The Spruce Street Tragedy; or, Old Spicer Handles a Double Mystery

"No, and so – "

"Und so if either uv dem underdake to make trouples, vhy – "

"Why, you must silence them in the easiest way you can."

"Dot vos all right Parney – you shust leave dot to me."

"Very good. And now come on. I'm mighty glad to see you in a more cheerful mood, Jake."

"Ha! ha! Der brospects uv handling dhirty-dree dousand tollars vas enough to make any man cheerful. Vosn't dot so, my tear Parney?"

"Well, there is a cheering sound in the clinking of gold, I must confess. Now, then, I'll go ahead, and you keep close to my heels."

"All right."

"Better close the scuttle, Jake."

"Dot's schust vot I am a-doin'," and Jake closed and fastened the scuttle while Barney waited for him on the attic floor below.

Not having a lantern, Barney now lighted a piece of candle he had brought with him, and the two burglars descended the attic stairs to the third story.

Treading cautiously and lightly, they traversed the hall and descended to the second floor.

Here Barney paused before a closed door and listened intently.

Then, after a rapid signal to Jake, he put out the light and turned the knob.

The door was locked on the inside.

Once more he had recourse to his nippers, and speedily the door was opened.

Evidently Barney knew exactly where the door to the inner room was situated; for, without the slightest hesitation, he started across the sleeping-apartment in a diagonal direction.

Jake essayed to follow him, but mistaking the course, brought up against the foot of the bed, which he struck with such force as to startle the sleepers from their dreams, and cause a red-hot oath to burst from his own lips.

"Who's there?" came in a stern and determined voice from the bed. "Speak! or by the great Eternal! I'll fire!"

CHAPTER XI.

A DOUBLE MURDER – AN UNCEREMONIOUS VISIT

There was the slightest possible movement at the foot of the bed, and then, just as the mining company's treasurer was about to pull the trigger, a blow descended on his breast, and he fell over dead, bathed in his own heart's blood.

His wife heard the blow, heard the revolver drop from his hand, and felt the jar as her husband fell dead by her side.

A cry of fear and agony arose to her lips; but ere she could give it utterance, a hand closed about her throat, and speedily she lost all consciousness.

"It vos all right now, Parney. You can sthrike a light as soon as you vant to," whispered Jake cheerfully. "These two von't give us no more trouple."

Barney hastened to light a candle, and then, having cautioned Jake to lock the bedroom door, entered the inner room, and began a careful examination of the safe.

It had not a combination lock, and he had only to find the key to be able to open it with the greatest ease.

An instant's reflection satisfied him that the key would most probably be in one of the dead man's trousers pockets.

Hurrying back, therefore, into the bedroom, he looked around for that useful article of wearing apparel.

He soon found it, and in the right-hand pocket found the key on a bunch with a dozen others.

In another moment he was back to the safe, and had the door open.

By this time Jake was at his side, and as Barney opened drawer after drawer, and brought forth packages of bank-notes and bags of specie, his excitement was intense and his happiness almost complete.

At length the safe was stripped, and the treasure had been carefully stowed away in the capacious pockets of the two burglars.

Barney was just shutting the safe door, and Jake was making sure that not a single gold piece had been dropped upon the floor, when a deep and hollow groan from the next room startled them both.

"Great Cæsar! what was that?" gasped Barney.

"Father Abraham! but it vos der dead man's ghost," muttered Jake, with a shiver.

"Did – did you kill the woman?" Barney at length managed to stammer forth.

"No, Parney; I only schust choked her a leetle."

"Oh, ah! that's it, then," exclaimed the other, greatly relieved. "Go back and gag her, or she'll be coming to and having the whole house roused before we can get out of it, confound her!"

Jake readily undertook this mission, and seizing a bed-sheet, endeavored to stuff it into the woman's mouth.

But she had already recovered consciousness; and clinching her teeth tight together, resisted all his efforts to gag her.

At length, growing impatient and desperate, he once more grasped her by the throat, and when at last he released his hold, there was no longer any necessity for filling her mouth with the sheet. Her spirit had gone to join that of her murdered husband.

"Have you fixed her, Jake?" asked Barney, approaching the bed.

"Schust hold der light here till ve see."

Barney advanced with the candle.

"Yes, dot vos all right," said the Jew, complacently. "She von't make no more noise ter-night, I pet you."

"By Jove, Jake," exclaimed Barney, with some show of compunction, "I'm afraid we've carried this thing a little too far – further, in fact, than there was any necessity for."

"Schust look you, Parney. If I hadn't done for der man, he would have finished me, you pet, pesides rousing der bolice vid his tamned bistols. Und as for der old gal, she wouldn't open her mouth, und so, as it vos growin' light, and ve hadn't no time to tarry here, vy, I schust choked her a leetle und dot vos der last uv her. How vos I to know dot she would schlip her vind so easy?"

"Well, well, we've no time to dispute about the matter now. Let's get to Sadie's place the easiest way we can, and then settle how we shall get down to New York."

"All right, I'm villing," and unlocking the bedroom door, and locking it again from the outside, they hurried down to the main hall, taking the key with them.