Frank Merriwell's New Comedian: or, The Rise of a Star

“What do you make of it?” asked Havener.

“An attempt to bother me.”

“For what?”

“Who knows? Haven’t I had enough troubles?”

“I should say so! But I thought your troubles of this sort were over when you got rid of Lawrence. You left two of the assistants who saw him try to fire the theater to appear as witnesses against him.”

“Oh, I hardly think Lawrence was in this affair in any way or manner. I confess I do not know just what to make of it. Heretofore my enemies have been men, but now there seems to be a woman in the case.”

“If this woman follows you, what will you do?”

“I shall endeavor to find out who she is, and bring her to time, so she will drop the game.”

“See that you do,” advised Hodge. “And don’t be soft with her because she is a woman.”

“Go look through the train and see if you can find the woman you saw,” directed Frank. “If you find her, come back here and tell me where she is.”

“I’ll do it!” exclaimed Bart, getting up at once.

“That fellow is faithful to you,” said Havener, when Bart had walked down the aisle; “but he is awfully disagreeable at times. It’s nothing but his loyalty that makes me take any stock in him.”

“His heart is in the right place,” asserted Merry.

“Nothing makes him doubt you. Why, I believe he wanted to fight the whole company when you failed to appear.”

“An’ he’s a fighter, b’gosh! when he gits started,” declared Gallup. “I’ve seen him plunk some critters an’ he plunked them in great style.”

Hodge was gone some little time, but there was a grim look of triumph when he returned.

“Find her?” asked Merry.

“Sure,” nodded Bart.

“Where?”

“Last car. She did not get onto this one, but I rather think she moved after you came on board. That makes me all the more certain that it is the woman. She’s near the rear end of the car, on the left side, as you go down the aisle.”

“Well,” said Frank, rising, “I think I’ll go take a look at her. Is she alone?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. And she cannot escape from the train till it stops, if it should happen to be the right woman, which I hope it is.”

Bart wished to accompany Frank to point the woman out, but Merry objected.

“No,” he said, “let me go alone.”

“I can show her to you.”

“If the woman I am looking for is in the car I’ll find her.”

Merry passed slowly through the train, scanning each passenger as he went along. He entered the last car. In a few moments he would know if the mysterious veiled woman really were on that train. If he found her, he would be certain the strange encounter on the street had a meaning that had not appeared on the surface.

The train was flying along swiftly, taking curves without seeming to slacken speed in the least. Frank’s progress through the car was rather slow, as the swaying motion made it difficult for him to get along.

But when he had reached the rear of the car he was filled with disappointment.

Not a sign of a veiled woman had he seen in the car.

More than that, there was no woman in black who resembled the woman who had stopped him on the street in Denver.

Could it be Hodge had been mistaken?

No! Something told him Bart had made no mistake in the matter of seeing a woman who answered the description given by Frank. He had said she was in the last car. She was not there when Frank passed through the car. Then she had moved.

Why?

Was the woman aware that she was being watched? Had she moved to escape observation?

Frank stopped by the door at the rear end of the car. He looked out through the glass in the door.

Some one was on the platform at one side of the door. Frank opened the door and looked out.

The person on the platform was a woman in black, and she wore a veil!

CHAPTER XIX. – ON THE REAR PLATFORM

A feeling of exultant satisfaction flashed over Merriwell, and he quickly stepped out onto the platform, closing the door behind him.

The woman turned and looked toward him.

The train was racing along, the track seeming to fly away from beneath the last car.

It was a strange place for a woman to be, out there on the rear platform, and Merry’s first thought had been that it must be the woman he sought, for had she not come out there to escape him? She had fancied he would look through the car, fail to find her, and decide that she was not on the train. It must be that she had seen Hodge come in, and had realized at once why he had entered the car. When he departed to carry the information to Frank, the desperate woman had fled to the rear platform.

Immediately on stepping out onto the platform, however, Frank decided that his reasoning was at fault.

It was a veiled woman, and she was in black, but it was not the woman he sought. It was not the woman who had caused his arrest in Denver!

Merry was disappointed.

The unknown looked at him, and said nothing. He looked at her and wondered. The veil was thick and baffling.

“Madam,” he said, “this is a dangerous place.”

She said nothing.

“You are liable to become dizzy out here and meet with an accident,” he pursued. “If you should fall – well, you know what that would mean. It is remarkable that you should come out here.”

“The air,” she murmured, in a hoarse, husky voice. “The car was stifling, and I needed the air. I felt ill in there.”

“All the more reason why you should not come out here,” declared Frank, solicitously. “You could have had a window opened, and that would have given you air.”

“The window stuck.”

“It must be some of them would open. If you will return, I’ll endeavor to find you a seat by an open window.”

“Very kind of you,” she said, in the same peculiar, husky voice. “Think I’ll stay out here. Don’t mind me.”

“Then I trust you will permit me to remain, and see that you do not meet with any misfortune?”

“No. Go! Leave me! I had rather remain alone.”

She seemed like a middle-aged lady. He observed that her clothes fitted her ill, and her hands were large and awkward. She attempted to hide them.

All at once, with a suddenness that staggered him, the truth burst on Frank.

The woman was no woman at all! It was a man in disguise!

Merry literally gasped for a single instant, but he recovered at once.

Through his head flashed a thought:

“This must be some criminal who is seeking to escape justice!”

Immediately Frank resolved to remain on the platform at any hazard. He would talk to the disguised unknown.

“The motion of the train is rather trying to one who is not accustomed to it,” he said. “Some people feel it quite as much as if they were on a vessel. Car sickness and seasickness are practically the same thing.”

She looked at him through the concealing veil, but did not speak.

“I have traveled considerable,” he pursued, “but, fortunately, I have been troubled very little with sickness, either on sea or land.”

“Will you be kind enough to leave me!” came from behind the veil, in accents of mingled imploration and anger.

“I could not think of such a thing, madam!” he bowed, as gallantly as possible. “It is my duty to remain and see that you come to no harm.”

“I shall come to no harm. You are altogether too kind! Your kindness is offensive!”

“I am very sorry you regard it thus, but I know my duty.”

“If you knew half as much as you think, you would go.”

“I beg your pardon; it is because I do know as much as I think that I do not go.”

The unknown was losing patience.

“Go!” he commanded, and now his voice was masculine enough to betray him, if Frank had not dropped to the trick before.

“No,” smiled Merry, really beginning to enjoy it, “not till you go in yourself, madam.”

The train lurched round a curve, causing the disguised unknown to swing against the iron gate. Frank sprang forward, as if to catch and save the person from going over, but his real object was to apparently make a mistake and snatch off the veil.

The man seemed to understand all this, for he warded off Frank’s clutch, crying:

“I shall call for aid! I shall seek protection!”

“It would not be the first time to-day that a veiled woman has done such a thing,” laughed Frank.

The disguised man stared at him again. Merry fairly itched to snatch away the veil.

“If you are seeking air, madam,” he suggested, “you had better remove your veil. It must be very smothering, for it seems to be quite thick.”

“You are far too anxious about me!” snapped the disguised man. “I would advise you to mind your own business!”

This amused Merry still more. The situation was remarkably agreeable to him.

“In some instances,” he said, politely, “your advice would be worth taking, but an insane person should be carefully watched, and that is why I am minding your business just now.”

“An insane person?”

“Exactly.”

“Do you mean that I am insane?”

“Well, I trust you will excuse me, but from your appearance and your remarkable behavior, it seems to me that you should be closely guarded.”

That seemed to make the unknown still more angry, but it was plain he found difficulty in commanding words to express himself.

“You’re a fool!” he finally snapped.

“Thank you!” smiled Frank.

“You’re an idiot!”

“Thank you again.”

“You are the one who is crazy!”

“Still more thanks.”

“How have I acted to make you fancy me demented?”

“You are out here, and you may be contemplating self-destruction by throwing yourself from this train.”

“Don’t worry about that. I am contemplating nothing of the sort.”

“But there are other evidences of your insanity.”

“Oh, there are?”

“Yes.”

As the disguised unknown did not speak, Merry went on:

“The strongest evidence of your unbalanced state of mind is the ill-chosen attire you are wearing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you not dressed in the garments of your sex?”

“Sir?”

“You are not a woman,” declared Frank, coolly; “but a man in the garments of a woman. Your disguise is altogether too thin. It would not deceive anybody who looked you over closely. You are – ”

Frank got no further. With a cry of anger, the disguised unknown sprang at him, grappled with him, panted in his ear:

“You are altogether too sharp, Frank Merriwell! This time you have overshot yourself! This ends you!”

Then he tried to fling Merry from the swiftly moving train.

Frank instantly realized that it was to be a struggle for life, and he met the assault as quickly and stiffly as he could; but the disguised man seemed, of a truth, to have the strength of an insane person. In his quick move, the fellow had forced Frank back against the gate, and over this, he tried to lift and hurl him.

“No you don’t!” came from Merry’s lips.

“Curse you!” panted the fellow. “I will do it!”

“Yes, you will – I don’t think!”

In the desperate struggle, both seemed to hang over the gate for a moment. Then Frank slid back, securing a firm grip, and felt safe.

Just then, however, the door of the car flew open, and out sprang Hodge. Bart saw what was happening in a moment, and he leaped to Merry’s aid.

Out on a high trestle that spanned a roaring, torrent-like river rumbled the train.

Bart clutched Frank, gave the disguised man a shove, and —

Just how it happened, neither of them could tell afterward, but over the gate whirled the man, and down toward the seething torrent he shot!

Up from that falling figure came a wild cry of horror that was heard above the fumbling roar of the train on the trestle bridge.

Over and over the figure turned, the skirts fluttering, and then headlong it plunged into the white foam of the torrent, disappearing from view.

On the rear platform of the last car two white-faced, horrified young men had watched the terrible fall. They stared down at the swirling river, looking for the unfortunate wretch to reappear. Off the bridge flew the train, and no longer were they able to see the river.

“He’s gone!” came hoarsely from Bart.

“Then you saw – you knew it was a man?” cried Frank.

“Yes, I saw his trousers beneath the skirts as I came out the door.”

“This is terrible!” muttered Frank.

“He was trying to throw you over?”

“Yes; attempted to take me off my guard and hurl me from the train.”

“Then the wretch has met a just fate,” declared Bart.

But now it seemed that the struggle on the platform had been noticed by some one within the car. There were excited faces at the glass in the door, and a trainman came out, demanding:

“What is all this? Why are you out here? They tell me a woman came out. Where is she?”

With unusual readiness, Bart quickly answered:

“She’s gone – jumped from the train.”

“Jumped?”

“Yes. We both tried to save her. Just as I reached the door I saw my friend struggling to hold her, but she was determined to fling herself over.”

“Well, this is a fine piece of business!” came angrily from the trainman. “What ailed her?”

“She must have been insane,” asserted Bart. “She attacked my friend here, and then tried to jump off. He could not hold her. I did not get hold of her in time.”

“What was he doing out here?”

“Watching her. You will admit it was rather queer for a woman to come out here on the platform and stand. He thought so, and so he came out to watch her.”

“Well, you can both come in off this platform!” growled the trainman, in anything but a civil manner.

They did so. The passengers swarmed round them when they entered the car, literally flinging questions at them.

“Who was the woman?”

“What ailed her?”

“Why did she go out there?”

“What did she do?”

“Tell us about it!”

Again Bart made the explanation, and then there arose a babel.

“I noticed her,” declared one. “I saw she looked queer.”

“I noticed her,” asserted another. “I saw she acted queer.”

“I saw her when she went out,” put in a third, “and I thought it was a crazy thing to do.”

“Without doubt the woman was insane,” declared a pompous fat man.

“She must have been instantly killed.”

“She jumped into the river.”

“Then, she was drowned.”

“Who knows her?”

“She was all alone.”

Frank had been thinking swiftly all the while. He regretted that Bart had been so hasty in making his explanation, and now he resolved to tell as near the truth as possible without contradicting Hodge.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” he said, “I have every reason for believing that the person was a man.”

Then there were cries of astonishment and incredulity.

“A man?”

“Impossible!”

“Never!”

“Ridiculous!”

But an elderly lady, who wore gold-bowed spectacles, calmly said:

“The young gentleman is correct, I am quite sure. The person in question sat directly in front of me, and I discovered there was something wrong. I felt almost certain it was a man before he got up and went out on the platform.”

Then there was excitement in the car. A perfect torrent of questions was poured on Frank.

Merry explained that he had thought it rather remarkable that a woman should be standing all alone on the rear platform, and, after going out and speaking to the person, he became convinced that it was a man in disguise. Then he told how the man, on being accused, had attacked him furiously, and finally had seemed to fling himself over the iron gate.

It was a great sensation, but no one accused either Merry or Bart of throwing the unknown over, not a little to Frank’s relief.

At last, they got away and went forward into the car where the company was gathered. Havener and Gallup had been holding the double seat, and Frank and Bart sat down there.

“Well, I fancy you failed to find the lady you were looking for,” said Havener. “But what’s the matter? You look as if something has happened.”

“Something has,” said Frank, grimly.

“Gol-darned ef I don’t b’lieve it!” exclaimed Ephraim. “Both yeou an’ Hodge show it. Tell us abaout it.”

Frank did so in a very few words, astonishing both Ephraim and the stage manager.

“Waal,” said the Vermonter, “the gal who tackled yeou in Denver warn’t no man.”

“Not much,” said Frank, “and it is remarkable that Hodge should have mistaken a man for such a woman as I described.”

“Didn’t,” said Bart.

“But you have acknowledged that you believed this was a man.”

“Yes, but this man was not the veiled woman I saw.”

“Wasn’t?”

“Not much!”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Frank. “The mystery deepens!”

“Did you mistake this person for the veiled woman I meant?”

“Sure thing.”

“And did not find another?”

“Not a sign of one. I do not believe there is another on the train.”

“Well, this is a mystery!” confessed Hodge. “I saw nothing of the one I meant when I went to look for you.”

“It must be you saw no one but that man in the first place.”

Bart shook his head, flushing somewhat.

“Do you think I would take that man for a woman with a perfect figure, such as you described? What in the world do you fancy is the matter with my eyes?”

“By gum!” drawled Gallup. “This air business is gittin’ too thick fer me. I don’t like so much mystery a bit.”

“If that man was not the one you meant, Hodge,” said Merry, “then the mysterious woman is still on this train.”

“That’s so,” nodded Bart.

“Find her,” urged Frank. “I want to get my eyes on her more than ever. Surely you should be able to find her.”

“I’ll do it!” cried Bart, jumping up.

Away he went.

Frank remained with Havener and Gallup, talking over the exciting and thrilling adventure and the mystery of it all till Hodge returned. At a glance Merry saw that his college friend had not been successful.

“Well,” he said, “did you find her?”

“No,” confessed Bart, looking crestfallen. “I went through the entire train, and I looked every passenger over. The woman I meant is not on this train.”

“Then, it must be that your woman was the man who met his death in the river. There is no other explanation of her disappearance. You must give up now, Hodge.”

But Hodge would not give up, although he could offer no explanation, and the mystery remained unsolved.

There were numerous stops between Denver and Puelbo, and it was nightfall before the train brought them to their destination. The sun had dropped behind the distant Rockies, and the soft shades of a perfect spring evening were gathering when they drew up at the station in Puelbo.

Lights were beginning to twinkle in windows, and the streets were lighted. “Props” had gone to look after the baggage, and the company was gathered on the platform. Cabmen were seeking to attract fares.

Of a sudden, a cry broke from the lips of Bart Hodge:

“There she is!”

All were startled by his sudden cry. They saw him start from the others, pointing toward a woman who was speaking to a cabman. That woman had left the train and crossed the platform, and she was dressed in black and heavily veiled.

Frank saw her – recognized her.

“By heavens! it is the woman,” he exclaimed.

CHAPTER XX. – MAN OR WOMAN

Into the cab sprang the woman. Slam! the door closed behind her. Crack! – the whip of the driver fell on the horses, and away went the cab.

“Stop!” shouted Hodge.

Cabby did not heed the command.

Frank made a rush for another cab.

“Follow!” he cried, pointing toward the disappearing vehicle. “I will give you five dollars – ten dollars – if you do not lose sight of that cab!”

“In!” shouted the driver. “I’ll earn that ten!”

In Frank plunged, jerking the door to behind him. The cab whirled from the platform with a jerk. Away it flew.

“It will be worth twenty dollars to get a peep beneath that veil!” muttered Frank Merriwell.

The windows were open. He looked out on one side. He could see nothing of the cab they were pursuing. Back he dodged, and out he popped his head on the other side.

“There it is!”

He felt that he was not mistaken. The fugitive cab was turning a corner at that moment. They were after it closely.

Frank wondered where the woman could have been hidden on the train so that she had escaped observation. He decided that she must have been in one of the toilet rooms.

But what about the veiled man who was disguised as a woman? That man had known Frank – had spoken his name.

It was a double mystery.

The pursuit of the cab continued some distance. At last the cab in advance drew up in front of a hotel, and a man got out!

Merriwell had leaped to the ground, and cabby was down quite as swiftly, saying:

“There, sir, I followed ’em. Ten plunks, please.”

The door of the other cab had been closed, and the man was paying the driver. He wore no overcoat, and carried no baggage.

“Fooled!” exclaimed Frank, in disappointment. “You have followed the wrong cab, driver!”

“I followed the one you told me to follow,” declared the driver.

“No; you made a mistake.”

“Now, don’t try that game on me!” growled the man. “It’s your way of attempting to get out of paying the tenner you promised.”

“No; I shall pay you, for you did the best you could. It was not your fault that you made a mistake in the mass of carriages at the depot.”

“Didn’t make no mistake,” asserted the cabby, sullenly.

“Well, it’s useless to argue over it,” said Merry, as he gave the man the promised ten dollars. “I am sure you made a mistake.“

“Think I couldn’t follow Bill Dover and his spotted nigh hawse?” exploded the driver. “I couldn’t have missed that hawse if I’d tried.”

Frank saw one of the horses attached to the other cab was spotted. He had noticed that peculiarity about one of the horses attached to the cab the mysterious woman had entered.

“It’s the same horse!” exclaimed Merry.

“’Course it is,” nodded the driver.

The man had paid his fare and was carelessly sauntering into the hotel. As he disappeared through the door-way, Frank sprang to the door of the other cab, flung it wide open, and looked in, more than half expecting to discover the woman still inside.

No woman was there!

Frank caught his breath in astonishment, and stood there, staring into the empty cab.

“Hi, there! wot cher doin’?” called the man on the box.

Frank did not answer. He reached into the cab and felt on the floor. He found something, brought it forth, looked at it amazed.

It was a woman’s dress!

But where was the woman?

Garment after garment Frank lifted, discovering that all a woman’s outer wearing apparel lay on the floor of that cab.

“Vanished!” he muttered. “Disappeared – gone? What does it mean?”

Then he thought of the man who had left the cab and entered the hotel, and he almost reeled.

“That was the woman!”

He had seen one woman change into a man on the train, and here was another and no less startling metamorphosis.

“Driver,” he cried, “didn’t you take a person on in woman’s clothes at the station and let one off in man’s clothes just now?”

“None of yer business!” came the coarse reply. “I knows enough not ter answer questions when I’m paid ter keep still.”

That was quite enough; the driver might as well have answered, for he had satisfied Merriwell.

Frank was astonished by the remarkable change that the woman had made while within the cab, but now he believed he understood why she had not been detected while on the train. She had been able to make a change of disguises in the toilet room, and had passed herself off as a man. Hodge had looked for a veiled woman, and he had looked for a veiled woman; it was not strange that both of them had failed to notice a person in masculine attire who must have looked like a woman.

Up the hotel steps Frank leaped. He entered the office, he searched and inquired. At last, he found out that a beardless man had entered by the front door, but had simply passed through and left by a side door.

“Given me the slip,” decided Frank. He realized that he had encountered a remarkably clever woman.

And the mystery was deeper than ever.

Frank went to the hotel at which the company was to stop, and found all save Wynne had arrived. Hodge was on the watch for Merry, and eagerly inquired concerning his success in following the woman. Frank explained how he had been tricked.

“Well, it’s plain this unknown female is mighty slippery,” said Bart. “You have not seen the last of her.”