_ CHAPTER XXIX. RETRIBUTION
A tall, handsome man of middle-age stood picking his teeth with a jaunty air beside the desk of a down-town boarding-house, when his occupation, if such we may call it, was interrupted by a touch on his arm.
Looking down, the gentleman saw a small, ragged urchin standing near.
"It is yourn--10 cents, please."
The boy held out a yellow envelope, on which was scrawled the name "Harper Elliston."
The gentleman dropped the required bit of silver into the boy's hand with the air of a king, and then tore open the envelope.
"MR. ELLISTON: Meet me at Room 14, Number 388 Blank street, at seven this evening, SHARP. Business of importance.
"B."
The contents of the envelope puzzled Mr. Elliston, who had been but ten days in New York since his return from the West. He had several acquaintances whose names might with appropriateness be signed B. "I don't think there'll be any harm in meeting Mr. B. at the place mentioned. It may be of importance, as he says. If it should be a trap set by Dyke Darrel--but, pshaw! that man is dead. I had it from the lips of Martin Skidway, and he knew whereof he spoke. I will call at 388, let the consequences be what they may." Thus decided a cunning villain, and in so doing went to his own doom.
Ten days had Dyke Darrel and his friend Bernard searched the city of New York ere they found their prey. Once found, the detective resolved upon a novel manner of procedure for his capture. The sending of the letter was part of the scheme. Had this failed, then a bolder move would have been made.
But it did not fail.
When Mr. Elliston rapped at room 14, number 388 Blank street, the door was opened, admitting the visitor to a small room containing a bed, a few necessary articles of furniture, and a curtained alcove.
The door was suddenly closed and locked behind Elliston, light was turned on fully, and then the visitor found himself confronted by Harry Bernard, whom he had met once or twice in Woodburg, many months before.
"Eh!" ejaculated Elliston. "So you are the man who wrote that note requesting an interview? Well, I am glad to see you, Mr. Bernard," and Elliston held out his hand, with a smile wreathing his thin lips.
"I imagined you would be," returned the youth. "I am glad to see you so well. Fact is, you are badly wanted out in Illinois at the present time."
"I am sorry that I cannot accommodate my friends out there," returned Elliston, with a frown; "but it is wholly out of the question. I think I will bid you good evening, Mr. Bernard. I cannot waste precious time here."
He turned and grasped the door-knob. It did not yield to his touch.
"Not just yet, Mr. Elliston," said Harry. "I wish to ask you a few questions."
"Well?"
"What do you know of the murder of Arnold Nicholson on the midnight express, south of Chicago, some weeks ago?"
"I read of it, of course."
Mr. Elliston pulled nervously at his glove as he answered.
"What do you know of the disappearance of Captain Osborne and the death of his daughter?" persisted Bernard.
"Do you suppose I have nothing to do but answer such nonsensical questions?" demanded Elliston, angrily. "Open this door and let me pass out."
"Not yet. I wish to tell you a little story, Mr. Elliston."
"I haven't time to listen."
"Nevertheless, you must take the time," said Harry Bernard, sternly. "Don't attempt to make trouble, sir; you will get the worst of it if you do."
There was a glitter in the eyes of the speaker that was not pleasant to see.
Mr. Elliston sank to a chair, and with an air of resignation said:
"Well, well, this is impudent, but I will listen if it will gratify you."
"It certainly will. I wish to start out with the assertion that you DO know something about the crime on the midnight express, and I will try and convince you that
I know what part you acted in the murder of one of the best men in the service of the express company. Don't lose your temper, sir, but listen?"
"I am listening."
There was a sullen echo in the man's voice that boded an outburst soon.
"A gentleman of your build and complexion boarded the train at a station just south of Chicago one night in April. At another station two companions joined this man, according to previous agreement. One was almost a boy in years, an escaped convict; and these three men during the night entered the express car, murdered the agent, and went through the safe. Just before reaching Black Hollow the three men left the car. One of the three was tall and had red hair and beard. This man, after the slaughter, left a trace behind that has led to his identity. He left the imprint of a bloody hand on a white handkerchief that he took from the pocket of his victim. That handkerchief was afterward found, and the bloody mark compared with the hand of the assassin."
"That could hardly be possible. Hands are many of them alike," articulated Mr. Elliston, nervously.
"True, but in this case a wart, of peculiar shape, gave the man away. The mark of his bloody hand, leaving the wart's impress, was not only on the handkerchief, but left against the white shirt-front of the murdered man as well. The man who committed the murder read of the clew in a Chicago paper, and, to obliterate the tell-tale evidence, he cut the wart from his hand and dropped it under the seat while journeying through Iowa in disguise, on an emigrant train."
The face of Elliston had become white as death, and he trembled from head to foot. If Bernard had doubted before, he doubted now no longer.
"A nice story," finally sneered Bernard's visitor. "When did you learn so much?"
"Weeks ago--"
"And you have permitted this villain to run at large so long!"
"Well, I propose to see that he does not flaunt his crimes in the face of the world longer."
Then, with a quick movement, the youth drew a vial from his pocket and held it up to view, exhibiting to the dilating eyes of the New Yorker a large wart with a double top.
"Just remove the glove from your right hand, Mr. Elliston. I think we will find a scar there that this wart will fit--"
"Furies! this is too much," cried Elliston, coming to his feet, white with rage and fear.
"Stop. Keep your temper," warned Bernard. "I wish to bring a witness; one that has been your companion in crime."
The curtain over the alcove was brushed aside, and a man stepped forth, a man with red whiskers and hair, the latter surmounted with a glossy plug hat.
Elliston stared like one bereft of sense and life.
"Allow me to introduce Professor Darlington Ruggles, Mr. Elliston," uttered Harry Bernard in a mocking voice.
"Hades! what does this mean?" and the trapped villain staggered, clutching the back of a chair for support.
"It means that your race of crime and diabolism is run, Harper Elliston!"
Red hair and beard were suddenly swept aside, a revolver was thrust into the startled countenance of Elliston; he looked, and could only utter:
"DYKE DARREL, THE DETECTIVE!"
"Do you deny your guilt, scoundrel?"
But Harper Elliston sank to a seat, and bowed his head, while drops of cold sweat covered his forehead.
The touch of cold steel and click of closing bracelets roused him.
He was helpless now, for his wrists were encircled by handcuffs. Black despair confronted the villain.
Dyke Darrel went through the pockets of his prisoner and found a revolver, an ugly looking clasp knife, and other articles of a nature that served to show that the owner was not pursuing an honest calling.
"Do you remember that night on the dock beside the river, Elliston?" questioned Bernard, bending suddenly over the prisoner.
But no answer came from the bloodless lips of the cornered villain.
"It was I who tore your mask of red hair from your head that night. I had mistrusted you for a villain, and I meant to unmask you to save Nell Darrel, whom I loved, from your wiles. You struck me with a knife and pushed me into the river. I, however, was not harmed. The point of your knife glanced on a small book that I carried in an inner pocket. I escaped from the river, and resolved to follow you to your doom. I overheard your plans of abducting Nell Darrel, when you fired at my masked face that night as I peered into Mother Scarlet's room. I then knew you to be a villain of the deepest dye. Since, I learned that you were the man in disguise on the emigrant train in Iowa, and this wart will, with other evidence, condemn you before an honest jury of your peers."
A groan alone answered the denouement made by Harry Bernard.
Dyke Darrel removed the glove from his prisoner's right hand, and exposed a scarcely-healed scar near the joint of the little finger. The chain of evidence was complete. The red hair in the clutches of the murdered Nicholson had evidently been torn from the false beard of the disguised assassin.
The New Yorker was removed from the house and taken at once to prison. From thence, on the following morning, Dyke Darrel set out on his return to the Garden City with Elliston in charge.
Harry Bernard remained over at the farm-house in New York State to see Nell, who had been left in the care of Paul Ender. Nell had almost entirely recovered from the shock of her recent treatment, and was overjoyed at the outcome of her friends' visit to New York.
"Elliston will be convicted and hanged," was Bernard's verdict.
On the very day of Harry's arrival at the farm-house, he, with the old farmer, was summoned to visit one who had met with a fatal accident and was about to die.
It proved to be Martin Skidway, who lay on a barn floor with his head in his mother's lap, gasping his life away, an ugly wound in his side.
He had accidentally shot himself and was rapidly sinking. A fugitive in hiding for weeks, his life had been an intolerable one. Now that he was dying, he made a full confession, admitting his own hand in the awful railroad crime, and implicating two others, Elliston and Nick Brower. Sam Swart had been one of them, but he was known to be dead.
"Without HIS urging I would never have stained my hands; in fact, it was Elliston who struck the blow that killed the express messenger."
Without this confession, there was evidence enough to convict the New Yorker; with it, both Brower and the principal were found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to the gallows. Nick Brower was the only one of the four who expiated his crime on the gallows. Harper Elliston died in prison by his own hand.
He left a note admitting the express crime, and also confessing to the murder of Captain Osborne and the ruin of his daughter Sibyl. His was a fitting end to a career of unparalleled crime.
* * * * *
We now draw a veil over the scene.
Harry Bernard and Nell Darrel were, soon after the arrest and death of Elliston, happily married.
Dyke Darrel considers the events leading up to the capture and punishment of those engaged in the crime of the midnight express as among the most thrilling and wonderful of his detective experience. To Harry Bernard and Paul Ender he gives a large share of the credit, and with them shared the reward. Bernard has of late worked in conjunction with Dyke Darrel on other cases, and is fast winning a reputation second only to that of the great railroad detective himself.
[THE END]
A. Frank Pinkerton's Book: Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective; or, The Crime of the Midnight Express
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