Chapter XX: A Female Boxer

The cabs pursued their way up Broadway until Forty-second Street was reached, when they turned, the leading cab going up that street to Fifth Avenue.

As the one containing the young woman turned the corner into that avenue it halted. A young man stepped out from the shadow and entered the cab.

Patsy’s cab was at a discreet distance behind it, yet Patsy thought that the young man was the same one with whom, earlier in the evening, on Broadway, he had seen the young woman when she made the change in her hair.

The cab now went on up Fifth Avenue, and at a slower pace than it had previously been going.

Thus Sixty-eighth Street was reached, and, when near the corner, the cab drew alongside the curbstone, the two occupants alighting and proceeding on foot.

Patsy was out in a moment. As the two disappeared around the corner, he ran at full speed; Chick, a little distance behind him, also following rapidly on foot.

When Patsy reached the corner the pair were nowhere to be seen. For the moment the young detective was at a loss to know what to do.

Thinking that if they had entered any one of the houses it must have been one very close to the avenue, and that, if so, they would have hardly had time to pass through the door, and were under the concealment of a vestibule, he ran down the street hastily in the hopes that he might discover them.

Just as Chick reached the corner, two figures leaped out at Patsy.

They were the pair he had been following.

The young man went at Patsy rather viciously, crying, as he did so:

“What are you following us for?”

Though the attack was unexpected, Patsy was not unprepared, and, squaring himself, warded off the blow the young man had aimed at him.

It was apparent to Patsy in a moment that the young man was no novice at the game of the fists.

Indeed, he was an adept in the art of boxing and, for a moment or two, Patsy was kept quite busy in defending himself.

In the meantime, the young woman was a silent and inactive witness.

After the first few moments of surprise had passed, and, as he thought, he had obtained the measure of the young man, Patsy changed his tactics from defending himself to going at the other one fiercely.

He soon demonstrated his superiority, and was fast overcoming the young man, when, to Patsy’s intense astonishment, the young woman danced up at him in approved pugilistic fashion and landed a stinging blow in his face.

The young detective was astonished at the force behind the blow. Though he was busy with the young man, he did not fail to observe that the young woman, lady, and daughter of wealth as she seemed to be, was, nevertheless, a good deal of a boxer.

“Hello!” said Patsy to himself. “I have heard of these women athletes among the swells, but this is the first one I ever saw.”

In the meantime, the young woman was dancing up, letting out a blow, dancing away again to come back with another blow.

Some of these blows landed on Patsy’s shoulder and chest, blows which the young fellow cared nothing for. But some of them came too close to his eyes and mouth to be comfortable.

Patsy hardly knew how to deal with this assailant. While boxing with the young man, he had warded off a number of the blows of the young woman, and, though opportunity was given him, he had returned none, nor had he even attempted to.

He could not bring himself to fight a woman, however annoying and irritating she might be.

In the meantime, Chick had stolen down on the other side of the street, and, perceiving the curious fight in which Patsy was engaged, was doubled up with laughter.

His quick eye had shown him that Patsy was in no need of help so far as the young man was concerned, and he believed that, as energetic as the young woman might be, Patsy could find a way to evade her.

As a matter of fact, he wanted to be free to follow the young woman were the two to escape Patsy.

This curious fight went on in that quiet street for some little time, little or no noise being made, since the combatants did not speak.

At length Patsy, having become tired of the game, devoted himself wholly to the young man without regard to the young woman. Finally, he got in a blow on the young man that sent him down to the pavement.

Turning to the young woman as she came up to him, he caught her by the wrists, and, holding her fast, said:

“It’s about time you stopped this.”

The young woman struggled to release herself, and found that she was as a mere child in the grasp of the athletic and trained young detective.

It seemed as if she was more angry in finding herself so helpless in his grasp than she had been before. She said:

“Release me. I command you. I’ll have you punished.”

Patsy merely laughed in her face, and, having shown her how helpless she was, threw off her hands, saying:

“You can fight very well, my lady, so long as nobody fights back. Now don’t try any more of it again, if you please.”

The woman’s anger was too great for her to speak. Suddenly she turned on the young man, who was still lying as he fell, and hissed out:

“Get up, you coward! Do you leave me to be so insulted here?”

But the young man made no reply, and Patsy said:

“I must have hit him too hard.”

Disregarding the young woman, he went to the young man and bent over him. He was unconscious. After trying to lift him to his feet, Patsy said to the young woman:

“I cracked him harder than I thought, or else his head hit the pavement when he fell. I’ll take him to the drug store around the corner.”

The young woman, forgetting her anger, went hurriedly to the young man. Bending over him, she first felt his pulse and then his heart.

“You have killed him!”

But the next moment she peered eagerly into the eyes of the young man and exclaimed:

“No. He’s coming to.”

She rubbed his forehead and chafed his hands.

“Who is he?” asked Patsy.

“My brother,” she replied, sharply.

After a while the young man was sufficiently restored to stand on his feet when helped up by Patsy.

“You’ve done damage enough,” said the young woman, “and you can now go away.”

“I’ll help you home with him,” said Patsy.

“No, I don’t want you to do that.”

She stood up and looked Patsy straight in the eyes and said:

“You shall not see me go home to-night. If you don’t go away, I shall stay here, or else go somewhere where you can’t find me. I know you. You are one of Nick Carter’s people. Go away. You can do nothing to-night, and you can’t find out anything about me.”

Casting a glance about, Patsy was satisfied that he saw Chick on the other side of the street. Indeed, he had been conscious during the time that he was defending himself from the assault of this athletic brother and sister that Chick had come down on the other side.

Believing that they did not know that Chick was ready to follow, he thought it best to end the affair by walking off.

“All right, if you say so,” said Patsy. “Only, you might have said so from the first, and not kept jabbing me in the face.”

He turned and sauntered up the street. Reaching the corner, he turned backward and saw that the young man and woman were watching him.

He turned the corner and went out of sight.

No sooner was he gone than the pair hurriedly ran down the street to about the middle of the block, and as hastily climbed the steps of a rather imposing mansion, disappearing behind the doors.

If the pair thought they had done so undiscovered, they were greatly mistaken, for Chick from his place had seen them and had carefully noted the house they had entered.

Cautiously and stealthily, Chick crept down the street, and, reaching the house, climbed the steps sufficiently to see the number. Then perceiving that there was a doorplate on the door, he went up to the top step, and, with a lighted match, found the name. It was merely that of Rainforth.

The end had been gained. The young woman had been tracked to her home.

He went back to Fifth Avenue, and, turning the corner, came on Patsy awaiting him there.

As soon as he saw the young detective he began to laugh.

“You’ve struck a new kind of a boxer, Patsy,” he said.

“That’s right,” said Patsy. “And she can hit, too. Hanged if I don’t think she can hit harder than the young fellow she calls her brother.”

“Her brother?” asked Chick.

“That’s what she said he was.”

“Wasn’t it a stall?”

“They went into the same house together.”

“Perhaps so,” said Chick. “As a rule, however, brothers don’t usually run around at this hour of the night with a sister.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Patsy. “Anyhow, they’re the queerest brother and sister that I ever ran up against. Say, Chick, is it the fashion for women to box?”

“I hear it is,” said Chick.

“Well,” said Patsy, “that little one is no fool at the game. And she has got the pluck of a professional.”

“I got the name on the plate of the house they went into. It is Rainforth.”

“Then you got the house they went into?” asked Patsy.

“Yes, and the number,” replied Chick. “Now we have got to find out something about the people who live in that house.”

“Small chance of finding anything to-night, or rather this morning,” said Patsy. “That’s a job for to-morrow.”

Patsy had hardly spoken these words when a policeman turned the corner, and, seeing the two young men there, stopped, casting suspicious glances at them.

“What are you loafing there for?” he asked.

Instead of replying, Chick said:

“Officer, is Sixty-eighth Street your beat?”

“Yes; and what of it?”

“Do you know all the families that live on Sixty-eighth Street?”

“Most of them.”

“Do you know a family by the name of Rainforth?”

“Yes; I know there is such a family there. But what is that to you?”

“We are two of Nick Carter’s people,” said Chick.

He made that fact plain to the officer, who quickly changed his manner, and, from being suspicious, became confidential.

“Yes, I know that family Rainforth,” he said. “Rainforth is Colonel Rainforth, a rich man, living on his money. A widower, and pretty old.”

“Who lives in the house with him?”

“A son and a daughter.”

The officer began to laugh and finally said:

“They are a queer pair, that son and daughter. They travel around together late at night. I don’t know how many times I have seen them go into the house at two or three o’clock in the morning.”

“Coming home from parties and receptions and balls, I presume,” said Chick.

“Mebbe; but I don’t like that. It looks to me as if they had been roaming. Say, the daughter is a thoroughbred. She does almost anything a man does. She rides, and there isn’t any horse too bad for her. She rows a boat, she works in a gymnasium, and I know for sure that she’s taken boxing lessons. They say she’s awful good with her fists.”

“Is she straight?” asked Chick.

“Ain’t heard anybody say she wasn’t. She’s just queer; that’s all.”

This was all the officer could tell them, and, after a few more words, he strolled away.

The two young men stood a while longer conversing, and were themselves about to move away, when young Mr. Sanborn came tripping hurriedly along the pavement.

Chick stopped him, saying:

“Mr. Sanborn, will you stop a moment?”

The young man stopped, and, perceiving who it was who had addressed him, called them by name and laughed:

“A little too late for much conversation, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it is,” said Chick; “but we want to have a little information which we think you can give, and we don’t want to be asked why we want it.”

“Oh,” said young Sanborn, “if it is a matter of business, I’ll give it if I can, and I won’t ask why.”

“Will you tell us if you know a family of the name of Rainforth?”

“I know of a family of that name living down here in Sixty-eighth Street.”

“Colonel Rainforth, a widower, with one son and a daughter?” asked Chick.

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me anything about the daughter?”

“I know her quite well,” said young Sanborn; “have known her a good many years, and have never known anything against her.”

“Isn’t she rather queer?” asked Chick.

“Oh, I don’t know but that she is in some of the things she does. She goes in for things that most of the young women do not. She rides, fences, drives tandems and four-in-hands, shoots, is gymnastic, and boxes--in fact, she goes in for all sorts of out-door sports. In that way, she is one of the new women.”

“She and her brother are great chums?” asked Chick.

“There’s no doubt of that,” said young Sanborn. “They’re very chummy. Travel together a good deal.”

Young Sanborn suddenly turned sharply on Chick, looking at him very intently, and then said:

“Oh, I say, here! Why, yes, I forgot.”

He stopped a moment to think, and then said:

“I see that you have got onto a little thing that escaped my memory. A year ago or more Julia Rainforth made a dead set for Ellison. She was so sweet on him that she followed him up constantly, put herself in his way to such an extent that people talked about it. But it’s all over, and has been since the time the engagement of my cousin and Ellison was announced.”

“You are sure of that?” asked Chick.

“There’s no doubt about it at all,” replied Sanborn, positively.

Chick had no further questions to ask, and, a few moments later, young Sanborn went his way.

Turning to Patsy, Chick said:

“Well, Patsy, we’ve got something to report to the chief at last.”

Then, they, too, walked away in the direction of their homes.