By this time help had arrived, and once more the police took possession of us, as it were.
Of course, now everything was explained. The burglars had evidently entered Joe's room, and Bogie, being in his arms, had barked, and wakened him. A few blows had soon silenced poor Bogie, and a gag and cords had done the same for Joe.
When the man saw me from the kitchen window he must have known that help would soon come, and to prevent Joe giving information too soon they had hastily seized him, bed-clothes and all, and put him into that cellar, to starve if he were not discovered.
Perhaps they did not really mean to kill the poor child, and if we had been in the habit of using that cellar we might have found him in a few hours or less; but, unfortunately, it was a place we never used, it reached far under the street, and was too large for our use. Our coal-cellar was a much smaller one, inside the scullery; the door of poor Joe's prison closed with a common latch.
Had there been any doubt in the detective's mind as to Joe's guilt, he might have taken more trouble, and searched for him, even there; but from the first everybody but ourselves had been sure Joe had escaped with the burglars, so the cellar remained unsearched.
Mrs. Wilson, wishing to spare me the smell of the apples, thought that cellar, being outside the house, a very suitable place for them, and on opening the door had caught sight of something in the distant corner, and sent Mary to see what it was. Then arose those fearful shrieks we had heard, and Mary had rushed out of the cellar half mad with fright.
In less time than it has taken me to relate this, Joe was laid on the rug before the drawing-room fire, and I summoned courage to look on the changed face.
“Could that be Joe—so white, so drawn, so still?”
Dr. Loring was kneeling by the little form, chafing and straightening the poor stiffened arms, so bent with their cruel pinioning behind the shoulders.
“Doctor,” I said, “why do you do any more? Nothing can bring back the poor fellow, murdered while doing his duty.” Then I, too, knelt down, and took the poor cold hands in mine,