Blindfolded, Earle Ashley Walcott [non fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

with approval; "but your man isn't here, I'd say."

"Well, it looks as though there might be something here of interest," I replied, seizing eagerly upon the papers that lay scattered about upon the desk. "Look in the other rooms while I run through these."

A rude diagram on the topmost paper caught my eye. It represented a road branching thrice. On the third branch was a cross, and then at intervals four crosses, as if to mark some features of the landscape. Underneath was written:

"From B--follow 1 1-2 m. Take third road--3 or 5."

The paper bore date of that day, and I guessed that it was meant to show the way to the supposed hiding-place of the boy.

Then, as I looked again, the words and lines touched a cord of memory. Something I had seen or known before was vaguely suggested. I groped in the obscurity for a moment, vainly reaching for the phantom that danced just beyond the grasp of my mental fingers.

There was no time to lose in speculating, and I turned to the work that pressed before us. But as I thrust the papers into my pocket to resume the search for Barkhouse, the elusive memory flashed on me. The diagram of the enemy recalled the single slip of paper I had found in the pocket of Henry Wilton's coat on the fatal night of my arrival. I had kept it always with me, for it was the sole memorandum left by him of the business that had brought him to his death. I brought it out, very badly creased and rumpled from much carrying, but still quite as legible as on the night I had first seen it.

Placed side by side with the map I had before me, the resemblance was less close than I had thought. Yet all the main features were the same. There was the road branching thrice; a cross in both marked the junction of the third road as though it gave sign of a building or some natural landmark; and the other features were indicated in the same order. No--there was a difference in this point; there were five crosses on the third road in the enemy's diagram, while there were but four in mine.

In the matter of description the enemy had the advantage, slight as it was.

"Third road--cockeyed barn--iron cow," and the confused jumble of drunken letters and figures that Henry had written--I could make nothing of these.

"From B--follow 1 1-2 m. Take third road--3 or 5"--this was at least half-intelligible.

Then it came on me like a blow,--was this the mysterious "key" that the Unknown had demanded of me in her letter of this morning? I turned sick at heart at the thought that my ignorance and inattention had put the boy in jeopardy. The enemy had perhaps a clue to the hiding-place that the Unknown did not possess. The desertion of these headquarters swelled my fears. Though Terrill, disabled by wounds, was groaning with pain and rage at Livermore, and the night's arrests at Borton's had reduced the numbers of the band, Darby Meeker was still on the active list. And Doddridge Knapp? He was free now to follow his desperate plot to its end without risking his schemes of fortune. The absence of Meeker, the date of to-day upon the map, suggesting that it had but just come into the hands of the enemy, and the lack of a garrison in the Den, raised the apprehension that fresh mischief was afoot.

I was roused from my reverie of fears by confused shouts from down the hall, and sprang hastily to the door, with the thought that the forces of the enemy were upon us.

"Here he is! they've found him," cried an excited voice.

"Yes, sir! here he comes!"

It was truly the stalwart guard; but two days had made a sad change in him. With head bound in a bloody rag, and face of a waxy yellow hue, he staggered limply out of one of the rear rooms between Corson and Owens.

"Brace up, me boy! You're worth ten dead men," said the policeman encouragingly. "That's right! you'll be yourself in a jiffy."

Barkhouse was soon propped up on the lounge in the guard-room, and with a few sips of whisky and a fresh bandage began to look like a more hopeful case.

"'Twas a nasty cut," said one of the men sympathetically.

"How did you get it?" I asked.

"I don't rightly know," said Barkhouse faintly. "'Twas the night you went to Mother Borton's last week. After I leaves you, I walks down a piece towards the bay, and as I gets about to Drumm Street, I guess, a fellow comes along as I takes to be a sailor half-loaded. 'Hello, mate,' he says, a-trying to steady himself, 'what time did you say it was?' 'I didn't say,' says I, for I was too fly to take out my watch, even if it is a nickel-plater, for how could he tell what it was in the dark? and it's good for a dozen drinks at any water-front saloon. 'Well, what do you make it?' he says; and as I was trying to reckon whether it was nearer twelve or one o'clock, he lurches up agin' me and grabs my arms as if to steady himself. Then three or four fellows jumps from behind a lot of packing-boxes there, and grabs me. I makes a fight for it, and gives one yell, and the next I knows I was in a dark room here with the sorest head in San Francisco. An' I reckon I've been here about six days, and another would have finished me."

Barkhouse's "six days" estimate provoked a smile.

"If you could get paid on your time reckoning," remarked Owens in a humorous tone, "you'd be well off, Bob. 'Twas night before last you got took in."

Barkhouse looked incredulous, but I nodded my support of Owens' remarkable statement.

"However, you'll be paid on your own reckoning, and better, too," I said; and he was thereby consoled.

"Now, we must get out of here," I continued. "Take turns by twos in helping Barkhouse. We had better not risk staying here."

"Right," said Corson, "and now we'll just take these three beauties along to the station."

"On what charge?" growled the man addressed as Conn.

"Disturbing the peace--you've disturbed ours for sure--resisting an officer, vulgar language, keeping a disorderly house, carrying a pistol without a permit, and anything else I can think up between here and the station-house. If that doesn't satisfy ye, I'll put ye down for assault and robbery on Barkhouse's story, and ye may look out for a charge of murder before ye git out."

The men swore at this cheerful prospect, but as their hands were bound behind them, and Corson walked with his club in one hand and his pistol in the other, they took up the march at command, and the rest of us slowly followed.


CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CHASE IN THE STORM

When we reached the entrance to our quarters on Montgomery Street the rain had once more begun to fall, gently now, but the gusts of damp wind from the south promised more and worse to follow.

"Hello!" cried the first man, starting back. "What's this?"

The line stopped, and I moved forward.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A message for you, Mr. Wilton," said a voice suddenly from the recess of the doorway.

"Give it to me," I said.

A slip of paper was thrust into my hand, and I passed up the stairs.

"I'll wait for you," said the messenger, and at the first gas-jet that burned at the head of the stairs I stopped to read the address.

It was in the hand of the Unknown, and my fatigue and indifference were gone in a moment. I trembled as I tore open the envelope, and read:

"Follow the bearer of this note at 12:30. Come alone and armed. It is important."

There was no signature.

If this meant anything it meant that I was to meet the Unknown, and perhaps to search the heart of the mystery. I had been heavy with fatigue and drowsy with want of sleep, but at this thought the energies of life were once more fresh within me.

With my new-found knowledge it might be more important than even the Unknown was aware, that we should meet. To me, the map, the absence of Darby Meeker and his men, the mysterious hints of murder and death that had come from the lips of Mother Borton, were but vaguely suggestive. But to the Unknown, with her full knowledge of the objects sought by the enemy and the motives that animated their ceaseless pursuit, the darkness might be luminous, the obscurity clear.

The men had waited a minute for me as I read the note.

"Go to your rooms and get some rest," I said. "I am called away. Trent will be in charge, and I will send word to him if I need any of you."

They looked at me in blank protest.

"You're not going alone, sir?" cried Owens in a tone of alarm.

"Oh, no. But I shall not need a guard." I hoped heartily that I did not.

The men shook their heads doubtfully, and I continued:

"Corson will be down from the Central Station in fifteen or twenty minutes. Just tell him that I've been sent for, and to come to-morrow if he can make it in his way."

And bidding them good night I ran hastily down the stairs before any of the men could frame his protest into words.

"Are you ready, sir?" asked the messenger.

"It is close on half-past twelve," I answered. "Where is she?"

"It's not far," said my guide evasively.

I understood the danger of speech, and did not press for an answer.

We plunged down Montgomery Street in the teeth of the wind that dashed the spray in our faces at one moment, lulled an instant the better to deceive the unwary, and then leaped at us from behind corners with the impetuous rush of some great animal that turned to vapor as it reached us. The street was dark except for the newspaper offices, which glowed bright with lights on both sides of the way, busy with the only signs of life that the storm and the midnight hour had left.

With the lighted buildings behind us we turned down California Street. Half-way down the block, in front of the Merchants' Exchange, stood a hack. At the sight my heart beat fast and my breath came quick. Here, perhaps, was the person about whom centered so many of my hopes and fears, in whose service I had faced death, and whose words might serve to make plain the secret springs of the mystery.

As we neared the hack my guide gave a short, suppressed whistle, and passing before me, flung open the door to the vehicle and motioned me to enter. I glanced about with some lack of confidence oppressing my spirits. But I had gone too far to retreat, and stepped into the hack. Instead of following, the guide closed the door gently; I heard him mount the seat by the driver, and in a moment we were in motion.

Was I alone? I had expected to find the Unknown, but the dark interior gave no sign of a companion. Then the magnetic suggestion of the presence of another came to my spirit,