Part 12 (1/2)
Again the cabby uttered that peculiar cough which was half a whistle, and in response two men, whose features were covered by black masks, sprang from the adjacent bushes.
Our hero put up a splendid defense, but the united strength of his three antagonists at length overpowered him.
What was there in the figure of one of the men that seemed so familiar to him? he wondered, and just as they were bearing him to the ground by their united efforts, he suddenly reached forward and tore the mask from his a.s.sailant's face.
One glance, and the horror of death seemed to suddenly freeze the blood in his veins. His eyes dilated and seemed to nearly burst from their sockets. The face into which he gazed was that of Clinton Kendale, his cousin.
”You!” he gasped, quite disbelieving the evidence of his own senses.
Kendale laughed a diabolical laugh, while his features were distorted into those of a fiend incarnate.
”I haven't the least hesitation in admitting my ident.i.ty,” he said, coolly. ”Yes, you are in good hands, if you give us no trouble, and come along quietly, without compelling us to use further force.”
”What is the meaning of this outrage?” cried Lester, white to the lips.
”That you shall learn all in good time, cousin mine,” replied Kendale, mockingly.
In struggling out of their grasp to better protect himself, Lester fell headlong on the icy ground, striking his head heavily against the gnarled, projecting root of a tree and lying at their feet like one dead.
”He will give us little enough trouble now,” said Kendale, grimly. ”Lend a hand there, both of you, and get him into the house quickly. I am almost frozen to death here.”
In less time than it takes to narrate it, Lester Armstrong was hurriedly conveyed into the house.
The place consisted of but two rooms, and into the inner one Lester was thrust with but little ceremony, and tossed upon a pallet of straw in the corner.
He had not entirely lost consciousness, as they supposed, but was only stunned, realizing fully all that was transpiring about him.
”Your scheme has worked like a charm, Halloran,” said Kendale. ”We have bagged our game more easily than I imagined we would. Now there is nothing in the way between me and the fortune that liberal old fool Marsh willed to my amiable cousin.”
”Everything rests with the shrewdness with which you play your part,”
answered the man addressed as Halloran.
”You ought not to have any scruples on that score,” exclaimed Kendale, boastfully. ”After leaving my amiable cousin on the night of the accident, did I not go immediately to the pretty little heiress, Faynie Fairfax, and successfully pa.s.s myself off as the lover she was waiting to elope with? And the little beauty never knew the difference.”
”I must own that you played your cards successfully in that direction,”
was the response, ”but this will be a far different matter from hoodwinking a young, unsophisticated girl.”
”Within a month from to-day I shall have the Fairfax fortune and the Marsh millions added to it,” said Clinton Kendale, emphatically.
”I would put an eternal quietus upon my fortunate cousin here, did I not need his a.s.sistance in one or two matters concerning the method of running the business, which was known only to old Marsh and himself.”
”Are you fool enough to think that he will divulge those secrets to you?” said Halloran, impatiently.
”They can be forced from him. I know how,” returned Kendale, with a brutal laugh. ”Come,” he said, turning on his heel.
His companion followed him from the apartment, and the door closed with a resounding bang, and Lester lay there too horror-stricken to move hand or foot, fairly spellbound by the disclosures he had overheard as they stood over him, believing him unconscious.