Blindfolded by Earle Ashley Walcott (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📖

searching for him and to helping him to recover his liberty.

As I was hoping, speculating, planning thus, I was startled to hear a step on the stair.

The sound was not one that need be thought out of place in such a house and neighborhood even though the hour was past four in the morning. But it struck a chill through me, and I listened with growing apprehension as it mounted step by step.

The dread silence of the house that had cast its shadow of fear upon me now seemed to become vocal with protest against this intrusion, and to send warning through the halls. At last the step halted before my door and a loud knock startled the echoes.

With a great bound my heart threw off its tremors, and I grasped the revolver firmly:

"Who's there?"

"Open the door, sor; I've news for ye."

"Who are you?"

"Come now, no nonsense; I'm an officer."

I unlocked the door and stepped to one side. My bump of caution had developed amazingly in the few hours I had spent in San Francisco, and, in spite of his assurance, I thought best to avoid any chance of a rush from my unknown friends, and to put myself in a good position to use my revolver if necessary.

The man stepped in and showed his star. He was the policeman I had met when I had run shouting into the street.

"I suspicion we've found your friend," he said gravely. "You're wanted at the morgue."

"Dead!" I gasped.

"Dead as Saint Patrick--rest his sowl!"


CHAPTER IV

A CHANGE OF NAME

"Here's your way, sor," said the policeman, turning into the old City Hall, as it was even then known, and leading me to one of the inner rooms of the labyrinth of offices.

The odors of the prison were heavy upon the building. The foul air from the foul court-rooms and offices still hung about the entrance, and the fog-laden breeze of the early morning hours was powerless to freshen it.

The policeman opened an office door, saluted, and motioned me to enter.

"Detective Coogan," he said, "here's your man."

Detective Coogan, from behind his desk, nodded with the careless dignity of official position.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Wilton," he said affably.

If I betrayed surprise at being called by Henry's name, Detective Coogan did not notice it. But I hastened to disclaim the dangerous distinction.

"I am not Wilton," I declared. "My name is Dudley--Giles Dudley."

At this announcement Detective Coogan turned to the policeman. "Just step into Morris' room, Corson, and tell him I'm going up to the morgue."

"Now," he continued, as the policeman closed the door behind him, "this won't do, Wilton. We've had to overlook a good deal, of course, but you needn't think you can play us for suckers all the time."

"But I tell you I'm not--" I began, when he interrupted me.

"You can't make that go here," he said contemptuously. "And I'll tell you what, Wilton, I shall have to take you into custody if you don't come down to straight business. We don't want to chip in on the old man's play, of course, especially as we don't know what his game is." Detective Coogan appeared to regret this admission that he was not omniscient, and went on hastily: "You know as well as we do that we don't want any fight with _him_. But I'll tell you right now that if you force a fight, we'll make it so warm for him that he'll have to throw _you_ overboard to lighten ship."

Here was a fine prospect conveyed by Detective Coogan's picturesque confusion of metaphors. If I persisted in claiming my own name and person I was to be clapped into jail, and charged with Heaven-knows- what crimes. If I took my friend's name, I was to invite the career of adventure of which I had just had a taste. And while this was flashing through my mind, I wondered idly who the "old man" could be. The note I had received was certainly in a lady's hand. But if the lady was Henry's employer, it was evident that he had dealt with the police as the representative of a man of power.

My decision was of necessity promptly taken.

"Oh, well, if that's the way you look at it, Coogan," I said carelessly, "it's all right. I thought it was agreed that we weren't to know each other."

This was a chance shot, but it hit.

"Yes, yes," said the detective, "I remember. But, you see, this is serious business. Here's a murder on our hands, and from all I can learn it's on account of your confounded schemes. We've got to know where we stand, or there will be the Old Nick to pay. The papers will get hold of it, and then--well, you remember that shake-up we had three years ago."

"But you forget the 'old man,'" I returned. The name of that potent Unknown seemed to be my only weapon in the contest with Detective Coogan, and I thought this a time to try its force.

"Not much, I don't!" said Coogan, visibly disturbed. "But if it comes to a choice, we'll have to risk a battle with him."

"Well, maybe we're wasting time over a trifle," said I, voicing my hope. "Perhaps your dead man belongs somewhere else."

"Come along to the morgue, then," said he.

"Where was he found?" I asked as we walked out of the City Hall.

"He was picked up at about three o'clock in the back room of the Hurricane Deck--the water-front saloon, you know--near the foot of Folsom Street."

Detective Coogan asked a number of questions as we walked, and in a few minutes we came to the undertaker's shop that served as the city morgue. At the best of times it could not be a place of cheer. In the hour before daybreak, with the chill air of the morning almost suppressing the yellow gaslights, the errand on which I had come made it the abode of dread. Yet I hoped--hoped in such an agony of fear that I became half-insensible to my surroundings.

"Here it is," said Coogan, opening a door.

The low room was dark and chill and musty, but its details started forth from the obscurity as he turned up the lights.

Detective Coogan's words seemed to come from a great distance as he said: "Here, you see, he was stabbed. The knife went to the heart. Here he was hit with something heavy and blunt; but it had enough of an edge to cut the scalp and lay the cheek open. The skull is broken. See here--"

I summoned my resolution and looked.

Disfigured and ghastly as it was, I recognized it. It was the face of Henry Wilton.

The next I knew I was sitting on a bench, and the detective was holding a bottle to my lips.

"There, take another swallow," he said, not unkindly. "I didn't know you weren't used to it."

"Oh," I gasped, "I'm all right now." And I was able to look steadily at the gruesome surroundings and the dreadful burden on the slab.

"Is this the man?" asked the detective.

"Yes."

"His name?"

"Dudley--James Dudley." I was not quite willing to transfer the whole of my identity to the dead, and changed the Giles to James.

"Was he a relative?"

I shook my head, though I could not have said why I denied it. Then, in answer to the detective's question, I told the story of the scuffle in the alley, and of the events that followed.

"Did you see any of the men? To recognize them, I mean?"

I described the leader as well as I was able--the man with the face of the wolf that I had seen in the lantern-flash.

Detective Coogan lost his listless air, and looked at me in astonishment.

"I don't see your game, Wilton," he said.

"I'm giving you the straight facts," I said sullenly, a little disturbed by his manner and tone.

"Well, in that case, I'd expect you to keep the straight facts to yourself, my boy."

It was my turn to be astonished.

"Well, that's my lookout," I said with assumed carelessness.

"I don't see through you," said the detective with some irritation. "If you're playing with me to stop this inquiry by dragging in--well, we needn't use names--you'll find yourself in the hottest water you ever struck."

"You can do as you please," I said coolly.

The detective ripped out an oath.

"If I knew you were lying, Wilton, I'd clap you in jail this minute."

"Well, if you want to take the risks--" I said smiling.

He looked at me for a full minute.

"Candidly, I don't, and you know it," he said. "But this is a stunner on me. What's your game, anyhow?"

I wished I knew.

"So accomplished a detective should not be at a loss to answer so simple a question."

"Well, there's only one course open, as I see," he said with a groan. "We've got to have a story ready for the papers and the coroner's jury."

This was a new suggestion for me and I was alarmed.

"You can just forget your little tale about the row in the alley," he continued. "There's nothing to show that it had anything to do with this man here. Maybe it didn't happen. Anyhow, just think it was a dream. This was a water-front row--tough saloon--killed and robbed by parties unknown. Maybe we'll have you before the coroner for the identification, but maybe it's better not."

I nodded assent. My mind was too numbed to suggest another course.

The gray dawn was breaking through the chill fog, and people were stirring in the streets as Detective Coogan led the way out of the morgue. As we parted he gave me a curious look.

"I suppose you know your own business, Wilton," he said, "but I suspect you'd be a sight safer if I'd clap you in jail."

And with this consoling comment he was gone, and I was left in the dawn of my first morning in San Francisco, mind and body at the nadir of depression after the excitement and perils of the night.


CHAPTER V

DODDRIDGE KNAPP

It was past ten o'clock of the morning when the remembrance of the mysterious note I had received the preceding night came on me. I took the slip from my pocket, and read its contents once more:

"Don't make the change until I see you. The money will be ready in the morning. Be at the bank at 10:30."

This was perplexing enough, but it furnished me with an idea. Of course I could not take money intended for Henry Wilton. But here was the first chance to get at the heart of this dreadful business. The writer of the note, I must suppose, was the mysterious employer. If I could see her I could find the way of escape from the dangerous burden of Henry Wilton's personality and mission.

But which bank could be meant? The only names I knew were the Bank of California, whose failure in the previous year had sent echoes even into my New England home, and the Anglo-Californian Bank, on which I held a draft. The former struck me as the more likely place of appointment,