Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 108, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1914 — THE DEVIL CHAIR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE DEVIL CHAIR

A Chronicle of the Strange Adventures of John Haynes and His Gyroscope Vehicle

THE CRIPPLE OF PROSPECT PARK

By H. M. EGBERT

Patrolman Daniel O’Sullivan, standing on the west side of Prospect park, Brooklyn, twirled his club and yawned. It wae mid-day and the end of his period of duty was approaching. In ten minutes, he reflected, he would be hurrying homeward to snatch a rest in the bosom of his family within the sixroom flat which he modestly sustained In the region of Flatbush. • He yawned again, not so much from weariness as by reason of a happy state of complete mental relaxation. At that moment Patrolman O’Sullivan felt at perfect peace with all the world. If at that instant a member of the Clancy gang had assailed him with an outburst of profanity against the land of his nativity, Patrolman O’Sullivan would have tapped him mildly across the hat and bidden him go home. “By the powers!” he ejaculated joyfully, seeing a brother officer approaching him, “there’s Mulcahey at last Hey, Mui, git busy on the patrol. I’m for Klapperkopfs joint and a schooner of beer to wash the dust away!'" Mulcahey approached leisurely and relieved him; the two men engaged in a friendly joust of words, .and Patrolman O’Sullivan turned his face resolutely eastward. The thought of the schooner smoothed out the wrinkles In his forehead and an anticipatory grin made itself visible about his mouth and extended its into the neighborhood of O’Sullivan’s ears. Suddenly he paused and turned round, extending his right irm In the direction of the roadway. I “Holy saints, Mui, what the divll Would yes call that?" he asked. Moving slowly along the curb there came a cripple in a chair,/which he was laboriously propelling by means of a handwheel. But as the patrolman walked in a leisurely fashion to Intercept it, they perceived that it was like no other cripple’s chair which had ever come within the range of their vision. To begin with, it was shaped like an old-fashioned Infant’s "perambulator;” that Is to say, it was broad at the back and tapered In front to a wedge, tipped with a rtm of steel, which gave it the forcible aspect of a miniature battering ram. It moved, apparently, by some hidden mechanical power, for under the seat was a steelcased receptacle of considerable site, from whose hidden interior proceeded a faint humming sound exactly reminiscent of that made by a top whirling at full speed. O’Sullivan, as he bent low to examine the nature of this contrivance, knew immediately that the

mechanism concealed within the case was not only extremely powerful, but was working at full speed, though it was in some way disconnected from the motive power of the chair, so that the latter could move forward at its pace of two miles an hour, propelled solely by the cripple’s arms. So fast came the separate explosions of the gas engine, which was evidently a part of this complex arrangement, that they were merged into a single rolling sound.

"What the dlvU’s thot, Jack?" exclaimed O’Sullivan profanely, rising flushed after the exertion of bending hie comfortably covered body beneath the chair. From the cushions a strange figure raised itself and regarded him. The. occupant was a man of perhaps forty years. He was evidently a gentleman, although the blue suit that he wore was cheap and frayed and his wrists were innocent of cuffs. Mulcahey, whose mind did not turn toward mechanics, as did that of his friend, observed the peculiar pallor of the occupant's face. “Prison pallor,” he thought immediately, and the closely cropped hair and stubble of a new beard confirmed in his own mind the fast awakening suspicions that he was forming. His glance turned toward the man’s limbs. The legs hung limply as a paralytic’s, and were evidently powerless. But what struck him most strongly were the arms. For while the left was, if anything, rather underdeveloped, the right was that of a Samson. Under the frayed sleeve Mulcahey could trace the outlines of the great muscles, rippling up from the wrist, and then the protruding biceps, and, under the arm, the triceps, rigid as steel. The man perceived his gaze and withdrew his right arm, flushing slightly as he did so.

"Now, who Is he?” pondered Mulcahey. "I’d like to know. There’s something queer about that fellow." His intuition struck home with the Conviction of a fact: He determined that he would keep him in sight so long as he was on his post, but without awakening suspicions. - . Meanwhile the cripple was answering O’Sullivan's questions. “This is my chair, sir," he said courteously, and in well-bred tones which at once lulled the patrolman’s suspicions to sleep. “I have been injured, as you can see, and have come here to meet Mr. Staples at one o’clock, when he returns to his house.” O’Sullivan was impressed. Mr. Staples, the multi-millionaire, who had

begun his career as a poor lawyer and was now director of numerous western land companies, was a name to be respected. He did glance for a moment al the cripple’s shabby coat, but reflected that many queer people came from all parts of the country to interview Mr. Staples, and so dismissed all further thought of the matter. “Well, Mui, I’ll see yez again/* he said, and started off, twirling his club joyously, his mouth watering as he thought of that foaming schooner in which he was so soon to plunge it But something about the chair was worrying him, and he had hardly proceeded three paces when it grew clear to him. He swung around. It seemed Incredible, but—the chair was actually supported upon a single wheel! O’Sullivan had worked as a mechanic before he joined the "force,” and was never satisfied until all manner of mechanism was made clear to him. That he had failed consciously to notice this astonishing phenomenon before was simply because hie mind had never conceived the possibility of its existence. He looked again; yes, the chair stood bolt upright upon a single wheel. “Mui! Mui!” he shouted. "Look here, me lad. Did yez iver see a chair that ran on one wheel before?” Mulcahey. looked again. Surely enough, his friend was right O’Sullivan placed his powerful hands upon the side and tried to tilt the apparatus. His effort was as useless as though he had attempted to tilt St Patrick’s cathedral. The chair did not budge in the least but remained still upon the sidewalk, perfectly motionless, and, as it seemed, busily humming itself to sleep. "Hey! Beat it!” shouted Mulcahey, turning upon the curious crowd that had begun to assemble round the uncanny vehicle. He drove them away and then turned to the cripple again, scowling crossly. “You’ll have to move on, young feller,” he said. "Keep her a-moving and don’t collect a crowd, or I’ll run you and your chair into the station house."

The cripple returned no answer, but began slowly propelling his strange vehicle along the road’that borders the park in the direction of Mr. Staples’ house. He moved at his two-mile gait, and a small crowd followed him; but, as he made no answer to their badinage, they tired of worrying him and dispersed, with the exception of a few small boys, who ran alongside, jeering. Officer O’Sullivan remained standing beside his frbmd in an attitude of in-

decision. Atlaat he drew the back of his hand across his month with a gesture of finality. “Mui,” he said, “they say as it’s a wise cop knows when he’s off duty—but that get’s my goat Something’s going to happen. I feel it in me. And I’m going to stay and see it through.” Much as he needed the liquid refreshment which had presented its mental picture so alluringly to his mind, O’Sullivan felt that he could not go home until he had solved the mystery of that chair. He could think of no mechanical law which would enable it to balance itself upon a single wheel with such tenacity that, with the exertion of his utmost strength, he was unable to disturb its equilibrium. What was the hidden mechanism which gave out that buzzing sound? Suppose this were to be connected at will with the running gear! Suppose, for example, that, hidden under the seat of the chair, was a powerful gas engine, capable of exercising sufficient force to convert it, with a sharp,' wedge-like front, into a battering ram and hurling it at thirty miles an hour through the crowded streets of the metropolis! A vista of possibilities stretched before O’Sullivan’s mind. Muttering uneasily, he left Mulcahey and started in pursuit of the cripple, with the intention of questioning him further.

“Aw, it’s only a bicycle chair!” exclaimed the other in disgust at his friend’s curiosity, which he felt, in some vague way, to be a reflection upon his lack of interest “What’s biting you, Danny? Come back!" But O’Sullivan was already out Of hearing and crossing the road in the cripple’s wake, pausing only long enough to shoo away the pestilential small boys that dogged the trail of his quarry. A glance back showed that Mulcahey had changed his mind and was coming after him.

But to the disgust of both patrolmen the cripple’s chair seemed to take on a sudden acceleration of motion. O’Sullivan walked faster. Yes, there was no doubt of It Although to his eye the wheel did not seem to be revolving more rapidly, yet the distance between himself and the peculiar vehicle was materially Increased. Then, remembering that the man would undoubtedly etop at Mr. Staples* house, he proceeded more slowly and permitted Mulcahey to catch up with him. They were about five hundred yards behind when the chair came to a stop outside the millionaire’s residence. They saw the crippled figure leave it and move painfully up the steps with the aid of two cratches. Long before they had come up the door had closed pn the man, and, when at last they arrived, the empty chair was buzzing amiably upon the curb. “I guess this story was straight enough—there’s no uee waiting, Mui,” said Patrolman O’Sullivan. Mulcahey shook his head doubtfully. He was not sure; he was not by any means sure that, even If the cripple’s exit were orderly and peaceful, he would not arrest him on the chance of having picked up an ex-convict But even while he debated the front door flew open and the cripple came hurrying down the stairs with the aid of his cratches, while from within the hall resounded the screams of the maids, mingled with the shouts of the financier.

As the patrolman dashed to seize the fellow Staples came bounding down the steps. "Arrest him!” he yelled, purple with fury. “He’s an escaped convict and he’s got five thousand dollars of mine, damn him, in his coat pocket. Held me up with a pistol and made me open my safe. Hold him!” A"We’re holding him,” answered Mulcahey grimly, as he clutched the man by the collar, while O’Sullivan extracted from his pockets a bulging wallet and a revolver. “Loaded in every chamber!” he exclaimed, inspecting it. "Hey, youse must be mad, young feller. This ain’t no wild west show—this is Brooklyn!" The cripple’s face remained entirely impassive as the policeman bundled him back into his chair. Followed by the wrathful cries of the financier, they prepared to wheel him to the station house. “My money!” cried Mr. Staples. "I identify that He stole it from me a minute ago." “Sorry, Mr. Staples,” replied Mulcahey respectfully, “but you’ll have to get it from the sergeant, sir. . That’s the law, Mr. Staples, and I'll have to take it with me. You can reclaim it any time, sir,” he continued. "Or if you care to come along now —” He had turned his back on the chair as he began to speak, while O’Sullivan, holding the pistol and the wallet, was pushing back the crowd which had instantly assembled, his arm resting upon the hand-wheel in order to keep the vehicle motionless. Of a sudden, quick as a flash, the cripple’s mighty right arm shot forth and clutched him as in a vise; an instant later, and the chair had shot down the street with the force of a tornado, the wedge front scattering the mob right and left, hurling them upon the sidewalk and into the street As O’Sullivan went down he felt the wallet torn from his clutch; before he could recover self-possession enough to fire, the vehicle was nowhere in sight; only far down the road a spiral column of dost showed the course it had taken.

The two patrolmen stared dismally at one another; Mulcahey from the curb, where he stood staring helplessly after the machine, O’Sullivan from the road, where he lay, dusty and torn. From the steps above Mr. Staples stormed for his money. O’Sullivan held up a bleeding hand. It looked as though it had been torn by pincers of steel. "It’s gone, MuL” he said in hollow tones. "He got it away from me. My God, he must have been traveling at fifty miles an hour,"

Muicaney laugnea nilj miles, eh?" he said, sneering. “Don’t you suppose rd hit him if he’d been going at fifty? Why, that was two hundred if it was one; the fellow was out of sight before I could draw me gun.” Then, dashing through the immense crowd which had blocked the roadway, he ran into a nearby telephone booth. “Hello! Mr. Frank Staples has been held up and robbed at No. 8742 Prospect Park West by a man in an auto, wedge-shaped, running on a single wheel. Got that? Yes, a single wheel. Machine is making for Fulton street down Flatbush, meaning, of course, to cross into Manhattan and gain the country. Telephone all stationary posts and branch offices; call the bridge, Manhattan side, and have ropes stretched across the carriage road and footway or he’ll get free. You’ve got less than three minutes to do it in.”

He hung up the receiver and slouched back like a broken map, as Indeed, he felt himself to be. This meant the finish of his career as a member of the police force. “Three minutes!" he muttered viciously. “Three seconds, more like. I’ll bet he’s over the bridge already. Unless —” de added, with a glimmer of hope—“he’s had a collision.” But the man in the chair was too sagacious to collide with any vehicle that afternoon; the slightest jar of wheel againet wheel would have plunged him, traveling at that fearful rate, to Immediate death. And it was by reason of this sagaciousness that in point of fact the police actually were enabled to stretch ropes across the middle of the Brooklyn bridge before 'the strange vehicle arrived. As soon as he had shaken off his pursuers and passed from the quiet residential section into the traffichaunted region of Flatbush avenue the cripple displayed a singular indifference, as though he were supremely confident of his ability both to outwit and to outrun his enemies. He had sped toward Flatbush avenue at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour, whirling so fast that he was completely hidden from sight in the cloude of dust flung up by the wheel. But when he reached that artery of traffic he had slowed down to not more than fifty miles. He whizzed past the traffic policeman who attempted to' stay his progress, turned into a maze* of small side streets, constantly diminishing his speed, and finally emerged upon Court street,'gliding no faster than a man on a bicycle. He looked right and left for the fraction of a second as he neared Fulton street. It had been his intention to return across the Brooklyn bridge to Manhattan, but he had not calculated upon the presence of the two policemen, and it occurred to him that others might be waiting for him at the other end. But that risk was smaller than the one which would ensue should he become Isolated upon Long island in a cordon, and so he swung into Fulton street and headed toward the East river, traveling at about twenty miles an hour. The wheel glided upon a rail of the car tracks, to which it adhered Immediately without a single guiding motion of the driver’s arm, and the /pace began automatically to increase immediately. But the route became obscured by the approach of an up-town car, and the cripple swung his chair off the line again, upon which he had ran merely as a test, and proceeded in a leisurely manner past Clark and Pineapple streets and so to the bridge entrance, where he disconnected his running gear and began to move by hand power toward the passenger track that crosses the center of the bridge. None of the crowd was idle enough at that hour to examine the etrangelooklng vehicle closely, and it was obvious, from the lack of Interest which the wayfarers displayed, that the news of the robbery had not yet become public property. The cripple patted his pocket as he moved deftly through the crowd toward the bridge footway. There, snugly ensconced in the leather wallet which he had taken from Mr. Staples lay ten thousand dollars in bills—his money, long overdue, of which he had been robbed when Staples had aided the land gang to railroad him to prison five years before. But he would not let his mind dwell upon that for the present, lest his anger invalidate his judgment; just now he must concentrate all his forces upon the endeavor to escape. And, once across the bridge and safe in Manhattan, he knew that nothing could prevent his progress. He had threaded the crowds and was moving toward the footway when he heard shouts behind him. The news had just been telephoned to the stationary policemen on duty at that point, one of the fat elderly policemen who are detailed in their last years of duty to the lighter offices. The man was racing after him, puffing heavily as he ran. His tunic was unbuttoned* and in one hand he held a heavy revolver, which he pointed as he ran, with no sure alm. "Stop!” he yelled. "Stop right there or I’ll fill you full of lead."

In the depths of the chair the cripple had another revolver, but he did not attempt to seize it He had no quarrel with the officers of the law—only with the men who had leagued together to obtain his inheritance and put him away in the penitentiary at Nokomis Falls. He heard the hiss of bullets pass his ear, and, with a turn of his wrist, connected the running gear of the chair with the top-like mechanism within. The chair shot forward with a bound. Ahead of it lay a flight of steps, a formidable obstacle for the best auto-bicycle to have attempted to surmount The policeman ran on, waving bis revolver, reloading hastily as he proceeded, certain that the cripple would come to grief if he attempted to negotiate that obstacle. He had him fairly trapped. On either

lay ine paraptsx ot uw ? there remained nothing bat surrender He stopped to recover breath; and twt... brother officers from the Adams street- ■' station, who had received the sum mens a few minutes before, came pant Ing up to join him. Then all three gasped in wonder. For with a series of light, curvetting plunges, resembling those of a graceful colt, the chair leaped upward on its single whert and, surmounting the steps, began to run easily at about fifty miles an hour across the bridge. The way seemed dear. But, even as the chair gained the summit and raced forward, the cripple saw a body of police come running across the bridge toward him. They were from the Manhattan end, and, not content. with stretching ropes to bring him to grief, had resolved to Intercept him and gain the credit for his capture. On they ran, five abreast, thrusting the pedestrians aside, their revolvers in ? their hands, and barely a hundred yards distant The cripple stopped the chair dead and looked back. Behind him, not more than sixty yards away, the three Brooklyn policemen were in pursuit, led by the stout, elderly fellow who had fired at him ineffectually. As the chair stopped, with grinding and jarring ot brakes that flung the cripple forward against the wedge front, the three men aimed again. But they did not dare to fire,, for fear of hitting the policemen who were approaching from the opposite direction, and so ran forward, yelling to their quarry to surrender.

The cripple hesitated. To charge full tilt into the advancing men would undoubtedly kill them; but it might kill him. Besides, a chair is not an easy mark to miss, when it is advancing immediately upon one, whatever its < speed, especially by five policemen, each firing a number of rounds, and each presumably practiced in the use ; of the revolver. The man looked up- 1 ward. The immensely long loops of the steel cables, inclosed in their chilled steel casing, which held up the gigantic structure, lowered themeelves here to a point barelyflyg feet above the ground. Without further hesitation the cripple skipped nimbly out of t the chair, clinging for support to the | ironwork of the structure. Then, stretching forth his powerful right arm, he hoisted himself upon the cable, clinging there like some disabled monkey upon pereh. The policemen yelled in triumph and precipitated themselves toward him from before and behind. The nearest was barely | five and twenty yards away. The last was less than forty. The cripple laughed shortly, and, clinging now by the left hand, reached down and grasped the chair firmly with his right Then, when his pursuers were almost upon him, they saw the muscles of his right stand out like* loops of rope, saw him pick up the» chair, and deposit it upon the narrow six-inch cable in front of him. It stood | there, buzzing like a top and motionless, and, while the policemen stoddL still in amazement the cripplM climbed in, not budging the chair by a fraction of an inch, and was speeding away. ... . XWEg And looking at him, they did not even fire. Not that they could have hit him even if they had tried. But awe, and something as nearly akin to terror as 1 a New York policeman can feel re--| strained them. For this crippled man In the crazy car was soaring a way; far over their heads, climbing to the very summit of the high structure along that six-inch cable, till at last beseemed no more than a black spot against the blue sky, running with security at the rate of an express train, with a. s drop of hundreds of feet into the river I on one side of him, and, on the other, a fall to certain death upon the strueture of the bridge. He seemed to soar like an eagle; he reached the topmost tower, and then, J seeing the pathway under him heavy with stalled cars, and the roadway, black with cheering, gasping spectators—seeing, too, the ropes which had been ineffectually stretched forth to ; hold him, he laughed, waved his hand genially, and, at a tremendously ae> | celerated pace, began to glide down the cable line that stretched to the j Manhattan entrance. He reached the end of it, traveling: as steadily as a bicyclist, hit the asphalt with a gentle jolt twelve feet be- 'i hind the little group of police who had * idly gathered there, staring across the,;.' bridge, not thinking to glance upward;' shot over the loops of the street car lines, and dashed into Park Row,. Across the City Hall park he raced, J crossed Broadway under the noses, reached the river front, where nothing but slow-moving wagons blocked the wide street, and dashed northward at a rate of a hundred mllee an hour. He reached the extreme Umits of Manhattan, crossed Into Westchester, and, like a streak of light, he entered the suburban districts, passed:;? them, and so gained open country and was lost to the knowledge of aIL Ten minutes later he stopped the chair under a tree, descended, and bathed his face and hands in the water of a gurgling brook. That was the first of hla exploits and there was much yet 3 to be done. Vengeance on all who had-H banded against him, broken up his . home, thrust him for five lonely years into the western jail—this must be \ meted out But now, having regained a tiny fraction of his own, he had funds with which to start on his immediate 3 quest, the discovery of his daughter] Eleanor. She had been fourteen wb«a%| he last saw her; now she must be nearly twenty. The thought of seeing her again gave him new hope. He entered the chair, and at the leisurely pace ot fifteen miles an hour, set ward the north, along the old post road. ... . - -

AN INSTANT LATER THE CHAIR SHOT DOWN THE STREET WITH THE FORCE OF. A TORNADO