A Sharper's Downfall; Or, Into the Net — Inside the Classic

Street, east of Fifth Avenue, there is a house conspicuous among its neighbors in that it differs in construction by being of the variety known as the English basement style.

Entrance to the house is secured through a door reached by one or two steps from the pavement. The dining-room of the house is nearly on a level with the street, while the parlors are on the second floor, reached from the lower hall by a flight of stairs.

The front parlor is enlarged and the front of the house ornamented by a bay window extending some three feet beyond the line of the house.

It was not so long ago that, at an early hour in the morning, a man carefully and cautiously lifted a sash in this bay window, and, thrusting out his head, sounded a low whistle as a signal.

Had any one been present on the opposite side of the street, or looking from the windows of the houses opposite, they might have seen another man cautiously come from a corner of the little courtyard in front, and, after a careful look up and down the street, return the signal in the same cautious manner.

Thereupon a bundle was let down from the bay window, which was quickly detached, the rope drawn back and another bundle lowered, which, as the other had been, was detached and the rope drawn up again, and this time to lower what appeared to be a heavy box.

Immediately after, something was thrown from the window which in shape looked like an old-fashioned portmanteau, but was smaller.

Then a man rapidly let himself down from the window until he was within four feet of the ground, when he drew a knife, cutting the rope above him.

This gave him a drop of at least four feet, but it left only a short end of the rope dangling from the bay window at a height not likely to attract the attention of a passer-by, the evident object of cutting the rope.

In the meantime, the man below had shouldered the heavy box and rapidly run down to the east, to the corner below, where he had been met by a man who had come from a carriage standing around the corner.

This one took the box from him, and the man rapidly returned to pick up one of the bundles concealed behind the fence and the article that had been thrown from the window.

As rapidly he ran down the street as before, the while the other man, who had come from the parlor floor by the rope, stationed himself across the street and anxiously looked up and down as if standing ready to make a signal.

As the man with the bundles disappeared around the corner, with no interference, the other dashed across the street, and, seizing the last bundle left, hurriedly ran to the east.

He had hardly shouldered this bundle and set out on his run when a man came into view at the corner on the west, quickly catching sight of the fellow running to the east.

He came from the west on a run, and, arriving opposite the house where these strange things had occurred, stopped a brief instant to look. He noted the open window and the dangling rope.

Without hesitation he hastily ran down the street to the east, but reached the corner too late for any purpose except to see a carriage some distance off, going at full speed.

This man was Nick Carter, the famous detective.

Nick immediately realized the folly of attempting to follow the carriage, which had so great a lead, though he was satisfied that there had been a robbery of the house and that the carriage contained the booty as well as the thieves.

He contented himself with sounding an alarm, in the hope that the attention of the policemen on the beats along which the carriage traveled might be directed toward it and their suspicion excited.

But, so far as he was able to judge, the only result of his alarm was to call to him a policeman from another direction than that in which the carriage went.

“What is it, Mr. Carter?” asked the officer, coming up on a run, and recognizing the famous detective.

“Robbery, I fancy,” replied Nick; “and that carriage contains the thieves and what they’ve stolen.”

“We’d have to be race horses,” said the officer, looking after the carriage now disappearing in the distance, “to overcome that lead.”

“No; it is useless to attempt to follow it,” replied Nick.

“Where was the job done?” asked the officer.

“Up there in Thirty-fifth Street,” replied Nick. “Is that your beat?”

“Yes, and I was over it half an hour ago.”