Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 192, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1915 — The Strange Adventures of Christopher Poe [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Strange Adventures of Christopher Poe

Sforfe* of Strange Cases Solved in Secret by a Banter-Detective

By ROBERT CARLTON BROWN

(Copyright, 1915, by W. Q. Chapman.)

A VAUDEVILLE SKETCH ’ -

Moonlight nights and pay days gleamed with almost equal luster to private watchman Hopkins, who had a round on Royal street which included the big New Orleans Antique exchange, the Louis XIV Furniture factory, a small shop for old-fashioned jewelry, a molasses warehouse, and the old Dubois home. There was certain relief for him in reaching out for a door-knob in plain sight; there wae sure satisfaction in passing the trap 'corner between the furniture factory and the jewelry store, where some one might be lurking with a gun to stick in his face unseen on moonless nights; but, best of all, he could see plainly the vicious great Dane which Armand Dubois, cowardly miser that he was, kept to protect the hoardings in his house. There is, just before dawn, a breathless spacer, an awesome gap, in which the moon is making ready to surrender her silver scepter to the sun; it was at this awesome hour that private watchman Hopkins unlocked the front gate to the Dubois home, slipped softly up the front steps, and tried the door-knob for the twentieth time that night. At hie first step on the walk Alert, the vicious great Dane, had growled, and bounded toward him on the long wire to which he was chained so that he could run the length of the house and guard the rear door and windows. The great beast chafed on his chain while HOpkins passed within six feet of his snapping jaws, to try the side door. As he ascended the steps, Alert ground out a aeries of guttural growls and barked In a low, vicious rumble, as was his Invariable custom. When Hopkins mechanically tried the door and passed back along the walk, the dog raced beside him on his wire, straining, jerking to lessen that six-foot gap, struggling to get at him; snapping, growling. Armand Dubois had trained his dog to make friends with no one, and he himself stood ten yards away and threw meat at him through a window at meal-times. When Hopkins had gained the front gate, he took his customary deep breath of relief and continued on his round. Fifteen minutes later he was back, and Alert greeted him with his usual growl, and disputed every step he took toward the side door. Perhaps it, was the Influence of that uneasy period just before dawn, but Hopkins felt that Alert was the least bit fiercer than usual.

But everything was all right, the doors had not been tampered with, though Hopkins laughed at the notion of anybody getting as far as his first step into the yard without Alert arousing all Royal street Just as he was approaching the front gate again and gasping for his usual deep breath of relief, a window on the second floor of the Dubois house flew up; Alert made an instantaneous bound, flung himself in the air toward the nightcapped vision framed in the sash, was jerked back to the ground by his chain and lay stunned fqr a moment while the nightcapped figure ecreamed: "Help! Robbers! Thieves! Robbers!” Windows in several near-by houses popped up. Night watchman Hopkins, glancing at the dog, dropped his electric stick, pulled his gun, and dashed toward the front stairs. The dog scrambled to all fours, emitted a lionlike roar, hunched together, and with dripping jaws and wild glaring eyes sprang for Hopkins just as he grasped the porch-rail. The running wire drew taut, held, and then snapped with a loud report. Alert, free from his chain, sprang for Hopkins. The nightcapped old man in the window threw up his hands, screamed “Mon Dieu!” and dropped limp, half over the sill. Hopkins threw himself back, and pulled at the trigger of his gun with both hands.

A crash of bone, an agonized groan, and Alert humped over in a heap on the cement walk at Hopkins’ feet, his massive skull crushed in by a big bullet Hopkins flew up the steps and pounded on the door, fumbling his keychain blankly, and trying to force the door, for Dubois’ nature was so suspicious that he would not even allow his watchman a key to his door, locking everything from the inside with bolts and padlocks. Keeping one eye on the quivering heap at the foot of the steps, Hopkins pounded until the soft clap of hustling steps in shiftless slippers came to his expectant ears. “That you, Hopkins?” came an anxious cry in a cracked voice from wlthih. "Yes. Mr. Dubois, for the love of heaven, open up! I told you this would happen if you— The door was opened a crack before he finished, and the frightened face that had appeared beneath the nightcap in the window started out. “For God’s sake, come in!” cried old Dubois querulously, grasping Hopkins’ shoulder with palsied hand, and pulling him within. "There’s a nasty crowd collecting in front. Bring in that porch-chair—l don’t know how I

forgot it last night; they might get through the gate and steal it Hurry!** “Where are the robbers?’’ "Gone!" cried Dubois, straining his wrinkled neck forward, and moistening his throat with an effort as he spoke. “Are you sure? What did they get?” "Everything! Look!” Dubois had pushed the watchman up the stairs to the second floor, and pointed a shaking finger through an Open door, holding to the wall for support and gasping for breath as he spoke. “Everything—look! All my money in bills; stacks, stacks of bills!” There was a rickety antique Sheraton four-poster, Dubois’ bed, and on it was the cloth-covered box of a bedspring, gaping open, half filled with a scattering of’ crumpled papers. The bed-clothes were thrown in a heap in one corner of the room. Hopkins stepped back in surprise. His foot came down on a wad of cotton; he picked it up, and stood fingering it absently as he stared at the wrecked bed. “Then you did sleep on your money in place of a mattress, as people always said?” he queried. “Yes, yes. There is no use,” the quaking old man stood glassy-eyed, glaring at the empty spring box, “there is no use to deny it now. I kept everything—all—in that box, packed in among the springs. Stacks, stacks and stacks of bills! I did—did—” He stopped, clawed forward one of his large flapping ears, and stood straining to catch the repetition of a sharp sound he had picked from other noises rising from below. Hopkins was sniffing at the piece of cotton he had picked up beside the bed. “Chloroform!” he exclaimed, dropping it. "Eh!” cried old Dubois, jerking his hand from his ear, and thrusting it into the opening of his nightshirt. “They chloroformed you, and threw you into the corner with your shoes and the bed-clothes, while they rifled the treasure chest.” “Eh? Yes. I—l heard them at my bedside, then I was on the floor, and I couldn’t use my arms, my legs, my tongue, and I knew they were taking my poor bills, in stacks —stacks and stacks of them!” His veinridged hand shot to his flapping ear, and he broke off again: “Listen! What’s that? There’s somebody fooling with the front gate.” He rushed to the window, which he had again carefully locked after recovering from his faint, craned his cordy neck toward the front of the house, and tottered as he shook hie quivering fist at a nondescript fellow in a modest business suit and ordinary derby who must have clambered over the locked iron gate regardless of its pricking points, and was busily at work stretching out the limp form of Alert. "Leave that dog alone! Get out of there, or I’ll —”

Dubois in an insane moment tore an antique French firearm tremblingly from the bosom of his nightshirt, where, to Hopkins* surprise, he had been concealing it. “Don’t!” cried the watchman, jumping forward to grasp the quivering hand attempting an aim. “I’ll protect my place—my right— I’ll—” Dubois’ twitching jaws dropped open; he stared at the man below who, aroused by the commotion in the window, glanced up, picked a small filmy object like a sausage-skin from one of the points of Alert’s massive studded collar, and slipped through the front gate, which he opened with an easy twist as though it were not locked. "You left it unlocked?” cried Dubois. "I did not!” Hopkins denied. “Who the devil is the fellow? I never saw him before. Do you suppose he—” “I don’t suppose anything—■” Dubois thrust out hie lower jaw threateningly. “You’re hired to protect me; why do you let him run away? MayHopkins, having leaped to the same unexpressed conclusion, turned, and rushed down the stairs, stopped at the gate, unlocked it, and cried to the group of newsboys, neighbors, tamale men, market boys, and other early birds collected in front, “Where’d he go?” . j "Where’d he go?" "Who?”

"The man—the man—Hopkins strove for some description—“the man with the black derby.” A boy in front grinned, and glanced around at the circle of men towering above him. “Every feller in the bunch’s got on a black derby ’cept us kids.” Hopkins stood chagrined. He had seen the man, front, side, and rear view for a full minute, but was at an utter loss to describe him. “The man who just came out of the gate. He took something that looked like the rubber of a toy balloon from the dog’s collar, ’ he cried. “Oh, him?” answered the boy. "The feller that monkeyed with the dog? I thought he belonged there. He had a key. Where did he go, now?” Some said one way, and some said another, but it was quite apparent that

the man had slipped and out unnoticed, due to his plain appearance and his matter-of-fact manner. The square-chested man in the black derby was Christopher Poe, the prominent banker from the north, enjoying his second week’s vacation in the carnival city. He had no sooner shut the Dubois gate behind him, and stuffed the eklnllke object into his pocket, than he slipped through the collecting crowd, without touching any of the onlookers or attracting attention by any unusual move. He walked to the corner without once turning around, crossed the street, and returned briskly to the edge of the crowd just in time to hear Hopkins cross-question-ing the small boy. Poe nodded his head with the rest, and agreed quickly with somebody who had pointed out at random the direction he had taken. As a member of the crowd, as an unobtrusive unit, he was utterly unnoticeable. He stayed no longer than the rest, and said, just like everybody else in parting from the man who stood next him: “I’ll bet it was the feller in the derby hat Wonder what it was the kid said he took off the dog.” Having heard all the facts and conjectures, Poe walked to the corner again, turned up the side street and paced slowly down Bourbon past a block of cheap lodging-houses, largely occupied by vaudeville artists, traveling fakers, and other true Bohemians. Each old house had, like so many of the dwellings in the French quarter of New Orleans, a courtyard in the rear, divided from the courts on the next street by high brick walls. Stopping at the house which backed directly against old Dubois’, Christopher Poe Inserted a key, twisted it sharply twice, glanced up and down the street, opened the door, and stepped in, closing it quickly after him, and standing motionless at the spot where his first step had brought him. That he was listening intently was disclosed by his suspended breath. In that moment one hardly would have described him as Hopkins had—a human blank. His eyes were focused intently toward the top of the dim, winding old staircase in front of him; his mouth was drawn into a firm, purposeful line; his form was lithe and strong; he seemed the very embodi-

ment of some forceful idea. His pose was histrionic; he appeared to have thrown himself into a part he was about to play. Soon stealthy footsteps from above shuffled through the silence. Poe removed his derby, outer coat, tie and shoes in a series of quick movements. Running firm fingers through his neat hair, he muesed it up, and with the same motion snatched a fawn-colored theatric raincoat from the hall-rack, loosened his suspenders, turned up the collar of the raincoat he had donned, and sneaked silently upstairs, his manner that of a drowsy lodger wakened against his will to make an early train. On the second floos he paused, took out his watch, deliberately set it back half an hour, wrapped it in the wrinkled, skinlike object he had removed from Alert’s collar, and, having located the sounds in a rear room, approached the door with audible tread, and knocked lightly. The shuffling steps within ceased. There came no answer. “I say—pardon me—you folks goln’ take the six-fifty, too?” he said sleepily. "Can I borrow a collar? Heard you kickin' around and —” The door was abruptly opened a crack by a wiry young man, short, and with a pleasant face. A email feminine hand rested on his shoulder, and seemed to be tugging him back. “A collar? Sure thing. What size do you wear?” asked the short, flushfaced young fellow through a crack in the door. “Six an’ seven-eighths. I mean fifteen an’-a quarter. Say, you ain’t the Twirley Twins, are you?” asked the man in the passageway, throwing back one side of the fawn-colored cravenette to remove a wallet from hie hip-pocket. “The very same!” t ied the amiable young man, squinting his eyes professionally through the gloom, and open-

ing the door another notch In spite of the restraining hand on his shoulder. "Saw you work down in San Antone. Good act that! Where’s the missis? Clever kid!" “Thanks! Will this collar. do?" A forced feminine voice came from within, and a mate to the hand on the Twirley shoulder pushed a stiff, starchy circle of white quiveringly through the opening. “That ain’t a collar. That’s a cuff!" cried Poe, quickly dropping behind him the article he had asked for and selecting a card from his wallet which >ore the name of Hardy. He handed it to the man with a laugh as an exclamation of disappointment came from the woman. “Thomas Hardy,” read the Twirley Twin. “Not the Thomas Hardy, angel of the Merry Whirl show?” “The very same. What’s left of him," said Poe promptly, smiling to himself at being called “angel" of a company he had formed under his assumed name only as an adjunct to a scheme for running down one of the cleverest bank-swindlers in New York. He drew the raincoat closer about him and edged into the doorway. “Come in. Come in. Glad to see you,” cried the young fellow, who had been with the Merry Whirl company and to whom its backer was a great man. A cry of alarm from the woman, “I’m not dressed! Dick, don’t let him in. I’m not dressed.” But her husband (a twin only in the profession) had already thrown the door open, and disclosed her to the keen eyes of Christopher Poe, fully gowned in a somewhat worn travelingsuit. “By George, I’m glad to see you, Mr. Hardy. Kid, shake hands with the best in the business. A game backer and a good loser. I’d tell you to take off your hat to him if I thought you’d ever get it back on straight.” Mrs. Twirley bowed stiltedly, and said in a very stagy aside: “Dick, we must be going. We’ll miss that train.” “What time you got, Mr. Hardy?" asked the Twirley Twin. Christopher Poe drew out his watch, and with a comfortable yawn removed it from the thin skin covering. “Fivethirty,” he announced, exhibiting the

watch-dial to the Twirley Twins and exclaiming: “Oh, that watch-case? It’s just a souvenir,” as he saw their eyes riveted on the wrinkled skin in his other hand. Mrs. Twirley sniffed cautiously twice, glinted her eyes at Poe, and stepped back quickly to seat herself on two suit-cases in a corner, covering them completely with her skirts. Her husband stood stupefied, sniffing the air also, and staring at the unique watch-case. “Came from Paris,” continued Poe pleasantly, rubbing the skin between his fingers fondly. “You know, it’s just what’s left of one of these little harlequin bladders they use on a string to smash each other over the head with in team work. Didn’t you use them in that pantomime acrobatic stunt I saw you in three years ago at Frisco ?” “Yes. I believe we did.” Mrs. Twirley cleared her throat harshly, and continued: “But it didn’t smell of chlo—” She ended in a stifled scream, and rushed toward the man she had heard of as a theatrical banker, crying: “Lookout! That picture behind you is falling.” Poe made a quick move as if to look, but instead stepped forward, and caught Mrs. Twirley’s hand as it emerged from beneath a newspaper on the table, containing the butt of a small revolver. Poe, holding her hand so the iron was directed at her amazed husband, who had stepped back involuntarily, sized up the weapon in a sharp scrutiny, dropped her - hand, and laughed: “Only a property pistol! You may resume your seat on those two suit-cases you -were guarding.” "Twirley,” he turned to . the young man, who, face dough-like, was trying to master his quivering frame. “Twirley, I want to talk business with you—sit over there,”

The young fellow dropped limp in the seat indicated, as Christopher Poe dropped to the edge of a straightbacked chair, and tilted it to a comfortable angle against the door of the room. Mrs. Twirley sat on the suitcase, one cheek drawn up in a hardened, sarcastic smirk, her qyes smoldering sullenly. “How long have you folks been out of work?" asked Poe sharply. “Seven months,” said Twirley in a hollow tone. “I see. That’s a long time,” mused Poe. “And you’ve been living in this room two months.” “On credit,” put in Mrs. Twirley with a twist of her lips. “Stranded," added her husband. “Too bad. You must have been desperate," continued Poe thoughtfully, switching his gaze to Mrs. Twirley. “No clothes —nothing. Hard luck!” he said. “Damn hard luck. Clever people you were, too—too many acrobatic teams though—that was your trouble.” “Yes, we used to get good money—we stayed stiff-necked a while, and then when we was ready to take cheap bookings nobody wanted us; other head-liners had come down first an’ filled in." “Tough luck. But why didn’t you use your brains? Why didn’t you beat the conditions, adapt yourselves to a new act?” asked Poe in a high-pitched earnest tone. “I can’t see why the devil two clever people like you should ever get stranded. You’ve been in this room two months, and right through that shade behind you, Mrs. T., you saw the house of Armand Dubois every day, and you couldn’t have missed hearing the rumor that he kept his fortune in cash in his mattress. You heard, too, the barking of that big beast that protected his wealth. With your clever mind why didn’t you work out a sketch for you and Dickie to do in vaudeville?” He stopped, and looked squarely at the pair, their eyes glancing shiftily about, their fingers fidgeting. “Now, you were interested in this harlequin bladder that smells of chloroform,” continued Poe. “What if I were to tell you that It was used in an act by a clever young couple I once knew in—well, in Paris? What if —” “Oh, don’t beat around the bush," cried Mrs. Twirley sullenly, then biasing up. “What’s your game? What are you trying to get at? What —■” Christopher Poe held up his hand for silence as Twirley, his eyes bulging, his mouth panic-set, leaned toward him, fingers and eyelids twitching.

“Now wait —wait! Here’s a sketch idea for you folks. Listen to it!” continued Poe. “You can pull down three hundred a week with it easy with your acrobatic ability and cleverness. ''Once upon a time—in Paris, you understand —there was a clever young couple like you kids. Stranded team of acrobats; pantomime people. They lived in a rear room of a cheap theatrical rooming-house, just one flight up, where they could see daily across a high brick wall a courtyard containing a big beast shackled on a running chain to protect a miser’s gold. “One day the woman, the cleverer of the two, goaded to envy and despair by the sight of professional women finely clad and at work, suddenly thought of the great dependence that old miser had on his man-eating dog.” The Twirley Twins were drawing unconsciously nearer together, as though for protection, and the flush was leaving their faces, fixing into awed, gaping blanks as Christopher Poe continued. “The money of that miser worried the woman. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t eat, and finally she worked out a scheme —a good scheme, a shrewd scheme. She told it to her husband in a wild mood, never thinking of it as a practical matter. He, poor devil, urged on by debt, took a practical view of it, and they were about to execute the scheme when suddenly the idea came that while the chances were that their careful plan would work they might be caught later on; and the thought came, too, that they might not enjoy the miser’s gold after they had it” Mrs. Twirley tossed back her head, and laughed sharply, artificially, as Poe paused. He fixed his eyes on her. “So the woman suggested that since the idea of robbing the old miser was so completely figured out as to almost defy detection, and since they were letter-perfect in rehearsing the act, it would be better to play a sure thing. So she sat down and worked out the practical plan of the robbery into a twenty-minute vaudeville skit for herself and husband, and they had already got into the spirit of the thing so well from considering it as a possible crime, that at a tryout before a good manager they were offered two hundred a week and a bonus if it went big.” » “Sounds good!"remarked Mrs. Twirley, breathing fiercely. “But are you quite sure you know the plot of that sketch?” Her busband’s fists clenched till the knuckles shone stark and whiter His small black eyes pierced to the core of the raconteur, before him. "Yes, are you quite sure?” he breathed viciously. "Oh, the plot," said Poe lightly. "Yes, it was so simple. I’d 'most forgotten. The sketch opens during the hour just preceding that dumb darkness before dawn. The vaudeville pair are disclosed in their room; the man is dressed in a fine dog-skin, a good make-up, a hide the exact counterpart of the miser’s Great Dane. The woman is dressed in black trousers and coat, carries a jimmy with which she has practiced, a dark lantern, a revolver like this”—as he picked up the one from the table by way of illustration, the Twirley woman sank back against the wall, a low cry escaping her—“and a harlequin’s bladder filled full of chloroform and tightly tied. A

second scene shows the man and wife together jm one side of a high wall dividing the stage; it is the garden wall separating their court from the miser’s. The man, being an acrobat, climbs up to the top so skillfully that the dog lying below on the other side hears nothing until a skin full of liquid bursts on one of the pointed studs of his collar, a big stone drops at the same instant on his head and stuns him, he opens his mouth and gags for breath with which to bark, sucks in the chloroform and succumbs. “ihe man gives a signal to the woman; she climbs to his side, together they drop over into the court; the man in his dog-skin suit unsnaps the Great Dane’s chain, and attaches it to a duplicate collar about his own neck. "He has no sooner attached the chain and dropped to all fours when the sharp click of a key in the front gate announces the approach of the watchman on his regular fifteen-minute round. The woman darts to a rear window they have examined from their room with a glass and found to be.a weak point, guarded only by the dog, and she works quietly while her husband leaps forth boldly, snaps at the watchman, imitates the dog’s bark exactly, and rages back and forth angrily in the moonlight to convince the watchman that all is well and the house- perfectly protected. He had practiced the part for weeks, you see, and was letter-perfect in it. I saw the sketch when it was produced in London, and I could not tell him from the real dog. This scene occurs at that fearful moment, the darkness before dawn; the watchman notes that the dog is a bit fiercer than usual, and draws a deep sigh of relief as he reaches the gate. The stage is darkened and the audience hushed. “Before the watchman makes his next round the trick is done. The nervy, desperate woman has chloroformed the miser and rifled his mattress. The real dog is fast reviving from the effects of the chloroform. The whole thing has been nicely timed, and the pair just disappear over the wall with their booty in a black apron like that in the corner there, when the dog, whose collar has been reattached to the chain by the man when through with his little Impersonation, leaps out and barks at the watchman, who is just arriving on his rounds. The animal, maddened on his recovery, lunges at the watchman, and barks so furiously that the noise brings the old miser out of his stupor; the dog leaps in the air and breaks his chain as the miser throws up hie window to cry for help. As a grand finale the dog is shot just before he leaps on the watchman, thus giving tangible proof that the animal had been on guard all the time, and covering up the real entrance and exit of- the burglars. Then the curtain goes down amid great applause." There was dead silence as Christopher Poe finished and stood up, his eyes darting beneath their bushy brows from one to the other .of the Twirley Twins. . “I’m afraid you’ve missed the sixfifty,” he said in a hesitant tone. “I thought you’d let me Into the room to sort of prove an alibi if you needed one —I meanjn skipping your board bill or some other crime you may have committed—so I accommodatingly set my watch back half an hour to cover the minutes during which the crimp might have been committed. I knew you would both be relieved to hear me announce that it was only five-thirty." Neither spoke. Suddenly Mrs. Twirley swung around and demanded: “Well, how the devil did they prove the crime on the team in your precious sketch?” "Oh, there wasn’t any crime at aIL The couple reconsidered their action, decided they could make more money on the stage with the sketch, and repeating the crime in acrobatic pantomime every night for five or six years at fifty dollars a night with perfect security of physical and mental freedom. So in a little third ecene in the sketch they called a messenger boy, and sent him round to the miser with two suit-cases packed with his money. That pleased the audience and —■* Mrs. Twirley stared at him as though he were unreal, and threw her hands to her head in a frenzy, screaming:

“How in heaven did you ferret out all this, you—you weasel?" "I’ve got a room looking out into the Dubois court myself,” smiled Poe, turning toward her frankly, now that she had given in. **lt’s just next door. I’ve heard Dickie bark in imitation of Alert to entertain the landlady. I’ve seen you both examining that Dubois* window with the telescope. I was more or less prepared, and being somewhat of a night-prowler myself, I just happened around with a skeleton key or two and gathered a bit of material for a—vaudeville sketch. I can get you booked either way you like, at Billy Ryan’s Vaudeville agency or the station house. It’s up to you!” The woman looked sharply from Poe to her husband, and then furtively at the two suitcases which she had left unguarded in the corner. “He’s only bluffing, Dickie!” she cried., “I know it," Twirley answered. ‘‘But it sort of stands to reason I’d rather get fifty a week clean from Billy Ryan than fifty thousand that’d stick like mud to my fingers every time I started to spend it,” “Bully for you!” cried Christopher Poe. “I*ve got a skeleton plan of the sketch in my pocket here. I'll back you two for a set of props. Your wife and I will go over , the sketch, Dickie, while you run out and call a messenger.” Mrs. Twirley, with a submissive gulp, burst into a flood of genuine tears. “Yes,” she said softly. “Go ahead' Dickie, he’s got the real dope.”