Chapter 17. Decidedly Mixed

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_ CHAPTER XVII. DECIDEDLY MIXED

During the summer succeeding the carrying away of the bridge which connected Damietta with Moorestown, it was built in a more substantial manner than before. It was an easy matter, therefore, to cross from one place to another, and carriages and pedestrians went back and forth between the two States at almost every hour of the day. Damietta was a large city, while Moorestown was only a small town; but the latter was pleasantly located and had a large and excellent hotel, where quite a number of guests spent the most sultry months of summer.

In Damietta were three banks, and the cipher telegrams which I have laid before the reader, beyond a doubt referred to one of them, but it was impossible to fix with certainty upon the right one. As a matter of prudence, therefore, it was determined to keep the three under surveillance. The Mechanics' Bank, as it was called before it adopted the national system, stood on the corner, and the general impression prevailed that this was the institution referred to, as it will be remembered that the word "corner" occurred in one of the telegrams.

A few minutes' reflection convinced me that it was utterly out of the question for the intended robbery to succeed. Such desperate projects depend mainly on their secrecy for success. The watchmen in all the banks were instructed to be unusually vigilant, the policemen were apprised of what was suspected, a number of officers were to lounge upon the streets near at hand in citizens' clothes, and Aristides Maxx, one of the most skillful detectives in the metropolis, was engaged upon the case.

The general belief was that the burglars, discovering what thorough preparations were on foot, would not make the attempt. That sort of gentry are not the ones to walk into any trap with their eyes open.

Respecting Detective Maxx, there was much wonderment, and the mayor was vexed that he did not show up. Some doubted his presence in Damietta, but the superior officer of the city felt that courtesy demanded that Maxx should report to him before trying to follow up any trail of his own. If he was with us, he was so effectually disguised that no one suspected his identity.

"I wonder whether that seedy, tramp-like fellow who stole the cipher dispatch, can be Detective Maxx?" said Ben to me on Wednesday night before he started for home.

"It is not impossible," I answered, "for detectives are forced to assume all manner of disguises. He may have chosen to stroll about the city in that make-up."

"But if it is the detective, why did he go to all the trouble of copying off the telegram by sound when he could have got it from us with the translation merely by making himself known?"

"I admit that, if he is a detective, he acts, in my judgment, in a very unprofessional way. He was so persistent in his attentions that he must have known he was sure to draw unpleasant, if not dangerous suspicion, to himself."

"Do you know," said Ben, with a meaning smile, "that I half believe this stranger and Burkhill are partners? They have been here at the same time, they show interest in the same thing, and like enough are working out the same scheme of robbery."

This had never occurred to me, and I was struck with its reasonableness, when I came to think it over. The ill-favored individual signed the name "John Browning" to the dispatch which he sent some months before, as a pretext for visiting our office so much--but that was clearly an alias.

"Well," said I, "it is all conjecture any way. With the ample warning the authorities have received, I do not believe there is the slightest prospect of a robbery being committed. I intend to retire to-morrow night at my usual hour with little fear of my slumbers being disturbed."

A few minutes after, we bade each other good-night, and wended our way quietly homeward.

My experience was singular, after parting with my young friend--not meaning to imply that anything unusual occurred to me; but the mental processes to which I was subjected that evening, in the light of subsequent events, were very peculiar, to say the least.

I am convinced that the inciting cause was the remark made by Ben Mayberry to the effect that he believed the seedy individual was a confederate of Burkhill, and that the two were perfecting a scheme for robbing one of the banks--most likely the Mechanics'.

"Ben is right," I said to myself. "His bright mind has enabled him to grasp the truth by intuition, as a woman sometimes does when a man has been laboring for hours to reach the same point."

But before I could satisfy myself that the boy was right, a still stronger conviction came to me that he was wrong. The men were not pals--as they are called among the criminal classes--and they were not arranging some plan of robbery.

While I was clear on this point, I was totally unable to form any theory to take the place of the one I had demolished.

Who was the pretended John Browning, and what was the dark scheme that was being hatched "in our midst," as the expression goes?

These were the questions which presented themselves to me, and which I could not answer in a manner thoroughly satisfactory to myself.

"They are all wrong--everybody is wrong!" I exclaimed to myself; "whatever it is that is in the wind, no one but the parties themselves knows its nature."

This was the conclusion which fastened itself in my mind more firmly the longer I thought.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and it is the only thing which will protect us in this case--helloa!"

So rapt was I in my meditation that I had walked three squares beyond my house before I awoke to the fact. It was something which I had never done before in all my life. _

Read next: Chapter 18. Between Two Fires

Read previous: Chapter 16. The Third Telegram

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