Two Wonderful Detectives Part 21

"But I am giving you instructions, all the same. Now get out of here and don't stand on the order of your going, but just 'git.' Do you understand that?"

The visitor rose, when Jack suddenly seized a pillow from his bed and dealt the man a tremendous rap over the head. The pillow burst and the bran poured down over the man's face and eyes, and in the meantime Jack seized the man's weapon, and then seizing a second pillow gave him a second succession of raps until the man was blinded, and finally ceasing the detective sat down and watched his man clean his eyes and ears, and after a little coolly said:

"Go to the wash basin there, old man, and wash out the horse feed."

The man managed to find the basin and obeyed, and when his eyes were cleaned he looked and beheld our hero sitting there with a broad smile on his face.

"Do you know what you have done?" demanded the man.

"What have I done?"

"If you have committed no other crime, you have a.s.sailed an officer of the law in the performance of his duty."

"I am not sorry I've taught an officer of the law a lesson; I suppose you claim to be a detective?"

"I do."

"You so claim?"

"Yes."

"Well, old man, I _am_ a detective, and even you know how a real detective goes about it. Where are you from?"

"Newark."

"Better get back to Newark as quick as you can or I will give this whole business away."

"Who are you?"

"I've told you _I am_ a detective, and I don't do my business by splurges."

"Then you were on detective work when you went around from house to house?"

"I am not giving my business away."

"What are you after? I may aid you."

The detective laughed and said:

"When I need aid I will secure a woman."

Here was as pretty a double answer as was ever uttered, but the man from Newark only got on to one end of it. After a little time Jack let down easy on the man, thinking he might be of some service some day, and later the visitor departed, carrying his mortification and defeat in his memory. But he had learned a lesson, we hope, in the difficult trade he pretended to follow.

On the day following the incidents we have recorded Jack started out to walk to the adjoining town. On the way he came to an old graveyard; he stopped a moment and then said, talking to himself:

"Great Scott! I have missed a point all along. I will just take a walk around this old burying ground. I have not been able to learn anything from the living, I may pick up a point from a tombstone."

It was a bright, clear day; the sun shone with magnificent splendor as the shrewd officer entered the burying ground. He walked around looking for little graves, and he had been fully an hour in the place when suddenly he uttered a cry. He beheld letters almost illegible which struck him as startling in view of his quest. He dropped down, brushed away the gra.s.s, and lo, his search was ended--indeed his eyes had not deceived him. There before his eyes was the humble epitaph: "Amalie Canfield, aged four years; died December 20, 18--."

The detective's search was over and he was sadly disappointed, although the disappointment meant a large fortune to himself, under the declaration of Mr. Townsend. There was no need for the detective to search further. He had solved the mystery, he had found Amalie Stevens, and _she left no heirs_. The child had died, according to the tombstone, some two months following the death of her adopted grandfather. There was the indisputable testimony.

On the day following Jack appeared in New York and at the home of Mr.

Townsend, and he said:

"Well, sir, the mystery is all solved."

"It is?"

"Yes."

"You have found Amalie Stevens?"

"I have found the grave of Amalie Canfield, aged four years."

Our hero proceeded and told all that had occurred, and Mr. Townsend remarked:

"How sad, how fatal!"

"Yes, sir, but you have a consolation. Your oversight has not cost any one any trouble. Old Mr. Canfield died the day he made the deposit with you, and the heiress died two months and one day later, so it makes no difference. No one would have gained by an earlier finding of the letter; the fortune belongs to charity and you."

"No, not to me," said Mr. Townsend, "but to you."

"To me?"

"Yes."

"You mean it?"

"I do."

"Then I accept it as a trust."

"Accept it as a trust?"

"Yes, as a trust only, and I shall leave it in your possession."

"What is your reason?"

"Harold Stevens may have had other heirs; if so I will find them. I trust my next quest will prove a more _successful shadow_."

Mr. Townsend meditated awhile and then said:

"Your conclusion does you honor, but remember, I am an old man, I have legal heirs. If this fortune were found in my possession it might lead to trouble. I will transfer it all over to you; I can trust you; I _know you are_ an honest man. If you should ever find a legal heir you can bestow the fortune, if not you can carry out the bequest at your leisure. Give half to charity and keep the other half; in the meantime, from my own fortune I propose to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars which is to be yours absolutely; the money you have earned."

Jack Alvarez determined to set out and find the true heirs if any were living, and under the t.i.tle of "A Successful Shadow," a story to be written by us and issued very shortly, our readers will learn the incidents attending Jack Alvarez's most wonderful quest, and we promise our readers one of the most intense narratives, and the most thrilling and startling denouement that can be conceived, despite the testimony of the little gravestone. Do not fail to read "A Successful Shadow," to be issued in this series in a few weeks.

THE END.