Chapter III: Robertson Brothers & Co

Notwithstanding his chagrin, the Hon. Saunders finally succumbed to fatigue and fell asleep. When he awoke--toward one o’clock in the afternoon--and his valet told him that no caller or letter had come, he sprang from his bed, dressed in haste, and, without allowing himself more for breakfast than about a dozen sandwiches, washed down by half a dozen cups of tea, he jumped into a cab, ordering the driver to stop at No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. Ten minutes later he arrived.

“Is there any news?” he asked the servant who opened the door.

“Nothing, sir,” answered the man, who would have been greatly embarrassed to have been obliged to deliver a longer sentence, for he was still half intoxicated on account of the festivity of the evening before. Saunders quickly ascended the first flight, and found Mary in Ada’s apartment. She was quietly arranging dresses and linen.

“Well,” he asked, sinking into an arm-chair, “so madam has not returned?”

“No,” replied the maid; “but I have heard from her.”

“And you did not tell me at once.”

The stout merchant made a movement as if to rise.

Mary stopped him with a gesture, saying--

“Oh, sir! it is because the news will not afford you much pleasure.”

“What--what is the matter? Nothing has happened to madam? But tell me; you make my blood boil.”

“Not more than a quarter of an hour ago I received a letter from Miss Ada. Here it is.”

Saunders tore from the maid’s hands the letter she held out to him, and, after reading it, uttered an angry cry. The letter contained five lines only, but they were enough to drive the loving Yankee mad.

“My good Mary,” she said, “put the house in order, dismiss the servants, giving each a fortnight’s extra pay, and wait for me patiently. I shall be absent a month, at least; perhaps two or three. I rely upon you--Ada Ricard.”

“What does all this mean?” he cried, at last, when he had recovered his speech.

“I know no more than you, sir,” answered the maid. “You see I am fulfilling madam’s orders.”

“And not a word for me,” groaned the unhappy man, crushing in his hand the cruel letter. “Ah! the cheat shall pay for it. Who brought the note?”

“An unknown messenger, who must belong to another neighborhood.”

“Didn’t you ask where he came from?”

“He spoke to the cook and immediately left. His errand was no doubt paid for in advance.”

Saunders buried his face in his big hands and murmured--

“O, yes, I will avenge myself, but how?”

Mary, shrugging her shoulders, had resumed her work.

An excellent idea evidently was suddenly working in the troubled mind of the cracker-merchant, for, rising abruptly, and without addressing a word to the unfeeling servant, he left the room and house of his faithless Ada.

“To the central office of the police,” he ordered as he climbed into his carriage. The chief of the metropolitan police was at that time a Mr. Kelly, who was always spoken of as “Fat Kelly,” a very large, churlish man, often rough but quite intelligent, and possessing besides all the scepticism indispensable to his important duties. Saunders sent in his card, but Fat Kelly, before receiving him, rang for one of his secretaries in order to obtain some information about his visitor. Five minutes later this clerk handed his chief a note as follows:

Willie Saunders, wealthy cracker-merchant, vain, of ordinary
intelligence, very much smitten with a woman, Ada Ricard, on whom he
has already lavished $100,000 or more. Willie Saunders is worth at
least a million and a half.

“Very well, show him in,” ordered the chief of police, after becoming acquainted with this not very flattering document, of whose existence Saunders was certainly ignorant.

Summoned by an office boy, the unfortunate merchant plunged like an avalanche into Mr. Kelly’s private office.

The latter gentleman could not conceal the pleasant, spontaneous smile which wreathed his lips at the sight of a man almost as stout as he; but, his nature gaining the ascendancy, he hastened to say in a curt tone to the grotesque individual:

“What do you wish? Be quick, I have a load of business on hand.”

Without being greatly disconcerted--for he was so completely absorbed in his own anxieties that he heeded nothing--Saunders answered:

“I have come, sir, to request your most powerful protection; I am the victim.”

“Of a theft? Where, how? Of what sum? Is the guilty man, or him you suppose guilty, one of your employes?”

“No sir; I----”

“So much the better, for theft by anyone in your pay is an aggravating case.”

“But, sir, it is not a case of theft.”

“Ah! What is it then?”

“Kidnapping, sir; real kidnapping.”

“They have carried off your wife, your daughter?”

“I am not married.”

“Who, then? Your mother, or your sister, or your cousin, or your aunt? Devil take it, do be precise. I can’t guess and enumerate all your family.”

“They have carried off my Ada.”

“Your Ada, who has had your hundred thousand dollars, and who, of course, deceives you.”

“Sir, are you acquainted?”

“And who has carried off this interesting person? One of her lovers? What do you wish me to do? There has been no violence.”

“Oh, yes; on the contrary.”

“No; it is improbable, inadmissable; consequently I can have nothing to do with your affair. I wish you a very good day. Go and make your claims for Miss Ada elsewhere. What have I to do with such matters? You are wealthy; this lady will return to you some day, be sure of it. And you will receive her, and she will make you believe anything she wishes, and you will ask her pardon. You are all great fools, one as much as the other.”

And Fat Kelly, drawing a bundle of papers toward him, began to turn them over in furious haste, without paying further attention to his visitor.

Saunders, in spite of his moderate intelligence, as the descriptive document stated, understood that he would obtain nothing from the chief of the police, and without bowing, which did not disturb the latter at all, but deeply humiliated, and grumbling aloud with a freedom wholly American, he left the office of the intractable police officer. But when he reached the threshold of the administrative office where he thought to find assistance and protection, he questioned himself as to what he should do, and perhaps he was about to decide to go to Colonel Forster’s house, when an individual accosted him and said politely:

“You seem greatly annoyed, sir.”

“What is that to you?” was the gruff answer.

“Why,” replied the unknown, without being ruffled by this cool reception, “because if you did not obtain the information you desire from the central office, I might be able to give it to you.”

“You?”

“Or at least the important house of Robertson Brothers & Co., of which I have the honor to be one of the head clerks.”

“The house of Robertson & Co.?”

“Yes, sir, the most honorable, most discreet, and the safest agency----”

Saunders, the stout, tapped his forehead; he understood.

The man who was addressing him was simply one of those ferrets by whom the informing agencies scour the city. The most skilful of all its rivals, the house of Robertson Bros. & Co., always had one of its men standing around in the neighborhood of Mr. Kelly’s offices, in order to recruit on the way some client for whom the official police had refused to become the instrument. It must have been Heaven that sent Saunders this aid.

“Where is your office?” he asked the agent.

“In Nineteenth Street, No. 22,” answered the clerk.

“Close to her,” murmured Saunders, with a sigh.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, come into my cab, give the address to the coachman, and take me to the house.”

The man obeyed, and in a quarter of an hour the carriage stopped before a very honest-looking house, whose mahogany door bore on a large copper plate: “Robertson Bros. & Co., solicitors.”

Messrs. Robertson Bros. & Co. make a great deal of money, but they have a better reputation than their professional brethren. They even pass for honest people and that explains itself, for all New York knew the causes of the creation of their agency, which, at the time when the events took place herein described, had been established but three or four years.

It was well known that Mr. Robertson, Sr., had founded his establishment merely through political spite and hatred toward Mr. Kelly, the chief of the metropolitan police.

A candidate for election at the same time as Kelly, Edward Robertson had been beaten by his rival, after a fierce contention and a truly American exchange of invectives. Robertson reproached Kelly with being an ignorant, drunken brute; Kelly accused his competitor of being ambitious, a slaveholder, and libertine.

The Yankee electors no doubt preferred the faults of Kelly to those of Robertson, since they nominated Kelly; but when Robertson learned that his enemy was called to the important functions of the chief of police, he judged that the moment had come to avenge himself. Then he organized his agency of secret police, in order to test his skill against that of the official police of his former adversary.

He relied upon occasions, not lacking, to show the superiority of his mind over that of his victor in the elections, and he hoped that his victories would enable him some day to take his revenge in a new political struggle. Several times already, in cases where Fat Kelly had failed, notwithstanding the aid of all his policemen and detectives, Messrs. Robertson had succeeded; and it can be easily judged whether Robertson, senior, was proud of his victories, and had made them tell for the reputation of his house.

Saunders, who was well acquainted with this police rivalry and these strange customs, crossed the threshold of the house of Robertson Brothers & Co., without the least repugnance.

After leading him to a small, severely furnished room on the ground floor, his guide introduced him into the private office of one of the chiefs of the agency.

The love-sick manufacturer of crackers found himself in the presence of a man hardly thirty years old, freshly shaven, with hair curled (pomaded), foppishly dressed, and having no indication on his physiognomy of the interloping police officer.

As he partly reclined in a spacious leather arm chair before a large desk loaded with documents, with his white hand and smiling lips, one would have taken him for a young member of Congress.

“Mr. Robertson?” asked Saunders.

“Robertson, Jr.,” answered the second head of the house, slightly bowing, and signing to his visitor to be seated. “To whom have I the honor of speaking?”

“Willie Saunders, sir.”

“Mr. Willie Saunders, the proprietor of the great manufacturies in Brooklyn, the noted Mr. Saunders?”

“The very one, sir.”

Greatly flattered at being so well known, the poor man took an arm-chair and tried to settle his mind.

After a few moments of meditation, he said: “This is what brings me here, sir. A young woman in whom I am deeply interested, Miss Ada Ricard, was carried off yesterday during a ball that she was giving at her house, No. 17 East Twenty-third Street.”

“Carried off!” interrupted Robertson, Jr.

“Yes, sir, carried off!” And Saunders related in detail the event of which he had been a witness; then, with many groans, he told what the maid had said about her mistress, and his useless application at the central office of the metropolitan police.

“You think, then,” said the young man, who had listened without interrupting, “that Colonel Forster is the kidnapper?”

“I think so,” answered the jealous man, with flashing eyes.

“You would like to make certain of it?”

“Yes, and to know what has become of Miss Ada. Is that possible?”

“Everything is possible; it is only a question of price.”

“Set your own.”

“It is necessary first that I should have a likeness of the lady.”

“I always carry one.”

Poor Saunders drew forth a photograph and presented it to Robertson.

“She is very pretty,” said the latter, gallantly.

“Alas, yes,” sighed the stout man.

“Let me ask you a few questions? Are you married? Have you children--daughters in particular?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You will understand. If you have children--daughters especially--we shall have to act with the greatest caution in order to avoid scandal, in the interest of decency, which needs no explanation. Then our expenses would be larger, and consequently our commission higher.”

“Very well. No; I am a single man.”

“That is perfect. One thing more. How much money have you spent in your devotion to this bewitching Miss Ada?”

“How much must I----”

“Of course, you will see why. You are very rich and generous. If you have spent but little for Miss Ada, it is because you love her moderately; consequently, you have only a moderate desire to find her. If, on the contrary, you open your purse wide, it is because you are deeply in love with her; therefore, you have a proportionate desire to see her again. Now, our search and movements being regulated by your sentiments, it is indispensable that we should be exactly informed.”

The worthy Robertson, Jr., expressed himself so coldly and calmly but also with such precision, and moreover with such logic as regarded his estimable business, that Saunders could but give an approving wave of the hand, saying in answer:

“You are right. Well, Miss Ada has had a big pile of money from me, and because I love her still, and because I wish to avenge myself on her and her kidnappers, I subscribe in advance to your conditions.”

“If it is Colonel Forster who carried off this young woman he is a formidable adversary,” he observed.

“Then what will it cost?”

“Then, my dear sir, it will cost five hundred dollars, in advance; then you will give us five hundred dollars more on the day when I shall have the pleasure of informing you what became of Miss Ada Ricard, and where you must go to find her.”

For answer, Willie Saunders majestically handed a check to Mr. Robertson, Jr., saying--

“As for the other five hundred dollars, when you give me the information you promise you can have a check.”

“That will be in a few days, I hope. But try nothing on your part; you might, without meaning it, counteract some of my plans.”

“I will be careful, sir. Ah, don’t mislay that photograph, I beg, as it is the only one I possess. I have destroyed all the others.”

“I will return it, with my note.”

“I did not wish Miss Ada to have a single one to give away.”

“That was prudent.”

“It has served me well.”

“Ah, do not too quickly accuse that charming woman; she may have been the victim of some violence.”

“But her letter, sir, her letter to her maid.”

“Who can assert that she was not forced to write? Be calm and patient; remain quietly at home, and have confidence in the house of Robertson Brothers & Co.; it has solved mysteries more difficult than yours. From to-day your interests are ours.”

Touched by these kind words, the unfortunate cracker-merchant deigned to extend a hand to Mr. Robertson, Jr., and returned home more cheerful. The days, however, seemed endless to him, and, although he did not find in Mary a very faithful echo of his grief, he could not help going three or four times in every twenty-four hours to No. 17 East Twenty-third Street. But at each call the maid invariably answered: “Since madam has written that she will be absent a month at least, do as I do--wait.”

Saunders went along Twenty-third Street holding on to the railings of the houses, for his step had become feeble.

The adventure was noised abroad; thanks to the servants who had been dismissed, people knew the slightest details, and Miss Ada’s unhappy lover was the laughing-stock of every one. They watched his coming and going, but he was so completely absorbed in his sad thoughts that he perceived nothing of it.

When he was at home, the business instinct roused him a little from his preoccupation, but his mind quickly reverted to its one thought, and he changed so from hour to hour that he became pitiable to behold. Those of his friends who at first had most mercilessly joked him now pitied him.

Matters remained thus four days, and Saunders becoming very anxious at Messrs. Robertson Brothers’ long silence was about to call upon them, when one morning he received a large envelope, proudly bearing the seal of this honorable house. He hastened to open it. It contained Miss Ada’s picture, a letter of a few lines and a very long note, headed “Confidential.”

SIR--The enclosed document proves to you that we have succeeded
according to your wishes. We have spared neither skill nor any
possible step, and we have the honor of reminding you that upon
presenting the said document you have to pay us a sum of five
hundred dollars. Our clerk, the bearer of this paper, will give you
a receipt. We have not forgotten that we are ready to follow your
orders in this affair.

Yours, respectfully, etc., etc.

Willie Saunders, deeply impressed, quickly turned to read the note of Messrs. Robertson Brothers & Co., solicitors, which was drawn up in the following style:

Miss Ada Ricard, carried off from her house on the night of Tuesday
last, left in a carriage hired by an unknown man the night before
from Mr. Thompson, No. 4 Sixth Avenue, for the sum of twenty-five
dollars for twenty-four hours. The stranger said that this carriage
would have to take him to several masked balls, that he did not wish
any footmen, for his own would accompany him, and that he would come
for the carriage himself when he needed it. They had it ready for
him, and he arrived at half-past one in the morning, with two men
in large dominos and masks. He wore a heavy cloak, but, although he
also was masked, it was easy to recognize by his headgear that he
was costumed as an Indian. The coachman was named Tom Katters. By
the order of the unknown man he drove to East Twenty-third Street,
where he remained in the file of carriages standing before No. 17.
One of the dominos alighted and disappeared for about half an hour.
At the end of this time he returned and exchanged a few words in a
foreign language with the other two masks, who got out of the landau.
They had removed their dominos and were all three disguised as Sioux
Indians. Before leaving, one of the three men, who seemed to command
the others, gave his instructions to Tom Katters. The latter was
to stand directly before the door of the house and when the three
travelers returned to start his horses off at a gallop. They gave
him five dollars extra to induce him to be exact in obeying orders,
and promised him as much more if he would prove himself intelligent.
In less than twenty minutes after their departure the three masks
returned. The largest bore in his arms a woman, who was laughing; he
got into the landau with her; the other two Indians mounted the box
with Katters, who, according to their order, drove at full speed up
Twenty-third Street as far as First Avenue. A little beyond Hell Gate
the two men sprang down to the sidewalk, and after telling Katters to
pursue his course to the entrance of Yorkville, they disappeared.
Katters obeyed, and did not stop until he had reached the place
indicated. There the only remaining traveler in his turn alighted. He
bore the young woman in his arms, because the ground was damp with
the rain, and he was reassuring her, no doubt, for Katters heard him
say: “It has rained cats and dogs, but we have arrived.”

“Miserable cheat,” murmured Saunders, whose anger increased at each one of these details; “she had an understanding with her kidnappers. Oh! I shall avenge myself.” And, washing down this vow with a large glass of sherry, he resumed his reading.

The report continued in these terms:

Before leaving, the unknown man gave the promised five dollars to
the coachman, and the latter, without disturbing himself as to
what was to become of his generous client, turned his horses round
and returned to the city. It seems certain that the man and woman
immediately went to the East River to embark in a boat waiting for
them, for James Davis, the mate of the steamer Liberia, remembered
having seen, while he was on watch Tuesday or Wednesday night, at
three o’clock, below Blackwell’s Island, a yawl, rowed by an Indian,
and in the stern of which sat a woman. This yawl passed so close to
the Liberia that it came near being capsized, and the frightened
passenger uttered a cry of fear. Our information permits us to add
that Colonel Forster, Monday, had his yacht, the Gleam, conveyed to
the Brooklyn wharf, which he visited Tuesday, and this same yacht
was provisioned for a trip of a certain number of weeks. Wednesday,
in the day-time, the Gleam passed before Castle Garden, and a young,
elegant woman was plainly seen on board. Then it took the route for
Staten Island, and there it came to anchor on account of some injury
to one of its cylinders. Captain Reynolds, who commands the Gleam,
having sent ashore for workmen, one of my agents quietly slipped in
among them, and easily recognized Miss Ada, owing to the photograph
he had in his hands. The same agent learned that as soon as the Gleam
was repaired it put out to sea for some unknown destination. It would
be impossible to say how long this voyage or excursion will last, for
Colonel Forster, who has not left shipboard, has a leave of absence
for three months.

If Mr. Willie Saunders desires, the house of Robertson Brothers & Co.
can hire a steamboat, and one of the most intelligent agents can set
out in pursuit of the fugitives. Mr. Robertson, Jr., will wait for
the instructions of Mr. Willie Saunders. The hiring of this steamer
will cost one hundred dollars a day. Mr. Willie Saunders must deposit
one thousand dollars in advance, which shall be paid to Messrs.
Robertson Brothers & Co., whatever the result and duration of the
expedition.

“Well, that is an idea,” murmured the stout man, whom anger and the desire for vengeance made ready for anything; “Robertson Brothers & Co. are men of skill. Yes, even if it costs me double and treble what they ask, I will confound the wretch. Ah! that brutal Kelly imagines that I will forgive him. Well, we will see.”

And in a state of fierce excitement, Saunders took his hat and rushed to the door of his office.

“Pardon, sir,” said an individual, stopping him on the way, and who had been there a long time and whom he had quite forgotten, “pardon, you have five hundred dollars to remit by me.”

“Ah! that is true,” answered the cracker-merchant, recognizing the clerk of the agency. “Present that at the bank.”

He had scrawled an order in one of the pages of his note-book, and handed it to the man.

Then he jumped into the first cab which he saw and was driven to the police intelligence office, where Robertson, Junior, received him, as on his first visit.

“Sir,” said Saunders to him, “your idea of pursuing Miss Ada’s kidnapper seems to me excellent. I approve of it, but be prompt. According to the information you have sent me, Colonel Forster’s yacht may still be at anchor off Staten Island, and if I could reach there before her departure----”

“What! you wish to go yourself,” observed the elegant Robertson.

“Yes, myself. I wish to provoke that insolent officer, and avenge myself afterwards on the woman who has made sport of me.”

“You know our conditions?”

“Here are the thousand dollars in advance.”

“That is perfect,” said the agent, slipping the check into his safe; “be at Battery wharf in two hours; we will set out together. I am really interested in this affair, and would like to accompany you myself.”

Saunders was profuse in thanks, and returned home to make his preparations.