Shadow, the Mysterious Detective Part 2

CHAPTER XV.

A FIEND IN HUMAN SHAPE.

Poor Helen Dilt!

Better, much better, would it be for her to die at once, if she was to be called on to long endure the torments that were devised and executed by the ugly-faced hag who presided over that private mad-house.

The hag was literally a fiend.

And a fiend in human form at that.

We speak of the natural love that resides in the human heart, that is an indestructible part of it, that is born with it, and never departs until the member has ceased to pulse, and lies silent and heavy in the heart that contains it.

This fancy is a pretty one.

Few of us are there who do not try to paint humanity as more humane than it really is.

Instead of love being the natural resident of the human heart, it is something that is cultivated.

Left to itself, the feelings of the human heart are as savage and fierce as those that reside in the hearts of the Indians of the plains, or of the tigers in the Eastern jungles.

The old hag was one in whose heart tender feelings had never been cultivated, and she was not burdened with sensations of sympathy or pity.

On the contrary, the natural inclinations of a cruel nature had been cultivated until it had become callous to all sensations of pleasure save at the sight of the sufferings of some living, breathing thing.

There is money in a private mad-house run by unscrupulous persons, and several evil men had advanced the money and set this human fiend up in business.

Few people have an idea of how easy it is, when there is a splendid property to reward the horrible deed, for relations to get a wealthy member of the family adjudged insane.

A single eccentricity is sufficient to do the thing.

And once the person is declared insane, into a private mad-house he is inveigled, never again to see the light of day. And there he is kept until he is actually driven mad, or until death steps in and releases him.

The old hag had given herself, and delighted in, the name of Tige.

It was a corruption or contraction of tigress.

And it was into such hands that poor Helen Dilt had fallen!

Again and again did the hag stick a big pin into Helen.

And again and again did she exultantly laugh at the evidences of pain which the poor creature could not avoid displaying.

"Will you be quiet and docile?"

A jab with the pin.

"Will you?"

Another jab.

"Will you?"

Another prod with the bright pin, whose point was reddened with Helen's blood.

"Will you, I say?"

Still another jab.

"Yes—yes," Helen almost shrieked.

"It's a good thing for you if you will bear your promise in mind," said Tige, grimly. "I always make people regret breaking their word with me."

Helen was left for some hours stretched on the bed, her arms and feet extended and secured by ropes to the four corners of the bed.

There was agony to be endured in even this quiet position.

Place a pound weight on the palm of your hand, and endeavor to keep that hand extended, for, say five minutes.

Can you do it?

You think you can, that is if you have never tried it.

Try it now.

You will not be able to do it.

Long before the five minutes have expired your arm will be a pathway for a succession of spasms of pain such as you have never felt before.

All that you can voluntarily endure, quadrupled and more, Helen was forced to pass through because of the strained position of her arms.

It was terrible.

The pains that shot through her arms were frightful for a while, and then the intensity diminished and her arms became numb and felt as if dead.

She could no longer feel the cords so tightly fastened to her wrists.

Her arms were perfectly bloodless, and to all intents and purposes were dead.

They might almost have been amputated without causing her any pain.

Food was finally brought her by a male attendant, a short, thick-set, bull-headed individual, with the most brutal expressioned face of any that Helen had ever seen.

He released her arms, and then lifted her by the shoulders to a sitting posture on the bed.

Her hands were useless.

She could not raise them, could scarcely more than barely move her fingers.

The attendant laughed gleefully.

"Don't they feel bully, eh?" he said, as he noted Helen's face twitch with pain.

What anguish she presently suffered!

The tingling and burning as the blood began to flow back into her arms were something awful.

"Tige understands the 'biz' if any one ever did," said the bullet-headed attendant, laughing gayly. "But, I say, ain't yer hungry? 'Cos if yer ain't, there's no good of my stayin' here with this grub, which yer hain't touched these last ten minutes."

But, although he badgered Helen, he did not take his departure with the food.

He knew better than that.

Tige had ordered the food taken to Helen, and if she cared to eat it he dared not leave until she had done so.

The old hag wanted to do nothing as yet that could in any way injure Helen or disable her.

She made a point of doing with her patients exactly as was ordered by her customers, and Brown had as yet not told her what he wanted done with Helen.

Brown was expected when night had again fallen, and the hag's expectations were not amiss.

Brown came.

At once he was closeted with the hag.

"Come, Brown, spit out just what you want," Tige impatiently said, some minutes later. "I positively refuse to act on hints, so you might's well say plumply what you want."

Brown was thoughtful.

It was his usual style to make people take what he wanted for granted, as in the case of McGinnis.

This enabled him to lay back in his chair and say:

"I did not tell you to do anything of the kind. If you chose to put that interpretation on my words I can't help it. It wasn't my fault that you did."

He was a wily man.

But Tige was equally as wily.

Her safety lay in forcing her customers to commit themselves, and knowing that she would take no steps as regarded any patient without having received point-blank orders.

Brown was Helen's uncle.

Property of hers, which he had robbed her of, he managed to hold himself without question. But he dared not sell it or try to transfer it.

If Helen were insane, then it would be policy to prove her identity, be appointed her guardian, and then when she died, the court would decide that he was the legal heir, and confirm him in his title to the property.

It was this which he was now conning over in his mind.

"Well?" from Tige.

"The girl is insane?"

"Of course," with a curl of the lip.

"I should like to carry her before some big physicians, and have them certify to the fact."

"In other words, you want me to drive the girl to real insanity? Is that the plain English of it—yes or no?"

"Yes."

"And if it can't be done?"

"She must be put out of the way unless you can drive her mad," Brown said, in a low tone. "Fix your own price for the job; I only ask that you do it well."

This was the horrid compact that they entered into regarding Helen.

Poor Helen! poor—poor Helen!

With fiendish zest the hag set about her horrid work without loss of time.

That very night Helen was gagged to stifle her cries, and was securely bound to the bed, after which Tige amused herself by stripping the victim's feet, and then pulling the nails from her toes with a pincers.

And during the terrible ordeal, the sweat-drops of awful agony rolled down Helen's face, and she writhed and strained, but in vain, to burst the bonds which held her.

 CHAPTER XVI.

DISAPPOINTED AGAIN.

With ears wide open, and with an expression of intense interest, Shadow remained stretched in the narrow passage in the pile of old junk, listening to the words that fell from the lips of the villains gathered there in the office.

He was all expectancy.

He fully believed that one among the rascals could solve the mystery which he had so long been endeavoring to probe.

Would this particular fellow tell of this particular rascally exploit?

Shadow hoped so.

As time passed by, however, without one word being said, the mysterious detective began to grow impatient, since the particular thing about which he wished to learn was not mentioned.

However, he paid strict attention to the many stories of rascality which they told. The knowledge thus derived might be of use some time.

More than once the secret listener shuddered on hearing the tales that were told.

It seemed to him as if all the crimes that were ever committed could not sum up as large a total as these men boasted of having committed.

And, at the moment when his cheeks were paling over some horrid relation, he could hear the whole gang joining in a hearty laugh.

That they were able to laugh over descriptions of bloodshed and death was ample evidence of the manner of men they were, and Shadow more fully realized the peril which surrounded him so long as he should remain in the old sugar-house.

"That's the list of the things I've done, and never been nabbed yet," said one, as he finished a story of crime.

"You've heard all my exploits," said another.

"And mine."

"And mine."

Shadow sighed.

Not one word concerning that of which he wished to hear had been uttered.

He had waited expectantly—had hoped until the very last boastful tale had been told, but had hoped in vain.

And now the sigh that he gave utterance to was filled with disappointment.

His head sadly drooped, and he felt as if he hardly cared whether his presence was discovered or not. Repeated disappointments had taken away his courage for the time being.

It was now very late.

Morning was not so very far distant, and the villainous party broke up and left the place, to separate and depart for their various places of abode.

At last an intense silence rested over the place, and except the sentinel at the door and Cap in a distant corner, in a partitioned-off room, Shadow was alone in the big place.

Reckless, and disheartened, and discouraged as he had felt, he had been wise enough to remain so silent as not to betray himself.

Up to the present moment he had not stirred. But now he shifted his position a little to a more comfortable one, and became lost in thought.

He had been disappointed before—had been cast down, but had recovered both confidence and courage. Why could he not do so now?

So he asked himself.

Patience and perseverance never yet failed to meet with a proper reward, he told himself, and presently he began to brighten up—became more hopeful.

Was there any use in longer remaining here in the old sugar-house?

Clearly not, he thought.

Then to bid it farewell.

He backed down the passage until he reached the spot where Cap had so disarranged the "stuff" as to leave only an empty box between the passage and the open floor beyond.

After listening a minute, Shadow then softly shoved back the box, without making any noise, and next crawled out of his cramped quarters.

Before attempting to move away from the spot, he was sensible enough to wait until he had got some fresh breath, and had limbered himself up a little.

Perhaps five minutes later, he started toward the stairs that descended to the vaults below.

It was necessary to approach within a dozen or fifteen feet of the sentinel.

Knowing of the latter's presence, Shadow exercised great caution as he drew near him. Had the sentinel been wide-awake and bright, Shadow could hardly have made the passage undetected.

But the fellow was nodding in a state of half-slumber, and failed to hear the light-footed detective.

Shadow safely reached the head of the stairs, and commenced descending. The descent was safely accomplished, and once in the vault, all danger was passed.

On stepping forth into the streets, his first care was to visit a restaurant; and how he did eat.

"I say," remarked the waiter, after having received a third and a fourth order from Shadow, "I say," and his eyes were big as saucers in his surprise, "be you holler clean down to your heels?"

"I'm hungry, that's all."

"Hungry? Well, I should say so."

On receiving a fifth order from the detective, the waiter, before filling it, took the proprietor of the place into a consultation.

Shadow's grub bill was of a pretty good size, and from his appearance the waiter was in doubt as to whether he was good for the amount, let alone a greater one.

"Show your hand, young feller," remarked the waiter, on returning, before placing the ordered edibles before Shadow.

The latter understood, and a quiet smile began playing about his lips.

Placing his hand in his pocket he took out and ostentatiously laid down a five-dollar bill.

"Good enough!" grunted the waiter, setting down the plates. "Fill up the cavity. I guess I kin fetch the grub as fast as you kin stow it away."

With Shadow's departure from the restaurant we must drop him for a while. But we again introduce him, disguised as a mulatto, as he glided up to the writer of these lines, and, with extended hand, simply said:

"Shadow!"

Was this Shadow?

I could hardly believe my eyes.

Adept as I was myself in the arts of disguise, if this was the mysterious detective, he was able to equal if not even outdo my ability.

"Shadow!"

So he repeated, when I allowed a full minute to pass without having spoken a word.

"Are you Shadow?"

He made a disdainful gesture, and in an impatient tone repeated that one word.

"I want you to answer me a few questions," I said.

An instant later I could no longer doubt his identity. He raised his hand, and I saw him shake his index finger in that peculiar way, as I saw him do on the occasion of our first acquaintance, when I saw his shadow do the same thing. But there was a difference, since, on the present occasion, the finger was shaken at me.

Then he remained holding out his hand, and I could not but know what it was he wanted.

It was his share of the reward, which he had not yet claimed.

I found that to ask him any questions would only result in angering him, so I placed a roll of bills in his hands, which I had kept ready and waiting for him.

Without a word of thanks or farewell, he turned on his heel, and within the space of a minute had vanished from my sight.

Our meeting had occurred on a corner, before the doors of a liquor saloon. Several hard characters had watched us, and by aid of the lamp on the corner had seen that it was a roll of bills that I handed Shadow, although, of course, they knew neither of us.

Instantly they took a hasty departure by means of a back entrance, their object being to attack and rob the mysterious detective.

By means of an alley-way they headed him off, and lying in ambush, sprang out upon his approach, and flung themselves toward him.

CHAPTER XVII.

HELEN'S TORTURE.

Bound so tightly that she could not rise—could not resist, Helen Dilt was put to the torture by the cruel hag, who had received orders to either drive her actually mad or kill her.

Helen at first had screamed.

A continuance of this was prevented by the hag, who gagged Helen most effectually.

Tige was a fiend.

A fiend!

The word has not sufficient meaning to describe what she really was.

If Satan ever quits his sulphurous house to take up his residence in a particular human being, he certainly was residing then in the earthly form of the terrible woman who presided over that private mad-house, and was the arbiter of the fates of so many beings who were helpless in her vile clutches.

And torture!

And the sight of human agony!

She loved them.

She loved to hear the shrieks of agony that she wrung from her victims. As prudence made it necessary to still these sounds by gags, the fiendish woman refined her cruelties the more, that the loss of this horrid music might be compensated for by the greater writhings of her victims.

Regarding Helen, her instructions were as plain as they were fiendish!

"Drive her mad or kill her!"

In few cases was she allowed so broad a latitude of action, and she proceeded to Helen's torture with the same zest that a gourmand exhibits when he sits down before a table that groans beneath the weight of some particular thing which he loves to exercise his teeth upon.

Helen was fastened to the bed securely, and, as we have said, was gagged.

And then, as stated in a previous chapter, Tige amused herself by taking a pincers and dragging out the nails of Helen's toes.

Kind Heaven, what agony that is!

It is terrible!

Terrible! Yes, and awful and horrible as well!

How Helen suffered!

How she strained—but in vain—to burst the bonds which held her!

How Tige chuckled!

How she gloated!

How she made Helen writhe and moan!

The dewdrops of agony were not long in making their appearance on the victim's forehead—great, large drops, which rolled off and down her face to make room for others.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tige, showing her teeth like a snarling dog; "oh-ho! don't I love this! Groan and moan and twist and squirm; it is all a feast to me."

And Helen suffered so much that she would have hailed death as a welcome release.

Aye, she even prayed that she might die.

She had nothing to hope for; rescue she thought impossible, or it would have been accomplished before this. To die would be the easiest way for her.

"There, how did that feel?"

Tige asked the question with a chuckle, as she ripped another nail out of the living flesh.

Feel!

Helen was writhing in anguish.

She made one more effort to burst her bonds.

She strained until the veins were swollen out on her face and neck like whipcords, and seemed on the point of bursting.

But the work of tying her had been too well done, and she finally fell back in a state of utter exhaustion, with moan after moan coming in a sort of ripple.

"What!" exclaimed the fiendish hag; "make such a fuss about a little one like that, which came out so easily? Why, I should have considered that one a pleasure. Just wait until I get hold of the big one. Ha, ha! that's where the fun comes in. You see, it's more deeply rooted, and I've seen some I wasn't strong enough to pull until I rigged up a sort of tackle I have for the purpose."

Helen shuddered.

And well she might.

Poor girl!

It was monstrous that the law should permit the existence of such places—such private mad-houses—where such infernal wickedness can be enacted.

Tige was grinning like a hyena.

She made one or two feints of pursuing her hideous work, and then halted to gloat over the shudder which each time thrilled her victim's frame.

At last she fastened the pincers on the nail of one of Helen's great toes.

She gave a strong twitch.

Helen groaned.

The human hyena gave a stronger pull.

Helen lifted herself to the limit her bonds permitted, and flung herself against the ropes, which would not break, but held her with cruel rigor.

Again Tige pulled.

And this time pulled direct, and with an amount of strength which could not have dwelt in a less sinewy frame than hers.

Then she twisted the pincers.

Had she been free from her gag, Helen must have shrieked so loudly that she would have been heard for blocks around.

Again Tige pulled direct.

She meanwhile kept watch of Helen's face.

Her victim could stand no more.

This Tige saw.

"Now!" she hissed.

Then, exerting her strength, she threw it all into that one motion, and—— As the nail was dragged out by the roots, Helen uttered one long, quivering moan, and then laid there pallid and motionless.

One would have thought her dead.

But Tige's experience told her different.

She knew that Helen had only fainted.

And she knew, also, that the suffering she had endured would produce a nervous shock from which Helen might never recover.

Tige made no attempt to release Helen from her bonds.

She merely loosened the gag a little, that she might breathe easier.

Then flinging a pail of water over her victim, as she might have flung a worthless bone to a cur, Tige took her departure, allowing Helen to return to consciousness or die, she did not much care which.

But she did not forget to take with her the nails she had extracted.

Reaching the door of her own room, secured by a number of strong and elaborately made locks, she paused to unlock it, and then entered.

At one side of the room was a bed, in the center a table, in one recess a sofa, which, in addition to a few chairs, made up the furniture of the room, save a small glass-front cabinet that was attached to the wall.

The door of this she unlocked.

Glancing in, she gave vent to a chuckle that was perfectly horrid.

What was it—perhaps you ask—that produced this chuckle on Tige's part?

Nothing more nor less than a few score of human toe-nails, dragged out by the roots as Helen's had been.

They were the horrible mementoes that drew back to her memory those whom she had tortured in days gone by.

And to this collection she now had an addition to make, an addition furnished at the expense of a poor girl who had never wronged a person in the world, who had never made herself an enemy, but who simply stood in an evil man's way to a fortune.

Helen did not die.

No, she lived, ardently as she prayed that she might not.

And of a strength of character that is unusual in a woman, she did not suffer as great a nervous shock as Tige had anticipated.

"I guess it'll have to be 'kill her!'" the hyena-like woman muttered to herself. "But I'll not do that until I've had a little more fun with her."

Fun!

If fun it was to her, she had plenty of it. But to her victim it was something far—far different!

CHAPTER XVIII.

PUZZLED.

Several days after meeting Shadow in his disguise of a mulatto, I was the recipient of a letter which puzzled me not a little.

The text was simple enough.

The letter read:

"Mr. Howard.—Herewith I return you the money you so kindly loaned me on an occasion that was filled with sadness for me. You will remember the occasion to which I refer—when Tom Smith was killed, and you so generously provided me with the means of interring him in mother earth.

"That I am deeply grateful you may rest assured, and perhaps at some future time I may be able to testify to the depth of my gratitude.

"Accept my thanks with the money I return, a kind of interest on the loan, which I am satisfied you will best like.

"Yours gratefully,⁠

"Nellie Millbank."

A very nicely worded and straightforward letter. Don't you think so?

Of course you do.

Then, why was I puzzled?

Simply because when I received the letter, and before opening it, I said as I glanced at the penmanship of the address:

"Another letter from Shadow," and then, on opening it, found that it was not.

I had preserved Shadow's letters or notes, and these I now brought out and compared with this epistle from Nellie Millbank.

The penmanship was "as like as two peas."

Now, then, if you have read the foregoing chapters with any interest, you can see why I was puzzled.

Was Nellie Millbank the mysterious little detective?

As I said, provided your interest has been deep enough, you know that I had strong reasons, and many of them, for supposing Shadow to be none other than young Mat Morris.

Let us recount some reasons.

I had taxed Shadow with being Mat Morris, and he had not denied it.

Then, I had paid Shadow five hundred dollars, and had afterwards seen the very bills themselves in the hands of Mat's mother.

This last circumstance was of itself strong evidence that Mat and Shadow were one and the same person.

Then there was the manner Shadow had of carrying himself—Mat Morris' style exactly.

A person's manner of bearing himself, and his mode of walking, and the use of his hands and head when speaking, are things that no disguise can hide.

Knowing this, I had been ready to almost take an oath as to the true identity of Shadow.

Yet here comes a letter that completely upsets all my faith in my powers of penetration.

If the writing of Nellie Millbank and of Shadow was the same, then Mat evidently was not Shadow. And if Mat was not Shadow, who was?

Nellie Millbank?

It was barely possible.

That slip of a girl do what I knew Shadow was capable of doing, as well as what he had done?

It was not to be credited.

And yet—the similarity of the handwriting. How was that to be accounted for?

I thought of Mrs. Morris.

I intended to go and show her one of the Shadow letters, and inquire if she knew the writing.

When I arrived at the house where Mrs. Morris lived, it was to learn that she had moved away early that morning.

Where to, nobody knew.

Balked in this direction, I turned my steps toward the house of the deputy sheriff, in a cell beneath whose house, it will be remembered, I had in confinement Dick Stanton, the false detective.

No sooner did the treacherous detective see me than he began whining like a whipped cur, and begged like a dog to be let go, or be dealt with mercifully.

If I would only release him, he said, he would "give away" his pals of the sugar-house, besides putting into my hands numbers of clews in connection with various crimes.

"And they won't be false scents," he said earnestly. "I'll deal square with you, Howard, I swear I will. It will get promotion for you, sure, if you bag the game I can put you on the track of."

I had, however, paid him a visit for a particular purpose, and evading all his questions and turning a deaf ear to his entreaties, I told him I wanted to know if the prisoner who had been confined in the black hole was male or female.

He looked at me in surprise.

"Male or female?" he said.

"Yes."

"Male, of course."

"You are sure of it?"

"Sure of it? Why, he was a man just as much as you are a man, or I am one."

"You are not a man—except in name," I rejoined (and the words made him wince) "so do not bring yourself into the comparison."

I made him give me a close description of the prisoner who had been confined in the black hole, and after listening to it, I could have no manner of doubt that the person was other than Mat Morris.

"And," volunteered Stanton, "moreover, he was a surly sort of a customer. We couldn't get a word out of him."

This tallied with Shadow.

I left Stanton still ironed, despite his prayers to at least have the handcuffs taken off.

"You deserve all the punishment you are enduring," I bitingly told him.

I no longer doubted that Mat Morris and the mysterious detective were one and the same person. All the evidence pointed toward that conclusion.

It was a stickler.

I dropped in to see a writing expert, and after examining them, he said that the two specimens might or might not be written by the same person.

"It is penmanship as taught in our public schools," he said. "Pupils are drilled into a set way of forming their letters, as a consequence of which there is a great similarity in writing until the persons have been for years out of school."

That settled it.

The similarity was one caused by education, and I was more than ever convinced of Mat and Shadow being one individual.

I went home in a thoughtful mood.

There I found a letter awaiting me from the chief, asking why I had not reported in a certain matter which had been placed in my hands.

I felt conscience-stricken.

In my great interest in what concerned Shadow I had neglected my duty, to which the last few hours should have been devoted, instead of to an endeavor to find out whether Shadow was Mat Morris, or Nellie Millbank, or somebody else.

Immediately I donned the disguise in which I had acted a part, and wound my way into the confidence of Woglom and his companion, by means of which I had learned of the prisoner in the black hole.

At once I started out.

In their usual place of resort I, that evening, encountered the precious pair of rascals.

They were rather shy of me at first, not liking my sudden and unaccounted-for absence, but an off-hand manner and a few drinks fixed matters all right.

After that they seemed to take to me amazingly, and I noticed them glancing first at me and then at each other with an askance expression.

I knew that something was afoot, and patiently waited to hear what it was.

After awhile they withdrew to a little distance and began to earnestly converse, concerning me, I was quite positive.

Such indeed was the truth.

They were discussing the advisability of taking me into their confidence, and making me a party in a villainous scheme that was already hatched.

"Want to go into a big job with us?" Woglom asked me, on their resuming their seats.

"Certainly, if there's enough 'swag' to pay for the trouble," I replied. "What is the line?"

My answer satisfied them, and they unfolded their scheme. It was a scheme into which I entered for a purpose; they were to put it into execution that night, and I accompanied them—accompanied them into as great a peril as ever threatened my life.

I shudder, even now, when I think of that night.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN DEADLY PERIL.

Never shall I forget the adventures of the night when I accompanied Woglom and his pal on that expedition.

I have been in many ticklish places, but I never got into one where I was worse stumped than I was that night.

The circumstances were very peculiar, and the knowledge that at any moment I might be——

But, perhaps, it would be more intelligible to the reader, did I begin at the beginning and narrate the incidents of that escapade.

While the pair of precious villains pretended to have taken me fully into their confidence, they had not really done so.

They were going to break into a house.

This much was truth.

But, as I understood them, the house was in the suburbs—somewhere in the neighborhood of Fort Washington, I took it.

It was because I believed that vicinity contained the intended scene of robbery, that I so readily consented to accompany them.

I would probably be left outside to keep guard, and would take advantage of the circumstance to call the police, and be on hand to bag them when they came out with their plunder.

It was not until after we had got started that I was undeceived.

I then learned that the "suburbs," as they meant it, was in New Jersey, on the line of the Central Railroad.

A train left near midnight.

This was the train we were to take, to reach which we were compelled to somewhat hasten our pace.

I was puzzled to know what to do.

I might have called for assistance on the policemen we passed, and have taken them into custody.

But this would have been worse than useless under the circumstances.

The rascals could not be held and punished because it could not be proved that they had intended committing a robbery.

Men cannot be sent to prison for intention of wrong. They must be proved to have committed the wrong.

Should I back out of accompanying them?

So I asked myself.

While still in a state of uncertainty we reached the ferry.

"I will go along," I mentally decided. "I may be able to give an alarm and collar them there as well as if it had taken place here."

And so I went.

We reached the little town after a short ride in the cars, a little town which I shall not name, but which is noted for its handsome residences, and its wealthy people.

While on a tramp through the country Woglom had applied at the house for something to eat.

He was provided with food, and asked if he did not wish to work. He said "Yes." He was put to work cleaning out the cellar of the house.

Such an opportunity was not to be thrown aside.

He made a diagram of the interior of the house, and located its rooms and the furniture in them with an accuracy that comes only by practice.

This was the house that we were on the way to "crack" that night.

We reached it.

Passing by, we paused at a little distance to hold a consultation.

The house was all dark and silent, the sky was somewhat clouded, and everything seemed favorable for our undertaking.

I was given a bottle of chloroform, and on my pleading ignorance, was instructed how to use it.

There was no need here of any one remaining outside to watch.

We were all to enter.

When Woglom was in the house, he had made use of a "crooked" man's never-absent companion, a screw-driver.

With this he had loosened the screws of the iron buttons which secured the cellar windows, which were then left so poorly secured that a slight push would be sufficient to open them.

Consulting his diagram by the light of a match, Woglom located the particular window which he considered it most advisable to attack.

With soft steps we crept around the house, keeping close to it.

We reached the window.

Woglom went down on his knees before it.

Listening a minute, and finding everything continued quiet, the master-villain applied a gentle pressure to the window.

It did not give.

He pressed harder.

Still it remained firmly secured.

Harder still he pressed.

Then I heard him utter an oath.

By some manner, or by accident, the inmates had discovered that the windows had been tampered with, and had re-fastened the buttons.

Again we consulted, having withdrawn for that purpose.

It was Woglom's opinion, that while the looseness of the buttons had been noticed, the inhabitants of the house would hardly be likely to suppose it a piece of work preparatory to a robbery.

"Shall we go ahead then?" I asked.

"Yes," was the decision.

Back to the house we went.

Again we paused at the window.

From his pockets Woglom now produced a number of implements.

Against the window pane he pressed a bit of a sticky substance resembling putty, and then sunk the head of a tool he did not wish to use in the stuff.

This done, he made use of a glazier's point.

He made a circular cut on the pane, the putty forming the central point or axis.

Now he tapped gently on the cut glass with an iron chisel, whose head was covered by a piece of felt cloth to deaden the sound.

Presently the cut portion gave way.

Now the use of the putty became apparent. It was to prevent the cut-out part of the glass from falling and shattering on the floor inside.

The ingenuity, the great care, the art with which burglars work is a revelation to those who have no knowledge of the methods by which such startling robberies are made possible.

The circular piece of glass was brought to the outside and laid carefully down.

Through the aperture thus formed a hand could be inserted, and the buttons turned about, when the window could be easily opened, permitting ingress to the cellar.

Once this was gained, little or no trouble would be experienced in reaching the upper portions of the house.

Woglom inserted his hand.

He reached the button at one side and turned it.

He then reached out for the other button, and—a wild howl gave me an awful start.

Woglom had uttered it.

Following close upon its heels came a string of horrible oaths.

"What's up—what's wrong?"

"My hand is caught in some sort of a contrivance!" moaned or groaned Woglom. "Quick—the hole is big enough—try and get my hand loose."

His pal inserted his hand.

Now was my time to capture them!

I drew my revolver, and had taken a forward stop, when——

Bang!

Almost beneath my feet a spring gun was discharged, and I could hear the big buckshot—each one a young bullet—buzzing about my ears, like a swarm of hungry flies on a hot summer's day.

I paused.

A window went up.

A head appeared and a stern voice said:

"Aha! I've got you now, you rascals;" and I saw the muzzle of a gun appear. "Stay where you are if you value your lives! A dozen spring guns are concealed just there, and a single step may discharge them all."

Heaven!

The cold sweat started from every pore of my body.

Spring guns!

What infernal things they are, anyhow.

I trembled. Yes, I own up to it—I trembled. And so, I think, any man would who was made of flesh and blood.

It was an awful feeling, to know that a mine was concealed right beneath your feet, which the slightest move might cause to explode.

Did I stand still?

Well—I think I did. I was rooted to the spot, and with horror watched Woglom's struggles to free himself, for I feared that his movements would cause the dreaded explosion.

CHAPTER XX.

STILL SEARCHING.

All possibility of Shadow being Nellie Millbank would have been driven from my mind had I been where I could see him after parting with him on the night when I gave him the money.

Seen to receive a roll of bills by a party of rascals, they had made use of an alley-way to head him off, and then suddenly sprang on him from an ambush.

The possibility alluded to would have been killed by the coolness of Shadow's demeanor, by his quick-witted promptness taking his measures to disconcert the villains, by the exhibition of courage displayed by him.

The whole thing could never be a part of a woman's character.

Only a man, and not an ordinary man at that, could have acted as Shadow did under those trying circumstances.

He showed no disconcertion whatever when so suddenly attacked.

Agile as a cat in every movement, he gave a backward spring the moment they broke cover.

Before they could reach him, his hand had clasped the butt of his revolver.

The next second it was out.

They had then reached him—had him hemmed in, but he forced a passage by grimly pointing his revolver at the head of one of them.

He uttered not a word.

He did not forget himself, nor cease to maintain that singular silence which he seemed to have forced upon himself.

Perhaps his silence added to the effect of his threatening movements, but at any rate the villainous quartette shrank away from him, feeling they had caught a Tartar.

Shadow never lost his composure.

Keeping his face to them, he slowly backed away from them.

They followed him up, chagrined, yet resolute, wishing to retrieve their mistake.

One or two swift glances Shadow threw behind him, then changed the line of his retreat, at last fetching up in a doorway.

With his back planted against the door, the villains could only attack him from the front, and this—well, Shadow smiled. He gauged their temper and courage to a T.

Fire-arms are tools too noisy for such fellows, and they were armed with knives. To make these effective it was necessary to get within arm's length.

But to do this in the face of Shadow's revolver was a task they had little relish to attempt.

Silent as the grave itself, and grim as a man of stone, Shadow kept his revolver raised, his finger on the trigger, ready to defend himself.

Nearer came the villains.

Shadow made no movement until they were within a half-dozen feet of him, and then he slightly waved his deadly weapon to warn them away.

They paused.

Glaring at him, they cursed under their breaths.

To be balked was bad enough.

But to be balked in this off-hand, cool, easy manner, was far worse.

But what could they do?

They could not fail to see and understand that a revolver was aimed at them with deadly intent.

They well knew that a bullet is a messenger which travels rapidly, and if the mulatto's aim was as true as his arm was steady, to attempt to rush on him would be the death-signal of at least one of their number.

This fact was evident.

And they hung back in an undecided state of mind.

Shadow laughed quietly.

He had the advantage—had turned the tables, and was aware of it.

He now assumed the aggressive, and took a step toward them, menacing them with the loaded and cocked weapon.

They retreated.

Finally one uttered a few low, hoarse-toned words, and then they took to their heels, Shadow after them.

Around the corner they dashed, but the detective kept them in sight until they disappeared into the alley-way which they had used to head him off. It was a singular incident, and would have appeared so to any one who could have been there to witness it. Nor was it any the less thrilling that it was so quiet.

During the whole affair, from beginning to end, Shadow had uttered no word, but had preserved that mysterious silence in which he had wrapped himself, for causing him to break which on a certain occasion he had poured out on my head the vials of his wrath.

He had conquered four desperate men, had done it in as calm a manner as he would have eaten his dinner.

Verily, he was a mysterious being.

In thinking of him afterward, it seemed to me as if his path and mine were always crossing, for it was due to him that Woglom and his pal and myself were placed in our horrible fix.

The gentleman who lived in this place had been visited one evening by a mulatto.

"A mulatto—a negro?" he said, when the girl told him that such a person wished to see him. "What does he want?"

"I don't know, sir. He jist showed me a bit of paper wid 'I want to see the master of the house' on it."

"Take him into the library."

As the reader will readily suppose, the mulatto was Shadow.

It will be remembered that Woglom and his pal were connected with the sugar-house gang.

Woglom was "down on his luck" so badly as to have been obliged to dispose of his burglarious implements. He had visited Cap to be supplied with some tools.

Cap demanded to know what Woglom was going to do with them, and what were the chances of his success, before lending him what he wanted—for a good round consideration.

Thus, while in concealment in the passage under the junk pile, Shadow had learned the particulars of this "job."

"You wished to see me?" said the master of the house, as he entered the library, where Shadow had been shown.

The detective bowed, pointed to the open desk, then took paper and pencil and wrote:

"A plan has been formed to rob your house."

Reading this, the gentleman gave a start of surprise, then looked more closely at Shadow.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"A detective," Shadow replied, in writing.

In terms as brief as possible he outlined the case, spoke of the tramp they had given food and a day's work to, and told him he would find that the fastenings of the cellar windows had been tampered with.

Having warned the gentleman, Shadow retired, refusing either pay or refreshment tendered him.

At once the owner of the house had prepared his trap and the spring guns, while Shadow went back to the city to continue the discouraging search for a criminal to whose identity he had only the faintest possible clew.

Like a very shadow he was, as he silently stole hither and thither, and glided in and out of the haunts of vice, searching for the man who had done him a great wrong and had aroused his enmity.

And then, ere night, his lips involuntarily parted, and the long silence was unconsciously broken, as he fervently exclaimed:

"Thank Heaven!"

His keen gaze rested on a man whom he felt an inward conviction was the individual whom he had for so long in vain endeavored to discover. And, with eyes beginning to flame, the mysterious detective gradually drew nearer to the individual, while one hand rested on his revolver.

Was the hour of his vengeance at hand?

CHAPTER XXI.

FUN!

Helen Dilt's brain had withstood the shock of the torture to which she had been subjected by the human hyena who presided over that establishment, called a "first-class private asylum, where excellent care is guaranteed for those unfortunates who are mentally deranged."

It was Tige's business to drive her crazy or kill her, and apart from the sum to be made by boarding her after being made mad, the fiend cared very little which fate she assigned to Helen.

"I must try a few more tortures on her," muttered the tigress, "and if she don't begin to weaken soon, I'll take the bull by the horns and prepare her for transplanting."

The wretch laughed at her own facetiousness, and at once took steps to have some more "fun," as she called it.

Perhaps it was fun to her.

If everything that a person enjoys is fun, then it was fun for her to torture her patients and watch the exhibition of their anguish.

Poor Helen!

It was enough to make a heart of adamant soften to see her lying there, quivering and shivering.

It was enough to cause the stoniest eyes to shed tears of blood.

But Tige was not a human being.

It would be a libel on the whole human race to call her so.

She was rather a form of flesh and blood, without feeling, without heart, the spirit, the life, which animated her being that of Satan himself, or else one of his arch fiends.

A few words had been received from Brown.

They were to the effect that Tige was to endeavor, above all things, to actually craze Helen. It suited his ends better. But in case it was impossible to drive her mad, then to kill her.

A keeper entered Helen's room, removed the gag, and motioned her to eat.

She shook her head. She could not eat. He then offered her some liquor or wine, but this she also refused.

"You must take something to keep up your strength," the keeper said. "I've got orders to see that you take some wine, and in this establishment orders has got to be obeyed, even if I have to force the stuff down your grub-tube."

He placed a glass of wine to Helen's lips, and when she would not take it—fearing poison—he throttled her, and when she gasped let the wine run down her throat, almost strangling her.

The keeper waited.

Finding that the wine was undrugged, so far as she could tell, and feeling the generous glow it produced, she drank another glass without compelling the keeper to resort to violence.

"Will you eat now?"

"No."

"Ain't you hungry?"

"Not a bit."

"Better eat it," said the fellow. "Patients is never sure here when they'll get another meal. If you ain't hungry now, you might better eat this grub ag'in the time when you will be."

But Helen motioned the food away.

She could not eat.

Before taking his leave, the fellow replaced the gag. When Helen saw him take it up, and divined what he intended to do, she filled her lungs for screaming.

But the keeper's eyes were quick ones.

He was accustomed to similar scenes, and quick as a flash had Helen by the throat, and choked the first shriek short off.

"Now be quiet, curse you!" he hissed, as the poor girl's tongue began to protrude. "You're mighty slow in learning that it ain't best to kick against the pricks in this 'ere shebang."

Letting go of Helen's throat now, he deftly applied the gag before she could recover sufficient breath to finish the cry for help which he had choked down.

Then he left her.

An hour later she had another visitor.

It was Tige.

Helen was a brave girl. She had proved her courage when in the cellar beneath the house of McGinnis, when the cruel tide mounted higher and higher about her.

Yes, she was a brave girl.

There could be no question about that.

Yet she could not help cowering down in terror as she saw her tormentor entering the room—could not help shrinking down close to the bed, while cold chills crept up her spine, accompanied by a feeling as if she were telescoping into herself.

Tige paused.

As she stood and gloated over this unconscious action of Helen's, the fiendish woman gave utterance to a blood-chilling chuckle.

The sight of this fear that was manifested for her, was the highest compliment which Tige could be paid.

"Well, how does my deary feel after our last little picnic party?" inquired Tige, as she approached the bed, her face distorted by a horrible grimace.

Helen quivered from head to foot.

But she was silent.

The gag prevented all speech, smothered all sound, save moans and groans, and these there was no occasion for now, although there soon would be.

Helen's feet were still bare.

Toward these the hag directed her attention, and as a first move lightly ran her fingers over the soles.

The victim drew them hastily up as far as the ropes about her ankles permitted.

Tige exultantly chuckled.

Helen's feet were very sensitive.

There was a world of fun in store for the she-hyena.

From her pocket the human she-hyena now took a bunch of feathers—innocent-looking things of themselves, but capable of being made an instrument of terrible torture.

These feathers Tige commenced drawing over and brushing around on the soles of Helen's feet.

It was torture indeed!

Torture!

The word does not describe it.

Soon Helen was writhing again, and straining again, until the veins were swollen nearly to bursting.

It was agony to endure.

Don't you think so?

Well, try it.

It can be easily done; there is no costly apparatus to procure. Just two or three feathers, to be drawn over your bare feet.

Laughing, exultantly crowing, chuckling as she watched the evidences of Helen's sufferings, the she-hyena pursued her hideous work with relentless energy.

It was awful.

At last human nature could not stand it, and Helen went into convulsions.

Then Tige threw down the feathers, and sprang to get a pitcher of water.

"I must be quick," she muttered, "or she may die before I can get her out of the fit."

CHAPTER XXII.

OUT OF JEOPARDY.

We were in a fix of the worst possible description, and I felt at that minute that no matter how important a capture I might expect to make thereby, I would never again put myself in seeming league with house-breakers.

No, sir!

Spring guns was just one too many to suit my taste.

This was my first experience in the art of "crib-cracking," and if I could only get safely out of this I felt that I should be perfectly contented to have it my last as well as my first.

If you have never been in a similar situation you can only have a faint conception of my feelings as I stood there, not daring to move lest I might set those concealed springs to going.

I do not think my bitterest enemy would accuse me of cowardice, and I don't think that my trembling just then was the result of cowardice on my part.

Such a feeling as came over me then I never had before and have never had since.

In reaching for the button of the window Woglom's hand was made a prisoner by the same means.

At once both commenced to wildly thrash about with their heels, in an attempt to get loose and make their escape.

"For Heaven's sake," I gasped, "keep your feet quiet. You may set the infernal machine at work."

But they only thrashed harder.

I momentarily expected to be blown to pieces, to be riddled by a teacupful of young bullets, a certainly not very pleasing reflection.

It occurred to me that it was a singular sort of position for a detective to be caught in, and I groaned as I thought of the laugh my brother professionals would have at my expense.

That I would eventually be able to exonerate myself, I had no doubt. But before I could do so I would of necessity be obliged to spend the remainder of the present night, and possibly several additional days and nights, in jail before being set free.

It was not a pleasant prospect.

Indeed, it was quite the contrary.

And it would, in all probability, hurt my standing in the force, and give my envious enemies a handle for sneers and innuendoes.

Some of these—and I knew I had enemies—would not hesitate to hint that there was "a nigger in the fence;" in other words, that I was not as innocent as I tried to make out.

I am afraid that I uttered an oath or two. In fact, I am quite sure I did.

But how to help myself?

Was I to stand there like a stake until I was reached and collared by the gardener and hostler, who had been hastily roused, and whom I could now hear coming with heavy tread down the stairs inside the house?

All the thrashing around of Woglom and his pal had not started the spring guns.

This thought flashed across my brain.

Ha!

Perhaps the gentleman's statement of a whole battery of these masked weapons was a fiction, designed to hold us spellbound with fear.

There was a hope in the thought.

How my heart bounded!

I had often thought I could imagine just how a cornered criminal feels, as he gathers himself, in very desperation, for a dash for liberty.

But my imagination had never drawn so vivid a picture as was painted by my situation and its natural feelings at that moment.

I glanced up.

Out of the window that head still protruded, and the eyes in it were watching me sharply.

The muzzle of the gun was directed at me point-blank.

The gentleman knew that the two others were trapped, and so paid me the compliment of keeping me under surveillance.

I heard the back door of the house opened.

In a minute the gardener and hostler would be upon me.

I had no time to lose if I meant to make my escape.

And escape I must!

Two or three bounds would certainly carry me outside the circle in which the spring-guns were concealed, if concealed they were.

I gathered my muscles.

The watcher seemed to divine my intentions, for he sternly called:

"Stand still there! If you move, or try to escape, I'll shoot you down. I am not talking idly, but am in grim earnest."

I was satisfied of that from his tone.

But I must escape.

I would risk a shot at me.

Catching my breath, I took a big leap, and——

Bang!

He had been as good as his word.

I thought a swarm of bees were flying around my head.

But I had taken a second leap just in the nick of time, and, unharmed, escaped the shower of big buckshot which would have riddled my body, had not I been so quick.

A third and fourth leap, and then I took to my heels.

The fence barred my way.

And the gardener and his companion were close behind me. I made no attempt to go out of the gate. Nor did I waste time in climbing the fence.

I ran toward it for all I was worth, and bounded over it on the fly, alighted safely on the other side, and then went down the road like a streak of greased lightning.

"After him!—after him!—I can attend to these two!" I heard an excited voice yell, and the two men obeyed the order.

As I ran, I conned the situation.

I found that I could easily outstrip the lumbering workmen. But that was not the thing. In an hour the whole country would be aroused, and it would be impossible to get a train back to the city without being collared.

A thought struck me.

Easing my pace, so as just to keep ahead of my pursuers, I took off and turned my coat inside out (it was made reversible for the purposes of disguise.)

I yanked off my false mustache, with a tiny pair of scissors hastily trimmed down my false beard, and changed its shape.

A few other changes I was able to make without pausing, and I felt sure I could then pass muster.

Suddenly halting short, I uttered a shout and then blazed away with my revolver, and was still shooting when the puffing men reached me.

"Were you after him?" I inquired.

"Yes," was the reply. "Which way did he go?"

"Straight ahead. My!—how he did run! You can never catch him."

"We can try," said they, and I joined with them in the pursuit—of a phantom, now!

Finally giving up the pursuit, we turned our steps backward over the course we had come. They told me what had happened, and I informed them that I was a detective.

We reached the house.

The constable had been summoned, and the two rascals were already in irons.

The display of my badge made me perfectly solid, and I was taken into the confidence of the authorities when I—to their surprise as well as that of Woglom and his pal—told the names of the pair and gave their pedigree.

When in the light, I saw Woglom and his pal glance at me rather hard. But the change in appearance was so great, that, while they might suspect, they could not be sure that Detective Howard was their recent companion.

Should the forgoing chapter be read by the inhabitants of that little Jersey village, they will for the first time learn who the third person of that burglarious trio really was.

I saw the rascals caged safely, and then returned to the city, as thankful a man as ever stepped in two shoes.

No more such adventures for me.

I was perfectly satisfied with one such experience.

My next move was to try and find Shadow, whom I next saw under very peculiar circumstances.

CHAPTER XXIII.

WEAVING THE NET.

Was the hour of Shadow's vengeance at hand?

It would seem so, from the expression which came into his face as he passed nearer to the man whom he believed he had at last recognized.

An intense but suppressed excitement marked his every movement.

"Thank Heaven!"

He had thus exclaimed a moment before while he was earnestly scrutinizing the face of this person.

The fact that he could be surprised into breaking his long and well-maintained silence spoke very strongly for his belief that he had at last found the man he was in search of.

And that man was McGinnis.

When he left the place Shadow followed him.

Like a sleuth-hound he kept on the track of the evil man, and so carefully did he time his movements, that the suspicions of McGinnis were not aroused.

Light-footed as a cat, noiseless as a very shadow, gliding along like a ghost, a better person than the mysterious little detective could not have been found for the purposes of dogging and pursuit.

Gradually the expression of excitement left his face, and it became very stern and set.

It pictured a grim and unalterable purpose.

And that purpose was—vengeance!

That is, if McGinnis should prove to be the right man.

Shadow had been mistaken before, and there was a possibility of his being so again.

But he was satisfied that this time he had found the right man.

Earnestly he had studied the face of Helen Dilt's abductor, and it exactly corresponded with the mental picture he had formed of the individual he was after.

Such a likeness, he told himself, could hardly be the result of accident.

A description which had been given him, every word of which he had carefully treasured up, suited McGinnis perfectly and in every particular.

And, as Shadow pursued, a grim smile began to play about his lips.

"It is the man!" he muttered, again breaking through the shield of silence with which he had so long kept himself surrounded.

"It is the man!" he muttered again. "My darling, you shall be avenged soon."

Shadow knew that he had broken the self-imposed silence.

Yet he did not appear vexed, as he had when I forced him to speak on a certain occasion.

Why was this?

It seemed to me as if he had vowed solemnly to utter no word to living being until he had found the man he was after.

Satisfied that McGinnis was the person, he considered the vow fulfilled.

This was, indeed, the true reason.

But was McGinnis the man?

As closely as "death hangs to a nigger," Shadow hung to McGinnis, nor ever let him get out of his sight.

More than once the hand of the mysterious detective sought the butt of his revolver, as it had done in the saloon, in the first fever of excitement subsequent to the recognition.

An equal number of times, however, the fingers unclasped from the weapon.

While McGinnis filled the bill as far as the description went, and while Shadow would have staked his life that he was the man, he had sense enough, and was cool enough, to be aware that after all he might be mistaken.

He did not wish to kill the wrong man.

That would be worse than no revenge at all.

No, he must be sure beyond even the smallest doubt, before he fired the fatal shot.

He must follow the same general plan he had followed for so long—keep near the suspected man, waiting until he should convict himself by his own word of mouth.

McGinnis had not the remotest idea that he was under surveillance, and certainly did not dream that he was tracked to his very door.

In the dark hours before the dawn a dark figure glided around and around the shanty, ghost-like in the perfect silence of its movements. It was Shadow surveying the lay of the land.

He was seeking a mode of access to the house of McGinnis.

None was to be found.

It was secure from any but forcible entrance, and eavesdropping from outside would be worse than useless.

Shadow saw this.

It did not stump him, however.

He knew the old saying, that there is more than one way of killing a cat, and failing in one plan, he always was able to invent another without much loss of time.

Just before daybreak Shadow withdrew from the vicinity of McGinnis' house.

While in sight of it he paused, and had any one been near, it would have been to see Shadow raise his hand and shake that slender forefinger in that peculiar way of his.

Then he was gone.

Little dreaming of the mine that was preparing beneath his feet, McGinnis, with plenty of money in his pockets, which meant unlimited rum while it lasted, considered himself in clover.

He did not issue from his house until just after sunset.

On his way up the street his attention was drawn to a rather showy-looking woman—a blonde—coming from the opposite direction.

She was young, not much over twenty, was tolerably well dressed, and wore a derby hat with a decidedly rakish air.

All told, there was a certain jauntiness about her bearing telling so plain a story that most men would have turned aside to let her pass.

Not so McGinnis.

He winked at her.

Without an instant's loss of time she winked back.

"Halloo, Bridget!" said he.

"Halloo, Pat!" was her rather free-and-easy reply, in a jocular tone.

McGinnis paused short.

"Which way?" he asked.

"Any way," was the reply.

"Walk along with me, then."

"Good enough."

McGinnis and the girl walked along side by side, the man eying her in silence for a while. Then he asked:

"Who are you?"

"Me? I'm called Daisy, mostly."

"Belong here?"

"No; just got to New York this morning from London. I say, you old rooster, are you 'crooked?'"

"Yes," assented McGinnis.

"So am I. My pal was nabbed in London, but I managed to escape the bobbies."

"What's your lay?" inquired McGinnis.

"'Whipes' and 'tickers' and such like."

Without following their conversation further, we shall advance the time a few hours, and once again carry the reader to one of those low saloons that are patronized by the "crooked" and "flash."

At either side of a small table sat McGinnis and Daisy.

He was treating her and trying to induce her to join her fortunes with his.

Daisy hung back.

McGinnis continued to argue earnestly—and to order drinks.

A shrewd observer might have noticed that, while McGinnis swallowed all his liquor, the girl each time managed to dump hers out beneath the table.

The liquor began to mount to McGinnis' head, seasoned though it was.

He was becoming intoxicated.

He had been quite taken by the dashing manner of the girl and was now rapidly becoming maudlin and correspondingly affectionate.

He wanted to hug Daisy.

He put his arm around her, but she shook it off with a:

"Here, let's have another drink."

At last, when more than half intoxicated, he became very confidential, and to impress Daisy with the desirability of her taking him as her pal, began recounting his exploits in the past.

Her eyes began to snap and sparkle, and she listened to him with ill-concealed eagerness, while I, disguised, stood at a little distance, looking on.

My eyes had rested on Daisy's face for an instant, as they took in every inmate of the place. Back to her face my eyes had wandered, attracted by a something that was familiar.

The heavy falling of a drunken man caused her to glance around. Her eyes were directed at me for a second or two—and instantly I was staggered.

Those eyes were Shadow's!

Daisy was Shadow.

If Shadow was Mat Morris, then Mat Morris was Daisy.

But could that be?

Could Mat Morris so artfully disguise himself? Could that slender throat, and drooping shoulders, and swelling bust, belong to a man?

CHAPTER XXIV.

"HELP IS HERE!"

Not because she pitied Helen, or wished to save her life as a matter of humanity, but because she had received her orders, Tige sprang to the task of getting her victim out of the convulsions into which she had been thrown by torture.

Tige found it necessary to call for help, and did so.

For some time Helen's life hung as in a balance, and it was a matter of doubt what the result would be.

But hard work carried off the palm of victory, and at last Tige drew back with a satisfied grunt.

She next dismissed the person she had called to assist her.

Now her brow began to cloud with anger, directed at Helen, for having unconsciously caused her some anxiety.

Anxious Tige had been, for she always endeavored to do exactly as her partners wished, since by doing so she held them bound to her by closer ties of interest, and thereby was enabled to demand countenance, protection, and support from them.

It had been Brown's orders to kill Helen only as the extreme alternative, his first wish being that she should be driven mad.

Tige did not blame herself for Helen having gone into convulsions.

Not at all.

In her estimation it was the victim's own fault, and Helen must be made to suffer for having caused her so much trouble.

Wiping the perspiration from her forehead, Tige sat down to await Helen's return to consciousness.

It occurred soon after.

The poor girl opened her eyes, saw Tige beside her, shuddered, cowered down like a timid hare beset by a blood-hound, and closed her eyes, to shut out the sight of her tormentor.

"A pretty girl you are, to give me so much trouble!" growled Tige. "I'm going at you again for doing it."

On hearing these words, Helen began to shake, and a second or two later she went into a fit of hysterics.

A gloating look came into Tige's face.

It was music to her ears, these hysterical sobs and moans of her victim.

"The corner is turned," muttered Tige, as she stood beside the bed, looking down on Helen.

She referred to the corner of Helen's reason. She meant that the edge was entered.

Poor girl!

Never before in her life had she had a hysterical attack.

Her mind had been too healthy and strong for that, and it indicated, as Tige said, that the turning point was reached.

A vigorous following up of the mental impressions left on Helen's mind by the torture she had endured could not fail to result in the dethronement of her reason.

Tige was too well posted in her business, however, to attempt to torture Helen while suffering with hysterics. To have done so must inevitably have resulted in an immediate attack of convulsions again.

Instead, she took herself out of her victim's sight, and sent in one of the attendants to look after her.

When Helen had become somewhat calm, she was offered food, which, as before, she declined.

But of the really excellent wine she took three glasses.

Having sworn on a Bible, which was brought in, that she would not shriek or cry for help, the attendant removed the gag.

Sometimes gagged, sometimes not, sometimes bound to her bed, and again left unbound, but never permitted to leave her room, some days passed.

Several times each day Tige would pass suddenly into the poor girl's presence, and no matter how composed Helen might have been a minute before, the sight of her torturer at once threw her into an excited state, at the same time inducing a fear that caused her to retreat into a corner, quivering and gasping for breath, while a cold dew that sprang from every pore would bathe her entire body.

This was what Tige liked to see.

It indicated the state of Helen's mind, and kept her nerves constantly in a state of tension.

Few people have any idea of the frailty of the tenure which the human mind holds on reason, or how easily the mind can be warped or upset.

Helen's appetite was tempted with good food, daintily prepared, and rich wines were kept always at her hand. Of all these she now partook freely, wondering at the kindness manifested for her in this direction, but never once dreaming that it was done to build up her physical strength, so that she might stand a greater amount of torture without fainting, or going into hysterics or convulsions.

So the days passed for a period, the length of which Helen never knew.

She had flung herself on the bed one day, and had fallen asleep.

She was awakened by her wrists and ankles being clutched hold of. Opening her eyes, she saw Tige and two of the attendants there.

The scream that arose to her lips was cut short by the strong grip of the human she-hyena fastening on her throat.

When wrists and ankles had been secured to the four corners of the bed, they proceeded to gag Helen, who was then left alone with Tige.

This time the torture was one of burning with red-hot irons.

Tige had brought in with her a small charcoal furnace with which to heat the implements of torture.

She first touched the irons to the soles of the victim's feet.

Then Tige touched the iron to the palms of Helen's hand.

It was terrible!

Helen had lived so generously that she was stronger in body than when tortured before, and as she writhed and twisted the ropes squeaked and strained.

A throe of anguish caused her to concentrate her strength with one grand effort, and the rope that held her right hand parted.

Quick as a flash she dragged off the gag, and madly shrieked for help.

Tige sprang on her to throttle her, to choke her down; but her hands became nerveless and her face like that of a corpse, as a ringing voice exclaimed:

"Help is here!"

CHAPTER XXV.

MAN OR WOMAN?

Man or woman?

I looked at the individual who was seated opposite to McGinnis, and asked myself this question.

The glance of those eyes had assured me that Daisy was Shadow.

But was Shadow man or woman?

Man I certainly believed him, and yet—well, I was dumfounded if ever man was.

That swelling bust might be a work of art, but it seemed to me that it arose and fell too naturally to be anything but genuine.

True, I had had ample evidence of Shadow's ability in the art of disguise, yet still I could hardly believe this to be all making up.

Shadow saw that my eyes were upon him (or her), and also that I had recognized him.

McGinnis had been so plied with drink by Shadow, that he was too drunk to notice or understand the significance of a motion of the mysterious detective's hand.

Yet it said to me as plainly as words could have done:

"Be circumspect. Be careful. Do not betray me. Go away, and leave me to alone work out the scheme I have laid."

I obeyed.

I turned on my heel and left the place. As I was about to pass through the door I glanced back.

McGinnis was becoming very affectionate, and was winding his arm about Daisy's waist.

Since Daisy was Shadow we shall not mystify the reader, but simply speak of him by the name to which we are accustomed.

"Say yes, Daisy, won't you?" said McGinnis, with a slobber which he meant for a kiss.

An expression of intense disgust on the other's face was not noticed by the drunken villain.

"I'll think over it," was the reply. "But there's one thing, McGinnis, which I want you to understand, that I won't take up with a slouch."

"I ain't no slouch," protested McGinnis. "Why, I've——" and then started again, he began recounting his exploits in a boastful tone.

Shadow listened, his ears drinking in the other's words with an avidity equal to that of the leech, as it sucks the blood of the victim to which it has fastened.

The detective heard partially what he wished to hear, and his eyes began to gleam with a red and dangerous light.

Deftly, and with a purpose, he now and then interpolated a word to direct McGinnis' mind into other channels, and at last the end toward which he had aimed was gained.

Out of his own mouth McGinnis had convicted himself.

Distinctly, unequivocally, he had fastened on himself a terrible crime—a crime which it was Shadow's sworn purpose to avenge.

"Thank Heaven!"

So earnestly did Shadow utter this exclamation that it fixed the attention of McGinnis, stupid with drink as he was.

Shadow saw it, and hastened to remove the impression made on the mind of the villain.

"Let's have another drink," said McGinnis, as soon as his mind was again at ease.

"You've had enough," said Shadow.

"I want another drink," growled McGinnis, now in his ugly state of intoxication.

"No," was the decided rejoinder.

McGinnis clenched his fist and brought it forcibly down on the table.

He swore that he was not going to be dictated to by a woman.

"Very well," said Shadow, coolly. "You were the one who was anxious for a partnership. It wasn't me. If you drink another drop I'll bust up the whole arrangement."

Muttering under his breath that he would tame her when the time came, he nevertheless did not order the drink.

For Shadow's purpose McGinnis was now drunk enough.

"Come, let's get out of this," at last remarked Shadow.

"All right, Daisy," hiccoughed McGinnis. "Goin' home with me, ain't ye?" with a leer.

"Yes."

"Bully for you. You're a gal of the right stripe. Sail ahead—give us a wing, though, for I'm kind o' unstiddy on my pins. An' I say, you must be well seasoned, 'cause you don't show the effects of this bout's much as I do."

"I've drank many a stout lad under the table," was the laughing reply, and McGinnis looked at his Daisy more admiringly than before.

Too drunk to know even where he was going, Shadow found no trouble in leading the villain whither he wished, since McGinnis now trusted him completely.

"What a mash!" McGinnis kept muttering to himself, and every time they passed under a street-lamp he insisted on having another look at his darling Daisy's face.

"What's zish?" he finally asked, reeling unsteadily and glancing around. "What's zish? Where'sh the house? Zish is a dock!"

Shadow had led him to a lonely and deserted pier on the east side of town.

Click!

Click!

It was a pair of handcuffs that produced this clicking, as they were snapped on McGinnis' wrists.

Realizing what had been done, and nearly sobered by the shock of surprise, McGinnis started back, and, raising his hands quickly, tried to bring the handcuffs down on Shadow's head.

Shadow started back in time to save himself.

Then McGinnis made an attempt to fly.

Shadow was too quick for him.

In less than a second he had drawn and cocked a revolver, and with one spring reaching McGinnis' side, he planted the muzzle against the villain's temple.

"Be quiet, unless you wish to die instantly!" Shadow sternly said, and the villain paused and stood trembling like a leaf.

McGinnis' head was more sobered than his body, and when Shadow suddenly tripped him, his feet flew out from under him, and down he heavily went.

Shadow seemed working in a systematic way, seemed to have planned everything exactly as it happened, for when he sprang on the fallen villain he held a gag in his hand.

At the revolver's muzzle McGinnis yielded, and permitted the gag to be placed in his mouth.

Shadow next fastened his feet, and when the villain was perfectly helpless the detective coolly sat down on the string-piece, to wait until the liquor's effect had passed more away.

McGinnis' fear tended to sobering him quickly, and just as a distant church-clock was striking ten, Shadow arose and then knelt beside the villain, at whom he gazed with a fixed look that indicated unalterable purpose.

"McGinnis, your time is short," the mysterious detective sternly said. "Make your peace with Heaven if you can. In three minutes you die!"

There was no mistaking the tone in which these words were said.

McGinnis was by this time sober enough to understand the full import of the words, and he began to writhe, and strain, and try to burst his bonds.

The wisdom of Shadow's gagging him was now apparent, for had he been free to do so, the villain would have bawled and shrieked like a madman.

"I abhor a murderer, and I shudder at thoughts of murder," Shadow went coldly on. "But I stifle all such feelings for the sake of avenging in a fitting manner the death of one who was more than all the world to me, whom you robbed of life. Now you know why this terrible fate has overtaken you."

It was a fearful sight, that of this man struggling with such fierce intensity to burst his bonds, to free his hands, to save his life.

Like the Nemesis he was, Shadow remained kneeling beside McGinnis, and in calm, cold voice, counted the expiring seconds.

"The three minutes are gone," he finally said, in a tone that was harsh but unwavering, and then——

"Avenged!" muttered Shadow, as he glided away from the spot a few minutes later. "Tom, I have kept my oath! Darling Tom, the same fate that was meted out to you, I have meted out to your murderer!"

Just as the clock struck eleven, and I was preparing for bed, a note was brought to me.

"Waiting for you. Important!

Shadow".

CHAPTER XXVI.

CORNERED CRIMINALS.

"Are you ready for some sharp work?"

So I was greeted when I, as is almost needless to say, hurried down-stairs in response to Shadow's note.

"Oh, you can talk, can you?" I said. "Yes, I am ready for some sharp work. What have you on hand?" as I glanced at him from head to foot.

The skirts were gone.

He was again the slenderly-built youth that I had seen on first making his acquaintance.

"I'll tell you at the proper time," was the cool reply. "For the present do as I say. Get a dozen men as quickly as possible."

It did not take me long to do this.

Then, under Shadow's guidance, we were conducted to the vicinity of the private insane asylum in which Helen Dilt was held a prisoner.

Stationing the men so that they would not be seen, Shadow and I ascended the steps, and he rang the bell.

Soon the door opened a couple of inches, being prevented from opening further by a stout chain attached to it. But for this we should have thrown ourselves against it and forced our way in.

"Who are you? What do you want?" was asked from within.

"I came from Mr. Brown," Shadow promptly replied.

"What of him?" asked the cautious individual inside.

"He has sent me with a message to Tige concerning his patient, whom I am also commanded to see with my own eyes."

Satisfied by this display of knowledge, the fellow unfastened the chain and Shadow glided in. I sprang out from behind the pillar which had concealed me, and forced my way in just as Shadow clapped a revolver to the villain's head.

"Give an alarm at your peril!" hissed Shadow, and dragged him away from the door, which I at once swung open and admitted the men.

Handcuffs had been brought in plenty, and the keeper who had opened the door for us soon had a pair of them on his wrists.

Over the building the men scattered with as little noise as possible.

Tige was so wrapped up in her devilish work as to have heard none of the noise that could not be entirely avoided, and she knew not that her sins had found her out, until, in a ringing voice, Shadow cried out:

"Help is here!"

Helen Dilt uttered one sob, and then became very silent.

She was not dead, however.

Shadow sprang to her side even as I secured the tigerish woman, and he said that she had only fainted.

The tenderness of his manner, the way in which he commenced to bathe Helen's face, led me to inquire:

"Do you know her?"

"It is Helen Dilt!" he returned.

Helen Dilt!

I remembered the name. It was the foster-sister, the intended wife of Mat Morris.

Curiously I awaited Helen's return to consciousness, after having ironed Tige and turned her over to the custody of one of the men.

She opened her eyes at last.

She did not fling her arms about Shadow's neck, did not call him Mat, did not seem to recognize him.

Then Shadow was not Mat Morris!

This much was clear.

Who, then, was Shadow?

The mystery fretted me not a little.

"Are you ready for further work?" coolly asked Shadow, turning to me a minute later.

"Yes. Will we need as many men?"

"All but one. You can spare one to remain in charge here. Let the others march the prisoners to the station-house, and then follow me."

"Are we going to bag more game to-night?" inquired one of the men.

Shadow heard the question.

"Yes," he promptly returned. "There are plenty more to bag; but in bagging the next lot I'd advise you to keep your pops ready."

Our prisoners once safely in custody, Shadow led us by the shortest route toward the East River.

I guessed his destination this time.

"The old sugar-house?" I inquiringly said.

"Yes," was the brief reply.

"How do you expect to gain entrance?"

"Leave that to me."

I did leave it to him.

Great was my surprise when he led us by his secret entrance into the vaults beneath the old sugar-house.

I now began to understand how he had escaped—that is, if Shadow it was who had been confined in the Black Hole.

This latter I was now beginning to doubt.

Carefully we crossed the last of the series of vaults, and paused at the foot of the stairs leading up to the store-room, where I had once had a most exciting adventure.

Shadow softly mounted first.

I followed.

In the office, at the further end, Cap and some of the men were gathered, earnestly consulting about something.

The men were called up.

One was instructed to look after the door-keeper.

"Now!"

Shadow gave the word.

We rushed forward, every man with a brace of revolvers in his hands, and when I called on the rascals to throw up their hands, they cast one glance at the gleaming array of "barkers" and raised their hands.

Happily, Shadow's augury was forestalled.

We bagged as dangerous a lot of men as ever were banded together, and without firing a single shot. Unexpectedly taken as they were, they had no time to prepare for defense.

"Now for the Black Hole," said Shadow, when all the captives were in irons.

I followed him.

In the vaults he called loudly:

"What!—ho!—where are you?"

Soon came back a smothered reply, and we finally were led to a heavy wooden door secured by stout locks. As we could not open the latter, we proceeded to batter down the door, and released, in a half-starved condition—Mat Morris!

Shadow gave me no opportunity to indulge in feelings of surprise, or to obtain any information whatever concerning the mystery.

"Waste no time!" he said, coldly. "We have more work yet to-night."

Five of the men were left in the sugar-house to bag any members of the gang who might come straggling along. The others, with Shadow and myself, went to the station-house with the captives.

Between us walked poor Mat Morris, so weak that he could hardly stand.

"Take only two men this time," said Shadow, after we had reached the station; and so with two men we departed—to be surprised, I felt, as well as to surprise somebody else.

I was not wrong.

Mr. Joseph Brown was awakened by the ringing of his doorbell, and when he demanded what was the matter, was told that an intimate friend was dying and had sent for him.

When he came out we nabbed him, and within half an hour later, despite his protestations, he was behind the bars of a cell.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.

During the next afternoon all of the most active parties in this written drama were congregated in the parlor belonging to a suite of rooms at one of our second-class hotels.

Here Mat Morris had been taken, as he could be more comfortable here than at any other place, not knowing where to find his mother.

Here also had Helen Dilt been conveyed in a carriage.

Shadow was there.

And lastly, I had just put in an appearance.

Both Mat and Helen understood that to Shadow they owed their deliverance, and both were deeply grateful and could not thank him enough.

After a while I said plainly that there was a mystery underlying all this which I should like to have explained.

"You shall hear the explanation," said Shadow. "I am not what I seem; I am not a man; I am Nellie Millbank, to whom you were kind enough—although a stranger—to lend the money with which to decently inter the body of her murdered lover."

"I sometimes suspected as much," I said, while Mat and Helen both opened their eyes with surprise at learning that Shadow was a woman.

"Now," said I to Shadow, "it was to you whom I paid five hundred dollars?"

"Yes."

"Then"—to Mat—"how was it possible for you to send that same five hundred dollars to your mother?"

"I found the money," said Mat.

"I lost it," said Shadow.

Here was one of those little things which had so deeply puzzled me made light as day.

By questioning, by listening when all the parties talked freely, I finally understood all the ins and outs of the thrilling drama in real life.

In his search after Helen, and in his endeavor to find her abductor, Mat had been engaged only a short while when he rendered himself suspected by the sugar-house gang, had been arrested and clapped into the Black Hole, where he had been kept a close prisoner ever since.

So it turned out that Mat Morris, whom I had believed the most active character in the drama, was for the greater part of the time kept in a condition of forced inactivity.

Nellie Millbank told me how, after having seen her lover laid away in his resting-place, she had taken an oath to avenge his death.

Knowing how slight a clew she had on which to work—the most vague description of the murderer—she had adopted a male attire, and started out with the plan of insinuating herself into the confidence of such a man as she might suspect, and lead him to convicting himself.

Starting out on this plan, she had just caught sight of an individual whom she thought answered the description of the murderer, and was shaking her finger after him when I saw her shadow.

She heard the remark I dropped at the time, and, when she afterward wrote to me, she adopted the name my remark had suggested.

The five hundred dollars I gave to her she had lost, and Mat Morris had found, which explained the complications arising from finding bills which I recognized in the hands of Mrs. Morris.

I also then learned how it was that Shadow had come to be in the sugar-house at the time of handing me that note, although that is something concerning which the reader needs no explanation, the detective's purpose being made evident at the time.

And this is so as regards many other incidents in connection with Shadow, mysteries to me at the time of their occurrence, but made plain to the reader in various places.

And this is so also as regards Helen Dilt.

We had all her adventures and experiences to listen to, which have been recorded in their proper places.

Late in the afternoon Mrs. Morris, who had been sent for, put in an appearance, having been found and sent here.

A happier woman never drew the breath of life than she was when she was enabled to clasp both her loved ones to her heart.

Nellie Millbank and I drew a little apart, that the others might have the first few minutes of meeting to themselves.

In response to a question of mine as to how she had gathered up all the threads of the tangled skein, she replied:

"It was through McGinnis. He was the tool of Brown, the abductor of Helen, as well as the murderer of my lost one. I suspected him rightly, after many previous failures, threw myself in his way in the character of a thing which I care not to name, and when he was in liquor he told me all. He convicted himself out of his own mouth."

"Where is McGinnis?"

Shadow turned away. He pretended not to have heard my question, and I did not press it.

Together we five had supped, and a right merry party it was—although I thought that the merriment of Nellie Millbank was rather forced.

This I thought might be because of a natural embarrassment at being in men's clothing after having revealed her true sex.

Early in the afternoon I had heard of the discovery of a dead body on an East River pier. The man was handcuffed and gagged, and had been repeatedly stabbed. Already it was becoming spoken of as the most brutal murder on record.

That evening I was sent to look at the body and to give any assistance I could toward working up the case.

The moment I reached the Morgue and the sheet was drawn down, I understood the reason why Shadow had pretended not to hear my question.

The body was that of McGinnis.

On his breast had been found pinned a bit of paper, bearing these words:

"This man died a righteous death. He was a murderer, and meets the same fate he dealt to another. His victim is avenged.

"Search for the person who inflicted this punishment will be in vain."

This last sentence several shrewd detectives thought implied that the writer intended self-destruction.

This view I bolstered up to the best of my ability.

Needless to say, the murderer of McGinnis was never discovered.

In fact, none of us who knew Shadow—confound it! Nellie Millbank—ever saw her afterward, unless—— Well, one day long afterward I entered a horse-car; opposite to me sat two black-garbed sisters of mercy. For just one fleeting second the eyes of one of them encountered mine.

It may not have been Nellie Millbank, but I have always thought it was, and hope that I was right.

Dick Stanton, the false detective, was brought from the private cell in which I had placed him, and was convicted and "sent up" with the rest of the sugar-house gang.

Tige and her companion hyenas were roughly dealt with.

Murder was charged to their account, and was so well sustained that they all received life sentences.

Brown was sent to prison for twenty years, a sentence long enough to insure his never leaving the prison alive.

Helen Dilt was not long kept out of the money which her rascally uncle had so long deprived her of, and the first thing she did was to buy and present to her kind benefactress, Mrs. Morris, a completely furnished home.

Not so very long since I met a gentleman in the street, who clasped me warmly by the hand, as he said:

"Howard, it's a boy, and we think of naming it after you."

The speaker was Mat Morris.

He and Helen have been married some years now, and this boy he spoke of is not the first baby by—well, a few.

And thus we draw to a close, and with genuine regret bid adieu to the history of the strange being who was so long a mystery to me under the indefinite title of Shadow.

[THE END.]

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