"Say, haven't you seen anybody around his room coming to see him?"

"Um! Let me think." And she knitted her brows and shaped that small mouth to a Cupid's bow, whence many an arrow has shot through me. "Why, I can't say." And she smiled teasingly.

"Come, you must have some idea. How far from here is his room?"

"Why, yes; I do remember seeing some one there a few times. It was his little girl."

"Oh, I see, a married man. Egad, I remember a man in the house next door who had a little girl. She was an awfully sweet little thing--dimples in her cheeks; little curls down at the side over her ears--most generally, though, wagging around in front. I've often seen him kiss her so tenderly. She was so pretty! Well, there's nothing like it."

CHAPTER XII

The old joke that a woman can't keep a secret still appears in many variations to illuminate the mind of the waiting man, driven to lithographed hilarity in the barber-shop comics. In real life, when not under the spell of this brilliant six-colored wit, we find ourselves at a disadvantage frequently, because women keep their secrets too well.

Hygeia was loyal to Gabrielle, and together they shielded Jim Hosley from his pursuers, and among the latter I was reckoned as one of the most dangerous.

Mr. Tescheron was soon convinced that Hoboken was the place he should tarry. It might appear that a day or two of rest in that place would have satisfied him that he might return to New York, but there was a good reason why he should not take the risk of living in his own home.

And this reason strengthened Gabrielle in the belief that I had notified the coroner of the Browning case and really entertained the same view of Hosley as her father. On the third day after their arrival at the Stuffer House, Mr. Tescheron received this letter from the manager of his company, Mr. King, who wrote from the market:

"A man came to this office this morning with a coroner's subpoena for you to testify in the Browning case. I read it carefully and noted that it was signed by Coroner Flanagan. The man told me he had been up to your house in Ninety-sixth Street. He seemed very anxious to find you, and waited around for some time after I had positively a.s.sured him you had gone West on business. Hope what I did was O. K.

He also wanted to know if you had spoken to me regarding a fire and the disappearance of a Mr. Hosley. I had no knowledge of the matter and so informed him. Shipments are running heavy to-day on Western orders. As you have gone that way, there may be a reason for this.

"Yours truly,

"J. M. KING."

This letter stiffened Mr. Tescheron considerably in his purpose to remain in Hoboken. The following from Bridget to Mrs. Tescheron added corroboration, which tended to brace that purpose still more, and it was quite sufficient to keep the family under Mr. Staffer's roof for six weeks:

"A man from the corner was here wid a bit of paper, an' sed he shud see yer. I ast him which corner, and he sed it was Flanigans the sayloon is Finnegans do yer no any Flanigan on our corner the Parrit is lookin well the cakes is dun.

"Respectably yours,

"BRIDGET."

I am not surprised, realizing Mr. Tescheron's mental condition, that these letters convinced him the place of safety was beyond the borders of New York State.

"It is a very cosy spot here, Marie," said Mr. Tescheron, after he had read the letters to his wife and Gabrielle, who made it a point to be with her mother early every evening. During the day she spent most of her time at the hospital ministering to Jim.

Mr. Tescheron's admiration of the Stuffer House intensified as time wore on and he found he was safe there. His sagacity in the matter encouraged him, and he soon took risks by venturing into the heart of New York dressed in a suit which made him appear like a City Hall Park hobo, with slouch hat and long ulster, such as market men wear loosely belted like great ap.r.o.ns. Under these coverings he dared to go as far as Fulton Market about three times a week, taking the most circuitous route around the lower edge of New York, via the slow but sure Belt Line horse car along West and South streets. To be sure, he put in most of his time traveling, but the coroner did not catch him, and this fact demonstrated the cleverness of the tactics.

The shabby disguise might have saved him, it seems to me, even if the entire police force of the city had been after him, for normally Mr.

Tescheron was one of the tidiest little men. He usually shined like a new hat out of a bandbox. He was patent-leathered, smooth-jowled, rosy, crisp, pretty-nailed, creased, stick-pinned and embossed on the vest.

Nothing that a steam laundry and the latest machinery for man-embellishing, from custom tailoring to Staten Island and hair dyeing, could do to obliterate the fish business from his personality had been omitted in compiling this _de luxe_, numbered and signed copy of a man. But my investigations lead me to believe that Mr. Tescheron was not exceptional in this respect at the market. Like Napoleon, the wholesale fish dealers all fit circ.u.mstances to obstacles. A man who slips and skids around all day in a wholesale fish market is usually rich and, I find, makes up his average on pulchritude after business hours.

Mr. Tescheron maintained a high record. When he was not in his shop togs you would not recognize him any more than the made-over old family umbrella that has ten times recovered its ribs and boldly fronted the hilarious wind, ever ready to blow it off. It was always surprising to me how he could produce such marvelous synthetic effects from the elemental forms found on the Monday morning's clothes-line.

I don't know how true it is, but a chap down in the market once told me that all the members of the Market Men's a.s.sociation found it annoying to remove the flies that had been blinded by the glint of their bosoms and had slipped and broken necks on the starchy glaciers of those Alpine precipices of dazzling shirting displayed at the annual dinners of the society. It is only natural that the market flies should want to attend, for they stick closer than a brother to the members of this brotherhood.

Mr. Tescheron's sartorial perfection was only an exigency of his business, and if his armor was more striking than that of the ordinary man, I, for one, was ready to forgive him. The fact must remain that the best dressed men of New York are the wholesale fish dealers of Fulton Market--after business hours--when they transform to escape the torments of a perennial fly-time.

Gabrielle did confide in her mother, but her father was none the wiser.

He listened to Smith, and concluded that Hosley had skipped, having learned in some way that the authorities were after him. If he should be found and brought back to New York, the coroner might begin his investigations at once and proceed with other witnesses. In that event the name of Tescheron would undoubtedly be dragged into the case, but if the family kept out of the State they could not be made to testify. In Mr. Tescheron's judgment, therefore, it was wise to spend a few weeks well out of the way until they were certain the affair had been forgotten.

"Mother, I think the change may do us good, if we don't take father too seriously," said Gabrielle, "and if you can find enough to occupy yourself until some favorable suggestion changes father's course, and he is seized by a desire to return home, I shall be happy. Aren't you getting tired of the company of these stuffed birds, though? I shall send your parrot over to-morrow and have Bridget come to talk over the housekeeping affairs with you, shall I?"

"No, dear; we shall be happy enough with these silent birds for a while yet. Alas! if it is true that the officials want us--and it must be true, as Bridget and Mr. King have both written--"

"Don't worry about that, mother; you will be just as proud of Mr. Hosley some day as I am. Oh, he is so brave! Think how he rescued his companion, Ben Hopkins, and then fell blinded by the flames. What a terrible fall that was, mother! just twice the height of this building--you really cannot imagine it. Do rogues show such heroism? I tell you, mother, you'll find, one of these brighter days, that James Hosley is a great, big-hearted hero, as far above these petty attacks on his character, so readily believed by father, as the mountains are above the sea. He has nothing to fear. Remember, a cruel fate struck him down at the very moment he might have explained away every circ.u.mstance to which father attaches weight, merely by stating the truth. Mother, I have never doubted my hero!"

"Yes, my dear child, you are right. I feel that you are. Forgive me for expressing that shadow of doubt; it is now gone. I am thankful that G.o.d led your footsteps to his bedside, where you might help to rescue him and his companion. I am indeed proud of you, Gabrielle. How greatly I am blessed by you every minute!" And the dear old soul cried, her heart welling with love for her daughter, her confidante and support.

Then Gabrielle knelt at her mother's side and buried her face in her mother's lap, her tears flowing in sympathetic response to this declaration of maternal faith.

It is a good thing I was not there at that time, for at the sight of tears in the faces of those dear women I would have been driven to sheer madness. I believe I would have taken a club to the hard-hearted or stupid Tescheron and murdered him with mince-meat minuteness in the presence of the gossipers lolling around the fireplace in the living-room. At the time of the tearful scene between mother and daughter, a dramatic pa.s.sage that has its counterpart in many homes invaded by a son-in-law, the cruel Tescheron, the obstacle in the path of true love, was listening to mine host, August Stuffer, three hundred and fifty-two pounds of Hoboken manhood seated in a Windsor chair built of wood and steel to resemble the Williamsburg Bridge about the legs, so stoutly was it trussed, braced and riveted to carry its enormous load.

This wheezy spinner of yarns, in a tone of apoplectic huskiness, was telling his guests about the peculiar stuffed cat, which advertised the hotel far and wide from its gla.s.s case near the main entrance.

It was my joke that introduced Mr. Tescheron to this cat. Mr. Stuffer's eloquence and the fire's hypnotic rays must have worked the consequent charm at which I have often marveled.

"Jersey Jerry was the name of that cat," said Stuffer, a gentle wheeze playing about his upper rigging, as he spread out into the open sea of truth. "And he was a most unfortunate cat, because he was born blind and had to learn the town by feeling his way. He went everywhere and had more friends than most cats with eyes--strange but true--and princ.i.p.ally among cats. He was sociable because he had to work his friends. He knew us around here by our sounds" (it was an easy matter for him to sound the tale-teller), "and he used to rub his whiskers against a stranger's legs till he got to know the man. You'd 'a' thought he'd rub 'em all off, but not so; it seemed to make 'em grow twice as long--biggest whiskers for a cat of his size I ever see. Well, sir, I came down here to the back door one night to lock up, heard him scratching and let him in. He gave me an awful scare, for as he looked up two big blazing eyes shone brighter than the lantern I was carrying. From his squeal I knew it was Jerry, so I picked him up and brought him over here to get a good look at him. I could see at once that it was the work of those Stevens students. They had taken an ordinary pair of gla.s.s eyes such as are made for stuffed cats, and in the back of each eye had fitted a tiny electric light, such as you've probably seen attached to a b.u.t.ton-hole bouquet, only they were smaller, of course. I noticed when his tail went up the lights were turned on and they blazed like he had gone mad, but when his tail went down it cut off the lights like you've seen 'em shut off in a trolley car when the pole falls--same principle, I guess, somehow. It all kind of puzzled me for a time, till I got to thinking about it."

"Nonsense! Where did the electricity come from?" asked a man who doubted.

"Electricity? A cat's full of electricity. Everybody knows that, and those Stevens students simply connected it up to run two lights with a cut-out at the back. Of course, when the cat died the natural electricity gave out, and so I had him connected with the company's wires and the tail fixed to run by works run by the current, to make 'em blaze and shut off and seem just as old Jerry used to. He was a great comfort to me with those eyes, and I think they helped him to see as well as feel, for he didn't rub any more, but flashed his eyes when he was inquisitive and wanted to save steps.

"But it killed him. Modern improvements on a cat brought up to going it blind in Hoboken were too much. A man got the delirium tremblings looking at Jerry one night and kicked him nine mortal blows before he could get his tail up."

"Well," said Mr. Tescheron, "those Stevens students must be wonders. I never supposed there was any good thing came out of Hoboken."

"The town suits me all right," replied Mr. Stuffer. "There's many a good thing pa.s.ses through here." He winked at Emil.

"There ain't nothing a Stevens student can't do--nothing calling for brains," said Mr. Stuffer. "They get chock full of mathematics up there, so's they can engineer anything from a turbine plant to a pin where it's most needed, or a marriage factory. Anything that calls for brains is right in their line. If I ever get into any kind of trouble at all I'll get a Stevens engineer to rig me up some kind of a derrick to pull me out of it."

At his leisure, Mr. Tescheron now marvels at the great ability of Stevens men. He feels that he is a competent judge.

It was evident that the Stevens students who crowded the Stuffer House had duly impressed the present proprietor with their ability to overcome every obstacle in life's path with special machinery to fit each case.

"Why, one of those students told me some years ago," continued Mr.

Stuffer, "that he once provided plans and specifications to supply a girl with beaus."

None of the company now seemed to doubt, so Mr. Stuffer proceeded to prove his proposition that a technical education at Stevens comprehends the repairing of difficult cases of side-stepped heart.

"Yes, I remember, now, it was the case of little Mary Schwarz," he continued. "And she never knew, doesn't to this day probably, how it all came about that suddenly she had more beaus than she could attend to.

They fairly froze her in ice cream--"

Mrs. Tescheron had recovered and was ringing three times for hot water as per the card of instructions tacked near the push-b.u.t.ton in her room.

"They are not remarkably prompt here," she murmured. "I wonder what can be the matter every evening."