CHAPTER XIII.
IN CAGNEY'S SANCTUM.
We never heard it claimed that Oliver street was fashionable.
If such a claim was made, many who know that narrow lane, extendingfrom Chatham square down to the East River front, would be inclined todispute its truth.
Crossing Cherry street, Water and Front, passing directly through theheart of the densely populated Fourth Ward, long known as the home ofthe toughest of the "toughs" who infest the City of New York, it wouldbe useless for us to pretend that Oliver street was anything else thanjust what it is--as bad as bad can be.
Not that many excellent people cannot be found within its limits.
That is true of every city street, no matter how poor its seeming;but Michael J. Cagney was certainly not one of these, nor was hissaloon--"The Fourth Ward Shades"--any better than it ought to be, ifcommon rumor was to be believed.
And yet Cagney did a flourishing business--there could be no doubt asto that.
It was open all day, it could be entered at night, nor upon the Sabbathwere the thirsty turned away.
How Mr. Michael J. Cagney managed to arrange matters with the excisecommissioners is no concern of ours.
In the present stage of the events of this narrative we are concernedonly with two individuals, who, at the hour of daybreak on theparticular Sunday morning of the visit of Frank Mansfield and JerryBuck to the Catherine Market, entered quietly at Cagney's little sidedoor.
They were none other than the two men who had emerged from the alleyat the side of the Donegal Shades, one of whom it will be recollected,Frank recognized as that most reputable member of society, Mr. ElijahCallister, the well-known operator on the stock exchange, and the otherthe man pointed out by Jerry Buck as one of the burglars of the WebsterBank.
Pushing against the door, to all appearance tightly fastened, but whichinstantly yielded to their touch, the two men found themselves within adirty bar-room.
Bottles and demijohns lined the grimy shelves, great casks and barrelswere piled from the level of the sawdust-covered floor in double tiersaround two sides of the room.
Upon the top of these barrels lay four or five ragged men, some young,some old, all sprawled out without reference to the gracefulness of theposition shown and all sound asleep.
These were the drunkards of the Saturday night previous, taken fromthe floor, to which they had fallen under the influence of the vilepoison imbibed at this and other bars, and thrown upon the top of thesebarrels to sleep off the effects of their debauch.
The two men paid no attention to this--a common Sunday morningspectacle in many low saloons--but with a nod to the sleepy, red-eyedbartender passed through a swinging half door, which formed to acertain extent at least, a dividing line between Cagney's proper andCagney's private sanctum beyond.
It was only a little 7x8 affair, in the center of which stood a table,and one or two hard wooden chairs, all a shade less dirty than theroom beyond.
The stock operator seated himself at the table upon entering.
His companion, sinking into a chair and burying his face in his hands,groaned aloud.
For a moment Mr. Callister regarded him gloomily.
Then, extending his hand, he grasped his shoulder and shook the manwith some violence.
"Rube, Rube, I say!"
"Well, what is it, Lije? Why the deuce can't you let me be?"
"But there's no use in this kind of business. What's done is done, andcan't be helped. Brace up man, and try to look as near like yourself asyou can. Here comes Paddy to see what we'll take."
The burglar raised his head and was staring fixedly before him, as thehalf door swung inward and the sleepy bartender entered the room.
"What's your liquor, gents?" he demanded, with an air of indifference.
They must pay for their use of the apartment by an order of some kind.
So that they did this, their presence in the place, be their business,lawful or unlawful, was a matter of no moment to him.
"A bottle of Cagney's particular and two glasses, Paddy, and you maykeep the change," said Callister, throwing down a five-dollar bill. "Wehave a little business to transact together--don't let us be disturbed."
"O. K., gents," replied the sleepy bartender, with a gleam ofintelligence in his blinking red eyes. "I'll look out for yez, and ifye want anything else, wy jest tap that ere bell."
He presently returned with bottle and glasses and having placed themupon the table, withdrew.
"Here, Rube, drink this. It will give you some heart," said the stockoperator, pouring out a portion of the liquor and passing it to hisfriend.
The man seized the glass eagerly and drained it to the last drop.
"My God--my God! Lije, what a terrible thing this is!" he exclaimed, ina hoarse whisper, as he set the glass upon the table again. "I can seeher face before me now, so white and worn! It will never leave me--Ifeel it--I know it! It will haunt me as long as I live!"
"Nonsense, man! You have been guilty of a piece of tremendous folly,but we've too much at stake to break all to pieces over such a slip."
"Poor Maria! poor girl!" groaned the man Rube, again burying his facein his hands and groaning aloud. "It was all my vile temper, Lije. Iswear to God I never meant to kill her, and now----"
"And now she's dead," returned Callister, with an air of hardenedindifference. "She was hopelessly mad, and a nuisance to herself andto us. She's dead, and it can't be helped. You let your temper get thebetter of you, and you killed her. That's all there is to be said."
"For which act may God forgive me," groaned Rube again. "Oh, Lije, itseems but yesterday since I married her! Do you remember what beautifulgirls they were when you and I and Frank Mansfield went a-courtingthem? Do you remember----"
"No, I don't remember, and I don't want to. All the love I had forthem was turned to hate long ago. She's dead, and let her go. What I'minterested in just now is the whereabouts of those papers. You thoughtshe had them, and because she wouldn't give them up----"
"I killed her. God forgive me! I killed her! Oh, Lije, if I had onlylistened to Maria's advice, I'd be a different man to-day from what Iam!"
A soft-hearted bank burglar, surely. A strange murderer, for a fact.
The man had buried his face in his hand again, which rests upon thetable now, and is crying like a child.
"Rube Tisdale, you are a fool. If you give way like this, no poweron earth can keep you from being nabbed. You thought Maria had oldMansfield's will and the paper telling where he buried his fortune.She refused to give it up, and you killed her with your fist. Wesearched her, and the papers were not to be found. No one suspects yourconnection with the woman. If you will but keep a stiff lip you are assafe in New York as anywhere else; but if you are going to give waylike this, why the sooner you skip----"
"Sun, Herald, Journal, World! Papers, gents--papers!"
A head was thrust through the swinging door; a ragged boy, carrying abundle of newspapers under his arm entered the room.
"Get out, you young imp, or I'll throw this glass at you!" criedCallister, picking up the glass and swinging it above his head.
The boy sprang back, the half-door, which worked on a spring, closingnoiselessly after him.
Then the leading light in the Tenth Baptist Church turned to theremorse-stricken man again.
Now, if there was one thing upon which Mr. Elijah Callister pridedhimself more than another, it was upon his shrewdness at all times andseasons--no matter how engrossing the business for the moment occupyinghis mind.
But if possessed of this quality to any startling extent, he surely hasfailed to display it now, for had he but taken the precaution to openthe half door and look out into the bar-room, he would have perceivedthat the sleepy bartender, yielding to his sleepiness at last, was asfirmly locked in the arms of Morpheus as any of the drunkards stretchedupon the barrels, his head resting upon his hands, his hands upon thebar.
He might have seen also--for of this we are not so
certain--theyouthful figure of a ragged newsboy, crouching in the shadow of a tierof great whisky-barrels in such a position that, while he could obtaina view of the feet only of the two men who occupied Cagney's sanctumbeneath the closed half door, he could, by simply placing his ear closeto the jamb, hear plainly every word spoken within.
Thus matters stood in the saloon as the conversation within the sanctumwas renewed.
"Rube Tisdale," said the stock operator, fiercely, "stop this child'sbusiness and listen to me."
"Well, I'm listening."
Though he replied, the man did not raise his head.
"Our scheme with the Webster Bank has proved a miserable failure inevery particular."
"You don't need to remind me of that."
"But I chose to, and that is enough. First, all the money we gotwas five thousand dollars, for the bonds and securities are utterlyuseless; and second, the will of old Mansfield, which I was mostanxious to secure, by your stupidity is lost, perhaps forever, and thesecret of the hiding-place of a fortune in solid cash is gone with it,I suppose you understand."
"Well, it ain't my fault. You drew the plans for the job. You saidthere was a hundred thousand in specie in the vault of the bank."
"So there was at noon. How was I to tell that they would send it all tothe Sub-Treasury in Wall street for security before three o'clock?"
"That's your business. It ain't mine."
"But the Mansfield will and the parchment telling the hiding-place ofthe buried treasure--who botched that job, may I ask?"
"I took the box of papers you told me about. I was particular enoughto break open the lid to assure myself that all was right. I had itin my hand when we heard those infernal bats whistling in Trinitychurch-yard. It scared the life out of us, I want you to understand,for how were we to know they were bats or what they were? I must havedropped the box in the snow as we ran up Broadway."
"And because you happened to see Maria wandering about, you thoughtshe picked it up, and killed her, only to find out your mistake. Well,Rube, upon my life you are a precious fool. Next time I let you into ascheme like this I'll know it, I guess."
"Come, you've called me names enough," replied the burglar, gruffly,raising his head and facing the man before him. "You are as deep in themud as I am in the mire, I want you to understand. The detectives willturn New York upside down for this affair. Now, what do you propose todo? They've got Joe Dutton, and they've got a part of the swag. It's myopinion that the best thing we can do is to skip."
"Nonsense! Joe is all right. I shall make it my business to send someone to him at once. Have no fear, Rube. He'll never blow."
"And the--the body?"
"We can't do anything about that. Matters must take their course.I agree with you that it would be wiser for us to leave town for awhile--not that I have any serious fears, but only as a matter ofprecaution--but I intend to have that Mansfield money before I go, makeno mistake about that."
"But how do you propose to get it? Without the parchment you don't knowanything more about its hiding-place than you did before."
"Rube, it is concealed somewhere about the old house, I'll be willingto bet all I'm worth. It was there on the night that--but no matterabout that--and I'm sure it is there now. We never wanted that hiddenwealth half as much as we do now. Frank Mansfield is almost of age; myscheme to convict him of crime may have worked and may not. We can'ttell into whose hands the papers may fall. What we want is the moneynow."
"All very true, but how are you going to get it, when you don't knowwhere it is?"
"I'm going to search for it, Rube!" cried Callister bringing his fistdown upon the table with a bang. "I'm going to search for it, andI'll find it if I have to tear the old rookery to pieces bit by bit.Come, we've been here too long already. Wherever you think yourselfthe safest, there hide for the next few days until we see what comesof this affair. Meanwhile, I'll go home. To-morrow, at midnight, meetme at the gate of the Three Oaks, and we'll search for this hiddentreasure as we never searched before. I've no notion of seeing it droplike a ripe cherry into the open mouth of that cub of a boy while I canraise a hand to prevent it."
The pair arose and passed out of the saloon.
The sleeping Paddy did not attract their attention--they did notperceive the boy behind the barrels at all.
Once in the street they separated, the man Tisdale going down Cherrystreet, Elijah Callister up Oliver street to Chatham Square.
He had hardly passed Henry street before a ragged newsboy went past himon the run.
"Sun--Herald--World!" he cried. "Morning papers!Herald--Sun--World--Journal!"
If Frank Mansfield could have seen the newsboy then he would haveunquestionably recognized in him Jerry Buck, his companion of the oldchurch-yard vault.
Had an elephant crossed the path of the scheming villain, or a dog, oreven a mouse, he might have turned aside and looked upon either one.
Mr. Elijah Callister, however, paid no attention to the flying Bat atall.