Kit was too much astonished to speak, but the steward was equal to the emergency. With a powerful jerk he wrenched himself free, and the next moment Kit saw the gleam of a revolver in his hand and heard a shot fired. It was done so quickly, however, that the bullet flew wide; and the next minute two policemen in uniform emerged from the alley, and all four men grappled with the desperate steward and bore him down.
His language as he lay struggling on his back on the sidewalk was anything but pious; but he submitted to the inevitable when the officers put handcuffs on his wrists and stood him on his feet.
“I am afraid you have made a mistake, gentlemen,” Kit at length said; “this man is Mr. MacNish, steward of the steamship North Cape.”
“Steward nothing!” one of the men answered, contemptuously. “This man is Slippery Jim, with fifty other names, and one of the slickest bank burglars in the world. He’s the man that tapped the North Western bank for a hundred and forty thousand dollars ten days ago, and I only hope he’s got it in that satchel. Steward, indeed! He’s smart enough to turn his hand to anything, and he took that way to escape from New York with his booty. See here.”
As he spoke the man took hold of the whiskers on both sides of MacNish’s face, and being false ones they came off very easily. Then he rubbed his handkerchief across the steward’s face, and wiped off a big patch of the pink stain that had given him a florid appearance.
“We got on his track just after you sailed,” the man continued, “and followed him in the mail steamer. We are detectives from New York, and you are a lucky boy that we don’t take you in as an accomplice.”
Meanwhile the other stranger had been trying to open the satchel. Finding it securely locked, he impatiently took his knife and cut a long slit in the leather and thrust in his hand.
“Here we have it!” he exclaimed, “or some of it. We’ll count it over at the police station.”
Kit’s eyes bulged when he saw a big handful of greenbacks and bonds taken from the satchel; not covetously, but in awe when he thought of the great amount of stolen money he had been carrying.
The steward, seeing that his game had reached an end, was inclined to laugh over his experiences on the North Cape.