said impatiently.
"Not so fast. Suppose, further, that a gentleman who had overheard this villain plotting this purposed crime, was to give you full information in regard to the affair, could you—could you—when called upon to give evidence before the court, forget the name of this gentleman?"
"I'd know no more of him than an unborn baby," eagerly whispered Blossom.
"Hold a moment. This gentleman overhears the plot, in the room of a certain house, not used as a church, precisely. The gentleman does not wish to be known as a visitor to that house—you comprehend? But in that house, he happens to hear the ruffian and his young comrade planning this robbery. Himself unseen, he hears their whole conversation. He finds out that they intend to enter the house where the robbery is to take place, by a false key and a back stairway. Now—"
"You want to know, in straight-for'ard talk," interrupted Blossom, "whether, when the case comes to trial, I could remember having overheard the convict and the young 'un mesself? There's my hand on it, Curnel. Just set me on the track, and you'll find that I'll never say one word about you. Beside, I was arter these two covies this very night—I seed 'em with my own eyes, in the garret of the Yellow Mug."
"You did!" cried the Colonel, with an accent of undisguised satisfaction. "Then possibly you may remember that you overheard them planning this burglary, as you listened behind the garret door?"
"Of course I can," replied Blossom, "I remember it quite plain. Jist tell me the number of the house that is to be robbed, and I'll show you fireworks."
The Colonel's face was agitated by a smile of infernal delight. Leaving Blossom for a moment, he paced the floor, with his finger to his lip.
"Pop and Pill will leave town to-morrow," he muttered to himself, "and they'll keep out of the way until the storm blows over. This fellow will go to the house of Sowers, inform him of the robbery, a search will be made, and Ninety-One discovered in one room, and the corpse of Evelyn in the other. Just at that hour I'll happen to be passing by, and in the confusion I'll try to secure this youthful secretary of Old Sowers. I shall want him for the twenty-fifth of December. As for the other, why, Frank must take care of him. Shall Ninety-One come to a hint of the murder?"—the Colonel paused and struck his forehead. "Head, you have never failed me, and will not fail me now!"
He turned to Blossom, and in low whispers the twain arranged all the details of the affair. They conversed together there in the gloom until they perfectly understood each other, Blossom turning now and then to indulge in a quiet laugh, and the Colonel's dark eyes flashing with earnestness, and may be, with the hope of gratified revenge. At length they shook hands, and the Colonel approached the table:
"Mr. Yorke, I have the honor to wish you a very good evening," said the Colonel, and after a polite bow, he departed.
"I leave him with his serenaders," he muttered as he disappeared. "This murder off my hands, and the private secretary in my power, I think I will hold the trump card on the Twenty-fifth of December!"
With this muttered exclamation he went down the back stairway.
"Yorke, my genius!" cried Blossom, clapping the financier on the back, "if I don't have them $71,000 dollars before twenty-four hours, you may call me—you may call me—most anything you please. By-the-bye, did you hear that howl? Good-night, Yorke." And he went down the back stairway.
The financier, coughing for breath, (for the hand of Blossom had been somewhat emphatic), fixed his gold specs, and brushed his gray whiskers, and turning to Mr. Fetch, said gayly,
"He looks as if he was on the right track; don't he, Fetch?"
Fetch said he did; and presently he also retired down the back stairway, promising to see his Principal at an early hour on the morrow. "How they do roar!" he ejaculated, as he disappeared.
Yorke was alone. He shifted and twisted uneasily in his chair. His little black eyes shone with peculiar luster. He sat for a long time buried in thought, and at last gave utterance to these words:
"I think I'd better retire until the storm blows over, leaving Fetch to bring in my notes, and manage affairs. To what part of the world shall I go? Well—w-e-ll!—Havana, yes, that's the word, Havana! But first I must see the result of this Van Huyden matter on the Twenty-fifth, and provide myself with a companion—a pleasant companion to cheer me in my loneliness at Havana. Ah!" the man of money actually breathed an amorous sigh—"twelve to-night—the Temple!—that's the word."
And in the street without, black with heads, there were at least three thousand people who would have cut the throat of Israel, had they once laid hands upon him.
"The Temple!" he again ejaculated, and sinking back in his chair, he inserted his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and resigned himself to a pleasant dream.
Leaving Israel Yorke for a little while, we will trace the movements, and listen to the words of a personage of far different character.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SEVEN VAULTS.
About the hour of nine o'clock, on the 23d of December, a gentleman, wrapped in the folds of a Spanish mantle, passed along Broadway, on his way to the Astor House. Through the glare and glitter, the uproar and the motion of that thronged pathway, he passed rapidly along, his entire appearance and manner distinguishing him from the crowd. As he came into the glare of the brilliantly-lighted windows, his face and features, disclosed but for an instant, beneath his broad sombrero, made an impression upon those who beheld them, which they did not soon forget. That face, unnaturally pale, was lighted by eyes that shone with incessant luster; and its almost death-like pallor was in strong contrast with his moustache, his beard and hair, all of intense blackness. His dark hair, tossed by the winter winds, fell in wavy tresses to the collar of his cloak. His movements were quick and impetuous, and his stealthy gait, in some respects, reminded you of the Indian. Altogether, in a crowd of a thousand you would have singled him out as a remarkable man—one of those whose faces confront you at rare intervals, in the church, the street, in the railroad-car, on ship-board, and who at first sight elicit the involuntary ejaculation, "That man's history I would like to know!"
Arrived at the Astor House he registered his name, Gaspar Manuel, Havana.
He had just landed from the Havana steamer.
As he wrote his name on the Hotel book, he uncovered his head, and—by the gas light which shone fully on him—it might be seen that his dark hair, which fell to his shoulders, was streaked with threads of silver. The vivid brightness of his eyes, the death-like pallor of his face, became more perceptible in the strong light; and when he threw his cloak aside, you beheld a slender frame, slightly bent in the shoulders, clad in a dark frock coat, which, single breasted, and with a strait collar, reached to the knees.
His face seemed to indicate the traveler who has journeyed in many lands, seen all phases of life, thought much, suffered deeply, and at times grown sick of all that life can inflict or bestow; his attire indicated a member of some religious organization, perchance a member of that society founded by Loyola, which has sometimes honored, but oftener blasphemed, the name of Jesus. Directing his trunks—there were some three or four, huge in size, and strangely strapped and banded—to be sent to his room, Gaspar Manuel resumed his cloak and sombrero, and left the hall of the hotel.
It was an hour before he appeared again. As he emerged from one of the corridors into the light of the hall, you would have scarcely recognized the man. In place of his Jesuit-like attire, he wore a fashionably made black dress coat, a snow-white vest, black pants and neatly-fitting boots. There was a diamond in the center of his black scarf, and a massy gold chain across his vest. And a diamond even more dazzling than that which shone upon his scarf, sparkled from the