Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 219, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1915 — Page 2

The Strange Adventures of Christopher Poe

ffruiWrtrfffr" —IT~ Cares Sohwrf Sacrwf by a

By ROBERT CARLTON BROWN

In the Crocodile’s Jaws

The sun shone hot in Hamburg that day; and nowhere was the heat more intense than in the wharf districts of Hamburg. Christopher Poe sauntered along the atrip of street, stopping now and then to inspect with fond eyes the striking lines of some fast freighter, or to scan one or another of the huge warehouses lining the other side of the street. He had skipped away from his banking duties in New York, and was touring through parts of the world as familiar to him as Fifth Avenue, or the Bowery. j At length, as he neared a great wharf, where no ship rode at anchor and on which a huge iron-bound warehouse stood, the rear square against the water, he stopped and strained forward, listening. There developed, as he listened, a wild mingling of noises, chorusing up in a perfect babble. There was a strange throng quickly collecting in front of the warehouse. Poe read in a flash the German sign stretching along the front of the buildHAGGERUP & CO., Dealers in WILD ANIMALS.

A huge plate-glass window in front, barred with heavy iron rods five inches apart, was belching forth smoke, through which the burning sun shone tally, illuminating a smashed plateglass tank right in front, with a thousand strange fish flapping and flashing on the floor amid the smoke and confusion. “Feuer! Feuer!” screamed the excited mob of sailors and longshoremen. The huge iron-bound door had evidently been burst open from within at the first alarm, and men went plunging through the cavernous opening with hastily snatched pails of water, and other men came struggling out, dropping, almost overcome with smoke. Then the fire wagon clanged up. Amid that hell of noise there came an Instantaneous lull. Christopher Poe, on the edge of the crowd and near the long side of the building extending back to the water, felt that he heard a far-off splash as though some Im gw animal, maddened by the flames, bad plunged into the water somewhere in the rear of the building. But duller and less watchful ears would not have caught the sound at all, for an instant .later the hubbub had broken out afresh, even more multlsonorous. There came a sudden metallic ring amid the vociferation; the heavy nozzle of the fire hose had already been rushed into service, and had clanged against an iron shield to the big door. It was all over in an astonishingly short time.

Something possessed Poe; he chafed under the yoke of inaction. Seizing an extra helmet from the wagon near by, he dashed into the building fearlesssly, Once within, Poe engaged, amid the clearing smoke and stifling steam, in a hand-to-hand conflict with several Mona monkeys. Sooty Mangabeys and Patas, which, in the excitement, had evidently broken open the door to the huge vivarium where they had been caged together as peaceful mates. When some order had been finally restored and the firemen were leaving, Poe joined the three frightened animal keepers, who were counting the recaptured monkeys, lemurs and marmosets. “Thank God!” cried one in German. “None of the larger beasts had got loose. If Babo, the ape. or that tiger there had got out! Mein Gott! What a scene! What a scene there would have been!” One of the keepers dashed off at that moment toward the crocodile pond, enclosed by a low wire fence. The crocodiles were still in commotion, doubtless due to the heating of the water in their pond and the cement which cropped out dry near the railing, where they sometimes lay, half out of water.

A cry came from him as he stopped before a single cage, the door flung open, swinging useless. “Babo!” he screamed. “Babo did escape. Where is he?” The appalled keepers were dumbfounded; one rushed to the front door to see if he had gone that way; another ran to the rear, and the third suddenly chased off toward a gallery at the side, where a huge Hamadryas baboon, who had so far escaped notice, clung to a wall support, uttering explosive, ear-cracking cries. The beasts had by no means become quiet. A sweat-dripping rhinoceros belched forth an occasional roar that made the building tremble; and two huge crocodiles In the tank were lashing their tails and beating about in a frenzy. Christopher Poe, aroused by the strange actions of these reptiles, stepped to the wired enclosure; one of the huge pairs of Jaws snapped at him as he approached and the wicked little eyes, set bulgingly at the sides of the head, gleamed cruelly. Warned back, Poe stood at a slight distance, looking on at the fierce foment within the pond. There were three beasts, one lying close to the railing utterly silent, ■with the usual malicious, hypocritical i smile of that reptile when its jaws and

(Copyright. by W. G. Chapman.)

eyes are shut in sleep. Strange that it could sleep through all the commotion. Poe suddenly started. Through the head of the animal, just above one closed eye, was a neat round bole, as though made by a bullet of high caliber; as the American looked close, he found that the hole was full of slow, sluggish blood, clotted at the top, a little of the thinner fluid dripping down the nose of the reptile and along the scallops of his jaws, jammed together as they were in that characteristic grim grin.

At that moment the keeper who had rushed to the rear came back with big, frightened eyes, and held out a thick steel window bar, pointed at one end, where it had fitted through a hole in the Iron-relnforced masonry. That end of the rod was coated with thick blood for six Inches upward from the point. “Babo jumped into the water from the little back window, ripping out these bars!” he cried in German. “Look! It is blood! He has used it to kill, or has hurt himself with it.” Poe answered smoothly in the same tongue, as though it were his language: “But an ape does not swim.” “He does not swim if he can help it! Ach, Gott! Ido not know what to make of it all.” “How did the fire start?" asked Poe. “That I do not know, either.” “But what kind of an ape was Babo?" asked Poe, feeling privileged through his work in assisting with the recaging of the monkeys. “Oh, he was a bad one,” said the first keeper. “We haven’t had him more than a week. He was to be shipped to America. He was a big brute, four feet high, an orang-outang; strong enough to twist off that big lock to his cage, you will notice. Weighed one hundred and forty pounds. Just came from Borneo. Seemed to be half tame, but vicious; you never can tell about those orangoutangs. They bought him from a native. The largest ever caught; worth a thousand dollars or more. It will mean our jobs, the losing of him.” “And here’s another little loss,” answered Poe soberly, taking the rod from the second keeper and pointing to the hole in the crocodile’s head. “Mein Gott!” cried the head keeper, the second keeper and the assistant in a commiserating chorus. It was easy to see how the animal had been killed. “Ach,” cried the head keeper, “here is another five hundred dollars gone. It is a rare Asiatic crocodile, lives only in salt water.”

“Better hoist it out,” warned Poe, as the other crocodiles were still lashing about, now and again striking with their tails the dead carcass, “or the hide won't be worth mounting.” The suggestion was acted upon at once, and a few minutes later, by the aid of a pole or two and some rope tackle, the monster lay without the enclosure.

Poe suddenly found himself alone beside the ugly form on the floor. The keepers had been interrupted by policemen and interested agents of the company, who had been admitted to the building. As he stooped to examine the mouth, he gave a sudden start. Where the scalloped edges of the jaws joined he noticed blood, and thought it came from the wound. But now he realized his mistake and, looking around to make sure that he was not observed, carefully took the clean end of the window bar and pried open the huge mouth. He swayed back at the astonishing sight that presented itsself. Then, controlling himself In a second, after passing a wavering hand through his hair, the helmet having toppled off, he made a quick, covert motion, took something from between the ugly jaws of the monster, wrapped the object dexterously in two handkerchiefs, and slipped it into his coat pocket, a strange, thoughtful expression coming into his intense violet eyes, lips and eyebrows twitching in thought

Then he stood up, the reptilian jaws mashed back to place, and he turned to talk with one of the members of the firm of Haggerup & Co., who had been summoned to the scene of havoc. “You were very lucky,” said Poe. 'The fire was well controlled.” “Ah, but the rest is not over yet The fire did not do much damage, but think what may happen with Babo loose in the city! He is a powerful ape. He may kill a dozen men while avoiding recapture. It is not so much the loss of him as the fact that we can't conceal his escape or the people's lives will be endangered. We must tell all, and it will give the house a bad name. It will make people afraid of us.” “Call your keepers, then, and warn them to say nothing about" it. I think I can recover your ape before he collects any toll of human life, if you'll keep the thing secret. If it gets out that you know Babo has escaped, you won't have such a good chance to get him back." « “And who are you?” asked the other, evidently impressed by Poe’s manner. “Never mind that now. Tell me, have they found how the fire started?” “Yes. It was accidental. The big fish tank filled with strange new sped-

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND,

mens was moved today by some longshoremen, and foolishly left right where it would get the afternoon sun’s rays. I have cautioned against that before. Then some straw bedding was accidentally left where the sun’s rays, working through both the plate glass and the perfect sun glass formed by the fish tank full of water, could ignite it. It was great carelessness. But we mustn’t cry over spilled beer.** “Have you the names of those longshoremen who helped move the tank?” “No, of course not. They are just picked up along the docks when there is any work for them, and paid off on the spot.’’ , "And you don’t remember any of them?”

“No. But the keepers might Still, they have been so lax in their duty, I don’t suppose they noticed, either. They-were all in a back room where they live, playing cards, when the fire started. It being Saturday afternoon and no ship in, they gave that as an excuse. When they were finally aroused, they had to dash through the smoke and fire for their lives, to the front door, giving the alarm.” “Call them over here, anyway, will you?” replied Poe. “If this thing gets noised about you’ll probably never get Babo back, and of course it must be made known, for the animal is apt to do much harm. But I want you to promise you won’t give out the news before midnight tonight. It is now only four-thirty. Will you do it? I can only say that I have some inside facts that may help.”

“Yes, I will risk it,” was the reply. “Seven hours isn’t long. Babo will probably be so frightened he will not appear anywhere before morning, but he has made good his escape, and there is no use sending out many men to look for him now; it will only raise suspicion.” The helpers had gathered around meantime, and Poe questioned them quickly regarding the moving of the big glass fish tank. The head keeper and his second man were much embarrassed by his questions. They knew nothing, and finally admitted that the superintending of the tank, which had been moved just before noon, when the warehouse closed, to make room for a new cage, had been

left wholly to the younger man, their assistant. The young fellow finally recalled two or three of the longshoremen who had assisted with the work.

“Was there one who looked as though he might he a native of Borneo?” questioned Poe sharply. “Yes, a black man has hung around here for the past three or four days. They call him Jack; he’s a wharf-rat-from Borneo. He was the one who insisted on dropping his end of the tank right in front of the window, and it was left there because it was late and I was in a hurry for my lunch and never thought.” “Good!" cried Poe. Turning to the member of the firm, he requested that gentleman to wait for him there until midnight, and left at once, having stopped to examine some rather indistinct marks on the floor, leading from the crocodile pond to the small window in the rear, from which the bars had been torn. Then he hurried around to the narrow ledging at the back of the warehouse, and found, as he had expected, that the shed next door cut off a view of the little window from any small passing water-craft, and there were no big vessels in motion that afternoon. Having assured himself of this, and made note of a bloody print-on the side of the wall below the window, Poe hurried to the end of a near-by wharf, and rented a boat with a man to row him. He ordered the oarsman to take him back to the rear of the animal warehouse, and then row out slowly past the end of the docks. There he had the boat held still while he examined the bank on both the right and left. Finding that one side offered comparative safety from observation on account of being subject to less traffic, and having smaller deserted * .. . ’

piers along Its edge, Pee ordered to be rowed in that direction. Ho kept a sharp lookout along the bank for rowboats or small craft of any sort Several times he drew toward shore, and carefully examined the interior of a boat, drawn up, anchored, or tied. But nothing seemed to answer to the object of his search. At length, past six o’clock, he came to a little dock where boats were rented to the public. Here he landed, and tipped the proprietor for permission to examine the interior of his skiffs. He went over them carefully, and finished with a puzzled look, having found nothing.

Suddenly he turned to the proprietor, and asked in faultless German for an old rag to clean his boat with. The man brought out some dirty cloths, and Poe looked them over carefully missing nothing. Again his short, thick eyebrows came together sharply, and he shrugged his shoulders in disappointment. He suddenly turned to one corner, and picked up a handful of neglected rags. A throaty cry came from the old man. “Leave those alone!” he bellowed, charging Poe. But Poe had unwrapped one, and was holding it before the horrified old eyes of the waterman. It was a bit of bur}ap, and it was heavy and stained black with blood. “Tell me! Where did he go?” cried Poe, realizing the condition of affairs from the old man’s bearing: “I mean you no harm. You got a good round fee when the boat came back and you saw the blood, or I misjudge you. It is nothing serious. You will not appear in court. I only want to find the. man.”

-Poe dropped the blood-stained rag, and flashed an English sovereign, universal currency among seafaring men. The old eyes lighted. “Where did the man with the sick boy go?” he demanded, slipping the coin into the trembling palm, which closed over it with a snap. “I don’t know," answered the other. “But if you were to follow this alley to the place of Frau Klittenlein, who keeps a boarding house for foreign sailors, you might find something to your interest. I believe I heard at

dinner tonight that she had staying with her a black man with a little daughter, but you wouldn’t expect me to be riding about in boats. I hear he Is Injured.” “Good!" cried Poe, leaving the crafty old fellow and darting through the al* ley, filled with strange and loathsome odors issuing from huts and long, low lodging-houses occupied by lawless sailors from abroad—a very cut-throat of a neighborhood. At the rambling, low-browed lodginghouse to which the old waterman had directed him, Poe entered; having torn off his collar on the way, and wrapped his silk necktie about his throat after the manner of the longshoremen In the vicinity. He had rdmpled his hair, and torn his shirt, in the hope that, with an obtuse stare, he might convince Frau Klittenlein that he was her kind, and not arouse too much suspicion. The frau stood behind her dirty, flyinfested bar. The place was not yet in full evening swing; only a few sailors lolled about In the front room, playing with thumb-gummy cards, and lapping up their beer at long intervals. Poe lounged up to the dirty bar with the loose swing of a seafaring man; his coat thrown back so she could see the shirt he had torn and dirtied, that she might overlook the newness of the doth. “I’ve got a friend stayin’ here, Frau Klittenlein," he said in swaggering tone in very low German, having ordered a drink. “If it’s convenient for him to see me, I’d like to say hello.” “Anc| I was just goin' to suggest," he continued, “that I’d take him up a bottle of the best schnapps you’ve got in the house, Frau Klittenlein. He’s a black man, you know, and we’ve drank our whisky together out of Borneo, many's the time, to keep off the fever.” She gave him a shrewd, calculating

look, and reached mechanically for a fly-specked bottle on a shelf behind her, handing it to him with the re* mark: "I guess youll do! You’re a jolly one for the drink yourself—or the woman wouldn’t have rumpled your hair all over your head like that. Four marks Is the price, and a better drink ain’t to be had to Hell’s Quarter.” Christopher Poe gave her a knowing wink, took the bottle, and paid her; still holding out his hand after she had taken the money. "What do you want now?” she growled, expressing the gruff good-na-ture of her kind. "More drink?” "No. The key!” She looked at him for a calculating second. Evidently he passed mustdr. She handed him the heavy iron key, and indicated the rickety stairs at the end of the room. “Way in the back, right-hand side, last door,” she told him.

As Poe rolled out toward the stairs, Frau Kllttenlein suddenly leaned far ovdr the bar, and had a good look at his back. The American cut to his clothes could not be mistaken. Fool a "German on clothes! Her nose twitched in astonishment. He was a rum one! She hurried put from behind the bar the moment Poe had begun clumping up the stairs. Her finger was on her hard, colorless lips as she approached the tableful of loungers, and said something in a hoars ev whisper; whereupon three of her loutish guests lurched from their seats, and sneaked silently up the stairs after the man with the seafaring manner and the American clothes.

Christopher Poe turned the key .noiselessly In the door to which he had been directed, stepped Into the bare room, and as quickly and silently replaced the key and locked the door on the inside. All the time his eyes were watchful. The room was black; Poe succeeded in igniting his cigar-lighter, and transferring the light to a candle his groping fingers had sought out on a rude stand near by.

A low guttural cry burst forth as the light shone out. A mass of white clothes upheaved, and an ugly black face with drawn lips showing gleaming teeth, and terronrolling white eyeballs bursting out above, stared at Poe as though he were the devil himself. There came a startling bumping and clawing from the little closet close beside the bed. The black man trembled, reached covertly along the wall, and had his hand in the catch to the closet door when Poe walked quietly toward him and said in French: “Don’t open that door and let your daughter, Babo, out. Let her stay there safely. I noticed the nice little hood and shawl on the foot of the bed there as I entered.” There came a crooning cry from within the closet. "How’s your foot?” Inquired Poe, as the black man cringed back among the coarse bed-clothes, and glared with glassy eyes, teeth chattering. “Who are you? What you want?” cried the man in French, very broken French. “I am from Haggerup & Co. I Just came to get Babo back. We miss her.” "You don’t know what you’re talking about I never—” “But tell me about that foot, Jock!” Poe insisted. At the same time he took from his pocket the object he had removed from the dead crocodile’s mouth. The handkerchiefs were bloody; the black man watched with glowing, fascinated eyes, as Poe opened out the linen on his palm, and suddenly revealed to the horrified eyes of the man on the bed two mangled toes and a snapped-off footbone. What skin showed was black, matching Jock’s.

Poe dropped the disgusting exhibit It had served its purpose. The black man went gray and screamed; at the same time he shot back the bolt to the*closet-door, and as Poe sprang forhis throat, he received full in the stomach a vicious seaman’s kick which sent him bounding back against the outer door, breath-sapped. There came a snarl and a sudden scream; a piercing animal cry; the room revolved in a dimly outlined mass of kicking, struggling legs and arms.

A maze “of curses burst forth. The clatter and din was hideous. Poe had lurched to his feet, and stood for a moment staring fixedly at the scene of jumbled confpsion within the small room. Yes, there it was—at last He saw it Through the dim light those gripping teeth gleamed, that hairy, horrid-eyed head arose. Babo, the huge ape, was loose. Babo clung there tense to the bedstead, protectingly above hie master, and his huge hairy fist shot out like a steel spring, and grasped the—foremost of the sailors. Another agonMed scream! A wild animal cry! “Babo! Babo!” yelled Jock in a throaty rattle above the din. “Sacre Bleu! Le diable! Jesu —” There was a crash of feet in the passage without; headed by a huge lamp, in rushed Frau Klittenlein, followed by the remaining loungers from below. A mixture of vile oaths punctured the smoke-filled atmosphere. Poe was suddenly mashed against the passage wall by the bellowing sailors bursting forth from that hideous black hole of a room. There came a resounding crash of glass. Poe leaped through the passage, knocking down two lumbering fellows who strove to stop him. He shot down the stairs and outside, around to the ground beneath Jock’s window., There lay a crumpled form, moaning. He turned the man on his back, ignited the cigar-lighter, and gazed into the black face of the sailor from Borneo, whoa s Bps were working violently in excruciating agony, and cov-

ered with white foam. Poe caught sight of his feet; a bloody bandage on one had worked up to his ankle, and tlie maimed foot lacked two toes. A quick motion from beside the huddled form made Poe spin around juet in time to evade the snap of ferocious teeth. Babo, the ape, confronted him, struggling toward him weakly, evidently injured. Poe leaped upon the ape, caught him fairly about his hairy throat, and struggled for a violent half-minute with him. Then the monkey's steel-grip-ping hands relaxed their hold. Poe jumped to his feet, turned hastily toward a mass of frenzied men bursting from the front door of the lodginghouse, and, gathering up the dead weight of the powerful monkey, clutched it close, and managed with difficulty, to stagger down the winding alley to the water, turning but once to find that the group had stopped at the insensible form of the black man. He jumped into the waiting skiff, threw his heavy burden in the bottom, and pushed off, telling the man to row like the devil back to Haggerup wharf. During the trip Poe wound rope about the orang-outang's muscular limbs, and noted with relief that the animal was still alive and beginning to struggle again.

The member of the firm was waiting for him within the big Haggerup warehouse, in which order had now been restored. Poe gave Babo to the keepers, and not stopping for explanations, grasped the astounded member of the firm by the arm and rushed him into the street. They found a cab some blocks away and drove at once to the hospital nearest Hell’s Quarter. In answer to the German’s breathless demands for an explanation, Poe sketched the following briefly during the ride: “That black man your assistant keeper described and called Jock pulled off the trick. I thought it from the first, when I found he had moved the glass tank into the eun. “That’s why I asked you to wait before sending out news of Babo’s escape; I didn’t Want the thief to take alarm too quickly. The natives of Borneo are shrewd; they made fire with the sun’s rays through glass crystals. He saw the power of that tank and figured out the inevitable result Providing himself with a hood and a shawl, he went alone in a rowboat this afternoon to the end of your ware house, where he climbed to the narrow ledge around it, and worked at the window-bars while he was waiting for the fire to start in the straw he had attended to placing where it would catch the sun’s rays and surely ignite; possibly he put some matches there to hurry matters. “When he saw the fire finally- flame up, he jerked off the remaining bars, and when your surprised keepers dashed from their quarters through the smoke and confusion Jock jumped in at the back window, barefooted for quickness, as he always worked aboard'ehip, carrying one of the bars with him to break off the lock of Babo’s cage. In his haste and eagerness he accidentally stumbled into the crocodile pep; one of the aroused reptiles nipped off two of his toes. He promptly killed the beast with the pointed steel window-rod, rushed to Babo’s cage, and released his pet, who probably clung to him, though, of course, he was very heavy. That species of ape, as you know, is very faithful to a chosen master, and only dangerous with strangers. Jock then broke open the big common monkey cage with the bar, to insure the diapse of a greater space of time before Babo should be missed, if the fire were controlled. He calculated well. Then he probably pushed Babo first through the window himself. I heard the splash. Then he must have helped Babo into the boat, crawled in himself, disguised his frightened pet in the hood and shawl, and rowed along the more deserted and smaller wharves back to the foreign quarter, where he had rented the boat Then he explained to the boatman, suspicious of his bundle, that it was his sick daughter, and told the same story to the lodging-house woman, making some explanation for his sore foot stopped to bandage in burlap anew at the waterman’s.”

By this time they had arrived at the hospital, and, as Poe expected, found Jock, who had just been brought In by the astonished sailors, who had no wish to have the man die on their hands. Poe and the member of the Haggerup firm sat with the black fellow until he became conscious. Then Poe easily possessed himself of all the facts. His story sketch had been correct in all essentials. Poor Jock sobbed pitifully for his pet, and explained how he had caught Babo when young, with his own hands, and had only been led to part with him to the seaport trader owing to his own dissolute life of drunkenness and petty criminality, which always found him in dire need of money. After he- had awakened from the spree celebrated on the proceeds of Babo’s sale, he was lonesome. No human being could satisfy his longing.. He wanted Babo back, so he slipped to Hamburg, being a universal wharf-rat, sailor and acquainted with the whole world. Arriving almost as soon as Babo, he located the Haggerup warehouse and hung around waiting for some chance to steal back his pet. At last he grew desperate, and when chance threw the opportunity in his way, in the shape of the plate-glass fish-tank, he seised upon it, worked out | he details with the craft of a bloodcareless savage, and carried the plan t$ its frightful finish, bHnd to every< tiling but his own desires.