CHAPTER XI.--Guilt Sees Its Finish.

"My, but I'm glad you've come!" said Dick, in a tone of relief. "Cut me free, please."

"How came you to be in this shape?" asked the officer with the flashlight, while the other produced his knife and began severing the clothes line.

Dick told his story in as few words as possible, beginning with the appearance of the richly dressed blonde woman at his store that morning. The policeman listened with attention.

"That fellow is no common rascal," said one of them, "and his name isn't Patterson, for a dollar bill. They have left the house of course?"

"I judge so, for I haven't heard a sound since I recovered my senses nearly an hour ago. Besides, the house appears to be locked up from the outside, or was until you came and got in. How did you manage to do it?"

The policeman told him about finding the key inside of the area gate, where it had evidently been placed by the man when he and the woman left.

"Well, come along to the police station with us, and we'll lock up the house again after we search it thoroughly. How much was the package worth you brought here?"

"Seven hundred dollars."

"They've got away with that, at any rate."

On their way upstairs Dick went into the library and replaced the telephone receiver on its hook. The officers were astonished to find the house so elegantly furnished, and they came to the erroneous conclusion that the family who occupied it was away, and that the crook and his accomplice had learned of the fact and taken possession of it for the purpose of working that particular job. The truth came out later when the police made a thorough investigation of the case.

The house was looked over from cellar to the top floor, and nothing was to be seen but the furniture and furnishings, just as the house had been rented. The officers were of the opinion that Patterson had cleaned out everything that was worth carrying off. It was about midnight now, and Dick went with the policemen to the station to which they were attached, and told his story over again, with more detail, to the man at the desk. He furnished a first-rate description of Patterson and of the woman he claimed as his wife, and after Dick was allowed to go home several detectives were put out on the case. Dick got home about one o'clock and found his family all exercised over his failure to come home at a reasonable hour.

Only two of his sisters were now living in the flat, as Gertie, the elder, had succeeded in hooking Clarence Peck, and the young couple were living in a small genteel flat of their own. Dick had to explain the cause that had detained him, and his mother and two sisters were horrified over the recital.

"What a narrow escape you had, my dear boy!" said his mother tearfully.

"That's right, but don't let us talk about it. Is there anything handy that I can eat?" he said.

"I'll warm up something," said Nellie, "while May will make you a cup of tea."

The girls prepared him a meal and after eating it he turned in with the others. His story was in the morning papers, and the first inkling that Mr. Bacon, his manager and the clerks got of it was through the morning journals. Dick appeared at the store on time, and in advance of the other employees, and as they arrived they gathered around him and bombarded him with questions. He satisfied their curiosity as well as he could, and when the manager turned up he took the boy in his room and asked him to give him the whole story. Then Mr. Bacon appeared and Dick was closeted with him for half an hour.

The manager in the meanwhile had communicated with the police, who told him they were working on the case, but so far without results. During the day one of the people who lived opposite the house where the adventure happened to Dick, after reading the story in the paper, reported to the police that he had seen an expressman take two trunks and two suitcases out of the house at about half-past eight on the evening before. By that time the police had learned the name of the owner of the house and its contents, and learned from his representative that Patterson had leased the place for a year, giving certain references. He had paid only one month's rent--the first. The second month would be due in a few days, thereby showing that Patterson and his accomplice had occupied the house but one month. The servant had been found in the house and interviewed by a policeman. She was very much astonished to learn of the character of the parties who had engaged her as a cook and general domestic.

She had been with them since they took possession, and thought them very nice people, though she saw little of the man. Under close questioning she called to mind many things which the detectives regarded as suspicious. In the course of a day or two some of Patterson's operations came to light, and the police picked up many clues concerning his movements while he was living at the house.

It was three days before the expressman who carried the trunks to the ferry was found, for he had been paid to keep a stiff upper lip, and had tried to keep out of the way, then the authorities got wise to the fact that the guilty couple had gone out of the city via the Pennsylvania road. By following the clue, the pair was traced to Pittsburg, and from there to Cincinnati, thence to St. Louis, where they were caught and brought back to New York.

Dick was called on to identify them, which he readily did. As he felt a certain gratitude toward the little blonde woman who had refused to lay him out with the slungshot, he would liked to have made matters as easy for her as possible; but there was no getting around her part of the business, and so she was held for grand larceny, and criminal participation in the other operations which were brought against the man who was supposed to be her husband. In the end she was sent to Auburn, while Patterson got a long sentence at Sing Sing, but Mr. Bacon recovered none of his loss, not even the diamond ring.

The merchant did not blame Dick for the loss of his goods. It was clear that the game had been too slickly worked for the boy to have acted differently than he had done. On the whole, Mr. Bacon thought his young clerk a lucky boy to have escaped with his life. Dick spent his third Christmas week with the Masons, and made further progress in the good opinion of the gentleman, his wife and the sister-in-law, and more firmly established himself in the heart of Madge. He visited the gypsy camp again and told Miriam of the peril he had passed through in connection with the Pattersons.

"Did I not tell you to beware of a tall, dark man and a short, light woman?" said the gypsy queen.

"By George, you're right! Do you know, that fact has never occurred to me till this moment," admitted Dick. "The man was tall and dark, and the woman was a small blonde. I was lucky to fare no worse than I did."

"It was the benign influence of your favorable planets that saved you from death. How old are you?"

"I was eighteen about six months ago," said Dick.

"It is as I thought. You were threatened with a sudden and violent death through the position of Saturn in the sky at the moment you entered that house in the city; and but for other planetary influences in your favor you would have fared badly."

"How can you tell all that without even looking at my hand?"

"I recall much that your hand told me, and the circumstances you have related to me enables me to make those deductions."

"Hand-reading and astrology seem to be more or less alike."

"They must agree, or there would be nothing in either. Cartomancy, which means the reading of the past, present or future through cards, also coincides with the other two, reaching the same results. Why, I can tell your character and all your characteristics by merely studying your physical appearance. You have a compact body, well-developed chest, and other traits that show at a glance the influence of the Sun and Jupiter at your birth, and indicate to an ordinary observer that you are endowed with good health and a resistance against disease. The color of your eyes, and hair, the size and shape of your hands, your ears, your eyebrows, all tell their story as clearly as if described in print. The very flush that you bear upon your cheeks shows beyond a doubt that you were born in the cycle of the Sun."

"You gypsies are a great people in your way, I am bound to say," said Dick, regarding Miriam with increased respect.

"Our ancestors came from Egypt. We are an old race."

"Well, I've got to be going," said Dick.

"You are bound back to the city--soon?"

"On the day after New Year's."

"When you return we will have departed, so I will say good-by forever."

"Maybe not. I expect to return at Easter."

"Unless the weather is backward, we will be on the move before then," she said. "One last look at your hand."

Dick gave it to her.

"I told you that you were coming into a fortune before long."

"I remember that you did. But there is very little chance of such a thing happening."

"The fortune will come to you around Easter."

"In what way?" asked Dick curiously.

"It is already yours. Indeed, you have been in possession of this fortune for three years."

"I have? Then it can't amount to much."

"It is a fortune in money."

"Why, I have been in possession of no money over a couple of hundred dollars."

"You have, but even now you know it not."

"How can I possess something and not be aware of the fact?"

"You will understand within four months. When the time comes, you will recall my words and say Miriam was right. She can read that which is hidden from most people. She has the power to see beyond the veil that hides from mankind the mysteries of life. And now good-by. Take this piece of bone and keep it as your emblem of good luck. Have it mounted in silver or gold and wear it as a charm on your watch chain. It will be worth your while. That is all."

With a smile she entered the tent, and Dick never saw her more; but he often had occasion to remember her and her words of truth.