WHO KILLED PAUL GRUBER ?

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 33, 1 May 1917, Page 7

WHO KILLED PAUL GRUBER ?

: (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

A THRILLING NICK CARTER ' DETECTIVE STORY.

By the Author of "A Bold Game,” “Caught in Thoir Own Trap,” etc.

PART NINE. CHAPTER XVll—(Continued.) Megline gave vent to a loud laugh jf derision, “Pretty good, me covey,” he retorted, with ominous assurance ; “but it won’t go down with me. Like as not you can put up that game agin the perlice, but not agin me, mate, aot agin me.” “We presently shall see who can play the strongest game, my man,” said Elgin, subduing, with an effort, the passion that was swelling hot within him. “Sit down there. Sit down and let’s know what brings you here. Oh, you needn't look about. Me are quite alone here.” The seaman, whose low assurance seemed boundless, indulged in a mingled laugh and growl of derisive satisfaction. At Elgin’s command he had dropped into a chair by the large table in the main office, and now sat glaring up with a leer at the young man’s frowning eyes and stern features.

■‘Alone, eh ?” he cried. “Ay, mate, I knew that well enough. I made sure o’ that afore I knocked. Like as not you didn’t consider I could see you from the street, but I could, mate.” Elgin had remained standing at the opposite side of the table.

“Tell me at once why, you are here,’’ he said. “Well, mate, that’s told easy enough,’’ growled Megline, with several threatening nods of his unkempt head. “I’m here to larn what adjustment o’ this Gruber affair ’ll he most pleasin’ to you. Like as not, mate, we can strike a bargain as’ll let you out o’ the mess with a hull skin. If not, I reckon you’ll be the one to go to the bottom, d’ye see ?”

“I hear what you are saying, you villain,” replied Elgin, with a vocal composure that was given the lie by his deathly white features and quivering lips. “But you fail to come to the point. lam not striking bargains with murderers and thieves.” "Ay, matie, but you’ll strike the bargain just the same, along with th’ colours you’re so boldly flying,” retorted Megline, with an angry growl. “I’ll come to the p’int for you, right enough, and it’ll not take much par-

ley, nutner.” He jerked his chair nearer the table on which he leaned his arms, and glaring up at the man opposite, he continued, with •grim and threatening audacity :

“It’s like this, young ’un. I’ll make it plain, so’s you can see just where you stand. We—that’s me an’ me pal —know all about your talk with Mr. Gruber out at Vercelli’s. It don’t matter how. And we lamed that you were to pay the hush money, the which we planned to get.” “And secured at the cost of Gruber’s life !” ‘‘That’s nuther here nor there, me lad. There’s jio one TI believe we did the job—sartin not since you’ve been so close-mouthed. That’ll be the very strongest p'int agin ye, d’ye see ? We know all gbout your shortage here, mate, an’ we both on us stand ready to slip a noose over your baby neck, save you come to our terms. That’s how the matter stands just now, mate.”

‘‘And v/hat are your terms ?” demanded Elgin, with bitter sternness and contempt.

‘‘These ’ere, mate, an’ we’re for being easy on you, d’ye see ? If you pay us what we ask we close our mouths for good an’ all, an’ slip out o’ the country. That’ll leave you free to take a bit o’ time and square yourself here. The hull thing Tl blow over, an’ soon you’ll be stiff on your feet agin, an’ safe as a ship in a snug harbour. If you don’t pay our price, then we” "Then you will expose to the police my relations with Paul Gruber, and by a most outrageous lie allege that I killed him !” Elgin 'forcibly interrupted. "Is that the alternative ?”

"True as the needle p’ints, mate. I couldn’t ’a’ put it straighten if I’d laid awake nights to study the way.”

“Wait one moment and you shall have my answer.” “Oh, I’ll wait right enough, matie, no fear o’ that,” cried Mr. Megline, with an ominous laugh. Elgin turned sharp on his heel, and passing behind the counters to one of the teller’s desks, he opened a drawer and took out a revolver, which he slipped into his pocket. Returning to the table at which the other had remained seated, and with a voice as cold and hard as the stern, white face on which the seaman steadily gazed, he said, slowly,

“Now listen to me, you scoundrel ! lam ready with my answer, lam glad to have learned how Akers discovered the relations which existed between Gruber and myself. It has mystified me a little, and I am relieved to think that I now shall bo able to explain it to a jury, should the case ever come before one.”

"Pretty good agin, matie, 'but it won’t go agin me.” Elgin ignored the scurrilous taunt. ' “It appears,” he continued, “that you two cutthroats have aimed to coerce me through the existing circumstances, and also have killed a man in order to render my situation ,the more desperate and draw me the piore helplessly into your power. Sou scoundrel, you have overlapped your mount,”

•■uooti agin, me bantam. But well see who comes in fust at the finish." The man’s low assurance had been carried beyond the limit even of Elgin’s patience. With eyes flashing under a sudden outburst of passion, the latter sprang forward, furiously crying ;

“You miserable knave. If I were to give you your just deserts 1 should kill you where you sit ! Know this, you villain ! It is you who are now helpless. I felt that I was so but yesterday, and out of my own private purse I paid Paul Gruber ten thousand dollars, in order to close his mouth until an unsecured loan I foolishly made had been paid. But I thank God there no longer is need for my unmanly deception ! The loan has been paid, by a cheque dated prior to my meeting with Gruber, and at this moment is included in yesterday’s accounts. Do you realise what that signifies, you brow-beating villain ? The books of this bank, as they now stand, indicate that I yesterday had not the slightest cause to harm* the man whom you and your confederate last night murdered. Tie coerced me by threatening my honour ! You and James Akers have aimed at both honour and life ! Learn now the price of your knavery !”

“Look a-here, matie” “Silence !” thundered Elgin, with passionate severity. “I am done listening to your intimidation ! It now is my turn. Though I now could defy you to show that I had reason to injure Paul Gruber, I still shall make a full confession of all the facts, that both of his assassins may be brought to justice. You laugh, do you. You still consider this a game of bluff, do you ? You shall see !” He turned with the words upon his lips, and darting to a telephone on the near wall, he quickly rang up the central office. The move brought Megline to his leet with a roar like that of a wild beast.

“Hold on ! ” he yelled,, furiously, rushing towards Elgin. “What are you going to do ?” Then he recoiled as if struck between the eyes. The black muzzle of a revolver had leaped into line with his head. With the weapon steadily, covering the man, with the telephone held ready for immediate use, with his eyes flashing, and his stern, white features evincing his determination, Elgin quickly answered ; “What am I going to do ? Summon the police, you scoundrel, and give you into custody ! Confess the whole truth and bring to justice you and Stop ! Stand where you are ! If you make another move of hand or foot, I will shoot you dead in your tracks ! What am I going to do ? I am going to call up Nick Carter, the detective, and” “It will be quite unnecessary, Mr. Elgin, for I am Nick Carter !” A laugh, thrilled with a strange mingling of joy and triumph, came With the calmly-spoken words. With a swift move of the hand the seaman swept off cap and wig and beard, and at once revealed the well-known features of the detective himself.

Elgin staggered against the wall. The weapon fell to the floor at his feet. With eyes starting from his head, with something like a swelling sob and groan, he cried, brokenly ;

“Carter —oh, my God ! The honour saved is lost !”

‘‘No !” cried Nick, with resonant fervour. "The honour lost is saved ! There now will be no need of a confession !”

CHAPTER XVIII. THE FIRE. ‘‘Where has that man gone, and for what purpose ?” The cabman raised his head, and hie haggard, dark eyes, from which the shrinking look of conscious guilt could never again be lost, met those of the woman. It was the first time she had spoken since the departure of the man who had lured her to the loft of the stable storehouse. She sat where he had placed her, silent and motionless, for nearly half an hour, with her hands clasped, and her aching brain vainly striving to discover one ray of hope through the intense darkness of her desperate situation. The indirect assurance that had been given her when entering this place had been driven from her mind by the apparent hideous treachery of the giver. For the first quarter of an hour the murderer of Paul Gruber had remained standing, closely watching his charge from under his drooping lids. Fifteen hours had passed since his crime was committed, and in looks he had aged as many years. The florid hue of health was gone from his checks, and his features had become set and hard, and his mouth drawn and distressed.

At length he wearied of standing and of that steady stare at the woman who had driven- him to the wall, and whose death only could save him from the gallows, and he dropped to a low wooden box a few feet away, and fell to staring morosely at the floor. Then a deathly silence unnerved him. A sense of being haunted fell upon him. The sickening solitude of a guilty conscience oppressed him. Despite the woman’s presence, he felt as if alone. The whole terrible experience seemed like a hideous dream. As it had risen time and again through the gloom of the previous night, the face of the murdered man rose before his moody eyes. At times he felt impelled to start up and rush madly away —away from the silence, the woman, the awful situation itself, and throw himself into the noise and rush of the world at large, where self might possibly bo forgotten. Then he would force down the mad desire, choke off the nervous desperation, and reason that his safety lay surest in keeping faith with the seaman, and in binding him beyond treachery by the tak-

Ing of another life. He started and shuddered involuntarily when Edna’s voice broke the silence, yet he was glad she had spoken ; and when he raised his head she repeated her questions. “Where has that man gone, and for what purpose ?” At first he met her steadfast gaze, then his guilty eyes evaded it.

“If you ask no questions you’ll be told no lies,’’ he presently rejoined, in heavy, sullen tones. “Unless the truth would serve you better, I should expect only a lie from you,” she replied,' with bold scorn. “I thought it might be the truth in this case.” “So ’twould, if I choso to answer.” “What am I here—a prisoner?” “Yes.”

“And if I were to try to escape ?”

“Try it !” and Akers started up with a violent oath. “If you do, it’ll end you !” She drew back a little without rising, but her bitter gaze never left him.

“I can believe you without any display of ferocity,” she said, in accents of stern contempt. “One who deliberately can take a man’s life might in excitement easily take a woman’s.” ' “It will be taken right enough if you make any move against my will. Understand that,” Akers grimly rejoined ; yet he was as ghastly pale, as desperately unmanned, as if he at that moment stood upon the drop whose fall should launch him into eternity, “As for my taking a man’s life, there’s no proof of it,” he roughly added, now meeting her gaze with threatening eyes. “The truth will out,” she answered simply.

“But not through your Tips. I’ll stake my life on that.” “Through other lips, then. I can understand why you have brought me here, and for what purpose, but I still have faith that God will not suffer’my life to be taken that yours may be spared. How long am I to be kept here ?” “Till the seaman returns.” “And then ?”

“Worse may befall you, and will now, save you cease your noise,” the ruffian said, with brutal blunthess, having been struck with the thought that their voices might be jeopardising his safety. With her lips curling slightly, with her scornful dark eyes quelling his threatening gaze, with a boldness, courage, and self-possession that would have won the admiration of a less desperately situated knave, Edna Bardolph relapsed into silence.

Akers resumed the seat from which he had risen, and another quarter of an hour passed away.

Though fully conscious of her present helplessness, and with no thought of immediately attempting to escape from her vicious custodian, Edna nevertheless fell to seeking and considering what possibilities a later opportunity might perhaps afford. A few yards from where she sat was the sliding door through which the bales had been hoisted. It was secured only - with a large iron hook and staple. Close by was coiled the long line running through the block at the end of the beam outside. To one end of the line, which evidently had been drawn up and coiled for subsequent use, was attached a heavy iron hook, which now was linked about a stout peg driven into one side of the door-post. A man would have asked no easier means of descending the forty feet to the ground below ; but, Edna Bardolph was not a man.

Above her was the sweep of flat roof, dark with dirt and cobwebs. She looked for a trap that might give egress to the top of the building, but could see none. It was off in an opposite corner and beyond her view.

Then her gaze sought the way by which she had entered, and the windows at that side. She thought of darting suddenly past Akers and attempting to gain the stairs. Then she relinquished the vague hope of thus escaping as being utterly impracticable.

Then her eyes studied the distant windows. The panes were thick with dust and dirt, yet the light still could penetrate them. It seemed to her to have grown d'ark outside, as if clouding for a sudden shower. Then she saw that she was wrong, for the sun had again burst forth clear and bright. Yet something thick and dark which she at first thought to be clouds, I was rolling and heaving "by the dingy windows. A moment more and a dense, black volume surged up from below, shutting out the last glimmer of sunlight, a ud conveying the awful truth to her mind. Chilled to the very marrow with sudden fear, a greater fear than she yet had suffered in all this terrible experience, she started to her feet, crying wildly, ; "Look there —look there ! Oh, my God ! look there !”

I-ler * scream went through Akers like the thrust of a knife. With a furious oath, a cry of mingled rage and dismay, he leaped to, his feet and swept towards her, as if t D choke out life itself ere she should utter one more such scream. And then he saw her face and the soul-sickening terror it depicted, and he turned involuntarily and gazed where she pointed.

There now was no need to ask why she had screamed. Even as the cab-

man turned, the pressure of heat and smoke below forced up through every crack and crevice of the floor on which they stood curling streams and ribbons of black that told the awful truth.

“ Great heavens !” roared Akers, briefly forgetful of his more remote peril. “The building is on fire !” At the same moment the clang of the fire-alarm sounded over the city.

The smoke had been seen from with out.

For the two within the burning building the next moment was one of most intense and appalling thought. Both instantly grasped the frightful situation. The imminent discovery and rescue of the woman involved the inevitable exposure and death of the man. To him there appeared: but one alternative that of taking her life then and there, of slaying her ere attempting to effect his own escape, and trusting to the flames to consume the evidence of the foul deed. His ghastly and distorted face betrayed his thoughts and the violent conflict going on within him, a conflict between horror of committing the crime and fear of leaving it uncommitted. For an instant he hesitated, shivering from head to foot, his grey lips convulsively twitching, his haggard eyes burning like fire from under his knitted brows and for that instant the woman opposite stood motionless and white as a figure of stone, with her eyed never leaving his, with her lips compressed and her hands clenched, prepared to do battle for life itself, if need were. Then there flashed across the mind of the man—more coward than man, even in the heat of his desperation—the thought to which she then owed her life.

-If the flames will consume her dead, they will consume her living.” Knowing that the building would be surrounded with people ere he could leave it ; knowing that if she were there found murdered the crime would surely be brought home to him ; knowing the chance existed that she would not escape alive ; knowing she could not pass him on the stairs and escape before him ; and now seeing in Immediate flight his only hope of personal safety at the end of that one moment’s riotous thought, while the clanging bells still were ringing out their peals of alarm Jim Akers wheeled about and left the woman to her fate. Forgetful of the door behind him, he rushed madly through the thickening smoke and sought the stairs. He plunged down the upper flight and banged open a door to the next entry. There he was met by a dense volume of heat and smoke, the upward rush of which hurled him backward, gasping and blinded, till he reeled even to the wall, covering his face and eyes with his arms. Then he forced his way on, partly through the second entry, holding his breath as he moved, a nd then he felt the awful surge of heat from below, and s a w the fierce glare of the flames that were already rushing up the dry wooden stairway.

One glance was enough. It told him that escape in that direction was an utter impossibility. The entire lowei floor was ablaze and the flames momentarily increasing. Frenzied now with terror, he took the only course left him —that of returning. Back up the stairway he rushed, closing behind him the door which so long had checked; the rise of smoke info the loft, and in another moment he stood again upon the same floor with Edna Bardolph. There the smoke was less dense. A flood of daylight was streaming into it. A glance revealed the occasion. The warn an had remembered what he had forgotten—the door and the rope. (To be Concluded.)