Bats in the Wall; or The Mystery of Trinity Church-yard Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  BATS IN THE WALL.

  Left to himself within the banking-room, Detective Hook, with theclosest scrutiny, began a systematic examination of the rifled vaultand its surroundings.

  There was no evidence that the bank had been entered other than by therear doors from the Rector street side.

  And these doors, strange to relate, were unprotected, save by ordinaryspring locks.

  Evidently the officers of the Webster Bank had relied upon the solidityof their vault doors for protection, and upon the fact that with plateglass windows upon two sides, facing Rector street and Broadway, thepoliceman on the beat could see the entire front of the vault asplainly as though it had been standing in the street itself, by thelight of the gas-burner, kept burning the entire night directly infront of the combination lock.

  And, after all, no better protection could be devised than this,providing always, the policeman of the beat is true to his trust.

  And yet the deed had been done, and, stranger still the officer inwhose charge this portion of Broadway lay had put in no appearance yet.

  Crowbar and jimmy, powder-can and fuse, and the shattered door itself,told with startling plainness the methods by which the bank-robbers hadattained their end.

  Detective Hook examined each point with close attention.

  Nothing of value remained in the vault.

  It might have contained millions--it might have contained cents--thebank officers alone could tell.

  "There is something altogether out of the usual order in this affair,"he muttered to himself, as he stood musing before the rifled vault.

  "The strange hints received by me from Cutts have proved both true andfalse. Instead of this clerk and a gang of desperate burglars, I findthe vault already robbed and this young man with his strange story,involving Cutts himself, standing here alone.

  "I don't like the look of it. I believe this boy is as innocent as Iam, Caleb Hook; there is something else at the bottom of all this. If Idon't greatly mistake----

  "Hello! Well, what have you discovered?"

  "Nothing," replied Policeman Jones, now appearing at the door. "There'snot a soul anywhere about, except an old crazy woman walking up anddown before Trinity Church, muttering to herself. I questioned herclosely, but she knows nothing at all."

  "Did you see anything of Officer Flaherty, who ought to be on thisbeat?"

  "Not a thing, and I've searched for him everywhere, too."

  "I'll see that he is provided for, the careless rascal," muttered thedetective, "and you, Brady"--addressing the second policeman who hadalso appeared--"what luck in the church-yard? Any tracks in the snow?"

  "The tracks of two men, Mr. Hook, but they are pointing this way. Justover the fence are others, too. I should say several persons had beentramping around there."

  "Remain here and guard what is left," said the detective, briefly."I'll examine into this for myself."

  He hastily passed to the street, leaving the two policemen in charge.

  "Now for the Trinity church-yard," he muttered, as he sprang towardthe low wall at the point before which the strange woman had kneeledbut a few moments before. "I've got a genuine mystery on my hands atlast, I fancy, and that's what I've been sighing for these last threemonths---- Ha, Schneider, where's your prisoner? Surely you are notback from the station as soon as this?"

  The stout German policeman, panting for a breath, stood trembling byhis side.

  "Dunder und blitzen! now mebbe you kills me, Mr. Hook. I swear it vosnot my fault."

  "Not your fault! Have you lost your prisoner--but that is impossible!Speak, you Dutch scoundrel! Where is the boy I gave into your charge?"

  "Gone, Mr. Hook! Disappeared unter mein very nose. I take not meineyes from him, und I looks for him und he ish not dere. I tink dere'ssome devil vork mit dis, by shiminy, I do!"

  A moment later, and Detective Hook, with the frightened German by hisside, stood beneath the high wall skirting Trinity church-yard onthe New Church street side, at the spot where Frank Mansfield had sostrangely disappeared.

  Twice over had the wretched Schneider told his tale, without renderingmatters in the least more clear.

  If he told the truth--and he related the facts so circumstantially thatthere could be no doubt of that--there was absolutely no explanation tobe had.

  There was the dead wall upon one side broken only by the irondoors, leading to the vaults beneath the bank, which had not beenopened, perhaps in a century, filled with the moldering bones of thelong-forgotten dead, and the structure of the elevated railroad uponthe other, with the dark outlines of the building upon the oppositeside of the street rising just beyond.

  That the boy could have crossed the street was a simple impossibility.

  Not a trace of human foot was visible in the freshly fallen snow.

  Upon the sidewalk beneath the wall the detective had no difficulty intracing his footsteps.

  But this only served to double the mystery.

  They all pointed one way--in the direction of the station toward whichthey had been going, and at the precise point where the boy had haltedwhen the attention of his conductor had been attracted by the bat-likecry from the wall above they ceased to appear at all.

  It was impossible that the vanished prisoner could have advanced orretreated, crossed the street--moved up or down.

  Deeply puzzled, the detective hurried to Rector street again, andleaped the iron fence at the first available point, landing among thestones of the grave-yard beyond.

  Nor did he leave it until an hour had passed, and but little the wiserthen.

  The tracks of two men crossing toward the Rector street side ofthe grave-yard from a point overlooking the place where Frank haddisappeared were found and carefully measured.

  At this point, also, the snow was found to be much disturbed, both onthe ground itself and upon the vines overhanging the wall.

  To all appearance, a number of persons had been moving about here, buttheir foot-prints seemed to lead nowhere, extending simply up and downthe wall.

  What did it mean?

  Detective Hook had been called upon to solve many mysteries in histime, but never before had he encountered one so deep as this.

  He was baffled; he could not deny it.

  Accompanied by the crestfallen Schneider, he repaired to the station atlast, and reported the occurrences of the night.

  In a short space of time every newspaper in the city was preparing fortheir morning issues an account of the bold robbery of the WebsterNational Bank.

  The great clock in Trinity steeple had rang out the hour of four, whenDetective Hook, still hovering about the scene of his late defeat,turned, for the twentieth time that night, the corner of Rector streetand Broadway.

  As he did so there brushed past him the figure of a woman, plainly butneatly dressed, with gray hair hanging down from beneath her worstedhood, and wild, roving eyes, moving restlessly from one object toanother as she walked along.

  "Bats in the wall! Bats in the wall!" she muttered, as she passed."Blessed be the bats in the wall for what they have done for my erringboy this night!"