Chapter 6 -Knocked Out.

Of course, the robbery of the diamond and Dick's brilliant rounding up of the thief got into the afternoon papers. All the merchants and clerks of the jewelry district downtown were talking about it before closing-up time. Dick Darling, the boy in the knickerbockers, was voted an uncommonly smart lad, and people who knew Mr. Bacon told him so. One of Bacon's clerks after reading the story in the paper called Dick over and showed it to him. Dick bought a couple of papers on his way home and read both accounts.

When he got to the house he handed one of the papers to his mother and called her attention to the story. She read it and was, of course, much surprised. Dick supplied her with many additional particulars not in the paper.

"Mr. Bacon must be greatly pleased with you," said Mrs. Darling.

"Yes, mother, I dare say he thinks I'm all to the good."

His sisters nearly always read the evening paper on their way home. The diamond theft having been given an important position on the first page of the papers they bought that afternoon, it attracted their attention right away. When they saw that the theft had taken place at the store where their brother was employed, they read on with added interest. Then when they saw Dick's name in cold type they became still more interested. As he proved to be the chief figure in the story, next to the thief, they grew quite excited over the story. Had they been together, their exclamations and talk would have attracted attention in the car, but they seldom came together on the same car or train, and so they waited till they reached home to loosen up their tongues. And what a jabbering there was in the little flat when they arrived within a few minutes of each other. They surrounded their brother and plied him with questions, till he broke away, declaring that they made his head ring. Their excitement lasted all through supper. The sum total of their opinion was that Dick was a regular hero, and they were awfully proud of him. The morning papers repeated the story with a few additional details, and Dick read it over again. Then he turned his attention to the other news.

He generally saw everything that was in the papers, though he didn't read everything, because he hadn't time to do so. A paragraph, however, caught his attention this morning which interested him. It told of the escape of Bulger and Parker from the Carlin jail. The jail was an old one, and they had been lodged in a cell the window bars of which proved to have become defective. At any rate, during the short time they were locked up there, they managed to loosen two of the bars so they could be removed during the night. From the window they reached the jail yard, scaled the tall wall with its rusty spikes, and got away. Their escape was not discovered until morning, when officers were at once sent out to look for them.

Dick wondered if they would succeed in getting clear off. About eleven that morning Dick, the manager and the diamond salesman, went to the Tombs police court to appear against Jack Hurley, the diamond thief. He was represented by a cheap lawyer, who employed browbeating tactics in his client's behalf, but did not succeed in shaking the testimony of the witnesses. Dick being the chief witness, the lawyer spared no pains in his efforts to tangle the boy up. Finally he moved that his client be discharged on the ground that there was no real evidence connecting him with the theft of the diamond. The magistrate, however, refused to accept his view of the matter, and remanded Hurley to the consideration of the Grand Jury. During that month the store was closed at three on Saturday afternoon. On the Saturday following the events narrated the clerks were getting ready to leave, after having been paid off, when a consignment of cases containing silverware arrived from the pier of one of the Sound steamboats. The goods had been shipped by the factory in Rhode Island the previous day, and had reached the city that morning, but the truckman had not been able to fetch them to the store until that hour.

As the manager had gone home, Mr. Bacon decided to stay himself and see the cases taken in, and detained two clerks to attend to the work along with the porter. An hour before, Dick had been sent up to the second floor, which was used in part as a sample room, to arrange some of the samples and move others out of the upright cases standing against the walls. There was no clock on that floor, and Dick, forgetting it was Saturday and that the house closed early, gave no attention to the flight of time. The cashier, thinking he was out on an errand, left his pay envelope on Mr. Bacon's desk, and the proprietor seeing it there, also concluded that the manager had sent Dick out before he left. When the truck came up, two rough-looking men were lounging on the opposite side of the street. They were not there by accident, and since they came there they had been watching the Bacon store in a furtive way. The cases of goods were taken off the truck and sent down into the cellar.

While this work was under way one of the men strolled across the street, and, watching his chance, sneaked into the store. He made his way to the back and looked around. Seeing no one there, he walked upstairs and found himself in the sample room. The sight of numerous pieces of choice silverware of all kinds and sizes made him anxious, and he made up his mind to get away with several of the least bulky ones, which he could successfully conceal in his clothes. He approached a case with the view of helping himself when he suddenly came upon Dick, who was kneeling on the floor behind a table. The boy looked up and uttered an exclamation, for he recognized the intruder as Bulger, whose escape from the Carlin jail he had read about. Bulger recognized him at the same moment, and, with an imprecation, seized him.

"So I've got hold of you again," he said. "Me and my pal have been waitin' an hour to get a sight of you. We want to settle accounts with you."

"More likely you'll be settled yourselves," said Dick pluckily. "I've only to call out and some of the clerks will come up and take charge of you."

"You won't do any callin' out if I can help it," said the rascal, seizing the boy by the throat and choking him hard. Dick struggled in vain to free himself from the burly man's grasp, but he was taken at a disadvantage, and found himself quite powerless. He gasped for breath, and was turning black in the face, when Bulger, not intending to kill him, eased up a bit. The sight of the silverware within his reach had put different thoughts into the fellow's head, and seeing the door of a closet standing ajar, he dragged Dick to it, tied his wrists together with a piece of cord, in a rough way, shoved him into the closet, and shut the door tight.

Dick, though not wholly unconscious, was fast becoming so from the effect of the choking, added to the lack of air in the closet. Bulger quickly opened a case, abstracted several small pieces of silverware, concealed them about his person, and hurriedly left the sample room, sneaking downstairs and making for the front door. Mr. Bacon and the clerks were so busily engaged with the cases of goods that they did not notice the rascal slip out of the door and walk down the street, after signaling to Parker, on the other side, to follow.

As soon as the goods had all been placed in the cellar, Mr. Bacon and the two clerks re-entered the store. The merchant went into his office to get a small package he was going to take home. Then the sight of Dick's pay envelope on his desk made him remember the boy.

"I wonder where he was sent?" he asked himself.

It occurred to him to ask the clerks if they had any idea where he was. He stepped outside where the young men were washing their hands and putting on their coats.

"Does either of you know where Dick is?" he inquired.

"He's gone home," replied one of the clerks.

"That can't be, for his pay envelope is here waiting for him to claim it."

"Is that so?" said the clerk.

"Yes; the cashier handed it to me and said he believed Mr. Dale had sent him out on an errand."

"He might have done so, but he would have got back long before this, for he knows that the store closes at three on Saturday."

"When did you see him last?"

"Something over an hour ago. He was then up on the next floor making some changes in the sample cases."

"He might be up there yet."

"It isn't likely, for he would come down after his money when he saw it was getting close to closing-up time."

"There's no clock up there, and, besides, he isn't a boy who watches the clock, like some employees do for fear they will work a minute more than they're paid for it. Dick is always interested in his work. I've noticed that, and it is just possible he might have overlooked the fact that it is Saturday. I am going up to see if he is there," said Mr. Bacon.

The clerks followed him, curious to see if the boy was really still at work. They found no sign of the office boy on the floor.

"He is not here," said Mr. Bacon. "Mr. Dale must have sent him on an errand and he has been delayed."

The three were standing near the closet as the merchant spoke. It was at that very moment that the subject of their thoughts finally became senseless. Dick's head, falling forward when he lost consciousness, hit the door, and the sound attracted the attention of the proprietor and his two clerks.

"What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Bacon.

He pulled the door open and the office boy fell out.

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