a woman in the costume of the time of the Incas, and who at this hour of the night were crossing this arm of the sea, on which the current and darkness rendered navigation doubly dangerous.

The lady was evidently anxious, for she tried to peer through the fog that surrounded her. Unable to do so, she finally asked her companion:

“Have we long to wait?”

“Less than half an hour,” he answered, with a vigorous stroke at the oar, and pushing away from a steamer that was going to New York, at full speed, and belching forth smoke and cinders.

“What was your idea in coming this way?”

“There is no other; the colonel appointed the opposite shore, at Greenpoint.”

“Then he was quite certain that you would succeed?”

“So it seemed. Confess, however, regardless of the pride of the author, that it was a skilfully managed kidnapping.”

“Indeed, it was; but Saunders will be seeking us to-morrow, and, although you paid the coachman well, he will pay him more generously still, and the [Pg 19]man will not hesitate to tell where he stopped his carriage.”

“That is the least of my anxieties, for when the fat imbecile discovers the house we came out of, he will find no one in it. Do you think I am going back there to wait for him?”

“Where is Colonel Forster to take me?”

“Ah! that is his affair and yours. He promised me a thousand dollars if I would carry off Ada Ricard, with whom he is madly in love.”

“Without having seen her?”

“So it seems. I have carried off Ada Ricard. I shall get my thousand dollars, and the rest does not concern me.”

“I cannot, however, remain in this costume.”

“Oh! the colonel is a perfect gentleman; he will have a complete wardrobe for you, I am certain. Look! there are the lights at Williamsburg. In ten strokes of the oar we shall arrive.”

In fact, ahead of the boat the lighted buildings of that important suburb of New York were plainly seen. The boatman bent over his oars, and in five minutes they touched the shore at Greenpoint. Before disembarking the mysterious man gave a shrill whistle, which was immediately answered by one like it.

“Come,” he said to the young woman, and jumping out on the bank he helped her to reach the ground. Then, taking her by the hand, he led her to the road, where shone the light from the lanterns of a carriage.

“Is it you?” asked a man keeping guard.

[Pg 20]

“It is I, colonel,” answered the Indian; “all has passed off well; Miss Ada has not been very dreadfully shocked.”

“Oh! madam,” said Colonel Forster eagerly, for it was he who came to meet her, “will you forgive me for this violence?”

“I cannot tell you at present, sir,” answered the young woman, “for just now I detest you. You must confess that it was a brutal proceeding, a veritable kidnapping from the midst of my guests, who, the simpletons, thought it only a carnival joke. At first I was greatly frightened, and now I am frozen.”

“Let us go at once to my coupe; later I will make my excuses and will repair all my wrongs.”

“What! your coupe. Where are we going?”

“On board of my yacht, which is waiting for us at Brooklyn; afterwards wherever you wish.”

“Excepting to my house?”

“Excepting to your house,” repeated the American officer, gallantly.

While exchanging these words all three had reached the carriage, the horses of which were stamping impatiently.

The colonel helped the pretty New Yorker to enter, and after seating himself by her side, said to the pseudo-Indian, holding out a portmonnaie:

“Here is what I promised you; remember, not a word. You know that if I have Saunders or the police at my heels, I shall be after you; whereas, if you are discreet I shall have the same sum at your disposal again.”

[Pg 21]

“Count on me, colonel,” said the stranger; “it is for my interest to be silent.”

Then, as he closed the door, he added: “Tell me, Miss Ada, have you not some commission to give me for Twenty-third Street? Your people, perhaps, are anxious.”

“No, it is useless,” answered the strange woman; “I shall write to my maid to-day to ask for what I need. I have confidence in her. Besides, I hope the colonel will not keep me a prisoner long.”

The officer protested against this supposition, looking affectionately at his companion.

“Then, all right; a pleasant journey to you,” said the Indian, finally, closing the door of the coupe, and the coachman immediately started the horses.

Quickly regaining the river, the Indian sprang into his boat, which he pushed off, and returned in the same direction by which he had come a few moments before.

Meanwhile Edward Forster’s carriage was crossing Williamsburg and moving toward Brooklyn, which it reached in less than twenty-five minutes. The colonel employed the time on the road in making a thousand protestations of love, which his companion hardly answered. When the coupe finally stopped at the Brooklyn wharf, he was ten steps off from a large yacht which was evidently waiting for passengers, for it was under steam.

“We have arrived, Miss Ada,” said Forster; “come.”

He had sprung to the ground and offered his arm [Pg 22]to help her cross the planking between the yacht and the wharf.

“Have you the right pressure?” he asked the officer who had appeared at the coupe to receive him on board.

“Yes, colonel,” was the answer.

“Then set sail at once, and go by the way of Staten Island.”

Having given his orders, Forster gently led his victim to the stairs opening to the interior of the boat. A few moments later he escorted her to a spacious, delightfully-furnished cabin, and said to her as he knelt before her:

“Miss Ada, you are even more beautiful than I dreamed; tell me that you forgive me.”

Ada had seated herself on a lounge, and her fur cloak had fallen from her shoulders. The colonel gazed at her in admiration. He was a very handsome young man, and one could easily understand the jealousy with which he had inspired the stout Saunders. Hardly thirty-five years old, a blonde with a slender figure, both elegant and robust, he was a true representative of the Anglo-Saxon race. Besides he had a great fortune and was one of the most distinguished officers in the Union Army.

It was this, probably, which influenced her, for after a moment’s silence she decided to answer him with a smile.

“I think, colonel, it is time to come to an explanation. You have carried me off. That is a very military proceeding; now what are you going to do with me?”

[Pg 23]

“Make you the happiness of my life,” interrupted Forster. “You know that I adore you.”

“That is a matter of course; but how came you to conceive such a wild plan? It cannot be simply because I refused to receive you.”

“You had not been in New York a fortnight before I loved you, and Cornhill did all that he could to rouse everyone’s curiosity and to increase my love for you. He belonged to my club, and not a day passed that he did not talk to us about your wit and beauty. From that moment dates my first efforts to meet you; but, you remember, I hardly had an opportunity after two or three attempts to catch a glimpse of you and speak to you a few seconds. When Cornhill died I was absent from New York. I went to Louisiana on a commission, which I cursed on my return when I knew that Saunders was devoting himself to you, and to seek a quarrel with him, when he did not belong to my set in society, would have made me ridiculous.”

“You were afraid of a scandal.”

“True, not knowing what to do, for I felt that every day I was loving you more; I should certainly have committed some folly, for you did not answer my letters, and your door was pitilessly closed to me, when one morning a man whom I did not know came to propose that I should carry you off and bring you on board my yacht. I confess that I did not for an instant trouble myself as to how the man had learned of my love for you; I saw only the end to be attained. He spoke to me with such assurance that I accepted his offer: we agreed [Pg 24]upon the condition. I promised him a certain sum if he should succeed, and the same if he would keep silent. He has succeeded; that is why we are this moment descending the East River, and why I am at your feet asking your forgiveness and begging you to forgive me.”

“We will talk about it at another time.”

“I have obtained a three months’ leave from the Secretary of War, and I have told my family that I should be absent on a trip to the South.”

“The plan is perfectly arranged; it lacks only my consent.”

“It is late to refuse me that.”

“Do you think so?”

“I hope so.”

“What of poor Saunders?”

“Oh! I beg you, don’t mention his name.”

“You know that he will kill you when he learns what has happened.”

“That would not be a misfortune unless he killed me before you make me happy by loving me.”

Ada could not resist this chivalrous sally of the colonel. She answered by holding out her two little hands, which he pressed warmly in his own.

“Well, I am conquered. We will shake hands; no one could have done more brusquely or more gallantly. But I cannot remain in this carnival dress.”

“I foresaw that,” answered the colonel, rising; “you will find there,” pointing to a cabin, the door of which was partly open, “all that you need. If [Pg 25]anything is wanting we can send one of my men to New York for it tomorrow.”

“Really, you are charming,” answered the young woman, with a smile. “I will join you in a moment.”

“While waiting for you, I shall order supper. You must be dying of hunger.”

“Truly, I am. You forget nothing,” saying which she disappeared in the adjoining cabin.

In less than a quarter of an hour she returned, attired in a lovely robe of blue silk. They seated themselves at a table, delicately served, and Colonel Forster, as a prelude to the repast, gave an ardent toast to the beauty of his passenger.

The yacht was steaming out into the main roads, and all this time the unhappy Saunders, who had settled down in his own home and divested himself of his Highland costume, was in the depths of despair, wondering what could have become of his beloved Miss Ada Ricard.

Notwithstanding his chagrin, the Hon. Saunders finally succumbed to fatigue and fell asleep. When he awoke—toward one o’clock in the afternoon—and his valet told him that no caller or letter had come, he sprang from his bed, dressed in haste, and, without allowing himself more for breakfast than about a dozen sandwiches, washed down by half a dozen cups of tea, he jumped into a cab, ordering the driver to stop at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. Ten minutes later he arrived.

“Is there any news?” he asked the servant who opened the door.

“Nothing, sir,” answered the man, who would have been greatly embarrassed to have been obliged to deliver a longer sentence, for he was still half intoxicated on account of the festivity of the evening before. Saunders quickly ascended the first flight, and found Mary in Ada’s apartment. She was quietly arranging dresses and linen.

“Well,” he asked, sinking into an arm-chair, “so madam has not returned?”

“No,” replied the maid; “but I have heard from her.”

“And you did not tell me at once.”

[Pg 27]

The stout merchant made a movement as if to rise.

Mary stopped him with a gesture, saying—

“Oh, sir! it is because the news will not afford you much pleasure.”

“What—what is the matter? Nothing has happened to madam? But tell me; you make my blood boil.”

“Not more than a quarter of an hour ago I received a letter from Miss Ada. Here it is.”

Saunders tore from the maid’s hands the letter she held out to him, and, after reading it, uttered an angry cry. The letter contained five lines only, but they were enough to drive the loving Yankee mad.

“My good Mary,” she said, “put the house in order, dismiss the servants, giving each a fortnight’s extra pay, and wait for me patiently. I shall be absent a month, at least; perhaps two or three. I rely upon you—Ada Ricard.”

“What does all this mean?” he cried, at last, when he had recovered his speech.

“I know no more than you, sir,” answered the maid. “You see I am fulfilling madam’s orders.”

“And not a word for me,” groaned the unhappy man, crushing in his hand the cruel letter. “Ah! the cheat shall pay for it. Who brought the note?”

“An unknown messenger, who must belong to another neighborhood.”

“Didn’t you ask where he came from?”

“He spoke to the cook and immediately left. His errand was no doubt paid for in advance.”

[Pg 28]

Saunders buried his face in his big hands and murmured—

“O, yes, I will avenge myself, but how?”

Mary, shrugging her shoulders, had resumed her work.

An excellent idea evidently was suddenly working in the troubled mind of the cracker-merchant, for, rising abruptly, and without addressing a word to the unfeeling servant, he left the room and house of his faithless Ada.

“To the central office of the police,” he ordered as he climbed into his carriage. The chief of the metropolitan police was at that time a Mr. Kelly, who was always spoken of as “Fat Kelly,” a very large, churlish man, often rough but quite intelligent, and possessing besides all the scepticism indispensable to his important duties. Saunders sent in his card, but Fat Kelly, before receiving him, rang for one of his secretaries in order to obtain some information about his visitor. Five minutes later this clerk handed his chief a note as follows:

Willie Saunders, wealthy cracker-merchant, vain, of ordinary intelligence, very much smitten with a woman, Ada Ricard, on whom he has already lavished $100,000 or more. Willie Saunders is worth at least a million and a half.

“Very well, show him in,” ordered the chief of police, after becoming acquainted with this not very flattering document, of whose existence Saunders was certainly ignorant.

[Pg 29]

Summoned by an office boy, the unfortunate merchant plunged like an avalanche into Mr. Kelly’s private office.

The latter gentleman could not conceal the pleasant, spontaneous smile which wreathed his lips at the sight of a man almost as stout as he; but, his nature gaining the ascendancy, he hastened to say in a curt tone to the grotesque individual:

“What do you wish? Be quick, I have a load of business on hand.”

Without being greatly disconcerted—for he was so completely absorbed in his own anxieties that he heeded nothing—Saunders answered:

“I have come, sir, to request your most powerful protection; I am the victim.”

“Of a theft? Where, how? Of what sum? Is the guilty man, or him you suppose guilty, one of your employes?”

“No sir; I——”

“So much the better, for theft by anyone in your pay is an aggravating case.”

“But, sir, it is not a case of theft.”

“Ah! What is it then?”

“Kidnapping, sir; real kidnapping.”

“They have carried off your wife, your daughter?”

“I am not married.”

“Who, then? Your mother, or your sister, or your cousin, or your aunt? Devil take it, do be precise. I can’t guess and enumerate all your family.”

“They have carried off my Ada.”

[Pg 30]

“Your Ada, who has had your hundred thousand dollars, and who, of course, deceives you.”

“Sir, are you acquainted?”

“And who has carried off this interesting person? One of her lovers? What do you wish me to do? There has been no violence.”

“Oh, yes; on the contrary.”

“No; it is improbable, inadmissable; consequently I can have nothing to do with your affair. I wish you a very good day. Go and make your claims for Miss Ada elsewhere. What have I to do with such matters? You are wealthy; this lady will return to you some day, be sure of it. And you will receive her, and she will make you believe anything she wishes, and you will ask her pardon. You are all great fools, one as much as the other.”

And Fat Kelly, drawing a bundle of papers toward him, began to turn them over in furious haste, without paying further attention to his visitor.

Saunders, in spite of his moderate intelligence, as the descriptive document stated, understood that he would obtain nothing from the chief of the police, and without bowing, which did not disturb the latter at all, but deeply humiliated, and grumbling aloud with a freedom wholly American, he left the office of the intractable police officer. But when he reached the threshold of the administrative office where he thought to find assistance and protection, he questioned himself as to what he should do, and perhaps he was about to decide to go to Colonel Forster’s house, when an individual accosted him and said politely:

[Pg 31]

“You seem greatly annoyed, sir.”

“What is that to you?” was the gruff answer.

“Why,” replied the unknown, without being ruffled by this cool reception, “because if you did not obtain the information you desire from the central office, I might be able to give it to you.”

“You?”

“Or at least the important house of Robertson Brothers & Co., of which I have the honor to be one of the head clerks.”

“The house of Robertson & Co.?”

“Yes, sir, the most honorable, most discreet, and the safest agency——”

Saunders, the stout, tapped his forehead; he understood.

The man who was addressing him was simply one of those ferrets by whom the informing agencies scour the city. The most skilful of all its rivals, the house of Robertson Bros. & Co., always had one of its men standing around in the neighborhood of Mr. Kelly’s offices, in order to recruit on the way some client for whom the official police had refused to become the instrument. It must have been Heaven that sent Saunders this aid.

“Where is your office?” he asked the agent.

“In Nineteenth Street, No. 22,” answered the clerk.

“Close to her,” murmured Saunders, with a sigh.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, come into my cab, give the address to the coachman, and take me to the house.”

[Pg 32]

The man obeyed, and in a quarter of an hour the carriage stopped before a very honest-looking house, whose mahogany door bore on a large copper plate: “Robertson Bros. & Co., solicitors.”

Messrs. Robertson Bros. & Co. make a great deal of money, but they have a better reputation than their professional brethren. They even pass for honest people and that explains itself, for all New York knew the causes of the creation of their agency, which, at the time when the events took place herein described, had been established but three or four years.

It was well known that Mr. Robertson, Sr., had founded his establishment merely through political spite and hatred toward Mr. Kelly, the chief of the metropolitan police.

A candidate for election at the same time as Kelly, Edward Robertson had been beaten by his rival, after a fierce contention and a truly American exchange of invectives. Robertson reproached Kelly with being an ignorant, drunken brute; Kelly accused his competitor of being ambitious, a slaveholder, and libertine.

The Yankee electors no doubt preferred the faults of Kelly to those of Robertson, since they nominated Kelly; but when Robertson learned that his enemy was called to the important functions of the chief of police, he judged that the moment had come to avenge himself. Then he organized his agency of secret police, in order to test his skill against that of the official police of his former adversary.

[Pg 33]

He relied upon occasions, not lacking, to show the superiority of his mind over that of his victor in the elections, and he hoped that his victories would enable him some day to take his revenge in a new political struggle. Several times already, in cases where Fat Kelly had failed, notwithstanding the aid of all his policemen and detectives, Messrs. Robertson had succeeded; and it can be easily judged whether Robertson, senior, was proud of his victories, and had made them tell for the reputation of his house.

Saunders, who was well acquainted with this police rivalry and these strange customs, crossed the threshold of the house of Robertson Brothers & Co., without the least repugnance.

After leading him to a small, severely furnished room on the ground floor, his guide introduced him into the private office of one of the chiefs of the agency.

The love-sick manufacturer of crackers found himself in the presence of a man hardly thirty years old, freshly shaven, with hair curled (pomaded), foppishly dressed, and having no indication on his physiognomy of the interloping police officer.

As he partly reclined in a spacious leather arm chair before a large desk loaded with documents, with his white hand and smiling lips, one would have taken him for a young member of Congress.

“Mr. Robertson?” asked Saunders.

“Robertson, Jr.,” answered the second head of the house, slightly bowing, and signing to his visitor [Pg 34]to be seated. “To whom have I the honor of speaking?”

“Willie Saunders, sir.”

“Mr. Willie Saunders, the proprietor of the great manufacturies in Brooklyn, the noted Mr. Saunders?”

“The very one, sir.”

Greatly flattered at being so well known, the poor man took an arm-chair and tried to settle his mind.

After a few moments of meditation, he said: “This is what brings me here, sir. A young woman in whom I am deeply interested, Miss Ada Ricard, was carried off yesterday during a ball that she was giving at her house, No. 17 East Twenty-third Street.”

“Carried off!” interrupted Robertson, Jr.

“Yes, sir, carried off!” And Saunders related in detail the event of which he had been a witness; then, with many groans, he told what the maid had said about her mistress, and his useless application at the central office of the metropolitan police.

“You think, then,” said the young man, who had listened without interrupting, “that Colonel Forster is the kidnapper?”

“I think so,” answered the jealous man, with flashing eyes.

“You would like to make certain of it?”

“Yes, and to know what has become of Miss Ada. Is that possible?”

“Everything is possible; it is only a question of price.”

[Pg 35]

“Set your own.”

“It is necessary first that I should have a likeness of the lady.”

“I always carry one.”

Poor Saunders drew forth a photograph and presented it to Robertson.

“She is very pretty,” said the latter, gallantly.

“Alas, yes,” sighed the stout man.

“Let me ask you a few questions? Are you married? Have you children—daughters in particular?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You will understand. If you have children—daughters especially—we shall have to act with the greatest caution in order to avoid scandal, in the interest of decency, which needs no explanation. Then our expenses would be larger, and consequently our commission higher.”

“Very well. No; I am a single man.”

“That is perfect. One thing more. How much money have you spent in your devotion to this bewitching Miss Ada?”

“How much must I——”

“Of course, you will see why. You are very rich and generous. If you have spent but little for Miss Ada, it is because you love her moderately; consequently, you have only a moderate desire to find her. If, on the contrary, you open your purse wide, it is because you are deeply in love with her; therefore, you have a proportionate desire to see her again. Now, our search and movements being regulated by your sentiments, it is indispensable that we should be exactly informed.”

[Pg 36]

The worthy Robertson, Jr., expressed himself so coldly and calmly but also with such precision, and moreover with such logic as regarded his estimable business, that Saunders could but give an approving wave of the hand, saying in answer:

“You are right. Well, Miss Ada has had a big pile of money from me, and because I love her still, and because I wish to avenge myself on her and her kidnappers, I subscribe in advance to your conditions.”

“If it is Colonel Forster who carried off this young woman he is a formidable adversary,” he observed.

“Then what will it cost?”

“Then, my dear sir, it will cost five hundred dollars, in advance; then you will give us five hundred dollars more on the day when I shall have the pleasure of informing you what became of Miss Ada Ricard, and where you must go to find her.”

For answer, Willie Saunders majestically handed a check to Mr. Robertson, Jr., saying—

“As for the other five hundred dollars, when you give me the information you promise you can have a check.”

“That will be in a few days, I hope. But try nothing on your part; you might, without meaning it, counteract some of my plans.”

“I will be careful, sir. Ah, don’t mislay that photograph, I beg, as it is the only one I possess. I have destroyed all the others.”

“I will return it, with my note.”

“I did not wish Miss Ada to have a single one to give away.”

[Pg 37]

“That was prudent.”

“It has served me well.”

“Ah, do not too quickly accuse that charming woman; she may have been the victim of some violence.”

“But her letter, sir, her letter to her maid.”

“Who can assert that she was not forced to write? Be calm and patient; remain quietly at home, and have confidence in the house of Robertson Brothers & Co.; it has solved mysteries more difficult than yours. From to-day your interests are ours.”

Touched by these kind words, the unfortunate cracker-merchant deigned to extend a hand to Mr. Robertson, Jr., and returned home more cheerful. The days, however, seemed endless to him, and, although he did not find in Mary a very faithful echo of his grief, he could not help going three or four times in every twenty-four hours to No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. But at each call the maid invariably answered: “Since madam has written that she will be absent a month at least, do as I do—wait.”

Saunders went along Twenty-third Street holding on to the railings of the houses, for his step had become feeble.

The adventure was noised abroad; thanks to the servants who had been dismissed, people knew the slightest details, and Miss Ada’s unhappy lover was the laughing-stock of every one. They watched his coming and going, but he was so completely absorbed in his sad thoughts that he perceived nothing of it.

[Pg 38]

When he was at home, the business instinct roused him a little from his preoccupation, but his mind quickly reverted to its one thought, and he changed so from hour to hour that he became pitiable to behold. Those of his friends who at first had most mercilessly joked him now pitied him.

Matters remained thus four days, and Saunders becoming very anxious at Messrs. Robertson Brothers’ long silence was about to call upon them, when one morning he received a large envelope, proudly bearing the seal of this honorable house. He hastened to open it. It contained Miss Ada’s picture, a letter of a few lines and a very long note, headed “Confidential.”

Sir—The enclosed document proves to you that we have succeeded according to your wishes. We have spared neither skill nor any possible step, and we have the honor of reminding you that upon presenting the said document you have to pay us a sum of five hundred dollars. Our clerk, the bearer of this paper, will give you a receipt. We have not forgotten that we are ready to follow your orders in this affair.

Yours, respectfully, etc., etc.

Willie Saunders, deeply impressed, quickly turned to read the note of Messrs. Robertson Brothers & Co., solicitors, which was drawn up in the following style:

Miss Ada Ricard, carried off from her house on the night of Tuesday last, left in a carriage hired by an unknown man the night before from Mr. [Pg 39]Thompson, No. 4 Sixth Avenue, for the sum of twenty-five dollars for twenty-four hours. The stranger said that this carriage would have to take him to several masked balls, that he did not wish any footmen, for his own would accompany him, and that he would come for the carriage himself when he needed it. They had it ready for him, and he arrived at half-past one in the morning, with two men in large dominos and masks. He wore a heavy cloak, but, although he also was masked, it was easy to recognize by his headgear that he was costumed as an Indian. The coachman was named Tom Katters. By the order of the unknown man he drove to East Twenty-third Street, where he remained in the file of carriages standing before No. 17. One of the dominos alighted and disappeared for about half an hour. At the end of this time he returned and exchanged a few words in a foreign language with the other two masks, who got out of the landau. They had removed their dominos and were all three disguised as Sioux Indians. Before leaving, one of the three men, who seemed to command the others, gave his instructions to Tom Katters. The latter was to stand directly before the door of the house and when the three travelers returned to start his horses off at a gallop. They gave him five dollars extra to induce him to be exact in obeying orders, and promised him as much more if he would prove himself intelligent. In less than twenty minutes after their departure the three masks returned. The largest bore in his arms a woman, who was laughing; he got into the landau with her; the other two Indians mounted the box with Katters, who, according to their order, drove at full speed up Twenty-third Street as far as First Avenue. A little beyond Hell Gate the two men sprang down to the sidewalk, and after telling Katters to pursue his course to the [Pg 40]entrance of Yorkville, they disappeared. Katters obeyed, and did not stop until he had reached the place indicated. There the only remaining traveler in his turn alighted. He bore the young woman in his arms, because the ground was damp with the rain, and he was reassuring her, no doubt, for Katters heard him say: “It has rained cats and dogs, but we have arrived.”

“Miserable cheat,” murmured Saunders, whose anger increased at each one of these details; “she had an understanding with her kidnappers. Oh! I shall avenge myself.” And, washing down this vow with a large glass of sherry, he resumed his reading.

The report continued in these terms:

Before leaving, the unknown man gave the promised five dollars to the coachman, and the latter, without disturbing himself as to what was to become of his generous client, turned his horses round and returned to the city. It seems certain that the man and woman immediately went to the East River to embark in a boat waiting for them, for James Davis, the mate of the steamer Liberia, remembered having seen, while he was on watch Tuesday or Wednesday night, at three o’clock, below Blackwell’s Island, a yawl, rowed by an Indian, and in the stern of which sat a woman. This yawl passed so close to the Liberia that it came near being capsized, and the frightened passenger uttered a cry of fear. Our information permits us to add that Colonel Forster, Monday, had his yacht, the Gleam, conveyed to the Brooklyn wharf, which he visited Tuesday, and this same yacht was provisioned for a trip of a certain number of weeks. [Pg 41]Wednesday, in the day-time, the Gleam passed before Castle Garden, and a young, elegant woman was plainly seen on board. Then it took the route for Staten Island, and there it came to anchor on account of some injury to one of its cylinders. Captain Reynolds, who commands the Gleam, having sent ashore for workmen, one of my agents quietly slipped in among them, and easily recognized Miss Ada, owing to the photograph he had in his hands. The same agent learned that as soon as the Gleam was repaired it put out to sea for some unknown destination. It would be impossible to say how long this voyage or excursion will last, for Colonel Forster, who has not left shipboard, has a leave of absence for three months.

If Mr. Willie Saunders desires, the house of Robertson Brothers & Co. can hire a steamboat, and one of the most intelligent agents can set out in pursuit of the fugitives. Mr. Robertson, Jr., will wait for the instructions of Mr. Willie Saunders. The hiring of this steamer will cost one hundred dollars a day. Mr. Willie Saunders must deposit one thousand dollars in advance, which shall be paid to Messrs. Robertson Brothers & Co., whatever the result and duration of the expedition.

“Well, that is an idea,” murmured the stout man, whom anger and the desire for vengeance made ready for anything; “Robertson Brothers & Co. are men of skill. Yes, even if it costs me double and treble what they ask, I will confound the wretch. Ah! that brutal Kelly imagines that I will forgive him. Well, we will see.”

And in a state of fierce excitement, Saunders took his hat and rushed to the door of his office.

“Pardon, sir,” said an individual, stopping him [Pg 42]on the way, and who had been there a long time and whom he had quite forgotten, “pardon, you have five hundred dollars to remit by me.”

“Ah! that is true,” answered the cracker-merchant, recognizing the clerk of the agency. “Present that at the bank.”

He had scrawled an order in one of the pages of his note-book, and handed it to the man.

Then he jumped into the first cab which he saw and was driven to the police intelligence office, where Robertson, Junior, received him, as on his first visit.

“Sir,” said Saunders to him, “your idea of pursuing Miss Ada’s kidnapper seems to me excellent. I approve of it, but be prompt. According to the information you have sent me, Colonel Forster’s yacht may still be at anchor off Staten Island, and if I could reach there before her departure——”

“What! you wish to go yourself,” observed the elegant Robertson.

“Yes, myself. I wish to provoke that insolent officer, and avenge myself afterwards on the woman who has made sport of me.”

“You know our conditions?”

“Here are the thousand dollars in advance.”

“That is perfect,” said the agent, slipping the check into his safe; “be at Battery wharf in two hours; we will set out together. I am really interested in this affair, and would like to accompany you myself.”

Saunders was profuse in thanks, and returned home to make his preparations.

Two hours later, when the cracker-merchant reached the place of rendezvous, convulsively pressing the enormous six-shot revolver in his pocket, he espied Mr. Robertson, Jr.

“You see,” said the latter, “that with the house of Robertson Brothers & Co., you have only to express the wish.”

“And a check,” Willie Saunders might have answered.

But silently he proceeded to the little steamer which was under steam, alongside the wharf. It was a screw propeller, small at the bow, and of elegant shape, which could easily make her twelve miles an hour.

“The Firefly was just manned and free,” resumed the agent, joining Miss Ada’s poor lover. “Her owner was exacting, but I did not hesitate.”

“Let us embark, then; let us embark,” said Saunders, who acted like a madman.

“Let us go on board,” repeated Mr. Robertson, Jr., and, pointing out the way to his victim, he quietly crossed the planking, the boards of which [Pg 44]groaned under the infinitely great weight of the heavy Yankee.

The Firefly was immediately unmoored. Two moments later, it was sailing out in the harbor in order to double the point at Brooklyn.

“Three o’clock,” said the agent of the lavish client, after having consulted a superb chronometer which was fastened to his waistcoat by a massive guard-chain.

“So much the better,” answered Saunders; “we can anchor nearer the Gleam without being recognized. There will be the devil to pay if, during the evening or night, the wretch does not betray her presence on board her lover’s boat. Then, tomorrow morning, I swear, this doomed colonel must exchange a few pistol shots with me, or I will kill him like a dog, and her afterwards.”

“Dear sir, don’t commit any act of violence in my presence, at least. I should not like to be accused of complicity in such an affair. Come, calm yourself a little. In the first place, if you will take my advice, be less expressive, and don’t talk so loud about your business. It is not necessary for my crew to know the cause of this little trip.”

“Yes, you are right; but, truly, I am beside myself. To have been duped in this manner—”

It was while walking the deck of the Firefly that these gentlemen exchanged these thoughts. They remained on deck until the steward announced that dinner was ready.

Saunders’ first impulse was to refuse to go to the dining-room, but Robertson, Jr., proved so [Pg 45]convincingly that dieting was injurious to mind and body, that the unfortunate merchant finally placed himself at the table, and ate with a very good appetite.

The dinner was just ended, when the captain of the steamboat notified his passengers that they were nearing Staten Island, and that the Gleam was in the harbor.

The stout New Yorker made but one bound from the room to the deck.

It was night, and the sky indicated that it was to be dark and stormy. Nevertheless, one could see plainly enough to distinguish Colonel Forster’s yacht, which was at anchor near the shore.

After taking time to wrap himself in his overcoat, Mr. Robertson, Jr., with a cigar in his mouth, cool, calculating, and methodical as usual, joined the irascible Saunders.

“Suppose we cross the bows of the Gleam at once,” proposed the latter.

“Don’t think of such a thing, dear sir,” answered the agent. “In the first place, I think that our captain would refuse, the maritime law having foreseen this kind of collision on the part of a boat in motion with a ship at anchor; besides, how would it help you? You do not wish, I suppose, to rejoin Miss Ada Ricard by such a dangerous movement?”

“I must see her,” was the answer.

“Have patience. Besides, I do not think she is on board at this moment. You will observe that the porthole of the main cabin does not show any light. [Pg 46]I should not be surprised if Colonel Forster was at this moment in his country house at Staten Island, yonder, a hundred steps from shore.”

“We must assure ourselves of it.”

“That is why we are going to anchor here.”

Without consulting his unhappy client any further, Mr. Robinson, Jr., ran to give his instructions to the commander of the Firefly, who stood in the stern near the helm. Two minutes had hardly elapsed before the chain was payed out through the hawse-hole, and the anchor of the yacht lay at the bottom of the bay. They were only about half a cable’s length, that is a hundred metres, from the Gleam.

“Then you believe that Colonel Forster is not on board?” asked Saunders of the agent.

“I am sure of it,” answered the latter. “If your rival were on the Gleam it would not be so still, for he would be anxious about our arrival and anchoring so near him.”

“I have an idea, my dear sir.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know where the colonel’s villa is?”

“Perfectly well; if the fog were not so dense we could see the lighted windows from here.”

“What do you think of taking a little walk on land? If Forster is at home it would be easier for me to meet him than on board ship.”

“That is true; but you will observe that the night is very dark and the sea quite rough.”

“If you are afraid, I will go alone.”

“The heads of the house of Robertson & Co. are [Pg 47]afraid of nothing or nobody, Mr. Saunders. I will have a boat manned for you and will not leave you;” and immediately giving the necessary orders, the young man preceded the stout Yankee on the ladder, to the foot of which a boat came instantly. It was a graceful, solid fishing boat, in which the worst weather might have been braved. Four vigorous sailors manned it. Robertson, Junior, and Saunders placed themselves in the stern, and the latter, who had been a seaman in his youth, took hold of the helm, ordering the men to push off. The boat moved off, heading toward land. The agent, guiding himself by the lights on the island, indicated the route to his companion; but the fog soon became so thick that just as they were about to enter the channel which leads to the harbor, the boatmen had to rest their oars.

“Listen!” said Saunders, suddenly leaning over on a level with the water in order to try to pierce the fog; and Robertson listened. They heard distinctly, coming from the land, a regular sound of the oars of a boat vigorously worked.

“Ah,” said the agent, “there are fine fellows who know their route better than we do ours.”

The boat, in fact, was rapidly approaching. Suddenly a metallic, silvery laugh echoed by the sonorous waves, made Mr. Saunders give a bound.

“It is she, the cheat!” he growled. “Row, boys, row. Let us reach the entrance of the channel before them. A hundred dollars to you if we go in first.”

Stimulated by this promise, the sailors of the [Pg 48]Firefly bent over their oars and the boat sped along like an arrow.

But Colonel Forster’s boat—for it was really he who was returning to his yacht—was not so far away as the cracker-merchant thought. Lost to sight in the bank of fog, he did not see it coming, or rather, perhaps, did not wish to see it, and before the agent could avoid it, by a turn of the rudder, a frightful collision took place between the two boats. The shock was so severe that the fishing boat, receiving it abreast, careened about, heading to shore, from which it was separated by a few yards only, and on which the sea dashed heavily. As for the yawl being driven to the other side of the channel, its situation was still more grave. At the same instant, as if to prove it, a terrible cry was heard—a woman’s cry—whose tone sent a chill of horror through Mr. Saunders, who, thrown backwards from his seat, and covered with water and spray, had been flung upon the sandy shore. Then it seemed to him that a second cry, stifled like a sob, succeeded the first, and, with his eyes looking haggard and his hair standing on end, he tried to leap into the waves, but Robertson stopped him.

“It is she, it is she! I wish at least to try and save her!” he cried, endeavoring to free himself.

“Are you mad?” answered the young man, holding him firmly. “If anything has happened you do not know where. If Miss Ada has not been saved by those accompanying her it is too late, for the tide is going out.”

The agent had spoken truly, the fog had become [Pg 49]so dense that one could not distinguish anything two steps off. Moreover, on account of the tide going out, the sea was so rough at that place in the channel, that the best rower could not struggle a single second against the current and waves.

In despair at his powerlessness, and frightened at the consequences of his angry act, the unfortunate Yankee had fallen to the ground. There, oppressed and breathless, he listened attentively to the sounds of the deep, in the hopes of catching some sign of life to relieve him. But none reached him. He heard only the murmuring ripples on the shore. The bank of fog extended around him like a winding-sheet, and the silence of death reigned over the whole bay. Meanwhile the sailors of the Firefly, happy at getting off with a cold bath, plugged up the hole which the collision had made in the boat, and were setting it afloat. They succeeded after an hour’s labor. Saunders imagined that a whole century had passed, when Robertson, rousing him from his exhaustion, told him to embark. The fog had lifted a little and they perceived beyond them, like a star in the gray sky, the headlight of the Firefly.

Transported so suddenly from his peaceful life into the most frightful tragedy, the unhappy Saunders obeyed, tottering toward the boat. When once embarked he fell heavily upon the locker of the stern, but he was careful not to take hold of the helm again. Remembering with horror the use he had made of it an hour before, he feared that it might burn his hands.

[Pg 50]

“Great God!” cried Mr. Robertson, all at once: “the Gleam has put off.”

Roused from his dejection by these words, Saunders wildly peered across the bay.

The Firefly alone was tossing at anchor.

“This is an ugly trip and a sad affair,” said the agent to his companion.

“Horrible! dear sir, horrible!” repeated the latter in a choked voice.

“Evidently some misfortune has happened, and Colonel Forster, in order not to be compromised, for he could not suppose we were there for his sake, has gone to sea, or he would have remained in the roads. In any case, how can the truth be known?”

“Yes; how?”

Then, seized by a sudden inspiration, Saunders continued, addressing the sailors:

“Boys, there is a hundred dollars for each of you if you do not tell a word about what has just happened.”

“That is understood, sir,” answered the seamen in chorus, who, however, did not know the reason of the presence of this stout passenger on board the steamboat, and had seen in the meeting of the two boats only one of those accidents at sea which they almost daily witnessed or took part in. They did not suspect that the life of a woman was at stake, and that, perhaps, she was drowned with her other companions, excepting through the exclamations of Saunders himself.

Ten minutes later the fishing-boat came alongside [Pg 51]the Firefly, and Robertson learned that the Gleam had raised anchor but half an hour before.

The fog had not prevented them from seeing in what direction it had gone. However, in the hope of meeting his rival at daybreak, Saunders did not wish to leave the roads; but the next day the steamer made the circuit of Staten Island in vain; the Gleam had wholly disappeared.

There was but one course to take, to return to New York and preserve silence about the frightful scene, in which the cracker-merchant had played so compromising a part. The unfortunate Yankee understood it; he handed each of the sailors the promised one hundred dollars, and with remorse gnawing at his heart he hid in his cabin, and did not leave it until Robertson told him that the Firefly was again moored to the Battery.

Night permitted him to land and reach his house without being recognized, but when he entered his room he shut himself in as if he had all Mr. Kelly’s agents on his tracks, and he fell into an alarming state of nervous prostration. His night was terrible, and the next day he strictly forbade admission, even guarding his door, and would not read a paper or exchange a word with his household. He refused even to hear about business. This lasted four days, and he began to grow somewhat calm, when his valet, disobeying orders, handed him toward three o’clock, a paper marked “personal and urgent,” and bearing the seal of the central office of the police. The unhappy Saunders opened the letter trembling, and, when he had glanced over five [Pg 52]lines, he felt himself grow pale with fear. He had read:

The chief of the metropolitan police invites Mr. William Saunders to appear without fail at the central office to furnish all the information within his knowledge in regard to the disappearance of Miss Ada Ricard.

What should he say to that brutal Kelly, whose rudeness he had already experienced? Could he preserve enough self-possession not to compromise himself? Was the event at Staten Island discovered, or still unknown? Why should the chief of police, who would not listen to him when he went to beg him to seek Ada Ricard, disturb himself to-day about her disappearance?

All these questions, which he did not know how to answer, succeeded each other in the shattered brain of the ex-lover of Miss Ada, and he trembled in advance at the idea of the questioning which he should have to undergo.

However, he resigned himself to obey, and, after laying out a course from which he promised himself he would not depart, and trying his best to be calm, he appeared before the terrible Kelly.

The chief of police received him immediately, but five minutes later the stout Saunders reeled out of the central office with a pale, disturbed countenance, and his forehead bathed in a cold sweat. He jumped into his cab and said to the coachman, in accents of terror:

“To the Bellevue Hospital.”

[Pg 53]

Forty-eight hours before an event had occurred which strangely excited public curiosity, but of which Saunders did not know, for since his dramatic expedition he had not left the house or read a paper.

The sign on this tavern was not spelled exactly as we have given it at the head of this chapter. Shakespeare was printed on it in two words, so that if it recalled the celebrated English tragic poet to the rare literary men who crossed its threshold, it meant only the “Tavern of the Skilful Spearman” to the sailors, wharfingers, lumpers, and others who were the ordinary frequenters.

Situated on the wharf, on South Street, opposite Brooklyn, this tavern was admirably placed as regards patrons. Besides, the police kept a pretty sharp eye upon it, and affrays, pistol-shots, and violent scenes were less frequent there than elsewhere.

This was because it was managed by two jolly fellows, who needed no help to maintain order in the establishment. They were Honorables Thomas Bright and Davidson, two of the most celebrated boxers in the United States, formerly bloodthirsty [Pg 54]adversaries, but now excellent friends and associates, so true is it that the closest friendship is that which exists between men who have fought each other after having mutually knocked out each other’s teeth and administered the most terrible black eyes. Thomas Bright and Davidson said to each other that they had done enough for the public and their reputation, but too little for their future, and, uniting their savings, they founded Shakespeare’s tavern, which soon became the most attractive and paying den of the kind.

The establishment occupied the ground floor of a large room adorned with heavy tables and benches firmly fastened to the walls and floor, that they might not be transformed into murderous missiles in the hands of drunkards, and had a huge bar with a tin top, and an army of pint measures of the same metal.

Around this bar crowded stray patrons, passers-by, and curious idlers; in short, those who were not initiated in the delights of the oyster-room, which one reached only by stumbling down a long flight of stairs, doubly dangerous because the steps were damp, and an almost complete darkness reigned, even in broad daylight. At the first step to the vault of this crypt one coughed, seized in the throat, as it were, by a dense, hot atmosphere, laden with a thousand varied emanations, and it was some moments before the eyes could see through the thick mist formed at the foot of the stairs by the air, which, by reason of physical laws, sought to renew itself in the atmosphere without.

[Pg 55]

This second room was less scantily furnished than that on the ground floor. There were tables and movable chairs, and a very large buffet, laden with fresh and salted meats. Above an immense oven there was a gridiron made to receive a whole ox.

The ground was macadamized, and the walls, once white, were now black, excepting in spots, where, owing to the contact of shoulders, they seemed gray, and were illustrated with primitive designs and mottoes which we need not translate. A dozen gas jets, clouded in the smoke, looking like nebulæ in the mist, lighted as well as they could, if not as well as they ought, this underground region, which was invaded by familiar patrons until they had made a day of it.

At the moment when we ask our readers to follow us into the oyster-room of Shakespeare’s tavern—that is, forty-eight hours after the sad expedition of Willie Saunders to Staten Island—the house was already full, although the night was far advanced. The damp, cold atmosphere had driven from the wharf all the laborers whose presence could be spared, and only stragglers remained on it. Certain wharfingers themselves had deserted their posts. Besides these, here and there one saw, around tables covered with glasses of hot gin, sailors of every country waiting for the time to go aboard. One of these groups had so victoriously struggled against the depressing influence of the inclement weather without that a rollicking, noisy gaiety prevailed among them.

[Pg 56]

They were the sailors of the Firefly, who had jovially poured from their pockets into the cash-drawer of Thomas Bright and Davidson poor Saunders’ dollars—their hush money.

“Come, one more swig all round,” said one of the sailors; and, rapping noisily on the table, he shouted: “Here, waiter, fetch us some whiskey, and mind it is the right stuff, too.”

“No,” observed his neighbor, “we have had enough for to-day; we ought to have been back two hours ago. Devil take it, to-morrow will be daylight. You are drunk, Jim.”

“Drunk,” replied the latter, “well, Charley, what of it? The fat man did not give us a hundred dollars apiece for a pension.”

“It was for no more or less than to make us hold our tongues,” said Charley, warmly. “No good American sailor will fail to keep his word.”

The other two sailors nodded approvingly, pointing to the adjoining tables where the other patrons of Shakespeare’s tavern might hear.

“There, that’s enough,” grumbled Jim; “we will be as mute as a whale; but I am thirsty,” and, seizing one of the waiters as he passed, he ordered four glasses of whiskey.

It was best for the drunken man’s friends to give in to him. They, therefore, beckoned to the servant to serve them quietly. Charley then whispered:

“While we are lounging here, suppose any one should be robbing us on board ship, as they robbed Toby the other night on his wharf while he was drinking, instead of watching over his goods.”

[Pg 57]

“What!” sang out a tall fellow enveloped in oil-cloth from head to foot; “what of Toby robbed? Why, it was his robber who cheated himself.”

“How’s that?” cried the sailors.

“Yes, to be sure; instead of taking a barrel of brandy, as, no doubt, was his intention, he carried off a barrel of tar. If it didn’t stick to his paws he must have hurled it into the water. Here’s to the health of the imbecile; although I lost my place through him, I don’t care, for I have come to Shakespeare’s tavern, and it is much livelier here than at the head of the river;” and, after noisily touching glasses with the men of the Firefly, the wharfinger, for it was he, tossed off his glass of gin at one swallow.

“I can’t help it, but I feel no security,” said Charley; “for some time there has been a regular sweep on board ship and along the river. Come, let’s be on our way, boys.”

While saying this the seaman had placed Jim’s arm within his, and was towing him along toward the stairs.

Toby followed them.

They arrived at the wharf in this manner, one shoving the other along.

Day was beginning to break, but the river was still enveloped in fog. The masts of ships at anchor were faintly outlined above their invisible hulls. They looked as if suspended in the air. The boat of the Firefly was moored to one of the piles on the wharf of which Toby had been watchman only two days.

[Pg 58]

“Let us go aboard, boys,” said Charley, hauling in the yawl.

“Stop; what’s that over there?” asked Toby, suddenly, who had gone to the edge of the wharf, and was pointing to a floating object which the motion of the boat had sent ashore; “a foot!”

“Why, yes, a foot,” said the sailor, raising the member with the end of his boat-hook; “a foot and a leg.”

“And all the rest,” continued the watchman; “it is a drowned person. How heavy it is. There must be a stone around the neck to be head-downward like this. Come, help me, the rest of you.”

The sailors leaned over the river, and uniting their efforts brought to the surface a body, whose unusual weight was soon explained to them; a barrel of tar was fastened to the left leg. It was by this half-submerged barrel that this body had been kept under water.

“It is a woman,” cried Charley.

“And a superb one.”

“What an idea to throw her into the river with a barrel of tar.”

“It is a droll one, to be sure.”

“A barrel of tar. Perhaps it is the one stolen from me.”

While exchanging these exclamations, the seamen, aided by Toby, had raised the body and extended it on the planks of the wharf, without unfastening from its leg the barrel which a stout rope held secure.

[Pg 59]

It was, indeed, the corpse of a young woman. It showed no signs of wounds and was not decomposed. The face alone was slightly swollen, but by no means disfigured.

Hardened as they were to every emotion, the sailors gazed at this body in horror. The sight of it sobered the drunken men. The men knew that here before their eyes was the victim of some horrible tragedy. The discovery of a drowned person, workman or seaman, would not have moved them; but this woman, young and beautiful, shocked them.

“We cannot leave her here,” said Charley finally. “Go and notify Shakespeare’s tavern.”

The comrade to whom he spoke hurried away from the other side of the wharf. Toby, with that sentiment of decency, more common than is believed among the lowest classes, stripped himself of his oil-cloth suit and covered the nude corpse.

Ten minutes later, Thomas Bright, Davidson and the patrons who had lingered in their establishment hastened to the wharf.

Charley acquainted them with what had passed.

“Well, my boys, there is only one thing to do,” said Davidson; “summon the coroner at Saint Vincent and wait for him, and don’t disturb the body.”

One of the spectators immediately set out for the police office of the district, which happened to be in a neighboring street, and several policemen, whom the crowd had attracted, guarded the body, after driving away curious idlers on the wharf and [Pg 60]retaining about them only the men of the Firefly and Toby.

Day had dawned, and the fog had cleared away somewhat. The wharf presented a strange scene, with the silent, motionless men gathered around this lifeless body.

“It is odd,” said Toby, “that I should find my barrel of tar in this way. It is really mine, for I recognize the mark upon it.”

“Hold your tongue, you fool,” said Charley, in a low voice; “there will certainly be a reward for those who put the police on the track of the assassins; it will be time then to speak.”

The watchman understood, thanked him with a smile, and became silent again. In less than a quarter of an hour the coroner arrived with his secretary. Furious, no doubt, at having been disturbed so early, he interrupted Charley, who had begun the story of his sad discovery, and said:

“That will do; I understand all about it. Now let two willing men carry this body to the morgue. The rest of you, who drew it out of the water, must follow me, to make your depositions.”

Two men raised the body; a third carried the barrel which the coroner bade them not unfasten. Then, preceded by the policemen, accompanied by the sailors of the Firefly and Toby, and escorted by curious idlers, the gloomy procession started off. After walking ten minutes they reached their destination. The door of the morgue opened to admit the bearers of the body and witnesses, and closed upon the crowd. In a few moments the coroner [Pg 61]received the depositions of the sailors and the wharfingers; then, after having taken their names and addresses, he dismissed them.

The men on the yacht hastened to their boat to return on board ship, while Toby, who was careful to show no recognition of the tar barrel, but who had again donned his oil-cloth suit, went back to the wharf, where the crowd, which had considerably enlarged, immediately gathered around him.

He had to tell his story twenty times over, and news of the event spread so rapidly that Shakespeare’s tavern, to the great delight of its honorable proprietors, was soon thronged as on a holiday.

Meanwhile, the coroner at Saint Vincent had made his report, despatched the body to the central morgue at Bellevue Hospital, and had presented himself to Mr. Kelly at the general police office. The fat officer listened to his subaltern without a shadow of emotion, approved what he had done and immediately sent an order to the director of the morgue to photograph the dead woman.

The corpse was afterwards delivered to Dr. O’Neel in order that the autopsy might be made without delay. When this was performed it would be exposed according to the regulations.

Having given these instructions and dismissed the coroner, the honorable Kelly quietly proceeded to his dining-room, where, as usual, he lingered long over his breakfast. Not until three o’clock did he remember the drowned woman, when he took a cab for Bellevue Hospital.

The event having made a great stir through the noon editions of the papers, an immense crowd gathered in the vicinity of the morgue, and was with difficulty kept back by twenty policemen.

The corpse was already exposed, and the impatient crowd were jostling each other in order to satisfy their curiosity by a sight of it.

This was the condition of things when the massive Kelly alighted from his carriage at the door of the Bellevue Hospital.

The body found in the river by the sailors a few hours before occupied the middle of the exhibition hall, hardly a yard away from the glass partition before which the curious filed by. Completely nude, as it was when taken from the water, excepting a leather apron which reached the knees. The corpse was seen to be a woman about twenty-five years old, who must have been remarkably beautiful. With a figure above medium height, of rich but not exaggerated proportions, her shoulders and limbs were admirably modeled. Her hands were small, and her feet not so large as those of a young girl of fifteen. Around her head floated her long fair hair. Her features were but little disfigured. [Pg 63]Her countenance betrayed no painful struggle except, perhaps, around her mouth, the upper lip being slightly contorted. Although her eyes were open, it was difficult to certify to their color, for they were beginning to be glazed, but one could divine that their now sightless pupils had cast many a bewitching glance.

This is what the men said who gazed at it cynically, the majority with more curiosity than pity, and the policemen had some difficulty in making the line of spectators, to whom the drowned woman was unknown, move on.

At the same time, the chief of police had received Doctor O’Neel’s report, and, after casting an indifferent glance at the dead, he returned to his office, where, comfortably ensconced in his large leather arm-chair, he began to examine the work of the legal physician.

The document read as follows:

The body submitted to my examination and of which I have this day, Wednesday, made an autopsy, is that of a woman from twenty-two to twenty-five years old. In spite of its perfect state of preservation it would be impossible for me to say within two or three days how long it has been in the water, for the use which the living must have made of arsenic like a great many American women, with the intention of preserving the freshness of their complexion and the roundness of their forms, retards, as is well known, to a great degree the decomposition of corpses. That which I can attest is that the body is not that of a drowned woman. [Pg 64]Indeed, I have proved that there is no trace of foam in the larynx. The lungs are congested, but they have not increased in volume or density. Now the absence of a frothy mucus in the air passages is an incontestable proof that death is not due to submersion. This woman had ceased to live when she was thrown into the water.

What kind of death did she suffer? This is impossible to state. It was not a case of strangulation nor poisoning. The neck shows no sign of violence, and a chemical analysis of the stomach, liver, and intestines has not so far shown the presence in these organs of any poisonous substance; but it will be necessary to wait several days to obtain absolute certainty on this particular.

No wound, no contusion on the body, excepting above the right knee, where there is a bluish mark of the rope fastening the tar barrel to the body, and which, in the belief of the murderer, would hold his victim at the bottom of the water.

On the contrary it was this barrel of tar, staved in by fermentation or the shock, which caused the body to float sooner than it would otherwise have done.

The woman had a good constitution and no organic affection. She took nice care of herself.

I have observed that among her teeth—which are very beautiful—the second canine on the right is wanting, and that the inferior lobe of her left ear bears the scar of an old wound.

To resume, I think that this woman, surprised in her sleep, must have been overpowered by inhaling some strong narcotic—chloroform or ether. But I have not discovered any natural disturbances in the organs to absolutely confirm my hypothesis. Three or four hours had elapsed between the death of the victim and her last meal.

(Signed) O’Neel,
Head Surgeon at Bellevue Hospital.

[Pg 65]

“Well, well, all this is curious,” murmured Fat Kelly. “When this young woman is recognized, Master Young will put himself in the field; if she is not recognized then, that dear William Dow must take it up.”

Master Young, as the chief of the metropolitan police familiarly called him, was the captain of the detectives. William Dow, whom Kelly so affectionately designated, was a strange and mysterious character.

Less than two years before the time in which this story took place, William Dow was one of the most distinguished, most wealthy, and honorable physicians in Philadelphia; but one day he suddenly left that city to establish himself in New York. There he joined the force of the chief of police, and had gradually become one of his auxiliaries, as a voluntary aid, who showed himself disinterested and very useful.

Several times already he had done wonderful things, quietly, by the means of his sole resources, intelligence, courage, persistency, and energy.

What was the reason of this transformation of a doctor into a policeman? It was a mystery to everyone, even to Mr. Kelly. We may reveal it some day.

Meanwhile let us return to the honorable chief of the metropolitan police of New York, who had rung for his secretary, and had given him the order to send for Captain Young. The latter appeared a few minutes later. He was a tall man, about forty years old, built like a giant, and brave as a lion, but [Pg 66]of moderate intelligence, and as obstinate as a mule. When he was on the wrong track he would stick to it, whatever effort was made to put him on the right one. The administration kept him in his position because he was good at a blow, and no one was more intrepid than he in a hand-to-hand scuffle.

The pickpockets and malefactors in the city and State of New York feared him alone more than all his brigade. When he, at the head of his men, made a raid in the most dangerous quarters of the city, in the midst of an affray or a riot among working-men, there was a general stampede.

But when there was any delicate mission, one of those cases that need working up, finesse, a keen scent and patience, Master Young was stupid; the game would slip through his hands.

He was then delighted to see the intelligent William Dow appear on the scene, of whom he was a little jealous, but whose superiority he had the good sense to recognize.

“Captain,” said Kelly, giving Young the report of the Saint Vincent coroner, “read that and set to work. It is about the drowned woman found near Wharf 32, opposite Shakespeare’s tavern. Have Bright’s establishment watched, and scour all the bad places on the wharf. It is probable that she is some girl whose clothing and jewelry have tempted the assassins.”

“I am going to give orders to my men,” answered the detective, taking the papers.

“Do not forget to station intelligent agents at the morgue and in the vicinity of the hospital.”

[Pg 67]

“That was my intention, sir.”

“It will also be well to put one of your agents on the wharf itself in the costume of a guard. Malefactors can hardly resist the desire to revisit the places of their crime, and, although the woman certainly was not thrown in the water where she was found, it might be that those concerned would be prowling around in that direction. But be sure and keep me informed of the slightest incidents which take place in regard to this affair. If the body is not recognized to-day or to-morrow, there are certain measures I shall think about taking. Go ahead, captain.”

Young gave a military salute and left to execute these orders, while the honorable chief, drawing other documents toward him, set himself to work without thinking any more of the body, past which the crowd, becoming more and more numerous, continued to move in file.

Night came on and the drowned woman had not been recognized, and the doors of the morgue were closed; but the event formed the staple of the evening’s conversation all over the city, and Shakespeare’s tavern was crowded.

The next morning at daybreak more than ten thousand persons thronged around Bellevue Hospital, and at eight o’clock the dreary visiting began again. Suddenly, toward noon, one of the curious crowd cried:

“Why, I recognize her; it is Miss Ada Ricard. Yes, it surely is she.”

“Ada Ricard?” questioned the bystanders.

[Pg 68]

Without giving him time to answer anyone, the agents on watch at the morgue hastened to the man who was the first to speak this name, and drew him to the clerk’s office.

Although somewhat moved, the man was otherwise quite calm, and seemed to have nothing to fear. He was about thirty years old, correctly dressed, and seemed to be a servant in some well-to-do family.

“Do you recognize the dead woman?” asked the clerk, to whom one of the detectives had imparted what had happened.

“Yes, sir,” answered the stranger, “I think so, at least. It seems to me that it is Miss Ada Ricard, who lived at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street.”

“What is your name?”

“Robert Fowl; I was Miss Ada’s coachman once.”

“Then you think you could recall her features?”

“Without doubt.”

“And are you certain that you recognize her?”

“To be absolutely certain I must see her nearer. You can understand how surprised I was.”

“We can understand that. I am going to order the curtains to be drawn down.”

Around the dead in the New York morgue there are heavy curtains of green serge with which the windows are covered; in order that the body may not have to be moved when it is recognized, the officials separate it from the crowd by dropping the curtains.

A few moments later, while the curious spectators, deprived of their view, were entertaining all kinds of [Pg 69]suppositions and murmuring a little, the clerk, the director, and Fowl entered the exhibition-room and approached the corpse.

“Oh! yes; it is really she,” said the coachman, with considerable emotion, leaning over the face of the drowned woman. “Poor creature.”

“It was Miss Ada you said?” asked the clerk.

“Miss Ada Ricard, yes. There is another way by which I can make sure of it; I often remarked when Miss Ada laughed, and she was very lively, that a tooth was wanting on the right side.”

“And this woman lacks a tooth on the right,” affirmed the director of the morgue, pointing to the dead woman’s mouth, whose upper lip, slightly raised, permitted them to attest the fact asserted by Fowl, a fact to which Doctor O’Neel had already certified in his report.

“It is really she, it is really she,” murmured the dead woman’s former servant.

Convinced that the man could not be mistaken the clerk conducted him into his office and, after taking his full name, and the address of the victim, immediately telegraphed the information to Mr. Kelly.

“Ada Ricard!” cried the chief of police, after having read the despatch; “why, it is that girl about whom that fat Saunders wished to interest me a week ago—and they really carried her off.” Calling his secretary he ordered him to invite the honorable cracker-merchant to immediately call at his office.

We already know the effect of this invitation on [Pg 70]the impressionable Yankee, and in what state of fear he gasped out to his coachman as he left Mr. Kelly’s—

“To Bellevue Hospital!”

The chief of police had said to him without any preamble:

“They described to me as Ada Ricard the woman who was drawn out of the river yesterday morning. She is exhibited at the morgue; go and see if it is she. You will not be mistaken, surely.”

The unfortunate Saunders, without daring to utter a word, went as he was bidden.

When he reached the door of the hospital he was frightened at the sight of all the people whom the policemen were driving back; for, since Fowl’s declaration, the curtains of the exhibition-hall had not been raised.

He, however, alighted from his carriage, and when, in a stammering voice, he had told one of the agents the motive that brought him there, the man made a passage for him.

Saunders crossed the public hall rapidly, but when he reached the door of the clerk’s office he felt his legs give way beneath him. If an arm had not supported him just then he would have fallen to the floor. He turned to thank the person who had aided him so opportunely, and just managed to stifle a cry of terror, for there beside him, placing one hand on his shoulder, as if he were a criminal, he recognized the terrible Captain Young.

“Come in, Mr. Saunders; come in,” said the chief of detectives, in his rough voice. He knew [Pg 71]the cracker-merchant by sight, and knew why he had come to the morgue. “That man, perhaps, was mistaken, but you——”

While giving him a faint hope, these three words of Young reminded the unhappy man of the last words addressed to him by Mr. Kelly, with a kind of sinister irony. “You will not be mistaken, surely,” and, with his head hung down, he hurried into the clerk’s office, then from there, followed by the director, Captain Young, and two or three other persons, into the exhibition-hall.

When he reached the threshold of this horrible place, and perceived the motionless body they said belonged to her whom he had so much loved, and with whose death he had reproached himself, he put his hands to his forehead and veiled his eyes, while his feet were riveted to the damp flag-stones.

“Come, be courageous; come on!” said the director of the morgue.

Poor Saunders, summoning all the energy that was left in him, moved forward; but when he found himself face to face with the corpse, he gave an inarticulate cry and fell on his knees, murmuring:

“Ada, my Ada, forgive me! Unhappy man that I am, it was I who killed you,” and he sank fainting to the floor.

“By George,” muttered Captain Young, without attempting to conceal his satisfaction, “we have made a double stroke; we have found the name of the victim and the murderer in the same hour.”

[Pg 72]

Turning to the agents who accompanied him, he added:

“Hello, you two watch over this fat fellow here, and when he recovers take him to the central office. I will go and notify Mr. Kelly.”

The policemen raised Saunders and bore him to the clerk’s office.

“Pardon, my dear captain,” said some one just then to Young, whom the latter had not perceived, “perhaps you are going ahead rather too fast.”

“Why! is that you, Mr. Dow?” answered the chief of detectives. “Why do you think I am going ahead too fast? Did you hear the voluntary and spontaneous confession of this man?”

It was, indeed, William Dow, whom we need not describe to our readers. Having, like every one else, heard about the drowned woman, he was at the morgue through mere curiosity. When he perceived the captain and Saunders as they were entering the clerk’s office, he followed them there, and then into the exhibition-room, where, cool, calm, and observing, as he was always to be found, witnessed the scene we have just described.

“What you call the confession of Miss Ada’s former lover proves nothing. I can hardly believe that that fat man killed her. He is an honorable merchant, and very wealthy, and to arrest him on a suspicion is, perhaps, imprudent.”

“What is to be done, then?” asked the detective, visibly embarrassed.

“Is it my advice you are asking?”

“Certainly.”

[Pg 73]

“Well, if I were in your place, I should take Mr. Saunders home, for he seems to me to be threatened with an attack of apoplexy. If he is not the murderer, he is an important witness. Do not kill him in advance until he has told you all he knows or thinks about this strange event.”

“You are right, Mr. Dow—always right.”

The long-legged Young hurried into the office, where Mr. Saunders was beginning to recover consciousness.

“Ada, poor Ada,” he stammered, looking around him wildly.

Then he added, in a low voice:

“Oh, that colonel, I will kill him! He is the cause of everything. It is not I, gentlemen, it is not I; I loved her too much. Oh, the wretched masks—the Indians!”

“You see he is talking at random,” whispered William Dow to the chief of the detectives, and approaching the merchant, he said to him: “Come, sir, have courage. It is a misfortune, but what can you do about it? A man ought to have more pluck. We must now find the assassin. Return home; the magistrate in charge of the affair will question you when it is time. Do you wish me to accompany you?”

“Yes, sir, yes,” gasped Saunders, making an effort to rise.

William Dow took hold of his arm to support him, and, both leaving the clerk’s office, they passed through the crowd which had already learned the name of the drowned woman, and respectfully [Pg 74]moved aside for the man they took for the father or one of the near relatives of the victim. The detective helped the cracker-merchant to enter his carriage, seated himself near him, and they drove off, while Captain Young jumped into a cab to give an account to Mr. Kelly of what he had just witnessed.

As soon as Captain Young had reported what had passed at the morgue, Mr. Kelly’s first act was to notify the sheriff of the district to meet him at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street, and he set out immediately for this place in company with the detective. The chief of the police wished to see things for himself, and to profit by the occasion that was offered him to visit the house of this Ada Ricard, of whom he had heard so much.

These two gentlemen found on the threshold of the house Sheriff Mortimer waiting for them. In a few words they acquainted him with the situation, then rang the bell. Mary, who answered it at once, could not help a movement of terror at the sight of these three stern-looking men, who were [Pg 75]unknown to her. The sheriff gave his name, and the visitors entered a small reception-room on the ground-floor.

“Who are you?” then asked stout Mr. Kelly, of the young girl, as he sank into a chair.

“The maid of Miss Ada Ricard,” answered Mary, with a certain calmness.

“Well, Miss Ada Ricard, your mistress, is at the morgue; she has been found drowned in the river,” said her questioner, abruptly.

“Miss Ada drowned!” cried the servant; “it is impossible.”

“Why impossible?” resumed Kelly. “Did you know where she was?”

“No, not positively; but I believed her on a voyage, for the day after my mistress was carried away she wrote me that she would be absent a month at least—perhaps more.”

“She has returned sooner, but dead. You say that she wrote you. Where is the letter?”

“I gave it to Mr. Saunders, who came just as I had received it.”

“Did your mistress receive any one else?”

“Never.”

“Did she go out often?”

“Very seldom, and I am certain she had no relatives in the city. She had confidence in me and told me everything.”

“Had you had any news of her after that letter of which you speak?”

“No, sir; and I was perfectly free from anxiety. Miss Ada ordered me to dismiss the servants and [Pg 76]take care of the house until her return. I cannot believe that she is dead.”

“You must go to the morgue to identify her.”

“I am ready to obey your orders, sir.”

“In the first place show us the house; are you alone here?”

“Quite alone.”

Saying this, Mary showed the magistrates into the dining-room; then, while the terrible Young visited the kitchens down-stairs, she ascended the first flight with Kelly and the sheriff.

“Ah! Ah! It is very fine here; there are signs of Saunders’ gifts, he is a lavish fellow,” the sceptical Kelly could not help saying as he crossed the parlors where we conducted our readers in the first chapter of this story.

Let us continue. They passed into the sleeping-room. It was a delightful room, hung in blue satin, embroidered with flowers and birds. The bed was a marvel of costliness and taste; the floor was completely covered by a soft Turkish rug.

“Is that all?” said the chief of police.

“Perhaps the gentlemen would like to see the dressing and bathing-room,” suggested the young girl.

“Dear me,” said Kelly, looking at Mortimer with a peculiar smile.

Mary raised the heavy portiere and introduced the two magistrates into an adjoining room, the sight of which drew an “o-o-oh!” of admiration even from the grave sheriff himself.

It would be impossible, indeed, to dream of anything [Pg 77]more dainty than this room, for Ada Ricard had made it a real boudoir. The smallest articles of the toilet were objects of art, as well as Venetian mirrors and the small Bohemian glass lamps which hung from a ceiling draped with rare Japanese material. As for the bath-room, which communicated with the dressing-room, it was of white marble and silver. This room alone must have cost a large sum. It was there that Captain Young rejoined the two officers.

After searching the basement, the chief of detectives had visited the upper story, where were the linen closets and servants’ rooms, and he stated that he found no one there or in the kitchens, and that everything was in order.

The house, indeed, had no appearance of being abandoned. It looked like one whose mistress was soon to return. When one thought that its mistress was lying on the slabs in the morgue, it sent a chill to the heart.

Kelly’s besetting sin was not sensibility. The delight of this wealth awoke in his mind but one thought, “Who will be the heir of all this?” and it naturally led him to say to Mary: “Where are the jewels of your mistress?”

“Those which madam did not wear on the day of her departure,” she answered, “are in a little scarlet chest in the wardrobe of her sleeping-room. Miss Ada, no doubt, has the key about her, for I have not found it in looking over things, and her bank notes and money must be in that same chest. There were only twenty dollars in gold on her dressing [Pg 78]table, of which I made use to settle the servants’ accounts. The remainder of the sum is up in my room.”

“Are you acquainted with Miss Ada’s family?”

“No, sir. I know that my mistress had been married, but I do not know the name of her husband. He lived, I think, in Buffalo. She never spoke of any relatives.”

“They must be found, however, for now everything here belongs to them.”

“Oh, they will present themselves fast enough if it is found that madam is really dead.”

“You soon will cease to doubt.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you are going to the morgue to identify the body. Captain Young will accompany you, and escort you afterwards to the judge to make your statement. After which you will return to pack up your clothing and receive my orders.”

“Very well, sir.”

Greatly impressed, either by the mere fact of the terrible news which she had just heard, or by the manner in which the big, surly man had talked to her, Mary went up to her room accompanied by the terrible Young, who did not say a word, but disturbed her by looking at her in a manner he fancied searching, and grumbling disconnected sentences. On reaching her room, the young lady hastily put on her hat and threw a cloak over her shoulders, and then rejoined the magistrates in the large parlor on the first floor. Mr. Mortimer was making an entry in his note-book.

[Pg 79]

“In the first place,” said Mr. Kelly to the maid, “lock up the furniture, and give the keys to the sheriff.”

Still accompanied by the giant detective, Mary went over the silent house again, from basement to attic, and a moment later returned and handed a bunch of keys to Mortimer.

“Now,” said the chief, “we can leave.”

They all four descended the steps, and when they had reached the street, the sheriff locked the doors of the house; then after calling a policeman from the sidewalk opposite, bade him watch the house, and went away with Kelly. As for Captain Young, after stopping a carriage passing, he entered it with the maid, shouting to the driver in a stentorian voice: “To the central morgue, Bellevue Hospital.”

A quarter of an hour later they arrived. Night was coming on; and the exhibition-hall was somewhat dark when Mary entered it with Young and the clerk. At the sight of the corpse the girl, already excited, began to tremble, and the detective had to support her.

“Come,” he said rudely, “come and look at it.”

“But I can’t see a thing, sir,” she murmured.

The director of the morgue had foreseen this, and beckoned to one of the workmen who had a lantern, and turned its light upon the face of the dead woman. It stood out in the glare of light, while the body remained somewhat in shadow, and was horrible to see; not that it was disfigured, but because of the optical conditions in which it appeared.

Mary, whom the captain, still holding by the [Pg 80]arm, had led up to touch the corpse, uttered a cry of terror.

“Well,” said the pitiless guide, “let’s get through with it. It is really your mistress, isn’t it?”

The young girl, fortifying herself with all the courage she possessed, resolved to look straight at the corpse, and immediately answered:

“No, no; that woman is not Miss Ada.”

“What!” cried the clerk and Young at the same moment, in a tone of amazement impossible to convey. “Not Miss Ada? Why, her former coachman recognized her at once.”

“But I don’t recognize her,” said Mary with certain positiveness. “This woman resembles her very much, but I don’t think it is she. At least I could not declare it is. Yet, it is strange; but, oh! dear, I am afraid, gentlemen; do let me go away.”

“We must have a positive answer,” said the captain. “Devil take you, do try. Take one good look at her.”

“I cannot, my mind, my eyes are confused, my head swims, take me away,” stammered the young girl turning aside her head.

On saying these words she had, indeed, become pale, and had it not been for the aid of the detective would have fallen to the ground.

Finding that they could accomplish nothing further for the moment, at least, they led her to the clerk’s room. There she became calmer, and in a few moments was able to enter the carriage with Captain Young, who took her to the sheriff’s.

[Pg 81]

The maid, who had recovered her composure, declared to this magistrate that she had not positively recognized her mistress in the drowned woman, but that her emotion, it was true, had not enabled her to look with sufficient attention. Mr. Mortimer made her sign an official report to this effect, and they then returned to poor Ada’s house, from which the young girl took away her belongings.

By agreement with the coroner, while waiting until the worthy sheriff had appointed a watch over the house, in which it had been decided that Mary should be included, that she might recognize persons who might appear, she was required to live in a house in the neighborhood and hold herself at the orders of the justices.

These formalities arranged, and Mary being established at Washington Hotel, Mr. Mortimer hastened to the chief of police to tell him how things had gone on at the morgue.

“Oh!” said Kelly, “the affair is becoming complicated. That foolish girl was frightened, no doubt, but we shall soon know what to do. I have given orders to have all Ada Ricard’s former servants appear at the morgue the first thing to-morrow morning.”

This measure, which would usually necessitate long and difficult search, was executed in New York with great ease and despatch, by reason of the intelligent method which the American police employ to keep the whole body of household servants within call.

[Pg 82]

Every servant, to whatever class he belongs, receives a dollar when he goes to the coroner in his district and states that he is to enter into service at such or such a house, and they also give him one dollar when he changes his place and gives the address of the new house he is to enter.

In circumstances like those which arose from the violent death of Ada Ricard, the police and magistrate thus know where to find at once people whose information might be of importance.

Mr. Kelly, therefore, was almost certain that the majority of the former servants of the dead woman would come to Bellevue Hospital the next day; and as Doctor O’Neel had informed him that, under the influence of the air and the place in which it was exposed, the body would rapidly decompose, he had engaged Albert Moor, the skilful modeler of the Anatomical Museum of the School of Medicine, to come to the hospital.

As for the unhappy Saunders, whom we left at the close of the preceding chapter, after leaving the house with William Dow, he returned home in a state of complete prostration.

His physician, whom they called at once, feared congestion of the brain, and he forbade visitors. In spite of this order, toward eight o’clock a man disregarded it, and entered the sleeping room where the unfortunate cracker-merchant, lying exhausted in an arm-chair, with his lower lip hanging down, and his eyes suffused, murmured as he gazed at a photograph:

“Poor Ada! poor Ada! Why did I not jump [Pg 83]into the water to save you?” The man who entered was Robertson, Jr.

Saunders barely recognized him, but his visitor none the less said to him, trying to make himself understood:

“It is a great misfortune, dear sir, and you must form some plan. But, you know, communications which we make to our clients are absolutely confidential, and the steps we take in their interest must remain secret. I have not the honor of being acquainted with you. I have never had the pleasure of seeing you, or of taking a walk with you. What the police may seek, find or not find, is their affair, not ours.”

“Ah, yes; down there at Staten Island, at night,” gasped Saunders.

“I do not know what you mean,” quietly remarked the young head of the house of Robertson Brothers & Co.

Saunders looked at him with the eye of an idiot, made a visible effort to answer him, but his face sank heavily in his hands, and he repeated: “Poor Ada, poor Ada!”

Mr. Robertson shrugged his shoulders and left. His lips formed into a smile of satisfaction, for, in his opinion, the former protector of the drowned woman had not had a gleam of reason in his brain for twenty-four hours.

Meanwhile the intrepid Young scattered his agents all along the wharves, and ransacked the innumerable dens from Shakespeare’s tavern to Harlem, but in vain, finding no sign of any useful information.

The next day, before noon, the majority of the former servants of Miss Ada had presented themselves at the morgue, and all, unhesitatingly, with the exception of two or three, had recognized the unfortunate woman. The girl July, whose place Mary had taken at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street, furnished some information, which, of itself alone, would have sufficed to dispel all doubts, if any had remained after these successive affirmations.

July remembered having seen, as she dressed her mistress’ hair, that her left ear was torn. Now, this wound had not escaped the eye of Dr. O’Neel, and he specified it in his report of the autopsy.

The drowned woman was really Miss Ada Ricard. This was the first indisputable point made at the inquest, of which Coroner Davis took charge.

Therefore, it was not necessary to study any further into the identity of the victim, but to seek her murderer.

First of all, it was necessary to proceed to burial, but not without taking an absolutely faithful image of the corpse, in order to reserve the possibility of any other recognition, or of even confronting it with [Pg 85]the murderer, should he be discovered. It was for this end that the chief of police had made an appointment with Albert Moor, the sculptor.

The woman had been photographed, and the likenesses had been reproduced and distributed in great number; but Mr. Kelly required even more.

Albert Moor had been at the morgue a long while when Mr. Kelly arrived, who explained to him that he wished a cast of the woman’s head. The artist, who had examined the corpse, found that the work could not be deferred until the next day, and promised to do it at once.

Being sure that his instructions would be faithfully followed, the chief of police ordered the manager of the morgue to transport the body into the autopsy-room, and to keep it at the disposal of the sculptor; then he returned to the central office to arrange with the sheriff and coroner about the rewards for those who had given important information in the cause of justice.

Mr. Kelly, as a chief of police and a lawyer, did not hesitate to make known to the public, by posters and through the press, that a reward of one hundred dollars would be given to any one who would furnish exact information in regard to the particulars of the crime, and that whoever would arrest or deliver up the assassin would receive one thousand dollars.

The intelligent officer was ready to double or triple the sum if, after waiting a while, he obtained no result. Having done this, and feeling convinced that, like Titus, he had employed his day well, the [Pg 86]honorable chief of the metropolitan police seated himself at his dinner-table in a cheerful mood, and afterwards went to his club.

At the same hour, Albert Moor and his guide reached the morgue, provided with all the apparatus necessary for their work. The manager of the establishment escorted them to the autopsy-room, where, after one of the workmen had lighted the gas, for it had become dark, he left them alone.

According to orders, the drowned woman had been removed from her stone bed to one of the large metal tables used for authorized medical operations. Her face and features were in a good state of preservation, but, from her chest down, there was a horrible gash, for the surgeon who had examined the body to discover the causes of death, had but partially drawn the flesh together, and here and there were dark streaks upon it.

The flesh on the upper portion of the form was still firm; the shoulders were like marble, and the abundant hair so completely hid the opening in the skull that the luxuriant beauty, being thus preserved, strikingly recalled Miss Ada as she was in life. The limbs still retained their perfect shape.

After examining his subject for a moment with the real curiosity of the artist, Albert Moor prepared for his work. He first slipped a cushion under the head, that it might be slightly raised, pushed back the hair and secured it in a piece of cloth, then washed the face and neck as carefully as this operation is performed by the people of the extreme East. Having done this, by the aid of a large brush he [Pg 87]moistened those parts of the body with an oily liquid, intended to prevent the adhesion of the plaster, and from the top of the head to the chin, and in various other directions, extended cords, which enabled him to divide the cast, before it had stiffened, into as many parts as he thought necessary, for the perfect execution of his work.

While he was making these preparations his assistant was tempering, in a large wooden bowl, a plaster fine as starch.

The sculptor first covered the face and all the parts of which he wished to take a cast, then he thickened the layer with successive layers, under which the outlines of the form slowly disappeared.

He had reached this point in his work when he heard some one softly open the door. Thinking it was the director of the morgue, whom curiosity had drawn thither, and being absorbed in his work, he did not turn round; but he could not check a movement of surprise when he saw at the head of the dead woman a face unknown to him.

How did this stranger introduce himself into this gloomy place, to which admission was forbidden?

He immediately had the key to this riddle, for the newcomer, bowing, gave his name.

It was William Dow.

Now, although the sculptor did not know the celebrated detective by sight, he knew him perfectly by name, for in a previous criminal affair, for several months no one was so much talked of as this retired doctor.

Thanks to him, the police of New York had [Pg 88]finally put their hands on a band of counterfeiters who, for more than two years, had boldly drawn from the coffers of the government.

Although he did not understand the motive of this nightly visit, the operator returned William Dow’s greeting with an expression in his face which told how flattered he was to find himself with a man for whom he professed real admiration. Both, in their way, were artists.

“You know, sir,” said the detective, “how curious I am about all that in any way concerns the discovery of a crime; you therefore will not be astonished at my presuming to come here. You are doing a great service to the cause of justice, and I wish to see for myself how you perform this delicate operation.”

The sculptor willingly explained to his visitor what he had already done, and after assuring himself that the plastic was in the necessary state of cohesion, he took the end of the cord extending the length of the face, and, raising it skilfully, cut the mask in two. He did the same with the other cords arranged in various directions, saying:

“Now, I must wait until the plaster takes the form sufficiently, then I remove each of these parts which, united, will give me a cast into which it only remains for me to pour the material of which I am to make the bust. If I wish to have anything more finished, absolutely perfect, I go over the bust again with the chisel to correct imperfections, and use it for a second cast, from which is obtained a work of art which needs only finishing touches.”

[Pg 89]

“That is very ingenious, sir,” said William Dow, “but when I examine this body, I truly regret that you have taken a cast only of the upper part. Do you not think that it is one of the most beautiful models for sculpture that could be found?”

“It is, indeed, admirable in its shape and proportions.”

“Why, then, did you not take an entire cast?”

“Mr. Kelly asked me only for the head. To do more would be considerable labor, and very difficult besides, for Doctor O’Neel, who made the autopsy of the unfortunate woman, left the body open. After filling in the vacuum caused by the removing of the viscera, and which occasions the alteration in the flesh, it would be necessary to draw together the separated parts in order to have a model without solutions of continuity. Don’t you see?” Saying which, Albert Moor removed the cloth from the body that William Dow might judge of the state of things for himself.

“It is true,” answered the detective, examining with the coolness of a practitioner the open body; “but it does not seem to me impossible to remedy this obstacle. I have some surgical knowledge, and I think I could myself put this body in a suitable condition. Give me five minutes to go to the doctor on duty at Bellevue Hospital to obtain the necessary instruments, and, if you then think the thing possible, I shall beg you to do it, and charge your own price for the entire cast of this woman. I think, in the interest of art, it would be a useful work.”

[Pg 90]

“I think so, too, sir,” said the sculptor, delighted to have an opportunity to earn a large sum. “My plaster is sufficiently dry; during your absence I shall take it off. We can then do the whole body.”

William Dow left. He was, no doubt, well known in the establishment, for in a few moments he returned to the autopsy-room in company with a hospital nurse, who brought all the articles needed for the peculiar operation about to be performed.

Albert Moor had disengaged the head from its covering, and the face now appeared of a yellow ivory hue. The moulding had succeeded perfectly.

The detective began his work at once. After filling in the cavities of the stomach and bowels with oakum saturated with an aromatic solution and corrosive sublimate, in order to retard decomposition, he drew the sides of the opening together, and united them so skilfully that the body soon took its natural form. He did the same with the other solutions of continuity which Doctor O’Neel had made in the throat and the top of the cranium, to find proofs that the poor woman had not been asphyxiated by submersion, and that she had not succumbed to an attack of apoplexy. Then he arranged the rich mass of hair with such art that the head did not show the least sign of the autopsy.

It was really a moving, peculiar spectacle of which this silent little room was the scene in the still hours of the night.

“Is that all right?” asked William Dow, when he had finished his horrible task.

[Pg 91]

“Perfectly, sir,” answered Albert Moor, and then setting to work himself, the sculptor prepared the body as he had done the head.

The detective watched him attentively. In less than an hour, all was done. The corpse was lost to sight beneath a thick coating of plaster, which after removing cords was divided into twenty fragments. It looked like a block of snow.

“In the morning,” said the artist, “I will take off my mould; we can then decide on what is to be done with it, as you think best.”

“We will come to an understanding about that. Meanwhile I must thank and compliment you on the skill with which you have performed this difficult work.”

While they were exchanging these words they had made their preparations for departure; but Albert Moor did not wish to leave until he had told the watchman at the morgue not to touch or let anyone touch the cast before his return.

As for William Dow, before leaving the autopsy-room, his intelligent eyes gazed long and thoughtfully at the inert mass, and he murmured:

“Who knows if this will not be more than a work of art, and if this woman of stone will not accuse herself some day.”

Mr. Davis, the coroner charged with this mysterious affair, was an intelligent, laborious man; but, like all his colleagues in the American magistracy, he had so often encountered the difficulties with which judicial inquests are armed in the Northern States, that he hardly hoped to obtain a prompt result.

A fortnight later the inquest had made great progress, owing to the reward of one hundred dollars promised to each person who should furnish useful information in the cause of justice.

Toby naturally presented himself to declare that the barrel of tar fastened to the leg of the drowned woman was the one stolen from him on the night of the ball, at two or three o’clock in the morning. He was certain of it, for it was at that very moment that he left his post as watch on Wharf 43 to go and warm himself in Anchor tavern. This inn was on the wharf, seven or eight hundred yards above Shakespeare’s tavern, going up toward Yorkville.

After Toby came Thompson, the keeper of the livery stable, and his driver, Tom Katters; but the [Pg 93]latter could only tell the magistrate of his traveling in company with three Indians and a woman as far as the first houses in Yorkville.

Beyond this stopping-place the legal officers lost all traces of the unhappy Miss Ada and her kidnappers.

Captain Young and his skilful agents searched in vain all the taverns, lodging-houses, dens, and suspicious places from the borders of the river to Yorkville, and discovered nothing which could throw light upon the matter.

This campaign served only to accomplish the arrest of a hundred offenders against the law—people important to capture, but absolutely innocent of the crime which excited public opinion in the highest degree.

Mary, on being questioned several times, invariably told the same story of the kidnapping, which she had witnessed, as had all Miss Ada’s guests. The servants affirmed—and there was no reason to suppose that she lied—that she, like every one else, had taken the scene for a carnival joke.

Mary took care not to speak Colonel Forster’s name, whom she evidently suspected as she had told Mr. Saunders, for she feared to compromise herself, and be accused of being an accomplice. Besides it might be that her silence was caused by her thinking it impossible that the brilliant officer could have had any part in the crime of which her mistress had been a victim, admitting that the drowned woman really was, whatever she had said, the unhappy Miss Ada. Moreover, when the coroner [Pg 94]had proposed to her to return to the morgue to again examine the body, the young girl began to tremble and weep, and said that probably she was mistaken, but that not for any amount of money could she have the courage to confront such a spectacle a second time.

Mr. Davis, therefore, had to resign himself to go no farther with the maid; but, without her suspecting it, he placed her under a constant surveillance.

However, the examination of this girl had not been useless, for to her Mr. Davis owed the enumeration and detailed description of the jewels which Miss Ada had on the day when she was carried off.

Mary, in giving this information of utmost importance, showed so good a memory and so much intelligence, that the coroner could have each of these jewels estimated, drawn, and photographed—they easily found those who had sold them—so that the principal jewelers in America and Europe could be notified.

The assassin, it is true, could change the setting of the necklaces, bracelets, and rings; but the coroner counted much on the ear-rings of the victim, for the discovery of the murderer. He knew that these diamonds were solitaires, valued at ten thousand dollars. Now, it is difficult to get rid of stones of this cut without awaking suspicion, even in America.

What baffled the honorable magistrate was that Miss Ada had been taken beyond the wharf from which the barrel of tar had been stolen.

[Pg 95]

Now, as the report of Doctor O’Neel demonstrated that the victim had ceased to live before being thrown into the water, he concluded that the murderer had retraced his steps with the corpse, and, that, not being provided with a rock to sink the body he took the first object he could lay hands on.

This first deduction naturally led the coroner to a second—that the assassin had been able to descend only by water from the place where Tom Katters had parted from him—Miss Ada being still living, since the coachman had heard the man who brought her talking to her—to Wharf 43, from which the barrel had been taken.

Mr. Davis thus succeeded in establishing this first point: On leaving the carriage, the unknown had embarked with the young woman, had choked, poisoned, or asphyxiated her by means of a poison or narcotic impossible to state what, and had afterward thrown her into the river.

The lieutenant of the Liberia had come to make the intelligent magistrate the declaration which he had previously made to the Robertson agency, that on Tuesday or Wednesday night, the night of the kidnapping, he came near running down a boat in which were an Indian and a woman—a boat going towards Williamsburg—and that this woman had uttered a cry of fear; but this only made it supposable that the crime had been committed on the other side of the river, for all these shores receiving tides, the body might have been as easily carried out by the waves as to have descended from the top of the river with the current.

[Pg 96]

On the opposite shore, at Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Brooklyn, the search had not produced any better results than at Yorkville.

None of the men of the Firefly, not even those of the boat we saw skirting Staten Island, came to the aid of the police. In the first place, the crew of the yacht were absolutely ignorant of the aim of the excursion which we have described, and, moreover, although the sailors of the boat knew that they had run into a yawl, they knew no more.

In their natural haste to save themselves they were no more anxious about those who had made them run so great a danger than about the stout man, who, no doubt, as an apology for the cold bath he had made them take, had given them each one hundred dollars.

As for Saunders, it was impossible to obtain anything, whatever, from him. Two or three times Mr. Davis had gone to his house, and had questioned him as shrewdly as possible; but the unhappy man, at the mere name of Miss Ada, rolled his haggard eyes wildly, muttered incoherently, accused himself of her death, asked her forgiveness, burst into sobs, then offered ten thousand dollars to anyone who would discover her murderer.

He talked at random, with such good results, that the coroner, agreeing with Mr. Kelly and Mr. Mortimer, gave up tormenting him, and this in spite of Captain Young, who swore at them, and remembering the recognition he had witnessed at the morgue, bet one thousand dollars against two hundred dollars that the wealthy merchant was the murderer.

[Pg 97]

There was only one call which Mr. Saunders received without terror—that of William Dow. He remembered that the latter had offered him his arm to lead him from Bellevue Hospital, and in his presence he wandered a little less.

So the gentlemanly detective went to see him from time to time, under the pretext of inquiring about his health.

Mr. Robertson, Jr., who followed the progress of this search with interest, as will be understood, reasoned quite differently from Mr. Davis, and it must be acknowledged that his deductions, considering the facts within his personal knowledge, were no less honorable than those of the magistrate.

According to the intelligent agent, Miss Ada was accidentally drowned on the shore of Staten Island. Her body, borne off by the current, did not come to the surface until out to sea, where some fisherman may have drawn it up in his nets, and, tempted by the precious jewels that the young woman wore, the man had completely robbed her, then thrown her into the water, after fastening to her leg a tar barrel, whose presence in his fishing-boat was very natural. This tar barrel might be that which had been stolen from Toby, or the fisherman might have stolen it himself a few days before, or some one might have sold it to him; but it might also simply be a barrel bearing the same mark as those stored on Wharf 43, and not the particular one that had disappeared from that wharf.

It will be seen that Davis and Robertson, while starting from a different point, reached the same [Pg 98]result—the certifying the identity of the body of the drowned.

The coroner also had taken every measure to learn the past of Ada Ricard, and by some brief information collected in New York, and made more complete by former servants of the young woman and by the friends of her first lover, Thomas Cornhill, he had been able to go as far back as her marriage with James Gobson, which took place at Buffalo, but, as we know, only to be broken at the end of a year by the divorce courts.

The documents relative to this case described the brutality of Gobson toward his wife; and, when he learned that this man—who had disappeared for more than six months—had been seen at Jefferson, forty-eight hours distant from New York, a few days before the crime, Mr. Davis no longer doubted that he was the guilty man.

It was equally the opinion of William Dow, contrary to all the reasonings of the terrible Captain Young.

Now it only remained to arrest James Gobson; but this was not easy, for it was very evident that the murderer, having committed the crime and taken possession of the jewels, had made all despatch to put all possible distance between him and the law.

Now, unfortunately, they had only one of those imperfect clews which serve no end, and no photograph, whatever.

William Dow, who had gone to Buffalo, had brought back nothing interesting in regard to the [Pg 99]antecedents of the unfortunate Ada, as no one had been able to give any information.

Gobson, who, when he lived at Buffalo, was often absent on business, had one day returned from the West with her whom he had made his wife, and as this union with a girl whose past and family he did not know, had separated the merchant from his relatives as well as the majority of his friends, it became almost impossible to find out about Miss Ada before the time of her marriage.

Was the name of Ricard, which she had taken or resumed on arriving in New York, her own? Mr. Davis would not have ventured to affirm it, and Mr. Dow doubted it.

Matters, as we see, were progressing slowly, and the mystery seemed to become more impenetrable every day.

Albert Moor was the only one who had brought his work to a successful end. In a fortnight after his night at the morgue with William Dow he had delivered to Mr. Kelly a head in wax, which in the opinion of all who had known Ada Ricard was her striking image.

This head had been placed, according to regulations, in a glass case outside the exhibition-room, in the large public hall, and every day attracted considerable of a crowd.

It was to remain there until the matter was settled, in some way or another, to be afterwards placed in the museum of curiosities at Bellevue Hospital, where they keep the heads of murderers and those of their victims.

A month had already passed without the inquest having advanced a step, and the irascible Kelly, much disturbed by public opinion which was against his course, was tempted to doubt even the skill of William Dow, when, one morning as he was talking with the latter, an office boy brought a card on which was a name which gave him a start.

The name was James Gobson, from Buffalo.

“We have been mistaken,” he cried, passing the card to the detective.

The latter read it, and immediately answered with his shrewd smile:

“Oh! that proves nothing; or, at least not much of anything.”

“Let him come in,” said the officer, and in a few seconds the visitor was admitted.

He was a tall man, about forty years old, tolerably good looking, wearing his beard in the American style, without a mustache, and seeming by no means embarrassed.

[Pg 101]

“Is this card yours?” asked Mr. Kelly, brusquely; for he did not possess those qualities necessary to his situation—coolness and self-control.

“It is mine,” answered the stranger with much assurance. “I read three days ago at St. Louis, where I happened to be on business, that a woman named Ada Ricard had been found drowned. Now the woman from whom I have been divorced bore that name, and I at once took the train to come on here, and here I am, ready to give you my aid, if I can be useful to you in discovering the assassin.”

“What makes you suppose the woman was assassinated?”

“All the accounts in the newspapers so stated. They relate that when she was taken from the river she was completely nude, and that a barrel of tar was fastened to one leg. Her death, therefore, cannot be a suicide.”

“Have you been to see her head at the morgue?”

“No, sir; I thought that my first duty was to come to you.”

“But you, at least, have a photograph of the dead. They are circulated everywhere.”

“I heard of this event on the very morning of my arrival at St. Louis, and none of these likenesses came under my eye.”

“Where had you come from?”

“From a long trip to the Rocky Mountains, where I had gone to visit the mines.”

“I think, then, that the first thing to be done is for you to go to the morgue.”

“I will go there immediately.”

[Pg 102]

“With me, if you will?”

“I have told you, sir, that I am at your orders.”

Mr. Kelly had rung the bell and said a few words in a low voice to the secretary, who had quickly come at the call.

Almost immediately two agents presented themselves in the office of their chief.

James Gobson did not betray any astonishment at the arrival of this reinforcement. His coolness was that of a man perfectly sure of himself.

“Let us start, sir,” said the chief of police, rising and slipping in his pocket the revolver, which was always within reach on his desk.

William Dow, who had not taken his eyes off of the former husband of Ada Ricard, also arose.

“All ready, sir,” answered the stranger, putting on his hat.

All three went down stairs, followed by the agents, and found in the yard of the central office two carriages harnessed, and the drivers on the boxes.

Kelly, William Dow and James Gobson entered one, and the policemen the other.

The chief of police advised the latter not to lose sight of Gobson for a single instant, and he sent one of his secretaries to Mr. Davis to beg him to immediately repair to the morgue.

In less than a quarter of an hour the party alighted at Bellevue Hospital.

Mr. Kelly pointing out the way to his companions proceeded to the clerk’s office without passing the public gallery, where curious lookers-on were numerous, [Pg 103]and he ordered the officer to dismiss the crowd and close the doors. A few moments later, there was no one left in the place where the head of the drowned was exhibited.

“Come,” said the officer to Mr. Gobson, when the clerk informed him that the gallery was empty.

Without the least hesitation James Gobson kept pace with his escort, and, followed by William Dow and the two agents, arrived at the glass window.

At the sight of this wax face of the most admirable execution and truly life-like beauty, the American wore an expression which William Dow, who was watching him attentively, was not ready to interpret, and then Mr. Gobson turned at once to Mr. Kelly and said with the greatest calmness:

“It is really extraordinary, sir; I did not think such a resemblance was possible.”

“Then, you recognize Miss Ada?” asked the chief of police, indignant, in spite of his scepticism, at seeing the almost smiling face this man wore in presence of this cast of the head of her who had been his wife.

“No, not at all, not at all,” answered James Gobson, quickly; “you hardly understand me. Here are the features, and even the expression of her who bore my name; but the unhappy woman of whom this cast has been made was not Miss Ada.”

The tone in which he said this would have made one think that he really regretted that it was not Mrs. Gobson.

“What! not Miss Ada? Take a good look,” resumed Mr. Kelly. “Through her parted lips you [Pg 104]can see that a tooth is missing, and that there is a cut on the left ear. Now, the two servants who were successively employed by your wife—”

“Pardon, my former wife.”

“Very well, your former wife; the two servants who were successively employed by her, perfectly recalled these two details so decisive in the certifying of the identity.”

“Did they both recognize Miss Ada?”

“Certainly they did.”

Mr. Kelly did not state the exact truth, since Mary, it will be remembered, had at first denied that her mistress was the drowned woman, and that she afterwards, hesitatingly, admitted her identity that she might not be forced to re-visit the morgue. But the magistrate thought a little fib like that of no consequence.

“Well,” said James Gobson, at the “certainly” of the impetuous officer, “I do not recognize her.”

Annoyed, and hardly knowing what to do, the chief of police looked at William Dow. Ada Ricard’s former husband caught the questioning look, and immediately resumed:

“Please understand, sir, that it is for my interest to hold your opinion.”

“How so?” said Kelly, surprised anew.

“Simply because between this former wife of mine and myself there was an insurance contract which the divorce court could not break, and this contract was made in favor of the survivor. If you absolutely insist that this unhappy victim whose head I see here was Mrs. Gobson I should be very [Pg 105]foolish to deny it any longer, for with the certificate of death which you have made out, and of which you will not refuse me a copy, I shall have only to present myself at the Gresham Company to immediately receive twenty thousand dollars.”

While the widower, no matter how he felt, was thus expressing himself with the most perfect coolness and with a smile on his lips, Mr. Davis had entered the gallery and had joined the spectators of this strange scene.

“I think,” said William Dow, speaking to both the chief of police and the coroner, “that the most simple thing to be done is to draw up an official report of the declaration which you have just heard, and deliver to him the certificate which he asks for. The death certificate must be at the morgue.”

The detective, as he made this proposition, gave Mr. Kelly and Davis a look which they understood, for they immediately followed him into the directors’ office, but having first signed to the two policemen to look after James Gobson.

The latter, at the firm, grave voice of this man, whom he had not observed until then, could not conceal a slight shudder.

It seemed as if he had a presentiment of an adversary, for he turned quickly toward the man who had made a proposition so in conformance with his expressed wish, but he had already disappeared. However, after the departure of the magistrates and their companion, he began to walk up and down, with the evident intention of warming himself, the place was so damp and chilly.

[Pg 106]

Outside was heard the crowd, which, having become quite large, was breaking into noisy complaint at having so long been deprived of the spectacle to which it had a right, and people were entertaining all kinds of suppositions as to the cause of locking the doors of the morgue.

After crossing the clerk’s office, William Dow led Mr. Kelly and Davis into the directors’ private office, who were absent at that moment. When there alone with them, he said:

“This man is Miss Ada’s murderer, I am convinced.”

“It is quite possible,” answered Kelly. “I have a bad opinion of him. What do you think, my dear Mr. Davis?”

“You know,” said the coroner, “that I have always thought Miss Ada’s husband guilty. But the voluntary appearance of the man, and what I have just heard trouble my conscience somewhat. I do not dare to give an opinion.”

“Follow me a moment in what I have to say,” resumed the detective, “and without entering upon any hypothesis, let us reason only on what we have seen and heard.”

The worthy Kelly, who liked nothing as much as to listen to his friend Dow, and who, besides, asked nothing better than to be rid of the whole affair, sank back in an arm-chair and crossed his arms; and the coroner signified that he was ready to listen.

“Here is a person,” resumed the retired doctor, “who pretends that he did not hear of the violent [Pg 107]death of this woman whose husband he was, until he reached St. Louis three days ago, and in that city where her photographs are on exhibition everywhere, he did not seek to assure himself, by examining one of them, that it really was his wife. Then, this man who through the same papers in which he read the event certainly was aware of the suspicions of which he was the object, and the reward promised for his arrest, this man arrives here, affects to know nothing of the fact, which, however, so directly affects him, and instead of hastening to the morgue where he knows that the head is exhibited, he does not concern himself an instant about the identity of the victim, but goes straight to the police. Does not this conduct betray in the most evident manner a system adopted in advance, and matured after deep reflection, a system one basis of which is the non-recognition of the drowned woman, which has just been observed?”

“Eh! eh!” murmured Mr. Kelly, with a smile, “that is very well reasoned.”

“Gobson, in your presence, is calm, and a perfect master of himself,” continued William Dow, “and when you ask him how it happens that he has known this event for so short a time he answers you that he comes from the Rocky Mountains, where he has been several months. Now, Mr. Davis knows that a few days before the crime, hardly six weeks ago, James Gobson was met at Jefferson, in Missouri; why then does he tell this lie?”

“It is true,” said the coroner, in his turn; “there [Pg 108]is a contradiction about it which is indeed of a nature to arouse suspicion.”

“That is not all. When, just now, after he said that he did not recognize Miss Ada, you insisted on this point, that she was recognized by the two maids, Gobson committed the imprudence of addressing you this question: ‘Both of them, do you say, both of them recognized Miss Ada.’ Why should he have this doubt in regard to both recognitions? One of them, then, astonished him, which one? Mary’s, of course, who, in fact, refused to recognize her former mistress, whose features were, however, fresh in her memory. Does not this coincidence strike you? Do you not see in it the beginning of a proof of an understanding between these two persons?”

“That is indisputable,” said Kelly, radiant.

“That is very possible,” confessed Mr. Davis, more prudently.

“Gobson tells you, it is true, that it would be for his interest to recognize Miss Ada, since her death would give him twenty thousand dollars, but he has this moment a much greater anxiety than gaining that sum—that of escaping accusation, and this kind of disinterestedness is one of the weapons he proposes to use. In the first place the theft of the jewels of his victim is a compensation for abandoning the twenty thousand dollars; moreover, he hopes, no doubt, that this money will not be lost to him, for, in the matter of a contract of life insurance, the forfeiture having a long term, he reserves for himself certainly the chance to maintain [Pg 109]his rights, when, either through prescription, the uselessness of the inquest, or by acquittal, for he has foreseen all, he will be safe from pursuit as a criminal, therefore to recognize his wife was more dangerous from every point of view than not to recognize her.”

“Very just, very just,” observed the chief of police; “but why has that fool come to give himself up?”

“My dear Mr. Kelly,” answered Dow, “because he is a bold and skilful man. What is passing between us is a reason for it. Even yesterday Mr. Davis and you did not suspect his culpability, while now, just because he has come to you, you hesitate to believe it. Did he not fear being arrested some day? In order to boldly dispose of the stolen jewels at a later period, in order to get the premium on his insurance policy, should he not first be free from the hands of the law. He plays a shrewd game who comes forward to meet danger. I do not know whether we shall succeed in convicting him, but my reason and conscience tell me that he is the assassin, or at least the accomplice of assassins.”

“Apropos of accomplices,” interrupted Mr. Kelly, “how happens it that, in spite of the reward offered, a reward that I have raised to two thousand dollars, the two men who aided in carrying off Miss Ada have not presented themselves? Knowing, thanks to the declaration of the driver, that they left the carriage before it reached its destination and, consequently, that they are not accomplices [Pg 110]of the assassination, I have re-advertised through the papers that they had no pursuit to fear.”

“The silence of these two men,” answered the detective, “may be caused by two very different motives. In the first place it would not be impossible that these aids were accomplices in the crime in the complete acceptation of the word; that is, that they met Miss Ada and her kidnapper after the departure of the carriage, to receive their share of the jewels. It will be readily understood that they cared little for your reward. Then, it may also be, and this idea was suggested to me by certain information which I promise myself to control and to complete, that these two aids, as you very justly call them, might have been unconscious aids only, brought from afar by James Gobson to help him in his enterprise, without knowing his real purpose, then sent away by him to places where it is certain that neither our papers nor even the rumors of our cities will reach.”

“What do you mean?”

“That, if these Indians, so true in their costumes, singing and dancing, were real Indians from the prairies, it would not astonish me. Now you must know that among the Sioux or Comanches the story of the assassination of Miss Ada is unknown.”

“By George, my dear Dow, you are admirable!” cried Kelly in the greatest enthusiasm.

“Then you are going to arrest Gobson?”

“I think I shall, if Mr. Davis is of the same opinion.”

[Pg 111]

“It is exactly my opinion,” answered the coroner, who having a shrewder mind than that of the chief of police, was no less astonished at the deductions of the detective. “Now I am convinced, and as I have here in my pocket-book the warrant which I have issued against James Gobson, his arrest is the simplest thing in the world. Come, I will take charge of it.”

“Here, my dear William, is a haul for your net for which my worthy Young will never forgive you,” observed Kelly, laughing and opening the door of the clerk’s office. “Hark! there he is.”

The great Young was, indeed, in the next room. Being warned by one of his agents that the crowd was becoming more numerous and noisier than usual around the morgue, the captain of detectives hurried to the spot, and, seeing the doors of the dismal building closed, he went to the clerk’s room to inquire the cause of this riotous crowd.

“Then, let us leave him the pleasure and honor of arresting Gobson,” proposed Dow.

“Very well,” said the coroner, who, perhaps, had no intense longing to accomplish this mission himself, and he rapidly acquainted Young with what had happened and what had been decided upon. Then he gave him the warrant.

The captain, although he still adhered to his belief in the culpability of Saunders, did not make any remark; he turned upon his heels and went to the door which led from the clerk’s office to the public gallery.

“One word, my good Young,” said William Dow, [Pg 112]signing him to stop. “Take your precautions; he is a solid customer, and I should not wonder if he were armed.”

This was all that was needed to excite the daring of the terrible detective. He answered with a proud smile, and pushed open the door.

James Gobson, leaning against the heavy railing which protects the glass window, behind which the bodies are exposed, from the rudeness of the crowd, was quietly reading the New York Herald, but he read it with only one eye, for, at the sound of men leaving the clerk’s office, he drew himself up, let his paper fall, and took a few steps backward.

His face was so perfectly calm that one could not have said that he was putting himself on the defensive.

But when he saw this powerful man, whom he did not know, coming toward him, he reached the end of the gallery with one bound, and hearing Young call out to him in his stentorian voice: “It is useless to resist, sir, I have orders to arrest you,” he drew a revolver from his pocket, aimed it at the captain, and answered him in a tone which left no doubt as to his intention:

“Why arrest me? If you come near me I shall kill you. A citizen of this free country cannot be arrested like this.”

“That is what I feared,” murmured the stout Kelly, who, although very brave, did not care to risk his life in such an adventure; so, thinking it wise to parley with him, he took Young by the arm and said in answer to Gobson:

[Pg 113]

“As an American, your remark does not lack justice; but as the former husband of Ada Ricard it is not common sense, for you are suspected of being her murderer, and there is a writ against you which must be executed.”

“I, the assassin—it is false!” cried James Gobson, and his arm still preserved its horizontal position.

At the same moment a great shouting was heard outside. The crowd had divined what had passed; they wished the murderer to be delivered up to them, and threatened, in spite of the policemen, to invade the morgue.

“You understand,” resumed the chief of police, “if you do not give yourself up with a good grace I shall order the doors to be opened.”

Miss Ada’s former husband turned somewhat pale, for he knew how the people in America set to work to administer justice; however, he replied in a voice none the less steady:

“I am innocent. Anything rather than deliver myself up like a coward.”

But he had hardly uttered these words when a pistol shot was heard, he gave a cry and his shattered revolver fell from his hand.

All this was due to William Dow, who had entered the exhibition-room, and had slipped behind the curtain until he was opposite James Gobson, and a ball skilfully sent had disarmed without wounding him.

Understanding that all resistance had become useless, Gobson immediately surrendered to Captain Young, who sprang forward.

[Pg 114]

Mr. Kelly ordered the prisoner to be taken to the hospital through the clerk’s room and the inner courts, for it did not seem to him prudent to face the crowd, whose excitement the pistol shot had increased. Then he rushed out of doors that he might himself announce the arrest of Miss Ada Ricard’s murderer.

At this news, a thousand enthusiastic hurrahs arose, and the chief of police felt the gentle satisfaction of having his ears shattered by the shouts of “Three cheers for Kelly! Kelly forever!” shouts that not only flattered his pride, but assured his re-election.

A few moments later, William Dow joined him, and Kelly affectionately pressed his hand, for it really was to his intelligence and skill that he owed this new victory.

As for Captain Young, although but half convinced of the guilt of his prisoner, he conveyed him in a carriage—a quarter of an hour later—to the Tombs, with much advice to the director.

That same day the arrest of James Gobson was known all over the city, and in the evening the principal papers were full of the most absurd and sensational details of the scene at the morgue.

The pistol-shot fired by William Dow was represented by some of these papers as a veritable volley of musketry. Some said that Miss Ada’s assassin did not give himself up until he had fought and overpowered half a dozen policemen; others, that it was necessary to fire at and disable him in order to capture him.

Not until the next day were the facts exactly known, owing to the eagerness with which the police of America inform the public, to give it every means of control, not only by communicating official reports, but by authorizing journalists to visit the prisoners.

James Gobson found his cell besieged by a troop of reporters, but the story he told the first could have served for all the others, for it did not vary a syllable.

He had fully recovered his coolness; he ate, [Pg 116]drank, and smoked like a man whose conscience is perfectly quiet. When he read anything severe about himself in the papers, he merely shrugged his shoulders.

When he was confronted with the witnesses, skilfully brought together by Mr. Mortimer and Davis, Thomson, the livery stable-keeper, and Tom Katters, his driver, who had recognized him by his features and voice, then with ten of Miss Ada Ricard’s guests, who declared that his form and bearing were those of the Indian in whose arms the unfortunate woman had been carried off, he answered them firmly, but without anger, that they were mistaken.

As for Mary, she could say nothing since she had seen the kidnapper only at a distance, beyond the throng of dancers.

But James Gobson had convinced none of his innocence, Mr. Davis less than anyone, for he refused to give him any liberty whatever, and notwithstanding the efforts of the lawyer Macready, who called to his aid all the ruses which the arsenal of the American law provides, the examination was so quickly ended that a month after his arrest the prisoner was informed that he was soon to appear before the Criminal Court.

The grand jury referred the indictment to the common jury.

“Do you plead guilty, or not guilty?” asked his defender on bringing him this news.

“Not guilty, Mr. Macready, not guilty,” answered the prisoner, warmly. “Do you doubt [Pg 117]my innocence after all the proof I have given you?”

“Heaven forbid. I am certain of it, and I promise you that the lawyer for the State—the illustrious O’Brien—will have some ugly hours to pass,” and leaving his client with this kind promise, Mr. Macready went to once more look over his documents.

As for James Gobson, we must confess, that when he was alone in his cell, he did not so well conceal the anxiety which he had felt for several days and which visibly increased as the hour for his trial approached.

Public opinion, which has such great weight in matters of justice in the United States, was not favorable to him; and he lacked, what to the accused is a defensive weapon, often all-powerful—he belonged to no political party or any religious sect.

Now, James Gobson had not this advantage on his side. Politics were quiet, and without very great difficulty, in spite of the trickery of his defender, they had drawn the twelve necessary jurors, a more difficult operation in the United States than elsewhere.

Mr. Macready, who was an able man, had full confidence in the result of the trial, and so well convinced his client of this that on the morning when he was to appear before the criminal court, he breakfasted with an excellent appetite. Toward eleven o’clock, when the guards came to take the prisoner before the audience, he quietly put on his [Pg 118]gloves, followed them with firm step, and took his place before the judges more as a curious spectator than as an accused man.

The crowd was large, and occupied, as it was, by the wax head of Ada Ricard, which had been placed on a small table, the people turned their looks away to fasten them on James Gobson, whom, perhaps, not one present knew by sight. But this movement of curiosity did not for a moment disturb the accused, who was sitting near his lawyer and talking to him in a low voice.

James Gobson raised his head only when the chief justice, Mr. Douglas, announced that the court was open.

It is useless to say that Mr. Mortimer and the coroner, Davis, were present, as well as our friends, William Dow and Young.

When the usual formalities were gone through with, Mr. O’Brien, the lawyer for the State, took up the arguments to review the facts on which the accusation rested.

If, among the auditors, there remained any persons still doubting the guilt of James Gobson, they were soon convinced of it, for, after having traced the accused back to the time of his marriage, to review his conduct toward his wife, his divorce, his habits, his vows of revenge, and his adventurous life, Mr. O’Brien showed him a few days before the crime at Jefferson preparing everything for its execution. Then he traced him to the livery stable-keeper, followed him to the ball at Miss Ada’s house, accompanied him to Yorkville, and then [Pg 119]taking as a basis the ingenious deductions he had made, he got on board the boat with James Gobson and his wife, to make those present who were listening to him, witness the terrible scene that took place on the river at night. They saw the assassin choke Miss Ada, rob her of her jewels and clothing, and leave nothing on her by which she could be recognized in case she should come to the surface of the water later, fasten to one of her legs the barrel of tar stolen from Wharf 43; that the body, kept down at the bottom of the river, could not float before decomposition had made it quite unrecognizable, and finally, to fling into the deep the unhappy victim of this frightful murder.

“Having accomplished his crime, then,” said his accuser, “James Gobson had only one anxiety—to prepare an alibi to escape all suspicions. He then set out for the Rocky Mountains, where he remained not three months, as he pretended, but only one month; and when he returned and presented himself at the central police office it was to affirm that he had heard of the crime only a few hours, and that the drowned woman was not the one who had borne his name. Fortunately for justice, two honorable inhabitants of Jefferson saw James Gobson in that city only a few days before the crime, and ten witnesses found in him the features, voice and stature of the man who hired a carriage, gave orders to the coachman, Tom Katters, and so audaciously carried away Miss Ada Ricard from her guests. As for his accomplices, if they did not betray him, it was because they received their share [Pg 120]of the booty, and because silence alone could save them.”

After this plain conclusive presentation of Mr. O’Brien, the court heard the witnesses. All confirmed their preceding testimony, all again recognized the poor woman in the wax head, excepting Mary, who, without daring to raise her eyes, murmured—

“I did not recognize my mistress at the morgue; how do you expect me to recognize her here?”

Only one witness failed to appear, and that was the fat Saunders; but, after a medical examination, the court and Mr. Macready excused him from appearing. Since we saw him last his condition had not improved; when Mr. Davis made a last attempt with him, he threw himself on his knees crying:

“It is I who am the cause of her death, but I did not mean to drown her. Oh! that colonel, I will kill him.”

And seeing in these inexplicable exclamations only the despair of a lover maddened by the loss of his loved one, the coroner said that Saunders before long would completely lose his reason.

As overpowering as the first part of this testimony might have been to him, James Gobson lost none of his calmness. He interrupted neither Mr. O’Brien nor the witnesses; he merely smiled at times.

The honorable chief justice, Mr. Douglas, had not addressed a word to James Gobson, and was about to let Mr. Macready have his turn, when [Pg 121]Mr. Gobson suddenly arose and said in a firm voice:

“Your honors, and gentlemen of the jury; my lawyer, I am sure, is going to prove to you, without much trouble, how unfounded are the accusations which you have just heard. I wish only to tell you this: That all the witnesses who declare that they recognize me for the person of whom they speak are misled by a strange resemblance, as well as those who find in this wax face the features of the former Mrs. Gobson. I am no more the murderer of the drowned woman of whom that cast is taken, than the drowned woman is Ada Ricard.”

Having uttered these words, without feeling disturbed at the murmur with which the spectators had received them, the accused seated himself.

Mr. Macready then took the stand, and although his task seemed difficult, one would have thought from his very first words that there was not the shadow of a doubt in his mind as to the acquittal of his client.

“Whether the victim of this mysterious event,” were his opening words, “is or is not the woman called Ada Ricard, having first been Mrs. Gobson, matters little. Some recognize her, others do not, and the man whose greatest interest it would be to find the features of his wife in this wax face sees only a resemblance which did not for a moment deceive him. Yes, gentlemen, the greatest interest, for if Miss Ada Ricard were dead, her former husband, James Gobson, would receive twenty thousand dollars from Gresham Insurance Company. [Pg 122]I know, and James Gobson knows as well as I do, that the assassination of one by the other of the contractors annuls the contract; then you would have to accuse my client of complicity only, for bold and skilful as you believe him, he would never have been so simple as to make himself unworthy of the only benefit he might obtain from the death of her who had been his wife. The very situation in which you have placed him makes the crime impossible; he had no object to commit it only through vengeance. To give himself that cruel satisfaction, he would have risked his honor, his life, and twenty thousand dollars; that is a great deal. Oh! I know very well that my opponent would like to make him out not only an assassin but a thief, who not only killed his wife but even robbed her of her jewels, and that they were the reward of his crime, a reward that would compensate, and how greatly indeed, for the loss of twenty thousand dollars.

“Well, where are these jewels? Has he sold them? To whom? Have you found them at his house, in his trunks? It is not sufficient to say of a man that he has stolen; if he has not been caught in the act, it must be further proven what he has done with the articles stolen or discover a trace of them. In this case you make the accusation of a theft and the main proof nowhere exists. I affirm, then, that you cannot condemn him as a murderer, for, apart from the theft, he would have acted like a fool if he had made himself the murderer of his wife.

[Pg 123]

“Let us consider. If he had murdered and robbed Ada Ricard, what would have been his object in presenting himself to Mr. Kelly? Consider, I say, that here is a man who, having a certain fortune, has committed a crime which brings him nearly one hundred thousand dollars. He can escape pursuit, yet he delivers himself up to the police. Is the idea admissible for a single instant? No; the truth is this: When, learning the death of the former Mrs. Gobson, James remembered his assurance policy; and his sole aim in coming to New York was to obtain a death certificate to benefit by the clauses of this policy, and it was he—even when he could not doubt your suspicions, ready to break forth into an accusation—it was he who cried out, sacrificing his own interests: ‘You are all mistaken, that is not Ada Ricard.’

“Does not common sense, logic and reason overthrow your romantic construction? Unless it was committed by some blood-thirsty brute, is not all crime a speculation? A monstrous speculation, but still a speculation. Well, is James Gobson a brute? No; then what could his speculation have been?

“Let us pass now to these facts which the lawyer for the State links with such skill, or what he thinks he does. They will not bear examining an instant; he is no wise man who accepts them. You wish to make out that James Gobson killed his wife because he tells you that he was in the Rocky Mountains at the moment of the crime, and that two persons saw him a few days before at [Pg 124]Jefferson. In the first place were not these persons mistaken? But admitting that they tell the truth, I do not think you have made a point as regards the assertion.

“James Gobson must then be forced, under penalty of being regarded as a criminal, to recall what he was doing during that night that Miss Ada was entertaining her friends? I confess to you, for my part, that if I had to say what I was doing and where I was three months ago at that hour, I should be very much embarrassed; and I defy any one here to declare on his honor that he can precisely answer such a question. And then, is it my mission to prove that my client is innocent? That is a mistake; it is you, whose mission it is to prove him guilty. Now you do not do so. You present a man disguised and masked. You do not tear off the mask. You give him accomplices and do not find them again. You say that he has stolen, and you do not know what has became of the articles stolen. All that is very serious, and have I not a right to cry out? A crime has been committed—a mysterious crime—whose victim even, is not absolutely recognized; a crime that has deeply stirred public opinion, which you wish to bring to your side and calm, and you think it indispensable to offer a guilty man; whoever it may be, were it even James Gobson, a perfectly innocent man.”

This, it will be understood, is only Mr. Macready’s plea abridged, for he spoke more than five hours, and often succeeded in winning a portion of his hearers. But his influence was not so great on the [Pg 125]jury, for, after less than an hour’s deliberation, they brought in a verdict of guilty.

On hearing the head juryman declare his client guilty of murder, with extenuating circumstances there could be no question about it—nothing of the kind being allowed in the American law, Mr. Macready, who had arisen, sank back overcome on his chair. As for James Gobson, he did not betray the least surprise, but a smile of scorn was on his lips.

Hon. Mr. Douglas now arose. He read in a loud voice the various articles of the penal law relating to the case, and pronounced the accused condemned to death. Then, after consulting an almanac, he added:

“James Gobson, unless you have some serious objection to the day, you will be hanged on the twenty-fifth of this month. To-day is Tuesday; it will be a fortnight from to-morrow.”

“I should prefer, your honor,” answered the condemned man, with much coolness, “to live a little longer, but I have no other remark to make. Wednesday awakens no repugnance in my mind. On that day you will cause an innocent man to die.”

After putting on his hat and clasping the hand of his defender, James Gobson retired as calm as when he had come there.

The crowd, from which there had not been the slightest murmur of approbation or disapprobation, moved quietly away. It was evident, nevertheless, that Mr. Macready had gained a certain number of his hearers. To the minds of some there was a doubt as to the guilt of his client.

[Pg 126]

The intrepid Young was one of the latter; for, as he was leaving the court-room in company with William Dow, the latter asking him if he was convinced, he answered:

“Not at all. That devil of a man did not betray himself a single minute; he had the calmness of an innocent man. Besides, what vexes me is that we cannot put our hands on his accomplices or the jewels of Miss Ada. Mr. Macready is right, if he stole the jewels why did he come and give himself up?”

“To believe a thing you have to see it.”

“Well, deuce take it, when I see a thing I know it.”

“Then, when the wind carries away your hat you do not believe it is the wind because it is not visible. Ah, my dear captain, you are the bravest soldier I know, but you will never be a wise detective. Well, now, to please you and quiet your conscience, I promise to find you James Gobson’s accomplices and his wife’s jewels.”

“Ah, that day my admiration for you will be unbounded.”

William Dow received this flattering assurance with a sad smile, which said that he had a very different aim than the puerile satisfaction of vanity; then he pressed the hand the chief of detectives offered him and left, saying:

“Yes, certainly, I shall find the accomplices, or rather the aids, of James Gobson, and before long, I hope.”

William Dow resided in Sixth Avenue, in a pretty and comfortably furnished house. He lived very retired, with a charming child of sixteen, Miss Jane, who called him “my friend,” and showed him the most tender affection. Who the young girl was none knew, and the few who tried to question Mrs. Wandright, the governess, gained little, for the good woman invariably answered: “Miss Jane is the daughter of a distant relative of Mr. Dow; she was an orphan, and he adopted her.”

However it was, Miss Jane was an adorable young girl, morally and physically. She was a blonde, slender, but not fragile, with a rosy, smiling mouth, large blue eyes, both lively and gentle, and was pretty enough to set the least poetical Yankee to dreaming. When one knew the kindness of her heart, the uprightness of her mind, and the refinement and purity of her sentiments, he could not but adore her.

William Dow adored her, but with a reserve, tinged with melancholy, that caused a struggle with his affectionate impulses.

[Pg 128]

When Miss Jane gazed at him with her pure eyes, after one of his frequent absences, and throwing her arms around his neck, covered his forehead and cheeks with innocent kisses, scolding him gently for leaving her so often, William, whose strength of will we already know, would turn suddenly pale and look sad.

When unobserved he gazed at the child, who looked smilingly at life, a shadow rested on his forehead and his eyes became moist. One would have thought Miss Jane was to him both the source of happiness and remorse.

She occupied all of the first story of the house. She had a dainty sleeping-room and a large parlor, fragrant with flowers, and filled with birds. Mrs. Wandright occupied a small room near her pupil’s apartments.

William Dow reserved the ground floor for himself, the principal room being his study. There he received the chief of police, Captain Young, and a few rare friends, but the most of his time was spent in solitude, his only companions being the books in his library.

Sometimes Miss Jane would come and take her friend away from his work, and he would then smile at the little girl he so dearly loved that she might have no anxiety. Occasionally they went out together, sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, and he completed her education during this exercise by interesting and instructive conversation. In a word, between these two, whom a mysterious event had united, there existed an intimacy [Pg 129]of admiration and love on the part of the child, and protection and duty on the part of the man.

“How learned you are, my friend,” cried Jane, when, in his clear, precise way of stating things, her professor had explained to her some physical phenomenon or some controverted point in history.

William Dow, turning aside his head, blushed as if the compliment awoke some sorrowful memory.

Although Miss Jane was carefully guarded against indulging unhealthy curiosity, she learned, as every one in New York, the history of the drowned woman, James Gobson’s arrest and his appearance before the Criminal Court. Therefore she was impatiently awaiting William Dow, and when she heard him come in she ran to meet him in her eagerness to hear the news.

“Confess it was just,” said the detective, “the wretch is condemned to death.”

The young girl, in the kindness of her heart could not restrain a cry of pity, and, no doubt, she was about to ask for the details, but William Dow adroitly changed the conversation.

In the city hardly anything was talked of that evening but the sentence of James Gobson; and the next day when the papers gave the arguments, there were two opinions as among the hearers in court. The majority thought the sentence just, while the minority believed the explanations of the lawyer Macready, regarding the innocence of the condemned, or at least, the doubt, of which he ought to have the benefit.

[Pg 130]

But James Gobson belonged to no political party or religious sect, or any small church, and as none, in consequence, had any direct interest through party spirit in making himself his defender, the excitement rapidly died away, to be roused again on the eve of the execution.

All this time, Mary, who was on guard at the abandoned home, had been making an inventory of the unfortunate Miss Ada’s wardrobe, while the condemned man passed the last days allowed him by his honor Judge Douglas, with considerable bravery.

“He is a very agreeable boarder,” said Mr. Peters, the manager of the Tombs. “He has received an excellent education, and I enjoy calling on him. Everything will go very quietly between Master Meyer and him.”

The amiable Mr. Peters smiled as he got off this dismal joke, for Meyer, as we have said, was the hangman for the County of New York.

It was with him that James Gobson would have to do in a few days.

While awaiting this dreadful moment the prisoner seemed to be taking things rather philosophically. When the worthy Mr. Midler, the reverend Methodist, whose charge it was to prepare the condemned for death, came to visit him, James Gobson politely begged him to leave him in quiet; then he offered the worthy man, in the place of a religious talk, a glass of sherry, which was always accepted.

Mr. Midler was a worthy man, gentle and indulgent, having ordinary intelligence, but an excellent [Pg 131]stomach, which made him sometimes forget one of the fundamental principles of the sect to which he belonged—to set the example of abstinence. He liked good living and good wines, which had a visible effect, for he was plump and fresh, rosy-faced and smiling.

Such was the consoler whom James Gobson received politely, but whose holy exhortations he philosophically repelled.

However, when a week had elapsed, the condemned lost his calmness somewhat at times, it required an effort to repress his anger, and when Mr. Mortimer, the sheriff, who was to be present at his execution, came to see him on the evening of the fatal day, he arose and walked directly toward him.

The honorable magistrate, perhaps for a moment, believed that the prisoner was going to make him some important revelation, but, as if ashamed of his weakness, James Gobson suddenly resumed his ordinary demeanor and simply asked his visitor:

“It is to-morrow, is it not?”

“Yes; to-morrow, at nine o’clock in the morning,” answered the sheriff, “and I come to offer myself as an intermediary in case you have any legal arrangements to make or any papers to convey to your family.”

“I am very grateful to you; you will find my will in my pocket; it contains my last wishes.”

“Have you nothing else to say to me?”

“Nothing, unless, as it is, to protest my innocence for the last time.”

[Pg 132]

“Would you like to receive a call from the pastor, Midler?”

“To-morrow morning, certainly. The worthy chaplain will help me to finish the bottle of excellent whiskey which the warden kindly sent me; besides, when one has a disagreeable journey to take it is always well to be accompanied and encouraged, as long as possible, by a worthy man.”

Finding that he would obtain nothing from the condemned, Mr. Mortimer wished him good courage and left.

James Gobson returned to his table and leaned on his elbow, hiding his pale face in his hands. If the sheriff could have seen him then he would have discovered that there had been more bravado than real courage in his attitude. It seemed as if, sustained until then by an imaginary hope, it was now lost.

But he dined as usual, passed the night without complaining, and the next day at seven o’clock, when Mr. Midler came to him he manifested no emotion. Now, there remained but a few hours for him to live.

This was his own conviction, and he was listening to Mr. Midler’s religious exhortations with more thoughtfulness than the latter had hoped, when suddenly the door of the cell was opened to admit the warden, accompanied by Mr. Mortimer and Davis.

The prisoner turned somewhat pale, but soon recovering that powerful self-command of which he had given so many proofs, he said to them in a firm voice, taking out his watch:

[Pg 133]

“Why, gentlemen, you are ahead of time; it is hardly eight o’clock, and the execution is not to be until nine.”

“You will not be hanged to-day, James Gobson,” replied the sheriff.

“Why not? Is there any sudden proof of my innocence? It was time.”

“No; but a serious accident has happened to Meyer.”

“Meyer, ah! I know.”

“He broke his leg a moment ago.”

“Poor man.”

“As his aid is a young, inexperienced man, I have had to telegraph to have Meyer’s assistant sent me, and he cannot arrive until this evening.”

“Then it will be to-morrow.”

“It will be to-morrow.”

And, bowing to the prisoner as well as the pastor, the officers left the cell.

“Supposing we continue our conversation,” said the reverend gentleman to Gobson, after their departure.

“No,” answered Mr. Gobson, warmly, his face having suddenly recovered its sceptical expression; “no, Mr. Midler, we will not resume it until to-morrow morning, if you will be so kind. I have arisen earlier to-day than usual, and all these successive emotions have made a hollow place in my stomach. Will you do me the honor to breakfast with me? I have two bottles of exquisite port which I did not expect to drink; we will empty them together. I promise to listen to you while [Pg 134]eating, and we will strengthen at the same time both soul and body.”

“Very well, Mr. Gobson,” sighed the good minister, somewhat abashed at the pleasantry, but evidently touched by the proposition. “It is my mission to remain with you until the time of——”

“The rope. Well, since an accident to Master Meyer gives me twenty-four hours more, let us breakfast.”

James Gobson had called the guard and ordered some ham, cold meats and Chester cheese.

Good Mr. Midler was sitting opposite his penitent.

“To your health,” said the latter, after filling a glass for the excellent man.

“To the health of your soul,” answered the pastor, with true unction, and raising his eyes to heaven he devoutly drank the wine, then bravely attacked the iced partridge which his host had placed before him.

James Gobson also fell to with a will, and there was a momentary silence between the convivial host and guest.

William Dow himself would have been astonished at the philosophy and coolness of the man he had caused to be arrested, and Mr. Davis, at the sight of his calmness, would have remembered his first doubts, which the arguments, it is true, had quickly banished from his mind.

When his partridge had disappeared, and his glass was emptied a second time, the Methodist threw himself back, uttering a deep sigh.

[Pg 135]

“What is the matter, reverend sir?” asked the prisoner, affectionately.

“What a misfortune,” answered Mr. Midler, “that I did not know you sooner. I should certainly have checked you by my advice on the path you have entered.”

“Do you think I regret it any less than you, sir? Will you have a slice of this ham?”

“Resist one’s propensities; everything is in that, Mr. Gobson. This ham is excellent.”

“It comes from York, where the best wine is had, too.”

“Yours is delicious. We are all predestined to eternal felicity, and——”

“Will you have a glass of port?”

“With pleasure. And these are the first concessions we make to our passions, and to our tastes, which lead us on, but——”

“Will you have a little of this cheese, it is perfect for digestion?”

“Yes, epicures think a great deal of it. But if our miserable nature causes us to fall, God renders our faith a justification and conversion takes place instantaneously——”

“Do you like coffee?”

“I think it indispensable to every meal.”

“I have not failed to ask for it. One would say that my guard was only waiting for the proper moment to bring it, for, see, here he comes.”

In fact, the servant appointed to wait on the prisoner was that moment entering the cell with a waiter, which he placed on the table, then left.

[Pg 136]

James Gobson filled Mr. Midler’s cup, who thanked him with a tender glance.

“Do you smoke?” asked the prisoner.

“No, thanks,” answered the minister; “Mrs. Midler does not allow me to do so.”

“But smoke does not incommode you.”

“By no means. What was I saying?”

“That God renders faith a justification, and that conversion takes place instantly.”

“Ah, yes! There is some pleasure in exhorting with you.”

“Talk on, sir, talk on; I am listening to you with the most respectful attention; but do not let your coffee get cold. You must take it smoking-hot or iced; otherwise it is a detestable drink.”

“You are right.” And while sipping his wine the worthy Midler resumed: “The conversion is instantaneous.... God’s miracles work ever ... the soul is elevated, and if there is any account to settle with men ... grace renders us worthy of this eternal felicity for which we are all predestined.”

But Gobson no longer listened, if ever he had listened seriously. With his chair tipped back against the wall, and leaning back in it, he was phlegmatically sending rings of smoke from his cigar to the ceiling, while his preacher, yielding to the influence of digestion, lowered his voice more and more, gently closed his eyelids, devoutly crossed his arms on his bosom and fell into his customary doze, murmuring:

“Excellent port ... instantaneous pardon ... York ham ... felicity eternal.”

By a strange coincidence, while this scene was occurring, an inventory was being taken of Miss Ada’s furniture and wardrobe.

The owner of the house in Twenty-third Street wishing to take possession of it unfurnished, the law had decided that all that had belonged to the unhappy woman should be sold, and that the proceeds of the sale should be held three years at the disposition of the heirs. At the expiration of this time the money should be placed in the State treasury.

Mr. Mortimer’s clerk and the sheriff took charge of this inventory, and Mary, who, as we have said, was watching the house, was helping these gentlemen. They had just left the parlor to pass into the sleeping-room, and the young girl, with many sobs in her voice, was enumerating each of the articles which the secretary of the justice of peace was writing down on his list, when they heard a carriage stop before the house.

“It is the sheriff, no doubt,” said the clerk to Mary; “you must run and let him in.”

[Pg 138]

“The watchman is below,” answered the maid.

“Then let us hurry and get through our work.”

But the young girl, who had just taken a bundle of lace from one of the wardrobes, suddenly stood still and her face became frightfully pale.

She had heard in the hall, and the clerk and his secretary also heard, a woman’s voice raised to an angry pitch.

Then the sound of hurrying footsteps was heard in the parlor, the door of the sleeping-room suddenly opened, a woman appeared, and Mary, with eyes wild with fright, shrieked and leaned against a piece of furniture to keep from falling.

“What does all this mean?” asked the new comer, with a questioning look at each actor in the scene.

“Madam, Miss Ada!” gasped the servant. “Miss Ada!” repeated the clerk, bounding from the arm-chair on which he was reclining.

“Well, yes, Miss Ada,” said the young woman. “Are you all mad? And are you even more so than the others?” she said, moving rapidly toward Mary, who threw herself in her arms, crying:

“I said that she was not dead!”

“Dead! What do you say?”

“Why, yes, dead,” repeated the clerk in his turn; “they hanged your murderer this morning.”

“My murderer?”

“Yes—James Gobson.”

“James Gobson, my former husband?”

“That very man, who killed you and threw you into the water, three months ago.”

“Killed me—threw me into the water? Unless [Pg 139]this is an odious joke you are playing, gentlemen, it is frightful. Come, Mary, let us run and see what it means.”

“Oh, it is too late,” observed the sheriff. “Master Meyer must have finished his work. It was at nine o’clock, at the Tombs, as usual.”

The woman gave a cry of horror and sank into a chair; but she immediately arose, ran down the stairs and into the street. Without taking time to put on a hat or shawl, Mary followed her.

The carriage which had brought the traveler was waiting for her at the door; they both entered it, ordering the driver to take them to the prison. The horse set off at a gallop.

But when, half an hour later, they reached the square, on one side of which stood the Tombs, the carriage got into so dense a crowd that it had to stop.

“It is impossible to go any farther,” said the driver.

Mary sprang to the ground. She had just caught a glimpse of Captain Young, who, with the aid of one of his agents, was trying to drive away the curious crowd.

“Captain,” she cried, “in the name of God, let us pass.”

“Will it be too late? Oh, these people alarm me. I beg you, sir, to help us,” said the young woman beseechingly, having joined her servant.

“Too late?” asked the chief of detectives in his rough voice, advancing toward them. “What do you mean? There is no execution to-day.”

[Pg 140]

“What! no execution!” cried the mistress and servant at the same time. “James Gobson is still living.”

“It is put off until to-morrow.”

“God be praised,” said the chamber-maid with a sigh of relief.

“‘God be praised.’ What is it to you?” repeated Young.

“What is it to us, captain?” answered Mary. “Why, here is Miss Ada!”

“Miss Ada,” exclaimed the detective.

“My God, Miss Ada! My God!”

Amazement would not allow him to say any more; he led away the two women whom the crowd were approaching, for the nearest among them had heard the few words that had been exchanged, and they repeated them aloud, pointing to the young woman.

The agents made a passage for their chief, who, after giving an order to one of his men, immediately introduced mistress and maid into the prison yard, then from there into the directors’ office.

Mr. Peters, who was bending over his desk, raised his head at the captain’s noisy entrance, and at the sight of his two proteges, understanding nothing of the unexpected visit, he opened his eyes wide.

“Miss Ada Ricard!” said Mr. Young, who not having quite recovered from his amazement could not utter another word.

“Miss Ada Ricard,” said the officer, rising suddenly; “the wife of....”

“Her very self, sir,” affirmed the visitor; “the [Pg 141]divorced wife of that unfortunate James Gobson, who came near losing his life this morning through a frightful mistake.”

Mr. Peters gave one bound toward the woman who said these words, and immediately recognizing her he could not find words to express his astonishment. His looks wandered wildly from her to the chief of detectives, who repeated: “My God, my God, what an adventure; I told Mr. Dow so.”

“You must notify Mr. Kelly and Mortimer at once,” said Mr. Peters finally to the captain, when he had recovered somewhat.

“I sent at once to one of my agents at the Central office,” answered Young.

“Meanwhile, gentlemen, cannot Miss Ada see Mr. Gobson?” asked the young girl.

“It would be cruel,” added her mistress, “to leave him any longer in his horrible situation.”

“You are right,” said the director, moving toward the door. “I have, besides, no right to refuse the prisoner a visitor. What a scandal it will be. Come, accompany us, captain.”

In passing the former, Mr. Peters crossed the clerk’s court to reach that part of the prison in which were the cells of those condemned to death.

The worthy officer walked so quickly, shaking his head and gesticulating, that the two women could hardly keep up with him.

Captain Young, who brought up the rear of the procession, exclaimed:

“Ah! this will be a sad story to tell friend Dow.”

They thus reached, almost on a run, the corridor [Pg 142]on which James Gobson’s cell opened. When he had reached the door the director had it opened by the guard, who immediately approached, and he hastened in. The prisoner was still in the position in which we left him. Lolling back in his chair, he was finishing his second cigar, and the worthy Mr. Midler, who was hardly awake, was psalmodizing tenderly:

“Yes, my dear Mr. Gobson, a second of repentance on the part of the sinner is sufficient to pay for all his errors, and....”

But the sudden entrance of Mr. Peters cut short the words of the good Methodist, and when he saw the two women who were accompanying the director, he rubbed his eyes, imagining perhaps that he was still asleep.

As for James Gobson, at the sight of the visitors his face betrayed more strongly than it had done since his sentence a violent emotion, but through a strong effort of will he did not make a gesture or utter a cry, and after having fixed his eyes upon the young woman for a moment he turned to his guest, saying to him in a perfectly calm voice:

“Dear Mr. Midler, permit me to present to you the former Mrs. Gobson, Miss Ada Ricard, my unfortunate victim.”

The reverend gentleman no longer thought he was asleep—he believed he had become crazy.

“Pardon me James for this horrible calamity, of which I involuntarily came near being the cause,” said the woman whom the prisoner at once recognized. “It is fortunate that I came in time.”

[Pg 143]

“If Master Meyer had not broken his leg you would have come too late,” answered the prisoner dryly.

“I beg you to pardon me,” entreated the young woman, approaching Gobson and holding out her hands.

“Yes, certainly, I pardon you, since you are here;” and rising, he took in his and affectionately pressed the hands of her who had saved his life.

At the same instant Captain Young respectfully made way for a new comer.

It was Mr. Mortimer whom the messenger sent by the chief of detectives met when within a few steps of the prison.

The sheriff was very pale and he stammered to the pretty American:

“Are you Miss Ada Ricard?”

“I think so, sir,” answered the latter, smiling.

In order to prove this identity, if the magistrate had wished to call to his aid one of the well-known details in the person of the former Mrs. Gobson, a detail specified by Dr. O’Neel in his report of the autopsy, he would have seen, when she smiled, the space in her superb teeth; but he paid no attention to it, for doubt was not possible.

“You arrive just in time, madam,” he continued, “to prevent an irreparable calamity; while waiting for the legal examination have the kindness, I beg, to explain your long absence.”

“I am quite willing to do so, sir, but not here,” she said, blushing. Mr. Mortimer understood, and invited her to follow him into the clerk’s room.

[Pg 144]

“I am ready to obey your orders, sir,” said Miss Ada; “but what are you going to do with James Gobson? Are we going to leave him here?”

“Oh, I find it very pleasant in the worthy Mr. Midler’s society,” observed the condemned, smiling at his consoler.

The good Methodist could thank him only with a low bow, for he hardly knew what he was about.

“Madam,” said the sheriff, “I cannot give any orders in regard to the prisoner.”

“I understood the law did not foresee my case as it now stands,” interrupted James.

“The sentence must be revoked,” said the magistrate; “but I think that Mr. Gobson can be set at liberty at once.”

“Whatever sum is fixed I will pay,” said the young woman, warmly; “it is the least I can do for a man whose life my absence came near costing. I will see you soon again, James Commany.” While saying these words, the former Mrs. Gobson had walked toward the corridor, where Mr. Mortimer awaited her.

The prisoner now held out his hand to the pastor, saying:

“This does not prevent me from being quite grateful for your holy exhortations, my reverend friend; of course you did not expect what has just happened; nor I, either. Suppose we finish our spiritual conversation with a glass of brandy.”

“The designs of God are unfathomable, dear Mr. Gobson,” devoutly answered the good man, holding out his glass; “but still preserve yourself from [Pg 145]the danger you have run, most certainly, for the punishment of your errors.”

“Oh, I will never forget it. Here’s to my resurrection and your health.”

While drinking with Mr. Midler the prisoner resumed on his chair that position essentially American in which his deliverer had found him.

The latter meanwhile was saying to Mr. Mortimer, with whom the director had left her alone in his office—

“Unless it is indispensable to do otherwise, I should much prefer, sir, not to confess the motives of my journey, for the recital would oblige me to name someone who is very desirous of remaining unknown. Let it suffice you to know that this kidnapping, laid to the account of my murderers, was planned in advance, and that I passed the two months and a half, partly on the sea and partly at Havana. The only interesting point to the law is that here I am, alive and in very good health. All else belongs to my private life, and none has a right to ask an account of it, for I am not, or rather I am no longer married.”

“You are right, madam,” answered the sheriff, “you will, however, confess that this is very extraordinary.”

“What is more so, still, is your singular mistake.”

“The mistake was general.”

“Not so, for neither Mr. Gobson nor Mary recognized me in that unfortunate woman.”

“You will see the cast which has been made of it and you yourself will be amazed.”

[Pg 146]

“But Mr. Saunders ought not to have been mistaken.”

“Mr. Saunders is a little out of his head. We have not been able to get anything out of him.”

“Poor man; this news pains me deeply.”

“He accuses himself of your death. To believe him, he killed you himself.”

“He!”

“At least as far as it was possible to understand him.”

“But, first, I hope you are going to let me go home to my house.”

“Certainly. I have notified Mr. Davis, the coroner in your district. In a moment he will be here, and we will make out the necessary formalities.”

Mr. Mortimer did not think he spoke so truly, for that very moment the office door opened and Mr. Kelly and Davis came out. In each of these magistrates emotion was betrayed according to their respective temperaments. The face of the big chief of police was flushed as in a congestion, and that of the coroner was of a livid pallor. After looking a few seconds at the charming face of the young woman, they exchanged despairing looks. It was no longer to be doubted, ridicule would fall on both of them.

Mr. Davis, whose elevated mind saw only the error committed, asked himself in horror what would have become of his honor as a magistrate, if the absent woman had not presented herself in time. He certainly could not have endured the shame.

Mr. Kelly, who was more positive, saw in this [Pg 147]strange event only a calamity, which would singularly affect his political career.

When they had recovered somewhat the officers questioned Miss Ada, who told the same story as to Mr. Mortimer.

“It is very well, madam,” answered the chief of police, with difficulty conquering his anger; “but you might have dispensed with that mysterious journey. Devil take it, there was no one to object to your going. You were free to jilt that stupid Saunders for some one else. Who can that woman be who resembles you so greatly? She was even prettier than you. She had a tooth broken out and an ear torn expressly—just as you have.”

Kelly was so furious that, not very gallant usually, he became absolutely rude. For sole answer to these rude questions, the one to whom they were addressed gave him a gracious smile, which disclosed the casket that lacked a pearl, and approaching him she raised with one pretty little finger the big diamond beneath which was concealed the slight wound which she had in her rosy and exquisitely shaped ear.

All this was so coquettishly done that the gruff officer could not help murmuring:

“By George, she is a superb woman.”

“Captain, you will go with the sheriff to escort madam home and to put her in possession of her house. You will afterwards join me at the central office, and notify Mr. William Dow. This time he was less shrewd than every one else. His blunder will perhaps cost me dear.”

Not thinking it prudent to defend his friend, the [Pg 148]chief of detectives gave a military salute, and pointing out the way to Miss Ada, who had taken Mary’s arm, left the prison with them.

The crowd on the square was immense; it already knew the error committed by the law, an error that would have been irreparable, but for the accident to the executioner, and the young woman was received with enthusiastic hurrahs.

If the captain had not kept the most excited ones at a distance by means of his agents, they certainly would have had to unharness the horses from the carriage in which he was riding in company with Mr. Mortimer, Miss Ada and Mary.

Suspecting that a different reception was waiting for him, Mr. Kelly hastened to take another direction with Mr. Davis.

“God be praised,” said the coroner, crossing the threshold of the Tombs, “I should never have forgiven myself that mistake.”

“By George,” sighed the chief of police, “I fear that my electors will never forgive me. Devil take William Dow.”

The news of the return of a woman whose corpse a thousand persons had seen, caused an emotion difficult to describe. At first the event seemed so impossible that no one would believe it; and the lawyers were accused of conniving with the police to save the life of the condemned. But when the papers published special supplements describing in detail the scene that had taken place at the Tombs, the most incredulous were obliged to accept the evidence. The few defenders that James Gobson had among the people had the best of the matter, and the excitement increased so rapidly that the minister of justice, the justice of the criminal court, Mr. Kelly, and the sheriff and coroner thought it prudent to release the prisoner on bail without further delay.

For political reasons they set the sum, without further consideration, at the insignificant figure of one hundred dollars. They knew, moreover, that if they had asked ten thousand dollars, a hundred individuals, to gain a little popularity, would have come to offer it themselves. Having come to this decision, Mr. Mortimer ran at once to the Tombs to erase the prisoner’s name from the jail register.

[Pg 150]

James was about to play a game of chess with the good Mr. Midler. When the magistrate had apprised him of what had been done, he quietly made his preparations, went down to the clerk’s office, counted out the one hundred dollars for the keeper of the prison, Mr. Peters, and after shaking hands with the worthy Methodist, whose eyes filled with tears, he went out by the door through which Mr. Kelly and Davis had passed a few hours before, in order to avoid the crowd.

“Where are you going to put up?” asked the sheriff, who was accompanying James Gobson.

“To the ‘United States,’ where I am unknown, sir,” he answered; “but I think it polite to devote my first moments of liberty to Miss Ada Ricard. Although she came near arriving too late, I nevertheless owe her a visit of thanks.”

And, hailing a passing hack, James bowed to the sheriff, then entered the carriage, giving orders to drive to No. 17 East Twenty-third Street.

At the same moment William Dow reached the central police office. Learning through public rumor of the return of the drowned woman, he did not wait for Mr. Kelly to send for him.

“Well,” said the latter, “what do you think of this foolish event?”

“I think, Mr. Kelly,” he answered, “that it is a foolish mistake, and that it is very fortunate that it did not become an irreparable error.”

“You are, in a measure, the cause of it.”

“I! Was it I who recognized Miss Ada in the dead woman, whom I had never seen?”

[Pg 151]

“No; but it was you who had James Gobson arrested.”

“I arrested him only a little sooner, perhaps, than you would have ordered the arrest yourself. Confess that the body, really being that of Mrs. Gobson, the guilt of her husband could be doubted by none.”

“Evidently. The lawyer for the State proved it as plain as daylight. O’Brien never was so eloquent.”

“To Mr. Davis especially, who had the examination, the blow is heavy.”

“That is the least of my troubles. What disturbs me is that my reputation and position are jeopardized. But was there ever such a resemblance even in the slightest details? One would think some political enemy chose the corpse particularly to defeat me. There are not only the same features, but the tooth is gone and the ear cut as in the drowned woman. It is enough to make one lose one’s head.”

“It is certainly inexplicable, and this coincidence of circumstances confuses the mind.”

“Here I am with this corpse on my hands. It is not enough to find this roving woman whom the devil ought to have carried off, and not to have hung this Gobson, whom the devil would gladly have taken, I am convinced, but we must now discover the name of the drowned woman and that of her murderer.”

“We will find out all that.”

“If we fail, my dear Dow, I am a lost man.”

[Pg 152]

“We shall succeed. Let me study this mystery a little. Meanwhile face the storm bravely.” And clasping the hand of Mr. Kelly, who hardly knew what saint to call on, William Dow went home, more anxious than he appeared. He knew that the chief of police was right, and that public sentiment, doubly excited, exacted double satisfaction for the revising of James Gobson’s case and the explanation of the mystery that surrounded the death of the strange body found near Wharf 43.

During this time the crowd thronged Twenty-third Street, and the reporters literally besieged Miss Ada Ricard’s house. She had received several of her former servants, who, through personal interest or curiosity, had hastened to visit her at the first news of her return. After generously rewarding them for their sympathy, she dismissed them, saying that she would not reorganize her house for several days. Then the tradesmen came one after the other, protesting the sorrow they had felt and their present delight at seeing her again; and this procession had already lasted two hours, when formidable hurrahs were suddenly heard in the street.

“Go see what it is, Mary,” said Miss Ada, becoming somewhat pale.

Mary sprang to the window, and immediately answered laughingly:

“It is Mr. Gobson, madam, whom the crowd has recognized and is following with cheers.”

At the same moment the bell was rung. Mary ran to open the door; and Gobson, after giving three ringing cheers by way of thanks, crossed [Pg 153]the threshold of the house. But that was not enough for the curious, and the cry a thousand times repeated of “Miss Ada! Miss Ada!” immediately rang out.

“You must show yourself, madam,” said one of the journalists who was present.

At the same instant James Gobson entered the parlor and held out his hand to his former wife.

“And show yourself with Mr. Gobson,” added the reporter.

“The gentleman is right,” said the released prisoner, “otherwise these people might push in your door.”

Then taking the young woman’s arm, who did not seem much inclined to exhibit herself thus, he went with her out on to the balcony. There was then an indescribable enthusiasm, and a racket enough to drive one crazy. The cries of “Miss Ada, Gobson forever!” were mingled with complaints and epithets not very flattering to Mr. Kelly. This lasted half an hour, and the crowd did not become quiet until Gobson made a sign that he was going to make a speech.

“Citizens,” he said, in a stentorian voice, “Miss Ada and I thank you sincerely for this sympathetic demonstration.”

“Hurrah! hurrah!” repeated the crowd in delirium. James Gobson, after bowing a last time, gallantly offered his arm to Ada Ricard and entered the house.

A person who was no less moved at the reappearance of the drowned woman than those of [Pg 154]whom we have just spoken, was Mr. Robertson, Jr., whom one of his agents had informed of the event at the very first. He, too, had been deceived like a mere police officer. His vanity was greatly piqued, whatever joy his elder brother might manifest, for he, it is remembered, had been the rival of Mr. Kelly in the last elections.

The chief of the agency saw in the error of the chief of police the surety of a brilliant political revenge, and he congratulated himself; but Mr. Robertson, Jr., who was more of an artist, could not forgive himself for having made what he, at the time, thought, the skilful deductions which we have already placed before our readers. What consoled him a little was, that in order to avoid being called upon as a witness, and not to compromise his establishment, he had confided in none, not even in Saunders, who, however, was not in a condition to understand him, pursued as the unhappy man was by the fixed idea of being Miss Ada’s murderer. However, thinking it wise to get credit with the cracker-merchant for having prevented him from denouncing himself, Mr. Robertson, Jr., resolved to go and see him immediately.

Mr. Saunders was calmer than when we met him a few weeks before. He had finally persuaded himself that if Miss Ada had fallen into the water near Staten Island, that she was not drowned in that spot, but had been the victim of a crime, of which Colonel Forster, perhaps, might be guilty. Later, when James Gobson’s guilt was so convincingly shown at the trial, the worthy merchant did [Pg 155]not try to explain how it could be that Miss Ada had fallen from the colonel’s yacht into the hands of her former husband; he adopted the conclusions of the State lawyer and silenced his conscience, to listen only to the voice of his heart, or to give himself wholly up to the sorrow caused by the death of his loved one.

His friends urged him to interest himself in business, but he could not bring his mind to it; he passed almost all his days at home, drinking, eating, and sighing. It was at this last occupation that Mr. Robertson, Jr., surprised him. He had not heard a word about the young woman’s return.

“You are a very welcome visitor,” he said to the agent; “tell me how that infamous murderer went to the gallows.”

“Dear sir,” answered the young man, “the execution has been postponed until to-morrow, on account of Meyer having broken his leg, the accident saved the prisoner.”

“Saved, how?” repeated Saunders, without understanding.

“Yes, saved; for Miss Ada Ricard, the victim, has returned.”

The stout man leaped from his chair and opened his eyes, gasping:

“Miss Ada returned! Miss Ada!”

“Yes, Miss Ada,” resumed Robertson, Jr.

“The devil!”

“Do be calm. You see I was right to advise you to be silent in regard to the adventure at Staten Island. We should have uselessly compromised [Pg 156]ourselves. Yes, Miss Ada has returned; she was merely on a voyage.”

“In company with that d——d Foster, but what of that other, that other?”

“The drowned woman. Who she is no person knows.”

“Have you seen Miss Ada?”

“No; but one of my agents who was at the Tombs when she arrived followed her to her door.”

“Did she return to her house?”

“Two hours ago, at least.”

“And Mary, the wretch, did not notify me.”

“Who is Mary?”

“Her maid.”

On saying this, Saunders had taken his hat and run out of the room.

“Where are you going, pray?” asked Mr. Robertson, running after him.

“Where am I going? Why, to Miss Ada’s house.”

“I wish to tell the wretch what I think of her conduct.”

“Or to fall at her feet.”

The unhappy cracker-merchant suddenly stopped still. The secret agent had aimed a true blow. It was more love than anger that led the inflammable Yankee to the unfaithful one.

“Well, yes,” he said, “I still love her; and I wish to see her,” he added, with a deep sigh.

“Then I will accompany you,” proposed Robertson.

“If you wish.”

[Pg 157]

The young man was delighted to profit by the opportunity to see alive the woman whom he had known only through the corpse at the morgue. They sprang into a carriage, and soon reached No. 17 East Twenty-third Street.

Satisfied by the speech James Gobson had made them, the crowd had dispersed, and only a few groups remained around the house.

Mr. Robertson helped his companion to alight, and rang the bell. Mary answered it, but at the sight of Saunders’ flushed face, and not feeling very easy in her conscience, she uttered a cry and ran away to warn her mistress. The latter was having a private talk with James Gobson.

“Bah! receive him,” advised the former husband, complacently, “and try to get rid of him if you can, and especially if you wish to do so.”

The young woman left her room, closed the door behind her and passed into the parlor.

It was time. The stout Saunders, who had climbed the stairs with an agility quite juvenile, was crossing the threshold of this room.

“Ada, my dear Ada!” he cried, rushing toward her.

The poor man had forgotten his anger, and remembered only his love. With arms held out, he thought only of forgiving. But, to his amazement, the ungrateful woman withdrew from his embrace, and merely held out her hand, saying:

“My dear Saunders, you, too, thought me dead, and I will never forgive you such an error. However, I am none the less delighted to see you.”

[Pg 158]

All this was said in so calm and chilling a tone that the unfortunate cracker-merchant, already exhausted and breathless, felt his limbs give way beneath him. Fortunately, Mr. Robertson supported him to a lounge, on which he sank heavily, with his great, tearful eyes fixed on her for whom he had wept so much, and who had received him thus, he was really pitiable to behold.

Miss Ada seated herself near him and took his hand.

“Come, my good Saunders,” she said, “have a little courage. I still love you very much, but I am going to leave New York.”

“To return with Colonel Forster. Oh! I will kill him,” murmured the merchant.

“With Colonel Forster? I do not know what you mean.”

“Is it possible? But, Robertson, tell her that we know all.”

“I know nothing,” answered the agent, who wished merely to play the part of a looker-on in this call.

It was too much for the unhappy man, whose head was not yet steady. Ada repulsed him, and his friend Robertson denied him. Exasperated and furious, he suddenly arose, and casting a scornful look at the young woman, he left the parlor with something like an air of dignity.

Robertson, Jr., who had nothing more to do in the house, bowed to Miss Ada and followed Saunders, to whom he said, when he had joined him on the door-step:

[Pg 159]

“Pardon me for having given you the lie, dear sir; but it is useless for us to both appear in the revision which is to be opened. Do you wish any advice? Remain quietly at home and forget Miss Ada; she is not worthy of your love.”

“She is a cheat,” he gasped, in the manner of a peroration, and as if speaking to himself more than to his companion.

A few moments later he saw William Dow on the threshold of his door, and he gave a cry of joy. “Oh, my only friend,” he said to the detective, falling almost into his arms. “She is living; I have just come from her house. What a wretch she is! You must do me the service to find that cursed Colonel Forster; I wish to fight with him. If he refuses, I will kill him.”

“Be calm, dear Mr. Saunders,” answered William, helping the poor man to ascend his steps. “In the first place I will not go to Forster, because he is not in New York. If it is he who carried off Miss Ada, she did not return with him. We know that his yacht is now in the harbor, and that she returned to the city by the Harlem Railroad. You understand that Mr. Edward Forster, who must now be acquainted with all this scandal, does not care to give explanations that are compromising to him.”

“That is true, dear Mr. Dow,” murmured Saunders, sinking back in an arm-chair, for while exchanging these words, the friends had reached the merchant’s parlor. “Besides, of what use would it be for you, a peaceful citizen, to fight with that officer?” continued the detective. “A duel would [Pg 160]not restore you Miss Ada; and that thief of a Robertson, after taking I don’t know how many thousand dollars from me for absurd information, seems to think this girl’s conduct very natural.”

“What, Robertson; one of the firm of the agency of Robertson & Co.?”

“Yes, Robertson, Jr. Upon my word, it is even worse. I would like to tell you all that passed between him and me.”

And the good Saunders, whose heart overflowed, told William Dow all that our readers know about the secret agent; then he concluded by giving him the famous report that had caused the expedition to Staten Island.

“All this is truly extraordinary,” said the police officer, shaking his head, after having carefully read the document. “Trust this report to me.”

“Willingly,” answered the cracker-merchant. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Oh, nothing against the Robertson agency, but it contains details which may be useful to me some day or another. I would like also a photograph of Miss Ada. You must have one.”

“Only one, dear sir; here it is. And see, here is the letter that unhappy woman wrote to her maid to tell her not to be anxious in her absence. The wretch!”

The poor lover had drawn from his pocket-book the photograph of the woman, which was inclosed in the note which Mary had given him a few moments after having received it from her mistress. He handed the whole to the detective, giving a sigh.

[Pg 161]

William Dow passed more than an hour with Saunders, and when he left it was with a smile on his lips, and he said, to the amazement of the simple Mr. Saunders: “Have patience; I think I am beginning to understand.”

In order to quiet public opinion by giving it one of the two sources of satisfaction it demanded, the district attorney urged the higher criminal court to hasten the revision of the case of James Gobson.

When the first examination was made, Mr. Mortimer and Davis had heard certain rumors concerning the role which Colonel Forster must have played in the kidnapping of Ada Ricard, but they paid little attention to them, because it had not been proved that the rumor had a serious basis, afterwards because the officer was too important a man to be compromised on simple suspicion.

Later, when the corpse was discovered, Dr. O’Neel had assigned for the death of the victim a date after the departure of the yacht which, to every one, had set off the day after the ball given at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. Then came [Pg 162]the arrest of Gobson and the proving of his guilt, and the magistrates had congratulated themselves on the perspicacity which they had shown in not pronouncing the name of Colonel Forster, whom some political enemies would have been delighted to see figure in this scandalous and dramatic affair. But after that had passed and the return of Miss Ada, which had preceded by only a few days the entrance of the Gleam into New York harbor, the complicity of the gallant officer in the kidnapping of the pretty New Yorker was no longer to be doubted.

Now, although neither the lawyers nor the police could see anything to object to in this act, since Miss Ada did not complain, Mr. Mortimer and Davis thought they could not do otherwise than question the colonel, in order to obtain from him a declaration of a nature to enlighten the magistrates charged with the revision of the case relating to the employment of the time of the woman whose absence had caused this bad judicial error. What might be worse would be Colonel Forster’s refusal to say anything. In that case it would be necessary to do without him, and they could not count on Ada Ricard.

Having been questioned twice, she answered:

“I cannot tell you how I passed my time without compromising some one to whom I have promised silence. If that person releases me from my promise I will speak, although I do not see wherein it concerns justice. I am not dead, for here I am, and that seems to me the essential point.”

[Pg 163]

Mr. Mortimer and Davis knew so well that the young woman was in the right that they used every art before asking Mr. Forster for information; but to their great delight, from their first overtures on this subject the officer said to them:

“You understand, gentlemen, that I am very anxious not to figure in any way in these debates to which I am absolutely a stranger, excepting by the single fact of the error committed; but as I am of the opinion that none should refuse his aid to the laws of his country, I am ready to tell you everything, provided you give me your word of honor not to speak my name, to give publicity either to myself or the adventure.”

The sheriff and the coroner readily promised all that the colonel wished, and the day after Mr. Forster went to the house of Mr. Douglas, the judge of the Criminal Court.

They found Mr. Kelly, Mortimer and Davis there, and when these magistrates thanked him for his readiness to place himself at their disposal, when they pledged themselves again to the most entire discretion, they introduced Miss Ada Ricard, who had been invited to the rendezvous.

The elegant officer hastened to hold out his hand to the young woman, and she answered his greeting with a charming smile.

Colonel Forster then gave a frank account of the manner in which the proposal to carry off Miss Ada had been made to him by a man he did not know, and the subsequent events of which the reader is already informed.

[Pg 164]

The officers thanked him warmly, and the reunion ended.

In less than a fortnight after this the Criminal Court met for the revision of James Gobson’s case, who lived as he told Mr. Mortimer, at the United States Hotel, but who saw the woman who bore his name almost every day.

One would have said that the grave events in which the divorced couple had found themselves, had lessened their former grievance; that they had forgiven each other their mutual wrongs, and that the woman forgot the brutalities of the husband as the husband forgot the unfaithfulness of the wife.

It was known that the latter was to appear before the court to defend James against the suspicions which had led to his arrest and his sentence, and this prospect gave the new arguments a doubly piquant attraction.

Therefore, on the day of the hearing, the court-room was filled at an early hour. At the entrance of James Gobson a round of applause rang through the room, and when Miss Ada Ricard appeared on the arm of the lawyer, Macready, the crowd gave a true ovation.

The court opened, and the lawyer for the State presented the case, explaining with great clearness and perfect loyalty, how the lawyers had been led to commit an error, which, fortunately, was reparable. He concluded by asking the jury to render a negative verdict, and to the court to acquit and reinstate the man so unjustly condemned.

[Pg 165]

Matters would have ended thus, but that would not have answered for the lawyer Macready. It was too fine an occasion for criticising the police, the criminal examination, the law and justice. For the defender of James Gobson this case might be the turning-point in his political career. He must profit by it.

In the first place, as had been agreed, the young woman arose, and spoke in a voice sufficiently moved by emotion:

“Gentlemen, I deeply regret that the law should have sought, in my conjugal life with Mr. Gobson, troubles of a nature to arouse its suspicions. If, for reasons I need not recall, I had to ask for divorce, I must protest against the character which the requirements of the examination gave to him whose wife I was. Mr. Gobson has never ceased to be an honest man, and it would have been easy, by addressing those who formerly knew him, to gain the conviction that he could not have become a thief or assassin. For my part, while waiting for the just reparation to which he is entitled, I ask pardon for having been the involuntary cause of the misfortune that has befallen him.”

One can easily imagine the shouts of applause with which this little speech was received by the audience. Mr. Macready let it subside somewhat, then he took the stand.

We will not give his address. It was crushing to Mr. Mortimer and Davis, and especially to the chief of police.

Mr. Kelly was a political enemy and the defender [Pg 166]was pitiless. He specified him to the electors as unworthy of being elected, and he concluded by saying what besides was absolutely true, from the standpoint of the law, that the magistrates, who had come near hanging an innocent person, should esteem themselves very happy that James Gobson did not demand great damages.

This terrible harangue had no less success than Miss Ada’s few words, and in less than a quarter of an hour the jury, having given a unanimous negative verdict, the court acquitted and reinstated James Gobson.

As expected, this result excited an enthusiasm that amounted to delirium when the young woman, with a smile on her lips, was seen to approach her former husband and hold out her hand to him in a friendly manner.

Among the spectators were William Dow and Captain Young, hidden behind the curious privileged ones who had found a place within the railing.

“Well, Mr. Dow,” said the chief of the detectives to his friend, when all was concluded, “it is done, and I am delighted. This affair weighed on my conscience somewhat.”

“My dear Young,” answered William, pointing to James Gobson and Miss Ada, who were leaving by the magistrate’s door in order to avoid the crowd. “I think that those two have simply come here to mock at justice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing that you can understand this moment.”

[Pg 167]

The zealous detective, without adding a word, parted from the captain, who irreverently shrugged his shoulders.

It was evident that through the judicial error he had caused, one mysterious character now seemed hardly worthy the admiration of the terrible Young.

But the one most displeased with William Dow was the stout Kelly, and he received him quite coldly when he presented himself at his office a week later.

“It is vain for you to excuse yourself,” he said to him in a gruff tone, “and to give me the most favorable explanations; it is none the less true that, politically, I am a lost man. If we could discover the identity of the drowned woman, I could recover myself; but we shall do nothing of the sort, nothing! That imbecile of a Young is arresting twenty drunkards and as many pickpockets by way of compensation. It is enough to drive one out of his mind. I can only send in my resignation.”

“Be careful how you do that, dear Mr. Kelly,” said our hero, after leaving the chief of the police to vent his bile. “You know that Gobson and Ada Ricard left New York this morning.”

“May Satan carry them off and they may go hang elsewhere.”

“When will the elections take place?”

“In four months.”

“Can you give a leave of absence of a fortnight to Captain Young?”

“Indeed, yes, for all the good he does in New York. Where are you going to send him?”

[Pg 168]

“I shall send him nowhere. I am going to take him with me.”

“Where?”

“Ah! that is my secret.”

“If you only had one to help me get back my electors.”

“By how many votes have you been nominated?”

“By forty-five thousand.”

“Well, my dear Mr. Kelly, in four months you will have ten thousand votes more. It is I who promise you. I am so far certain of it that I give you my word.”

“By George! tell me a little what you——”

“Not a word, if you will allow me. Give Young his leave of absence and count on me. All that I ask of you are very strong letters of recommendation to your police friends in Boston, Buffalo, Jefferson, and San Francisco.”

“This evening the letters will be at your house.”

The chief of police escorted William Dow to the office door.

“This fellow is capable of doing what he says,” murmured Kelly, reseating himself in his arm-chair, “only why does he take the captain with him, as he is good for nothing? After all it does not matter. If he keeps his promise, and in four months I beat that Robertson, I shall ask no more of him, not even what has become of that brute of a Young, if he does not bring him back with him.”

Almost a fortnight had elapsed, and New York had forgotten James Gobson’s case, although the identity of the drowned woman had not been discovered, and her assassin was unknown, when, one evening the hotel stage brought to the Union Hotel, at Jefferson City, Mo., three travelers, whom fate seemed to have united for pleasure by the love of contrasts.

One was of medium height, of an intelligent countenance, and distinguished bearing. The other was tall, with a bony frame and surly expression. The third was stout, florid, with a good, placid face and innocent look. Our readers have already recognized William Dow, Captain Young, and poor Saunders.

These three travelers had left New York only three days before, under the following circumstances: One morning William Dow paid an unexpected visit to the cracker-merchant, for the latter had not seen him since James Gobson was reinstated.

“Is it you, Mr. Dow?” cried Saunders; “then you haven’t quite forgotten me?”

[Pg 170]

“I have scarcely thought of you, on the contrary,” answered the detective, clasping the hand of the merchant.

“Where were you?”

“I have been to Buffalo.”

“To Buffalo?”

“Yes, the city where Miss Ada and her husband used to live before the divorce. I will tell you later about this little trip. At present there is something else to think of. Do you still wish to avenge yourself upon the man who carried off Miss Ada?”

“Certainly. I wish also to be avenged on the cheat herself.”

All the anger, and perhaps all the love of the susceptible Yankee awoke at the memory of the woman, and the indifferent way in which she forsook him.

“Then,” resumed Dow, “regulate your business for an absence of about ten days. I will take you with me.”

Saunders had not asked his friend where he wished to take him; he simply went, valise in hand and a pocket-book stuffed with bank notes, to meet him at the Washington depot. It was the same with Young. Mr. Kelly having notified the chief of detectives that he might go with William Dow when the latter desired, the terrible captain had not ventured a remark. When he received the order to meet him at the station he merely announced his departure at the central office, and he manifested but little surprise when he met Mr. Saunders at the railway station.

[Pg 171]

During the journey from New York to Washington, from Washington to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to Jefferson, Saunders had ventured several questions from time to time, but William Dow was non-committal. The only information which he gave Ada’s former lover was that they should stop at Jefferson City. The worthy merchant sighed twice as often after their arrival in the first place, because he liked his ease and the journey had fatigued him extremely, and next, because he hoped his friend Dow would not delay much longer in telling him the object of his journey. Therefore, he questioned him.

“Dear sir,” answered our hero, “I needed to have two aids and two witnesses with me in what I am undertaking. You and Young, of all others, were most suitable, because of your honorable character and energy.”

Flattered by this praise, to his share of which he was entitled, Saunders smilingly said:

“No doubt; but aids in what way—witnesses of what?”

“I do not know yet, as everything will depend on circumstances. We have reached only the first stopping-place in our journey.”

“The first. Where are we going, then?”

“I cannot tell you now.”

“I suppose, however, that we shall not make the tour of the world?”

“Oh! not quite.”

“What, not quite; but I do not wish to make even a part of it.”

[Pg 172]

The stout man said this with so disturbed a face and with such a comical accent of fear that William Dow, who was always grave, could not help smiling as he answered:

“Calm yourself; after to-morrow you will beg me not to interrupt our journey. Let us dine.”

Somewhat reassured, but not convinced, Saunders then decided to go to dinner, and did such justice to it that two hours afterwards he went to his bed and instantly forgot that he was three hundred miles from New York, trying to solve a problem to which he had not the least clue.

The next morning after an excellent night, and as he was about to join Dow and Young, they were announced by one of the hotel servants, and ascended to his room. Before they had closed the door the Yankee thought he saw half a dozen individuals who had stopped in the hall following his companions. He went to inquire what they wanted, but he had not time, for William Dow immediately said to him, clasping his hand:

“Dear sir, will you allow us to receive some visitors in your room?”

“Certainly,” answered the cracker-merchant, who had wisely decided to ask no explanation of his mysterious friend. The latter had seated himself at a table and drawn a large packet from his pocket, in which were papers and photographs.

“Are you acquainted with this man,” he asked Saunders, handing him one of the pictures.

“No,” said the merchant, after a moment’s examination.

[Pg 173]

“And you, my good Young?”

“Why!” cried the chief of detectives, “it is James Gobson.”

“His very self, Miss Ada’s husband.”

He snatched the photograph from the hands of the detective, and with furious looks devoured the man whom his jealousy pictured at the feet of the woman.

“Captain,” cried William Dow, “do me the kindness to introduce each of the men who are there in the hall. Begin with Thomas Bernett.”

“Thomas Bernett,” called Young, in his grandest, most commanding tone, as he opened the door.

The man who bore this name hastened to appear. It was the porter of the Union Hotel.

“Were you in this establishment January last?” asked Dow.

“I have been interpreter and porter here for a year.”

“Then you have to do with all the travelers?”

“With all.”

“Do you remember this one?”

He showed him James Gobson’s photograph.

“Perfectly,” he affirmed; “as well as I can recollect I saw this gentleman in the first days of January. He remained here three or four days.”

“Thanks. The next, Tom Byng.” Tom Byng was the hotel stage-driver. He as well as his comrade, immediately recognized Gobson in the photograph, as a traveler whom he had driven to the Northern depot early in January. Then came the butler, the steward, the barber of the hotel, and a [Pg 174]gunsmith, who all recognized in James Gobson’s picture the features of an individual with whom they had had various relations at the time about which they were questioned.

“My dear Mr. Saunders,” said the detective, after making a note of this information, “do me the kindness to give ten dollars to each of these men.”

Without venturing a remark, the cracker-merchant paid the sum and waited patiently until his fifty dollars had departed, to have a clue to the puzzle.

“You do not understand?” asked William Dow.

“No,” he answered frankly.

“Nor you, Young?”

“Not any,” said the captain with a smile, which he tried to render mocking.

“Well, my dear friends, I ask you only to exactly recall the words you have just heard. James Gobson was here at Jefferson City in the beginning of January, a few days before Miss Ada was carried off and the discovery of this drowned woman, whose name is still unknown. From that city the same person set out for Omaha; the stage-driver remembers it perfectly.”

“From which you conclude,” ventured the sceptical Young.

“I do not conclude, I state; and this first point being assured, I have decided to leave for Omaha.”

“For Omaha!” cried Saunders.

“Where, I hope, we shall find some trail more interesting still. The train leaves at noon; we shall reach there early to-morrow.”

[Pg 175]

While saying this, William Dow had carefully put James Gobson’s picture back in his pocket-book and had arisen. Mr. Saunders, having no objections to make, looked at the captain, and the latter shrugged his shoulders.

Not understanding his friend’s plans, the terrible but not very intelligent chief of detectives thought it wisest to affect a kind of ironical condescension toward him; but as he obeyed no less blindly than Saunders, they all three took the cars after breakfast.

The next morning they reached Omaha, the last stopping-place at that time for the cars, which soon went to the West, across the desert and the Rocky Mountains to San Francisco.

When Saunders was left alone by William Dow, under the piazza of the hotel at Omaha, he was asking himself what his friend had come to seek in this forsaken country, when he espied him crossing the garden of the establishment in company with Young and another strangely-accoutred being. One would have thought it one of Fenimore Cooper’s or Captain Mayne Reid’s heroes. He wore strong boots, into which were tucked brown ribbed velvet breeches, fastened by a broad leather belt, which seemed to be his arsenal and money-safe, for it was adorned by two revolvers and a long knife, and its thickness revealed the presence of a respectable quantity of change. His partly-opened hunting-jacket showed a red woolen shirt and his hairy bosom. He had on a soft felt hat with broad brim, and proudly carried in a shoulder strap a double-shot carbine. As well [Pg 176]as his thick tawny beard enabled one to judge, the man must be about forty years old. His energy and vigor were plainly evident in his looks, voice, and broad shoulders.

While the cracker-merchant was examining him, the stranger, still talking to his companions, had reached the piazza.

“Mr. Saunders,” said the detective, when the two men joined him, “allow me to present to you John Butler, the bravest trapper on the shores of the Missouri.”

The good man rose politely from the lolling-chair on which he had been stretched out, and gave Mr Dow so questioning a look that the latter knew that he was imploring an explanation. Therefore, beckoning the trapper and Young to sit down, and taking a chair himself, he said:

“This is a nice place for a chat. Mr. Butler, dear sir, knows better than even an Indian all the tribes who occupy the reserves to the north of Omaha, and the chiefs of the Dakota Sioux are his particular friends. As it is with these worthy men that we have to do, I have begged him to serve as a guide.”

Saunders, who had again stretched himself out in his arm-chair, sprang out of it in alarm.

“To the Sioux!” he repeated. And, with a very expressive gesture, he described around his head the circular motion in the operation of scalping.

“Have no fear, sir,” said John Butler, smiling. “With me there is no danger of that kind to run.”

[Pg 177]

The peaceful Yankee, who looked with eyes of terror at the murderous outfit of the trapper, seemed so plainly to say that it was not the Indians alone of whom he was afraid, that Captain Young himself burst out laughing. John Butler, without being offended at his suspicions, resumed with the same calmness:

“No, sir; you will have nothing to dread; we are at this moment at peace with the Indians of the plains. The chiefs who went to Washington in January have returned satisfied; one can cross Dakota and Iowa without the shadow of danger.”

“You hear, do you not, dear Mr. Saunders,” observed Dow, “the chiefs who went to Washington in the month of January? Retain these words in your memory—in the month of January.”

“The devil, yes. I hear well enough,” answered Miss Ada’s former lover, “but I do not understand what you are going to do among the Sioux.”

“That is my secret. Do you refuse to accompany me?”

“Heavens, no. You would say I was afraid. But if I understand a confounded word what it all means, I am willing to be hung some day.”

“You are not the one who will be hung.”

“I hope not. But who will be?”

“James Gobson.”

“James Gobson! Then Miss Ada will be free again. Do you know, I am certain that it was terror alone that united her to that wretch! James Gobson hung! But why, in order to bring this about, must we go among the Indians?”

[Pg 178]

“Because there the rope which I destine for him will be found.”

“Stop; I prefer not to question you any more, for you will answer me in a manner to make me lose my head again. Well, so be it. Let’s be off for the prairie. Ah! if ever any one had told me that I should become a trapper! When shall we start?”

“To-morrow, at daybreak,” answered Butler, to whom this question was particularly addressed. “The cars will leave us at Sioux City the same evening. We shall find horses there, and in a few hours we shall be on the reserves.”

“To-morrow, then,” said Saunders, with a heroic gesture.

“To-morrow, gentlemen,” repeated the trapper, “I will wake you.” And throwing his carbine over his shoulder he bowed to his future companions and left the piazza.

“Mr. Dow,” said Mr. Saunders, pointing to the adventurer who was crossing the garden, “can you depend upon that fellow?”

“My dear friend,” answered the detective, “I have made every inquiry about Butler. He has been traveling over this prairie ten years, hunting and trading, often serving as an intermediary between the commanders of forts and the Indians, and never has any one had to complain of him. Besides, what interest would it be to him to betray us? I shall give him one hundred dollars to-morrow when we arrive at Sioux City, one hundred dollars more when we return, and even another hundred [Pg 179]dollars still if the information he furnishes me is correct and if I bring back what I am going to seek. Besides, as everything makes me suppose that Butler has some peccadillo on his conscience which has led him to this adventurous life, I have promised to arrange matters for him on my return to New York. He has my word and that of Young.”

“Positively,” answered the captain. “But what need have we of all these precautions? Are we three not equal to all the adventurers and Indians on the plains?”

This proud declaration of the intrepid captain cut short any last words which poor Saunders would have liked to venture. Putting a good face on a bad matter, he stood up straight and said to the chief of detectives, in a deliberate tone:

“Very well; I still do not understand why we are going in that direction, but I am with you; when I see Miss Ada again, I wish her to know what I have done for her.”

The next day the three travelers, accompanied by John Butler, took the first train, and reached in a few hours Sioux City, one of the railway stations which unites Omaha with Chicago. After passing the night there, the following day at sunrise they left it to take the route along the Sioux River as far as Fort Dakota. William Dow had a letter of recommendation to the commander of this advanced post.

The four excursionists mounted excellent horses, and Saunders looked superb in his war-like attire. Imitating the trapper, he had made a veritable [Pg 180]arsenal of his belt, and he often looked affectionately at the carbine attached to his saddle. One would have thought he was setting out for the conquest of an enemy’s territory. But toward the middle of the morning, as the sun became higher and burning, his fine ardor began to decrease, and Dow regulated it by saying:

“If we keep up this gait our horses will be foundered before we have gone our twenty-five miles.”

“Besides,” observed Butler, “we cannot reach the fort to-day. The wisest thing is not to hurry, but to favor our horses. We shall have need enough of them on the prairie.”

These few words restored the good city man to calmness, and the little party pursued their course at a more moderate gait. Toward noon they had halted on the banks of the river in the shade of some sickly-looking trees, and Saunders ate with a very good appetite his share of the provisions with which the trapper had not failed to provide himself; then, after a few hours’ rest, our travelers started on their way again.

That evening they enjoyed, by means of their dollars, the hospitality of a German farm, and the next day, after fording one of the arms of the Sioux River, they finally reached Fort Dakota.

Captain Semmas, who commanded this military position, received William Dow with marvelous cordiality, and as the fort was admirably provisioned, Saunders, whom the length of the route had somewhat sobered, immediately recovered his [Pg 181]warlike mood. The next morning, he had already been equipped for a long time, when Butler gave the signal for departure. An hour later, after pushing on straight to the north, our heroes were on the prairie. They now had for the horizon around them an immense plain without an undulation in the ground, of a dull green coloring, and gloomy enough to drive one to despair.

Only a few bushes broke the monotony here and there, rising above the thick grass, in which the horses sank to their knees. Disdaining in spite of the fog the paths made by the cattle, the trapper had led his companions across the plain, having for his guide in this complete desert only landmarks known to himself alone.

“Master John,” cried Saunders all at once, after having kept silence as well as his impatience would permit, “have we much more of this foolish ride?”

“Two hours, at least,” answered Butler, who was preceding him; “and I advise you to keep in my tracks, for if you go to one side or the other you might meet with some bog, in which you and your horse would disappear.”

“My God!” cried the poor man, frightened at this new danger which he had been running without knowing it ever since he entered the prairie. “You ought to have warned me sooner.”

“Come, be calm, dear Mr. Saunders,” advised William Dow. “Listen to the counsels of this excellent fellow, and take the captain and me for your models.”

“This excellent fellow! That is very well for [Pg 182]you to say, Mr. Dow, for you know where you are going; you have your plan, but I don’t know anything about it. As for Mr. Young, it is in his profession to risk his skin, but it is not in mine.”

We do not know that the chief of detectives held this opinion, for the journey did not make him any more talkative than usual. Trimly seated in his saddle, with a cigar in his mouth, he concerned himself neither about his companions nor the route, nor the end of the excursion. Mr. Kelly had told him: “You will accompany Mr. William Dow,” and he accompanied William Dow. He would have accompanied him in the same way as far as the Pacific. The captain, therefore, did not answer the irascible cracker-merchant.

However, at the end of an hour the appearance of the prairie gradually changed. The grass was less thick, and the riders could distinguish before them a group of tall trees, which were like an oasis in the midst of this desert of grass. Soon they perceived cultivated fields, cattle, and every sign, in short, of a village not far away, probably, behind a little hill about a hundred yards off.

Saunders’ face became joyful again, and he was already dashing on when Butler stopped him brusquely. A man who had sprung up from the tall grass with a carbine on his shoulder seemed to wish to prevent the travelers from going further.

At this threatening apparition, the prudent merchant suddenly remembered that the trapper had advised him to follow in his traces, and he fell into file again.

[Pg 183]

Butler sprang to the ground, and approached the Indian, who was only one of those sentinels by whom the Sioux villages are surrounded within a large circle, and he said a few words to him which caused him to immediately change his attitude. Putting back his weapon, he held out his hand to the adventurer.

The latter then mounted his horse, and the little band, escorted by the Sioux, went at a walk through the fields of maize toward the village, whose first tents they soon saw.

Saunders had heard much about these Indian villages composed of tents made of buffalo skins, and he was not quite ignorant that there still existed nomadic tribes whom civilization drove into the desert; but all this had interested him but little, and now he, a peaceful merchant, a positive man of a practical mind, found himself transported into the midst of this strange world. Therefore, he examined with as much amazement as curiosity these primitive dwellings and strangely accoutred beings who were grouped together, thirty in number at least, before their tents, to receive the travelers. The latter alighted and advanced toward the Sioux. Butler, who walked ahead, approached the chief and made a little speech, which seemed to meet with general approbation. The Sioux answered him in a few guttural words, and the trapper, turning to his companions, said to them:

“Jimin, the Swift Deer, the chief of this village, gives a welcome to his brothers from the East—the pale-faces—and offers them hospitality beneath his tent.”

Then Butler added, ceasing to translate the words of the Sioux, but using his own language:

[Pg 185]

“I told Jimin that you were rich fur-merchants intending to open a shop at Omaha, and that your only object in coming to the prairie is to establish direct communication with its tribes in order to buy their skins on more favorable terms than those of the agents of the companies.”

“That is very ingenious,” answered William Dow.

“Good! I am now a fur-trader,” murmured Saunders.

As for Young, his bravery was humiliated at this new social situation, and without departing from his accustomed speechlessness, he protested by twisting his long moustache with a gesture more warlike than ever.

However, the presentation being over, the excursionists proceeded to the tent of the chief through the entire population of the village—men, women, and children—who thronged curiously around them.

Jimin’s tent resembled all the others excepting that it was a little larger. It was made of buffalo skins, rudely sewn together, and divided into two parts; one was occupied by the family of the chief, the other was intended for official receptions, when Jimin wanted his warriors in council. It was in the second part of the tent that the warriors were introduced.

Stout mats of braided maize carpeted the floor; the walls were adorned with weapons and fishing tackle; the only seats were boxes and piles of skins so badly dressed that they exhaled a detestable odor.

[Pg 186]

Saunders, like his companions, had to make the best of these primitive lounges; he sat down, or rather threw himself down, on one of them; milk and maize cakes were at once served, then the chief lighted his long pipe, and after smoking in silence for a full quarter of an hour, he entered into conversation with Butler, which the latter, in a measure, translated.

Jimin inquired about the disposition of the government towards the Indians, about the price of provisions, and he bitterly complained of the agents of the great fur companies, who in exchange for the hunting products of the Indians gave them only worthless gunpowder, wretched weapons, adulterated brandy, and execrable tobacco.

The trapper assured him, in the names of his friends, that his just grievances should be conveyed to the President of the United States, who would not fail to inquire into it, and he advised him to go himself to Washington to make out his complaints.

“Of what use would that be?” resumed Jimin, shaking his head, sadly. “Our brothers, the pale-faces, promise, but forget their promises. Four moons ago I went with ten of my warriors to Washington; they swore to us that our claims should be made right, but nothing has been changed. The Great Father forsakes his children.”

“Ask him,” said William Dow to Butler, having listened attentively to every word of the chief, “if he did not return full of wonder at the splendor of our cities?”

“The Indian,” answered Jimin, “sees nothing [Pg 187]when he goes to your cities; his eyes, like his heart, bound over space to find his wigwam and prairies again. I should not have remained more than one day at Washington if I had not been waiting for two of my warriors who had wandered away.”

“Which ones?” asked Butler, at the detective’s entreaty.

“Washah and Winka,” said the chief, pointing to the two Sioux crouched at his right. “One of your people, whose wife had been carried off, asked them for the help of their arms. He knew that the Indian, oppressed himself, is always at the service of him who suffers. The pale-face was not ungrateful, and with the gold he gave to Washah and Winka they bought weapons superior to those the agents sell us so dear.”

Each of the two warriors, in fact, had a solid double-barreled carbine by his side.

As the trapper translated Jimin’s last words, William Dow’s face expressed a more and more lively satisfaction.

“Dear sir,” he said, addressing Saunders when the interpreter had finished, and pointing to the two Sioux, whose eyes shone with pride, “do you not recognize two of your guests?”

“Hey, what?” answered the merchant, whom fatigue, the smoke, the odor of the skins, and especially the indifference he felt in the conversation had half lulled to sleep.

“Those two Indians there at the right of the chief.”

[Pg 188]

“Yes; well, what of them?”

“Don’t you recognize them?”

“Where the devil do you suppose I have ever seen those monkeys?”

“At Miss Ada Ricard’s.”

“At Ada’s! Come, now, dear Mr. Dow, ah, ha!”

Poor Saunders’ exclamation expressing that he was beginning to understand, his friend took pity on his brain, already so shattered, and continued:

“Yes, at Miss Ada Ricard’s, at the ball. Those Indians are two of the three masks who carried her off.”

“But the third?”

“He was her husband.”

“James Gobson?”

“His very self; there is no doubt of it.”

“The man who carried her off took her to Colonel Forster; it cannot be her husband, for he would have kept her for himself.”

“You go too fast; we shall come to that later. Meanwhile do you wish to assure yourself in regard to the part those two men played that famous night?”

“I believe I do; but tell me quietly, for I swear to you I do not see through it at all.”

The good man, indeed, holding his head in his hands, looked imploringly with his great eyes at Captain Young, who, feeling very much interested in this unexpected scene, did not take his eyes off of William Dow.

“Your two valiant warriors,” said the latter to [Pg 189]Jimin, through the medium of Butler, “have this day rendered a great service to one of my friends. Knowing that I was coming to the reserves, he charged me to thank them again. Do they remember his features?”

“The Indian never forgets the man from whom he receives a benefit,” answered the chief, sententiously.

The two Sioux, by way of affirmation, clicked their carbines.

The detective had taken from his pocket-book the photograph of James Gobson, which he handed to Jimin, who passed it on to his warriors.

The latter immediately exclaimed: “Yes, it is really the pale-face whose wife we helped carry away from an infamous man.”

At this epithet, which Saunders had to take to himself, he looked so completely astounded that his two companions and Butler himself could hardly keep serious.

Dow, who had put the picture of Miss Ada’s husband back in his pocket, arose, and after saying to Jimin that they thanked him for his hospitality, but that they could not enjoy it any longer, as they wished to return to Fort Dakota that evening, he begged him to accept as a souvenir one of his revolvers.

The chief took the weapon which his guest held out, and not being able to conceal the pleasure which the gift caused him, he thanked him in a rigmarole of metaphors, quite worthy of the Indian of the prairies.

[Pg 190]

“Look there behind you,” just then said Captain Young to William Dow, “on the arm of that young girl.”

He pointed to quite a pretty Indian, crouching with both hands on her knees. On her left wrist shone a large gold bracelet.

“Is it the wife or daughter of either of you?” the detective asked Washah and Winka.

“It is my wife,” answered the latter.

“Will you allow me to look at the gold bracelet she wears on her arm?”

Visibly embarrassed, the warrior spoke a few words, and the Indian woman, raising her great black eyes to the stranger, allowed him to take her hand.

“Look, Mr. Saunders,” said William, showing him the bracelet; “see if you do not recognize this.”

The stout man leaned over the young woman and exclaimed:

“Why, it is one of Miss Ada’s bracelets; I gave it to her. I offered her two alike. They came from Jefferie Muller’s. Our initials, twined together, are engraved on the inside.”

The tender Yankee was quite touched at the sight of this pledge of his love to the woman.

“Do you suppose that she would like to sell it to me?” he ventured with a sigh.

Butler conveyed this proposal to the Indian woman, who immediately drew back her hand.

“It was the wife of the pale-face who gave me that gold bracelet,” said the Sioux; “I gave it to Makeni; it belongs to her.”

[Pg 191]

“More likely that man stole it from Miss Ada,” answered Young, when the trapper translated the warrior’s answer.

“The wife of the pale-face is dead,” said William Dow, “and he would be very happy if we should bring back from the prairie this souvenir of his companion. I offer you for it twenty pounds of powder, thirty of tobacco, and twenty-five bottles of brandy. You will come with us to the fort, and it will be given to you. Besides, in the name of the Great Spirit, I promise to send to Makeni by Butler on his next visit to the reserves a bracelet even heavier than that.”

It was a bargain in gold which the detective offered the Sioux warrior, so he hastened to accept it. At his order, the young Indian girl, with tears, slipped the jewel from her bronze arm. Saunders seized and opened it and showed to Dow, engraved inside, two initials lovingly entwined, and the date of the day he had made this present to Miss Ada. While he stood with his eyes fixed on these initials and date, which awoke memories so varied, his face expressed so much anger, mingled with love, that Young, unable to hold in any longer, burst out laughing, to the amazement of the Indians. But William Dow, to whom everything was serious, preserved his gravity, and said to Saunders:

“Trust me with this bracelet, I will return it before long.”

Without a word, but not without a sigh of regret, the good man handed the jewel to the detective, [Pg 192]who immediately gave the signal for departure.

It had been decided that Washah and Winka should accompany the strangers as far as Fort Dakota, in order to receive the promised articles.

Five minutes later all were in the saddle, and our travelers, after shaking hands with Jimin and saluting the village with a discharge from their carbines, set off again across the prairie.

Mounted on excellent little horses, the two Sioux warriors escorted them on their flanks. In two hours the little band traveled the distance which separates the reserve from the American post.

Night began to fall, and Saunders, overcome with fatigue, did not ask the detective a single question that evening, but the next morning, when the latter came to announce that they must start again, he thought he would ask for an explanation of several things.

“My dear sir,” answered our mysterious hero, “we will talk about all this at Sioux City, where we shall part. Meanwhile, believe me, we have not made a useless trip across the prairie. I have brought back, as I hoped, an end of the rope by which James Gobson will be hung.”

Without insisting further, Willie Saunders mounted his horse, and the four travelers left Fort Dakota. Forty-eight hours later they re-entered Sioux City.

“Here,” said William Dow to his companions, the next day after breakfast, “we part; we have completed all that we had to do together; you are now free.”

[Pg 193]

Then he added, addressing the trapper: “As for you, Butler, your help has been valuable to me, and here is the hundred dollars I promised to give you on our return from our expedition; and, in addition, here is an extra hundred dollars, for I have really brought back from the Indians all that I went to find. Mr. Saunders will not forget to give you at the Union Hotel, in Jefferson, the bracelet intended for Winka’s wife.”

Miss Ada’s former lover confirmed the detective’s promise, and the trapper, who had slipped the two hundred dollars into his belt, shook hands with the three friends and left them.

“Then,” Saunders asked William, “you are not to return with us to New York?”

“No,” answered the latter; “I am going to the opposite coast—to San Francisco.”

“To San Francisco?”

“Yes, it is there I expect to find the rest of the rope which I intend for James Gobson. You will soon hear from me, in a month at the latest, but promise me, at my first despatch, to come and join me.”

“If it is not too far.”

“You will have only a few hours on the railroad.”

“Now, before separating, let us talk more about this matter.”

“I confess that I ask nothing better. It is time that I understood a little, and I am sure the captain is of my opinion.”

Young, who sat smoking his cigar, with his chair [Pg 194]tipped back and his feet on the table, nodded assent, and Dow continued:

“We gained at Jefferson City the certainty that James Gobson was there several days before Miss Ada was carried off; and, among the Sioux, that it was really he who performed the kidnapping.”

“Yes, it is indisputable,” said Saunders, “and it proves that if that man is a wretch, his former wife is not much better than he, for after letting her former husband give her up, she not only saved the scamp from the gallows, but pardoned him besides.”

“Even more than that, dear sir, she has become again his lawful wife.”

“His lawful wife! Gobson has married Ada?”

“By a second marriage since they were divorced.”

“The wretches!”

Poor Willie Saunders could say no more. Loving still, he retained the hope of meeting Miss Ada again, and here was a new barrier raised between her and himself.

“But, my dear Dow,” observed Young, speaking in his turn; “how in the devil can this testimony we have just received serve you?”

“Yes; how?” murmured Saunders.

“This Gobson,” resumed the captain, “carried off a woman, whether she did or did not belong to him matters little; then this woman, forgiving the abuse she had formerly received, accepted his name a second time. It is odious, but the law has no power in such a matter. It was neither a crime nor an offence, and, what is most curious, [Pg 195]even if it were a crime or offence, James Gobson would not be disturbed, since the court revised his case and acquitted him.”

It was weeks, and perhaps months, since the captain had indulged in so long a speech and had reasoned with so much logic. He was astonished himself, and waited for the answer of his friend Dow with the air of a conqueror.

“My dear Young,” said the latter, “you talk of guilt. James Gobson was acquitted by the jury, it is true, but he has not been acquitted by William Dow, and William Dow is keeping for him as well as for you, a surprise. Ask me no more; return to New York and hold yourself ready to join me when I send you word.”

The captain and Saunders knew their friend too well to address any more questions, and the travelers separated after this conversation. A few hours later Young and Saunders took the cars at Sioux City for New York, going east, while the detective, returning over the route already traveled, went in the direction of the West.

The next day, when Saunders, delighted at enjoying his ease again, was having an excellent dinner with the captain in the luxurious dining-room at the Sherman House, in Chicago, William Dow was on the train to Omaha, which he was to leave at Benton, in Wyoming Territory.

Ten days after his departure from Benton, when, perhaps, Young and Saunders were no longer thinking of him, he arrived at San Francisco.

As William Dow had informed Mr. Kelly, it was really in Boston that James Gobson had located himself, after leaving New York, to avoid the rude and annoying curiosity of the latter city. But the rumor of the legal error of which he had nearly been the victim, had so quickly preceded him to the capital of Massachusetts, that a week after his arrival, when he married Miss Ada Ricard, his divorced wife, the Democrats offered him a banquet and received him with applause at Barker’s, the fashionable club rendezvous.

Imitating the custom of retired and wealthy merchants, Gobson did not reside in the city proper, but lived about five miles out, at Jamaica Plain, in a pretty villa, which was converted into a sumptuous dwelling by Miss Ada’s taste.

The re-married couple lived in comfort under the same roof, but almost apart, which would have greatly calmed the jealousy of the unhappy Saunders if he had known of it.

The young woman occupied a charming apartment on the first floor, composed of a large parlor, a boudoir, sleeping-room, and dressing-room. The door of the latter room was at the head of the bed, [Pg 197]hidden by a blue silk portiere. The room was entirely hung with the same material. James Gobson never set foot in this part of the house, for once installed and received among the high-livers of Boston, he resumed his former life and vices. Forgetting what his habits of drinking, play, and his brutal ways had cost him, from his divorce to the suspicions which had led him to the foot of the gallows, he had fallen into the same excesses. He passed his days at the races, and his evenings at Barker’s, and nine times out of ten he was intoxicated when he went home in the middle of the night. Mrs. Gobson then had everything to fear from her husband’s anger, and her fear must have been extreme, for she never dared answer when he swore at her, nor refuse him the money squandered.

If Saunders could have witnessed one of these scenes, he certainly would not have recognized the beautiful, capricious woman, so whimsical and self-willed, who formerly ruled him. This life was doubly hard for the former Miss Ada, for she no longer had Mary with her, for Gobson, after generously rewarding the girl, had dismissed her, and then replaced her by a servant in whom he inspired as much fear as in his wife.

The other servants in this gloomy household were a cook and a gardener, who were not interested in the conjugal quarrels of the couple, and who besides rarely witnessed them, since they took place very late, when, their work being over, they had retired to their own quarters.

Mrs. Gobson then lived in absolute solitude with [Pg 198]the exception of her seamstress, her dress-maker, and a few tradespeople she was acquainted with, and received no one, and that this isolation was mournful to her was plainly shown in her face.

She was still beautiful, but her complexion had grown pale and her eyes hollow. Her whole countenance expressed sorrow, lassitude and discouragement.

Sometimes, however, when her husband went in town after committing some rude or violent act, her eyes would flash lightning and her lips contract in a menacing smile. In such moments a leaven of rebellion and vengeance seemed to rise within her. But it lasted only an instant; some secret and terrible thought passed through her mind, and with a shudder she burst into sobs. What still further increased the martyrdom of the pretty, forsaken woman, and what rendered her life more horrible and her isolation more cruel, was the sight that met her eyes when, concealed behind the curtains of her sleeping-room, she looked into the park of the next house.

There all was calm, happy, and pure. This house was inhabited by a distinguished-looking man about forty years old, of a particularly intelligent face, and by a young girl nearly sixteen, of a bewitching, gentle beauty, who had a middle-aged governess or teacher with her. The forsaken Mrs. Gobson supposed it was the home of a couple in their honeymoon, and her heart, she could not tell why, was saddened; but, on inquiring, she learned that her neighbor was named Charles Murray, and that the [Pg 199]young person called Jane was his daughter or ward, and she felt an unhoped-for relief. From that moment she continued her curious watching without the unconscious jealousy she at first had felt, and she soon learned by the despotism with which her thoughts reverted to Charles Murray, that she loved the stranger whom chance had brought so near her.

She soon made her neighbor aware of the attention of which he was the object, and he was evidently as much flattered as touched, for in less than a fortnight after the first looks exchanged, Mrs. Gobson read with deep emotion these two lines which she found in a bunch of roses, thrown to her over the garden-wall:

“You are adorably beautiful, and I love you. How can I speak with you?”

Her husband had just left for his club, where he was going to dine, and, according to his custom, pass the evening and a part of the night. Mrs. Gobson went up to her room, where from her window she saw her neighbor, who, pretending to be absorbed in reading a newspaper, was watching her.

She immediately wrote a few words, slipped them in an envelope, in which she placed a dollar to give it the necessary weight, and tossed it so skilfully that the loving projectile fell at Charles Murray’s feet.

He picked it up, and read:

“At eight o’clock this evening, at the end of the avenue.”

[Pg 200]

He gave her a look of thanks which made her blush with happiness, and returned home.

Charles Murray had given Miss Jane the first floor of his villa, but he had reserved for himself two rooms on the ground-floor which had a private entrance. The first of these rooms was a sleeping-room, the second a study, the door of which was always carefully locked, and no one, not even the servants, ever entered it.

Murray, who was interested in science, had, they said, dangerous materials and fragile apparatuses which he wished to protect from curious eyes or from being handled. When he established himself at Jamaica Plain, he alone received and opened the boxes which contained them. His orders were strictly obeyed. When her friend or guardian was at home and she wished to see him, Miss Jane herself did not cross the threshold of this mysterious apartment—she called to him from outside.

It was to this study that Murray proceeded when he left Mrs. Gobson, and if the latter had followed him she would have been strangely surprised; for, instead of covering her note with loving kisses, as she perhaps fancied, her neighbor, when once at home, took a voluminous package of papers from his desk, drew out one crumpled letter, and, comparing it with that from Mr. Gobson’s wife, said:

“It is, indeed, the same handwriting.”

During this time Ada was plunged in her dreams of love. When dinner was ready she seated herself at table, but ate hardly anything. At eight o’clock, [Pg 201]taking the chance while her servants were busy in the kitchen, she stole out of the house.

It was beginning to grow dark, and the air was warm and fragrant. She drew her mantle around her and quickened her steps, and soon discovered, under one of the tall trees in the avenue, the man she was coming to meet.

Murray, who had recognized her, quickly advanced to meet her, and said in a low voice, full of feeling:

“Madam, forgive me for having dared to break in upon your solitude.”

“I forgive you, sir,” she answered, “by coming here.”

“Thank you—thank you with all my heart.”

He offered her his arm, and she took it, saying:

“You wrote me that you loved me, did you know who I am?”

“I might answer you no, but that would be unworthy of you and me. Yes, I know who you are. The name of your husband told me that you were the heroine of that event which all New York was talking about for two months.”

“And was this why you have made me a declaration of love?”

She said this in a tone of pique, and withdrew her arm from that of her escort.

Understanding what was passing in her mind, Charles Murray hastened to answer, gently replacing her arm within his.

“Oh! you do not believe it, madam; I love you because you are lovely, and I judged you were unhappy [Pg 202]because you are beautiful, and my heart, void of affection, went out to you.”

“Is all this really the truth?”

Ada, wishing to be convinced, smiled.

“Really the truth,” repeated Murray, tenderly pressing the little hand she had let him take.

“But the foolishness of this love; I am married.”

“Why did you marry a second time a man of whom you had so much to complain?”

“Ah, I don’t know. The peculiar situation in which the law placed us. Weakness.”

“Get a divorce a second time.”

“Impossible.”

“Impossible, why?”

“Because, on the mere suspicion of such an intention on my part, my husband would kill me. You see, I came to meet you to warn you of the danger to which you expose me. I have been able to escape to-day; but to come out again in this way would seem strange to my servants, for we receive no one, and Mr. Gobson is not acquainted with you.”

“I can become acquainted with him.”

“I think not; and I hope not, for your sake.”

“But if it is the only way to see you, and talk with you.”

“Yes, it is the only way. You love me, then?”

“I have never met a more charming woman than you. Give me a little hope and I will become your husband’s friend in less than a week.”

“Do so, and we will see. Meanwhile let me go; my absence may be remarked.”

[Pg 203]

They retraced their steps, then separated a hundred yards from their villas, not without pressing hands and giving many promises.

When Mrs. Gobson reached the house, she went at once to her room, where her first look was at her mirror which gave her back a smile. The few moments which she had just passed in a loving tete-a-tete had restored all her beauty.

Murray, after noiselessly closing the garden gate, which he had left open when he went out, entered his study. Absorbed in his thoughts, he had not seen, two steps from the fence, hidden behind a cluster of trees, a young girl watching him, no doubt, for the emotion which overcame her at sight of him was so great that she had to cover her face to stifle a sob. It was this lovely child whose chaste beauty awakening Mrs. Gobson’s jealousy, had, perhaps, more than any other sentiment, awakened in her heart the imperious desire to be loved.

In less than a fortnight after his reception at Barker’s, James Gobson became one of the most constant attendants at the club. A great drinker and gambler, he found adversaries equal to him, who soon became intimate with him and who led him without any difficulty into every excess. They knew he was rich, and cared little how he made his money. He was at every race, took part in all the betting, and was invited to every entertainment, and, like certain other high-livers of the club, he finally took a room at Barker’s, in order to have a bed ready for the days when drunkenness did not permit him to go home, even if he were carried there.

Master Gobson thus led the gayest, most irregular existence, while his wife remained alone in her villa, at Jamaica Plain. It would have been a real satisfaction to the inconsolable Saunders to see how forsaken was the woman who, in order to marry a second time, had repelled his love.

Being very jolly, even when he was thoroughly drunk, Ada Ricard’s husband took every joke in good part, excepting those about his trial. He did not like to be reminded of the critical days [Pg 205]which he had spent at the Tombs, and liked still less to speak of the woman who bore his name. When people expressed astonishment at never seeing him with the beautiful Mrs. Gobson, who had saved his life and given a true proof of love in marrying him a second time, in spite of the past, he answered evasively. If any one persisted he grew pale and his eyes wore a look of hatred people could not explain. But these questions were not repeated. At the end of a month his pleasure companions gave as little thought to his wife as if she did not exist. James then became quite happy.

Matters were like this at the time of the rendezvous of Mrs. Gobson and Charles Murray. That evening Gobson spent the night at his club, but the next day he had to return home, for he had emptied his pockets in gambling. Naturally, he had expected reproaches, as usual on such occurrences, but to his amazement Ada received him charmingly.

What to her henceforth were the follies and absence of the man she was about to escape?

But James cared too little for Mrs. Gobson to question about this sudden change. Coldly sceptical, and profoundly selfish, he accepted the effect without seeking to trace it back to the cause.

The couple passed the day in perfect harmony, and toward five o’clock, when her husband, with his pocket-book replenished, told her that he was going to his club, Ada bade him a friendly good-by.

Gobson wished particularly to dine at Barker’s that evening, for they were going to receive a new [Pg 206]member into their club, and this ceremony was always accompanied by a banquet at which the most important members of the club did not fail to be present.

The newly elected member, Harris Burnett by name, came to Boston with the warmest recommendations, and preceded by the reputation of a brave drinker. They presented James Gobson to him, who sat on his right, and these two gentlemen, with their wine-glasses in their hands, became so well acquainted that when they arose from the table, at ten o’clock, they were intimate boon companions. From the dining-room they passed into a parlor, but there, instead of taking a seat at the gaming-table as Gobson invited him, Harris asked to be excused a moment, under the pretext of going to his hotel.

In fact, he ran to it, for a man was waiting for him on the door-step.

It was Charles Murray.

“Well,” asked the latter, “how are you getting on?”

“We have reached the most tender friendship,” answered Harris Burnett, “only I do not think he will leave Barker’s to-night. He is going to play, and he is so drunk that he will probably fall asleep at the club.”

“So much the better; I am not ready, and that assures us of his return to-morrow to Jamaica Plain. But to-morrow he must not leave before half-past twelve at night. Do not let him get too drunk; keep him steady enough to get into a carriage [Pg 207]which will stand two doors above Barker’s. Above all, if he has a revolver take it away from him, or what is better, unload it. The rest I will take care of.”

“How shall I notify you?”

“I shall be here to-morrow at this hour. If any unforeseen obstacle presents itself it will be the next day.”

Having received these strange instructions Burnett returned to Barker’s, and Charles Murray, stepping into the carriage waiting for him, drove to Jamaica Plain.

Things went on as he had predicted, James Gobson played half the night and slept at his club.

The next day his new friend came to see him; they went together to the races. Then returned to Barker’s for dinner, then at ten o’clock they began to play with opponents who had been mentioned to Harris as never keeping very late hours. Therefore, toward midnight these gentlemen expressed a desire to end the game, and James Gobson who, while playing, had not ceased to drink, prepared to leave.

“Are you going home?” asked Burnett, who, at the hour agreed, had absented himself a moment to tell Charles Murray what had happened.

“Upon my word I am,” answered James; “it is forty-eight hours since I have set foot in it.”

“Then let us go down together?”

“Agreed.”

They entered the vestibule, where Harris, not being able to further carry out the orders he had [Pg 208]received, adroitly drew out the revolver in Gobson’s pocket. Having done that, he took the arm of his new friend, who reeled somewhat, and they went out. The street was deserted.

“My God,” murmured the drunken man, “no carriage! I shall go back to the club; I have no desire to go to Jamaica Plain by means of my own legs; in fact, they would not take me there.”

“Here is a carriage,” said Harris, laughing at his friend’s pleasantry.

He pointed out a cab, the driver of which was evidently waiting for a passenger, for he drove his horse toward the men approaching.

Gobson tumbled into the carriage, shook the hand of his new dinner companion energetically, stammered out his address, and threw himself back in a corner and closed his eyes.

The cab had been rolling on for three-quarters of an hour, and was within a hundred yards of the avenue where is the villa with which our readers are already acquainted, when Gobson, who had fallen asleep, suddenly awoke, hearing the oaths which his autonedon was pouring out. The man had jumped down from his box and was carefully examining one of the wheels of his carriage.

“What is the matter?” asked James, whom the brief sleep had partly sobered.

“One of the nuts has come off, and I cannot go any farther,” answered the man.

“Pooh! That is nothing,” said Gobson, jumping out into the road; “I will go home on foot. Stop—here’s your pay.”

[Pg 209]

He gave a dollar to the driver, who thanked him, and, while his passenger went whistling toward the avenue, he turned his cab around, then leading his horse by the bridle, took the road toward the city.

But five minutes later he quietly drew a nut from his pocket, put it in place, jumped on his box, and set off at a gallop.

James, without suspecting the trick of which he was a victim, had reached the avenue, where, owing to the tall trees that bordered it, it was rather dark. Suddenly, as he was going along the wall of a wide park, two men sprang upon him, and so quickly that he hardly had time to give a shout. One of his assailants had seized him by the throat, and the other was trying to throw him on the ground, saying:

“If you call, you are dead. Quick, your money and your watch.”

But Gobson was brave and strong. Holding with one hand the arm of the thief who was threatening him with his knife, and giving a vigorous bump with his head on the face of the man who was strangling him, he disengaged himself sufficiently to be able to give a second cry for help.

“Keep up, I am coming,” a voice immediately answered, and he heard steps running toward him.

At once understanding that their shot had missed, the two robbers bound their victim and sprang to the other side of the road, but James’ preserver no doubt did not wish them to get off so easily, for two shots resounded the air, and one of the two wretches [Pg 210]gave a cry which Gobson, had he been less drunk, would have understood, for his deliverer had simply fired in the air.

Gobson was hardly saved before he wished also to take his revenge, only to his amazement he no longer found in his overcoat pocket the revolver he was sure he had put there. Besides, the thieves had disappeared, and the man who had so fortunately come to his aid had approached.

“You are not wounded, are you, sir?” asked the stranger.

“No,” answered Gobson; “but had it not been for your arrival I believe that all would have been over with me. The rogues almost strangled me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.”

While saying this James arranged his toilet, the harmony of which was singularly disturbed by this attack, and he fumbled in vain in his pockets, saying:

“It is singular; I am, however, certain I took it from home yesterday.”

“What is it?” asked his savior.

“My revolver. However, thanks to yours, one of those robbers has paid for his audacity. But, one question, sir. How happen you to be in this avenue at such an hour?”

“I was returning home.”

“Home?”

“Yes; I live two hundred steps from here, at No. 67.”

“Indeed. We are neighbors, then; I live at villa 66.”

[Pg 211]

“You are Mr. James Gobson.”

“I am. But you have the advantage of me. I am not acquainted with your name.”

“My name is Charles Murray.”

“Well, Mr. Charles Murray, I owe you my life, and I shall not forget it; and since we are neighbors we will not part thus. You will do me the pleasure of coming into my house and taking a glass of champagne.”

“It is very late.”

“Hardly one o’clock.”

“Are you not married? We should awaken Mrs. Gobson.”

“Bah! Mrs. Gobson will be delighted to see the man who saved her husband, unless it was she who tried to have me assassinated.”

James said this with a laugh, but his laugh was ironical, and expressed that he believed his wife perfectly capable of such an act. Charles Murray did not seem to understand; he merely observed to his neighbor that the men who attacked him seemed to have no other intention than to rob him.

“Yes; that is true,” said Gobson, laughing again; “and you think this is only joking on my part?”

While talking thus the two were walking homeward. They soon reached the first of the two villas.

“What, you really wish me to enter your house at such an hour?” asked Murray, as Gobson opened the gate and stood aside to let him pass in.

“Certainly, my dear sir, I absolutely insist on it. You would disoblige me very much by refusing.”

[Pg 212]

“Let it be then as you wish.”

And following the master of the villa, who preceded him to show him the way, Charles Murray crossed the garden and entered the house.

“Hallo! Betsy, Betsy, come down,” shouted Gobson at the foot of the staircase.

Betsy was Ada’s maid. She had retired to her bed but was not yet asleep. She immediately answered, and James, taking the lamp which lighted the hall, showed his neighbor into the dining-room. The servant appeared almost immediately.

“Light the gas,” ordered the master; “give us some champagne, cigars and crackers, and tell Mrs. Gobson to join us.”

“Madam is asleep,” said Betsy.

“Wake her up,” answered the brute, roughly.

“No, I beg you,” entreated Murray. “I shall have the honor of seeing Mrs. Gobson to-morrow.”

“No such thing; she will have time enough to sleep—she has nothing better to do. Be off with you, quick, you stupid creature.”

These last words were addressed to the maid, who was no doubt accustomed to this rude tone, and ventured no remark. She lighted the room, served the champagne, and disappeared to obey her orders.

Gobson poured out the wine like a man expert in such operations, filled the glasses, and emptied his at one swallow, with a bow to his preserver. Murray drank with his host, who said, filling the glasses again:

“It is truly a good fortune for me to have you [Pg 213]for a neighbor. Have you lived in the avenue long?”

“Hardly a month. The air of the neighborhood was recommended for my niece. I came here on her account.”

“Are you not married?”

“No.”

“You are very fortunate.”

“You are more so. They say Mrs. Gobson is very pretty.”

“Yes, that may be; but you see, dear Mr. Murray, the best wife—when you are tied to her—is worse than the devil. She is an obstacle. I for my part like liberty.”

The rustle of a dress interrupted this coarse outburst of James Gobson, who was rapidly returning on the road to drunkenness, and a few seconds later the mistress of the house appeared on the threshold of the dining-room.

Ada was prettier than ever. In a long blue satin robe, with her beautiful hair simply drawn up in a knot on her head, she was simply charming.

On recognizing in her husband’s companion the man she loved, she stopped in the doorway an instant, but understanding that there was some mystery that would be explained later she silenced the beating of her heart, became mistress of herself again, and, bowing to Mr. Murray as she would have done to a stranger, she entered, saying to James, in a dry, curt tone:

“Betsy awoke me, saying that you wanted me. What can you wish at such an hour?”

[Pg 214]

“Why, my dear,” answered Gobson, in a mocking tone, “I simply wish to present to you the man who has saved my life, Mr. Murray, our neighbor. Without his aid, two scamps were about to do me an evil deed.”

“I do not understand you,” said the young woman, slightly shrugging her shoulders with indifferent concern.

“Oh, I know very well,” returned the drunkard, who had caught this movement, “that if those fellows had driven six inches of steel into me you would not have felt greatly displeased. I have been attacked; they tried to rob me, but my savior arrived. It was time, for I was half strangled, and his timely appearance no doubt saved my life.”

“Madam,” said Charles Murray, who had risen at Ada’s entrance, “your husband exaggerates a little the service which I have rendered him. I believe that he would have saved himself without me. However that may be, I beg pardon for having disturbed your rest. I did not wish to enter your house, but Mr. Gobson insisted, and my refusal would have offended him.”

“Ah, certainly, yes; I insisted,” replied James, quickly, “and I think it won’t end here; you seem to me like a lively companion. Another glass of champagne. Come, Ada, drink with us, or I shall think that you are grieving because I returned safe and sound.”

“I am quite ready,” answered Mrs. Gobson, smiling, divining that this attack on her husband [Pg 215]was only a comedy. “Whatever you may think, I am happy that nothing happened to you. I thank you very sincerely, Mr.—Mr.—”

“Murray,” was the answer.

And taking the full glass which her husband handed her, she moistened her rosy lips, looking steadily at her neighbor with an expression of countenance that indicated pleasure.

“Now,” said the latter, “you will permit me, dear Mr. Gobson, to intrude no longer; we will see each other again, since you kindly invite me to your house.”

“Let me show you the way home.”

“Pray do not take the trouble; I can find the way.”

This offer, in fact, was almost impossible for James to carry out, for the four or five glasses of champagne which he had just drank had again intoxicated him.

“Then,” he stuttered, “let Betsy show you the way.”

“I will do it myself,” said Mrs. Gobson.

Gobson nodded approval, and held out his hand to his guest, making him promise to return the next day.

Ada was already on the steps when Charles Murray joined her. They crossed the garden together.

“Well,” he said, when they reached the gate, “you see I have kept my promise; here I am, your husband’s friend. Will you not give me a word of hope?”

[Pg 216]

“You are charming,” said Mrs. Gobson, her eyes sparkling. “I will see you to-morrow.” Unclosing the gate after making this promise, she ran up to her room without entering the dining-room, where James, with his elbows on the table, was murmuring, with eyes full of hatred:

“If I thought those men were set on by her I would kill her as I would a dog.”

Under the conditions just described, the love-making of Charles Murray and Mrs. Gobson promised rapid progress. Ada was charmed by the easy address of the handsome stranger, for she knew that in order to visit her he had planned this attack from which he had saved her husband, but humiliated at her husband’s rudeness in the presence of his guest thought only of revenge.

Being sure that Gobson would be eager for an acquaintance with his preserver in proportion to the repugnance she might show for the intimacy, the next day, when she was told that Mr. Murray would lunch at the villa, she received the news with displeasure; she seated herself at the table, pouting, and before the end of the meal excused herself with some pretext, in spite of the rude remarks of her husband. But the latter cared little; he was none the less convivial with his guest, so much so that at the last course he was intoxicated and would not allow his new friend to leave.

“Let it please or not please Mrs. Gobson,” he said. “We must see each other often. Get admitted to our club at Barker’s; I will vouch for [Pg 218]you. We will return to Jamaica Plain when we please, and if by chance we happen to come home early we will end our night gayly here.”

“I accept,” answered Murray, touching his glass for the tenth time to that of the drunken man. “Ah! you know how to enjoy life.”

“Better still; I wish our two villas to be like one. They formerly communicated by a gate now out of use; to-morrow it shall be opened again. Will that suit you?”

“Perfectly.”

“Hurrah, then! A good table, play and friends give the only true pleasure. To the devil with a wife—that is, your own—”

Charles Murray, who seemed proof against intoxication, touched glasses as often as it pleased his host, and they did not separate until the latter wishing to go to his club, thought it best to throw himself on his bed and rest for several hours before starting.

At nightfall, after dinner, when her husband had gone, Mrs. Gobson watched for her neighbor; but to her amazement and great chagrin he did not give a sign of his existence. She did not see him again until the next day, when Gobson, having opened the connecting-gate between the two villas, did the honors of the house and park to him.

During this visit Murray found a chance to say to Mrs. Gobson, “This evening,” and in the hope of this interview she forgot her disappointment and useless waiting of the evening before. She was punctual at the rendezvous. She waited for Murray [Pg 219]at the garden-gate, and led him to a green bower, where no curious eye could see them.

“I waited for you in vain yesterday,” she said, in a gentle tone of reproach, as soon as they had seated themselves on a broad rattan bench.

“Ada, listen to me,” answered Mr. Murray, in a grave voice, but lovingly pressing the two little hands Mrs. Gobson gave him. “I feel drawn toward you by a genuine love. The thought that that coarse creature is your husband drives me to despair, and I long to break the fatal link that binds you to him. Is it not possible?”

“I think not,” answered Ada sadly, rapt by these words, for being little accustomed to delicate sentiments, she found a peculiar charm in feeling herself jealously loved.

“Why is it impossible?”

“Oh! I cannot tell you. Do not question me, if you love me.”

The young woman said this with an inexpressible accent of terror. Her hands trembled in Murray’s, and she bowed before him as if begging him to defend her, and tears shone in her beautiful eyes.

But this man seemed as if made of bronze; not a pulse was stirred, and yet this woman was appealing to him by the ardor of her heart, and the tone of her voice, but he gently tried to console her with kind words. He then led her to the doorsteps, saying:

“Again to-morrow.”

Ada went to her room, where, in a fit of despair, she flung herself upon her bed, giving vent to fierce words of hatred against her husband.

[Pg 220]

The following days passed the same. One evening when she was with him, she said:

“I entreat you to tell me what to do.”

“I repeat to you, Ada,” answered Murray, “you must separate from that man, since you have had the weakness to marry him a second time.”

“A second time!” said the young woman, with a smile whose irony transformed it into a sob, and falling at Murray’s feet, she repeated: “A second time! Oh! if you only knew.”

“Explain yourself. What secret links you to him? Have confidence in me. Let us try every means to free you.”

“Oh! no, no; never,” cried Mrs. Gobson, with an indescribable tone of terror. “If I were to die of your scorn, I shall not speak. Farewell.”

Speaking these words in a heart-rending tone, she had arisen and, without looking around, hastened to her room, shutting the door quickly behind her.

Murray who, no doubt, hardly expected this sudden disappearance, stood a moment amazed and disappointed, but he made no attempt to recall the fugitive. He took his hat, went slowly down stairs, left the house and walked toward the gate leading to his own villa. He had almost reached it when, suddenly, the rustling of a dress and hurrying footsteps indicated that some one was running after him. He turned round and saw Ada, who sprang toward him.

“No, I do not wish to part thus. To-morrow I will tell you all, and you will free me from that [Pg 221]man. But you will love me, you will love me, won’t you?”

“How could I help loving you, when you give me such a proof of love,” he answered. “I love you so much already.”

At the same moment a mournful groan was heard on the other side of the gate.

“What is that?” asked Mrs. Gobson, frightened.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Charles Murray, whose paleness was hidden by the darkness. “Go home now.”

“But then——”

“Go, go, I beg you; it is my wish,” and paying no further attention to her, he sprang into his garden, fastening the gate after him; within two steps he came near stumbling over some one lying near a cluster of trees.

“Jane,” he cried, recognizing who it was.

He took her in his arms and, laden with his precious burden, ran into the house.

“Oh, Miss Jane, what has happened?” cried her good governess, on recognizing her pupil. “She was with me only five minutes ago.”

“It is not much, I hope,” answered Murray, mounting the stairs as lightly as if he were carrying a child.

Having reached Jane’s sleeping-room he lay her on a lolling-chair, and immediately assured himself that it was only a fainting turn. A moment later, owing to prompt measures, she came to herself. Opening her large eyes, and after trying a [Pg 222]few minutes to steady her head, she recognized her friend, and blushingly clasping her hands, said:

“Forgive me, Charles, forgive me, I am punished enough,” and she burst into sobs.

“Forgive you, Jane? For what? Weep if you must; it will relieve you, and you can explain all to me later. Meanwhile, dear little one, be calm. I forgive you with all my heart, although I do not know what fault you have committed, and I love you.”

At these words the young girl grew pale, and, as if she felt herself growing ill again, her lids drooped.

“Let your maid attend to you,” continued Murray, after touching the child’s forehead with his lips, “and your governess and I will then come and stay with you until you fall asleep.”

He signed to the governess, and leaving the invalid in the care of the maid, they passed into the boudoir. There they were far enough away not to be heard.

“What does this mean?” Murray asked the old lady.

“It was sure to happen some day or another, sir,” answered the teacher; “I reproach myself with having kept silence.”

“Silence? Explain yourself; you frighten me.”

“Miss Jane loves you, sir.”

“Miss Jane loves me.” And as he repeated these words Murray carried his hands to his face, which became of a livid pallor.

“Yes, she loves you and is jealous.”

[Pg 223]

“Jealous of whom, great God?”

But with his customary clearness of mind immediately reviewing the scene whose ending caused the young girl’s cry and fainting, he understood that she had been watching him in the garden when Ada joined him near the gate, and it was the loving words she heard which caused her illness.

“Oh! it is frightful,” he murmured, with great agitation.

“That is not all, sir; I must conceal nothing from you,” replied the teacher.

“What more?”

“Day before yesterday, early in the evening, Miss Jane, who had left me only a quarter of an hour before, came up suffering from a nervous attack. I wished to call you, but she objected, saying: ‘He is with her in his library. I suspected it, but I wished to see for myself. Oh! I am cruelly punished for my curiosity.’”

“She saw me with Mrs. Gobson?” questioned Murray in amazement, and in a voice strangely moved.

“That is how it was,” continued the governess, “but I ask your pardon for speaking to you of things that do not concern me.”

“Continue, continue. Did Miss Jane watch me and hear me enter?”

“I do not know; it is probable. At any rate, she came down slowly, noiselessly slipped into your sleeping-room, of which you had only dropped the portieres without closing the door, and she recognized that woman, and she ran away for fear of [Pg 224]being caught. And she came and told me this with sobs.”

“Poor little one,” said Murray, with a strange smile, “I am in despair. Go up to her; do not leave her alone a single instant; tell her that she is mistaken, and that I will explain all some day. Above all, advise her to be calm.”

Then he added, as if speaking to himself, while the teacher left to join her pupil, “The love of this angel is my punishment; well, I must finish my task; God will do the rest.” And immediately going down-stairs to his study, he rapidly wrote the following lines:

My Dear Friend:—The hour has come; on receipt of this letter, run to Mr. Kelly’s and tell him to ask Mr. Davis for a warrant against James Gobson and his wife. Tell these gentlemen that I will answer for this measure with my honor. Then take the first train for Boston with Mr. Saunders and stop at the American House, where await yours truly,

William.

Having addressed it to Captain Young at the office of the central police, New York, Charles Murray, or rather William Dow, whom the reader has already recognized, left his study calmer than he had entered it a few moments before.

He ordered one of his servants to mail this letter and went to inquire after Jane. The young girl had recovered and fallen asleep. As he went down he gave a threatening look at the lighted windows of Mrs. Gobson, who, no doubt, was thinking [Pg 225]lovingly of him and he entered his apartments, saying:

“Young will have my letter to-morrow; in forty-eight hours he will arrive. I have more time than I need. Before then all will be ready.”

Since the day he was attacked, James Gobson had become ruder and more brutal to his wife than before. Although he seemed to have been joking when reproaching her for having set assassins on his track, the idea of a trap laid by her had taken root in his mind, and, brave as he was, he so feared that the attempt would be renewed that he no longer returned to Jamaica Plain at night. When he had prolonged his stay at the club he slept there, and did not return to the villa until daylight the next day.

His first duty, on arriving home, was invariably to make a scene, either with his servants or Mrs. Gobson; then, this duty of a drunkard being accomplished, he would call on Charles Murray, of whom he had made a confidant. The latter tried to calm him, but took such strange means that Gobson always left him after such conversations filled with greater hatred than ever toward Ada.

The day after the event which ends the preceding chapter, James returned home towards three o’clock, and as usual called on his neighbor, and talked about his wife in such a manner that Mr. Dow answered:

[Pg 227]

“Such a life is a perfect purgatory; why do you not separate from Mrs. Gobson? It would be better than any scandal, for certainly she will run off some morning. Some fine evening, when you return home, you won’t find her.”

“Separate from her? Is that possible?” growled the husband. “If I thought she had any idea of flight, I swear she should not go out of my house until she went with her feet foremost. There will be trouble yet. Does she ever say anything in particular to you?”

“I have never been alone with her more than twice since we have been acquainted, and you know she does not like me very well.”

“Of course not. You saved my life.”

“No, that is not the reason; but she knows that I have great friendship for you. However, it is very evident that she has some plan in her head. Have you not a relative or friend by the name of Davis?”

“Davis? No. Why?”

“I had reason to think so, for the other evening, when you had been treating her rather badly, it must be confessed, I heard her murmur, as she followed you about with her eyes: ‘And to think I had only to write a word to Davis to put an end to it all.’”

“Davis? The wretch!”

This name, no doubt, had suddenly awakened terrible memories in Gobson’s mind, for in uttering this exclamation he had become very pale and had arisen.

[Pg 228]

“You will not betray me,” said Charles Murray. “Come, calm yourself. It is of no use to be violent with women. You must use a little cunning, and don’t let them surprise you. This Davis, or any other friend or relative, matters little to you. No one could frighten you; you are master in your own house. If I were in your place I should leave Mrs. Gobson to live as she pleases; I would authorize her to amuse herself as best suits her; I would even urge her to keep less secluded. It would not need any more to satisfy her and restore peace to both of you.”

“Yes, perhaps you are right,” answered James, with a visible effort to master himself.

“And above all, I would not say anything to her. If you do, she will be on her guard, and will play you some trick and do something rash. Do you think we had better go and see her together?”

“No, indeed, not to-day, or to-morrow, probably. This evening I dine at the club, and to-morrow we shall go to the races with a jolly companion, who has lately joined us, Harris Burnett. Now, you know that on the day of the races, there is a great banquet at Barker’s. After to-morrow, in two or three days, we will see what is best to be done. Meanwhile, since you will not come with us, preach to Ada, and if you see anything promise to warn me.”

“I will not fail to do so.”

“And, then, you see, at heart I do not think her capable of playing me a wicked trick. However, I know what I am about.”

[Pg 229]

James Gobson spoke these words in a peculiar tone, and the friends having separated after this conversation, the drunken Gobson went to Boston without even stopping to see his wife. The latter, however, waited in vain for Charles Murray all the evening. The door between the two villas remained closed, and she passed a terrible night, not understanding why he had not come to see her. Mad with love and despair, she did not fall asleep until late into the night, and the next morning she hastily wrote a note, which she sent to her neighbor.

On reading this letter, Murray could not conceal a smile of triumph. Ada, however, had written only these three lines, but no doubt did not wish more:

Come, I beg you, I will tell you everything, I cannot live thus; I do not wish Mr. Gobson to find me at Jamaica Plain to-morrow.

An hour later Charles Murray was warmly greeted by Mrs. Gobson.

“Ada,” he said, gently, “I do not wish to know your secrets; from yourself, I wish only you; will you elope with me?”

“Will I?” answered the young woman with a joyful cry.

“Well, in the first place, your husband must be sent away for two or three days, but he must certainly be sent away from Boston, for he might come home from his club at any moment and suddenly [Pg 230]surprise you making preparations for departure. You know him well.”

“He would kill me; but how can I manage to send him away?”

“You must send him to some city away from Boston. Let me think. Has he not some friends at Buffalo?”

“I don’t know of any.”

“Ah! I think I have found a plan. What were the names of those magistrates who made such a foolish mistake in accusing your husband of having murdered you?”

“Mortimer and Davis. The latter was the coroner in my district.”

Mrs. Gobson spoke these names with a blush and in a choking voice.

But her neighbor did not observe her emotion, and said:

“Coroner Davis, that is perfect. I have a plan; write down his name and address for me that I may not forget it. Here, on this envelope.”

Murray took a tablet from the table and placed it on Miss Ada’s knees. The latter tremblingly obeyed.

“Do you not understand me?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.

“It is very simple, however. I am going to get a friend of mine in New York to write a letter to Mr. Gobson, in which Mr. Davis will be supposed to have some information to ask of him.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” cried Ada, in terror.

“Why, what is there to fear? Absolutely nothing.”

[Pg 231]

But seeing Mrs. Gobson’s eyes look wild and her face terrified, he continued gently:

“Well, let us think of something else—or rather we will think of something this evening; calm yourself now.”

“Yes, this evening,” she repeated, questioning him with her eyes.

“But until then you must obey me.”

“Blindly.”

“You must take care to keep your servants out of the way; I don’t wish to be betrayed by any of them.”

“The gardener has gone to the races and will not return. The cook is ill, and I shall send my maid to the city.”

“Then stand near the garden-gate this evening at nine o’clock, and I will come for you.”

“Give me one kiss,” entreated Mrs. Gobson.

Murray, who had arisen, lightly touched his lips to her forehead and left her.

He remained only a few moments in his room, then went out and stepped into a carriage standing at his door. An hour later he was in the American House shaking hands with Saunders and Young, who had just arrived.

The chief of detectives was still the same—friendly and gruff, and talking, as usual, of arresting every one in the world.

William Dow asked after Mr. Kelly.

“I saw him yesterday,” answered the captain; “he was impatiently waiting for you to keep your promise.”

[Pg 232]

“The elections will not take place for a fortnight; now, to-morrow morning I hope all will be ended.”

In Saunders a great change had taken place, to his advantage. His love had vanished, and in his heart remained only anger and humiliation at having been duped. In physique he was wonderfully improved. His complexion had recovered its freshness, and stout as he was he had even gained flesh. It is useless to add that he was very affectionate to his friend Dow, especially when he learned that the moment for vengeance had come.

Toward six o’clock the travelers had dinner served in their room, and the detective left them a moment to receive, in an adjoining parlor, a visitor who had asked for him.

It was Harris Burnett.

“Well,” said William Dow, “where is our man?”

“He has lost much at the races, which has put him in a bad mood; besides, he is half drunk,” answered Burnett.

“He must not get wholly drunk. Now listen to me attentively. At half-past eleven, while it is still possible for Gobson to take the train for Jamaica Plain, you must have one of the servants at the club hand him this letter, telling him to answer; if he is asked who brought it, say that it was a messenger. Keep near James when he reads it. He will immediately leave Barker’s. If he begs you to accompany him you will go with him; if he does not you must follow him home, and if he closes his gate behind him you must enter mine, which you will find [Pg 233]open, and wait behind the little gate that connects his place and mine until I call you. Have you understood me?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

“Then return to Gobson quickly, lest he perceive your absence.”

Harris Burnett hastened back to the club, and William Dow rejoined Young and Saunders at the table. At eight o’clock he gave the signal for departure.

The three friends entered the carriage, and a few moments before nine Dow introduced the chief of detectives and Saunders into his private room on the ground floor of his house. There, after begging them to wait with as much patience as they could, he left them alone and went up to Miss Jane’s room. The young girl, still pale from her emotion of the evening before, was with her teacher.

“My dear child,” said William to her, “I have come to beg you not to go down to the garden this evening, and whatever sound you may hear not to stir from your room.”

Jane turned a look upon her friend so full of anxious affection that he continued:

“Fear nothing for me, I run no danger; but there is great need for you to do what I wish. If I can accomplish, as I hope, the work that is approaching an end, you yourself will thank me. I can count on you, can I not, and you, Mrs. Wandright?”

The governess and her pupil, without asking a question, promised immediately that they would [Pg 234]not leave their room until he gave them their liberty, and he left them, with an affectionate smile at Miss Jane, feeling assured that his instructions would be strictly obeyed.

It had just struck nine. He ran to the gate and opened it. Prompt at the rendezvous, Ada was waiting for him.

“Come,” he said to her, and taking her hand he led her to the hall connecting with his room. Then, from there, without passing the sleeping-room where Young and Saunders were standing, he took her into the library. But the door of this room was hardly closed before a horrible cry was heard—the cry of a woman mad with terror and despair—and followed by the sound of some one falling to the floor. Then groans, laments, and sobs followed one another, and silence again filled that part of the villa so suddenly and strangely disturbed.

Two hours later William Dow and Young, carrying an inert body, crossed the garden and ascended the stairs which led to Mrs. Gobson’s rooms. Reaching her sleeping-room, they placed their burden on the bed and withdrew. A few moments later they took the same path again, accompanied this time by Saunders, who seemed deeply moved, and by a woman enveloped in a large cloak, and who seemed hardly able to support herself.

At the same moment a servant handed James Gobson, at Barker’s, a letter which a messenger had just brought. Excited by losses and wine, Gobson [Pg 235]opened it angrily. It contained a note of two lines and an inclosed letter. The note, signed Murray, was as follows:

This is what I have found on your door-step, and as this letter, which you have lost, may be urgent I send it by a messenger.

“What does this mean?” asked James.

But, as he asked this question, he cast his eyes on the envelope, and immediately became very pale. He read on this envelope, written in a woman’s hand:

“Mr. Davis, coroner of the Saint Vincent district of New York.”

The letter, which he hastened to open, increased his fear still more; for, without uttering a word, he sprang out of the room, ran down into the street, and, after giving an address to the coachman, sprang into a carriage.

He did not perceive that he was followed by Harris Burnett, who stood a few steps away when the letter was handed him, and had kept him in sight every moment.

Twenty minutes later, Gobson was driving hastily along the avenue, in Jamaica Plain, but, when he reached his door, he stopped a moment. His forehead was bathed with an icy sweat; his hideous face expressed an implacable resolution, and he muttered, with a sinister smile:

“Oh! no, wretch, you shall not escape thus.”

All was silent in the villa, and the garden was enveloped in darkness. When he recovered from [Pg 236]his rapid drive, he noiselessly opened his gate, slipped along the wall as far as his house, entered, and, owing to the carpet which smothered his footsteps, he softly reached the threshold of the door of his wife’s apartment. He held a revolver in his hand; but, as he was about to cross the parlor, he said to himself:

“No, not thus; some one might hear,” and putting the pistol back in his pocket, he armed himself with a short, stout dagger, without which he had not gone out of the house since the attack of which he had nearly become a victim.

The door that led from the parlor to the sleeping-room was open. He soon reached it, and raising the portieres, and although the room was lighted only by the soft, shaded light of an elaborate lamp, he recognized Ada, who, lying in her bed, seemed to be in a profound sleep. Her luxuriant hair rolled down over the lace alabaster-trimmed pillows beneath her charming head, and one of her bare arms, ornamented by one of those large gold bracelets with which she was so fond of decking herself, was gracefully extended on the coverlet. Overcome by fatigue, she had no doubt forgotten to divest herself of a part of her jewels, for, from the spot where like a wild beast Gobson was devouring his prey with glaring eyes, he saw the flash as of a fiery star of one of the magnificent diamonds in her pretty ears, a present from Saunders.

The charming tableau was not of a nature to calm his revengeful feelings. It seemed as if it roused his hatred, for, after a moment’s hesitation, [Pg 237]he sprang forward, and his dagger, with a thrust that would have pierced the heart of his victim, struck her in the throat, and the murderer whispered hoarsely:

“Now, Kitty Bell, you will not speak.”

But the wretch gave a frightful shriek, and bounded backward.

His weapon, he did not understand how, had met with resistance, and at the bedside suddenly rose before his horrified gaze the figure of a woman in Indian costume, which cried:

“Assassin! assassin! a second time!”

“Miss Ada,” screamed Gobson, at this terrible apparition, and with affrighted eyes, foaming mouth, and convulsed features, his whole being shuddering with horror and fear, he seized his pistol and fired at the accusing phantom.

But his ball, badly aimed, struck the wall above the young woman’s head, and the murderer had not time to repeat his homicidal attempt, for, being immediately seized and disarmed by Young and Dow, who sprang from behind the curtains where they had hidden themselves, he was soon thrown upon the floor, and made powerless.

At the same moment a sob was heard.

Poor Saunders had thrown himself upon this waxen statue, the faithful image of her he had so much loved, and he said, through his tears, pressing in his burning hand the icy hand of Albert Moor’s chef-d’œuvre:

“Poor Ada! poor Ada! I knew that she had not deceived me.”

If we retrace our steps and enter William Dow’s study when he admitted Mrs. Gobson, we shall witness a scene which explains how the events came about which we have just described.

Ada, absorbed in her love, had just crossed the threshold of this room, when the man, from whom she expected only smiles, suddenly looked stern, and drawing back, looked and pointed at the body of a woman lying on a lounge.

“Miss Ada, Miss Ada!” cried Mrs. Gobson.

“You confess, then, Kitty Bell?” said William Dow.

It was then that the unhappy woman uttered the cry of terror and despair of which we have spoken, and who, not being able to endure such emotion, had fallen almost lifeless to the floor.

At the sound, Young and Saunders rushed from the sleeping-room into the library.

Words could not picture the amazement of the cracker-merchant. He at first sprang toward Mrs. Gobson, as if to help her; but the detective stopped him, pointing to the lounge where lay the woman of wax, and the poor man, his face looking wild and [Pg 239]discomposed, stood motionless, wondering which of these two women was his own Ada.

Fearing that such a shock might be too violent for the ill-balanced brain of Saunders, William Dow hastened to say:

“Calm yourself, my friend; the woman you loved is really dead; this body is only the cast I had made in the secret hope that it would serve me some day. As for this woman, her strange resemblance to Miss Ada made her the accomplice of James Gobson; but it is she who will become our instrument of justice and vengeance.”

And that the too impressionable Yankee might not longer have under his eyes the image which fascinated him, he carried it from his sight.

At this unexpected spectacle, Young manifested no sensibility, but divining, in spite of his moderate intelligence, that his friend Dow was going to take his revenge, he gave him a look of admiration. Then he leaned down to Mrs. Gobson and bore her to a lounge, where, in a few moments, she began to recover consciousness.

“Kitty Bell,” said William to her, when he saw that she was in a condition to understand him, “rouse yourself; your fate is in your own hands.”

“Kitty Bell! Why do you call me that name, Mr. Murray?” stammered the young woman.

“Because it is your name. My name is William Dow. And look at those gentlemen—you will recognize them, perhaps.”

Mrs. Gobson looked alternately at Young and Saunders, and her face, which had began to resume [Pg 240]its rosy coloring, became livid. She knew that she was lost.

“Hear these few lines,” resumed the detective, who had drawn from his pocket-book a sheet of paper covered with printed characters and manuscript:

To-day, the twentieth of February, 184—, by us, Armand Rebours, vicar of the parish of St. Joseph, have been baptized according to the rites of the Holy Church, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman, Kitty and Anna Bell, born the thirteenth of this month, twin sisters, and daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Bell, in presence of these the witnesses: Jack Howey, Bernard Lowe, godfathers, and Mary Fellen and Lucy Molden, godmothers.

(Signed)

Armand Rebours, Priest.

Edward Berney, Rector of the parish of St. Joseph.

Robert Hall, Coroner of the said parish.

New Orleans, June 14, 186—.

Mrs. Gobson was so overcome she could not speak, but her eyes spoke for her, and so entreatingly that William Dow continued:

“You are Kitty Bell, and this wax statue is all that remains of your sister Anna, whom Gobson murdered, and whose name and place you took owing to your wonderful resemblance to her.”

“My sister!” she cried, at this horrible revelation, “my sister. Oh! gentlemen, you did not think me an accomplice in this frightful crime.” [Pg 241]She had thrown herself on her knees, holding out her hands imploringly to her judges, and she repeated between her sobs: “No, no; do not believe it, I entreat you.”

There was the ring of truth in her prayer, and William himself was moved by it. He leaned over toward her, raised her and forced her to seat herself in the arm-chair she had just left, and knowing that tears are the best sedative, he let her weep a few minutes, then said:

“I believe you, but you must confess the whole truth, conceal nothing from us, and afterwards you must obey me.”

“Do with me as you will, gentlemen,” groaned the weeping woman. “My poor Anna, I have not heard from her for more than ten years. I thought she resided in New Orleans with our family, where she met this wretch who has destroyed my life. Our mother was dead, and our father did not trouble himself about us. I did not know of Gobson’s marriage. And it was that infamous man Gobson who married her, and I—I was in his power, and then I became his wife. Oh! it is horrible. Let me——”

Saying thus, Kitty Bell struggled in the arms of William Dow and Young, who stopped her as she was going to jump out of the window. They carried her into the sleeping-room and laid her on an easy-chair.

Saunders, who witnessed this scene with an air of amazement impossible to describe, followed them. A few moments later Mrs. Gobson became a little [Pg 242]calmer, and William Dow having urged her to acquaint him with the slightest details of her relations with James Gobson, she said, weeping:

“I became acquainted with James Gobson hardly six months ago at San Francisco. I was employed in an establishment where this man was an habitue. He paid court to me; I was tolerably happy, in spite of the scenes when he was intoxicated. One day I wished to break off with him because in an angry fit he wounded me in pulling out one of my ear-rings, but he apologized so humbly for his rudeness, and took such good care of me, that I forgave him. Why was I so weak?”

“Go on, Kitty, don’t forget anything,” said the detective.

“About a fortnight after this occurrence, he gave me a cup of tea, and I fell into a strange sleep. It lasted about three or four hours at least. When I awoke he was near me, looking at me anxiously. ‘You fainted,’ he said, ‘and in falling you came near killing yourself. Happily, you are all right now.’ I felt a sharp pain in my mouth. I put my hand to it and drew it away covered with blood. I sprang to a looking-glass. A tooth was gone, on the right side. I uttered a cry of despair and the wretch tried to console me. I had broken a tooth he declared in slipping against a piece of furniture. This accident caused me alarm, for I was not subject to fainting turns. But from that moment Gobson became so gentle, and anxious, and generous, that I did not express a wish that was not gratified, and I soon forgot the event.”

[Pg 243]

“You now understand what his object was.”

“Oh! yes, the wretch; my poor Anna. We were so alike when we lived together that father, in order to distinguish us himself, made us wear velvet bands of different colors around our throats.”

“Now, as Gobson had torn his wife’s ear and broken out a tooth, the one who was to replace her must lose a tooth and have a cut on her ear. Go on; tell about your departure from San Francisco.”

“We left San Francisco toward the month of November, of last year, and went to Washington, where I lived in a little country house in complete retirement. Gobson I did not see for weeks, but after being absent he showed me much affection, and said, after returning from his journeys, that he was working for my happiness, and as he wished soon to marry me, I obeyed. However, I instinctively feared him. I would have liked to end with him. Such was the state of things when one day in January, James came to me in a state of exaltation which frightened me. What he said to me then, oh! I do not believe I could reveal.”

“You must; your testimony is indispensable,” said William Dow, sternly; “for your fate depends on your frankness in telling what else you can make known. Besides, do you not wish to avenge your sister?”

“Yes, yes; I must,” answered Kitty, raising her head, that she had concealed in her hands, and, speaking hurriedly, she continued:

[Pg 244]

“He told me about a woman whom I resembled in so extraordinary a manner that every one took me for her. Her name was Ada Ricard. A Colonel Forster was in love with her. With audacity and coolness I could pass for her. He himself would take me to this colonel, who had promised him quite a large sum.

“‘Mr. Forster,’ he added, ‘hardly knows Miss Ada; his error will be complete; he will adore you, and as he is rich and generous, you will have all you wish.’ It was horrible, but it was a chance to get away from Gobson, who alarmed me, and I consented. He gave me even the slightest details about Ada Ricard’s life, for he learned them from some one who lived in her house; finally he taught me to play the part. I held myself in readiness and one morning we set out for New York, where we arrived during the night. He procured lodgings for me in a house which I should not recognize again, for although we went on foot, it was in a dense fog. I think it was in a horrible neighborhood and that the streets were narrow and muddy. The river was about two hundred steps beyond. After locking the door of my room and providing me with the necessary provisions, he left me alone in this house all the next day. It was Tuesday, I remember, and he came back at about two o’clock in the morning and brought a bundle, which he opened before me. It contained the costume of an Indian woman in the time of the Incas. He bade me put it on. I then had a gloomy presentiment, for Gobson was pale and much more moved than he wished to appear. But [Pg 245]he said to me in so threatening a tone, ‘Let us have done quickly; it was in this disguise that Miss Ada was carried off, and you must go to Colonel Forster dressed as she was.’ I was afraid, and did not dare ask what had become of the woman whose place I was to take. I dressed as Gobson ordered me and according to his directions. He had foreseen everything at each of the colonel’s stopping-places. I was to send him word, with the initials ‘A. Z.,’ to Baltimore immediately, and announce my return in the same manner. If anything happened to him I must, on returning to New York, boldly present myself at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street, where I should find a woman, Mary, who would recognize me as Miss Ada.”

Kitty Bell spoke the name of her sister with so much emotion that sobs choked her voice.

After leaving her a moment to recover, William Dow ordered her to continue her story.

“This servant,” continued the young woman, weeping, “was the accomplice of that wretch. All passed as Gobson had arranged. As soon as I was ready he made me cross the river and meet Colonel Forster, who had not the least suspicion of my identity. When I reached Baltimore I learned the mysterious crime through the papers. I understood it thus, but I was afraid to confess the truth, and I acknowledge that, maddened at being duped and in the power of James Gobson, I wished to play my part to the end to avenge myself on him. If it had not been for the accident to the hangman, Meyer, I should have been late enough not to have seen him. [Pg 246]I knew what day had been fixed for the execution, and that is why I did not return to New York until the hour when I thought all over. But fate decided it should be otherwise, and that I must save the wretch from the gallows. You know the rest; but I swear to you, on my eternal salvation—oh! however low I may have fallen, I should not dare to be false in swearing this—I swear to you that when I was forced to escape from Gobson by means of Colonel Forster, I did not know that Miss Ada had been murdered, and only here in this room have I learned that Gobson’s victim was his wife and that she was my sister, my unhappy Anna. Now, do with me as you will; deliver me up to justice; kill me or let me die.”

“No, Kitty Bell, you shall not die, and the law will be indulgent toward you; why, you must help us to punish the guilty.”

“I obey your commands.”

“The costume of an Indian woman in which you deceived a lover of Ada Ricard, you must once more wear, in order that we may attack the guilty man.”

Saying this, the detective drew from a chest a dress absolutely like that worn by Ada Ricard the night she was carried away, and while Kitty Bell was dressing, with the aid of Young he transported the wax statue to Mrs. Gobson’s bed.

The reader is familiar with the subsequent movements, and let us now return to the room where we left James Gobson in the hands of Young and William Dow.

Harris Burnett, who was merely an agent sent by Kelly, by order of William Dow, had exactly followed the latter’s instructions. In spite of the courage and strength of the captain and detective, he reinforced them none too soon, for Gobson, mad with anger, was becoming difficult to hold. He foamed at the mouth, gave horrible shrieks, poured out the most frightful curses upon his wife and rolled upon the floor, and, for lack of other weapons, used his teeth like a wild beast. However, his three adversaries succeeded in mastering him, and he was so firmly bound and gagged that he could have been left alone without danger. As for Kitty Bell, she sank sobbing on the bed.

“Madam,” said William Dow, “I am obliged to arrest you, but I renew the promise I made you. I shall speak to the judges about you in a manner to render them as indulgent as possible, on account of your frankness and the services you have rendered.”

“Ah! do as you will with me, sir,” answered the young woman.

“Mr. Young will accompany you to my house, [Pg 248]that you may resume your own dress, and he will afterwards bring you here, where you will rest a few hours. We will go to New York by the first train in the morning.”

Mrs. Gobson obediently took Young’s arm, for without this support she could hardly have sustained herself, and left the room without daring to look back.

As for Saunders, his love for Miss Ada had returned, and kneeling beside her bed he was still weeping. William Dow forced him to rise, and led him to the boudoir, in order to take him as much as possible from his sad memories, by keeping him from the statue which so cruelly reminded him of the past.

The captain and Mrs. Gobson returned about a quarter of an hour later. The young woman sank exhausted on an arm-chair, hiding her face in both hands. It was a singular tableau which this elegant and mysterious sleeping-room presented, now transformed into a field of combat; and he, whose intelligence had so quickly made it the theatre of his justice, glanced around it with just pride. On one side sat Mrs. Gobson, perhaps weeping more for her vanished dreams than for her dread of reality; on the other, reduced to powerlessness, the wretch who had been conquered by the same weapons he had made use of.

“Burnett,” said William Dow to the agent, after a few moments’ silence, “watch this man. We will return in a moment.”

And then, leaving the prisoner and his wife in the [Pg 249]care of the chief of detectives, William and Burnett raised the woman of wax and carried her into the adjoining villa, and placed her on the same lounge where Kitty Bell first saw her.

“Now, Young,” said William Dow to his friend, “return to Gobson, and in a few moments I will join you.”

The captain obeyed, and the detective went up to see Miss Jane. The young girl was pale and trembling, as well as her governess, for she wondered if anything had happened to her friend, having heard the pistol-shot in the next house. On perceiving him she gave a cry of joy and threw herself into his arms.

“Come, my dear child,” he said, “and you, too, Mrs. Wandright; I have an explanation to make.”

And preceding the teacher and her pupil, who followed him without understanding what it was all about, he led them into his study. At sight of the wax figure on the lounge, Miss Jane stepped back.

“Do not be afraid,” said William Dow, taking her hand, “but come and look at her. Here, Jane, is the Mrs. Gobson whom you saw here one day when curiosity tempted you. It is only the statue of Miss Ada Ricard, the victim of the mysterious murder whose author I discovered.”

Ashamed to find that William Dow had learned what jealousy had caused her to do, the pretty child hung her head, blushing, but gave her friend a happy, grateful look, murmuring, “Forgive me,” and her friend returned it with a smile and affectionate caress.

[Pg 250]

Having informed Miss Jane and her governess that he should be absent a few days, Mr. Dow begged them to go up to their rooms and he joined Young and Burnett. They had dragged James Gobson up against the wall, and for humanity’s sake had slipped a cushion under his head. The wretch was foaming at the mouth and his eyes glared, but he did not try to cry out or to combat with them.

The captain and agent watched him in turn that night, and at daybreak William Dow hastened to the chief of police at Boston to inform him of what had passed, and to ask his aid in order to convey the prisoner to New York without further delay.

This officer, who had faith in our hero, immediately gave the necessary orders, and toward noon, without the same being made known at Jamaica Plain, for Young had given orders to the servants in the house, James Gobson was conveyed on the railroad under charge of Burnett and two agents from Boston who had joined him.

The assassin was calmer, but what they knew of his past led his guards to mistrust him. They kept handcuffs on him, telling him that at the first cry, or attempt at rebellion, they would tie his legs and gag him again.

Young took a seat in a car reserved for him with Mrs. Gobson, who was resigned to her fate, and William Dow, after telegraphing to Kelly, seated himself with Saunders, whose mind was again off the balance.

The journey was marked by no incident, and at [Pg 251]eight o’clock that same day all the characters of our story reached New York.

The first face William Dow espied on the wharf was the expansive one of Fat Kelly, who was accompanied by Mortimer and Davis, who had been notified. It is useless to say how these gentlemen greeted the skilful detective. James Gobson was captured—that was the most important fact; but they were eager to know the details of his capture, and they plied William Dow with questions.

“Pardon, gentlemen,” said the latter, “we must first attend to the prisoner, or prisoners; we will talk afterwards.”

James Gobson did not attempt resistance, but it would be impossible to describe the look he gave his wife. She could hardly stand, and had to be carried into the waiting-room.

The assassin, after having his identity proved, entered a carriage waiting for him, and Mr. Kelly ordered Young to take him at once to Blackwell’s Island, where he was to be imprisoned until he was called before the criminal court a second time.

The worthy Saunders did not know what to make of it when William Dow said to him:

“My dear sir, return home, resume business, and think of this tragedy only as a bad dream, until the law has need of you again. But before then I shall come and see you.” And clasping the hand that with a sigh was held out to him, he joined Kelly, Davis, and Mortimer, who were impatiently waiting for him.

[Pg 252]

It was decided that owing to Mrs. Gobson’s exhausted condition and the services that she had rendered the cause of justice, that she should have comparative liberty, but under the surveillance of the two agents, and she had already left for No. 17 East Twenty-third Street.

Everything being settled thus, Mr. Kelly quickly went with William Dow to the central office. He was eager, as well as Mortimer and Davis, to know the whole story and all the details.

William Dow told them from beginning to end, and then said to Kelly, who was almost shaking his hands off:

“Well, have I done right—have I kept my promise?”

“You are a splendid man, my dear Dow,” he answered. “How the devil came you to have your suspicions? You can tell me now.”

“Certainly; besides, nothing is simpler or less mysterious. I must first confess that I had in my possession a certain report of your rival, Robertson which contained precious information. Ah! his agents are keen and smart.”

“It is no more trouble for them to be so than for that great blockhead, Young,” observed Mr. Kelly, shrugging his shoulders.

“I agree with you. Well,” continued Dow, “and while in yours, trace of Miss Ada was lost in her entrance to Yorkville, in that of Robertson, on the contrary, they mention her as being in Colonel Forster’s yacht, at Staten Island, three days before the body of the drowned woman was found at Shakespeare’s [Pg 253]tavern. Saunders told me that a boat, in which were the Colonel and Miss Ada, had been run down and capsized, and that the latter was drowned; but I questioned the best seamen in the harbor, and I myself made experiments with floating objects, and while learning about submarine currents I obtained the almost complete certainty that a human body could not be carried in so short a time from Staten Island to the top of the river. Besides, nothing was less certain than the fatal consequences of the accident of which Saunders accused himself. I concluded from that that either Miss Ada was not drowned at Staten Island; or, that if she had perished on these shores, her body could not have been brought by the current to Wharf 32. Therefore the woman who was in Forster’s yawl was not Miss Ada, although Robertson’s agent, who had her photograph—the only one Saunders possessed—might have recognized her on board the Gleam, unless there were two women on the yacht; but the colonel talked of only one, the Miss Ada whom he carried off.”

“This is well reasoned,” said the officers.

“There was then, either with Colonel Forster or drowned at Staten Island, a woman who was or was not Miss Ada, at the very moment when at the bottom of East River was lying a woman who was soon also to be recognized as Miss Ada Ricard. This coincidence was too strange and complete, and improbable, not to lead me at once to think that I had found an absolutely planned crime, a substitution of persons. Now, as we could not substitute [Pg 254]an Ada dead for an Ada living, for what would have been the object, it was for an Ada dead that a living Ada had been substituted.”

“Very true, Mr. Dow, very true,” said the magistrates, bowing before this logic.

“This first reasoning,” continued the detective, “naturally led me to suppose that it was really Gobson, the jealous husband, who had taken a woman to Colonel Forster, but not Miss Ada, his wife. It must be another woman, and since I admitted that he was the man who took her off he must also be the assassin.

“As for the hour when the crime was committed, nothing was easier to certify; it was in the carriage itself, for in the boat in which James Gobson crossed the East River was but one woman, and that woman was living. The officer on watch on the Liberia heard a cry when the steamer came near running it down. What Kitty Bell told me later proved to me that I had reasoned justly, and fixed the place and moment of the crime. Gobson smothered his victim in the carriage, and if he spoke the words reported by the driver Katters it is nothing astonishing; for his cunning and skill we know very well. He wished that this man might some day affirm, if necessary, that Miss Ada was living when she left the carriage, but she was dead. Kitty Bell waiting for James Gobson in a house at Yorkville, the murderer would never have committed the blunder of carrying into the house a living woman who might have screamed, called for help or betrayed her presence, and make the one who [Pg 255]was to take her place fear that she was becoming the accomplice of a murderer. But the dead Ada he murdered at his ease, took off her jewels, excepting the gold bracelet, which he found among the Sioux, and which one of those Indians, no doubt, picked up on the young woman’s door-step, as it probably fell off when she was carried away; then, having done this, Gobson dressed Kitty Bell in his victim’s dress, and took her to Forster as Miss Ada, and when he returned he had accomplished the last act in his tragedy. That is to say, he took away the corpse, embarked with it again and threw it in the water, after fastening to it the barrel of tar which he found in his boat, or which he stole, it matters little. When, later, after escaping the gallows in spite of Kitty Bell, who would have been delighted to have him hanged, James Gobson married that woman, it was both to have his share of Miss Ada’s fortune and to make sure of the silence of his accomplice. Mrs. Gobson could not denounce her husband without destroying herself. This marriage of itself would have sufficed to awaken my suspicions; was it like a woman to do what the one supposed to be Mrs. Gobson did? Miss Ada would have let her husband be hanged, for she feared him, and if she had saved him she would never have become his wife. Between Gobson who would have remembered, and Saunders who asked only to be forgiven, she would not have hesitated. This, gentlemen, was how it happened; you know the rest.”

“You are an astonishing detective, my dear Dow,” cried Fat Kelly, in the utmost enthusiasm.

[Pg 256]

“That is perhaps saying a great deal,” said William, smiling; “but what is more certain, is that I am a man, and being such I can do no more. I will ask you and these gentlemen, therefore, for permission to go home. It is forty-eight hours since I have been in bed.”

“Certainly, my friend. Only one word more. Since you knew all this, why did you not simply arrest Gobson instead of taking the trouble to bring about that dramatic episode at Jamaica Plain?”

“Dear Mr. Kelly, I will explain to you, but I am sure that Mr. Mortimer and Davis, who are lawyers, have already divined my reason.”

The two magistrates smilingly bowed, and the detective continued:

“Acquitted and reinstated by the criminal court, Gobson could no longer be pursued for the same crime, evident as his culpability might become, and had he even confessed all. Now, I, William Dow, had sworn that this man should be punished for murdering Miss Ada, and I made him murder her a second time. By striking that wax statue, which he took for his wife, James Gobson made himself guilty of an attempt to murder, the effect of which was destroyed only by a circumstance independent of his will. He, then, is under the jurisdiction of the criminal court, and, as I wished, the murder was really attempted upon Miss Ada. Do you understand now?”

“My God, my dear friend,” said the chief of police, “I am only a blockhead like that stupid Young while you, you——”

[Pg 257]

“I only kept my promise to you and the vow I made to myself.”

Mr. Mortimer and Davis joined their thanks and congratulations to those of Kelly, and knowing that William Dow needed rest, they gave him his liberty.

The next day, as will be understood, nothing else was talked of in New York but the new arrest of James Gobson; for the papers, being covertly informed by order of the chief of police, could completely satisfy the curiosity of their readers by relating to them the smallest details of the events that had happened at Boston.

The mystery with which the murder had been enveloped was at last unveiled; this horrible crime was going to be punished. The public conscience was satisfied, and Kelly, who since James Gobson’s discharge had lost so much ground with his electors, was in the way to become a great man. For, although all had been told about the tragedy at Jamaica Plain, the name of William Dow had remained a secret; the latter exacted it from motives best known to himself.

Only the political adversaries of the chief of police were in despair, and the head of the agency of Robertson Brothers & Co., who was up for Congress, found that he had no chance for success owing to the sudden change in affairs.

Kelly’s partisans profited so well by the event, as the election day approached, that the victory of Mr. Kelly became more certain.

During this time Mr. Davis and Mortimer were [Pg 258]preparing the case of James Gobson, who was still in prison at Blackwell’s Island, and awaiting to be transferred to the Tombs, a few days before his appearance before the jury. He had completely broken down, losing all that bravado and assumed indifference which so cunningly characterized him at his previous incarceration for the murder of Miss Ada Ricard.

Kitty Bell renewed her confessions before the examining magistrates, and a hearing had been appointed for the day after election, when one morning Captain Young plunged like an avalanche into Kelly’s office, crying:

“Oh! Mr. Kelly, Mr. Kelly, such a misfortune has happened!”

“What is it?—what is it?” asked Kelly.

“James Gobson is drowned!”

“Drowned! What do you mean?”

“Yes, drowned. Just as he was crossing the planking at Blackwell’s Island to enter the government boat to come to the Tombs, he pushed against the guards and leaped into the water, dragging one of the unhappy men after him.”

“And did that man also disappear?”

“No; fortunately he was saved, but they could not fish up Gobson.”

“That is a pity, for I should really have taken pleasure in seeing him at the end of a rope; but what can be done? Has the river been searched?”

“They are still working at it.”

“Well, let them continue to search, and if the rascal’s body is found, let it be sent to Bellevue [Pg 259]Hospital, to Dr. O’Neel. It will at least be of some use after his death.”

Having said this, Kelly dismissed the captain, who did not understand the philosophy with which his chief took James Gobson’s death. The officer immediately reflected as follows: That the assassin would have made revelations to his judges that would have brought to notice William Dow, and would have lessened the role of Kelly. He was therefore delighted that the accused had disappeared.

Kitty Bell, it is true, remained, but he knew that by promising her the indulgence of the court she would say only what he wished. Nevertheless, at the news of this suicide, the disappointment was general, and the opponents of Mr. Kelly tried to profit by it, but the movement was started in his favor, and election day for Mr. Kelly was one of triumph.

William Dow was in the latter’s office when they came to tell him the result of the voting. He was elected with twenty thousand votes more than at the last time. The effect of this announcement upon Mr. Kelly can well be imagined.

“To you I owe this victory, my dear friend,” he said to the detective, embracing him with enthusiasm; “how can I prove my gratitude to you for all this?”

“By giving me the first possible opportunity to make myself useful,” answered William, with a sad smile, “for in attending to your affairs I also attend to my own.”

[Pg 260]

“Oh, yes; that mystery in your life, a mystery in which the pretty and charming Miss Jane must play a part. When will you have confidence and friendship enough for me to judge me worthy of being your confidant?”

“Some time, my dear Kelly, some time. Jane has gone to New York with her governess, but I wish to have her take a trip, for she is ill. I will tell you some day what terrible tie attaches me to this dear child, for whom I would give my life, and whom I make suffer, alas, from a malady which to any one else would be an immense joy, for it might cure her.”

Greatly puzzled at these words, spoken so sadly, Mr. Kelly was about, perhaps, to beg for the key to the riddle, when, after knocking, Captain Young appeared.

“Sir,” said the captain to his chief, after shaking hands with his visitor, “they have just found James Gobson’s body.”

“Ah!” said the officer; “where?”

“Under Wharf 32, opposite Shakespeare’s tavern.”

“Under Wharf 32,” cried William Dow. “Well, my dear friends, was I not right in stating that Ada Ricard’s body had been thrown into the water at Blackwell’s Island, and on that side of the river. One would say that Heaven itself wished to furnish the proof of my theories. Having fallen into the water near the spot where he threw his wife, James Gobson—and observe, after the same interval of time—James Gobson reappeared just there where [Pg 261]the corpse of the unhappy woman was discovered, under Wharf 32.”

“This is, indeed, truly wonderful,” exclaimed Kelly.

As for Young, he could not find a word to express his thoughts; only his looks plainly said that his former admiration for the intelligent detective had become enthusiasm.

A few days after this conversation, Kitty Bell appeared alone before the criminal court, for the maid Mary, supposed to be Gobson’s accomplice, could not be found. Kitty Bell was simply convicted of complicity in the kidnapping, and her judges, aware of the services she had rendered in the cause of justice, condemned her to only a year’s imprisonment. She received her sentence with utter composure, having determined to submit to the decree of the court, whatever it might be, without any show of feeling that he whom she had so dearly loved might detect.

Ada, or rather Anna Bell’s fortune went to her father, who was still living.

Six months later, Kitty Bell, at Mr. Kelly’s request, was released, and entered a cafe in New York, where she made her fortune in less than a year.

Then her success on the other side of the ocean led the still pretty Mrs. Gobson to try her fortune in Paris, where we met her at the house of the leader of the opera bouffe, who came near engaging her. She would evidently have been a great attraction, but the impressario did not dare risk the adventure, [Pg 262]and the beautiful American disappeared. Perhaps she will yet meet our stout friend, Mr. Saunders, who, after keeping the Woman of Wax at his house several weeks, one day sacrificed it for the benefit of Barnum’s Museum.

William Dow remained the true friend and aid of Mr. Kelly, until an event occurred in his life which we may some day narrate—an event which enabled him to finally take his place in society, which a horrible adventure, followed by a promise, made him abandon.

THE END.

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