Frank Merriwell in Europe; or, Working His Way Upward

Crash! jangle! crash!

The window was shattered in a moment, and a boy came leaping through the opening, and landed in the room amid a shower of falling glass.

Durant had whirled like a cat, his revolver ready for use.

He saw the face of the boy that came through the window, and it filled him with astonishment and fear.

“Zat dev-val boy!” he gasped. “Hees not dead!”

“Not yet!” returned Frank. “I am rather lively for a dead boy.”

“Zis time you die!”

Durant flung up the hand that held the revolver, a spot of smoke and fire leaped from the muzzle, and the boy went down.

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the little anarchist, in a manner that showed he was half a madman. “Zat time he be feexed!”

“Not quite!”

Frank had dropped in time to avoid the bullet, and now he came up, grasping the back of a chair. This weapon he swung about his head and hurled at Durant.

The Frenchman put up his hand, but he was not in time to ward off the chair, and it knocked him down.

One glance Frank gave the fellow, and he saw that Durant lay as if stunned.

Then the boy turned his attention to the trapped detective and the man with the deadly hands.

The captive’s eyes were starting from their sockets, and his face was turning purple. Already he was too far gone to make more than a feeble resistance.

Frank saw that he must do something instantly, or Luptus would finish the unfortunate wretch in his grasp.

Frank caught the table, tipped it on its side, placed a foot on one leg, grasped another, and then gave a wrench.

The leg was torn away, and the boy held a terrible weapon in his hand. With this he whirled toward the two men, lifted it, and brought it down on Luptus’ head.

That blow was enough.

The mute dropped to the floor, and Frank caught the detective’s swaying form in his arms, keeping him from falling also.

“Brace up, Irons, if that’s your right name!” panted Frank. “It’s our only show. We must get out of here before the other two return with more of their kind.”

The man caught his breath with a fierce gasping sound, rolled his eyes toward the boy, and then fell over limply.

“It’s no use,” muttered Frank. “He’s done up. I’ll have to get him out. Can I do it?”

He could try, and this he was ready enough to do.

He dragged the helpless man toward the door. As he was about to turn the key in the lock, a thought came to him.

What if Linton and Glanworth were waiting outside? What if they were to see him coming out bearing the limp body of the detective?

“The chances are they would riddle us with bullets,” thought the boy.

Then he went back to where the lamp sat on a bracket against the wall, and extinguished it.

Once more he found the door, still bearing the detective, turned the key, carried the man outside, and closed the door behind him.

At the head of a flight of stairs he paused to listen.

Was it possible Linton and Glanworth had been alarmed by the racket of the struggle and had taken to flight?

The thought gave the lad renewed hope, and he was about to descend the stairs when he heard a sound in the room behind him.

There was a stir, as if one or both of the men were reviving. He could hear them moving, and then, of a sudden, there were sounds of a struggle.

Astounded, Frank listened yet a little longer.

“As I live, I believe they are fighting in there!” he muttered. “Both have recovered, and they are having it out in the dark. God have mercy on Emile Durant if those deadly hands find his throat!”

Then he bore the detective down the stairs.

That night a body of officers, headed by Orson Irons and Frank Merriwell, returned to that place.

They found two dead men in that room.

Durant had finished Luptus with a knife, but the icy hands, now cold and rigid in death, were fastened on the throat of the little anarchist.

“It is a suitable end for such a wretch as Emile Durant,” said Orson Irons. “‘The grip of doom’ ended his life, but it will harm no others.”

Several arrests were made that night, Miles Linton being taken.

Kennington Glanworth, however, had disappeared completely, nor did the London police ever place their hands on him. He had concealed himself, and he managed to make his escape from the city in some way.

When Professor Scotch heard the story of Frank’s adventures, he was so furious that he almost tore his hair.

“Went to the East End without my permission, did you?” roared the little man, prancing up and down before Frank, who was quietly seated in a chair. “I knew you had gone somewhere you ought not to when you failed to return at the proper time. Oh, you are a splendid boy to heed the wishes of your guardian! It’s a wonder you were not brought home in a coffin!”

“I am here all right,” said the boy, smilingly. “I should advise you to bind some cracked ice on your head, professor. It may cool you off somewhat.”

“You are determined to be killed!”

“If I am killed, it will not be any of your funeral, as they say out West in the United States.”

When the London papers came out and told how the life of Orson Irons, the Scotland Yard detective, was saved by the bravery of the same American youth who discovered the infernal machine in the Houses of Parliament, Professor Scotch read the account with great satisfaction and pride.

“It’s just like him,” muttered the little man, with no small satisfaction. “He is a reckless rascal, but he is a representative American boy, true blue and pure grit all through.”

It was some time before Inza Burrage knew the black truth about Kennington Glanworth, her cousin. Frank did not tell her, but she found it all out at last.

Frank and Inza were much together during their stay in London, and the Yankee boy found no more foes to trouble him.

Orson Irons had warned Frank of his peril at the Derby, and he it was who had been appointed at headquarters to shadow the boy.

It had been learned at Scotland Yard that Frank had an enemy among the anarchists, and it was believed that it might be worth while to keep a strict guard over the lad.

Irons had been instructed to be sure to see every one Frank knew, and that was the reason why the detective had forced his way into the rooms occupied by Mr. Burrage and Inza.

The detective was proud to acknowledge that Frank had saved his life, and before the boy left London, Irons gave him a handsome scarfpin as a remembrance token.

“You know I picked one from your scarf at the Derby,” laughed the man from Scotland Yard. “I was bound to have some excuse for calling on you again, and the pin came handy. This is to show that my intentions were ‘strictly honorable.’”

“You’re all right,” said Frank. “But the next time we meet, you had better trust me.”

“I will—and I’ll tell you what I am after,” said the detective, with a laugh.

“I trust you have no more such frightful adventures,” said Inza, when she and Frank talked the affair over.

“It’s not likely,” said Frank. “I’ve changed my mind about traveling any more for the present.”

“And what will you do next?”

“I am going to try for Yale, Inza.”

“College?”

“Yes.”

“Good for you. I know you will cut as much of a dash there as you did at Fardale.”

Frank’s determination pleased Professor Scotch very much.

“That’s right,” he said. “Let us leave Europe before I have to carry you away in a coffin.”

A week later the pair left, and what Frank’s future adventures were will be related in another story of this series, entitled “Frank Merriwell at Yale.”

Frank’s parting with Inza was very friendly. They promised to write to each other constantly.

And here we will leave our hero, saying, as the professor says:

“A wonderful boy—truly a wonderful boy! An up-and-down, manly American boy!”

No. 9 of the Burt L. Standish Library, entitled “Frank Merriwell at Yale,” is a rattling good college story that will delight every boy who reads it, for it is full of punch and jollity from the first page to the last.

Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of troubles and landed the criminal just where he should be—behind the bars.

The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories than any other single person.

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