Chapter XXIII: A Detective in a Bad Fix

Detective Hook flung his hand behind him.

Instantly a revolver, grasped firmly between his fingers, glittered in the rays of the hanging lamp which shed its feeble light through the hall of the Cherry street tenement in which he now stood at bay.

"Stand off, there, you fellows!" he shouted, sternly. "One step forward and some one bites the dust!"

Crack!

The warning was unheeded.

In the wild western towns the rule is, "Shoot first and explanations afterward."

With fatal result Caleb Hook had chosen the course in direct reverse of this.

With the quickness of thought--in fact, even as the words had passed his lips, a short, thick-set fellow, from the shelter of the doorway connecting the passage with the room from which the men had emerged, had drawn a revolver of the smallest caliber and discharged it at the detective's head.

It made no more noise than an ordinary popgun, but, notwithstanding, accomplished its fatal work.

A low cry escaped the lips of Caleb Hook. The revolver dropped from his nerveless hand.

With one arm outstretched he clutched at the banisters, missed them, clutched again, and pitched headlong to the foot of the stairs.

"Three cheers and a tiger for the man who fired that shot!" whispered Callister, as all hands crowded about the inanimate form of the fallen man. "Sam Cutts, old man, there's some life left in you yet. Now, what's to be done with the carcass before the whole neighborhood comes piling in?"

"Into the room with him--quick!" exclaimed Billy Cutts. "We are safe there for a while, at all events. We do not even know that he is dead, meddling fool that he is."

His instructions were instantly obeyed.

The body of the unfortunate detective was unceremoniously dragged into the room adjoining, the door of which was immediately bolted from within.

"Is he dead?" asked Billy Cutts, hoarsely. "By thunder, father, I suppose you had to do it, but his death will kick up a Satan's own row upon the force. The chief of police will never rest night or day until he has run us down."

"Do it! Why, of course I had to do it!" replied the elder Cutts--a grizzled reproduction of his hopeful son in appearance. "It's my belief, gents, that that there iron lifter dropped down upon us by mistake. He knew it, and was off to give us and the whole business away to the captain of the nearest station before we had time to escape."

"Sam's about right," growled Reuben Tisdale. "I tell you, boys, this is a serious snap. We've doctored this spy with a leaden pill, but who can tell how many more of the same kind of cattle there is in hiding in that room overhead? Who lives up there, anyway? Does any one know? Why were we not told of that stovepipe hole?"

"Blest if I know," said Callister. "Cutts, you ought to be able to tell--these are your rooms."

"Tell! I don't know no more about them what lives in the house than the dead. I reckon it would pay to have some on us slip up and see."

"No, no!" whispered Callister, breathlessly. "What's done is done, and can't be helped. It is my opinion the whole scheme has been overheard through that confounded hole in the floor."

"Hold on, you fellows," put in Billy Cutts. "I'll go up-stairs and reconnoiter. I'm a detective, don't you know, and if I catch on to anything in the shape of the police I'll knock with my heel once hard upon the floor. If you hear the signal light out, every mother's son of you. Of course they won't think anything strange at seeing me come snooping round."

Silently unbolting the door, he crept up the stairs, the others listening breathlessly for the signal he proposed to give.

Through their own door--open on the crack--they could hear Cutts open the door of the room above.

Evidently he had met with no opposition, for the sound of his footsteps could be heard overhead walking about the room.

"Blame me if I don't think it was this cuss that was up there alone, and no one else," muttered the elder Cutts, indicating the detective, who lay white and still, dead to all appearance, in the midst of the little group.

"He's wrong, Lije," whispered Tisdale to the stock-broker, who stood by his side, a little apart from the rest. "I heard the footsteps of two persons, at least, overhead there before that iron thing came down. Luck has deserted us since my--my--you know what. I'm doomed to be the Jonah of the gang."

"Hush, Rube, for Heaven's sake! Can't you let up on your infernal croaking even in a strait like this? If the police are upon us, why, we'll do the best thing that offers. If it's only this fellow, Hook, why, Sam Cutts' bullet has settled him. But not another word now. Here's Billy coming back."

The young detective, if one so unfaithful to his trust can truthfully be so termed, entered at this moment with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

"It's all right," he exclaimed, closing the door. "There ain't a soul in the room up-stairs. It's fixed up roughly to look like housekeeping, but it's my belief that it was hired by Hook for the simple purpose of catching us. It's a common method with the profesh."

"Hadn't some one better inquire of the agent on the first floor?" put in one of the men who had not spoken before.

"Some other time will do for that," said Callister, hurriedly. "What we want to do now is to dispose of this body without further delay. We can investigate later on."

"Well, and how do you propose to do it?"

"I rather guess we can fix that if we can get it through the alley to the Donegal Shades--eh, Rube?" replied the broker, with a smile. "After we've finished with Mr. Hook, he'll trouble us no more, I fancy. It's too bad to deprive the New York police force of such a bright and shining light, but then he had better have minded his own affairs."

"So I say," growled another of the gang--a rough-looking fellow. "These blamed detectives don't give a hard working man no kinder show."

"Better be sure he's actually croaked before we bury him," grumbled Tisdale, in his characteristic way.

"That's soon done," returned Callister. "I guess I'm doctor enough for that."

He knelt beside the body and unbuttoned the coat and vest.

Placing his ear upon the detective's breast, he listened to the beating of the heart.

But the heart of Caleb Hook had apparently ceased to beat. Nor did his pulse give sign of any movement whatever.

"Dead as a door nail!" said the broker, laconically. "Say, Sam Cutts, have you got such a thing as a big bag?"

"No, an' you don't want it," answered Cutts. "To carry that body down-stairs in a bag! You must be crazy, man. That would never do at all. We'll take him by the shoulders, two of us, and drag him along as though he was blind drunk--paralyzed, don't you see--then no one will suspect anything at all."

"Good! That's the very scheme. Now, then, gents, as it ain't always best for a man to know too much, you had better say good-night, and leave the management of this affair to Rube, Cutts and myself. I feel sure that we have nothing to be afraid of now, for I am confident that this fellow was working alone. If I find that I am wrong, some of us will notify you, you may rest assured. Meanwhile, the appointment remains the same as before, unless you hear to the contrary--Cagney's sanctum, day after to-morrow night."

Several of the men now silently withdrew, leaving the two Cutts--father and son--Callister and Tisdale with their victim.

The sound of their footsteps had scarce died away upon the carpetless stairs when the stock-broker spoke again.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," answered Cutts, the elder; "I should say we were."

"Then you slip round and give Pat the tip. We mustn't lose a moment, once we start, and you are to see that all is prepared."

Billy Cutts, opening the door cautiously, left the room without a word.

For the space of perhaps ten minutes the three men stood motionless, listening to every sound.

Overhead all was silent. There was no unusual noise about the house.

"That pop of yours is a daisy, Sam," whispered Callister. "It's my opinion that the report of that shot was not heard on this floor. Come, time's up. You take one arm, Rube, and I'll attend to the other. Sam can give us a lift down the stairs."

Two minutes later a peculiar but by no means unusual sight might have been observed in the alley leading from the side of the Cherry street tenement through, by means of the gate pointed out by Jerry Buck to Frank Mansfield, to the rear of the Donegal Shades on Catherine street, opposite the old market building.

It was two men dragging between them a third, apparently in a state of helpless intoxication, while a fourth man--a short, thick-set fellow--brought up the rear.

If they were observed by any of the dwellers in the adjoining tenements, it is safe to say that their appearance attracted no attention at all, for such sights are far too common in that part of the city to excite even passing remark.

The passage of the alley was made in safety--the gate was opened by Cutts--in another moment they had entered the yard facing the residence of the unfortunate Mrs. Marley, and in the rear of the Donegal Shades.

Two men stood ready to receive them by the side of a little flight of steps leading down to an open cellar door.

One was Billy Cutts, the other P. Slattery, the proprietor of the saloon, whose fiery shock of hair betrayed his identity at a glance.

"All O. K., Pat?" said Callister, in a whisper.

"You're right, it is; run him down, an' I'm wid yez in a jiffy. Begobs! if it ain't that fly detective what shook me up on the Sunday morning poor Mrs. Marley was murdered--an' phat ails you, Mister Tisdale? Howly Mother, but you're as white as though you'd seen a ghost!"

"Hold your jaw and lead the way!" muttered the burglar, fiercely.

Slattery made no attempt at reply.

Running down the cellar steps, he motioned to the others to follow without a word.

No sooner had they entered than he closed and locked the door, and producing a match, lit a lantern which he held in his hand.

"This way, gents," he said, briefly, advancing through the cellar among a heterogeneous mass of barrels and boxes and rubbish of all kinds.

Dragging the body of the detective between them, the others followed.

Suddenly the man Slattery paused, and stooping down, seized a great iron ring in the floor.

A trap-door was lifted, disclosing a dark opening leading to unknown depths below, out of which rushed a noisome stench causing the men by its side to draw back with exclamations of disgust.

"Now, then, down wid him," whispered the proprietor of the Donegal Shades. "It's as putty a grave as wan might ax for. Drop him in, byes, an' it's done nice an' handy, only there's niver a praste to shrive him--worse luck. We must bury the poor cuss widout book nor bell."

Raising the inanimate form of the detective between them, Callister, Tisdale and Cutts dropped it into the darkness of the open trap, while P. Slattery, letting go the iron ring, jumped heavily upon the lid.