The Victorian Villains Megapack

by Arthur Morrison

  “As I passed back to the cells, who should I see beside the door but my old lawyer.

  “I shook my fist in his face.

  “‘You old robber,’ I says, ‘we’ll see if I can’t get along without you!’

  “He sneered in my face.

  “‘Oh, you —— fool!’ says he, ‘you poor, poor, ——, —— fool!’

  “Then he was gone. So I went back to the cell, and sang and whistled and figured on where I should take my little Flossie for dinner. I waited and waited. Six o’clock, and no word. Then I began to get nervous.

  “‘You poor, poor, ——, —— fool!’

  “The words rang around in my cell. Then something sort of gave inside. I knew I’d been robbed, and I yelled and shook the bars of the door and tried to get out. I cried for Flossie. The keepers came and told me to keep still; but I was plump crazy, and kept on yelling until everything got black and I fainted.”

  “And your lawyer never came back?”

  “He never came back!” Riggs exclaimed. “He never came back! I’ve been robbed! I’m a poor —— fool, just as Todd said I was.” Riggs burst into maudlin tears.

  I gave him what consolation I could, and promised thoroughly to investigate his story.

  The keeper and Riggs arose in unison, the same urbane smile that had previously illuminated the countenance of the latter restored.

  “You couldn’t manage to let me have a handful of cigars, could you?” he whispered. I gave him all I had. His cheek was irresistible. I would have given him my watch had he intimated a desire for it.

  Then I called up the Custom-house.

  “Paid?” came back the voice of the United States District Attorney. “Of course not. The claim is worthless until the diamond is sold; and, anyway, such an assignment as you describe is invalid under our statutes. You had better execute a revocation, however, and place it on file here. Yes, I’ll look out for the matter.”

  One day, about a week later, I was informed that Riggs had been convicted of assault, and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment on Blackwell’s Island. A jury of his peers had apparently proved less credulous than myself.

  Many strange epistles from his place of confinement now reached me, hinting of terrible abuses, starvation, oppression, extortion. He was still the victim of a conspiracy—this time of prison guards and fellow convicts. He prayed for an opportunity to lay the facts before the authorities. I threw the letters aside. It was clear he possessed a powerful imagination, and yet his tale of the discovery of the diamond had been absolutely true. Well, let the law take its course.

  * * * *

  A year later a jovial-looking person called at my office, and I recognized my old friend Riggs in a new brown derby hat and checked suit.

  After shaking hands warmly, he presented me with a card reading:

  P. Llewellyn Riggs,

  Private Detective,

  — Broadway.

  “Yes,” he explained in answer to my surprised expression, “I’ve gone into the detective business. My unfortunate conviction is only a sort of advertisement, you know, and then I was the victim of an outrageous conspiracy!”

  “But,” said I, “I thought you were going to retire on the proceeds of the diamond.”

  “Why, haven’t you heard?” he replied. “I gave my wife an assignment of the claim with a power of attorney, and when the diamond was sold she ran away.”

  “Ran away?”

  “Yes; she took a friend of mine with her. But I shall find her—just as I did the diamond!” He struck a Sherlock Holmes attitude. “By the way, if you should ever want any detective work done you’ll remember——”

  “I am not likely to forget,” I answered, “the victim of one of the most remarkable conspiracies in history.”

  * * * *

  Meantime the Mexicans were tried, convicted, and sent to prison. The jewels themselves were duly made the subject of condemnation proceedings, and whoso peruseth The Federal Reporter for the year 1901 may read thereof under the title “The United States vs. One Diamond Pendant and Two Ear-rings.” They were, so to speak, tried, properly convicted, and sold to the highest bidder. The Mexicans are still serving out their time. One turned state’s evidence, stating that he was a musician and had won the love of a beautiful señorita in the city of Mexico who had given him the gems to sell in order that they might have money upon which to marry. He also protested that his sweetheart had inherited them from her mother.

  Inside the cover of the old red case is printed in gold letters:

  La Esmeralda.

  F. Causer Zihy & Co., Mexico and Paris.

  And a faintly scented piece of violet note-paper lies beneath the double lining, containing, in a woman’s hand, this:

  The diamond necklace is from Maximilian’s crown, the Emperor of Mexico. The centre stone has thirty-three and seven-tenths carats, and the eighteen surrounding it no less than one each. The diamond ring, the stone thereof, was in Maximilian’s ring at the time he was shot.

  But that is all; there is nothing to tell what hand snatched the jewels from the lifeless fingers of the dead Emperor, or who purloined the necklace from the royal household.

  In a dusty compartment on my desk there lies a brown manila envelope, and sometimes, when the day’s work is over and I have glanced for the last time across the court-yard of the Tombs at the clock tower on the New York Life Building, I take it out and idly read the press story of the famous diamond. And there rises dimly before me the pathetic scene at Queretaro where a brave and good man met his death, and I wonder if perchance there is any truth in the superstition that some stones carry ill-luck with them. But it is a far cry from the Emperor of Mexico to a New York bill-poster.

  * * * *

  Dockbridge threw the manuscript on his desk and lit a cigarette.

  “Is that all?” asked the lank deputy, stretching himself. “I thought it was going to have some sort of a plot.”

  “It’s a pretty good story,” said the chief of staff. “Have you really got any clippings?”

  “I think it’s rotten!” remarked Bob.

  “Well, it’s every word of it true, anyway,” muttered Dockbridge.

  EXTRADITION, by Arthur Train

  Taken from McAllister and His Double (1905).

  I

  “Dockbridge,” said the District Attorney, coming hurriedly out of his office, “I’ve got to send you to Seattle. We’ve just located Andrews there—Sam Andrews of the Boodle Bank. One of Barney Conville’s cases, you remember. Here’s the Governor’s requisition. Barney’s down in Ecuador, so McGinnis of the Central Office will go out to make the arrest; but I must have someone to look after the legal end of it—to fight any writ of habeas corpus—and handle the extradition proceedings. They might get around a mere policeman, so I’m going to ask you to attend to it. The trip won’t be unpleasant, and the auditor will give you a check for your expenses. Remember, now—your job is to bring Andrews back!”

  He handed his assistant a bulky document bedecked with seals and ribbons, and closed the door. Dockbridge gazed blankly after his energetic chief.

  “Oh, certainly, certainly! Don’t mention it! Delighted, I’m sure! Thank you so much!” he exclaimed with polite sarcasm. Then he turned ferociously to a silent figure sitting behind the railing. “Sudden, eh? Don’t even ask me if it’s convenient! Exiles me for two months! Just drop over to Bombay and buy him a package of cigarettes! Or run across to Morocco and pick up Perdicaris, like a good fellow! Don’t you regard him as a trifle inconsequent?”

  Conville’s side partner McGinnis, a gigantic Irishman with extraordinarily long arms and huge hands, climbed disjointedly to his feet.

  “In-consequence, is it, Mister Dockbridge?” The words came in a gentle roar from the altitudes of his towering form. “Sure, the in-consequence of it is that we’re
to have the pleasure of travellin’ togither.” He looked big enough to swing the little Assistant lightly upon one shoulder and stride nimbly across the continent with him.

  “An iligant thrip it will be! I’m only regretful I can’t take me wife along wid me.”

  Pat’s matrimonial troubles were the common property of the entire force. The only person totally unconscious of their existence was McGinnis himself. His lady, the daughter of fat ex-Detective-Sergeant O’Halloran, made one think inevitably of the small bird that travels through life roosting on the shoulder of the African buffalo. His domestic life would have been one of wild excitement for the average citizen, but McGinnis had a blind and unwavering faith in the perfection of his spouse. Conceive, however, his surprise when the Assistant District Attorney suddenly smote him sharply in the abdomen, and shouted:

  “I’ll do it!”

  “Phwat?” ejaculated Pat.

  “Take my wife!”

  “Yez have none, ye spalpeen!”

  “I’ll have one by tomorrow!”

  “An’ is it Miss Peggy ye mane?”

  “No other. The county pays part of the bills. I’ll make this my wedding trip!”

  “God save us, Mr. Dockbridge!” gasped McGinnis. “Ain’t he the little divel!” he added to himself delightedly.

  Peggy had at first opposed strenuously Jack’s proposition. The idea of going on one’s honeymoon with a policeman! Yes, it was all right to combine business and pleasure on occasion, but one did not usually associate business with marriage—at least she hoped she did not—for Jack Dockbridge knew he hadn’t a cent, and neither had she. He explained guardedly that that was the principal reason in favor of the plan. They would have part of their expenses paid.

  Peggy, being a New Englander, acknowledged the force of the argument but pointed out that there was still the policeman.

  Then Dockbridge pictured the West in glowing colors. Why, there were so many bad men out there, one actually needed a body-guard. Had she never heard of the Nagle case? What, not heard of the Nagle case, and she going to marry a lawyer! A newly married pair could not travel alone, unprotected.

  Peggy said he was a fraud, an unadulterated fraud—an unabashed liar! Still, she had those furs that had belonged to her mother. She admitted, also, wondering what the Rockies were like. If she did not marry him now, how long would he be gone? Six months?

  Jack explained that he might be killed by Indians or desperadoes. In that case the wisdom of her course would undoubtedly be apparent. She could then marry someone else. But that was the reason a policeman would be desirable. And then he was only a sort of policeman himself, anyway. One more would make little difference. In the end they were married.

  II

  It was a gay little party of three that left Montreal for Vancouver the following Saturday. The red-headed Patrick pruned his speech and proved himself a most entertaining comrade, as he recounted his adventures in securing the return of divers famous criminals under the difficult process of extradition. He had brought safely back “Red” McIntosh from New Orleans, and Trelawney, the English forger, from Quebec; had captured “Strong Arm” Moore in St. Louis, and been an important figure in the old Manhattan Bank cases. He insisted on addressing Dockbridge as “Judge,” and introducing him to all strangers as “me distinguished frind, the Disthrick Attorney av Noo York.”

  There were few passengers for the West, and the triumvirate easily became friendly with the conductors, brakemen, and engine hands upon the various divisions. The trip itself proved one unalloyed delight. Peggy sat for hours spellbound at the windows as the train sang along the frozen rails around the ice-bound shores of Superior and through the snow-mantled forests of Ontario. Sometimes the three in furs and mufflers clung to the reverberating platform of the end car watching the diminishing track, or held their breath in the swaying cab as the engine thundered through the drifts of Manitoba and Assiniboia toward Moose Jaw, Calgary, and the Rockies.

  In the monotonous hours across the frozen prairie Peggy learned all the mysteries of the throttle, the magic of the reversing gear, the pressure-valve and the brakes, and once, when there was a clear track for a hundred miles, the driver, with his perspiring brow and frosty back, allowed her slender fingers to guide the dangerous steed. For an hour he stood behind her as she opened and closed the valve, pulled the whistle at his direction, and slackened on the curves. She was undeniably pretty. The driver had been stuck on a girl that looked a bit like her out on the Edmonton run. He opined loudly that by the time they reached Vancouver Peggy could send her along about as well as he could himself. He repeated this emphatically, with much blasphemy, to the fireman.

  Peggy lived in an ecstasy of happiness. At odd moments she perused diligently her husband’s copy of “Moore on Extradition.” She didn’t intend to be the man of the family—she was too sensible for that—but she saw no reason why a woman should not know something about her husband’s profession, particularly when it was as exciting a one as Jack’s.

  Four days brought them within sight of the mountains, and the next morning, when they stopped for water, the whole range of the Canadian Rockies lay around and above them, their virgin summits sparkling in the winter sun.

  “Glad you came, Peg?” shouted Dockbridge, hurling a feather-weight snowball in her direction as she stood on the platform in silent wonder at the scene.

  She answered only with a deep inspiration of the dry, cold air.

  “Shure, ain’t we all av us?” inquired McGinnis lighting his pipe. “Say, this beats th’ Bowery. Th’ Tenderloin ain’t in it wid this. I’d loike to camp right here for the rest of me days!”

  There was something so unlikely in this, since, apart from the mountains, the only visible object in the landscape was a watering-tank, that they all laughed.

  Up they climbed into the glistening teeth of the divide, clearing at last the first Titanic bulwark, now in the darkness of Stygian tunnels, now bathed in glittering ether, until, sweeping down past the whole magnificent range of the Selkirks, they dropped into the boisterous cañon of the Fraser, and knew that their journey was drawing to a close.

  The blue shadows of morning melted into the breathless splendor of high noon upon the summit of the world, then, reappearing, faded to purple, azure, gray, until the blazing sun sank in an iridescent line of burning crests. Night fell again, and the stars crowded down upon them like myriads of flickering lamps, while the moon swung in and out behind the giant peaks.

  “Shure, ’tis a sad thing we can’t ride in a train, drawin’ th’ county’s money foriver!” sighed McGinnis as the sunset died over the foaming rapids.

  “Ah, but we’ve work to do, Pat!” answered Peggy. “You mustn’t forget Sam Andrews and the Boodle Bank. There’s fame and fortune waiting for us.”

  On the run down the coast they held a council of war. Pat was to continue on to Seattle and arrest the fugitive, while Jack and Peggy hastened to Olympia to secure the Governor’s recognition of their credentials and his warrant for the deliverance of Andrews to the representatives of the State of New York.

  The Governor, a short, fat man, with a black beard, proved unexpectedly tractable, and not only issued the warrant, but invited them both to lunch. It developed that he had graduated from Jack’s college. Oh, yes, he knew Andrews! Not a bad sort at all. One of those fellows that under pressure of circumstances had technically violated the law, but a perfect gentleman. Of course he had to honor their requisition, but he was really sorry to see such a decent fellow as Andrews placed under arrest. He was sure that Sam would take the affair in the proper spirit and return with them voluntarily. You must not be too hard on people! Everybody committed crime—inadvertently. There were so many statutes that you never knew when you were stepping over the line. He frankly sympathized with the fugitive, although obliged officially to assist them. You could not help feeling that way about a man you al
ways dined with at the club. Well, the law was the law. He hoped they would have a pleasant trip back. He must return himself to the Council Chamber to a blasted hearing—a delegation of confounded Chinese merchants.

  They took the train for Seattle, highly elated. They found McGinnis, together with the prisoner and his lawyer, awaiting them at The Ranier-Grand. Andrews proved to be another stout man, with a brown beard and a pair of genial gray eyes. As the Governor had stated, it was clear that he was a perfect gentleman. He apologized for bringing his lawyer. It was only, they would understand, to make sure that his arrest was entirely legal. He had no intention of attempting to retard or thwart their purpose in any way. Of course, the whole thing was unfortunate in many respects, but that he should be desired in New York to unravel the complicated affairs of the bank was only natural. Everything could be easily explained, and, in the meantime, the only thing to do was to return with them as quickly as possible. Altogether he was very charming and entirely convincing. He hoped they would not consider him presuming if he suggested that a few days in Seattle would prove interesting to them; there was so much that was beautiful in the way of scenery of easy access; and in the meantime he could get his affairs in shape a little.

  Peggy thought that was a splendid idea. It would be mean to take Mr. Andrews away without giving him a chance to say good-by to his friends, and she wanted to see Victoria and Esquimault, and Tacoma. While Mr. Andrews (in charge of McGinnis) was arranging his business matters, she and Jack could do the sights. In the meantime they could all live together at the hotel, and no one need know that Mr. Andrews was under arrest at all. Jack saw no harm in this, and neither did McGinnis. Andrews was politely grateful. It was most kind of them to treat him with such courtesy. He hastened to assure them they would not have any reason to regret so doing.

  Two days passed. The Dockbridges wearied themselves with sight-seeing, while Andrews busied himself with arrangements to depart. The favorable impression made by the prisoner upon his captors had steadily increased, and in a short time they found themselves regarding him in the light of a most agreeable companion whom fate had thrown in their way.