Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1913 — The SABLE LORCHA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The SABLE LORCHA

By HORACE HAZELTINE

COPYfr/Grtr, J9JJL, AC /vrCJLURG U ’CO.

SYNOPSIS. Robert Cameron, capitalist, consults Philip Clyde, newspaper publisher, reigmrding anonymous threatening letters he has received. The first promises a sample of the writer's power on a certain day. On that'day the head Is mysteriously cut Jfrom a portrait of Cameron while the latter Is In the room. While visiting Cameron In his dressing room a Nell Qwynne mirror Is mysteriously shattered. Cameron, •becomes seriously 111 as a result of the •hock. The third letter appears mysteriously on Cameron's sick bed. It manes direct threats against the life of Cameron. Clyde tells Cameron the envelope was ■empty. He tells Evelyn everything and Iplans to take Cameron on a yacht trip. 'The yacht picks up a fisherman found drifting helplessly In a boat He fives the name of Johnson. Cameron disappears from yacht while Clyde s back Is turned. A fruitless search Is made for a motor boat seen by the captain Just before Cameron disappeared. Johnson is allowed to go after being closely questioned. Evelyn takes the letters to an expert In Chinese literature, who pronounces them lof Chinese origin. Clyde seeks assistance from a Chinese fellow college student, who recommends him to Yup Sing, ““ft prominent Chinaman in New York. Clyde goes to meet Yup Bing, aeea Johnson, attempts to follow him, falls Into a basement. sprains hla ankle and becomes unoansclous. Clyde Is found by Miss Clement. a missionary among the Chinese. He Is sick, several days as a result of inhaling charcoal fumes. Evelyn tells Clyde of a peculiarly acting anesthetic which renders a person temporarily unconscious. Murphy Is discovered to have mysterious ■relations with the Chinese. Miss Clement promises to get Information about Cameron. Slump in Crystal Consolidated, of which Cameron Is the head. Is caused by • rumor of Cameron’s Illness. Clyde finds Cameron on Fifth avenue In a dared 'and emaciated condition and takes him home. Cameron awakes from a long sleep a,nd •peaks In a strange tongufe. Evelyn dedares the man Is not her uncle. Evelyn and Clyde call on Miss Clement for promised Information and find that the Ohlnaman who waa to give It has Just been murdered. Miss Clement gives Clyde a note, asking him to read it after he rvea the mission and then destroy It. tells of the abduction of a white man Chinese who shipped him back to China. The man Is. accused of the crime of “Sable torcha” In which 100 Chinamen ware killed. The appearance In New York of the man they supposed they had shipped to China throws consternation Into the Chinese. The brougham In which Clyde and Evelyn are riding In held up by an armed man. Clyde is seized by Murphy and a fight ensues. Evelyn and Clyde are rescued by the police and return home. They find Yup Bing and the Chinese consul awaiting them. Yup tells Clyde the story of the crime of , the “Sable Dorcha,” In which 97 Chinamen were deliberately sent to their death by one Donald M’Nlsh, whom they declare Is Cameron. They declare that M’Nlsh can be Identified by a tattoo mark on his arm. declares that Cameron has no such mark. The nurse Is called In and describes a tattoo mark on his patient’s arm. Clyde gdes to Investigate and flnda the patient attempting to hide a letter. It Is addressed to Donald M’Nlsh. The letter Is from the man’s mother In Scotland and Identifies the patient as M*NlahCHAPTER XXV.—Continued. "You mean,” she began again, speaking very slowl/ now, as she mentally focused the conditions, “that we must hold McNish as a hostage, and only give him up when they return Uncle Robert to us?” "Exactly,” I agreed. “Just as two armies do that are at war —exchange prisoners.” l 'lsn’t there any other way?” she asked, frowning. "Oh, there must be. I don’t care a straw, you know, for that wicked man; but, Philip, think of hla poor old mother!" “I do think." I told her. "I’ve been thinking, ever since I read her lettter. and if It were possible, Evelyn, I’d give the reprobate his chance for her sake, little as he deserves it. But I’ve been thinking of Cameron, too. He may be somewhere on the high seas, as Miss Clement’s note implied, or he may be a prisoner In s ome underground dungeon of Chinatown. Wherever he is, we are safe in concluding he Is neither comfortable nor happy. Why, then, should we consider, to come right down to practicalities, this old Scotch mother of an infamous son, when the safety—the life even—of one we both love so dearly may at this moment be at atake?” I flattered myself there was no getting away from this argument It me conclusive, but the letter had stirred the sentimental depths of the girl’s nature, and she refused to yield without one last effort. "I know, Philip. I appreciate every •word of what you have said; but couldn’t we find' out what we want to know through Misfc Clement? She must have a lot more Information than she put in that little hurriedly written note. Or, couldn’t O’Hara find out for us?” Before 1 could answer her, Checkatoeedy stood in the doorway. “Dr. Massey has Just come down. Mr. Clyde,” he said, “and would you spare him a moment in the reception room?” I turned to Evelyn. "Shall we have him in here?” I asked. And at her consent, Cbeckabeedy, a moment later, led the doctor to u» —a very changed doctor, a very decidedly less cocksure doctor than I had encountered earlier that morning in his Fifty-sixth street office. Even in his bow to Evelyn I detected the shamefaced humiliation be was suffering. "We take off our hats to your perspicacity, Miss Grayson,’’ he said, confirming my reading. “I had never thought such a modern real-life instance of Lesurques and Dubose possible." I * artmltr 1 “ k «0. ■millng. Candidly. Thera is no question Tat 1 could have sworn yesterday that J attending Mr, Cameron. It is

the most remarkable resemblance I have ever seen." Evelyn asked him to be seated and I drew out a chair for him. “And how do you find the patient?” I inquired, when he had sat down. ‘‘Quite normal in every respect save one. He is in a highly nervous state. He is endeavoring to maintain the Action that he is the gentleman we supposed he was. He evidently learned his lesson from Mr. Bryan, before we suspected anything. It tin really wonderful how well he does it, considering that he never saw the man he is trying to impersonate.” “But he must know that he has been discovered. He certainly knows I have this letter.” “A desperate man will battle against the most overwhelming odds,” Dr. Massey observed, “and he is a desperate man." ~ ; "You gave no sign that you knew?’’ Evelyn asked. “Not the slightest. H pretended that I believed him Mr. Cameron." “But Mr. Bryan must have—" I began. “On the contrary,” said £he doctor, “Mr. Bryan knows him only as the Mr. Cameron he haa nursed from the first. He would be the last man to Indicate to his patient a knowledge of anything untoward.” “Miss Grayson and I were just discussing a course of action when you arrived, Doctor," I explained, "but had reached no conclusion. Last night I arranged with Yup Sing, who is probably the most prominent and best educated Chinaman in New York, and his friend foe Chinese Vice Consul to meet file here today at noon. The chances are they will bring a United. States deputy marshal with them, with a warrant for McNisb’a arrest. Now if we give him up, what will be the result? He will still maintain that he is Cameron injspite of our knowledge to the contrary. Yup Sing and his clan will insist that he is right and that we are wrong, and our chjjnoes of finding Cameron will dwindle It isn’t reasonable to expect that those engaged in the abduction plot will confess to their error and inform us as to Camerpn’s place of detention, ia it?’’ Dr. Massey knitted his brow behind the bow of hifc glasses and pursed his thin lips. “We are certainly confronted by a very trying complication,” he admitted with characteristic gravity. “Miss Grayson has suggested that we send McNish abroad—at once, on a steamer sailing this morning.” “Mr. Bryan could go with him,” Evelyn volunteered. “If the United States authorities have a warrant for him,” the physician argued, "that would only delay matters. They would arrest him on landing." There was no question as to the accuracy of this deduction. “And the newspapers,” I added, “would be sure to publish columns of speculation. ... If we could only wring an admission from McNish it would simplify matters.” ‘hsn’t some one you could confront him with?” Dr. Massey asked, and hope rose within me at the suggestion. "As far as I can make out, from what O’Hara tells me,” was' my rejoinder, “the police have in custody now the Eurasian cook who, I believe, has been McNlsh’s Nemesis these sixteen years. If we could bring those two miscreants faoe to face, McNish would be sure to betray himself.” "Then arrange it, by all means," urged the doctor. “Have McNish taken there, you mean?" "Or have the Eurasian brought here.” And so, ultimately through the offices of O’Hara, who all this time had been awaiting me }n the tonneau of my car which still stood at the door, John Soy, accompanied by two plain clothes men from the Detective Bureau, was brought from the Tombs to that sumptuous home on upper Fifth avenue. I say “ultimately” because his coming was delayed beyond all patience. Hour after hour passed. The morping dragged by with periodic telephone excuses from O’Hara. The bearing was in progresa before the police magistrate. . . . Soy had been held for the grand Jury. . . . The magistrate would have to sign a permit and he could not be approached until be came off the bench. . . . Soy had gone to the Tombs. . . . The warden waa at luncheon and could not be seen for half an hour. Meanwhile Dr. Massey, Impelled by the necessities of his practice, bad departed, and Tup Sing and the vice consul, Chen Mok, had arrived and been relegated to the reception room. To my relief, Checkabeedy reported that they were unaccompanied. Meanwhile, too, Evelyn had reoelved a call from Mlsb Clement and had learned with some dismay that the missionary’s ill-fat«(Kinformant had left with her no more definite information regarding Cameron’s transportation I

than that which she bad already conveyed to us. "We’re Just starting in a taxicab,’" cam* at length from O’Hara over the wire. “We’ll be there in less than half an hour.” And in less than half an hour they came, an ignoble, vulgar quartette against a stately, pompous background. .. 1 /. I met them In the great hall, standtyg before the broad, sculptured chim-ney-piece. The three detectives were more or less of a piece—gross, coarse, redfaced men whose hands and feet seemed out of all proportion to their size, bulky as it was'. Of-' the three O’Hara, possibly because of familiarity, struck me as the least offensive. But after all it was not the detectives who claimed and held my chief interest, but the shrunken, shadow-like creature they had in charge, whom I recognized instantly as the supposed castaway the Sibylla had picked up that warm October .day somewhere east of Nantucket—the slinking figure I had followed -through the press of Doyers street almost to my death. My conjecture was thus In parj verified; John Soy and Peter Johnson were the same.xand it only remained now to prove that the rest of npy guess was as well founded. Stepping tb the door of the reception room, I made brief apology for my detention and bade nfy two Cathayan visitors join the others. “I think, Mr. Yup,” I observed, “that we have here the Eurasian cook of the Sable Lorcha v about whom you told' me." I suppose I was foolish enough to fancy that the merchant would at once make the identificatien I desired. I should have known better. In subtlety we are no match for the ancient race to which Yup Sing belonged, as was evidenced by the absolute impenetration of his manner, as, after gazing sharply at John Soy, he turned to me with a visage as blank as the marble wall, and, in a voioe without a shade of inflection, said: "I do not know him. I have never seen him until now.” Had a white man dared to malje such denial, 1 should have laughed in his face. But the dignity of the Oriental, the perfect aplomb of his manner, including an utter absence of all that could be construed as feigning, forbade such rejoinder; yet I knew that he had lied. "Come, gentlemen," I said, denying myself even the satisfaction of a shoulder Bhrug, “and we shall decide .whether the man upstairs Is the villain you claim he Is, or —” but I was in no mood to finish the sentence. The seven of us.jcrowdlng! into the elevator, were lifted to the floor above, where I preceded the others to the door of what we were wont to call Cameron’s bedchamber. There I paused. “Pardon m« Just a moment,” I begged, with my hand on the knob, “"until I 6ee whether everything is ready.” I had Instructed Mr. Bryan to have McNish up and dressed, and I wished to make sure that these preparations were completed. But I was hardly prepared for the scene which greeted my entrance. McNish, clothed in the suit he had worn when I found him, was in the act of closing a drawer of an old-fash-ioned rosewood secretary which occupied a place against the right wall, beneath one of the medallloned windows. And the nurse was nowhere in Bight. . Startled by the sound of the opening door, the trespasser half turned, his hands still on the brass drawerhandles; then, at sight of me, he wheefed completely and stood defiant with his back to the antique desk. “What are you doing there?” I cried, indignantly. “What were you looking for?’’ Even before be spoke I saw the look of cunning come into his small, furtive eyes. >‘l was looking for some papers of mine, Clyde,” he answered, boldly, and his voice was so like Cameron’s that, for Just a moment, a shuddering uncertainty assailed me. Only tb« crafty leer weighed for the truth. “Papers of yours?” I snarled, ignoring his familiar use of my name. "I have the only paper you brought into this house, Donald McNUh, and that’s evidence enough to put you where you belong. Where’s Mr. 'Bryan?" But at that moment the nurse, appearing from the adjoining room, answered for himself, and McNish, with a capitally assumed nonchalanoe. said,, amilingly, “I didn’t thifik you could be so easily Imposed upon, Clyde. The letter to Donald McNish was given to me by McNish himself. He wanted me to answer it. It was his last request H«t ” < “Silence!” I cried; and then, “Mr. Bryan, get him Into that chair before th«f bureau, facing the door. These people outside must not be kept waiting any longer.” With which I turned, and with baud on knob onoe more, paused until the nurse had rather

roughly, but in ail haste, dragged his charge across the floor and fairly flung him into the indicated seat It was not until after the immediately succeeding occurrences that I learned from O’Hara what had been told to John Soy on his way up town in the taxicab. As I understand it, the other detectives had informed him that he was being taken to this house so that his chief accuser, who was nigh unto death, could make an antemortem identification. As a matter of fact, of course, the situation was practically the reverse: We desired Soy to identify McNish, and' McNish, under stress of the encounter, to admit his own identity. The Eurasian, however, having been thus misinformed, was at a distinct disadvantage. So, when I drew back the door, and he was pushed forward into the room, instead 6t seeking, he Imagined himself sought, and with bowed head and eyes on the floor, stood shrinkingly ill at ease. To this misunderstanding is probably /attributable all that followed. Had Soy known that McNish' was regarded, equally with himself, aB an aggressor, he might have controlled his outbreak and permitted the law to wreak ita tardy Justice. But Soy did not know, and the tide of events met sudden change. It is, indeed, scarcely conceivable, how rapidly it was all enacted. For Just a moment the weazened figure stood still, while behind him crowded the rest of us—the three detectives, the two Chinamen and myself. I saw McNish struggle for an instant to maintain his pose of indifference, and then I saw his cheeks blanch, and his little eyes widen in craven terror as he recognized the shabby, silent thing before him. His lips parted, his bared teeth clickedtogether, and his hands, like talons, clutched tensely his chair arms. In that strained moment the room was strangely hushed. I know I scarcely breathed, as nervously intent 1 watched those two miserable Creatures; the one keenly conscious, the other blind to everything save the rug pattern at his feet. Then, like a flash, Soy stole a glance at his Supposed accuser, and I saw him quiver into steel. It was as though an electric bolt had shot through his shrinking framfeand limp limbs. He seemed to grow out of himself, to Hse inches taller, towering with stiffened neck and lifted head. To describe with any degree of accuracy what ensued, I know only that McNish rose cumbrously to his feet, only to fall back again beneath the pouncing spring of the Eurasian. Then followed a pistol shot, muffled, yet sounding lethally loud against the grim silence of the chamber; and, as with one accord we leaped forward, I saw Soy roll over in a spasm of contortions, ahd McNish, thus freed from his gripping hold, raise an arm and fire again, with the. pistol pressed to hiß bwn temple, Just as Bryan, who had been nearest to them, bravely made a grab for the weapon.

CHAPTER XXVI. Hl* Sister Confessor. The death of' McNish was Instantaneous. Soy, with a bullet in his abdomen, lingered for three days. During that time Miss Clement became his sister confessor, and so there drifted into our possession a host of facts which otherwise we might never have learned. Strange, uncanny creature that he was, he seemed to repose the utmost confidence in the gray, sweet-faced missionary, and fairly unburdened his sin-charged soul to her. Those of his fellow conspirators that she promised to protect, she protected. Those that he believed to have played him false, she protected likewise. Her religion was one In which personal Justice has no dwelling. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” her Lord had admonished, and to him she was content' to resign the problem of retribution. Had 1 been more familiar with the Cameron town house and the town habita of its master, Justice probably would not have been tricked out of having her way with two as lawless wretches as ever infested a community. I should have known then that one of the drawers of that quaint old rosewood secretary was the Elding plaqe of a 38-caliber Colt, and in all likelihood have had It removed before McNish was capable of searching for it ks It was, Mr. Bryan took no little blame upon himself for not having been the first to discover It, though to my mind he could hardly be regarded as recreant in falling to investigate a piece of furniture of so Intimate a character. The notoriety consequent upon the murder and suicide was hideously Inordinate. Inspired and stimulated by the sensational press, which did not hesitate to imply what It dared wot state openly, the currency of falsehood and misconception at one period came close to being disastrous. As I had foreseen, the resemblanoe of MoNish to Cameron, coupled with the

seemingly convincing fact that tk* tragedy had occurred in the Cameron town house, where the millionaire was supposed to be convalescent, gave excuse for persistent iteration of a rumor that, in order to preserve the fame of a man regarded as above reproach and at the same time to pro tect the line of securities in which h« had been interested, the. story of f confusing likeness bad been invented No paper in the land would havt had the temerity to print this as a fact, but again and again—silly and impossible as it must have appeared to al? thinking persons—it was promulgated by innuendo and embodied in more at less weakly-worded denials. As a result Crystal Consolidated suffered. Bonds and stocks alike sloughed fraction after fraction and point aftei point. And our mouths were neces sarily closed upon the truth, sinci if possible, would have been ever more damaging; for while we still hoped, we could give no positive as surance that Cameron was yet alive. Strangely enough, though the wholf wretched complication had been raked reportorialiy with a fine-tooth comb, the kidnapping from the yacht had not yet been so much as hinted at, but I lived, daily, in mortal dread that it would be brought to light at the next journalistic hand-sweep. Accurate information as to Cameron’s present whereabouts was the news now most eagerly sought not alone by the press but by Wall street as well; our failure to supply it—though excused by us on the ground that in his present nervous condition, it was imperatively necessary to keep him sequestered from interviewers—was not unnaturally arousing a suspicion that we did not possess it to supply. _ If, under the strain of the tragedy and the brutal publicity which followed upon it, Evelyn Grayson had not eventually succumbed she must have been more than human. Bravely she had borne up against a whelming succession of nerve-wrenching experienced, refusing to entertain fear and fighting valiantly against discouragement, but heart and nerves have their limit of endurance; and when, on the third day, John Soy was gathered to his yellow and white and a more yellow than white evening journal ventured, more boldly than had been dared hitherto, to make the implication to which .1 have * referred, Evelyn collapsed utterly. As chance would have it, I myself came upon her, lying white, limp, and unconscious on the library floor, with the paper still loosely held in her right hand. The sound of her fall had carried to me faintly as I neared the closed door, and a misgiving bom of intuition rather than of any more definite cause had hastened my steps. Having lifted her to a couch and rung for her maid I at once set about doing what I could to restore her to consciousness. But her plight was no ordinary momentary faintness. "'Stubbornly she refused to respond to my efforts, and those of the maid when, after hours it. seemed, she came, were equally unavailing.

Alarmed, I ealled up Dr. Massey, only to learn that he had gone to Boston for a consultation, and that Dr. Thorne, his assistant, was operating at Roosevelt Hospital. For a moment, distressed and anxious, the names of other physicians, eluded me. In despair, I, opened the Telephone Directory, in hope of a suggestion, and the name of Addison leaped at me from the page. To my infinite relief he was in his offlce; his electric was at the door, and he would he over at once. And It was not until ten minutes later, when he came hurriedly into the room, that I remembered. The name, when I saw it, had at once struck me as familiar. I seemed to know, even, that it belonged to a physician of reputed high standing, yet it was only at the instant of his entrance, when, his penetrating steel-gray eyes drilled info mine, that I associated it with the man to whom I had gone, not for any ailment, but to learn whether my friend, in spite of his denials, had ever been in China. If the recognition was mutual, Dr. Addison gave no sign of it. His patient demanded and received his immediate attention. Hastily he administered. a stimulating hypodermic, and then, himself assisted in carrying her to her room. (.TO BE CONTINUED.)