Wardon Curtis - The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

“We are locked in!” exclaimed Miss Montmorency.

“What’s that?” said a deep voice in the darkness.

Miss Montmorency screamed, and screamed again as William turned on the light and they beheld a man lying in bed!

William was stepping hastily to her side to shield her vision from this improper spectacle, when he paused as if frozen to the floor. The man was now sitting up in bed and he had a red flannel night gown, one eye , AND TWO NOSES!

“What the devil are you doing here?” exclaimed the monster in the red flannel nightgown.

“That I will gladly tell you, for I would not have you believe that we wantonly intruded upon your slumbers.” And thereupon William related that he was a citizen of Bensonville who had met a former visitor there and they had come here to talk over mutual acquaintances and improve their minds by discreet discourse. “But, sir,” he said, in concluding, “pardon my natural curiosity concerning yourself. Who are you and why are you?”

“If I had the printed copies of my life here, I would gladly sell you one, but I left them all behind. My name is Walker Sheldrup. I am registered from Springfield, Mass., but I am from Dubuque, Iowa. I was born in Sedalia, Mo., where my father was a prominent citizen. It was he who led the company of men who, with five ox teams, hauled the courthouse away from Georgetown and laid the foundations of Sedalia’s greatness. Had he lived, Sedalia would not have tried in vain to swipe the capital from Jefferson City. As a youth I was distinguished – but I’ll cut all that out. Your presence here and the door being locked behind you only too surely warns me that we have no time to lose. They have taken you for the snake-eating lady and the rubber-skinned boy, who ran away when I did and who were to meet me here in Chicago. If you will turn your heads away so I can dress, I will continue. You have heard of prenatal influences. Shortly before I was born, my mother made nine pumpkin pies and set them to cool on a stone wall beneath the shade of a large elm. As luck would have it, a menagerie passed by and an elephant grabbed those pies one after another and ate them. The sight of that enormous pachyderm gobbling my mother’s cherished handiwork, completely upset her. I was born with two noses like the two tusks of the beast. At the same time, like the trunk, they are movable. My two noses are as mobile and useful as two fingers and if you have a quarter with you, I will gladly perform some curious feats. My noses being so near together, ordinarily, I join them with flesh-colored wax. I then seem to have but one nose, although a very large one. I thus escape the annoying attention of the multitude, which is very disagreeable to a proud man of good family, like me. Young man, do you ever drink? In Dubuque, they got me drunk so I didn’t know what I was about and I signed a contract with a dime museum company for twenty-five dollars a week. Take warning from my fate. Never drink, never drink.”

“I can well imagine your sufferings at being a spectacle for a ribald crowd,” said William. “To a man of refined sensibilities, it must be excruciating, and it was an outrage to entrap you into such a contract.”

“I ought to have had seventy-five and could have got fifty. So I ran away. Well, now, how are we going to get out of here? Can you climb over the transom, young man?”

As he said these words, the door flew open and in rushed some villainous looking men, who gagged, handcuffed, and shackled Miss Montmorency, William, and the two-nosed man.

“We have the legal right to do this,” said the leader, displaying the badge of the Jinkins private detective agency. “Advices from Dubuque set us at work. We early located Sheldrup at this hotel, and when the clerk saw the rubber-skinned boy and the snake-eating lady come in, he suspicioned who they was at once and by a great stroke, put ’em in with old two-nose. Do you think we are going to put you through for breach of contract and for swiping that money out of the till on the claim it was due you on salary? Nit. Cost too much, take too much time, and you git sent to jail instead of being back in the museum helping draw crowds. We are in for saving time and trouble for you, us, and your employer. To-night you ride out of here for Dubuque, covered up with hay, in the corner of the car carrying the new trick horse for the museum. Save your fare and all complications. Now, boys, we want to work this on the quiet, so we will just leave ’em all here until the streets are deserted and there won’t be anybody around to notice us gitting ’em into the hack.”

“Hadn’t one of us better stay?” asked a subordinate.

“How can people gagged, their ankles shackled, their hands handcuffed behind ’em, git out? Why, I’ll just leave the handcuff keys here on the table and tantalize ’em.”

Tears welled in the soft, beauteous orbs of Miss Montmorency and William’s eyes spoke keen distress, but Mr. Sheldrup’s eyes gleamed triumphantly above the cloth tied about the lower part of his face. Hardly had the steps of the detectives died away on the stair, when a little click was heard behind Miss Montmorency and her handcuffs fell to the floor. There stood Mr. Sheldrup, politely bowing, with the key held between his two noses. She seized it and in a twinkling, the bonds of all had been removed and, forcing the door, they started away. At the street entrance stood the policeman who had insulted Miss Montmorency!

“Oh, he’s waiting for me, and I’ll get six months. He knew where I’d go. I haven’t any money,” and tears not only filled the wondrous optics of poor Miss Montmorency, but flowed down her cheeks.

“Six months, your grandmother. I’ll not go back on you. Young man, follow me into the office and when I am fairly in front of the clerk, give me a shove,” and the two-nosed man, with a grip in each hand, walked up to the clerk and began to rebuke him for his ungentlemanly and unprincipled conduct.

“You white-livered son of a sea-cook, you double-dyed, concentrated essence of a skunk,” and at that moment young William pushed him and the two-nosed gentleman lurched forward, and bending his head to avoid contact with the clerk’s face, it rested against the latter’s bosom for a moment. Departing immediately, at the foot of the stairs the two-nosed gentleman said to the policeman:

“Officer, please let this lady pass. For various reasons, I desire it enough to spare this stud, which will look well upon the best policeman on the force.”

“All right,” said the policeman. “Go along for all of me, Bet Higgins,” and he courteously accepted the diamond.

“My stage name,” said Miss Montmorency, in answer to an inquiring look from William. “The name I sign to articles in the Sunday papers.”

“Now of course they are watching all the depots,” said the two-nosed gentleman. “Before they located me here they did that, and as they have also been looking for the snake-eating lady and the rubber-skinned boy, our late captors have not had time to notify them that we have been captured. It is useless to try to escape that way, then; it is too far to walk out, or go by street car, and as it is a fair, moonlight night with a soft breeze, I am for getting a boat and sailing out.”

After some search, they found a small sail boat. Miss Montmorency had decided to flee from the wicked city with the two-nosed gentleman. She had heard such delightful reports of Michigan. The owner of the boat not being there and there being no probability that they would ever return it, the two-nosed gentleman wrote a check on a Dubuque bank for one hundred and seventy-five dollars, and Miss Montmorency an order on the school board for a like amount, and these they pinned up where the boatman could find them.