Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1911 — A Neat Trick [ARTICLE]

A Neat Trick

By JEROME WILLIAMSON

When railroads were first built the car Mi a string of stagecoaches joined together. We in America at the very beginning abandoned this form and opened the car from end to end. In Europe they still retain the stagecoach pattern. Their coaches are built In compartments, though those on through trains are connected by a passage at one side. Their way trains are the same as they were some eighty years ago. I was traveling one day in a way train and locked in a compartment with one other passenger, a young woman. Soon after the train started She asked If she might smoke a cigarette. When a compartment la used for smoking over there they put up a notice to that effect 1 felt pleased that she was a smoker herself, granted her permission at once and drew forth • eigsr. ( “You must first have a whiff with me,” she said, “then you may smoke your cigar.” She handed me an open box of cigarettes. "These are something very fine. Try one.” I accepted the offer. The woman tamed away from me to put the box back in the satchel from which she bad taken It and took a cigarette for herself while her back was toward mo so that I couldn't see her doing it I lighted mine and as soon as I began to smoke felt a delicious languor. I should have suspected that something was wrong and thrown the weed away, but 1 was enraptured and soon ifisil into a delicious trance. Tbe woman kept her eyes on me and presently asked me to hand her a novel she had left on the seat beside me. I couldn’t move even a finger. She had evidently expected as much and had asked me to hand her the book to see if I were able to do so. As soon as ahe was satisfied that I was powerism she took off her dress and bat and threw them out of the window. There was a man’s costume underneath the dress, and it was evident that the pretended woman was a man. He took a felt hat out of his bag and put it on, then, taking a paper out of his coat pocket, he put it in mine. AU this was done between two stations about ten miles apart, although the train went pretty slow. When we reached the second station the man got out of the train, leaving me still powerless. I was just as conscious of the situation as if I had not Inhaled the cigarette. I surmised that the man was a criminal fleeing from justice and had put papers in my pocket that would cause his pursuers to think that I was the man they were looking for. Why he wished them to think so I fancied to be because they were hot ■on the pursuit and be wished to gain time by throwing them off the track. The train seemed to be delayed in starting again. It appeared to me that It must be waiting for something. What was my horror to see several Wen come to the door of the compartment led by the man who had drugged

the man,” he said. The effect of the cigarette had passed ■ off sufficiently to enable me to protest But the man interrupted me. “I tell you,” he said to the others, “he’s the notorious Cartouche, who a day or two ago escaped the French police. I aaw him in court once and knew him the moment he entered the train. If you don’t believe me search him. He may have something that will identify him on his person.” My blood ran cold. I knew of Cartouche, who was under sentence of death. I was ordered out of the coach, hut as I had not recovered the use of my limbs they were obliged to pull ne out They placed me on a baggage roller and went through my pockets. A letter addressed to Jaques Cartouche was found on me. At that moment the train pulled out and my accuser, jumping on the footboard, went off with it. I was taken to the town jail. On the arrival of the next train police officers arrived. The moment they saw me they knew they had been tricked. I told them my story, and they knew by my description of my accuser that he was Cartouche himself. But the train a which they came had gone on and they were obliged to wait for the next to get on in the chase. *• I considered myself lucky to escape as easily as 1 did, for the police behaved my story, saying that it was jnst like Cartouche, who bad played that and similar games before. By a very singular coincidence I saw Cartouche again, though some years later. I returned to America. On the steamer I found the stern fenced off with canvas. There was an opening between the canvas and an after cabin through which I could look into that portion of the deck which bad been fenced off for the use of the steerage ipasaengers. While looking through this aperture who should I see but a man whom I immediately recognised as Cartouche. I was sorry I bad seen him. for I felt 1t Incumbent on me to prevent his landing In America. Had he been going (the other way I should have held my peace. But as a criminal coming to toy own country my duty as a citizen wps to inform the immigrant commissioners of his identity. On reaching New York 1 told my story and tbs ifimlnal pent baek to the port from which ba sailed. What became of Mbn’aMar his return I don’t know, but be wna smart enough to cheat the galldWW more than once, and be may have used another as be dead me.