The Last Stroke: A Detective Story, Lawrence L. Lynch [books for new readers .txt] 📗

notice of him, at the first, almost, I might not have recognised him, for he changed his clothes almost every trip; sometimes dressing common, sometimes quite swell; but I knew him every time."

"Make it as short as you can, officer; we're almost at the corner."

"All right, sir." The man glanced back. "Your cab's here, all right, sir. I was just going to tell you how we came to arrest the fellow."

"Ah!" Brierly smiled in the dusk. It had puzzled Ferrars or seemed to, the sudden cessation of the spy's visits, and now he would be able to enlighten the detective. "You have him, then? This shall be worth something to you."

"I don't want a reward for doing a plain duty, sir. Just walk on ahead for a step; somebody's coming."

Preoccupied with the story, and without glancing[Pg 190] behind, Brierly did as he was told, and had advanced not ten paces from the corner, when there was a swift blow, a fall and a cry, three pistol shots in swift succession, and the rattle of wheels; all so close together that the time could have been counted in seconds.

"Brierly! Are you badly hurt?" The revolver fell from the fingers of the man who had prevented the second blow, and put to flight the sham policeman, who had so deftly contrived his appearance, with the aid of the cab, between the rounds of the policeman proper, the latter now came up panting, his footsteps hastened by the shrill call of the whistle in the hands of the new or latest comer. And then the inmates of the neighbouring houses rushed out, and, for the moment, there was confusion, consternation and clamour.

"Is he dead?"

"How did it happen?"

"Was it a sandbag?"

"To think of a holdup on this street!"

"There was a carriage, I'm sure."

And then the policeman was flashing his lantern about among them, as he bade them stand back, and the rescuer, who looked like a workman in his Sunday clothes, looked up, from the place where he knelt, supporting the head and shoulders of the unconscious man, and said:

[Pg 191]

"Gentlemen, this is Mr. Brierly, Robert Brierly of 1030 C—— Avenue; the Myers house, only two blocks away. He must be taken home at once. Has any one a cot? No, he must be carried." For at the name of the Myers house, a gentleman had proffered his carriage at once. "And, officer, call up help. If possible, that cab must be traced. Send to the stand just above and find out what cabs have left it within the past quarter hour. Let some one go ahead and bring Doctor Glessner from just opposite 1030. He's at home."

"How did it happen?" asked Mr. Myers, two hours later, when the injured man—his wounded head carefully dressed—lay, still dazed and in a precarious condition, in his darkened room, with a trained nurse in attendance.

Ferrars having seen his friend in his own room, and in the hands of the doctors, had not waited for their verdict, but had set off to put in motion his plan for hunting down the would-be murderer, and he had but now returned, full of anxiety for the fate of the sufferer.

"How did it happen? After all our precautions, too!"

"It's easy to tell how it happened," replied Ferrars with some bitterness. "It happened, first, because[Pg 192] the enemy outwitted me, in spite of my cordon of guards; and, second, because Brierly lost patience and exposed himself."

"But how?"

"I can only give you my theory for that. He was alone in the house, eh?"

"Yes. We were both out when he went."

"He wanted, doubtless, to go to town. There was no servant at hand whom he wished to send, so he walked toward the hack stand, or so I suppose. At the corner he met a policeman, as he thought, of course, and so, for a moment did I. They stopped, spoke together, and the sham policeman hailed an empty cab that was close at hand; then they crossed the street, the cab following, and the policeman seemed to be doing the talking, as I saw when they passed under the light at the corner. I had suspected some new plot, from the fact that the spy had so suddenly disappeared, and I had watched your place, in person, for the past three nights."

"Oh! And that is why we have seen so little of you?"

"In part. Well, I made up my mind, when they walked away together down that tree-shaded cross-street, that there was something wrong. I was on the opposite side, and concluded to close up, seeing[Pg 193] that the cab was getting very near and edging close to their side, against all rules of the road. I had got half way across, and was just behind the cab, when I saw Brierly step ahead of the other, and then came the blow. As I sprang forward the cabby gave a loud hiss and the scoundrel saw me, and sprang for the cab with his arm still uplifted for another blow. I fired twice running, the third time turning long enough to send another shot at him as he entered the carriage door. Then he was off. I think he was hit, once at least."

"He will be caught, don't you think so? A cab driving like mad through those quiet streets?"

"No. He will not be caught, I fear."

"But why?"

"Because he will have had a second vehicle, a carriage, no doubt, not far away, and he will leave the cab, which will slacken up for a moment for that, and then dash on."

"How can you know that?"

"Because, when I find that I am dealing with a clever rascal I ask, what would I do in his place? And that is what I would have done."

"Well, well!" The lawyer sighed. "Poor Robert."

"If he only had been less impatient!" exclaimed Ferrars.

[Pg 194]

"If we had been wiser, and had not left him! The boy was in a peculiarly restless mood. Even my wife had observed that since morning."

"And why since morning?"

The lawyer looked at him gravely for a moment. "Did you ever hear of Ruth Glidden?" he asked.

"The orphan heiress? Of course; through the society columns of the newspapers."

"Ruth Glidden and the Brierly boys grew up as the best of friends and neighbours. The elders of the two families were friends equally warm. I believe in my soul that Glidden would gladly have seen his daughter marry one of the Brierly boys. And if things had run smooth—but there! Brierly was accounted a rich man, and he was until less than a year before his death, when the failure of the F. and S. Railway Company, and the North-Western Land concern, within three months of each other, left him a heavy loser. Even then, if Glidden had been alive all might have been well. But he died, two years before Brierly's death, and Ruth went to live with her purse-proud aunt, her father's sister. The two families had resided for years, side by side, on this avenue."

"And where is Miss Glidden now?" asked Ferrars.

"Here in this city since the day before yesterday.[Pg 195] She and her aunt have been abroad for a year, but I believe that they care for each other, though Robert is so proud, and that is not all. The brothers have each a few thousand dollars still, and it appears that shortly before his death, Charlie—he was always a methodical fellow—instructed his brother, in case of his sudden death, to make over all of his share to Miss Hilda Grant. Robert told me of this upon his return with the body, and he also said that all he possessed should go, if needful, to the clearing up of this murder mystery."

"It may be needful," sighed Ferrars. "I fear it will be."

"Then, good-bye to Robert's hopes! With it he might make a lucky hit; might have a chance. Without it"—he shrugged his shoulders—"what can even so bright a journalist, as he undoubtedly is, do to win a fortune quickly. And he won't accept help, even from me, his father's oldest friend."

"No," said Ferrars, gloomily. "Of course not How could he? Mr. Myers, I'll be honest and tell you that I'm afraid we've struck a blank wall. Things look dark on all hands, just now, for poor Brierly."

"What! Do you think the clue, the case, is lost then?"

"Not lost. Oh, no. Only, I fear, out of reach."

[Pg 196]

CHAPTER XVII. RUTH GLIDDEN.

Francis Ferrars sat in his sanctum, one could scarcely call it an office, although he received here, now and again, visitors of many sorts on business bent. For, since his coming to America, five years before, to find the heiress of Sir Hillary Massinger, he had read many another riddle, and now, as at first, he worked independently, but with the difference that he now undertook only such cases as especially attracted him by reason of their strangeness, or of the worth, or need, of the client.

Two letters lay before him, and as he pondered, frowning from time to time, he would take up one or the other and re-read a passage, and compress his lips and give vent to his thoughts in fragmentary sentences. For he had grown, because of much solitude, to think aloud when his thoughts[Pg 197] grew troublesome, voicing the pros and cons of a case, and seeming to find this an aid to clearness of thought.

"It's a most baffling thing," he declared, taking up for the third time a letter in the strong upright hand of Doctor Barnes. "I wonder just what the man meant by penning this," and once more he ran his eye over this paragraph which occurred at the end of a long letter:

"Mrs. Jamieson has not forgotten you. She asks after you now and then, when we meet, and desires to be remembered to you. She is not looking well, and, I fancy, finds Glenville duller than at first."

"I'll wager she does not think of me any oftener than I of her. And she can't know how ardently I long to stand before her and look into those changeful, blue-green eyes of hers. What strangely handsome eyes they are—And say—Ah! how will those eyes look then, I wonder?"

Presently he turns the sheet and reads again:

"I think you did well to instruct your two men here to make use of, and place confidence in Doran. He's a host in himself. And what do you think of the tramp they have traced to the vicinity of that[Pg 198] boat on the morning of the murder? He was seen, it appears, by at least three."

"Umph!" laying down the letter. "If you were here, my dear Barnes, I would tell you frankly—I feel just like being brutally frank with some one—that I have no doubt that the tramp is a link—there seems to be so many of them, and all detached—a link—and that he approached the boat in that tramp disguise, after separating from his confederate at some more distant point. Bah! It looks simple enough. Confederate leaves vehicle—or two horses, possibly—they could slip off the saddles and hobble them in a thicket, where they would look, to the passer-by, like a pair of grazing animals, or they might have used a wagon, travelling thus like two innocent bucolics. Then how plain to me, the assassin goes through the woods, watchfully, like an Indian. The tramp boatman patrols the shore, to signal to the other when the victim appears; or, should the assassin on shore be unable to creep upon his prey, the assassin in the boat may row boldly near, and, at the signal from the other, telling him there is a clear coast, fire upon the victim. If he is sure of his aim, how easy! And if seen by the victim, well—'Dead men tell no tales.'"

[Pg 199]

He muses silently awhile now, puts down the doctor's letter, and takes up the other.

"This," he murmurs, "is tantalising." And then he read from a letter, signed "Hilda G——."

"Mrs. Jamieson begins to complain of the dullness of this place, in spite of the fact that she has had a visit from her husband's brother, a Mr. Carl Jamieson. He did not make a long visit, and I saw but little of him. He is something of a cripple, a sufferer from rheumatism, and just back from the hot springs. I met him but once. He looks and talks like an Englishman, and has a dark eye that betokens, if I am a judge of eyes, a bad temper. I give you these details knowing that all concerning the little blonde