Everything was strangely silent, although the deadened roar of the explosion still sounded dully in his ears. His boots crunched on the plaster as he walked across the room and groped for the door. He had some trouble in pulling it open. It stuck so fast that he thought it was locked; then he remembered with a cold shiver of fear that the door had been unlocked all the time he had stood at the window with the canister in his hand.
"I have certainly done some careless thing like that which will betray me yet; I wonder what it is?"
He wrenched the door open at last. The lights in the hall were out; he struck a match, and made his way down. He thought he heard groans. As he went down, he found it was the _concierge_ huddled in a corner.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, my G.o.d, my G.o.d!" cried the _concierge_, "I knew they would do it. We are all blown to atoms!"
"Get up," said Dupre, "you"re not hurt; come with me and see if we can be of any use."
"I"m afraid of another explosion," groaned the _concierge_.
"Nonsense! There"s never a second. Come along."
They found some difficulty in getting outside, and then it was through a hole in the wall and not through the door. The lower hall was wrecked.
Dupre expected to find a crowd, but there was no one there. He did not realise how short a time had elapsed since the disaster. The policeman was on his hands and knees in the street, slowly getting up, like a man in a dream. Dupre ran to him, and helped him on his feet.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"I don"t know," said the policeman, rubbing his head in his bewilderment.
"How was it done?"
"Oh, don"t ask me. All at once there was a clap of thunder, and the next thing I was on my face in the street."
"Is your comrade inside?"
"Yes; he and M. Sonne and two customers."
"And the _garcon_, wasn"t he there?" cried Dupre, with a note of disappointment in his voice.
The policeman didn"t notice the disappointed tone, but answered--
"Oh, the _garcon_, of course."
"Ah," said Dupre, in a satisfied voice, "let us go in, and help them."
Now the people had begun to gather in crowds, but kept at some distance from the cafe. "Dynamite! dynamite!" they said, in awed voices among themselves.
A detachment of police came mysteriously from somewhere. They drove the crowd still further back.
"What is this man doing here?" asked the Chief.
The policeman answered, "He"s a friend of ours; he lives in the house."
"Oh," said the Chief.
"I was going in," said Dupre, "to find my friend, the officer, on duty in the cafe."
"Very well, come with us."
They found the policeman insensible under the _debris_, with a leg and both arms broken. Dupre helped to carry him out to the ambulance.
M. Sonne was breathing when they found him, but died on the way to the hospital. The _garcon_ had been blown to pieces.
The Chief thanked Dupre for his a.s.sistance.
They arrested many persons, but never discovered who blew up the Cafe Vernon, although it was surmised that some miscreant had left a bag containing an infernal machine with either the waiter or the proprietor.
AN ELECTRICAL SLIP.
Public opinion had been triumphantly vindicated. The insanity plea had broken down, and Albert Prior was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, and might the Lord have mercy on his soul. Everybody agreed that it was a righteous verdict, but now that he was sentenced they added, "Poor fellow!"
Albert Prior was a young man who had had more of his own way than was good for him. His own family--father, mother, brother, and sisters--had given way to him so much, that he appeared to think the world at large should do the same. The world differed with him. Unfortunately, the first to oppose his violent will was a woman--a girl almost. She would have nothing to do with him, and told him so. He stormed, of course, but did not look upon her opposition as serious. No girl in her senses could continue to refuse a young man with his prospects in life. But when he heard that she had become engaged to young Bowen, the telegraph operator, Prior"s rage pa.s.sed all bounds. He determined to frighten Bowen out of the place, and called at the telegraph office for that laudable purpose; but Bowen was the night operator, and was absent. The day man, with a smile, not knowing what he did, said Bowen would likely be found at the Parker Place, where Miss Johnson lived with her aunt, her parents being dead.
Prior ground his teeth and departed. He found Miss Johnson at home, but alone. There was a stormy scene, ending with the tragedy. He fired four times at her, keeping the other two bullets for himself. But he was a coward and a cur at heart, and when it came to the point of putting the two bullets in himself he quailed, and thought it best to escape. Then electricity did him its first dis-service. It sent his description far and wide, capturing him twenty-five miles from his home. He was taken back to the county town where he lived, and lodged in gaol.
Public opinion, ever right and all-powerful, now a.s.serted itself. The outward and visible sign of its action was an ominous gathering of dark-browed citizens outside the gaol. There were determined mutterings among the crowd rather than outspoken anger, but the mob was the more dangerous on that account. One man in its midst thrust his closed hand towards the sky, and from his fist dangled a rope. A cry like the growling of a pack of wolves went up as the mob saw the rope, and they clamoured at the gates of the gaol. "Lynch him! Gaoler, give up the keys!" was the cry.
The agitated sheriff knew his duty, but he hesitated to perform it.
Technically, this was a mob--a mob of outlaws; but in reality it was composed of his fellow-townsmen, his neighbours, his friends--justly indignant at the commission of an atrocious crime. He might order them to be fired upon, and the order perhaps would be obeyed. One, two, a dozen might be killed, and technically again they would have deserved their fate; yet all that perfectly legal slaughter would be--for what?
To save, for a time only, the worthless life of a wretch who rightly merited any doom the future might have in store for him. So the sheriff wrung his hands, bewailed the fact that such a crisis should have arisen during his term of office, and did nothing; while the clamours of the mob grew so loud that the trembling prisoner in his cell heard it, and broke out into a cold sweat when he quickly realised what it meant. He was to have a dose of justice in the raw.
"What shall I do?" asked the gaoler. "Give up the keys?"
"I don"t know what to do," cried the sheriff, despairingly. "Would there be any use in speaking to them, do you think?"
"Not the slightest."
"I ought to call on them to disperse, and if they refused I suppose I should have them fired on."
"That is the law," answered the gaoler, grimly.
"What would you do if you were in my place?" appealed the sheriff. It was evident the stern Roman Father was not elected by popular vote in _that_ county.
"Me?" said the gaoler. "Oh, I"d give "em the keys, and let "em hang him. It"ll save you the trouble. If you have "em fired on, you"re sure to kill the very men who are at this moment urging "em to go home.
There"s always an innocent man in a mob, and he"s the one to get hurt every time."
"Well then, Perkins, you give them the keys; but for Heaven"s sake don"t say I told you. They"ll be sorry for this to-morrow. You know I"m elected, but you"re appointed, so you don"t need to mind what people say."
"That"s all right," said the gaoler, "I"ll stand the brunt."
But the keys were not given up. The clamour had ceased. A young man with pale face and red eyes stood on the top of the stone wall that surrounded the gaol. He held up his hand and there was instant silence.
They all recognised him as Bowen, the night operator, to whom _she_ had been engaged.