Chapter XXVII: The Jonah

As the body of the falling man struck the slimy floor of the old sub-cellar beneath the Donegal Shades, Detective Hook sprang back against the damp and dripping wall.

It was well that he did so.

With a heavy thud the man fell at his feet half buried in the foul and pasty mud.

Instantly the trap-door was heard to close above him, followed by the sound of feet moving away.

"Oh, God--oh, God, have mercy on my sinful soul! Must I die here like a dog?"

From the man at his feet the sound went forth.

Caleb Hook kneeled by his side.

"Courage, friend!" he whispered. "Courage! God may help us yet!"

"Ah--ah! Keep off--keep off!" shrieked the dying man. "Is not one ghost enough to haunt me, that the voice of the man I helped to bury in this devil's den must come ringing in my ears? Keep off, I say! Detective Hook, I know your voice! I did not raise a hand to kill you! You know it well enough!"

Crack!

The last match possessed by the detective is lighted--he holds it to the face before him.

"Reuben Tisdale, you, the most successful maker of burglars' tools known among the crooks of New York!"

The man raised himself with difficulty, gazing with wild, staring eyes upon the detective's face.

"Alive--alive!" he gasped. "It is hours since we threw you here, dead, as we all supposed."

"But I still live, Reuben Tisdale, and so perhaps may you. Answer, man! Beside that trap-door overhead, is there no way out of this?"

"Yes--yes," murmured the burglar, sinking back upon the muddy floor. "There is a secret passage, and you shall escape; for me there is no hope; Callister has settled me; foul fiend that he is. But I will be revenged--I swear it! I will tell the truth, as I hope to meet my poor wife above. Ha--ha! Elijah Callister, did I not speak the truth? There is fate in this--it is written that I should live to be the Jonah of the crowd!"

"Speak!" cried the detective. "Show me the way out of this and I will save you if it costs my life!"

"No, no," moaned the dying man. "It's no use--it's all up with Rube Tisdale at last, but you shall be saved: the secret passage leading from this place can be opened by a pressure of hand. It shall be opened, and you shall live, it is within my reach to do it, even as I lay here now."

"Then do it! Do one good action before you die."

"I will, do not fear, but listen first to the confession of a dying man."

"Speak, I am listening," said the detective, quietly, raising the head of the sufferer and supporting it on his arm.

"Caleb Hook," began the burglar. "I am a man of many evil deeds. Listen to the story of my life."

"In my youth I was a machinist; I had two friends; Frank Mansfield was the name of one, Elijah Callister, the other.

"Our home was in the upper part of New York, now known as High Bridge.

"Near us lived two twin sisters, beautiful girls, both. Their names were Helen and Maria Dupont.

"I married Maria, my friend Mansfield Helen, and then the trouble began.

"Little by little, by Callister I was led into crime, and for years we have worked together, he making plans for burglaries, I furnishing the tools and assisting to carry them out.

"Frank Mansfield--I speak now of the father of the lad you know by that name--would not join us. In fact, he never suspected Callister, although he knew well what I was about myself.

"Time passed and he prospered, our families were separated and never met.

"Callister hated him. He had himself loved Helen Dupont, and when she married Mansfield swore to be avenged.

"By trickery and device he so worked upon Mansfield's father as to cause him to make a singular will----

"Yes, yes," interrupted the detective, "I know all about that, you need not stop to explain."

"Do you? It may be so, but you do not know that it was Callister and myself who killed old Jeremiah Mansfield in his bed hoping to gain the buried treasure which we never found. You do not know that we robbed Mansfield's store of the funds intrusted to his care, and casting suspicion upon him drove his wife mad as was mine already, and sent him with a blackened name down to a defaulter's grave.

"We did that, Caleb Hook, and more. We robbed the Webster bank, and concocted the conspiracy to throw the burden of that crime on Frank Mansfield's son, the lad arrested by you."

"And you did all this," said the detective, sternly. "Reuben Tisdale, you are justly punished, you----"

"Hush, hush! If that were all I might still wish to live.

"Listen, for my breath grows short. You saw a woman dead in an upper room in the house in the rear of this evil den?"

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Marley--what of her?"

"Mrs. Marley was not her name. She was Maria Tisdale--my wife. Detective Hook, it was my hand that struck her down. I did it in anger, God forgive me, poor insane creature that she was. I saw her hovering about the Webster bank--I thought she had found in the street certain papers which I dropped, and----"

"And you killed her?"

"I did; I--ah! Take her off! take her off! There she is bending over me! Her hand is above my throat now!"

"Hush! hush!" whispered the detective. "There is no one here but ourselves.

"My God, the man is dying!" he exclaimed, as the eyes of Reuben Tisdale closed and the head rested more heavily on his arm.

"No--I--I--still live."

The words came faintly from the parted lips.

"Drag me to the wall--there--right--behind--you. Stop--them--they rob the--Lispenard bank--at--twelve--to-night. Callister--made plans--I--revenge--revenge--oh! God have mercy on my sinful soul!"

They were the last words of Reuben Tisdale on earth.

Even as they were uttered, dragged across the slimy floor of the cellar by the detective, he stretched forth his hand and pressed a groove in what appeared to be a wall of solid stone.

It moved, it opened, a door flew back, displaying a dark and narrow passage at the very moment the man breathed his last.

Laying him gently down. Caleb Hook, trembling with weakness and excitement, moved toward the secret passage now disclosed.

"Saved--saved!" he murmured, faintly. "Means of escape are open before me, but--oh, God! how weak I am! This mist before my eyes--this trembling in my limbs! I--I--help--oh, help!"

The "Jonah" has spoken.

Have his revelations come too late?

Apparently, for the trembling form of Caleb Hook sinks lifeless across the very entrance to the secret passage.