University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER SECOND.
STEWEL AND CALEB.

Stepping across the threshold, Brother Caleb
closed the folding doors behind him, and approached

a table on which a small lamp was
burning.

It was the large room, described in the revelations
of the Entranced Girl.

The lamp emitted but a faint light, and the
apartment furnished with all the appointments
of wealth and luxury, looked vast and cheerless
as the dim ray, flickered amid its splendid
gloom.

As Brother Caleb extended his hand to grasp
the lamp, his singular face was displayed in
strong light and deep shadow. What was the
nature of the thought which gave such a
marked expression to his lips and eyes?

“I will get the copper ore,” he soliloquized,
“and they will bring me the gold dust.”

“Mister Goodleigh, I'm a Poleese Officer,”
said a voice, and a hand was laid on Brother
Caleb's arm.

You may well imagine that this voice, breaking
abruptly from the dead stillness, startled
even the firm nerves of Brother Caleb into a
tremor.

“Hey? what! what! You here?” he said,
as he turned and saw the full-moon face of
Stewel Pydgeon at his shoulder.

“I'm a poleese offisser, I am,” said Stewel
with emphasis: “Don't you remember something
about a tin box?”

Brother Caleb fairly started with surprise.
“A tin box?” he echoed — and then recovering
his composure, as his lean form was elevated
with an air of dignity; “I am at a loss to understand
your allusions, Mr. Pydgeon.”

“Bah! Wasn't I present at the office of
Is'rel Bonus when he drew up your Deed for
this very house? An' did not you put the
deed in a tin box with other valleyable papers.
An' did not you say that you kept that box in
a small room at the head of the stairs?”

“W-e-l-l!” ejaculated Brother Caleb. “You
have an astonishing memory, Mr. Pydgeon —
And what then?”

Stewel inserted his thumbs in the arm-holes
of his waistcoat:

“Why, I'm a poleese offisser. I aint easily
fooled. Now, to cut a long story short, do
you remember a ragged devil, as came to pay
his rent while you and old Bonus was in
confab?”

“I do not,” said Brother Caleb, opening his
his eyes to the utmost tension of their lids.

“S-i-r,” Stewel drew a step nearer, “That
ragged devil was a burglar. An imported furrin
burglar, commonly known as Persimmon
Jake.”

“A-h!” ejaculated Stewel, and the light
slipped from his hand and fell upon the table.

“Persimmon Jake and ten others planned
the robbery of your house this very night. I'm
a poleese offisser, Mr. Goodleigh, I am.”

“And you have arrested the burglars?” said
Brother Caleb eagerly.

“No, s-i-r! Not so green as that! Want
to ketch 'em in the act, I do. At this minnut,
sir, there's ten burglars in your basement
story —”

“Ten burglars in my basement story!”

“Two of 'em in the small room up
stairs —”

“What do you say?” — Caleb grasped the
lamp, while his face betrayed violent agitation.

“And there's ten of my 'special poleese in
the next room. In the next room, awaitin' the
signal to pounce upon the cracksmen.”

“And who is it that will give the signal?
Zounds, sir! this looks like a very stupid piece
of work on your part —”

“There's a closet in that room, a closet
with a glass winder —”

“Y-e-s —”

“Suppose I was to buy over one of the
burglars, and put him in the closet, and tell
him to holler out the minnit his cronies laid
hands on the box?”

“Well? You have done this? Ah, I see
your idea. Excellent, Mr. Pydgeon.”

“And yit he called me stoopid!” exclaimed
Stewel, with a proper sense of wounded merit
—“Mr. Goodleigh, you'll jist please to take
that light, and walk up stairs and see them
cracksmen, or two of 'em at least, in the hands
of the poleese. My poleese.”

At once, Brother Caleb, light in hand, led
the way from the room.

In a second, he was passing along the wide
entry, with Stewel following at his heels.

Brother Caleb's face displayed considerable
anxiety, while Stewel's was agitated by a succession
of singular contortions.

“You'll find your tin box as safe as a bug
in a rug, and the thieves in the hands of my
poleese.”

Brother Caleb ascended the wide stairway

without a word. At the head of the stairway
was the passage leading to the room, and at the
commencement of the passage appeared the
door of another room.

“My poleese is here!” whispered Stewel.
“Don't you hear 'em whisperin'? Push on!”

Brother Caleb led the way along the passage,
whose floor was covered with a thick carpet.
In a moment, he stood at the door of the small
chamber. It was closed. Stewel remarked
that his hand trembled, as it enconntered the
silver knob.

“I hear no sound,” whispered Caleb—“all
is still. Do you think your police have secured
the thieves?”

“Push open the door. In a minute all will
be `self evident,' as Tom Jefferson remarks in
one o' his epistolatory letters.”

Brother Caleb opened the door, and his
light flashed over the walls of the small chamber.
At a glance the whole scene was revealed.
The closet door was open; the lid of
the desk was raised; the closet was vacant;
the tin box had disappeared from its appropriate
pigeon-hole.

Stewel caught a glimpse of Brother Caleb's
face. It was white as a shroud. The eyes
rolled wildly in their sockets.

`Ruined!” he ejaculated, “ruined, by —!”
and would have fallen to the floor, had it not
been for the extended arm of Stewel.

“Keep a stiff upper lip, man,” suggested
the police officer. “You forgit that my poleese
is on hand. What'll you bet that they
aint got the thieves and the tin box in yonder
room?”

“Go — on!” cried Brother Caleb, wildly
waving his right hand: “Do not lose a minute!
Quick! quick!” He pointed toward the door.

Leaving him alone, Stewel left the small
apartment, and hurried toward the room at the
head of the stairs. The short time which
elapsed during his absence seemed an age to
Brother Caleb.

“Ruined! ruined!” he ejaculated, his blue
eyes flashing with a manic's glance; “Ah!
This is some infernal plot! Where is Jervis
all this while? Can he have anything to do
with the disappearance of the tin box? Why
does this Police Officer delay?”

Stewel crossed the threshold as the last word
fell from his lips. Stewel's visage was per
fectly blank. He approached Brother Caleb
without speaking, his hands in his pockets and
and his nether lip between his teeth. There
was a singular vacancy in his glance; he looked
very much like a man who is just one minute
too late for the steamboat.

“Well, w-e-l-l!” gasped Caleb.

“W-e-l—l!” echoed Stewel, in a prolonged
tone, which terminated in a low whistle.

“Speak! You are not dumb! Your officers
— where are they?”

“Sold,” responded Stewel, “Reg'larly sold.
That's the sum total. My poleese aint there,
Mister Goodleigh. Nor the thieves, nor the
tin box. I'm reg'larly sold, I tell you.”

“Scoundrel!” shouted Brother Caleb, making
a dash at Stewel's red cravat: “What
have you done? This is your plan to entrap
the robbers, is it? Do you know that that tin
box is worth more than life to me? By —
I could brain you as willingly as I ever crushed
a snake with the heel of my boot.”

“Don't swear,” responded Stewel, cautiously
retreating from the enraged man, as he put himself
into a pugilistic attitude. “And don't lay
hands on me. Tech me, and you tech the
L-a-w! Could I help it, if my poleese did
not come accordin' to 'p'intment? Th' amount
o' th' thing is jest this. The thieves has been
here. They have murdered the boy whom I
placed in that closet. They have made off
with the tin box. I tell you we're sold all
round.”

“And so you did not assure yourself of the
presence of your police, at the time when you
placed your spy in the closet?” exclaimed
Goodleigh with suppressed rage.

“Course not. 'Spose I'm green? Among
my poleese was one or two o' th' cracksmen,
who'd 'ave been sure to cut my throat if they
suspected I was at the head o' th' business.
You see the thieves hate me like p'ison.”

“If I understand you right,” slowly remarked
Brother Caleb, “your police came
here in company with the two robbers, as
robbers? This is a mysterious affair, Mr.
Pydgeon. It may cost you your situation.
Do you comprehend me?”

This threat, made with due emphasis, did
not seem to frighten Stewel quite out of his
senses.

“Can't say as I do. You wouldn't go to

make a complaint to the City authorities?
Gammon! Emphatically gam-mon! You
want your tin box, I calc'late. Question is —
how shill you git it?”

These words seemed to have made an impression
on Brother Caleb. Shaking in every
gaunt limb with agitation, he passed his hand
over his brow, and for a moment, seemed
buried in thought.

“Bring me that box before to-morrow
night,” he said, raising his head, “and I will
give all the money which it contains. The
papers — private papers relating to my family
— are all that I care about.”

“How much money did you say was in the
box?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars, more or less.”

Stewel started back as though he had been
shot.

“Fif-te-e-n thousand!” he echoed, and then
relapsing into thought, muttered to himself —
“Mister Charles Augustus Milliken, I do
wonder where you air about this time!”

“Speak, do you think you can recover the
box?” asked Brother Caleb with great eagerness.

“Who knows? There's no harm in tryin'
—”

“Hush! Do you hear that?” exclaimed
Caleb, elevating his hand with a gesture of caution
— “Voices in the entry yonder — footsteps
too! H-u-s-h! The thieves are in the
house yet.”

The noise proceeded from the passage leading
from the small chamber toward the wing
of the mansion.

It was now Stewel's turn to be surprised.
This noise did not enter into his calculations.

“Wonder what it can be?” he muttered —
“It can't be young Milliken a-tryin' to get out
o' th' house? He's had a half an hour and
more already.”

“What are you saying?” whispered Brother
Caleb: “Do you hear that?”

The sound of a key turning in the lock,
broke harshly on the stillness.

Shading the light with one hand, Brother
Caleb motioned with the other to Stewel, and
Stewel accordingly crept quietly behind Brother
Caleb.

The door was opened, and a beautiful girl,
clad in a dark cloak, crossed the threshold.
Her eyes flashed with spectral radiance from
a face white as snow.

By the hand she led a blindfolded man,
who exclaimed as he crossed the threshold, and
entered the small chamber —

“Remember your promise! Don't harm me!
I'll be quiet and obey.”

You may imagine the surprise which dilated
Brother Caleb's eyes, as he saw his friend, the
Preacher, led blindfolded across the floor, by
the hand of the very girl whom he had led
from Church.

Stewel, peeping over the shoulder of Brother
Caleb, beheld the face of the girl, and cried
with an oath — “A ghost, or my name's not
Stewel Pydgeon!”

Advancing with a hurried step, Caleb laid
his hand on the Preacher's arm; the girl did
not seem to behold him. Her eyes, dazzlingly
bright, were fixed on vacancy.

“Don't harm me,” whispered the Preacher,
trembling all over: “You know your promise.
At her request you spared my life. I'm to
go with you, from the house, and to go out
west, to Ellen's grave. Don't harm me.”

“Why Jervis!” cried Brother Caleb.
“What's this? A little melo-drama of your
own getting up?”

As he spoke, a form advanced from the
background, a young man clad in a bearskin
over-coat, with a fur cap drawn over his eyes.

“Let us pass. This matter does not concern
you,” said the young man, confronting
Brother Caleb.

And at the same moment, the young man's
arms were pinioned from behind, and the voice
of Stewel was heard, as his round face appeared
over the young man's shoulder:

“Got him, Goodleigh! The thief! Hurray
for the tin-box. I say!”