CHAPTER VII.
A HARSH ALTERNATIVE
Homer Bulson was a fashionable man of the world. He had traveled a good deal and seen far more of a certain kind of "high life" than was good for him, either mentally or morally. He was fond of liquor and of gambling, and had almost run through the money which an indulgent parent had left him.
He was alone in the world, so far as immediate members of his family were concerned, but he had an uncle, Mark Horton, just mentioned, and also a cousin, Gertrude Horton, who was the ward of the retired merchant. This Gertrude Horton was the young lady who had offered to assist Nelson, and who had just recognized our hero from her seat at the window opposite.
In the fashionable world Homer Bulson cut a "wide swath," as it is commonly called, but he managed to keep his doings pretty well hidden from his uncle, who supposed him to be a model young man.
The young man's reason for this was, his uncle was rich and at his death would leave a large property, and he wished to become heir to a large portion of what Mark Horton left behind him. He knew his uncle was a strict man, and would not countenance his high mode of living, should he hear of it.
Homer Bulson watched Nelson curiously, and then looked across the street to see if he could catch his cousin Gertrude's eye. But the young lady was now out of sight.
"How is it that she knows that street boy?" Bulson asked himself, as he walked into the house to stow away the books he had purchased. "I don't like it at all—seeing that he was with the man who sold me these books. I hope he doesn't ever tell her I've been buying books on poisons."
Entering one of his rooms—he occupied several—he locked the door and threw himself into an easy-chair. Soon he was looking over the books, and reading slowly, for his knowledge of French was decidedly limited.
"Oh, pshaw! I can't make anything out of this," he exclaimed at last. "That English book on poisons I picked up at the second-hand book store is good enough for me. I might as well put these in a fire." But instead he hid them away at the bottom of a trunk.
With the books on poisons out of his sight, Homer Bulson turned to his wardrobe and made a new selection of a suit of light brown which his tailor had just brought to him.
He was putting on the suit when there came a knock on the door.
"Who's there?" asked the young man.
"Mr. Grodell, sir," was the answer.
Mr. Grodell was the agent of the apartment house, and had come for his rent.
Homer Bulson was behind four months in payments, and the agent was growing anxious for his money.
"Very sorry, Mr. Grodell, but I am just changing my clothes," said the spendthrift.
"Then I'll wait," was the answer.
"Better not, it will take some time."
"I am in no hurry, Mr. Bulson," said the agent.
"Oh, pshaw! why does he bother me!" muttered Homer Bulson. "I haven't got any money for him."
He did not know what to do, and scratched his head in perplexity.
"Come around Saturday and I will pay you in full," he called out.
"You told me you would pay me last Saturday, Mr. Bulson."
"I know I did, but I was disappointed about a remittance. I will surely have your money this coming Saturday."
"Without fail?"
"Without fail."
"All right, Mr. Bulson. But I must have it then, or else take possession of the rooms." And with this parting shot the agent departed.
"The impudent fellow!" muttered Homer Bulson. "To talk to me in that fashion! He shall wait until I get good and ready to pay him!"
Nevertheless, the young man's pocketbook was very nearly empty, and this worried him not a little.
Several times he had thought of applying to his uncle for a loan, but each time had hesitated, being afraid that Mark Horton would suspect his extravagant mode of living.
"But I must get money somehow," he told himself.
At last he was dressed, and then he peered out into the hallway.
The agent had really gone, and satisfied on this point Homer Bulson left the residence for a stroll on Fifth Avenue.
This occupied over an hour, and then he walked over to one of the clubs to which he was attached, where he dined in the best of style.
After dinner came a game or two of billiards, and then he took a cab to his uncle's mansion near the Park.
He found Mark Horton seated in an invalid's chair in the library, and nearby was Gertrude trying her best to make the elderly man comfortable.
Evidently the elderly man was in a bad humor, for his eyes flashed angrily as the nephew entered.
The trouble was Mark Horton and his niece Gertrude had had something of a quarrel. The invalid wished Gertrude to marry her cousin Homer, and the girl did not desire the match, for she realized what a spendthrift and generally worthless fellow Bulson was.
Both knew that their uncle had made a will leaving his property divided equally between them, and Gertrude was almost certain that Bulson wished to marry her simply in order to gain control of everything.
The girl hated very much to displease her uncle, for she realized what troubles he had had in the past. A fearful railroad accident had deprived the man of his beloved wife years before, and shortly after this happening other trials had come to him, which had broken him down completely. What these trials were will be revealed as our story progresses.
"Well, Uncle Mark, how goes it to-day?" asked Homer Bulson, on walking in.
"Not very well, Homer," was the feeble answer.
"Uncle Mark had quite a bad attack about two hours ago," put in Gertrude Horton. "I had to send for the doctor."
"Wasn't he here this morning?"
"Yes, but I thought best to have him again," answered the girl.
"That's right."
"The doctor seems to do me small good," put in the invalid, in a feeble voice. "He doesn't seem to understand my case at all."
"He is one of the best physicians in New York," answered Homer Bulson.
"So you said before, Homer. Well, I doubt if I ever get any better."
"Oh, Uncle Mark!" cried Gertrude, much shocked.
"I seem to be completely broken down," went on the invalid. "At times the strangest of sinking spells come over me. I feel very, very old."
There was a painful silence, and Gertrude rearranged the pillow behind the invalid's head.
"Did you see about those stocks to-day, Homer?" went on Mark Horton. "I had forgotten about them."
"I did, sir."
"And what did the broker say?"
"He urged me to hold on awhile longer."
"And you have them still?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Very well; do as he advises. Some day, when I am stronger, I must attend to many other business matters."
"Oh, Uncle Mark, don't worry about business," pleaded Gertrude, passing her arm around his neck.
There was another pause and Mark Horton gazed sharply at Gertrude. Then he turned to Homer Bulson.
"She won't marry you, Homer—I don't know why," he said.
The face of the young man fell, and he bit his lip.
"Well, I suppose she will do as she pleases," he remarked, somewhat sarcastically.
"I think I should be allowed to make my own choice," said Gertrude. She had already refused Bulson several times.
"I can't understand it," said the invalid. "To my mind you are just suited to each other."
"I do not think so," answered Gertrude.
"And why not?"
"I would rather not say, Uncle Mark."
"You can't have anything against me personally," put in Bulson, with a scowl.
"But I have!" cried the girl. "You go to the race-track, and drink, and gamble, and I do not like it."
A stormy scene followed, in which all three in the room took part. Strange to say, Mark Horton sided with his nephew, for he did not realize the blackness of Bulson's character.
"You are prejudiced and foolish," cried the invalid at last, turning to his niece. "You do not wish to please me in anything." And so speaking, he arose and tottered from the room. Homer Bulson made as if to follow him, then reconsidered the matter and sank back into a chair. Poor Gertrude burst into a flood of tears.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE COMBINATION OF THE SAFE
"Gertrude, you are making a great mistake," said Homer Bulson, after a pause broken only by the sobbing of the girl.
"Please don't speak to me, Homer," she answered. "I have heard enough for one day."
"You have no right to blacken my character," he said with assumed dignity.
"Uncle Mark forced me to speak the truth."
"It was not the truth. But let that pass. Why didn't you tell him you would marry me?"
"Because I don't want to marry you."
"But you might let him think that you–"
"I am above practicing a deception upon him, Homer."
"Oh, you aren't a saint!" he sneered. "I know why you are so loving to him—you thought to get all of his money. Now you are trying to blacken my character, so that you may get all of it, anyway. But the game won't work."
"I told him what I did simply to let him know why I didn't care to marry you, Cousin Homer."
"And why are you so opposed to me?"
"I do not like your ways. Isn't that enough? As for Uncle Mark's money, I trust he will live a long time to enjoy it himself."
"Uncle Mark can live but a short while longer. Anybody can see that. He is exceedingly feeble."
"You seem to wish his death," replied Gertrude sharply.
"I? No, indeed; I hope he does live. Haven't I done what I could for him—giving him wines and the like? And he has the best of doctors—on my recommendation."
"I don't think the wine you gave him is doing any good. He seems to become weaker after it, instead of stronger."
"Bosh! If he hadn't the wine, he would collapse utterly."
At this the girl merely shrugged her shoulders.
This was not the first time that Homer Bulson and herself had quarreled over the care their uncle should have. To the girl the retired merchant seemed to grow unexpectedly weak in spite of all she could do. The doctor, too, was baffled, and said he had never come across such a strange case before.
"If you won't marry me, you shall not turn Uncle Mark against me," went on Bulson sternly. "If you try it, you will repent it as long as you live."
So speaking, he strode from the room and made after Mark Horton, who had gone to his private apartment on the second floor.
He found the retired merchant resting in an easy-chair by the window, his head bowed low.
"Cheer up, uncle," he said, placing his hand on the other's shoulder. "Let me pour you a glass of wine."
And he walked to a medicine closet in a corner and got out a bottle he had brought a few days before.
"Thank you, Homer; I will have a little wine," replied the retired merchant.
The wine was poured out and Mark Horton gulped it down. Homer Bulson watched him closely, and then turned away his face to hide a sinister smile.
"I cannot understand Gertrude," said Mark Horton. "I always thought she preferred you."
"I think she has another person in view," answered Bulson, struck with a certain idea.
"Another? Who is it?"
"I would rather not say, uncle."
"But I demand to know."
"I cannot tell you his name. But he is a common sort of person. He went past the house a while ago and she nodded and smiled to him."
"And how long has this been going on?"
"Oh, several months, I dare say. They meet in the evening on the sly. But please don't tell Gertrude that I spoke of this."
"What does the man do?"
"I am not sure, but I think he is in the theatrical business, when he has an engagement—something on the variety stage."
"What! My Gertrude the wife of a variety actor? Never, Homer, never!" groaned Mark Horton. "This is too much! I will speak to her at once!"
"Uncle, you just promised not to let her know–"
"You'll be safe, Homer, never fear. But I won't have this—I'll cast her out first."
"I suppose she wanted to keep this a secret until after you—that is–"
"Until after I am dead, so that she can use up my money on her actor husband," finished Mark Horton bitterly. He suddenly sprang to his feet. "But she shall marry you, Homer, and nobody else. That is final."
"Pray do not excite yourself too much, uncle. Let the matter rest for a few days."
"And if I should die in the meantime, what then? No, Homer; delays are dangerous. I—I—feel as if I cannot last much longer. Who knows but what this night may prove my last?"
And Mark Horton sank back again in his chair and covered his face with his hands.
"Uncle, in case anything should happen to you, may I ask what you have done with your will?" asked Bulson, after a long pause. "Or, perhaps Gertrude knows about this?"
"Yes, she knows, but you must know, too. Both the old will and the new one are in the safe in the library, in the upper compartment on the right side. On the left side are two gold pieces which I brought home with me when I visited the mint in California."
"Is that all the money there is in the safe?"
"No, there is more gold than that—in a secret compartment at the bottom. There is a spring to open this compartment on the left side, a small gilded knob. It is right I should tell you of this, otherwise you might never find the secret compartment."
"And the combination of the safe?" went on Bulson, more anxiously than ever.
"The combination is 0, 4, 25, 12, 32, and once around to the left to 0 again. You had better put it down. I have it written on a slip in my pocketbook."
"Then it won't be necessary for me to put it down," answered the nephew, but he took good care to remember the combination, nevertheless.
It was now time for Mark Horton to retire, and, the wine having made him drowsy, he soon forgot his anger against Gertrude and went to sleep.
When Homer Bulson went below he paused in the hallway and glanced through the doorway into the library.
He saw that Gertrude had left the apartment and that it was empty.
None of the servants were about, and the housekeeper, an elderly lady, was also nowhere to be seen.
"I wonder if I dare do it so soon?" he muttered to himself. Then he shut his teeth hard. "I must do something! I have used up my last dollar, and I can't go around empty-handed. Uncle Mark will never grow strong enough to know."
Going to the front door he opened it, then slammed it violently and made a noise as if he was descending the steps. Then he closed the door with care and stole back into the gloom of the library. It was now after midnight, a fitting time for the desperate deed this misguided young man had undertaken.
CHAPTER IX.
A PAIR WELL MATCHED
After leaving George Van Pelt Nelson felt more like working, and buying a large supply of evening papers he was soon hard at it, crying his wares as loudly as possible.
Business proved brisk, and by seven o'clock he had sold out. Then he went back to the lunch-room.
Sam Pepper met him with a scowl.
"Concluded to come back after all, eh?" he said. "Work piling up on me and nobody to help. Pitch in, quick, or I'll thrash you good; do you hear?"
The rest of the evening passed in almost utter silence between them. By ten o'clock the most of the lunch trade came to an end. At eleven Sam Pepper began to lock up.
"I'm going out," he said. "An old friend is sick. Maybe I won't be back till morning. Watch things good while I'm gone."
"Who is sick?" asked our hero.
"None of your business. You mind what I told you, and keep your mouth closed," growled the lunch-room keeper.
Nelson had noticed a heavy handbag lying in the corner of the back room, and now he saw Sam Pepper pick the bag up. As the man moved it, something inside struck together with a hard, metallic sound, as if the bag might contain tools.
When Sam Pepper went out he wore a big slouch hat and a coat which he had not donned for years. He usually wore a derby hat, and his general appearance surprised the newsboy not a little.
"He acts as if he wanted to be disguised," thought the boy. "Something is up, sure."
Then of a sudden he remembered the talk he had had with Pepper about robbing an old man—the man who had in some way been connected with his father's downfall, if Pepper's story was true. Was it possible Pepper was going to undertake the job that very night, and alone?
"I believe he is!" thought Nelson. "And if that's so, I'll follow him!"
With the boy, to think was to act, and in a few minutes he was prepared to follow Sam Pepper. The man had locked the front door and taken the key with him. Nelson slipped out of a rear window and fastened the window from the outside by means of a nail shoved into a hole in a corner—a trick he had learned some time before.
When the boy came out on the street he ran up the thoroughfare for a couple of blocks, and was just in time to see Sam Pepper making his way up the stairs of the elevated railroad station. When the train came along Pepper entered the front car, and our hero took the car behind it. Nelson buttoned up his coat and pulled his hat far down over his eyes to escape recognition, but Sam Pepper never once looked around to see if he was being followed.
Leaving the Bowery, the elevated train continued up Third Avenue until Fifty-ninth Street was reached. Here Sam Pepper got off, and Nelson, who was on the watch, did the same. The man descended to the street and walked slowly toward Fifth Avenue. Our hero followed like a shadow. He was now certain that Pepper was bent on the robbery of the place he had mentioned that afternoon.
Mark Horton's residence stood on the avenue, but a few blocks below Central Park. As Sam Pepper had said, there was an alleyway in the rear, with a small iron fence. Beyond was a small courtyard, and here there was a balcony with an alcove window opening into the library. Over the window was a heavy curtain, which the retired merchant sometimes closed when at the safe, so that curious neighbors might not pry into his affairs. But the neighbors were now away on a vacation in Europe—something which Sam Pepper had noted with considerable satisfaction.
It did not take the man long to climb over the iron fence and on to the little balcony. Noiselessly he tried the window, to find it locked. But the catch was an old-fashioned one, and he readily pushed it aside with a blade of his knife. Then he raised the window inch by inch. At last he had it high enough, and he stepped into the room, behind the heavy curtain before mentioned.
Sam Pepper was hardly in the room when something happened to give him a temporary shock. He heard the scratch of a match, and then a gas jet was lit and turned low in the room.
"I've put my foot into it," he groaned. "Maybe I had better git out as fast as I came in."
Cautiously he peeped from behind the curtain, and to his astonishment saw Homer Bulson approach the safe and kneel down before it. He also saw that Bulson was alone, and that the doors to the other parts of the mansion were tightly closed.
"Something is up that's not on the level," he told himself. "This man don't live here."
Scarcely daring to breathe, he watched Homer Bulson work at the combination of the safe. To get the strong box open was not easy, and soon the fashionable young man uttered a low exclamation of impatience.
"I must have it wrong," Pepper heard him say. "Confound the luck! And I wanted that money to-night, too."
At last the safe came open, and Homer Bulson breathed a sigh of satisfaction. With trembling fingers he pulled open one of the upper drawers.
"Found!" he murmured. "I wonder if I have time to read them over, to make sure they are all right? Uncle is a queer stick and he may have made some mistake."
He brought some documents forth and began to unfold them. Then he reconsidered the matter and placed the papers on a chair beside the safe. In a moment more he had found the gilded knob, pressed upon it, and opened the secret compartment at the bottom of the strong box.
The sight that met his gaze caused his eyes to glisten. There were several stacks of ten- and twenty-dollar gold pieces—at least two thousand dollars in all. Without waiting he placed a large handful of the coins in the outer pocket of his coat.
"I won't take it all—it won't be safe," he murmured. "I can get more some other time—if I need it." Then he shut the compartment.
Sam Pepper had seen the gold, and it set his heart to thumping madly. Here was more wealth than he had seen in many a day—right within his reach. Why had not the young man taken it all?
"He's chicken-hearted and a fool," thought Pepper.
A second later a big fly, awakened by the swinging of the curtain and the light, buzzed close to Pepper's ear and caused him to start. At the same moment Homer Bulson glanced up and caught sight of the other's face.
"Who—what—who are you?" stammered Bulson, leaping to his feet.
"Hush!" cried Sam Pepper warningly. "Hush, unless you want to wake up the whole house."
"But who are you, and where did you come from?"
"Never mind about that. Why didn't you take all of the gold from the safe while you were at it?"
"I—er—what do you know of the gold?" stammered Homer Bulson. He was pale and confused.
"I saw you open the safe and take it. Is that your uncle's money?"
"Ye—yes."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"What business is that of yours?"
"I am going to make this job my business."
"You look like a burglar."
"Well, if I am a burglar, you won't give me away, for you are a burglar yourself."
The shot told, and Homer Bulson became paler than before.
"I reckon we might divide up on this job," went on Sam Pepper with a boldness that was astonishing.
"I don't understand."
"Give me half the gold and I won't say anything about this to anybody."
"And if I refuse?"
"If you refuse, perhaps I'll make it mighty unpleasant for you. I know you. You are Homer Bulson, the fashionable nephew of Mark Horton, and the man who expects to come into a good share of his property when he dies."
"And who are you?"
"I am a man who used to be up in the world, but one who is now down on his luck. I want you to help me. If you will, I'll help you."
At this Homer Bulson was a good deal bewildered.
"I don't understand you. I am not of your kind, my man."
At this Sam Pepper gave a contemptuous sniff.
"If you aint, you aint any better," he growled. "Let me tell you I know a thing or two. I didn't come here blindly. I know all about Mark Horton and his niece, and you—and I know a good deal more—about the past. You and that girl expect to get his property. Well, maybe you will, and then, again, maybe you won't."
"And why won't we get his property?" asked Homer Bulson, in deep interest.
"Hush! not so loud, or you'll have the rest of the house down on us," Sam Pepper leaned forward and whispered something into the young man's ear. "There, how do you like that?"
Homer Bulson fell back as if shot.
"You—you speak the truth?" he faltered.
"I do."
"But after all these years! Impossible!"
"It's true, I tell you, and I can prove it—if I want to. But I'm not his friend. Now are you willing to make a deal with me?"
"Yes! yes!" groaned the young man. "First, however, you must prove your words. But that can't be done here. Come to my bachelor apartment, across the way. There we will be perfectly safe."
"All right. But I must have some of that gold first."
"Well, you shall have some—as much as I took, but no more," concluded Homer Bulson, and opened the secret compartment again.