Ned Wilding's Disappearance/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
DOWN THE ROPE
When Ned started on a run up the street, after seeing in the station the man he believed was seeking to arrest him, he had no definite idea where he was going. All he cared about was to get out of the inspector's sight.
"I can't go back home," he reasoned as he hurried on, seeking to lose himself in the crowd. "If I do they'll arrest me as soon as I leave the train. I can't bring disgrace on my father that way, though I am innocent of any intentional wrong-doing. Besides if it was known that I bought this stock it might injure his reputation at the bank. They might think he advised me to do it, and the bank doesn't allow its officials to do that sort of business."
Ned slowed his pace down from a run to a rapid walk, as he noticed that several persons were looking curiously at him. He did not want to attract attention.
"What had I better do?" he asked himself. "If I stay here I'm liable to arrest any moment. If I go home I'm sure of it as soon as I get off the train, as every one at the depot knows me. But they don't here," he added, as a thought came to him. "That's one good thing. I'm an utter stranger in New York. The only persons who know me are my uncle and aunt. They are far enough off. Of course there's Mary the servant girl, but I guess she's not liable to meet me. Besides, she wouldn't know the police wanted me. Then there's Mr. Skem, but I guess he's too busy himself, dodging the officers, to be found in this vicinity.
"That's the best thing to do," Ned decided. "I'll stay in New York until—well until something happens. But the worst of it is I can't even write to the folks at home. I can't let them know what has occurred. I wonder what the boys will do when they come and find the house closed? If I send a letter to father the postal authorities can trace where it came from and get me. A telegram would be as bad. I'm just like a prisoner who can't communicate with his friends. The only thing to do is to stick it out until something happens. If they would only arrest Skem & Skim maybe their testimony would clear me. But I guess they're not likely to catch them. I've got to stick it out alone and it's going to be hard work."
By this time Ned felt he was far enough away from the depot to render capture in the immediate future out of the question. He felt he could risk walking a little slower, for it was no joke to hurry along a mile or more carrying his valise, even though it was not a large one.
"I believe I'm hungry," he said, as he came in front of a small restaurant. He had taken no food since breakfast and it was now about four o'clock in the afternoon. "I'll feel better after I've eaten. Besides I've got to stay somewhere to-night. I must look for a hotel."
He did feel more encouraged after he had dined, and, on inquiring of the cashier in the restaurant, where he could find a cheap but decent hotel, was directed to the Imperial a few blocks distant, back toward the station. Ned thought this would be safe enough.
"I'd better take an account of stock," he remarked to himself as he started for the hotel. "Most of my clothes are in the trunk, and so is the check dad gave me to have uncle cash. I can't get at that, and I guess I wouldn't if I could. I'd have to endorse it to cash it, and when I wrote my name whoever saw it might tell the police."
Ned's imagination probably made things seem worse than they really were, but he was unaccustomed to city ways, and the memory of the inspector's words, and the angry men who had lost money through Skem & Skim acted as an incentive for him to do everything possible to avoid arrest, which he felt would follow any disclosure of his identity, such as would result from endorsing a check.
"The only clothes I've got are on me," Ned went on, continuing the process of "stock taking." He had a change of underwear and some clean collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs in his valise, and about ten dollars in bills. In his pocketbook he carried five dollars and there was a little change in his overcoat.
"I've got to sail pretty close to the wind," he told himself. "Fifteen dollars isn't going very far in New York. I must get work to do until this thing blows over, or something happens. That's what I'll do. I'll look for a job to-morrow."
The hotel at which Ned arrived a few minutes later did not look very inviting. Still, he reflected, he was not in a position to be particular. It was a five-storied building, and on both sides of it, were shops for the sale of various articles.
"Can you give me a cheap room?" asked Ned of the clerk behind the desk.
"Sell you one, you mean I guess," was the man's reply as he went on with the operation of cleaning his finger nails. "We don't give 'em away."
"I'd like to engage a room for the night," Ned went on.
"Dollar's the cheapest we've got."
"That will do."
"Register," the clerk said, swinging the book around in front of Ned, and handing him a pen which he dipped into the dirty ink bottle. Then he went on with his manicuring.
"I must sign my name," thought Ned. "No I can't do that! They might trace me!" He felt the rustle of the stock certificate in his pocket as he took the pen. What was he to do?
"Is it necessary to register?" he asked.
"Course it is," replied the clerk looking at him curiously. "That's the law. Everybody who stops at a hotel has to put their name on the book. What's the matter? You ain't afraid to register, are you? Don't look as though you'd committed a murder or had robbed some one," and the clerk grinned at his joke.
"No, of course not," Ned replied, his heart thumping away under his overcoat. Then he resolved to put on the book a fictitious name. He hesitated a moment and inscribed: "Thomas Seldon," in a large hand as unlike as possible from his own usual small writing.
"Thomas Seldon, eh?" queried the clerk as he turned the book around once more. "Where you from? That has to go down."
Once more Ned hesitated. What should he answer.
"What's the matter? Forget where you live?" the clerk asked.
"No. It's Perryville, New York," replied Ned, taking a name at random, as he had the one he signed in the book.
The clerk told him to write it down, and after this was done the number 113 was placed after his name.
"Hope you're not superstitious," the clerk remarked.
"Why?" asked Ned.
"There's a thirteen in your room number."
"I don't mind that."
"Some folks do," the clerk continued. "But that's the only dollar room we've got left. Front!"
A boy answered the ring of the bell which the clerk touched, and, taking Ned's grip led the way. A rattling, shaking elevator, of an antiquated type, carried Ned and his guide to the fifth floor. The young porter opened the door of a small room and set Ned's grip down inside of it.
"Here's where you bunk," he remarked.
Ned had read of the necessity for tips in New York, and handed the boy a dime. The lad seemed to welcome it.
"T'anks," he said.
"What's that rope for?" asked Ned, as he noticed one in a corner of his room.
"Fire escape. New law. All rooms has to have 'em," the boy replied. "If the shebang goes up you drop the rope out of the window and slide down. Your window's right over the back yard and there's a gate that leads out into a side street."
"Do they have many fires? " asked Ned, feeling a bit nervous.
"Many? Every day ten or a dozen."
"I mean around here?"
"Ain't had none since I worked here, but when this place goes it'll go quick. It's about a thousand years old, I guess."
When the boy had gone Ned looked out of the window. It overlooked the rear yard of the hotel, a place filled with boxes, barrels and all sorts of rubbish. The rope was fastened to an iron ring in the wall, and looked stout enough to hold several men. It was long enough to reach to the ground, as Ned could see.
"Hope I don't have to use it," he thought.
Leaving his valise in his room, Ned went downstairs, again, the old elevator taking considerable time on the trip.
"I'll look around a bit, have some supper and then go to bed," he decided. "Maybe my luck will change to-morrow."
Ned after walking about the streets for awhile went back to the same restaurant where he had dined before, as he did not fancy the looks of his hotel well enough to eat there. He strolled about through the brilliantly lighted streets after supper pondering on his curious plight, and then went back to the Imperial.
As he approached the desk to get to the elevator he saw a stout man in close conversation with the clerk. He could hear the latter, in reply to some question, say:
"Guess we haven't got anybody here you want, Jim. No new ones came except a kid. Queer thing about him, though, I believe he's registered under the wrong name. Acts sort of funny."
"What name did he give?" asked the stout man.
"'Never'—'ever'—no, that isn't it but it's something like that. 'Seldom'—that's it—no it isn't either—'Seldon,' that's it. 'Thomas Seldon.' I sized him up for a queer one."
"I'll have to get a look at him," the stout man went on. "I don't know as we have any call for him, but it's best to be on the safe side."
Ned felt his knees beginning to shake. He wondered who the big man might be. Just then the youthful porter sauntered toward him. Ned had come to a halt half way up the lobby of the hotel.
"Pipe off that guy?" asked the boy in a friendly whisper, with a nod at the stout man. Ned understood the question to mean "Do you know who that man is?" and he answered that he did not.
"One of the detectives from the Central Office. The sleuths come here same as at other hotels, every once in a while, to see if anybody they want might happen to be on hand. Guess he won't land anybody this time, though, about a week ago—"
But Ned did not stop to listen. The stairway was in front of him, and he could get to his room without the clerk or the detective seeing him.
As he started up the stairs, intending to go to his apartment and hide, for he had left the key in the lock, the boy-porter called after him:
"Why don't you take the cage?"
"The elevator's too slow," Ned answered, trying to keep his voice from trembling. He was afraid the men might hear him. But they did not, and, walking swiftly he was soon in his room.
"What shall I do?" poor Ned asked himself. He seemed hounded on every side. "I must get away from here," he thought. "The clerk suspects me! Perhaps that detective has a description of me! I must sneak out, and yet I can't go. I haven't paid for my room!"
Then he caught sight of the rope fire escape. An idea came to him.
"I'll slide down the rope to the ground," he murmured. "That's the way. I can get off without any one seeing me, and I'll go to another hotel."
He loosened the rope, which was looped upon a hook, and looked down into the yard. All was dark and quiet there. He tied his valise to the end of the rope and lowered it. The little thud of the satchel as it landed and slipped from the noose of the rope told him it was in the yard. Then, having left a dollar bill pinned to one of the pillows of the bed, Ned put on his hat and overcoat, and, taking a firm hold of the rope stepped out of the window and went down, hand over hand. It was a trick he had often performed, though it was hard to descend the five stories. At last his feet touched the ground, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Now to take my valise and skip," he said in a whisper. "That was pretty well done."
He stooped over to loosen his satchel from the rope. His fingers encountered nothing but the hempen strands.
"My valise is gone!" he exclaimed.