CHAPTER XII.
WHAT WAS SEEN BY THE CHURCH-YARD WALL.
The Sabbath has passed, and night has fallen upon the city once more.
The busy streets are growing deserted, and the great businessthoroughfares about lower Broadway, silent at all hours on this the dayof rest, have, as the night wears on, become almost entirely abandonedby pedestrians, and have sunk into obscurity and gloom.
As the midnight hour approached, the figure of a young man, roughlydressed in garments of the commonest sort, his face concealed beneatha low slouch hat, his mouth by a heavy black mustache, might havebeen observed to briskly ascend the Rector street hill, which risesalong the church-yard wall, and to take his station at the corner ofBroadway, close by the side of the iron fence which divides the oldburial ground from the street.
He was evidently waiting for some one, for as he paced up and downbeneath the cold light of the glittering stars his eye was from time totime turned upon the clock in the church tower, now about to strike thehour of twelve.
No one that had ever known Frank Mansfield would have recognized theneatly dressed young bank clerk in this rough looking youth who nowstrode uneasily up and down.
And yet it was none other than Frank himself, cleverly disguised,prompt on the hour of his appointment with Detective Hook.
Nor was that famous officer at all behindhand.
Just as the clock of old Trinity rang out the midnight hour the boyperceived him moving at a rapid pace down Broadway.
Clever as was Frank's disguise, it did not deceive the detective for aninstant.
"Well, young man, you are on time, I see?" he said, abruptly, peeringbeneath the low slouched hat. "What have you learned? You have got thesealed parchment that should accompany the will, I hope? Otherwise,your chances of finding your legacy are mighty slim."
"I have learned nothing, excepting the fact that my mother escaped fromthe private asylum up-town where she had been confined over a week ago."
"And the parchment?"
"Was not in the box, Mr. Hook. Here it is, with all the papers itcontained. I have examined every one of them, and it is not there."
He drew a small tin box from beneath his coat as he spoke and placed itin the detective's hands.
"That's bad for us," replied Caleb Hook, opening the box and examiningthe papers one by one. "These seem to relate to all sorts of matters.Surely this cannot be the box in which the will was originallycontained."
"I can't say--it is all that was found by the boys. I----"
"Seek not the parchment. Watch and wait, for the day of vengeance is athand!"
Plainly heard by both the man and the boy, these words rang out uponthe silence of the deserted street.
"Who spoke?" exclaimed the detective, springing back from thechurch-yard rail against which he had been leaning.
Save himself and his companion, not a soul was to be seen either onRector street or Broadway.
With a low cry the boy had seized him by the arm.
"There--there!" he whispered, trembling with excitement, pointing, atthe same time to the open expanse of the Trinity church-yard within therail, by the side of which they stood.
The eyes of Caleb Hook followed the direction indicated by Frank's hand.
There, moving among the headstones in the shadow of the church itself,was the form of a woman, cheaply dressed in a faded calico, an oldshawl and a woolen hood.
She was tall and thin, and her long gray hair hung in a tangled massdown her neck and shoulders.
"Great God! if it ain't----"
"My mother!" cried the boy aloud, springing toward the rail. "It is! Itis! Look! she faces us now. God have mercy! What can this mean?"
The form had paused, and, turning, gazed sorrowfully toward theastonished pair beneath the stars which glistened above.
But, feeble as was their light, Detective Hook recognized in thatcare-worn face, at a glance, the features of the strange woman whom hehad tracked through the streets on the previous night, and who, to hispositive knowledge now lay dead in the city morgue!