CHAPTER XI.

IN THE HOUSE OF THE MERCHANT PRINCE.

It was near eleven o'clock, on the night of December 23d, 1844, when Evelyn Somers, Sen., sitting in his library by the light of the shaded candle, was startled by the ringing of the bell.

"The front door-bell!" he ejaculated, looking up from his labors, until the candle shone full upon his thin features and low forehead. "Can it be Evelyn? Oh! I forgot. He returned only this evening. One of the servants, I suppose--been out late--must look to this in the morning."

He resumed his pen, and again, surrounded by title-deeds and mortgages, bent down to his labors.

So deeply was he absorbed that he did not hear the opening of the front door, followed by a footstep in the hall. Nor did he hear the stealthy opening of the door of the library; much less did he see the burly figure which advanced on tiptoe to his table.

"Be calm!" said a gruff voice, and a hand was laid on his shoulder.

"Hey! What? Who,--who--are--you?" The merchant prince started in his chair, and beheld a burly form enveloped in a bear-skin overcoat and full-moon face, spotted with carbuncles.

"Be calm!" said the owner of the face, in a hoarse voice. "There's no occasion to alarm yourself. These things will happen."

The merchant prince was thoroughly amazed.

Opening his small eyes, half concealed by heavy lids, to their fullest extent, he cried: "What do you mean? Who are you?--I don't know you? What--what--"

"I'm Blossom, I am," returned the full-moon face, "_Lay low! Keep dark!_ I'm Blossom, one of the _secret police_. Lay low!"

"My God! Is Evelyn in another scrape?" ejaculated the merchant prince; "I will pay for no more of his misdeeds. There's no use of talking about it. I'll not go his bail, if he rots in the Tombs. I'll--" Mr. Somers doggedly folded his arms, and sat bolt upright in his chair.

With his contracted features, spare form and formal white cravat, he looked the very picture of an unrelenting father.

"Come, hoss, there's no use of that."

"Hoss! Do you apply such words to me," indignantly echoed the merchant prince.

"Be calm," soothingly remarked Blossom. "Lay low. Keep dark. Jist answer me one question: Has your son Evelyn a _soot_ o' rooms in the upper part o' this house?"

"What do you ask such a question for?" and Mr. Somers opened his eyes again. "He has all the rooms on the third floor, in the body of the mansion--there are four in all."

"Very good. Now, is Evelyn at home?" asked Blossom.

"Don't come so near. The smell of brandy is offensive to me. Faugh!"

"You'll smell brimstone, if you don't take keer!" exclaimed the indignant Blossom. "To think o' sich ingratitude from an old cock like you, when I've come to keep that throat o' yourn from bein' cut by robbers."

"Robbers!" and this time Mr. Somers fairly started from his seat.

"When I've come to purtect your _jugular_,--yes, you needn't wink,--your _jugular!_ Oh, it was not for nothing that a Roman consul once remarked that republics is ungrateful."

"Robbers? Robbers! What d'ye mean? Speak--speak--"

Blossom laid his hand upon the merchant's shoulder.

"If you'll promise to keep a secret, and not make a fuss. I'll tell you all. If you go for raisin' a hellabaloo, I'll walk out and leave your jugular to take care of itself."

"I promise, I promise," ejaculated the merchant.

"Then, while you are sittin' in that ere identical chair, there's two crackmen--burglars, you know,--hid up-stairs in your son's room. They're a-waitin' until you put out the lights, and go to sleep, and then,--your cash-box and jugulars the word?--Why, I wouldn't insure your throat for all your fortin."

The merchant prince was seized with a fit of trembling.

"Robbers! in my house! Astounding, a-s-t-o-u-n-d-i-n-g! How did they get in?"

"By your son's night-key, and the front door. You see I was arter these crackmen to-night, and found 'em in a garret of the Yaller Mug. You never patronize the Yaller Mug, do you?"

Mr. Somers nodded "No," with a spasmodic shake of the head.

"Jist afore I pitched into 'em, I listened outside of the garret door, and overheard their plot to conceal themselves in Evelyn's room, until you'd all gone to bed, and then commence operations on your cash-box and jugular. One o' 'em's a convict o' eleven years' standin'. He's been regularly initiated into all the honors of Auburn and Cherry Hill."

"And you arrested them?"

"Do you see this coverlet about my head? That's what I got for attemptin' it. They escaped from the garret, by getting upon the roof, and jumpin' down on a shed. If my calculations are correct, they're up-stairs jist now, preparin' for their campaign on your cash-box and jugular."--

"Cash-box! I have no cash-box. My cash is all in bank!"

"Gammon. It won't do. Behind yer seat is yer iron safe,--one o' th' Salamanders; you're got ten thousand in gold, in _that_."

Mr. Somers changed color.

"They intend to blow up the lock with powder, after they'd fixed your _jugular_."

Mr. Somers clasped his hands, and shook like a leaf.

"What's to be done, what's to be done!" he cried in perfect agony.

"There's six o' my fellows outside. I've got a special warrant from the authorities. Now, if you've a key to Evelyn's rooms, we'll just go up-stairs and search 'em. You can stand outside, while we go in. But no noise,--no fuss you know."

"But they'll murder you," cried the merchant, "they'll murder me. They'll,"--

Blossom drew a six-barreled revolver from one pocket, and a slung-shot from the other.

"This is my _settler_," he elevated his revolver, "and this, my _gentle persuader_," he brandished the slung-shot.

"Oh!" cried Mr. Somers, "property is no longer respected,--ah! what times we've fallen in!"

"How many folks have you in the house?"

"The servants sleep in the fourth story, over Evelyn's room. The housekeeper sleeps under Evelyn's room, and my room and the room of my private secretary are just above where I am sitting."

"Good. Now take the candle, and come," responded Blossom, "we want you as a witness."

The merchant prince made many signs of hesitation,--winking his heavy lids, rubbing his low forehead with both hands, and pressing his pointed chin between his thumb and forefinger,--but Blossom seized the candle, and made toward the door.

"You are not going to leave me in the dark?" cried Mr. Somers, bounding from his chair.

"Not if you follow the light," responded Blossom; "by-the-by, you may as well bring the keys to Evelyn's room."

With a trembling hand, Mr. Somers lifted a huge bunch of keys from the table.

"There, open all the rooms on the second and fourth floors," he said, and followed Blossom into the hall.

There, shoulder to shoulder, stood six stout figures, in glazed caps and great coats of rough, dark-colored cloth, with a mace or a pistol protruding from every pocket. They stood as silent as blocks of stone.

"Boys," whispered Blossom, "we'll go up first. You follow and station yerselves on the second landin', so as to be ready when I whistle."

A murmur of assent was heard, and Blossom, light in hand, led the merchant prince toward the stairway which led upward from the center of the hall. At the foot of the stairway, they were confronted by a servant-maid, who had answered the bell when Blossom first rang: her red, round cheeks were pale as ashes, and she clung to the railing of the staircase for support.

"Och, murther!" she ejaculated, as she beheld the red face of Blossom, and the frightened visage of her master.

Blossom seized her arm with a tight grip.

"Look here, Biddy, do you know how to sleep?" was the inquiry of the rubicund gentleman.

"Slape?" echoed the girl, with eyes like saucers.

"'Cause if you don't go back into the kitchen, and put yourself into a sound sleep d'rectly; yourself, your master and me, will all be murdered in our beds. It 'ud hurt my feelin's, Biddy, to see you with your throat cut, and sich a nice fat throat as it is!"

Biddy uttered a groan, and shrunk back behind the stairway.

"Now then!" and Blossom led the way up-stairs, followed by the lean, angular form of the merchant prince, who turned his head over his shoulder, like a man afraid of ghosts.

They arrived at the small entry at the head of the stairs, on the third floor; three doors opened into the entry; one on the right, one on the left, and the third directly in the background, facing the head of the stairs.

"Hush!" whispered Blossom, "do you hear any noise?"

Advancing on tip-toe, he crouched against the door on the right, and listened. In an instant he came back to the head of the stairs, where stood Mr. Somers, shaking in every nerve.

"It's a snore," said Blossom, "jist go and listen, and see if it's your son's snore."

It required much persuasion to induce the merchant prince to take the step.

"Where are your men?"

Blossom pointed over the merchant's shoulder, to the landing beneath. There, in the gloom, stood the six figures, shoulder to shoulder, and as motionless as stone.

"Now will you go?"

Mr. Somers advanced, and placed his head against the door on the right. After a brief pause, he returned to the head of the stairs where Blossom stood. "It is not my son's _snore_," he said, "that is, if I am any judge of _snores_."

Blossom took the light and the keys, and advanced to the door on the right, which he gently tried to open, but found it locked. Making a gesture of caution to the merchant prince, he selected the key of the door from the bunch, softly inserted it, and as softly turned it in the lock. The door opened with a sound. Then stepping on tip-toe, he crossed the threshold, taking the light with him.

Mr. Somers, left alone in the dark, felt his heart march to his throat.

"I shall be murdered,--I know I shall," he muttered, when the light shone on his frightened face again. Blossom stood in the doorway, beckoning to him.

Somers advanced and crossed the threshold.

"Look there," whispered Blossom "now d'ye believe me?"

A huge man, dressed in the jacket and trowsers of a convict, was sleeping on the bed, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open, and one arm hanging over the bedside. His chest heaved with long, deep respirations, and his nostrils emitted a snore of frightful depth.

At this confirmation of the truth of Blossom's statement, Mr. Somers' face became as white as his cravat.

"Look _there_!" whispered Blossom, pointing to a pistol which lay upon the carpet, almost within reach of the brawny hand which hung over the bed-side.

"Good God! ejaculated Somers.

"Now look _there_!" Blossom pointed to the brandy bottle on the table, and held the light near it. "_Empty!_ d'ye see?"

Then Blossom drew from his capacious pocket, certain pieces of rope, each of which was attached to the middle of a piece of hickory, as hard as iron.

"Hold the light," and like a nurse attending to a sleeping babe, the ingenious Blossom gently attached one of the aforesaid pieces of rope to the ankles of the sleeper, in such a manner, that the two pieces of hickory,--one at either end of the rope,--formed a knot, which a giant would have found it hard to break. As the ankles rested side by side, this feat was not so difficult.

"Now for the wrists," and Blossom quietly regarded the position of the sleeper's hands. One was doubled on his huge chest, the other hung over the bedside. To straighten one arm and lift the other,--to do this gently and without awaking the sleeper,--to tie both wrists together as he had tied the ankles,--this was a difficult task, but Blossom accomplished it. Once the convict moved. "_Don't give it up so easy!_" he muttered and snored again.

Blossom surveyed him with great satisfaction.--"There's muscle, and bone, and fists,--did you ever see sich fists!"

"A perfect brute!" ejaculated Somers.

"Now you stay here, while I go into the next room, and hunt for the tother one."

This room, it will be remembered, communicated with an adjoining apartment by folding-doors. Blossom took the candle and listened; all was silent beyond the folding-doors. He carefully opened these doors, and light in hand, went into the next apartment. A belt of light came through the aperture, and fell upon the tall, spare form of the merchant prince, who, standing in the center of the _first_ apartment gazed through the aperture just mentioned, into the _second_ room. All the movements of Blossom were open to his gaze.

He saw him approach a bed, whose ruffled coverlet indicated that a man was sleeping there. He saw him bend over this bed, but the burly form of the police-officer hid the face of the sleeper from the sight of the merchant prince. He saw him lift the coverlet, and stand for a moment, as if gazing upon the sleeping man, and then saw him start abruptly from the bed, and turn his step toward the _first_ room.

"What's the matter with _you_," cried the merchant prince, "are _you_ frightened?"

Truth to tell, the full-moon face of Blossom, spotted with carbuncles, had somewhat changed its color.

"Can't you speak? It's Evelyn who's sleeping yonder,--isn't it? Hadn't you better wake him quietly?"

"Ah my feller," and the broken voice of Blossom, showed that he was _human_ after all--all that he had seen in his lifetime,--"Ah my feller, he'll never wake again."

Somers uttered a cry, seized the light and strode madly into the next room, and turned the bed where the sleeper laid. The fallen jaw, the fixed eyeballs, the hand upon the chest, stained with the blood which flowed from the wound near the heart--he saw it all, and uttered a horrible cry, and fell like a dead man upon the floor.

Blossom seized the light from his hand as he fell, and turning back into the first room blew his whistle. The room was presently occupied by the six assistants.

"There's been murder done here to-night," he said, gruffly: "Potts, examine that pistol near the bed. Unloaded, is it? Gentlemen, take a look at the prisoner and then follow me."

He led the way into the second room, and they all beheld the dead body of Evelyn Somers.

"Two of you carry the old man down stairs and try and rewive him;" two of the assistants lifted the insensible form of the merchant prince, and bore it from the room. "Now, gentlemen, we'll wake the prisoner."

He approached the sleeping convict, followed by four of the policemen, whose faces manifested unmingled horror. He struck the sleeping man on the shoulder,--"Wake up Gallus. Wake up Gallus, I say!"

After another blow, Ninety-One unclosed his eyes, and looked around with a vague and stupefied stare. It was not until he sat up in bed, that he realized the fact, that his wrists and ankles were pinioned. His gaze wandered from the face of Blossom to the countenances of the other police-officers, and last of all, rested upon his corded hands.

"My luck," he said, quietly,--"curse you, you needn't awakened a fellow in his sleep. Why couldn't you have waited till mornin'?"

And he sank back on the bed again. Blossom seized a pitcher filled with water, which stood upon a table, and dashed the contents in the convict's face.

Thoroughly awake, and thoroughly enraged, Ninety-One started up in the bed, and gave utterance to a volley of curses.

Blossom made a sign with his hand; the four policemen seized the convict and bore him into the second room, while Blossom held the light over the dead man's livid face and bloody chest.

"Do you see that bullet-hole?" said Blossom; "the pistol was found a-side of your bed, near your hand. Gallus, you'll have to dance on nothin', I'm werry much afeard you will. But it 'ill take a strong rope to hang you."

"What!" shouted Ninety-One, "you don't mean to say,--" he cast a horrified look at the dead man, and then, like a flash of lightning, the whole matter became as plain as day to him. "Oh, Thirty-One," he groaned between his set-teeth, "this is your dodge,--is it? Oh, Thirty-One, this is another little item in our long account."

"What do you say?" asked one of the policemen. Ninety-One relapsed into a dogged silence. They could not force another word from him. Carrying him back into the first room, they laid him on the bed, and secured his ankles and wrists with additional cords. Meanwhile, they could peruse at their leisure, that face, whose deep jaw, solid chin, and massive throat, covered with a stiff beard, manifested at once, immense muscular power, and an indomitable will. The eyes of the convict, overhung by his bushy brows, the cheeks disfigured by a hideous scar, the square forehead, with the protuberance in the center, appearing amid masses of gray hair,--all these details, were observed by the spectators, as they added new cords to the ankles and the wrists of Ninety-One.

His chest shook with a burst of laughter, "Don't give it up so easy!" he cried, "I'll be even with you yet, Thirty-One."

"S'arch all the apartments,--we must find his comrade," exclaimed Blossom,--"a pale-faced young devil, whom I seen with him, last night, in the cars."

Ninety-One started, even as he lay pinioned upon the bed.--"Oh, Thirty-One," he groaned, "and you must bring the boy in it, too, must you? Just add another figure to our account."

The four rooms were thoroughly searched, but the comrade was not found.

"Come, boys," said Blossom, "we'll go down-stairs and talk this matter over. Gallus," directing his conversation to Ninety-One, "we'll see you again, presently."

Ninety-One saw them cross the threshold, and heard the key turn in the lock. He was alone in the darkness, and with the dead.

As Blossom, followed by the policemen, passed down stairs, he was confronted on the second landing by the affrighted servants,--some of them but thinly clad,--who assailed him with questions. Instead of answering these multiplied queries, Blossom addressed his conversation to a portly dame of some forty years, who appeared in her night-dress and with an enormous night-cap.

"The housekeeper, I believe, Ma'am?"

"Yes, sir,--Mrs. Tompkins," replied the dame, "Oh, do tell me, what does this all mean?"

"How's the old gentleman?" asked Blossom.

"In his room. He's reviving. Mr. Van Huyden, his private secretary is with him. But do tell us the truth of this affair--what--what, does it all mean?"

"Madam, it means murder and blood and an old convict. Excuse me, I must go--down-stairs."

While the house rang with the exclamations of his affrighted listeners, Blossom passed down stairs, and, with his assistants, entered the Library.

"The question afore the house, gentlemen, is as follows,"--and Blossom sank into the chair of the merchant prince--"Shill we keep the prisoner up-stairs all night, or shill we take him to the Tombs?"

Various opinions were given by the policemen, and the debate assumed quite an animated form, Blossom, in all the dignity of his bear-skin coat and carbuncled visage, presiding as moderator.

"Address the cheer," he mildly exclaimed, as the debate grew warm. "Allow me to remark, gentlemen, that Stuffletz, there, is very sensible. Stuff., you think as the coroner's inquest will be held up-stairs by arly daylight to-morrow mornin' it 'ud be better to keep the prisoner there so as to confront him with the body? That's your opinion, Stuff. Well, I can't speak for you, gentlemen, as I don't b'long to the reg'lar police,--(I'm only an _extra_, you know!)--but it seems to me, Stuff. is right. Therefore, let the prisoner stay up-stairs all night; the room is safe, and I'll watch him mesself. Beside, you don't think he's a-goin' to tumble himself out of a third story winder, or vanish in a puff o' brimstone, as the devil does in the new play at the Bowery--do you?"

There was no one to gainsay the strong position thus assumed by Poke-Berry Blossom, Esq.

"And then I kin have a little private chat with him, in regard to the $71,000,--I guess I can," he muttered to himself.

"What's the occasion of this confusion?" said a bland voice; and, clad in his elegant white coat, with his cloak drooping from his right shoulder, Colonel Tarleton advanced from the doorway to the light. "Passing by I saw Mr. Somers' door open, and hear an uproar,--what is the matter, gentlemen? My old friend, Mr. Somers, is not ill, I hope?"

"Evelyn, his son, has been shot," bluntly responded Blossom--"by an old convict, who had hid himself in the third story, with the idea o' attackin' old Somers' cash-box and jugular."

Colonel Tarleton, evidently shocked, raised his hand to his forehead and staggered to a chair.

"Evelyn shot!" he gasped, after a long pause.--"Surely you dream. The particulars, the particulars--"

Blossom recapitulated the particulars of the case, according to the best of his knowledge.

"It is too horrible, too horrible," cried Tarleton, and his extreme agitation was perceptible to the policemen. "My young friend Evelyn murdered! Ah!--" he started from the chair, and fell back again with his head in his hands.

"But we've got the old rag'muffin," cried Blossom, "safe and tight; third story, back room."

Tarleton started from the chair and approached Blossom,--his pale face stamped with hatred and revenge.

"Mr. Blossom," he said, and snatched the revolver from the pocket of the rubicund gentleman. "Hah! it's loaded in six barrels! Murdered Evelyn--in the back room you say--I'll have the scoundrel's life!"

He snatched the candle from the table, and rushed to the door. The policemen did not recover from their surprise, until they heard his steps on the stairs.

"After him, after him,--there'll be mischief," shouted Blossom, and he rushed after Tarleton, followed by the six policemen. Tarleton's shouts of vengeance resounded through the house, and once more drew the servants, both men and women, to the landing-place at the head of the stairs. That figure attracted every eye--a man attired in a white coat, his face wild, his hair streaming behind him, a loaded pistol in one hand and a light in the other.

"Ketch his coat-tails," shouted Blossom, and, followed by policemen and servant-maids, he rushed up the second stairway.

He found Tarleton in the act of forcing the door on the _right_, which led into the room where Ninety-One was imprisoned.

"It is locked! Damnation!" shouted Tarleton, roaring like a madman. "Will no one give me the key?"

"I'll tell you what I'll give you," was the remark of Blossom. "I'll give you _one_ under yer ear, if you don't keep quiet,--"

But his threat came too late. Tarleton stepped back and then plunged madly against the door. It yielded with a crash. Then, with Blossom and the crowd at his heels, he rushed into the room, brandishing the pistol, as the light which he held fell upon his convulsed features,--

"Where is the wretch?--show him to me! Where is the murderer of poor Evelyn?"

Blossom involuntarily turned his eyes toward the bed. It was empty. Ninety-One was not there. His gaze traversed the room: a door, looking like the doorway of a closet, stood wide open opposite the bed. It required but a moment to ascertain that the door opened upon a stairway.

"By ----!" shouted Blossom, "he's gone! His comrade has been concealed somewhere, and has cut him loose."

"Gone!" echoed police-officers and servants.

"Gone!" ejaculated Tarleton, and fell back into a chair, and his head sunk upon his breast.

There he remained muttering and moaning, while the four apartments on the third floor were searched in every corner by Blossom and his gang. The search was vain.

"He can't be got far," cried Blossom. "Some o' you go down into the yard, and I'll s'arch this staircase."

Thus speaking, he took the light and disappeared through the open doorway of the staircase, while the other police-officers hastily descended the main stairway.

Tarleton remained at least five minutes in the darkness, while shouts were heard in the yard behind the mansion. Then, emerging from the room, he descended to the second floor, where he was confronted by the housekeeper, who was struck with pity at the sight of his haggard face.

"I am weak--I am faint; allow me to lean upon your arm," said Tarleton, and supported his weight upon the fat arm of the good lady.--"Support me to the bedchamber of my dear friend Somers,--the father of poor murdered Evelyn."

"This way, sir," said the housekeeper, kindly, "he's in there, with his private secretary--"

"With his _private secretary_, did you say?" faintly exclaimed Tarleton. "Close the door after me, good madam, I wish to talk with the dear old man."

He entered the bedchamber, leaving the housekeeper at the door.