CHAPTER XXIV ESCAPE
Fibsy was at his wits' end. And the wits' end of Terence McGuire was atsome distance from their beginning. But he had scrutinized every step ofthe way, and now he disconsolately admitted to himself that he had reallyreached the end.
He had been shut up in the strange house nearly a week. He was mostcomfortably lodged and fed, he had much reading matter supplied for hisperusal, though none of it was newspapers, and Kito offered to playparchesi with him by way of entertainment. The Japanese was polite, evenkindly, but he was inflexible in the matter of obeying his orders. Andhis scrupulous fidelity precluded any possibility of Fibsy's gettingaway, or even getting out of the rooms allotted to his use.
But when the boy rose one morning after a refreshing night's sleep andhad a satisfying breakfast, and was at last locked in his room for themorning, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and clinched his impotentyoung fists in rage and despair.
"I gotta make me bean woik better," he groaned to himself, the tensenessof the situation causing him to revert to his use of street slang. "Igotter get outen here, an' most likely it's too late now. I'm a nicedetective, I am, can't get out the fust time I'm in a hole! Gee! I'mgonta get out!"
Followed a long session of hard thinking, and then a gleam of light cameto him. But he needs must wait till Kito brought up his dinner.
And at noon or thereabouts, Kito came with the usual well-appointed trayof good food.
Fibsy looked it over nonchalantly. "All right, Kite," he said, "but say,I gotta toothache. I wish you'd gimme a toothpick,--not quill,--thewooden kind."
Sympathetic and solicitous, the Japanese produced from his own pocket alittle box of his native toothpicks, of which Fibsy accepted a couple,and pocketed them. And then, came the strategical moment. His purposemust be effected while the Jap was still in the room. And it was. Sidlingto the half-open door, Fibsy called Kite's attention to a dish on thetray, and then thrust a toothpick quickly in beside the bolt of the lock,and broke it off short.
In order to keep his jailer's attention distracted, Fibsy then waxedloquacious, and dilated on the glories of a wonderful movie show.
Kito listened attentively, and though he said no word about going to seeit, he inquired carefully where it was, and Fibsy's hopes began to rise.
"But if ever you go, Kite," he said, "you wanter see the very beginnin','relse you lose all the fun."
At last, Fibsy finished his dinner and the Jap took up the tray.Breathlessly, but unnoticeably, Fibsy watched him, and as he went out ofthe door, and turned the key in the lock, he didn't notice that the boltdidn't shoot home as usual, but the door was really left unlocked.
Fibsy's heart beat like a trip-hammer as he heard the catlike footstepsgo down stairs.
Unable to wait, he tried the door, and found it was open. He slipped outinto the hall. Down two flights, he could hear the Japanese, going abouthis business. Warily, Fibsy crept down one stair-case. Then he steppedinto the front room on that floor. It was evidently the room of a grandlady. Silver trinkets were here and there, but Fibsy's quick eyes notedthat the bureau was dismantled, and there were no appearances of actualoccupancy.
"Mrs. Autchincloss is away fer the summer," he said, sapiently. "Lesseefurder."
It was a risk, but Kito rarely came upstairs so soon after dinner, so theboy went through to the back room on the second floor.
"Bachelor," he said, nodding his head at the appointments on thechiffonier. "Stayin' in town. Kinder Miss Nancy,--here's a little sewin'kit some dame made fer him. An' the way his brushes an' things is fixed,shows he ain't got no wife. So this ain't Mr. Autchincloss. Well,lemmesee. Writin' table next. Not much doin'. Fixin's all fer show. Sposehe writes down in the liberry. Wisht I could git down there. Here's a lotof his friends."
Fibsy had spied a pack of snapshots and small photographs, and hastilyran them over. They were all unknown faces to him, except one whichchanced to be the postcard of Judge Hoyt taken in Philadelphia station.
"Hello! The guy wot lives here is a frien' o' Judge Hoyt. No, not afriend, but a nennermy. Cos, I dope it out, that friend guy's locked meup here fer fear I'll help Judge Hoyt's case. Oh, no, I dunno, as it'sthat. I dunno what it is. I wisht I could get word to Mr. Stone. If Ionly dared use that telephone. But Kite would fly up here quicker'n scat!Well, I'll swipe this card, cos it looks interestin'."
Then Fibsy, still with a wary eye on the hall door, searched the room andits dressing-room and closets, and was rewarded by some furtherdiscoveries, one of which was a dirk cane. This article was among anumber of other canes and umbrellas in the far end of a deep closet.
"Now, o' course," he mused, "maybe tain't the right cane, an' maybe 'tis.But if it is, then this here's the moiderer's house, an' he locked me incos he's scared o' me. Well, it's all too many fer me. Hello, wot'sthis?" He opened a small door in the side of the deep closet. Thereseemed to be an elevator shaft, with no car. As a matter of fact, it wasa laundry chute, but Fibsy was unacquainted with conveniences of thatsort, and didn't know its purpose. But he saw at once that the shaft ledto the basement, and that it went upward, to a similar opening in theroom above. And the room above was his room!
Softly he crept back upstairs, and re-entered his room. He dislodged thefragment of toothpick, and closed the door. If Kito discovered it wasunlocked, he couldn't help that now. He went straight to his own closet,and sure enough there was the same sort of a slide door, and it gave ontothe same chute, hung over it. At last a possible way of exit. Precarious,for he had not yet decided on a safe way of descending a bare shaft, buthis mind was at work now, and something must come of it.
And his mind produced this plan. He knew where Kito was now. Always atthat time in the afternoon, the Japanese was in his own room in the rearpart of the first floor of the house. Previous desultory chat had broughtout this fact. And Fibsy's plan was to make a soft bed at the foot of theshaft and jump down. Dangerous, almost positively disastrous, but theonly chance.
"'Course I'll break me bloomin' back or legs or suthin', but anyway thehorsepital'd be better'n this, an' then I could get aholt of Mr. Stone."
So, swiftly and noiselessly, he removed all the bedding from his bed, anddown the chute he threw the mattress, dropping on it the blankets andpillows.
"Here goes!" he said, not pausing to consider consequences, and,balancing for an instant on the ledge, he let himself go, and came downwith a soft thud on the pillows.
Whether it was because he relaxed every muscle and fell limply, orwhether it was because of a kind fate looking after him, he sustained noinjuries. Not a bone broke, and though the jar was stunning, he recoveredafter a few minutes, and sat up half-dazed, but rapidly becoming alert,and looking about him.
The semi-darkness of the shaft showed him the exit, and it proved to beinto the laundry in the basement of the house.
The rest was easy. Listening intently for a sound of Kito, and hearingnone, Fibsy deliberately walked out of the basement door, and into thestreet.
He did not hurry, being desirous not to attract attention in any way, andas he went through the area gate, he looked up and noted the number ofthe house. It was as he had surmised, a house closed for the summerduring the absence of the family. The Japanese butler had been retainedas caretaker, and whoever was Fibsy's captor, gave the orders. Kito wasso trustworthy and faithful, there could have been no chance of Fibsy'sescape save by some such ingenious method as he had used.
"Only," he blamed himself, "why the dickens didn't I think of it sooner?"
Reaching the corner, he noted the street the house was on, but thefashionable locality, in the upper West Seventies, was unfamiliar to him,and he had no idea whose house he had been living in.
Nor had he had time to find out. An investigation of a street directorymight have told him, but he concluded to lose no time in communicatingwith Fleming Stone.
But first, he telephoned his aunt to relieve the anxiety he knew s
he mustbe feeling.
"It's all right, Aunt Becky," he announced, cheerily. "Don't you worry,don't you fret. I'm on important business, and I'll be home when I getthere. So long!"
Then he called up Fleming Stone's office. The detective was not in, butFibsy made it so plain to a secretary that Mr. Stone must be found atonce, that the finding was accomplished, and by the time Fibsy in histaxicab reached the office, Fleming Stone was there too.
"Terence!" exclaimed the detective, grasping the boy's hand in his own."Come in here."
He took the lad to his inner sanctum, and said, "Tell me all about it."
"There's such a lot, Mr. Stone," began Fibsy, breathlessly, "but first,how's the trial goin'? I ain't seen a pape since I was caught. I wantedto get one on the way here, but I got so int'rested in this herecard,--say, look here. This is a pitcher of Judge Hoyt in the PhillyStation the day of the moider. You know he was in Philly that day."
"Yes, he was," and Stone looked harassed. "He certainly was. He wrotefrom there and telegraphed from there and I've seen a card like the oneyou have there, and that settles it. I wish I could prove he wasn'tthere."
"Well, Mr. Stone, he prob'ly was there, all right, but this here picturewasn't took on that day."
"How do you know?"
"De-duck-shun!" and Fibsy indulged in a small display of vanity, quitejustified by his further statement. "You see, this card shows the bignews stand in the waitin' room. Well, the papers on the news stand ain'tthat week's papers!"
"What?"
"No, sir, they ain't. You see, I read every week 'The Sleuth's OwnMagazine', an' o' course I know every number of that 'ere thing's well'sI know my name. An' here, you see, sir, is the magazine I'm speakin' of,right here in the picture. Well, on it is a cover showin' a lady tied ina chair wit' ropes. Well, sir, that roped lady was on the cover two weeksafter Mr. Trowbridge was killed, not the day of the moider."
"You're sure of this, Terence?" and Stone looked at the boy with anexpression almost of envy. "This is very clever of you."
"Aw, shucks, tain't clever at all. Only, I know them magazines like amother'd know her own children. I read 'em over an' over. An' I know thatpicture on that cover came out more'n two weeks later'n what Judge Hoytsaid it did. I mean, he didn't have that card taken of himself on the dayhe said he did."
"Motive?"
"That I dunno. I do know Judge Hoyt is tryin' sumpin' fierce to clear Mr.Landon--has he done it yet?"
"No, Terence, but the trial is almost over, and I think the judge hassomething up his sleeve that he's holding back till the last minute. Inever was in such a baffling mystery case. Every clue leads nowhere, orgets so tangled with contradictory clues that it merely misleads. Nowtell me your story."
Fibsy told the tale of his imprisonment, and the manner of his escape. Hetold the street and number of the house, and he told of his discovery ofa dirk cane in a cupboard.
"An' Mr. Stone," he went on, "I found the shoe the button came off of."
"You're sure it was a shoe button?" and Fleming Stone smiled atrecollection of the button that had been described as of severalvarieties.
"Yes, sir. An' every time I said that button was a kind of button that itwasn't, I was glad afterward that I said it. Yes, Mr. Stone it's a shoebutton an' in that same house I was in, is the shoe it useter be on."
"Look out now, Terence, don't let your zeal and your imagination run awaywith you."
"No, sir, but can't you go there yourself, and get the shoe and the cane,or send for 'em, and if they fit the cane mark in the mud, and if thebutton I've got is exactly like those on that shoe, then ain't theresumpin in it, Mr. Stone? Ain't there?"
The freckled face was very earnest and the blue eyes very bright as Fibsywaited for encouragement.
"There's a great deal in it, Fibsy. You have done wonderful work. In factso wonderful, that I must consider very carefully before I proceed."
"Yes, sir. You see maybe the place where I was, might be the house ofthat Mr. Lindsay, he's a friend of Mr. Landon's--"
"Wait a bit, child. Now you've done much, so very much, have patience togo a little slowly for the next move. Do you remember what the inspectortold about the noises he heard when the Italian woman first telephonedhim about Mr. Trowbridge?"
"Yes sir, every woid. Rivetin' goin on. Phonograph playin' an' kidswhoopin'-coughin' like fury."
"Well, from the Board of Health I've found the general location ofwhooping-cough cases at about that time, now if we can eliminate othersand find the Italian ones--"
"Yep, I und'stand! Goin' now?"
"Yes, at once."
Calling a taxicab, they started, and Stone went to an Italian quarternear 125th Street, where whooping-cough had been prevalent a few weeksprevious.
"Find the house, Fibsy," he said, as they reached the infected district.
Unsmilingly, Fibsy's sharp, blue eyes scanned block after block.
"New buildin'," he said, at last, thoughtfully; and then, darting acrossthe street, to a forlorn little shop, he burst in and out again, crying,"Here you are, Mr. Stone!"
Stone crossed the street and entered the shop. There was a swarthyItalian woman, and several children, some coughing, others quarreling andall dirty.
A phonograph was in evidence, and Fibsy casually looked over the recordstill he found the rag-time ditty the inspector had recalled.
He called up headquarters and asked Inspector Collins if that were themusic he heard before. "Yes," said Collins, and Stone shouted, "Hold thatwire, Fibsy, wait a minute," and dragging the scared woman to thetelephone he bade her repeat the message she had given the day of themurder.
"Same voice! Same woman!" declared the inspector, and Stone hung up thereceiver.
Then he soothed the frightened Italian, promising no harm should come toher if she told the truth.
The truth, as she tremblingly divulged it, seemed to be, that some manhad come to her shop that afternoon, and forced her to telephone as hedictated. She remembered it all perfectly, and had been frightened out ofher wits ever since. He had given her ten dollars which she had neverdared to spend, as it was blood money!
"Describe the man," said Stone.
"I not see heem good. He hold noosa-paper before his face, and maka mespeak-a telephone."
"How did he make you? Did he threaten you?"
"He have-a dagger. He say he killa me, if I not speak as he say."
"Ah, a dagger! An Italian stiletto?"
"No, not Italiano. I not see it much, I so fright'. But I know it if Isee it more!"
After a few more questions, Stone was ready to go. But Fibsy sidled up tothe woman. "Say," he said, "what you give your bambinos for the cough,hey? Med'cine?"
"No, I burna da Vaporina, da Vap' da Cressar lina----"
"Gee! Quite so! All right, old lady, much obliged!"
After that matters whizzed. On the ride down town, Fibsy told Stone much.Stone listened and made that much more. The two acted as complements, theboy having gathered facts which the man made use of.