The Copper House A detective story
the top of the stairs. Wallion sprang silently upon him, seized him by
the back of the neck, swung him round, wrested the carbine from the
hands of the surprised and bewildered man, and, with a violent push,
sent him reeling backwards down the stairs. The living projectile
evidently landed in the very midst of his advancing comrades, and
a chorus of shouts and execrations followed. Wallion examined the
carbine, which was loaded with five rounds of ammunition.
"Come along," said he, "we can't stop here."
They mounted the third flight, which was narrower, and led straight to
the attics, and they looked round them in the darkness. Every corner
was filled with dusty boxes, worn-out furniture, and a medley of
nondescript objects; on the far side, they made out a ladder, set up
against the ceiling, beneath a bolted trapdoor. Wallion struck a match,
and looked at his watch: it was half-past nine. Their pursuers came on
noisily, though rather out of breath. Raebel seized an old high-backed
oak armchair, swung it up over his head, and hurled it with a crash
down the attic-stairs. A shot answered the challenge, and a bullet
whistled past the Austrian's right ear, as he stepped back swearing
softly:
"There's no stopping them," he grumbled; "a machine-gun is what we
want!"
The journalist was already at the top of the ladder, and pushing up the
creaking trapdoor. The Austrian followed him, and they both crawled out
upon the sloping copper roof. The night air blew cool and refreshing on
their heated faces, and Wallion let the heavy trapdoor fall back into
its place.
"Shall we stop here," asked Raebel eagerly. "We could give them a warm
reception from this position."
Wallion considered.
"No," he said; "we have too little ammunition, and besides, there are
several attic windows from which they might fire on us."
"But where in the world can we go?" exclaimed the flabbergasted Raebel.
"It seems to me, we have come as far as we can without flying!"
"Follow me: I have an idea."
The journalist turned, and began to creep along the roof, which was wet
and slippery. The rain had ceased, and the thunder no longer rumbled,
but the sky was still overcast, and the darkness denser than ever.
Raebel was no coward, but he was beginning to find the situation far
from pleasant, and muttered wrathfully to himself.
"Be careful here," the journalist's voice warned him; "it's a curb
roof, as you know, and slopes abruptly."
"Where are you going?" asked Raebel.
"I am crawling down to the eaves," explained Wallion, his voice seeming
to come unexpectedly from beneath the Austrian's feet. He followed his
companion's example, slid dizzily down, and fortunately brought up,
feet foremost, at the eaves. There, to his indescribable horror, he
heard an extraordinary creaking and crashing, out in the empty space
beyond the edge of the roof.
"Where are you, Wallion?" he faltered.
"Here," replied a calm voice. "Don't you remember the old oak tree
behind the house? Spring right out from where you are now, and you will
find it is almost like jumping on to a mattress."
"Gracious Heaven!" thought the Austrian, shutting his eyes, and without
waiting for any miracle from above, he took the leap, just as two
carbines were fired through the trapdoor.
It seemed an age before he fell into a network of yielding branches.
Wallion's hand grasped him, and he found himself sitting astride a
good-sized bough.
"A bird couldn't have done it better," whispered his friend. "This is a
funny life, but at any rate, we are making them dance to our tune!"
"And where next?" inquired Raebel faintly.
"Down to terra firma again, of course!"
They climbed down, and reached the ground breathless, but unhurt. A
loud shout was heard on the roof, and a shot was fired in reply from
the terrace.
"We must get right away from the house!" cried Wallion; "there's just
one chance in ten that we may find the coast clear."
They ran helter-skelter through the nearest bushes, and came out on the
open space in front of the stable and cowhouse. But they had not gone
ten steps, before lights began to twinkle on all sides, and they saw
dark figures hurrying to intercept them.
"No," said Raebel, "not one chance in a thousand. It is not within
human power to shake them off: they are worse than teazles!"
Both men felt that they were not up to a long chase, exhausted as they
were after their efforts, and they instinctively steered their course
towards the stable, rushed in, and fastened the massive bolt. Here
they would at least gain a moment's respite, though they could hear
the steps of their pursuers outside, surrounding the building. They
breathed more easily, and looked at each other by the light of a match.
"Listen," said Wallion slowly. "If help doesn't come soon, we shall
both be done for; we have seen too much, and Tarraschin's memorandum is
in my pocket-book. The document is all-important. If either of us can
save it, well and good: but if the worst happens, it must be destroyed.
Agreed?"
"Agreed!" replied Raebel, seriously.
They shook hands. A bullet crashed through the door. The match went
out, but Wallion struck another. The two horses in the stalls turned
their heads uneasily, and blinked at them with great, solemn eyes. They
passed through the stable, climbed into the hay-loft, and pulled the
ladder up after them. A minute later, the stable door was burst open by
a powerful blow from a huge piece of timber, and the place was invaded
by a swarm of dark figures. Wallion and Raebel fired simultaneously,
and a cry betrayed that someone had been hit; the besiegers drew back a
little, and there was a pause which lasted for several minutes.
"That was too risky for them," whispered the Austrian; "they are
evidently meditating something else, but what?"
The silence made him uneasy.
"I don't like this," he murmured. "Why haven't they returned?"
Wallion said nothing. They could hear steps outside, voices, strange
noises of different kinds. A shout was heard in the distance. Suddenly
a heavy body fell upon the tiled roof, which was splintered by the
blow, something fell with a thud into the hay, and lay hissing close to
them. Wallion sprang up.
"Fire!" he shouted.
A violent explosion flung him against the wall, and a tongue of flame
shot up through the hole in the roof. The hay had caught fire, and was
beginning to burn with a dark, smoky blaze, which spread rapidly,
filling the loft with light, and making it intensely hot. In their
first bewilderment, Wallion and Raebel stood irresolute.
"The swine!" exclaimed the Austrian indignantly. "The treacherous
brutes!"
He would have tried to drop the ladder again through the trapdoor,
but a bale of burning hay fell into the aperture and blocked it. He
staggered back, shielding his face with his hands.
"Shut in!" he said bitterly; "trapped like rats!"
They retreated before the fire to the other end of the loft, where
there was still one portion which the flames had not reached, since
there was no hay in that half of the building. The journalist looked at
his watch, and the Austrian, irritated at the meaningless precision of
the action, exclaimed:
"That's right, I suppose you are going to make a note of the exact
instant of our death!"
"It is just ten o'clock," replied Wallion deliberately. Over their
heads, the tiles on the roof were cracking from the heat, with a noise
like the rattle of rifle-practice; the fire was speedily consuming the
woodwork, the roof-joists were burning, and the floor itself began to
give way.
They heard the terrified horses break loose, and gallop away, neighing
wildly. The two men were now the only living creatures left in the
burning stable.
Then the journalist went up to the great double trap-doors, which were
only opened to hoist up the bales of hay, and, as though to get air,
he unbarred them and threw them wide open. A loud shout greeted his
appearance, as his tall figure was unexpectedly outlined against the
glare of the fire. He looked down into the darkness, and became aware
of a crowd of upturned faces, and gleaming rifle-barrels.
"Is Ortiz there?" he called out.
The adventurer stepped slowly to the front, his hands behind his back
in his favorite attitude.
"What do you want?" he asked. "Have you made up your mind to surrender?"
"No, I only want to remind you that I still have the Tarraschin
memorandum, and it will not be much to your advantage to burn me alive."
"What do you expect me to do, then? I should be no better off if I shot
you on the spot. The decision lies with you: give me the paper, and you
are free."
The journalist seemed scarcely to hear him. A look of intense
excitement had come into his eyes, which were fixed on the wooded ridge
near the house, and a sigh of relief burst from him as he saw a white
light flash out once.
"No, my dear Ortiz, I am not going to give you the document, but, on
the contrary, this!" he cried, and raising his carbine he fired three
successive shots into the darkness. Ortiz sprang back.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed.
A rocket shot up from the bay, and burst in ten thousand stars.
Frantic whistles were heard from the Copper House, together with an
extraordinary medley of voices, knockings, shots and running feet.
"Go and see what is happening!" ordered Ortiz.
"Do not trouble, for I can tell you," said Wallion. "It is what I have
been waiting for the whole of this long evening; it is my lieutenant,
Robert Lang, who has come with the police."
Ortiz did not stir, but his very soul seemed to look out of his eyes,
as he fixed them on his enemy.
"Were you clever enough for that after all?" said he. "I could not have
believed it. I admit that I have underrated your powers. I suppose you
think you have trapped me now?"
"That I cannot say: but I do know one thing, Ortiz: this is the end of
your glorious dream!"
The adventurer seized a rifle, and fired at the black silhouette of the
man who had outwitted him.
"You shall not survive it!" he shouted. "Farewell, Wallion!"
The journalist staggered back, and fell on to the floor. A loud voice
was calling from some way off:
"The police! Where is the Chief? The police are here!"
CHAPTER XXI
_The end of a glorious dream_
The stampede began. Two minutes after the alarm had been given,
not a man was left near the stable, which was now burning on every
side, casting a vivid radiance over its immediate neighborhood.
It struck them later as extraordinary that the gang had retreated
without a single attempt at resistance. The last shot was that fired
by Ortiz himself, and aimed at his bitterest foe--Maurice Wallion.
From that hour, nobody set eyes upon the reincarnated Napoleon; it
is to be supposed that, like his great prototype after the defeat
at Waterloo, he apathetically allowed himself to be hurried away by
his panic-stricken followers. He was hopelessly beaten, he had lost
everything, and he must have realized this: he chose to vanish into the
night....
Wallion had not been hit. Together with Raebel he jumped down from the
granary, the floor of which collapsed a minute later.
"That's what one may call a rescue at the eleventh hour!" exclaimed the
Austrian. "But what puzzles me is how did help come, when we had been
unable to send a word of our plight?"
"I was prepared for the worst this morning," answered Wallion; "Robert
Lang had orders to come to our relief on the stroke of ten, if he had
heard nothing from me by then. The reason why I was so anxious to send
him a message, is very simple: the submarine, of course, necessitated
special measures, and I am afraid that Lang has omitted to take them."