Ahead of the Show Part 22

She lifted the cylinder above her head, with the evident intention of hurling it to the hard wood floor.

But at that instant her arm was seized and the dynamite forced from her hand.

"You have saved at least twenty lives!" gasped Farley, sinking, pale and trembling, into a chair.

"Where is my sister?" demanded Al Allston--for the newcomer was he--paying no attention to his enemy's words.

"She shall be restored to you," said Farley, who was thoroughly sobered by the shock.

"She shall not," cried the woman. "She shall not leave this house alive!"

It was plain to Al that Miss Hollingsworth was mentally deranged, and not wholly responsible for her conduct and words.

"Where is she?" he repeated.

"She is asleep in yonder room," said Farley, pointing to a door at the farther end of the drawing room. "Take her with you and go."

The plotter seemed entirely unnerved; he was ready to surrender at once and without protest all that for which he had schemed so long.

The boy advanced toward the apartment designated. Miss Hollingsworth made no attempt to detain him as he pa.s.sed her; but there was a strange, meaning smile on her face, the significance of which our hero did not comprehend.

He entered the adjoining room. His sister lay upon the bed, fully dressed and apparently asleep. He was about to lift her in his arms when there came from the other room a strange, wild peal of laughter. It was immediately followed by a terrific explosion.

Al was thrown to the floor, half stunned by the shock.

In a few moments he had risen. The wall separating the two rooms was partially destroyed; the drawing room was in flames, there was no possibility of escape in that direction.

The boy rushed to the window and threw it open.

An exclamation burst from his lips; there was a fire escape outside.

He lifted the still unconscious girl in his arms, and a moment later he had begun the perilous descent of the frail iron ladder.

It was made in safety; in a few moments Al had deposited the girl in a carriage which had been in waiting for him.

By this time, early as was the hour, the street was thronged with people, attracted by the terrific explosion.

The upper part of the house was in flames, the fire escape was now crowded, and the half-dressed tenants of the building were rus.h.i.+ng out, panic-stricken, from the various exits.

Al was fortunate enough to attract but little attention; five minutes later he and his sister were in a place of safety.

His sudden appearance on the scene may be briefly explained.

The hack driver, Tim Story, had given him the card which he had received from Farley, and Al had lost no time in going to the address given.

In their excitement Farley and his companion had left the outer door of their flat unfastened, and the boy had been able to effect an entrance without difficulty. As had happened more than once before in his life, his natural energy and push had been supplemented by good luck.

A physician, whom Al at once summoned, gave it as his opinion that Gladys was under the influence of an opiate, but that in all probability there was no danger of serious results from the adventure.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

AND LAST.

It was nearly ten o'clock that morning when the girl awoke from her stupor; and, to Al's intense relief, she seemed none the worse for her experience.

All she could remember of the events of the previous night was that she had been forced to enter the carriage at the stage door of the Rockton Theater, and that as soon as she was inside the vehicle a handkerchief saturated with some drug--chloroform, she believed--had been pressed to her nostrils. Then she lost all consciousness of her surroundings.

She had no recollection whatever of the journey to New York, or of any of the subsequent events.

The afternoon papers contained exciting accounts of the explosion. Al had unreservedly given the police all the facts in the case; and in the hands of the reporters the story lost nothing.

The building had been saved from total destruction by the efforts of the firemen, and it was known that no lives had been lost, except those of Miss Hollingsworth and Jack Farley; it seemed certain that they must have perished. It was found that the former had premeditated her horrible crime, and had prepared for emergencies; she had, on the previous day, supplied herself with no less than half a dozen of the dynamite cylinders, so that the loss of the one which Al had taken from her was no obstacle to the accomplishment of her plan.

Once more Al was the hero of the hour. When he rejoined Mr. Wattles, two days after the events we have just related, he was met at the station by a crowd of citizens, who unhitched the horses from the carriage that was in waiting for him and his sister, and insisted upon dragging the vehicle to the hotel, much to the embarra.s.sment of the two young people.

Al suspected Mr. Wattles to be the instigator of this proceeding, and accused him of having incited the populace to behave as they had.

"What is the matter with you?" the old gentleman asked. "Such a tribute of admiration would turn the head of almost anyone, but you kick about it."

"Didn't you work up the demonstration?" persisted Al.

"Suppose I did?"

"Well, don't do it again."

"I shan't have to. I've set the ball rolling, and the chances are that something of the sort will happen at every town we visit during the next two weeks."

Al groaned.

"I believe I'll throw up the job," he said, half in jest, and half in earnest.

"Well, I believe you won't," said the manager, very much in earnest. "You're just the sort of agent I want. Why, you can't help having adventures and getting into the papers."

"That sort of thing won't last forever."

"I suppose not; but, when you cease to be a popular hero, I think I can trust to your good judgment and business ability to manage things. Throw up the job! I should say not! I couldn't get along without you. And, besides, if you left me, your sister would go, too."

"That need not necessarily follow."

"She would go; and I tell you I could not get along without her, either."

Mr. Wattles always spoke of Miss March with an awkward, embarra.s.sed air that puzzled Al.

"But, of course," he continued, hastily, "you do not mean what you said. Remember, you promised me----"

"I never went back on my word yet," interrupted Al, "and I shall not now. But I wish these public demonstrations would cease. They seem to me ridiculous, and they annoy me a good deal more than you seem to think."

"Well, you are the queerest press agent I ever struck," said the manager. "However, I guess you won't be much bothered--after to-night."

"Eh?" cried Al. "After to-night? What do you mean by that? What is to be done to-night?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. I ought not to have mentioned it."

"Yes, you ought. Come, out with it!"

"Well, I suppose I may as well. The fact is, the citizens of this place have decided to----"

"Not another speech-making affair at the theater?" interrupted the boy, in horrified accents.

"Well," blurted out Mr. Wattles, "that's just it."

"I shan't be here. You know I've got to go ahead to the next town this afternoon."

"Oh, no, you haven't," smiled the old gentleman. "The fact is, the sale is so big that I have felt justified in canceling the next two towns, and we are to stay here the remainder of the week. There's no getting out of it, my boy; the thing has got to come off, and this time you will have to make a speech."

At first Al would not hear of this, and declared that he would start for home. But he at last allowed his companion's eloquence to overcome his objections, and agreed to remain.

How he dreaded the ordeal no one but he ever knew, but he made up his mind that, as he put it to himself, he would "see the thing through." He prepared a brief speech, which he memorized, and which he hoped to be able to deliver without breaking down.

Evening came only too soon, and Al, arrayed in a new dress suit, awaited the inevitable call for his appearance. Everything had been "cut and dried," and he knew that there was no escape.

At the end of the first act of the play there arose a shout, "Allston! Allston!"

"Go on, my boy," said Mr. Wattles, who, with his protege stood upon the stage, just behind the curtain. "What are you trembling for? This ought to be the proudest moment of your life."

With these words he fairly pushed the boy before the audience.

Then arose a whirlwind of applause. When it had subsided, Al tried to begin his speech. But to his utter consternation, he found that he had forgotten every word of it.

But he was not, after all, obliged to deliver it. As he stood, trying to remember at least one word of the carefully prepared effort, a man suddenly advanced from the rear of one of the proscenium boxes, leveled a pistol at the boy's head and fired.

The bullet whistled past Al's ear, but did not graze it. The next moment the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was struggling in the hands of the other occupants of the box. He managed to free himself; then came another report, and the next moment Jack Farley lay dead on the floor of the box, a suicide.

How he had escaped from the doom with which he had been threatened on the previous night, how he had succeeded in entering the theater without attracting attention, will never be known.

Al's speech was forgotten in the excitement, and he was not obliged to make it, after all.

In a few weeks Al ceased to be a popular idol, but he was daily learning new "points" and becoming more and more valuable to his employer; he was already recognized as one of the brightest advance agents on the road.

One morning, about two months after the tragedy that we have just recorded, his sister came to him and said: "Al, I have a favor to ask of you. Will you grant it?"

"I promise in advance," was the prompt reply.

"Then congratulate me."

"On what?"

"I am going to be married."

"Married!" gasped the boy. "To whom?"

"To Mr. Wattles."

"You're joking."

"Indeed, I am not!"

"Why, he is forty years your senior."

"He is a good, true man, and I love him; that's enough for me."

"Then it is enough for me, too, sister," was Al's quick reply, "and I do heartily congratulate you."

We need add but a few words. The marriage proved a most happy one, and Mrs. Wattles--whose real name we should give, if we were permitted--is now one of the most popular actresses and most estimable ladies on the American stage.

Al is now no longer an advance agent, but a manager. He is rapidly making a fortune; and, what is better, has earned a reputation for integrity and uprightness second to that of none in his business.