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

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I should like to hear your opinion before I venture to express mine."

Old Spicer was silent for a moment, then he abruptly exclaimed:

"I should like to visit the scene of this tragedy. Suppose we go to Spruce Street at once, gentlemen."

"What! and give up the Stony Creek affair?" exclaimed Stricket, in astonishment.

"Not necessarily," was the reply.

"But I don't understand, Mark."

"I have an idea," rejoined Old Spicer, quietly, "that in this instance, the shortest road to Stony Creek lies through Spruce Street."

"Thunder!" ejaculated George Morgan, "I believe you are right."

"Come, then, let us be off at once," and a moment later the three detectives left the house.

CHAPTER II.

OLD SPICER VISITS THE SCENE OF THE MURDER

The conversation related in the preceding chapter had occurred in the back parlor of Old Spicer's residence in Home Place.

The great detective, who had now owned and occupied this house for some time, had fitted it up to suit his own fancy and convenience.

He resided there alone – that is, so far as family was concerned, for Mrs. Hettie Catlin, the widow of Frederic Catlin, was still his housekeeper, and they kept one servant-of-all-work, a middle-aged woman, upon whom the detective could thoroughly rely.

The back parlor looked out upon a small garden, and this room Old Spicer had chosen for his sanctum sanctorum, and furnished it accordingly.

It would have been a feast, even for the great Lecoq, to have been able to pay a visit to this retreat. The wonders and trophies it contained were legion, and furnished a history in epitome of all the cases Old Spicer had ever had a hand in.

Naturally the old man loved this room, and spent as much of his time in it as possible.

He had many friends, but few intimates. Those few, however, he delighted to receive within the sacred precincts of the back parlor, and for this reason George Morgan, his adopted son, had recently purchased a beautiful residence on Academy Street, the garden of which ran down to and adjoined the old detective's little yard, and between which the means of communication was a gate in the garden fence.

Seth Stricket, too, had taken up his residence in the neighborhood, having moved into a pretty cottage on Green Street, and thus Old Spicer had his two most reliable assistants close at hand.

On reaching the sidewalk the trio passed out of Home Place, crossed Olive Street, entered Court, and keeping on, soon arrived at the police building.

Here they stopped, and entering the office, made such inquiries of the officer in charge as Spicer deemed expedient.

Chief Bollmann was not there, neither were any of the prominent members of the detective force; they were over in Spruce Street and otherwheres, working on the new murder case.

Old Spicer determined to lose no more time; so, leaving the headquarters of the police, he and his friends walked to Church Street, where they hailed a carriage, and were swiftly driven to the dead woman's house.

George Morgan led the way down the blue stone steps to the basement, where the murder had been committed, and Old Spicer at once began to examine the place where the widow had made her home for so many years.

The building was quite a large one, and, as he knew, had been, in the early history of the Turn Verein in the city, a meeting place for that body.

It was two stories high above the basement, and divided into six tenements, all of which were occupied.

But it was the basement itself that interested Old Spicer most, and as he wandered about it he was forced to admit that it was a veritable Chinese puzzle.

The main apartment was, of course, the barroom, where for years Mrs. Ernst, and two of her three husbands before her, had sold beer and liquor.

The chief informed Spicer that up to the present year the widow had carried on the saloon business there under the usual authority. She had not, however, he said, renewed her license for the present year, although she expected to do so before the summer season set in. She was a dispenser, since her license expired, of temperance drinks ostensibly.

Old Spicer and those with him, in looking over the premises, soon discovered conclusive proof that she did not strictly interpret the license law. Ale barrels, beer kegs, and demijohns for whisky and other fiery liquors were scattered through the basement.

In the rear of the barroom was the bedroom. There were many more rooms in the basement. Fourteen inside doors led into the little rooms, each of which was furnished with one or two chairs, a lounge, table, and a stove. Most of these rooms could be reached from two or three different sides.

In the rear were two doors leading to the back yard, and a covered passage leading to a little alley through which York Street could be reached. Four doors opened out of the room where the body of Mrs. Ernst was discovered by the milkman.

No one who was unfamiliar with the premises had any idea that there were more than two rooms in the basement. The officials, Chief Bollmann, Coroner Mix, and all the detectives, including Spicer, Stricket and Morgan, who had a pretty good knowledge of the various haunts of vice in the city, were surprised to find such a thoroughly mixed-up piece of underground architecture.

Old Spicer, while inspecting the apartments and the several dark passages by which the rooms were reached, compared the surroundings, because of the abrupt and unexpected halls and turns, the scanty furnishings, and the like, to some of the celebrated structures that carried notoriety to the old Five Points in New York years ago.

In the southeast corner of the basement, where the uninitiated might expect to find a coal bin or a hole in the ground to store away wood, they discovered a room with three or four chairs and a lounge. Even the tenants on the floor above had no idea that there was such a room in existence.

One of the passages from the bedroom opened into what must have been a sort of social apartment for the patrons of the widow. It might also answer the purpose of a card or smoking-room. A cheap stove, a couple of tables, and three or four chairs comprised the furniture of this room.

Then there was discovered another apartment which was probably used as a storehouse for ale and beer barrels. Besides these there were found a woodshed and tool-room, and a suspicious looking trap-door that covered what Old Spicer was privately informed was a secret underground tunnel that extended far in the rear of the building.

He raised the heavy door and looked in; the entrance was nearly choked up with ashes.

He removed some of the rubbish with his foot, and peered eagerly into the black darkness. The hole had a mysterious look about it, and he could not but regard it with strong suspicion.

One of the tenants of the house approached, pointed to the black opening, mysteriously shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and then mumbled, in what he meant to be a confidential tone:

"That there underground passage leads clear across the back-yard, Mister Detective; and just let me tell you it'll be a mighty interesting thoroughfare for you to inspect."

"Thoroughfare, eh?" questioned Old Spicer, thoughtfully.

"That's what I said, sir."

"Thank you for the hint, my friend; most likely I shall act upon it later." Then he closed the trap-door, and once more turned toward the bar-room.

This apartment was of comfortable dimensions, and was the principal room in the basement. It was furnished on the same scale of poverty as the rest, and the first glimpse into it would not have been very reassuring to the spectator. The bar resembled those that bloom in cheap groggeries.

There was an evident purpose on the part of the owner to keep the public from sharing the brilliancy of the interior, for a paper screen two and a half feet high and two feet wide stood at the end of the bar as a barrier to the glow of an oil lamp that shed its exclusive light through the gloomy apartment.

A dilapidated, small-sized looking-glass adorned the partition wall back of the bar. In the tool-room were a hatchet and a butcher's knife, besides a bunch of rusty keys.

Suspended from the bar-room wall and right over the dead woman's head, was a picture of Napoleon Bonaparte surveying a battlefield with his generals. A picture of Richard Wagner looked down on the corpse from another part of the interior.

"When I first came in here this morning with the milkman," said Morgan, "there were bottles and half-filled glasses on the bar."

"What was in the glasses?" asked Stricket.