Against Odds: A Detective Story
by Lawrence L. Lynch · English · Gutenberg #29670 · 567,095 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Against Odds: A Detective Story
Author: Lawrence L. Lynch
Release date: August 11, 2009 [eBook #29670]
Most recently updated: February 23, 2013
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGAINST ODDS: A DETECTIVE STORY ***
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
AGAINST ODDS
A Detective Story
BY
LAWRENCE L. LYNCH
(E. MURDOCH VAN DEVENTER),
AUTHOR OF
'SHADOWED BY THREE,' 'A SLENDER CLUE,' 'A DEAD MAN'S STEP,'
'MOINA,' ETC.
_COPYRIGHT._
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN, LIMITED,
WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.
1894.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. 'CHICARGO GITS MY MONEY' 1
II. 'I TOLD MY TALE OF WOE' 12
III. A CONUNDRUM 25
IV. 'I CAN'T MAKE MYSELF LIKE HIM' 35
V. 'IT'S ALL A MIRACLE' 44
VI. 'A CRIMINAL HUNT' 54
VII. 'IT WAS GREENBACK BOB' 63
VIII. 'STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER' 75
IX. IN DISGUISE 82
X. CARL MASTERS 92
XI. 'I DISLIKE A MYSTERY' 101
XII. 'MORE DANGEROUS THAN HATE' 111
XIII. FACE TO FACE WITH DELBRAS 122
XIV. MISSING--CARTE BLANCHE 131
XV. THE KING OF CONFIDENCE MEN 142
XVI. THAT LITTLE DECOY 150
XVII. 'THOSE TWO WOMEN' 155
XVIII. 'IF YOU'LL FIND ONE, I'LL FIND THE OTHER' 166
XIX. 'STRANGE! MISTAKEN! HEARTLESS!' 172
XX. 'WE MUST UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER' 178
XXI. 'LET ME LAUGH!' 191
XXII. 'THERE IS DANGER--NEAR!' 202
XXIII. 'YOU ARE SUFFERING IN MY STEAD' 215
XXIV. 'IT IS OUR FIRST CLUE' 222
XXV. 'IT'S A SNARE' 228
XXVI. A COLUMBIAN GUARD 234
XXVII. 'I'D SWEAR TO THEM HANDS ANYWHERE' 238
XXVIII. 'NOW DOWN!' 249
XXIX. 'FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!' 257
XXX. 'IT SHALL NOT BE ALL SUSPENSE' 263
XXXI. SIR CARROLL RAE 267
XXXII. FOUND DEAD 272
XXXIII. 'A MERCYFUL DISPENSAYSHUN' 281
XXXIV. 'EUREKA!' 293
XXXV. AFTER ALL 302
* * * * *
AGAINST ODDS:
_A DETECTIVE STORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR_
CHAPTER I.
'CHICARGO GITS MY MONEY.'
'Eureka!'
It was I, Carl Masters, of the secret service, so called, who uttered
this exclamation, although not a person of the exclamatory school; and
small wonder, for I was standing beneath the dome of the
Administration Building, and I had but that hour arrived at the
World's Fair.
I was not there as a sight-seer, not on pleasure bent, and even those
first moments of arrival, I knew well, were not to be wasted.
I had come hither straight from the Terminal Station, seeking this
stately keystone to the great Fair, not to steep my senses and fill my
eyes with beauty in myriad forms, but to seek out the great man whose
masterful hand was to create for me the passport which was to be my
'open sesame' to all within this fair White City's walls; but when I
stood beneath that lofty double dome and looked about me, I forgot all
but the beauty all around, and gazed upon the noble rotunda through
the western entrance, where 'Earth,' majestic but untamed, a
masterpiece of giant statuary, guards one massive pillar; and the same
'Earth,' yet not the same, conquered yet conquering, adds her beauty
to the strength of the column opposite--to the east, where Neptune
sports, classic as of old, around about the octagonal interior with
its splendid arches, its frescoes and gilding, its medallions and
plates of bronze, wherein gleamed, golden and fair, the names of the
world's greatest countries at its gilded panels, supported by winged
figures, and bearing engraven upon each shining surface the record of
some great event. Its medallions and graceful groups, allegorical or
symbolic, all mounting high, and higher, until illuminated by the
opal-like circle of light at the summit, Dodge's great picture crowns
the whole, with its circling procession of arts and sciences, gods and
muses, nymphs and graces, and Apollos radiant in the midst.
Small wonder that, forgetting all but the scene before me, my lips
shot out the single word 'Eureka!' and smaller wonder that, having
vented my admiration in sound, I became aware of the fact at once, and
remembered not only who I was, but what I was, and why I was there.
It was scarcely ten a.m., but there were people all about me, and my
exclamation caused more than one eye, inquiring, amused, cynical, or
simply stupid, to turn toward me where I stood, near the centre of the
great rotunda.
'Big thing, ain't it?'
I turned my head, a little rattled at the notice I had thus brought
upon myself, and saw standing close beside me a man whose garb, no
less than his nasal utterance, proclaimed him a Yankee, and a son of
the soil. I had seen him upon my entrance, standing beneath the dome,
with his head thrown back at a painful angle in an effort to read one
of the brazen plates above him, one hand tightly grasping a
half-inflated umbrella--long past its palmy days--and the other
fiercely gripped about the handle of a shawl-strap drawn tight around
a handleless basket, by no means small, and bristling at the top with
knobby protuberances which told but too plainly of the luncheon under
the pictorial newspaper tied down with abundant lashings of blue
'Shaker' yarn.
'Big thing, indeed!' Evidently my burst of enthusiasm had brought upon
me this overture, no doubt meant to pave the way to further
conversation; and I answered, after a single quick glance at my
neighbour, as blandly as Ah Sin himself.
'Yes, sir,' resumed the man, with a brisk nod, 'it's a big thing! When
'twas first talked up I was a good deal sot on havin' it in Noo York
State. I'd been there, ye see, twenty years ago on my weddin' trip; I
was livin' in Pennsylvany then. But, Lor! Noo York couldn't 'a' done
this here! No, sir, she couldn't. Chicargo gits my money--not that
I've got much on it,' with a nervous start and a shrugging movement as
if he were trying to draw in his pockets and obliterate all traces of
them. 'I don't never believe in carryin' money to sech places.' Then,
as if anxious to get away from a dangerous subject, he asked, 'Been
here long, stranger?'
'About half an hour.'
'M--um! I've done better than that; been here two hull hours. Come in
on one of them Village Grove cable cars, and come plum through
Middleway Pleasants. M--um! but they're some, them furren fellers;
only it seems to me they ain't no need of so many of them niggers of
all shades, dressed up like Callathumpians on Fourth of July, and
standin' round in everybody's way.'
I was not there to impart information, and I let the honest soul
babble on. He had brawny shoulders and an ingenuous face, but I felt
sure he had brought with him more money than was wise or needful, and
that he would come to grief if he continued to deny the possession of
money, with his tell-tale face flatly contradicting his words.
But I was now recalled to myself and my own affairs; and dropping a
few politely meaningless words, I left my first acquaintance and made
my way toward the pavilion at the corner, where I had been told I
should find the 'man in authority' whom I sought.
Putting my question to a guard in the ante-room, I was told that the
man in authority was absent--would be absent two hours, perhaps; and,
not much loth to pass a little time in that splendid rotunda, stood
gazing about the beautiful Court of Honour, with its fountains,
statues, glittering and fair façades, rippling lagoons, and snowy and
superb peristyle, statue-crowned and gleaming, with blue Lake
Michigan, sun-kissed and breeze-tossed, stretching away to the horizon
in pulsating perspective.
Fairer than any dream it looked that fair May day, with Justice,
golden and glorious, rising from out the waves, splendid as a sun
goddess, and dominating all the rest.
As I turned away, having looked and looked again, I saw my first White
City acquaintance seated upon a settle in the shadow of one of the
mammoth arches, his basket between his knees and his umbrella between
his two clasped hands. He was talking just as amiably and frankly as
before, and this time he had for audience a dapper man with a thin
face that might have been old or young, and which I disliked at sight.
He was exceedingly well dressed; he looked very respectable, but he
also looked smug and sophisticated--too sophisticated, I thought, to
be really so well entertained as he seemed to be with my rustic
friend's confidences.
For a few moments I watched the two, to the exclusion of the golden
Justice, the peristyle, everything; and then, the settle being long,
and the two being its sole occupants, I moved around, going in and out
unobserved among the crowd, and seated myself upon the end of the
bench, unseen by my friend, who sat with his broad shoulders and back
squarely toward me, and affording an ample screen between myself and
his companion.
I have wondered since just what actuated me to do what I did; but I
only recall now a vague remembrance of a small black book, seen in
memory as in a vision, and a fluttering page which seemed to blazon
forth the question, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The book?--it was
buried in dead hands long ago; and the words?--they had not been
printed in the book more indelibly than upon my memory.
Why should the sight of this homely, honest rustic bring back these
things? I did not know; but I seated myself in the shelter of his
broad back, and affected to be absorbed in a notebook and the bronzed
plates upon the walls about me, keeping meanwhile, with one ear,
sufficiently close note upon their conversation, and letting my mind
wander.
What a strange scene! Out upon the lagoon swift electric launches
swept by, and gondolas, slower, but graceful and picturesque, glided
to and fro, their lithe boatmen swaying to the sweep of the single
oar.
Why did the sharp-eyed little woman opposite, on the bench in the
shadow of the goddess of Air, eye me so keenly and so long, dividing
her attention, in fact, between myself and a young mother with two
tired children, scarce more than infants both?
Yonder went two Turks, bearing between them, swaying betwixt two long
poles, a genuine Turkish palanquin, and crying, 'Hi! hi!' to those who
obstructed their direct line of march.
Where was the man of authority? I looked at my watch, and my thoughts
came back to myself and my own affairs.
'An hour and a half to wait! I wonder if Brainerd is on the ground,
and what he will say of our joint undertaking when we meet; for you
can by no means establish a precedent by which to judge of Brainerd's
thoughts and deeds to come. How will our work prosper? Shall we find
it easy? and shall we succeed?'
For Dave Brainerd and I, both professional detectives, 'man-hunters,'
if you will, were sent to this White City on a twofold mission.
It was not our first work together, and at first we did not enter into
it with enthusiasm.
'Masters, Brainerd,' our chief said to us one morning, 'they are going
to want a lot of good men at that World's Fair; I think I'd better put
you both on the list.' And this was all that was said then, but when
we were out of his presence Dave exploded.
'Wants to send us to watch little boys, look after ladies' kerchiefs,
and hunt up lost babies, does he?' he began, in a fume. 'It's not
meself that'll do it; d'ye hear, Masters? I'll go like the biggest
gentleman of all, or like the sleuth I am, but no child-rescuing and
kid-copping for me! Let his honour give us,' with a theatrical
gesture, 'a foeman worthy of our steel.'
Nothing came of this whimsical tirade, and a week had passed before
the chief spoke again upon the subject. Then we were both called into
his private office, and he said:
'Boys, we have just found out to a certainty that Greenback Bob and
his pals are going to operate at the World's Fair. I've already
promised them more good men than I like to spare, but we can't let Bob
and his crowd slip. I did not really mean to send you, either of you,
with the others; but this is something worth while.'
'I should say!' broke in Dave, who was no respecter of persons, unless
perhaps it might have been of Dave Brainerd. 'Do you mean to tell us,
Cap, that the dandy Frenchman is in it?'
'He is very much in it. He crossed from Calais on the last boat in hot
haste, and I'm much mistaken if the whole gang is not already on its
way to the White City, though he only reached this side the night
before last; and there's another party who may give us some trouble.
We don't know him, but he is said to be an all-round bad one, just
come over from Calais with this Delbras. I wish I could give you even
a description of him.'
Greenback Bob was a counterfeiter, or so it was believed, for he was
so bold, so shrewd, and so generally successful, that no one as yet
had been able to entangle him in the meshes of the law; though samples
of what was believed to be his handiwork had been passed from hand to
hand, and travelled far before they had been challenged, and their
journeys summarily ended in the cabinet of our chief. Bob was known as
a gambler, too, and more than once had he been watched and shadowed
because of some ill deed connected with his name; we had seen his
face, and his picture adorned the rogues' gallery. Delbras, however,
was likely to give us some trouble; we had seen him, it is true, but
it was only a fleeting glimpse, with the possibility that he was at
the moment cleverly disguised.
Of Delbras we knew, first, that he was and had been for years the
occasional partner or confederate of the counterfeiter, and presumably
a counterfeiter also; next, that he was set down in the records of the
London police as 'dangerous'; and last, that he had crossed the ocean,
leaving Paris, which had grown 'too hot to hold him,' and was avowedly
_en route_ for the World's Fair, it was thought upon mischief intent.
This last item came to our chief direct from the French police,
together with the information that two or three diamond robberies
which had occurred in the French capital during the previous winter
were laid at his door, although it had been thus far impossible to
bring the thefts home to him.
Concerning Greenback Bob--the fellow was known to us by no other
name--we felt quite sanguine; we had seen him, we had his photograph
and his full description according to the Bertillon system, and, once
seen, he would hardly be lost to sight again, or so we flattered
ourselves. Delbras we must identify through Bob, or as we best could;
and the third member of the 'gang'--well, a great deal must be left to
chance, as usual.
This much we knew of Delbras: he was 'handsome, educated, familiar
with the ways of good society, and not an easy bird to catch.' This
from the French police _commissaire_.
'A pinchbeck gentleman, eh!' had been Dave Brainerd's scornful comment
upon hearing this. 'The worst set to deal with; I'd rather tackle a
straight out-and-outer any day.'
Recalling this speech of Dave's brought my thoughts back to the old
question, 'Where was he?' And then the dialogue at my elbow aroused my
flagging attention, and brought it back to my rustic acquaintance and
the smug personage at his side.
'Wal, now, I hadn't thought of that, but now't you mention it, 'twas a
good idee; and they wouldn't change it to the eatin'-house?'
'Not there.' The smug man's tones were low and cautious. 'Pardon me,
but--don't speak too loud, my friend--the mere mention of money is
likely to attract some sharper to you. No, they refused me there. You
see, I anticipated some difficulty inside the gates, so I had tried
just before entering; but the man at the desk refused, and very
curtly, too. I wanted to enter at once in order to meet half a dozen
young men from my town who are sort of under my care.'
'Orphans?'
'Not quite. They belong to my Bible class, you see,' Mr. Smug
explained modestly; 'and I had promised to be at the Terminal Station
in case they arrived by the early train.'
'Whar from, d'ye say?' with awakening interest. 'I'm a Sunday-school
teacher myself, when I'm to hum.'
'Indeed! It's a very interesting and useful work--labouring for souls.
Ah, they come from Marshall, in Iowa.'
'Don't say! Why, I----'
'But they did not arrive; their train had been delayed. But, as I was
about to tell you, if I had not chanced to have in my possession a
roll of bills, put in my care by the father of one of the younger
lads, I might have been kept outside for some time longer.'
'How's that?'
I had been a little puzzled at this dialogue, and was losing my
interest somewhat when it reached this point, and I pricked up my ears
anew, while I continued to copy inscriptions and jot down memoranda.
'It seems almost like confessing to a breach of trust; but there
seemed no other way, and so, stepping to one side, I took out the
package of money belonging to my young friend. I had counted it in his
father's presence, and knew that it contained on the very outside of
the roll a two dollar bill. I took this and procured my ticket. Of
course I shall explain to him and replace it at once.'
'In course! but--you was a-saying----'
'I began to tell you how I learned where to go to get money changed. I
had entered, you must know, at the Cottage Grove gate opening upon
Midway, and walking toward the east I soon met a guard.' He had drawn
a cigar from his pocket while speaking, and he now turned toward me. I
had lighted a weed upon seating myself near them, and as he uttered a
polite 'Pardon me, sir,' I smoked calmly on, while I copied upon a
fresh page of my notebook the legend, 'Jenner discovered the principle
of vaccination in 1796,' putting an elaborate final flourish after
the date.
'Sir! Your pardon; may I trouble you for a light?' A light touch of
his hand accompanied the words, and I turned slowly, favoured him with
a look of as well-managed stupidity and inquiry as I could muster,
drew from my pocket a little ear-tube, and, adjusting it to my right
ear, said, 'Hey?'
Again the fellow made known his want, and then, apparently convinced
that I had not been a listener, he resumed, somewhat hurriedly, I
thought:
'As I was saying, I met a guard and asked him where to go to get a
bill exchanged; he mentioned one or two places a long way off, and
then, happening to think of the arrangement made for the accommodation
of foreigners, he courteously directed me to one of the agents quite
near at hand.' He allowed a big puff of smoke to escape his lips very
slowly, and added, as if it were the final word, 'Those agencies for
home and foreign exchange are a great convenience to travellers.'
'What air they?' demanded my rustic. 'Never heerd on 'em.'
'Really! Why, the administration has arranged a system of agencies
which are supplied with a certain sum in small bank-notes, greenbacks,
which they are authorized to exchange for foreign currency; and, for
the convenience of Midway Plaisance, one of these agents is
established in Midway, near the Turkish Village. One may know him by a
small blue badge with a silver stamp in the form of a half-dollar
souvenir upon his coat.'
'Oh!'
'He proved very affable--the guard assured me I would find him so; and
as the other agencies were so far away, I took advantage of his good
nature, and instead of exchanging ten dollars, I got him to put a
hundred-dollar bill into fifty crisp new two-dollar bills, fresh, like
all this exchange money from the Government treasury--a part, in
fact, of that great output of two-dollar greenbacks issued by the
Government at the same time as the souvenir coins, as you no doubt
remember.'
No, the rustic did not remember, but neither did he doubt. He was full
of exclamations of wonder and admiration at the workings of so
wonderful and generous a Government; and then came the climax. Would
Mr. Smug direct him to this affable agent upon Midway? etc.
'As I was saying at first, I don't lug much money around with me to
sech places as this here, but what little I've got ain't quite divided
up enough to be handy; I don't mind gettin' a fifty into new
Gover'ment greenbacks myself. My wife 'n' me are countin' on stayin'
on here a consid'able of a spell, maybe, an' small change is
handiest.'
'It's positively necessary,' declared Smug, getting up quickly. 'I'll
show you the place, and the man; and then I must be looking for my
young men again.'
I had not looked for this conclusion, but as the rustic arose I closed
my notebook and made ready to follow them. I was all agog to see this
amiable dealer in brand-new Government notes.
As the countryman turned toward his guide, the small sharp-faced
woman, who had eyed us so long and often from her bench almost
opposite, arose with a movement suggestive of steel springs, and made
her way toward us, waving her umbrella to attract attention. I moved
rapidly aside, in anticipation of the sweeping gesture of arm and
umbrella, which dislodged a tall man's hat and sent it rolling to the
feet of a frisky maiden, from whence it was rescued by Smug, who
restored it, with a placating word, and so averted an unpleasantness.
Meanwhile the woman had reached her husband's side, and a few quick
words had passed between the two. Then a gesture, and another word or
two, evidently meant for an introduction, brought the smug stranger
to her notice, and the three turned their faces toward the Plaisance;
but not until I had heard her say to her better-half as she clung to
his arm, while Smug opened a way ahead, 'I tell you he's a confidence
man, and I know it. I've been a-watchin' him!'
Following the three at a little distance, and discreetly, I smiled at
the woman's rustic cleverness; and never did man smile more
mistakenly.
CHAPTER II.
'I TOLD MY TALE OF WOE.'
I followed the trio as they went rapidly past the Terminal Station,
and halted, laughing inwardly, while Mr. Smug, as I had mentally named
the man whose game I was watching so intently, stood fidgeting before
the great golden door of the Transportation Building waiting for the
sharp-eyed woman to exhaust her ecstasies, and for her more stolid
husband to close his wide-opened mouth and remember his errand to
Midway Plaisance.
As for myself, I could have gazed at this marvel of doorways and have
forgotten all else; and I was not sorry that the small farmeress had a
will of her own, and that this will elected to stay.
Oh, that superb eastern façade! Never before has its like been seen.
Never in such a setting and in such gigantic proportions will we see
it again.
But we left it at last and made a slow and halting progress past
Horticultural Hall on one side and the sunlit lagoon on the other; and
here, overcome by the grandeur of it all, the woman of the party sat
down, with her face toward the water.
''Tain't no kind of use, pa!' she declared loudly. 'I'm goin' to set
down by the lake for a minit; I guess there'll be some two-dollar
bills left in Midway yet when we get there. I've heard tell of them
lovely laggoonses till I'm achin' to see one; and I'm jest goin' to
set right here till one goes by. Land! just see them stone anymals,
and all them old-fashioned stone figgers of folks! 'Pears to me they's
people enough alive and frisky, 'thout stickin' all them stone men
around so dretful lib'ral; though they look well 'nough, fur's I
know.' She cast her eyes all about her, and then beckoned to Smug,
standing uneasily in the rear: 'Say, can't you show me one single
laggoon?'
Smug came nearer, and waved his hand comprehensively toward the
shining waters below them, and southward where a red-sailed Chinese
junk lay at anchor opposite the Transportation Building.
'That is a lagoon, madam,' he said, affably but low.
'Umph! It's no better-lookin' than our old mud scow! Come on, father.'
And they resumed their line of march, but not until in turning to take
a last look at the belittled 'laggoon' her snapping small eyes
encountered mine frowningly, and I said to myself, 'She saw me in the
rotunda; can she suspect that I am following them?'
Contrary to my expectation, she did not call a halt upon entering
Midway, but went straight on, still clutching her spouse by the arm,
while the smug one walked sedately at her farther side; she passed the
divers' exhibit, the beauty congress, the glass displays, and paced
steadily on, her eyes riveted upon a palanquin borne by two waddling
Turks; and when this ancient conveyance had paused before the Turkish
Bazaar, then, and only then, did she pause or take further heed.
As the bearers gently lowered the chair, and stood beside it at ease,
she snatched her hand from her husband's arm, and hurrying towards
the front, peered within the curtained box.
'Land of gracious!' she ejaculated, 'and I s'posed they was carrying
one of them harums, no less, in the outlandish thing!' Then, stooping
to read with near-sighted eyes the legend, 'One hour 75 cents,
one-half hour 50 cents, ten minutes 15 cents,' she turned again to her
better-half: 'Come, pa, let's get that change right quick; I'm goin'
to ride in that thing if I drop out through the bottom.'
There was a crowd in the Turkish Bazaar, but our smug friend led the
way to an angle of the building where the hawkers were unusually busy,
and I drew near enough to see that he was now looking covertly all
about him, and for a little seemed at a loss.
'Kum-all-ong! Kume-mol-o-ng! Ku-m-m-m!'
The shrill long-drawn-out cry caused him to turn suddenly, and to
elbow his way, with his prey at his heels, toward a small railed-in
space, wherein, seated on a Turkish ottoman, a little higher than the
genuine, was a swarthy man with beetling brows, big rolling black
eyes, and a fierce moustache bristling underneath a hooked nose. He
wore a red fez, much askew, and his American trousers and waistcoat
were enlivened by a tennis-sash of orange and red and a smoking-coat
faced with vivid green. He was smoking a decorated Turkish
pipe--'Toor-kaish,' he called it--and a low table and sundry decorated
boxes and packages were his sole stock-in-trade.
'Kum-all-ong! he reiterated. 'Kum-e see-e me-e-e smoke! Easy--so--no
noise; so! Soo-vy-nee-yra; Toor-kaish soo-vy-nee-yr matches!' At every
pause a 'soo-vy-nee-yr match' was struck, deftly and without noise,
and a big puff of smoke was sent circling above his head.
'Bah!' exclaimed Mrs. Rustic, turning away, 'if you've brought me here
just to see a Turkey man smoke a big pipe, Adam Camp, you may jest
take me home ag'in.'
A shout of laughter followed this sally, and as she turned away I
fancied that I saw a quick look exchanged between the man of the pipe
and our smug guide. Whether this were true or not, I observed that
Smug no longer seemed eager to hasten them onward, and I saw another
thing--the woman, in turning from the man of the souvenir matches, had
once more fixed her eye, through a sudden opening in the crowd, upon
myself; and immediately after she had whispered something in the ear
of her spouse, which something he soon after repeated, or so I
fancied, to his kind friend Smug.
I had followed them, trusting to the crowd and my skill as an 'artful
dodger,' up to this moment quite closely; but I now fell back, and
withdrew myself a little distance from the aisle where all three were
now loitering, the woman examining with wondering eyes marvellous
Turkish slippers with turned-up toes, and olive-wood beads and
bracelets, proffered by fierce Mohammedans in baggy trousers and
tasselled fez, or by swarthy, oily-skinned girls with bushy hair and
garments of Oriental colouring, or in tailor-made gowns, and with the
ubiquitous fez as a badge of their office--or servitude; rugs and
draperies, attar of roses in gilded vials, souvenir spoons, filigree
in gilt and silver, toys of unknown form and name, cloying Turkish
sweets, foreign stamps, coins, relics, all came under her
unsophisticated eyes, while her spouse gazed upon Moorish daggers,
swords of strange workmanship, saddles and stirrups of singular form,
and much strange gear and gay trappings, the use of which he could
never have guessed but for the learned explanations of his now
carelessly amiable guide.
They had gazed so long that I had begun to grow impatient and to
wonder how this tame chase would end, when the trio drew up at a point
where the long arcade turns sharply to right and left, and where at
one of the intersections a vendor of singularly-carved canes and
sticks was mounted upon a stool draped with Oriental rugs, and so
high and slender that one looked to see the occupant topple and fall
from moment to moment. He was a brown-faced fellow of small stature
and as lithe as an Indian, and he was juggling recklessly with a pair
of grotesque carven sticks, crying the while:
'He-ur you-ur ur! He-ur you-ur-ur! Soo-vy-neer! Soo-vy-neer! Gen-oo-ine
Teer-keesh--gen-oo-ine! Come-mon! come-mon! Teerkeesh--gen-oo-ine; only
tree doll-yeer!'
A smart young man, breathing of opulence in air and attire, came
briskly forward and held up his hand to receive both sticks, with a
harlequin bow from the dark-eyed Oriental, who wore a spruce black
broadcloth suit, in honour of America, and a red fez, in loyalty,
doubtless, to the land of the Sultan; and then my interest became
suddenly and widely awake.
The youth chose between the two canes, and handed up in payment a worn
five-dollar bill, and after a feint at searching for the correct
amount the man of the fez bent down and placed in his hand a crisp new
two-dollar banknote; at the same moment, almost, friend Smug touched
the arm of Farmer Camp, and I saw the two turn their heads toward the
southern wing. I had made my way so near them that I could hear the
words of the farmer, who evidently had no subdued tones, and after a
long look toward the south entrance I heard him say:
'That him? Why, he looks like one of these fellers!'
And then I saw his guide's lips moving, and caught the final words,
'an educated Oriental.' In another moment he had moved hurriedly
forward and put out his hand to stop the man who, with head very
erect, and crowned with a black and gold embroidered fez, was coming
toward him, but with eyes levelled upon the active young man upon the
lofty stool. He wore a severe suit of black, relieved upon the breast
of the close-buttoned Prince Albert coat by a blue satin badge,
bearing upon its upper half a silver-gilt souvenir half-dollar, and
upon the lower portion a tiny fac-simile of a Government banknote.
He paused as the smug young man addressed him, and looked into his
face, at first with indifference, almost amounting to annoyance, then
with growing recognition, and finally with a bland and condescending
smile. He wore a long and flowing beard, and the black cloth fez,
unlike the red one, was not rakishly set on; but I recognised him at
once.
It was the man with the 'soo-vy-neer matches,' quickly and deftly
metamorphosed to escape the unobservant or untrained eye, but the
same, notwithstanding. And now my interest grew apace. I knew that at
last we were in the presence of that powerful official who dispensed
virgin two-dollar notes to the unwitting foreigner or native; and Adam
Camp was about to be mulcted.
I had formed no plan of action. I had been interested, first, in the
welfare of Adam Camp, and then the mention of these new Government
two-dollar bills had aroused in me the desire, stronger for the moment
than any other, to see this 'agent' whose duty it was to make easy the
path of the stranger and alien in our midst.
And now our smug friend demonstrated his ability to do quick work when
occasion required.
Throwing caution to the winds, I drew close behind the woman, and
heard the introduction of Camp and the case stated briefly.
Smug had ventured to bring this chance acquaintance, etc., who desired
a like favour to that conferred upon himself not long since. Mr. Camp
desired to exchange a banknote, say ten or twenty dollars, perhaps,
for smaller bills, for convenience at the Fair, etc.
The man of the badge looked closely at Farmer Camp, who was bowing
like a mandarin, and then back at his spouse.
'You can vouch for this person?' he asked with a touch of severity,
and in excellent English.
'Pardon me; we are mere passing acquaintances, but I should think----'
He of the badge drew himself up with a stately gesture.
'We are not permitted to judge for ourselves,' he said; 'our
Government require some sort of voucher, as, for instance, a bank
certificate, cheque-book, even a receipt or letter.'
Before Farmer Camp could pull himself together and reply, his wife
interfered, taking a swift step forward.
'If you want dockyments, mister,' she said tartly, 'I guess I kin
supply 'em. I've brought our weddin' stiffykit, and our letters from
the church to Neeponsit, and our fire insurance papers.' She laid a
suggestive satin-gloved hand upon her bosom and tossed her head. 'I
didn't count on nobody's takin' us to be anybody else when I brung
'em, but I didn't want 'em lost, case of fire or anything.'
The 'agent' put up a remonstrant hand, and Camp hastened to produce a
letter from his brother in Nebraska, which was gracefully accepted;
and so overpowered was Camp at so much condescension that he opened a
plump wallet--carried in a breast pocket high up, and evidently of
home manufacture--and drew from it, after some deliberation and a
whispered word with his wife, a one hundred dollar bill.
'I guess we might jest as well break that.' He was extending the bill,
and the hand of the now eager agent was outstretched to grasp it, when
I stepped quickly to his side.
'Pardon me, sir,' I said, with my best air. 'Could you tell me where
the bank is located? I am told that there is one on the grounds.' The
four pairs of eyes were full upon me, and I knew that by three of
them I was recognised. 'I am anxious to get some money changed,' I
went on glibly, but with a meaning glance at the 'agent,' 'to buy some
souvenir matches down here, and I'm told there's counterfeit money
circulating here.'
I was playing a bluff game, and I knew it, for as yet I had not
secured my credentials; but when I saw the swart face of the sham
agent change to a sickly yellow, and Smug begin to draw back and look
anxiously from left to right, I was inwardly triumphant; but, alack!
it is only in fiction that the clever detective always has the best of
it, and at this moment there came an unexpected diversion.
Camp still stood with the bill in his hand, open-mouthed and evidently
puzzled; and now his wife, who had drawn closer and was peering into
my face, turned upon him quickly.
'Adam Camp, put up that money!' she cried. 'I know this feller; I seen
him talkin' to you back there by the Administration Buildin'; and he's
been watchin' and follerin' us ever sence. I know him! In another
minute he would 'a' grabbed your money and run for it.'
There was a sudden movement, a shifting of positions, a mingling of
exclamations and accusations, with the woman's tongue still wagging
shrilly, and heard through all. People crowded about us and a brace of
Columbian guards came hurrying up.
'What is it?'
'Anyone been robbed?'
Instantly the hands of Smug and his confederate began to slap and dig
into their pockets, while the woman answered eagerly:
'All on us, like enough! He's a pickpocket or a confidence man. I seen
him follerin' us. I've kep' an eye on him.' And then came a cry from
Smug.
'My wallet!'
He turned upon me, calling wildly to the guards, 'Search him!'
Into my nearest pocket went a gloved hand, and when it came out,
there, sure enough, was a brown leather wallet.
'Here it is!' cried one.
'Lord-a-massy!'
'I told you so!'
'Run him in!'
I was the centre of a small bedlam, and I shut my lips tightly and
inwardly cursed my interest in all rustics, and particularly the
Camps. I was fairly trapped. I saw my position, and held my peace,
while the two rascals told their tale, making sure by their volubility
that the Camps did not tell theirs. Only as the two guards, one on
either side, turned to lead me away, I said to Smug, 'We shall meet
again, my fine decoy;' and to the sham agent as I passed him, 'Better
stick to your matches, my friend.'
Inwardly chafing, I marched through the crowd between my two captors,
bringing them to a momentary halt as we came abreast of the place
where the souvenir matches were hawked, and seeing there, as I had
anticipated, a new face beneath the red fez.
Then I spoke to my captors:
'Men, you have made a mistake for which I can't blame you. Take me
before your chief at once, and I will not only prove this, but make it
worth your while to be civil.'
For answer the two merely exchanged glances, and hurried me on, and,
convinced of the uselessness of further remonstrance until I had
reached someone in authority, I strode on silently.
At the entrance to the great animal show there was a dense crowd, and
for a moment we were brought to a halt. Standing upon the edge of the
mass of bobbing bonnets and heaving shoulders, I could see in the
midst of the throng two Turkish-fezzed heads wildly dodging and
struggling toward us, and a moment later a full bass voice called
impatiently:
'Go ahead! Get out of this, can't you?'
I started at the sound of the big, impatient voice, and stood with my
eyes riveted upon the spot from whence it seemed to come. A moment
later the two red heads had emerged from the crowd, and with them a
sedan-chair, which, evidently, they found no easy load. As they
shuffled past me I started again, so violently that my two captors
caught at me with restraining hands.
At the same instant there was a quick exclamation from the swinging
chair and a peremptory order to halt.
'Masters, I say! Stop, you infernal heathens! Stop, I say! Open this
old chicken-coop and let me out!'
As the astonished Turks slowly and with seeming reluctance set down
their chair and liberated their prisoner, my guards made a forward
movement.
'Stop, you fellows!' called the newcomer, in the same peremptory tone.
'Where are you going with that man?'
As he flung himself from the chair he tossed a coin to the bearers,
and promptly placed himself squarely in the way of my two guards.
'Masters,' he began, 'what in the name of wonder----'
'He's our prisoner,' broke in one of my captors; and at the word Dave
Brainerd threw back his head and laughed as only Dave could, seeing
which my indignant escort made another forward movement.
'Stop, you young--donkeys!' Dave threw back his coat, and at sight of
the symbol upon his inner lapel the two young men became suddenly and
respectfully stationary. 'Now,' panted Dave, still shaken with
merriment, 'w-what has he done?'
I stood silent, enjoying somewhat my guards' evident doubt, and
willing to let Dave enjoy to the full this joke at my expense, and
after a moment's hesitation one of the guards replied:
'He picked a pocket, they say.'
'Oh, they do? Well, my young friends, I can't blame you much; he is a
suspicious-looking chap, but really he's quite harmless. You can turn
him over to me with a clear conscience. I'll run him in.' And he
laughed again, and tapped his coat-lapel. 'Really, boys, you've made a
regular blunder. This pal of mine is entitled to wear this same badge
of _aristocracy_, only he seems to have wandered out for once without
his credentials. How did it happen, Carl?'
But now my impatience broke out afresh, and I turned to the guards.
'Look here,' I said hurriedly, 'those two fellows who called you up
and pretended to be robbed are fine workers, and I believe
counterfeiters. I was watching them while they were roping that old
countryman. If you want to repair a blunder, go back, see if you can
trace the men, or the old man and his wife, and report to your chief.'
They were very willing to go; and when we were free from them my
friend indulged in another long and hearty laugh at my expense.
'Jove! Carl, but it's the richest thing out--that you, a crack
detective, coming here with extraordinary rights and privileges,
should be nabbed by a couple of these young college lads at the very
beginning; it's too funny. How did it happen? Who caused your arrest?'
'An old woman,' said I shortly, feeling that the fun was quite too
one-sided. But seeing the absurdity of it all, and knowing that Dave
would have it all out of me sooner or later, I drew him out of the
crowd, and under the shadow of the viaduct just behind us, and
standing as much as possible aloof from the throng, I told my 'tale of
woe.'
Before I had reached the end Dave was his serious self once more--a
detective alert and keen.
'You are sure,' he began eagerly, 'that the old farmer was not one of
them?'
I smiled, thinking of Mrs. Camp and the 'laggoons.'
'Perfectly sure. It was the old woman's quick eyes that did for me,' I
replied; 'she had seen me once too often, and her suspicions were on
the alert. I dare say she saw a "confidence man" in every person who
came suspiciously near them, but a woman pal could not have played one
whit better into their hands.'
Dave made a sudden start. 'Look here,' he said, 'I'm going to try for
a look at those fellows! I've got a sort of feeling that they may
belong to our gang, some of them--that match-vender now; the other,
your smug friend, is too short, as you describe him, to be either of
our men; but the agent, and that fellow with the canes--describe them
a little more in detail, but be quick, too; and the old folks--of
course they're taken in and done for before now; but I'd like to meet
that old woman, just on your account. I'm going straight to that
Turkish village; and you?' He began to laugh again.
'Oh, I'm going back to the Administration Building,' I said with a
grimace, 'as soon as I've described your men for you. I don't feel
inclined to wander about this mysterious and dangerous White City any
more until I am fitted out with a trade-mark. It is not safe--for me.'
Five minutes later Dave was on his way to the scene of my absurd
escapade, and I was hastening back to the place which I never should
have left until I had made my bow before the 'man in authority,' and
had been duly provided with the voucher which would open for me all
doors and command the aid or obedience of guards, guides, etc.; until,
in fact, I had been duly enrolled, and had taken rank as one of the
'specials,' who went and came at will and reported at pleasure or at
need.
On my way I soundly berated myself for my folly in venturing so
recklessly and without authority to interfere in behalf of a sheep,
when besieged by wolves, and in danger of losing no more than his
fleece.
I had lost all interest in Farmer Camp, and felt not a spark of
philanthropy in my whole being.
But the White City was a place of surprises, and Farmer Camp and I
were destined to meet again.
As I approached the viaduct which separated the Midway Plaisance from
the World's Fair proper, with my mind thus out of tune, and was about
to pass under, a sharp guttural cry close beside me caused me to turn
quickly about.
'Ta-ka ca-ar-h! La-dee, la-dee!'
'Ah--h--h!'
The first cry, or warning, came from the throat of a grinning Turk,
one of a number of palanquin-bearers, and the last from the lips of a
tall golden-haired girl who had been walking somewhat slowly, and
quite alone, just before them, in the path she had chosen to take and
to keep without swerving. There were half a dozen of them pattering
along in line between their vacant swinging palanquins, and they had
evidently learned that, being a 'part of the show,' they might claim
and keep the right of way.
The rascally Turk had uttered his cry of warning without in the least
slackening his shuffling trot, and as the lady uttered the single
frightened syllable, I saw that one of the poles in the bearer's hands
had struck her with such force as to send her reeling toward me.
Throwing out one hand for her support, I thrust back the now surly
bearer with the other with such force as to throw him back upon his
poles and bring the whole cavalcade to a momentary halt. At the same
time a guard came up and ordered a turn to the right.
'You fellows are not running in a tramway, Mr. Morocco, and you'll
find yourselves switched on to a side-track if you try the monopoly
business on free American citizens--see!' The last word, emphasized
with a sharp shove to the right, was easily comprehended by the
glowering sons of Allah, and they moved on, silent, but darting black
glances from under their heavy brows.
Meanwhile the fair one had recovered her poise and dignity, and
thanked me, in the sweetest of voices, for my slight assistance, and I
had found time to note that she was more than a merely pretty blonde.
At that moment I was sure that I had never seen a more charming face,
though she gave me only a glimpse of it; and when she turned away, and
the crowd about us, attracted for the moment, separated again into its
various elements, I stood gazing after her for a moment as stupidly as
the veriest schoolboy smitten at sight of his first love, and then,
turning to go my way, and letting my eyes fall to the ground, I saw
just at my feet a small leather bag, or what is called by the ladies a
'reticule.' It lay upon the very spot where the young lady had been so
rudely jostled, and I picked it up and turned to look after her. She
had disappeared in the crowd, and after following the way she had
taken for two or three blocks, and finding the crowd more dense and
the trail hopelessly lost, I turned at last and went back, bestowing
the little reticule in my largest pocket, and gradually bringing my
thoughts back to my own affairs, and those of Greenback Bob and the
rascal Delbras.
CHAPTER III.
A CONUNDRUM.
I had not gone far on my way after deciding that the lovely blonde had
quite escaped me--in fact, I was once more about to pass under the
viaduct opposite the Woman's Building and which separated Midway from
the grounds proper--when a tall figure in blue appeared at my elbow,
and fell easily into my somewhat hasty stride while saying:
'You will pardon me, I hope, for intruding, and let me say how much I
appreciated and enjoyed the sudden way in which you halted that Turk
just now. It was scientifically done.'
I turned to look at the speaker. His words were courteously uttered,
and I knew him at once by his blue uniform for one of those
college-bred guards who have helped so much to make the great Fair a
success to question-asking visitors. He was a tall, handsome fellow,
with an eye as brown as his hair, and as honest and direct as the
sun's rays at that very moment, and I recognised him almost at once as
the guard who had hastened to lend his aid, and had sent the Turks to
the right-about, there being nothing else to do. A churl could not
have resisted that pleasant half-smile.
'It was nothing,' I said carelessly; 'the fellow was wantonly
heedless.'
'It was a very pretty and scientific turn of the wrist,' he insisted,
'and--yes, those fellows at first were obsequious enough; now, some of
them, having found out how ill-mannered the Americans dare be without
being beaten, are aping our manners. I--I trust the young lady was not
hurt?'
The big brown eyes turned from me as he put the question, for that it
was, and I saw a dull-red flush rise from his throat and dye his face
to the very tip of his jaunty visor. I detected, too, a note of
anxiety in the mellow voice that he could not quite suppress.
'I don't know, but fancy not--not much, at any rate.' We had come out
from the shadow of the viaduct, and he halted as I spoke. I checked my
steps also, and I checked my speech too. The anxiety in the voice was
reflected now in the face. I was smiling slightly, and through my mind
flitted a fragment of doggerel:
'Oh, there's nothing so flirtatious
As the bowld soldier boy!'
Suddenly the brown eyes came back to my face, open and clear as day.
'I owe it to myself,' he said, with sudden dignity, 'to explain. At
the moment when she turned away, I recognised the young lady as an
acquaintance, and was naturally interested to know if she had received
any hurt--the blow seemed a severe one. I saw you pick up her bag and
start in pursuit, and when you came back I ventured to address you. I
could not follow far; this is my beat.'
'I see!' I was quite won by the young fellow's frank and manly air and
his handsome face; 'and I'm sorry I can't enlighten you. I did not
find the lady.'
'Oh!' There was a world of disappointment in this one syllable, and
before he could utter another a new voice broke into the dialogue.
'Pardon me, please! But'--a little pant--'but I saw you pick up my
friend's bag, and--and she was so fatigued after the shock that I ran
back.'
The speaker stopped here, and for several seconds seemed occupied in
recovering her breath. She was a small and plump brunette, well
dressed, and wearing a dashing sailor-hat of black, wide-brimmed and
adorned with two aggressive-looking scarlet wings; this and the red
veil dotted with black which partially concealed the face was all that
I had time to note before she spoke again, coming closer to me and
altogether ignoring the good-looking guard.
'She was so startled and nervous after the shock that she sat down
near the Java Village, and I came back the moment I could leave her.'
She shot a glance over her shoulder, and turned her look squarely
upon the guard, who had drawn back a pace. 'A chair-boy,' she hurried
on, 'waiting near the Libbey Glass Works saw you pick up the bag, and
told us the way you had gone. Will you please give me the bag?'
I had been studying the little brunette while she talked, and I now
said:
'I am very sorry your friend did not come in person. She did not seem
much hurt.'
'She was not, and she would have come with me, only----' Again she
cast her eyes in the direction of the guard, who still stood looking
both anxious and ill at ease, and for a moment she seemed to hesitate.
In that moment the guard's fine face flushed again, and then set
itself in cold, resolute lines. He lifted his hand in salute to me,
and, without a second glance at the little brunette, strode back
toward the viaduct.
The face of the girl showed instant relief, and she put out her hand.
'The bag, please!'
'Excuse me,' I answered, 'but really I can't let the lady's property
out of my hands without something to prove your right to it. Since the
lady is so near, if you will permit, I will go back with you.'
'How dare'--she threw back her head, and her black eyes darted
annihilation--'how dare you, sir! Because I condescend to address you,
to oblige an acquaintance, do you fancy I will accept your escort and
pocket your insult? Not for ten thousand leather bags!' She turned
upon her heel and went swiftly back towards Midway, and after watching
her for a moment I resumed my often-interrupted march, smiling as I
went to think how the clever little brunette had been thwarted. That
she was an adventuress I did not for a moment doubt. She had seen the
dropped bag, of course, and had noted my pursuit of its owner, and
its failure, and she had counted upon making me an easy dupe with that
assured little demand of hers. But I was not quite a stranger to her
kind. Perhaps if the good-looking guard had not been so suddenly put
to rout I might have turned the young lady over to him; such offenders
were his legitimate care. But as I thought of her easy,
self-possessed, good society air, and the black eyes so keen and
sophisticated, and then of his frank, ingenuous face, I almost laughed
aloud. She would have laughed at his authority, and slipped through
his fingers easily.
How quickly he had turned away at the first hint that she found his
presence at our brief interview undesirable, flushing like a boy, too!
Of course I readily saw why she should prefer to make her little
attempt without witnesses, especially those clothed with a measure of
authority; and yet he had seemed to go away reluctantly.
And then I remembered his explanation or excuse in having followed and
addressed me. He had known the young lady--owner of the bag. Why, of
course--he wanted to hear of her further, from the lips of this
supposed girl friend.
'Poor fellow!' I thought, beginning to imagine a little romance there
in the White City; and then I turned myself about with a sudden jerk.
Truly, my wits were wool-gathering. Confound that little adventuress!
He had turned away so suddenly, and he knew the owner of the bag. I
would find him at once--he was not far away--and I would wash my hands
of that little black bag.
But it was not to be. I had expected to find my handsome guard easily,
and I did not find him at all. After a half-hour spent in prowling up
and down, I encountered a file of guards marching briskly. I caught at
my watch, and then scoffed at myself. Of course my guard had gone to
dinner; I would do likewise, and then, when my other and more personal
duties had been discharged, I would look up the guard. It would be
quite easy.
The arrangements for our comfort during our stay in the White City had
been completed in advance of our coming, and Dave and I had been
quartered together in a cosy little apartment, which we could reach
easily and as quietly as if it were an isolated dwelling, instead of
being in the very centre of all the beauty and bustle of the Fair.
Having paid my respects to the 'man in authority,' and after he had
made me familiar with the inner workings of the splendid system by
which the White City was to be watched over and protected, and
acquainted with some of my co-workers, I was ready for a hearty
luncheon, and then I found myself my own master for the remainder of
the day, or until four o'clock, when Dave and I were to meet by
appointment at the Ferris Wheel and tempt its dangers together.
Of course my first attempt, after luncheon, was to find my handsome
guard; but while good-looking young fellows and polite young fellows
in blue uniforms were to be seen on every hand, the one face for which
I looked was nowhere visible. I still had the lost bag in my outer
pocket, which I watched jealously, for its bulk could be but too
plainly seen; and when Dave and I found ourselves moving slowly upward
at the tip of one of those giant spokes of the big wheel, he fixed his
eye upon this pocket, and asked with a grin:
'Got an extra luncheon in case we are stranded in mid-air until past
the Christian dinner-hour?'
Of course I told him the story of the find--but briefly, for my eyes
were busy watching the people in the grounds below grow less and less
in size, until they seemed like flies moving about eccentrically, the
legs of the men seeming to jerk about convulsively, and looking
automatic from that height.
There was much to amuse us in Midway, or on it; for at first the
street, with its strange population, was spectacle enough, and we did
not think of the black bag again until we found ourselves occupying
isolated places upon the lofty seats in Hagenbeck's great animal show,
and being serenaded by an excellent band, while we watched the entry
of the happy family.
We had entered at a time midway between the closing of one performance
and the beginning of another, and we found it a comfortable place in
which to exchange experiences and compare notes.
My first question had been of the Camps and their swindling friends,
but Dave's report was scant. He had seen the man of the canes, but the
seller of 'soo-vy-neer' matches was no longer he of the big moustache
and goodly height, but a small elderly Turk, who piped weakly and
plied his calling listlessly. The Camps, Smug, the gentlemanly agent,
all had disappeared from off Midway. I was not surprised at this,
neither was I disappointed; and having said as much, I took up the
parable of my latest adventure upon Midway, telling of my encounter
with the guard and the little brunette, and letting my fun-loving
friend enjoy another good laugh at my expense.
'I must say, Carl, old fellow, that so far as I have traced your
career this first day at the Fair, you have not shone out brilliantly.
But never mind, partner: "a bad beginning"--you know the rest. Oh, are
we to have a look at the bag?'
I had drawn it forth and placed it upon my knee. It was a small
receptacle of finest alligator-skin, with an outside pocket, and
having attached to it the tiny chain and hook by which it had been
secured to the young lady's girdle. It closed with a silver clasp, and
in the open outside pocket was a fine white handkerchief with some
initials embroidered in one corner.
'J. J.,' read Dave slowly. 'That don't tell us much, does it, old
man?'
I looked about me. There was no one near us, and on the opposite side
of the big pavilion the band was playing 'After the Ball.' I pressed
the silver clasp, and the bag lay open in my hand.
'Gad!' exclaimed Dave. 'The woman who owns that is as dainty as a
princess.'
He was quite right. The little bag contained only a small
silver-handled penknife, a dainty tablet and pencil, a glove-buttoner,
a second little handkerchief, fine and smoothly folded, and two
letters.
When I had taken out these articles one by one and laid them on my
knee, Dave took the bag from my hand and turned it upside down.
'Nothing more,' he said, shaking his head sagely. 'Not a bit of candy;
not a powder-puff or perfume sachet. Well, well! Carl, the owner of
this little article, whoever she is, besides being dainty and without
vanity, is a very clever little woman, and I'll wager she's pretty,
too.'
This outbreak was so like Dave that I only smiled, while I unfolded
the handkerchief and shook it out over my unoccupied knee. In one
corner, in exquisitely dainty embroidery, were the two initials 'J.
J.,' and when Dave had shut the bag and looked again at the closed
clasp, he discovered, finely cut on the metal, the same initials.
'J. J.,' mused Dave; 'that suggests any number of charming
personalities--Juliet, Juno, Jessica.'
'Jane, or Jemima,' I supplemented, taking up one of the letters.
It was post-marked Boston, and bore date three days before, but it
gave us no further information.
Through the name, across the middle of the square envelope, half a
dozen heavy lines had been pencilled, and these in turn checked
through with little vertical dashes; below were the sketchily-drawn
supports, which indicated a bridge, and upon this bridge a procession
of people vaguely outlined as to body, but elaborated as to face to
such a degree of artistic cleverness that Dave uttered an exclamation
of delight.
'An artist, upon my soul! Look at those faces! Gad! but that is well
done! There are types for you, and hardly more than thumb-nail
portraits at that. But it's spoiled the address; we can't get J. J.'s
name out of that.'
It was quite true; under the crossed lines forming the platform of a
bridge, evidently a sketch of one of the structures spanning the
lagoons, the name was quite concealed, but below, through the waving
water-lines and the curves of the arch, we could read and guess the
remainder of the address, thus:
'---- ---- ---- ---- ----,
'Chicago,
'Illinois.
'Massachusetts Building, World's Fair.'
I put this letter down and took up the other envelope. Upon this was
written a woman's name, nothing more, neither town, county, nor state.
'Conundrum?' commented Dave over my shoulder. Just then there was a
sudden blare from the band, and a roar that almost startled my
sophisticated nerves.
I turned my eyes toward the arena, where a splendid white horse now
stood, caparisoned in a sort of armour upon back and neck, and pawing
impatiently, while he waited opposite a sort of portable platform
higher than the horse's back, and gaily cushioned and decorated. A
great tawny male lion was in the act of leaping from the ground to
this high perch. I had seen many exhibitions of animal intelligence
and training, but when this king of lions, uttering a second mighty
roar, leaped to the back of the waiting horse and rode about the ring
like a trained rider, leaped through a hoop held in the mouth of a big
spotted boarhound, and otherwise acquitted himself like an
accomplished rider, I forgot the conundrum of the little black bag,
and my mission at the World's Fair, and looked and applauded, and was
simply one of five hundred sight-seers.
It was useless to contend; the charm was upon us; the first day at the
Fair had us at last in thrall, and we watched the trained lions,
tigers, bears, and pumas, admired the ponies, applauded the dogs, and
wondered at the plucky woman trainer, without a thought beyond the
passing moment.
The fever lasted until night had fallen, until we had trundled from
end to end of Midway in a pair of wheeled chairs, visited the Dahomey
Village, the Ostrich Farm, the Chinese Theatre, and the little
community of quaint, shy, industrious Javanese, leaving it still in
the spirit of adventure, and sauntering, after a dinner in Old Vienna,
here and there through a veritable fairyland, glittering, glistening,
shining, radiant from the splendid dome of the Administration
Building, with its girdles of fire, its great statues shining under
the golden glow, and the lagoons with their lights and shadows, their
gondolas gliding to and fro between flowering banks or illuminated
façades, with fountains playing, music filling the air, and everywhere
laughter, merry voices, and gay throngs of enchanted pleasure seekers.
What wonder that we lingered long, and that it was only when we were
shut between four walls, the lights out, the White City asleep, that I
thought again of J. J. and her lost letters; and now, as I thought,
the fair blond face seemed to rise before me, and I saw again the slim
figure flit past me on Midway.
Brainerd lay sleeping near me, and I thought of his comment, 'A
conundrum?' Why not search for the answer in these white billets, and,
finding it, take the little black bag to the bureau of the 'lost or
found'?
I took up the bag, opened it, hesitated, and put it down. Why should I
read those letters from a stranger, and to a stranger? I leaned out of
the window and drank in the loveliness all about me, illuminated by a
faint young moon.
'A conundrum?' I took up the letter post-marked Boston, and slowly
drew out--ah, it was more than a mere letter that my hand touched that
night. I had put my finger upon a thread in the web of fate!
CHAPTER IV.
'I CAN'T MAKE MYSELF LIKE HIM.'
I am not superstitious, and I certainly had no intimation then of the
part these letters would soon play in my World's Fair adventures, nor
of the use I should make of them; but I opened that letter with an
uncomfortable feeling of curiosity and interest, and without even
pausing to look again at the tiny grotesque faces of that little
bridge procession so artistically sketched upon the envelope.
The letter, like its cover, was dated from Boston, and was just four
days old.
'Just received,' I said to myself, as I took up the wrapper to look at
the Chicago postmark. 'Yes, came last night. She must have read it
this very morning, sitting upon some one of those shaded seats on
Wooded Island, and after reading it she must have amused herself by
copying the people passing over the nearest bridge. Ergo, she must
have been alone.' My detective instincts were rousing themselves;
already I was half unconsciously handling that unread letter as if it
were a 'feature' in a 'case.'
She was alone, too, when we met on Midway; that is, I saw no
companion. Could it be possible that the young lady was really alone
in this densely populated place? How absurd! I looked at the letter
again.
It was written in a beautiful flowing hand, and I said, after a
moment's scrutiny, 'Written in haste and under excitement.' There were
eight closely written pages, and having begun their perusal, I read to
the end without a pause. The letter was signed 'Hilda O'Neil,' and
there was no street number nor post-office box, only the name of the
city from whence it came, Boston.
Hilda O'Neil was the name written on the second letter, this and
nothing more; but this no longer surprised me. Miss O'Neil was a New
York girl, and a guest, at the time of writing, of the sister of her
affianced, in Boston. This young man was already in Chicago, making
arrangements for his family, who were to come as soon as informed by
him that apartments in the already crowded city were in waiting. They
were 'all ready for the flitting,' and were now wondering why 'Gerry'
did not wire them. He had written that his plans 'were near
completion,' and that he should telegraph them in two or three days at
the latest, at the time of writing. The three days were just about to
expire, hence the excitement visible in the penmanship of Miss O'Neil.
Betwixt impatience and anxiety she confessed herself 'growing really
fidgety,' especially as 'Gerry' was always so prompt, 'and then--don't
think me silly, dear--but, really, Chicago is such a wicked, dangerous
place, especially now.'
I smiled as I read this paragraph, and thought of Master 'Gerry'
doubtless giving himself a last day or two of freedom from escort
duty, and of fun, perhaps, on Midway. Decidedly, detectives are not
seers.
And the second letter. Since the first did not tell me how or where to
find the owner of the little bag, this letter must. And her
name--would that be revealed? I opened the missive and read it
through, with some surprise and a great deal of admiration.
I had been right in my conjectures of the writer. I found her name
signed in full at the bottom of her last thick sheet of creamy
note-paper; she had penned the letter in her own room that very
morning, and had held it unsealed and only half addressed until she
had applied at her State post-office for the expected letter from her
friend, and this having been received, she had thrust the
newly-written missive into the little bag, hoping, doubtless, soon to
meet her correspondent, who might now be on the way, and to tell her
story--for the letter contained a story--which, doubtless, she would
much prefer to do.
And now, so much can a few written pages do, I almost felt that I knew
June Jenrys, for that was her name, and her friend Hilda O'Neil.
Miss O'Neil's letter had told me first something about herself: that
she was a petted and somewhat spoiled only daughter; something of an
heiress, too, if one might judge from her prattle about charming and
costly costumes and a rather reckless expenditure of pin-money; and
that she was betrothed to Gerald Trent, of the great Boston firm of
Trent and Sons, with the full consent and approval of all concerned.
What life could be more serene? Young, fair, rich; a lover and many
friends; and now _en route_ for the World's Fair, to enjoy it in her
lover's society. Happy girl! the only little speck upon her fair
horizon when she penned that letter was the fact that her dearest
friend and schoolmate was not quite so happy.
And June Jenrys? The two letters taken together had told me this: She
was an orphan, and wealthy, left in her teens to the guardianship of
an aunt, her father's widowed sister, a woman of fashion _par
excellence_. During her niece's minority this lady had tyrannized all
she would, and now, Miss Jenrys having recently come of age, she yet
tyrannized all she could. The aunt was eager to mate her niece to a
man of her own selection and a heavy purse. The niece until recently
had looked with some favour upon a young man, handsome enough--even
Miss O'Neil admitted that--and a gentleman beyond question, but with
no visible fortune. A short time before--but I will let Miss Jenrys
tell this much of her own story, quoting from the fourth page of her
letter:
'I did not mean it so, really, Hilda dear, although it has seemed so
to you. You see, I expected to meet you in Boston ere this, and that
is so much better than writing; and now I must write after all, and
instead of its being from me in Boston to you in New York, it is from
me here in the "White City"--such a city, Hilda!--to you in Boston,
and at Nellie Trent's.
'Well, you must know this, that it was just after Aunt Charl had
"washed her hands of me," matrimonially speaking, for the--well, for
the last time; and I was feeling very high and mighty, and Aunt Charl
quite subdued, for her, that we gave a reception, the last before
Lent. Of course he was there, and I had made up my mind that day that
I would be honest with my own heart in spite of Aunt Charl. "I'm sure
he cares for me," I said to myself, and--well, I knew I liked him a
little. I knew he only waited for the opportunity to speak, and while
I would have died rather than help him make it, I said, "If he does
find the chance--if he does speak, or when he does--well!"
'I shall never forget that night! Aunt was good enough to say that I
was looking my very best. I am sure I felt so. But of course aunt
spoiled it all--her pretty speech, I mean.
'"June," she wheedled, "that handsome Maurice Voisin will be here, and
I happen to know that he admires you very much. Charlie Wiltby says he
is no end of a swell in Paris, and that he is really a rich man, who
prefers to be modest, and avoids fortune-hunting girls. You are old
enough to settle down, and with your fortune and his you might be a
leader in Parisian society. There's no place in the world where money
and good looks together will do so much for one as they will in
Paris." Think of it, Hilda! If I had not felt so at peace with all the
world just then, there would have been an--occurrence then and there.
But I held my tongue, and was even inclined to be a little sorry that
aunt's silly talk was making me feel a genuine antipathy for M.
Maurice Voisin of Paris renown; and really at that time I hardly knew
the man. He is certainly rather good-looking, in a dark, Spanish
fashion, and he is taller and somehow more muscular-looking than the
typical Frenchman. He is certainly polished, shines almost too much
for my liking; but that may be, really, Aunt Charl's fault rather than
Mr. V.'s. That night, at least before supper, I had no word or thought
against him.
'But I must get on about him, and I'll make it very short. You know
how our conservatory is arranged, and that little nook just at the
entrance to the library, where the palms are grouped? Well, I had
danced with them both, and he had just asked me to go with him into
the conservatory, "to sit out a waltz," when M. Voisin came to claim
it. I had for the moment forgotten it, and he had only time to say
just one word--"after."
'Well, I'll be candid, if it does humiliate me; after that waltz I
eluded M. Voisin, leaving him with Aunt Charl, and went into the
conservatory.
'It was so early, and the dancers still so fresh, that no one was
there as yet. I had been stopped once or twice on my way, and when I
entered the conservatory by way of the drawing-room, I fancied for a
moment that someone was standing in the shadow of the palms, just
inside the library door; but I went on, and reached the nook without
being observed. I sat down, quite out of sight, thinking that if he
entered from the ball-room the most direct way I should see him first.
Imagine my surprise, then, when almost instantly I heard a movement on
the other side of the mound of fairy palms, and then at the very first
word came my own name. There! I will not repeat the shameful words,
but it was his voice that owned to an intention to "honour" me with a
proposal, because his finances were getting low, and he must choose
matrimony as the least of two evils, etc. While I sat there, unable to
move, and half stunned by this awful insult, suddenly there was a
quick rustling, a half-stifled laugh, some whispered words, and then
another voice which I did not at first recognise, said, very near me,
"Ah, good-evening, Mr.--a--Lossing! Charming spot, really." Then there
was another movement, some low muttered words, and the sound of
footsteps going across the marble toward the library. Then suddenly,
right before me, appeared M. Voisin. I could not conceal my agitation,
and gave the same old hackneyed reason--heat, fatigue, sudden
faintness. M. Voisin hastened in search of water, and I dropped my
face upon my hands, to be aroused the next moment by _his_ voice,
agitated, hurried, making me a proposal. Then something seemed to
nerve me to fury. I sprang up, and, standing erect before him, said:
'"Mr. Lossing, as I am unfortunately not in the matrimonial market, I
fear I cannot be of assistance to you, much as I regret that the low
state of your finances is driving you to so painful a step. Allow me
to pass!" Before he could reply I had swept past him, and meeting M.
Voisin just beyond the palms, I took his arm and went back to the
ball-room. Hilda, pride and anger held me up then, for I fully
believed him the most perfidious of men. But since, much as I hate
myself for it, there are times when I doubt the evidence of my own
senses, and cannot believe that he ever said those words. The next
morning, while my anger still blazed, he sent me a letter, which I
returned unopened. That is all, Hilda. He left town the same day, I
have been told.
'And now you understand, doubtless, why I am here. M. Voisin, of
course, was not to blame, but I could not disconnect him from the rest
of the hateful experience; and so at the beginning of Lent I packed my
trunks and set out for the country and Aunt Ann's at Greenwood. Dear
Aunt Ann, who is so unlike Aunt Charl!'
Then followed some details of their arrival at the World's Fair and an
amusing account of the good lady's first impressions, which were so
large and so astounding that she was obliged to '"remain at home and
take the entire day to think things over in." Think of it, Hilda, shut
up like a hermit just two blocks from the gate! Is not that like
nobody on earth but sweet, slow, obstinate, countrified Aunt Ann?--of
whom, thank heaven, I am not one bit ashamed, in spite of her Shaker
bonnet. But I can't lose a day of this wonder, and fortunately dear
Aunt Ann never dreams of tabooing my sight-seeing. When I proposed to
come alone this morning, the dear soul said:
'"Well, I should hope thee could. Only two straight blocks between
here and the gate at Fifty-seventh Street, and if thee can manage to
get lost with all those guards and guides, to say nothing of the maps
and pictures, thee is a stupid niece, and thee may just go back to thy
Aunt Charlotte Havermeyer." If Aunt Charl could only hear that! Well,
dear, I have promised myself a happy time here with Aunt Ann when she
is not occupied with her meditations, and yourself soon, and without
Aunt C.; but, alas! everybody will visit the Fair; and yesterday,
upon Midway, whom should I see but M. Voisin! He was attired as I have
never seen him before, quite _négligée_, you know, and wearing a
Turkish fez. It was very becoming. He did not see me, and for this I
was thankful. I did not come to the World's Fair to see M. Voisin, and
even to please Aunt Charl I can't make myself like him.'
I put down this letter and smiled over its sweet ingenuousness, and
singularly enough I joined the fair writer in heartily disliking M.
Voisin.
'He was altogether too conveniently near at the scene of that unlucky
proposal,' I muttered to myself, and then I turned to the other
letter. I wanted to see what I could make, between the two, out of
young Lossing.
'I have asked you twice,' Miss O'Neil wrote, 'about your affair with
young Mr. Lossing. Your aunt is entirely at a loss, only she declares
she is sure that you have refused him, and that in some way he has
offended you; and I thought him almost perfect, a knight _sans
reproche_, etc.; and he is so handsome, and frank, and manly. What
happened, dear? It is so strange that he should vanish so utterly from
society where he was made so much of; and no one seems to know where
he went, or when, or why, or how. Gerry says he was a perfect
companion, "and as honourable as the sun." There, I'll say no more.'
My reading was broken in upon at this point by a prolonged chuckle,
and I looked up to see Brainerd wideawake and staring at me.
'Well,' he queried promptly, 'have you found out her name?'
'Yes; it is June Jenrys.' As I spoke I returned Miss O'Neil's letter
to its decorated envelope, and replaced the two in the bag. 'I'll tell
you about them,' I said, as I put it aside. Somehow I felt a sudden
reluctance at the thought of seeing those two letters in the hands and
under the eyes of an inveterate joker like Dave. 'I'm no wiser in the
matter of address, however.' And then I told him the purport of the
letters in the fewest words possible.
'Do you know,' said Dave, when I had finished my recital, 'I don't
like that Voisin, not even a little bit. I think he's a bad lot.'
I smiled at this. There was not a jot of romance in Dave Brainerd's
make-up, and not a great depth of imagination; but he was the keenest
man on a trail, and the clearest reasoner among a large number of
picked and tried detectives. It amused me to think that both had been
similarly impressed by this man as he had been set before us; but I
made no comment, and to draw away from a subject which I felt it
beyond our province to discuss I asked:
'Dave, what did you mean this afternoon, when we opened that bag, by
saying that the owner was a clever woman? Upon what did you found that
remark?'
'Why, upon the fact that she did not put her purse in that convenient,
but conspicuous, little bag; in consequence of which she is, or was,
only slightly annoyed, instead of being seriously troubled at its
loss. By the way, or rather to go out of the way, do you know that
they have in the French Government Building a very fine and complete
exhibition of the Bertillon identification system? I want to get to it
bright and early in the morning.'
I moved to his side and sat down upon the bed. We were both admirers
of this fine system, and for some moments we discussed it eagerly, as
we had done more than once before; and when I put my head upon my
pillow at last, it was with J. J. and her interests consigned to a
secondary place in my mind, the first being given over to this
wonderful French system, the pride of the Paris police and terror of
the French criminal.
But we little know what a day, or a night, may bring forth.
Someone rapped at our door at an unpleasantly early hour, and the
summons brought Dave out of bed with a bound, and in another moment
had put all thought of the previous night out of our heads.
'Will you come to the captain's office at once, gentlemen?' said a
voice outside, and I caught a glimpse of a guard's blue uniform
through the half opened door. 'There's been a big diamond robbery
right under our noses, and they're calling out the whole force.'
CHAPTER V.
'IT'S ALL A MIRACLE.'
It was even as the summoning guard had said, and the Secret Service
Bureau was in a very active condition when Brainerd and myself
arrived.
Already telephone messages were flying, or had flown, to the various
districts, and at every gate, thanks to the almost perfect system
instituted by Superintendent Bonfield, shrewd and keen-eyed men were
on the alert for any and all suspicious personages, and woe to those
whose descriptions were written down in the books of the secret
service men. They must be able to give good account of themselves, or
their liberty would be brief.
It was not difficult to guess why my friend and myself had been so
promptly summoned, in spite of the fact that already more than three
hundred men, trained detectives, from our own large cities and from
abroad, were upon duty here.
It was because they were on duty, every man at his post, whatever
that might be, and because Brainerd and myself--having newly arrived
and being for the moment unoccupied--were both near and available.
Because, too, we were specials, that is, not subject to routine
orders.
The robbery had really been a large one, and a bold one.
A collection of gems, cut and uncut, belonging to a foreign exhibit,
and placed almost in the centre of one of those great well-guarded
buildings, must be, one would think, proof against attack. Carefully
secured in their trays and boxes, shut and locked behind heavy plates
of glass in bronzed iron frames, guarded by day by trusted employés
always under the eye of manager or exhibitor, and by night by a guard
of drilled watchmen, what collection could be safer?
Nevertheless, at night there sparkled in those crystal prisms a little
silver leaf with slightly curved edges, holding what looked like a
tiny heap of water-drops, congealed and sparkling, shot through by a
winter sunbeam; several larger diamonds, uncut, but brilliant and of
great value; some exquisite specimens of pink topaz, and one great
limpid, gleaming emerald, the pride of the fine collection. This at
night. In the morning--they were not.
We sat down, a small group, for we did not hold council in the outer
office, nor with one superfluous member, and began to find or make for
ourselves a starting-point.
The work had been done very deftly. One of the glass plates had been
cut out close to the bronze frame, and the gems removed; but that was
not the strange part of the affair. In their places counterfeit gems
had been put, careful imitations of the originals, and the glass plate
had been deftly put in its place again.
'Ah!' said the fussy and half-distracted little man who represented
the great foreign house so neatly defrauded, 'Ah! if I had not come
down this morning, not one othair would haf know. I am the one only
expairt. See! I am praisant wen the plaice is un-cloase. I stant near,
wen soomsing make a beeg chock'--he meant shock or jar--'ant richt
town falls out the klass. Wen I haf zeen it, I go queek ant look at
doze shems. Ach! I know it awal--'tis fawlze awal--effery stonzes!'
That was the story. They had found the glass cut, and false gems in
place of the true.
When we had stemmed the tide of this foreign eloquence, which was not
for some time, I asked:
'How many know of this?'
'Nopotty at all onlee----'
'Not more than half a dozen,' broke in the chief of the bureau. 'Of
course it wouldn't do! These are not the things that we like to let
the public into. It wouldn't harmonize.'
'Ah-h-h!' aspirated the little man. 'It would trive away awal the
tiamont mershants togetheer! U-u-og!'
'Right you are,' murmured Dave; and then in a louder tone, 'Can you
trust your people to keep silent?'
'Ah! neffear fe-ur; tay know it is for tare goo-et.'
'Where are they?'
'The attendants?' queried the captain. 'Two are in charge of the
pavilion, which remains closed. Lausch here was very clever; he sent
for me at once, meantime keeping everything under cover; and when I
saw how the land lay, I ordered close mouths all around, and put up a
card "Closed for repairs." Then I sent for you, and we came back here.
Of course you will want to see the place.'
'The place and the people,' I said, somewhat impatiently; 'and we
can't get it over too quick.'
We spent three of the long morning hours in viewing, first the case
where the real gems had been, and next the shams that had taken their
place; then the surroundings, and last, and one by one, the people
engaged about the Lausch pavilion. They were all Viennese, speaking
the English language fairly well, far better than Mr. Lausch himself;
and after we had questioned them closely and carefully, we closeted
ourselves together and discussed the few 'points' so far gathered, if
points, upon investigation, they proved to be.
'Carl,' chuckled my friend when we were at last alone, 'one of our
missions here at the great Columbian Exposition was to hunt diamond
thieves--eh!'
Of course his meaning was plain to me, but I chose to differ with him;
there was no better way of rousing his wits.
'Of all the expert thieves on the two continents, the only ones who
will not come here will be those whose faces are in every rogues'
gallery in the land,' I replied. 'It would be too much good luck to
find Bob and Delbras mixed up in this deal.'
'And yet,' declared he, 'I am willing to wager that it's the work of
Delbras _et al_. Who but he would have prepared himself with a full
assortment of paste jewels. Honestly, old man, don't you agree with
me?'
'Yesterday,' I replied, 'I was ready to swear that Greenback Bob and
his friend Delbras were circulating, perhaps issuing, those two-dollar
Government notes.'
'And what's to hinder you thinking so still, eh?'
'Only that it would be too much of a fairy story to find our work cut
out for us in such a way.'
Dave threw one sturdy leg across the chair nearest him, and settled
himself in his favourite attitude for an argumentative discourse.
'Young man,' he began, 'if you can find anything connected with this
White City that has sprung out of the lake and the prairie that has
not a touch of the Arabian Nights about it, I want to know where it
is. Can you show me anything more fairylike than this fairy city,
built, as it has been, in the teeth of time?'
'Oh----'
'I tell you it's all a miracle, a nineteenth-century miracle! To come
down to facts, now, you and I came here expecting to find Greenback
Bob, didn't we?'
'Yes, of course.'
'And we have good reason to believe that Delbras is also here. Not
much miracle about that, you'll admit.'
'No,' I assented, knowing that he must reach his climax in his own
way.
'No; I should say so! But here is a miracle, a regular White City
miracle. I wonder if Delbras and company know that--leaving a couple
of thousand of blue-coated Columbian guards out of the question, and
they're bright fellows, let me tell you--there are here three hundred
and odd picked detectives, a squad at every gate, and every gate and
every district connected by telephone with the main office here. Let a
suspicious character appear, click goes the nearest telephone, sending
the man's description to headquarters, and then, click, click, click,
to every district, every gate, every man, goes this same description.
Oh, the crooks whose faces are known will find a warm welcome here!
It's only the fine workers, who have been so successful that they are
not well known, who can make hay in this place.'
'All the same,' I here submitted, 'for such fellows as Delbras and his
ilk, who know the world on both continents, this is a promising field,
in spite of the telephone system and the detectives in plain clothes
at every gate.'
'As how?'
'To the man who can speak several tongues, and is an adept at
disguise, this Fair, with its citizens from every clime, will be a
better place for concealment than London, Paris, and New York rolled
into one.'
Dave gave utterance to a long, low whistle, and jerked himself to an
upright position.
'You're right again!' he cried. 'Come, let's get down to business.
What's your idea about this robbery?'
'About the same as yours, I fancy.'
'And what's that?'
I took out my notebook, wherein I had jotted down the most important
items of testimony elicited from the Lausch attendants, saying:
'Get out your notes, Dave; let's see how they agree.' Dave produced
his own briefer notes, and I began running my finger slowly down the
pages.
'It was done during the day.'
'Of course!' impatiently.
'And slowly--that is, a little at a time.'
'How slowly?'
'Well, for instance, Lausch himself told of a young woman who was much
taken with the pink topaz display--you remember?'
'Yes;' beginning to smile behind his book.
'He said that she wore a coat with a deep cape, and that she rested
one arm upon the case.'
'Well, I did wonder what the woman's dress had to do with it. 'Gad,
but you questioned those people until I began to feel sorry for them.
What figure, now, is the dress likely to cut?'
I laughed.
'In this case let us suppose that the young woman is one of the gang.'
'Oh!'
'And let us fancy that while she peered at the pink topaz--you
remember Lausch told us that she excused her nearness by saying that
she was very near-sighted?'
'That's so.'
'Well, while looking at the gems, with her face bent over the case,
one arm upon the edge, and with the voluminous cape outspread, what is
to prevent her using the other hand and arm to draw a diamond point
slowly and heavily along the glass, close to the metal?'
'By Jove! what indeed?'
'And why may not this act be repeated, three or four times, say, by
the same woman, slightly changed as to dress, as she could have been?
Lausch, you recall, accosted her.'
'Yes.'
When Dave grew laconic I knew him to be almost convinced.
'You will recall how each of the attendants remembered one or more
instances of persons lingering long near the gems, or crowding so
close as to attract the attention of some of them.'
'Umph!'
'And Lausch distinctly remembered how a good-natured guard came to his
aid just as he was about to close his exhibits, and stood with his
back to the case, and his arms carelessly outspread upon the edge
chaffing with a group of late sight-seers, and keeping them from
annoying him (Lausch) while he made things secure. Now I don't say
that it was done, but I can see how that guard might have played into
the hands of the gang, who might have been at hand three or four
strong. Observe, the cases were high at the inner sides and shallow at
the front, and while the top sheet of glass, for purposes of display,
was a large one, those forming the outer side were small and set into
stout bronzed squares not to exceed seven inches in depth and ten in
length. Now, we will note that the back of the case, besides being
higher than the front, is not of glass, but of wood, to admit of the
use of a mirror for lining, and to double the show and glitter of the
gems.'
'Upon--my--word!'
'Now let us suppose our guard as standing before the case and
directly in front of the diamonds. He is facing outward, and before
him, hovering close, are some others, two or three, or more. On the
other sides of the octagonal pavilion the other assistants are busy
"closing up." Lausch in person presides at the small safe in the
centre of the place. Now, while he is busy, with his eyes averted for
a moment, a hand thrust under the outstretched arm of the guard may
gently press something adhesive against the already cut glass and pull
it out, and soon, when Lausch bends down to open the safe, or to place
some article therein, the hand draws out the little tray of gems; it
was small, and could have been concealed under one of those wraps
thrown conveniently across the arm. Now, a little ruse to substitute
the false gems and replace the glass under the guard's concealing arm,
and the thing is done. If it all happened at the closing hour, when
the big building was shadowy and one could see clearly only a short
distance, when every exhibitor was occupied with his own, and
visitors, for the most part, were intent upon reaching the nearest
exit--it was bound to succeed. Of course this is all theory, but----'
'It's the explanation of that theft, or I'm a sinner!' cried Dave,
jumping up and beginning to pace the floor nervously. 'Carl, old man,
I'll never chaff your "bump of imagination," after to-day. I'm ready
to begin work on just that theory.'
'Steady, steady, Dave.'
'All right, sir; at least we can make a beginning--we can find that
guard.'
'How?'
'Take his description from Lausch--find out who was detailed here----'
I put up my hand, and he stopped--staring.
'Dave, there is not a Columbian guard on the force who would, or
could, have played that part--if it was played. It was simply one of
the band wearing a guard's uniform.'
My friend sat down opposite me, and for some time not a word passed
between us. Then he took up his notebook, and, drawing a small table
toward us, said:
'Let's go over the ground slowly, and see if there is anything here to
corroborate your theory, or to point to any other conclusion.'
And now I knew that Dave was fixed, so far as his opinions were
concerned, and that while he might declare himself convinced by my
wisdom, he had been all the time simply establishing his own
convictions, and that he was now ready for earnest work.
It was some time before we came out from the superintendent's little
inner sanctum, but we were now quite ready to begin our campaign; and
when we were given _carte blanche_ as to methods, and were promised as
many men as we might need for the work, we could ask for nothing more,
or better.
Our first demand was peremptory. There must be no publicity; no word
of the robbery must reach the vigilant reporters who were everywhere
in search of news.
Next, we caused an accurate description of Greenback Bob to be sent to
all the gates and different districts, with orders for an instant
report of the fact should he be seen, and that once seen he must be
constantly shadowed.
Before we left the place we had arranged with Lausch to put a man of
our own choosing into the pavilion, whose business it would be to keep
constant watch over his people. For while he was ready to vouch for
their honesty, we were not; rather, we were not willing to let any
possibility of a clue escape us. A second man was placed where he
could cultivate these people, and as much as possible outside of
business hours. Not that we expected much from this, for we had seen
no slightest sign of dishonesty among these people, who seemed to
shun all society and to have no acquaintances outside their own
pavilion.
After considering long, we decided not to bring the name of Delbras
into the case, or to attempt to set any watch upon him in the regular
way. To 'locate' Delbras should be our own especial work, and to
freshen our memories we reviewed the information furnished our chief
by the French commissaire.
So far as was known there was no picture of him extant, and the French
report described him about as follows:
'Nationality, French; age, probably about thirty to thirty-three
years; height, six feet, or nearly; weight, one hundred and
seventy-five pounds, approximate; figure good; square shoulders,
military air; features, regular; thin lipped; chin sharply pointed;
wears at times heavy beard, at others moustache and goatee; eyes dark,
called black; hair same, heavy, and sometimes worn quite long; hands
well kept, with long slender fingers; speaks English perfectly,
accomplished, etc.; a small triangular scar upon temple close to roots
of hair. Known to have been in Paris and London in early winter, and
to have crossed to New York about January 1st. Returned to Paris some
time in March, and crossed last to New York in early May by steamer
_Normandie_.'
'Well,' had been Dave's comment as we reperused this summary of M.
Delbras, 'he may disguise himself in many ways, but he can't change
his height very much, nor the colour of his eyes, nor his "regular
features"'--Dave's features were not strictly regular, and it was a
weakness of his always to resent this descriptive phrase--'nor his
slim fingers, nor the scar on his temple close to the roots of the
hair.'
We had spent a long morning in the rooms of the Secret Service Bureau,
and as we were about to take leave, with but a step between us and the
outer door, it was hastily opened and a guard entered, followed by
two people whom I recognised as Farmer and Mrs. Camp. With a backward
step and a quick glance at Dave, I turned and deliberately seated
myself.
The only occupants of the outer office at the moment of their entry
were the officer in command, who had just accompanied us from the
inner office, and the subordinate who was in charge of this outer
office, where complaints were received and first hearings granted.
I had drawn back quickly, but the eye of Mrs. Camp was still keen,
though she looked a trifle subdued.
'The good land!' she ejaculated, catching at her husband's arm.
'Here's one of 'em now, Camp! They've caught him, anyhow!'
The words furnished Dave with a clue to the situation, and he dropped
into a chair beside me, and, after one droll look in my direction,
gave himself up to a fit of silent mirth.
Meantime the guard had advanced with dignity and announced to the
officer at the desk:
'This man has a complaint to bring, sir.'
'Wait!' It was Mrs. Camp, standing determinedly near the door of
entrance, who spoke. 'Afore you make a complaint, Adam Camp, about a
raskil that ain't here, s'pose you jest make sure that this here one
that is here in our midst don't git away.'
CHAPTER VI.
A CRIMINAL HUNT.
Now, I had told the officer in command my belief and suspicions
concerning the counterfeit business which I believed was going on
about us, and had been told that two of the counterfeit bills had
already been brought to his notice and captured within the week; and
Dave had insisted upon his hearing the story of my absurd arrest by
the guards, and now it only needed a look from me, and the sight of
Dave's convulsed face, to make the situation plain to him. He stepped
forward, but before he could speak a new thought had darted into Dame
Camp's active mind.
'La!' she finished, 'I s'pose, come to think, he's been brought here
now to be tried, ain't he?'
With the shadow of a smile upon his face, the officer turned toward
the farmer.
'What is your complaint?' he asked courteously; and he shot me a
glance which I knew meant, 'Let him tell his own story.' And now,
being authorized to speak, Farmer Camp began to tell, in his own
homely way, the story of the 'greenback swindle,' as he termed it.
When he had reached the point in the narrative where I made my unlucky
attempt to rout the swindlers, he turned toward me.
'I've had an idee sence, though my wife didn't agree with me
much'--here came an audible sniff from Mrs. Camp--'that this here
young man might 'a' meant well, after all, and we wus a little mite
hasty; but, ye see, he'd been a-lookin' at us so long, an' my wife'd
been a-noticin' it, havin' her mind kind o' sot like on confidence
people and sech, that she felt kind o' oneasy at his sharp looks--they
wus so keen, she said, an' so quick to look away, she got nervous, and
said she felt as if he wus a-lookin' right inter my pockets.'
'There now, Camp, you needn't be a-excusin' me! I stick ter my idee.
Anyone can see that the young feller ain't innocent, else somebody'd
'a' spoke fur him, fust off----'
Here Dave exploded audibly, and the officer checked her with a motion
of his hand.
'Let me settle this point at once by telling you, madam, that the
gentleman you have accused is an officer high in his profession, and
sent here to protect the public and look after criminals. He had but
just arrived, and it was because of this that he was without his
officer's badge, which would at once have put those men to rout had it
been worn and displayed to them. Let me tell you now, to prevent
further mistakes, that the detectives upon whom we rely in greatest
emergencies are always to be found in citizen's clothes, and they are
not likely to display a badge, except when necessary.'
Long before the end of this speech consternation was written all over
the face of Adam Camp, but his wife was made of sterner stuff, and
when her better half had stuttered and floundered half through a
sufficiently humble apology, directed, of course, toward myself, she
broke in upon his effort, no whit abashed:
'There, Camp, it's easy enough ter see how we came ter make sech a
mistake, and I'm sure the young man will bear no malice to'ard a
couple of folks old enough ter be his parients. 'Twas them
sharp-lookin' eyes that set me ter noticin' ye, when you was lookin'
over Camp fust off, down to the Administration Building, and when you
went an' sot down on the settee by him, an' then got up an' followed
us so fur, what was I to think? You was a-watchin' us sure enough,
only you meant well by it. But, land sakes! in sech a place, where
everybody is tryin' to look out fur number one, I did what looked my
dooty. I'm willin' to ask yer pardon, though, and I ain't goin' ter
bear no malice.'
Overwhelmed by this magnanimity, I murmured my thanks and complete
satisfaction with her _amende honorable_, and tried to turn the
occasion to such profit as might be by questioning the man a little.
'You were saying that you changed a bill, or were about to do so. Did
the man make any difficulty after I left you?'
'No, sir. He seemed in a kind of a hurry, and made out to be onsartin
whether he could spare so much small money, as he called it. But
finally he counted out a roll of bills, and had me count them after
him.'
'There--in the crowd where you stood?'
'Wal, no. He took us to one side a little--right in behind the place
where the little man was a-sellin' canes--sort of up ag'inst a
partition, and there we made the dicker.'
'And he left you right away?' queried the officer in charge.
'Yes--jest about as quick as he could.'
'And the other,' I asked, 'the man who took you to this agent--the man
with the large Sabbath-school class?'
'Oh! he asked us to go to the terminus station with him and see his
young men; but my wife wanted to see things, and we jest went as fur
as the door, out of perliteness.'
'And when did you discover that you had been swindled?'
'Wal, M'riar wanted to ride in one of them coopy things with a
man-hoss behind and before; and when she got ready to get out, which
was purty soon, I give one of them fellers a two-dollar soovyneer
bill, but they made a great jabbering about it, and M'riar says, says
she, "I guess they ain't got the change;" so I fished out some
pennies, and a dime and two postage stamps, and after a bit they tuk
'em and waddled off. Then we got to lookin' up and down, and we didn't
have no more 'casion to use money--M'riar was so busy seein' the folks
and their clo's--till we got hungry, and then come the rumpus. When I
come to pay the bill, they was a reg'lar howl, an' we come mighty near
bein' marched off to the calaboose, same's you was. They said the bill
I offered 'em first off, an' all the rest, was counterfeit.'
Until now Brainerd had taken no part in the dialogue; but now, with a
quick glance in my direction, he asked;
'Will you describe the man who gave you the money--the supposed
agent?'
Camp pondered. 'Wal,' he began, 'he was tall, 's much as six foot, I
should say, an' his eyes were black an' big. His hair was consid'able
long, and he had a good deal of it on his face in a big bushy
moustache. He had a slim nose--and he wore a big di'mond on his little
finger.'
'Did you notice his hands?'
'M--no.'
'Wal, I did!' interposed his wife. 'I seen the di'mond, ef 'twas a
di'mond. His hands was white--real white, 'long side of his face, and
they looked like reg'lar claws; sech long fingers and pointed nails.'
'Ah!' Dave shot me a glance full of meaning. 'Now, Mrs. Camp, you seem
a very observing woman. Will you describe the other man--the gentleman
with the Sabbath-school class?'
The woman's head became even more erect, and her look more firm and
confident than before. 'Yes,' she said at once; 'I can.' She cast her
eyes about her, and, seeing a vacant chair near her interlocutor--the
one lately vacated by myself--she seated herself deliberately, and
began:
'He wasn't much to look at; about as big as you, mebbe, and about the
same complected as that gentleman,' pointing to the sergeant at the
desk, 'only his nose was longer, and sort of big and nobby at the end,
an' a leetle red. I remember he had bigger ears than common, too; they
sort of set straight out. His eyes were little, and a sort of watery
gray, and his hair was kind of thin and sandy-like. He had some little
mutton-chop whiskers, and a little hair, a'most tan-colour, on his
upper lip. His mouth was quite big, and I noticed he had two front
teeth with gold fillin' into 'em. He had gloves on his hands when we
see him first, but when we met him afterward they was off.'
'Afterward, you say--did you meet him after you had discovered that
you had been swindled?' I broke in.
'Yes--we----'
'You see,' broke in Adam Camp, 'it was this way: we was comin' out of
Midway, for we'd been out a'most to the end a-seein' the sights, an'
when we got hungry we went into a place a blue-coat said was good, the
Vienny Caffy, he called it. Well, it was there we had the fuss about
the money, and they told us to come here right away and make a
complaint. We started, and was jest comin' past that menagerie place,
when M'riar wanted to stop jest afore the place and look at the big
lion over the door.'
'A live one,' interpolated M'riar.
'Yes, a live one. Well, standin' there, all to once I see that
Sunday-school feller come out o' the door a pickin' his teeth. He was
right in front of me, and at first he seemed not to see me, and was
hurryin' off dretful fast, but I caught on to his arm and says,
quick-like: "Look here; I want to tell you somethin' fer your own good
and to swap favers." Then he sort of slowed up, and axed me to pardin
him--he was in haste, an' gettin' orful anxious about them boys. Then
I says right out, "My friend, I'm anxious too, and you've got cause to
be: you an' me's been swindled;" and then he most jumped, and asked,
"How swindled?" "Hev you broke one of them two-dollar bills yit?" says
I. "No," says he; an' then I up an' told him the hull story.'
'Did you tell him you were coming here?' I asked, as he paused a
moment.
'No, because he got so excited and talked so fast; I declare, he put
it all out of my head.'
Again he stopped, as if loth to continue, but again Mrs. Camp took up
the parable.
'Now, father, yer may jest as well out with it! Ye see, this chap flew
all to pieces, so to speak, an' he was goin' to have a officer right
away. He had a letter of interducshun from his minister to home to the
capt'in of the Columbine perleece--they was related somehow--and he
would jest have them men arrested; an' then he happened ter think that
'twas gittin' late and time a'most for that train with them
Sunday-school children to come, and it put him out awfully; but he
said that he'd make it his bizness to see to that, and then he made a
'p'intment with Camp to meet him at half-past ten ter-day, an' they'd
go tergether ter see the Columbine perleeceman.' She paused, and
uttered a cackling laugh. 'Wal,' she concluded, 'Camp see that 'twas
gittin' purty late, so he 'greed to it; an' I didn't say nothin', but
arter he'd gone ter meet them boys ag'in I put my foot down ter come
here fust, an' not to wait till mebbe the feller'd git away, and
finally Camp reckoned 'twould be best, and so we came. Someway that
feller sort o' went ag'in' me, to'rds the last. I don't want to be
hasty ag'in, but I sort o' feel as if he might be kind o' tricky, 's
well's the rest.'
It did not take us long to convince the Camps that they had been duped
all round, and while we had little faith in their ever seeing the
'Sunday-school feller' again, we obtained their promise to keep their
appointment with him; and here Dave Brainerd suddenly muttered an
excuse to the two officers, and said in my ear, 'If I am not back in
fifteen minutes meet me at the Administration at four sharp.' And with
a nod to the Camps he went hastily out. I felt very sure of his
errand. He had fancied, like myself, that 'Smug,' fearing lest the
Camps might prove too clever for his wiles--perhaps suspecting the
keen-eyed old woman--had followed them in order to assure himself
whether it would be safe to keep his latest appointment with them, and
this indeed proved to be the case.
Before the Camps left the place we had easily convinced them that
their 'Sunday-school friend' and not I, had been the 'confidence
man,' and that if he kept this last appointment with them it would
only be to lure them into another trap, and a worse one, for it would
have for its aim the suppression of any and all evidence they might
have been inclined to give to the 'perleece.'
In convincing the gentle old man, and shattering his faith in my
friend Smug, I could see that we had dealt his simple, kindly nature a
real blow, but Mother Camp was of sterner stuff.
'You needn't worrit about me, not now,' she assured me, with a
vigorous nod. 'After gitten' into one trap I ain't a-goin' to tumble
into any more, an' I ain't goin' ter let him, neither, not when I'm on
hand. I've told that man, more times 'n I've got fingers an' toes,
that he was too soft-hearted; allus feedin' tramps 'n' stray dawgs,
an' swallerin' all the beggars' yarns.'
'I guess ye needn't worrit, M'riar,' the old man said, with a faint
show of spirit. 'Things might 'a' been worst. I didn't aim ter
squander a hundred dollars to one lick, but I've got'n nuff left yit
ter see the Fair an' git home on, so I guess we may as well be
a-seein' it; a body hes to live, live an' larn.'
And with this sentiment the pair took their departure, a little the
wiser, and more wary, perhaps, for the words of warning and advice
given them by the officer in charge, who had taken their names and
address, and made a memorandum of their 'complaint.'
He had smiled slightly when told their street and number, and had
remarked that at least Stony Island Avenue had the merit of nearness,
adding the friendly caution, 'Don't make boarding-house acquaintances,
good people, and keep on the bright side of the way in going home
late.' Whereupon I made a mental note to investigate this same
hardly-named avenue.
Long before the end of the Fair I had cause to thank myself for this
mental note, and that it was held in remembrance.
Brainerd did not appear at the stipulated time, and I was too eager to
be out in full sight of that wonder city to remain at the bureau; so
taking the Intramural Railway at the nearest station I began to circle
in and out among those marvels of genius, skill, and nineteenth
century enterprise which, combined, had placed, in a time so short as
to seem a miracle, this city of beauty beside the blue Lake Michigan.
And now I began to ask myself why the visitor who had nothing to do
but to see this wonder of wonders, and had no need to keep one eye
upon the passing faces, did not see it, at least until it grew
familiar from that point of view, from a seat in an Intramural.
What a kaleidoscopic panorama! In taking my place I had not even
noticed the direction in which I was moving. I had been seeing such a
marvel of glimpses, domes, roofs, the lagoon in the distance, a
flashing glimpse of the lake through glittering, airy turrets, trees,
statues, flags--beauty and charm everywhere. I had taken a round-trip
ticket, and I whirled on and on, until somehow I saw the great glass
dome of the Horticultural Building, and a moment later a fleeting view
of Midway recalled to my mind my own personality and interests. As I
gazed at it, stretching away westward, a veritable Joseph's coat of a
street, it was gone, and I saw the tall dome of Illinois, the Art
Gallery in the distance, with the lagoon again gleaming through trees,
to be lost again, while roofs, windows, vistas of streets surrounded
me, and I could peep in at the windows we were passing; and then I
heard the cry of the guard, and noted the name as we slacked speed at
Mount Vernon Station, almost upon the roof of the Old Virginia
Building. I peered out as we drew up to this station in the air, and
drew back a little as a second train, moving in the opposite
direction, dashed by. I am in the rear car, and as we move away from
Mount Vernon, suddenly I have a vision of someone who must have flung
himself from the forward car at the last moment, and who is running
along the platform, and in the direction of the passing train, in
breathless haste, his head bare, his hat clutched in his swinging
hand.
It is Dave Brainerd, and as we tear around a curve and he is lost to
my sight, I am brought back to thoughts of business. Dave has
evidently 'struck a trail.' Wondering much, I stop at the north loop,
and standing with the Government Building to my right and the
Fisheries with its curving colonnades on my left, I gaze off upon the
blue and shining waters of the lake, and realize fully for the first
time the awful incongruity between all this stateliness and beauty and
our mission in its midst--a criminal hunt!
CHAPTER VII.
'IT WAS GREENBACK BOB.'
Our chief had arranged for us, and in advance of our arrival, that our
letters should be received at the bureau, where a desk was always at
our disposal; and a little before four o'clock I dropped in once more
to look for letters and ask if Dave had made a second appearance. The
letters were in waiting for both of us, but there was no news of Dave,
and, stowing the letters in my pocket, I sought once more the Court of
Honour; seating myself near the great MacMonnies Fountain, in the
shade of the Administration Building, where Dave could not fail to
find me, to read my letters and wait for him.
I was in no haste, with that magnificent court spread out before me,
and the blue dancing waves of Lake Michigan in the distance, Nature's
background for the great Peristyle, surmounted by that novel and
beautiful Columbus quadriga, in itself a work of art such as is seldom
seen, and with golden Justice, dominant and serene, commanding and
overlooking all.
Forgetting my letters, I let my eyes wander slowly from point to point
of beauty, letting the moments pass unheeded.
'Fine figure of a woman, eh?'
I started, and came suddenly down to earth, at the sound of one of my
friend's characteristic speeches. He was standing beside me, as
imperturbable of countenance as usual, but looking somewhat blown; and
he dropped upon the bench, and stretched his legs, and pulled off his
hat, like a weary man who means to enjoy a little well-earned rest.
I knew him too well to display any curiosity, and I merely sorted out
from the bundle of letters still unopened in my hand those bearing his
name, and laid them upon his knee, and with merely a nod and smile, by
way of greeting, addressed myself to my own.
The first was a brief business document; the next a schoolboy's
letter, short, of course, from a young brother, my sole living tie and
charge. The third was from our chief, and I saw, upon opening it, that
it was addressed, within, to both of us.
'Dave,' I ventured, 'may I interrupt?'
'You can't,' he replied. 'I've done. They're of no consequence,' and
he thrust the two missives I had given him into his loose side-pocket.
'Blaze away, boy.'
The letter was not long, and, after some minor instructions and some
suggestions, came this passage:
'"I wonder if either of you remembers the case of the Englishman who
wrote us at much length some six months ago concerning his son, 'lost
or missing'--we did not succeed in finding him in New York----"'
'And small wonder,' chuckled Dave, whose memory was a storehouse. 'We
hadn't even the skeleton of a description.'
'"In New York, you remember,"' I read on, '"and it has seemed to me
that you may as well look out for him in your intervals of leisure, if
there are such."'
'Old man's growing sarcastic,' grumbled my friend.
'"It's a good thing, if successful,"' I continued; '"and the Fair is
the best place in the world for a 'hide out.' If the young fellow's
above-ground I'll wager something he's in Chicago now; that is, if he
really did come to America a year ago, as his fond father (?) writes.
I enclose for your further information his letter; and I would be
proud of the fact if you two fellows could unearth him at the
Columbian City. I give you _carte blanche_ for the case."'
'Umph! That means roll up your sleeves and go in.'
I took up the copy of the Englishman's letter. 'Shall I read it?' I
asked, 'or is it----'
'Don't say "engraven on your memory,"' implored Dave. 'Yes--go ahead.'
'"DUNDALK HOUSE,
'"_January 3, 1893_.
'"MESSRS. ----.
'"GENTLEMEN,--On November 6th, in the year 1892, Carroll L.
Rae, Esq., of Dundalk House, left his home, ostensibly for a
few days in London. He was never seen again at Dundalk, and
we have been accurately informed that he sailed for America
in that same month. Being of age, he drew from his bankers
while in London one thousand pounds, the full amount
deposited to his credit; since that time no trace of him has
been found.
'"Carroll L. Rae is twenty-six years of age, and tall,
lacking one-half inch of being six feet in height. He is
slender, broad-shouldered, upright; fair skin, blue eyes,
brown hair; features regular and refined; hair worn very
short, but inclined to curl close to skull; strong in
athletic sports; a graduate of Queen's College; has small,
aristocratic feet and hands; a skilled horseman; sings a fine
and unusually high tenor; has a singularly strong control
over all animals. We have no portrait of him since childhood.
Has strong leaning toward military life and somewhat literary
tendencies. Am prepared to send blank cheque for the payment
of expenses of thorough search, and add as reward when found
two thousand pounds. Address all correspondence to
'"SIR HUGO RAE,
'"Dundalk House, Egham,
'"Surrey."'
'Umph!' broke out Brainerd, when I had read the last word. 'Typical
old English paterfamilias! Tyrannical, I'll be bound. I'll bet
something the young fellow ran away from parental tyranny. How did the
thing come out at the first attempt? I don't seem to recall it.'
'And for a good reason. You were in Canada, and I was occupied with
that Rockville murder. I think they put Sturgis on the case. English
himself, you know.'
'Yes--well?'
'Well, as nearly as I remember, Sturgis advertised, to begin,
"something to his advantage," etc.'
'Of course!' contemptuously.
'This failed, and he made the tour of the hotels, swell places first,
then going down in the scale, hunted the registers; haunted the places
most affected by the English tourist; halted good-looking, or
English-looking, blond young men until they turned on him. In fact,
tried all the dodges--and failed.'
'Of course! It's one thing to find a person who has been hidden, and
quite another to search for one who hides himself. What do you think
has set the chief to looking this lost son up here, and through us?'
'Why, you know his ways--he seldom stops to explain; but I fancy he
may have heard again from Sir Hugo Rae.'
I took up the two sheets, and was about to thrust them into their
envelope, when Brainerd suddenly said:
'Hold on, boy! there's something written across the back of that
copied letter.'
I turned it over and read the half-dozen lines written thereon:
'"Carroll Rae, if found, is to be told at once that his brother, Sir
Hugo, is dead."'
'Oh!' ejaculated Brainerd; 'so it's not his father. Well, that alters
things. We may be able to find a Sir Carroll Rae, especially as he
must have about exhausted that thousand pounds if he has been doing
the States in true English style.'
'At any rate,' I added, 'it's on our books. I suppose one may keep an
eye out for a swell young Englishman here as well as elsewhere. It's
only one more face in the crowd.'
'And that reminds me,' said my friend. 'This business almost put it
out of my head. I took a turn on that Intramural road this afternoon.'
'Yes?' I knew better than to interrupt at this point.
'And I saw, I am sure I saw--whom do you think?'
'Dave, that's like a woman! I'm surprised at you. You saw Delbras.'
'Wrong! I saw, I'm certain of it, Greenback Bob.'
'Good!'
'He was dressed very swell--you might have mistaken him for one of the
board of directors; but it was Bob.'
'And you piped him home, of course?' I queried.
'Of course I didn't. He was going one way, and I the other, each on an
Intramural car.'
'Oh! and you were running to stop the car, and Bob, when I saw you at
Mount Vernon Station,' I said wickedly; 'did you overtake it?'
'I did--just.'
'And Bob?' eagerly.
'Well,' with a grin, 'I'm sorry to disappoint you, but when I jumped
on board, at the last moment, I found that Bob had got off while I got
on. In fact, I saw him going downstairs as I was borne away to
Fifty-seventh Street. There, boy, don't look so mournful; it's all in
the game. I couldn't find a trace of him; but we know he's here.'
* * * * *
I had decided on the night of my arrival, after pondering late the
adventure of the black bag, or, as I now described it to myself, Miss
Jenrys' bag, upon my course of action concerning it.
In her letter to her friend she had mentioned the entrance at
Fifty-seventh Street as being near their place of abode, and I had
promised myself that I would be early at that gate to watch for the
coming of Miss Jenrys, and to restore her property--what else?
But I had not counted upon a diamond robbery at the very beginning of
my World's Fair adventures, and as I wished to go unaccompanied, I did
not attempt to stand guard at evening.
But the second morning saw me at an early hour alone, and so near the
gate at Fifty-seventh Street that I could in no possible way miss the
lady should she appear.
I had not needed to avoid Dave. He had been prompt to tell me that he
meant to put in the day looking for Greenback Bob, and that he should
'do his looking' upon Midway.
'And why Midway?' I had asked him.
'Because, if there's a place that is better than all other places in
which to hide one's self, that place is the Midway.'
It was quite true; and as I made my way toward the northern entrance,
I turned over in my mind an idea suggested, or revived, by Dave's last
words.
As I passed toward the entrance between the unique little house of
South Dakota on one side and hospitable and home-like Nebraska State
Building on the other, my gaze was caught by the restfulness and charm
of the western façade of the latter, with its broad portico and the
little lawn lying between the broad steps facing the western boundary
of the grounds, the little stream flowing under overhanging trees of
nature's own planting, and past the little natural arbour of climbing
vines draping themselves among the branches, making shade and coolness
for the groups loitering underneath upon the rustic seats scattered
freely and inviting all.
While I gazed, a voice close behind me said, in a wheedling drawl:
'Dew come in! You never saw sech a place! Why, upstairs beats this all
out of sight. Sech parlours, with velvet chairs, and sofys, and a
pianer; I tell ye Nebrasky beats some o' them stuck-up Eastern
States!'
I turned, to see a fat, rosy-faced and eager woman, in the defiant
bonnet I have learned to know as from 'out west,' piloting a lean and
reluctant woman, quite as typical as a rural New Englander, through
the gate of the inclosure; and, prompted doubtless by the words I had
just heard, I took another and more extended survey of the building so
justly extolled, this time lifting my eyes to the upper window and the
balcony overhanging the stream.
Was it a mere passing resemblance, or a fancied one, or was the face I
saw for just an instant at one of those upper windows the face of the
little brunette adventuress who had laid claim to Miss Jenrys' bag? If
so, she had been scanning the increasing crowd through an opera-glass,
and had dropped this in seeming haste, and vanished, before I could
prolong my glance.
'It's hardly likely,' I said to myself, and turned toward the bridge
spanning the little stream, and lying between me and the entrance I
sought.
As I stepped upon the bridge I saw, on the other side, just coming out
from the shadow of the elevated tracks above the entrance, the lithe
form and rare blond face, not to be mistaken anywhere, with its fine
clear contour, its dark eyes, and fine healthful pallor.
She came forward leisurely, and stopped by the railing at the edge of
the platform to look down at the white-hooded Laplander who constantly
paddled up and down in the little stream, between the bridge and the
Lapland Village behind the inclosure, a few rods to the north.
Just then there was a cry from beyond the gates, followed by the
rat-tat-tat of a drum, and one of those perpetually arriving
'processions' came filing down the platform and across the bridge. I
was in no haste to accost Miss Jenrys at the very entrance, and
possibly in the face of one or more of my ever-present brethren of the
watchful eye, and so, while she waited unhurried upon one side of the
bridge, I stopped also, looking down upon the little stream and
feigning interest in the white-robed canoeist paddling, and doubtless
perspiring, in the mild June air. The procession was not a long one,
and was formed of boys, half-grown, and wholly effervescent, wearing
what was evidently an extemporized uniform, and carrying a banner
which informed me that it was a boys' school, sent from an outlying
town through the liberality of an 'Honorable' somebody whose name I
did not hear; for the fact of the sending was not emblazoned upon the
red-silk banner they carried, but was announced, often and willingly,
in reply to numerous queries all along the line.
They were a healthy and wholesome lot of fellows, and while I gazed at
them, not without a feeling of interest in and sympathy with their
day's pleasure, a little figure flitted past me, through the tiniest
of spaces between the marching lads and myself, pressed close against
the rail, and I saw again the little brunette hastening toward the
platform at the gate. Wondering a little, I kept my post.
There was the usual rabble of all sorts and conditions swelling the
ranks in the rear, and when these had crowded across the bridge, there
was another throng of more leisurely moving visitors. But Miss Jenrys
was not in this throng; and when they had passed and the stream of
travel had somewhat thinned I moved forward, only a few steps,
however, for just beyond me, advancing slowly, with a smile upon her
lips, and her eyes turned toward a companion, came Miss Jenrys.
She had entered the grounds alone--of that I had been ocularly
convinced; and that she should find a companion so soon had never
entered my thoughts.
But she had a companion, and I almost gnashed my teeth as I saw
tripping along at her side the little brunette.
She was talking volubly, in the low, quiet manner that I knew, and if
she saw me in passing she disguised the fact skilfully.
I waited until they were a few paces ahead, and then followed them
slowly, chewing the cud of bitter reflection.
Could it be that I was losing my skill in reading and judging
faces--I, upon whom the men of our force relied for a rapid, and
usually correct, guess at a strange face? Was I mistaken in this
little brunette, then? Or had I been mistaken in my judgment of Miss
Jenrys?
No, never! I had set her down at once for a lady, in the sweet
old-fashioned meaning of the word--womanly, refined, good and true;
and had not her letters confirmed this? But this dark-haired,
quick-speaking little person by her side--was she, after all, a
friend? And had I committed a _faux pas_ in refusing to deliver up the
little bag? And if so, had I the courage to approach these two and
commit myself? Could I tell Miss Jenrys how, failing to think of a
better way of finding her, I had read her letters? I had meant, of
course, to do this; but could I, with those pert, mocking eyes upon
me? No; in my heart I knew that it was not that which vexed me. Could
I bear the scrutiny of those clear, straightforward brown eyes in that
other presence, which would put me at so sore a disadvantage?
Then I shook myself and my senses together. After all she came alone.
Might they not separate soon? How could I tell that there was not a
friend, several friends perhaps, waiting for that troublesome brunette
back in the Nebraska Building?
They were walking straight down the street toward the lake, with a row
of State buildings upon one side and the great spreading Art Gallery
on the other. It was a perfect June morning, and the sight of the blue
lake at the end of that splendid promenade, and the fresh breeze
blowing off it, were inspiriting. There was to be some State function
that day, and the crowd was thickening. Made bold by numbers, I came
close behind them. Miss Jenrys had unfurled a big blue umbrella, and
the two walked in the shade of it; and in order to screen myself, in
part at least, should the brunette, whom I was beginning to detest
heartily, turn and look suddenly back, I shook out the closely-rolled
folds of my own umbrella and poised it carefully between my face and
the sun.
And now, made bold by my canopy, and frankly bent upon hearing what I
could, I drew daringly near, and when they stopped and stood to gaze
at the ornate New York State Building, I halted also.
'By no means,' I heard the soft voice of the lovely blonde say, as she
moved back a pace to look up at the façade. 'That would be quite too
enterprising. I am chaperoned by my aunt, who is not so good a
sight-seer as myself, and for two days I have ventured----' Here the
sharp call of some hurrying chair-boys drowned her words, and I next
heard the brunette's voice.
'Things do happen so strangely'--it was impossible to catch all of her
words--'mamma is sick so often--and papa--I do dislike being alone,
though--in the Art Gallery--acquaintances. That is all--I do wish----'
They moved on, Miss Jenrys increasing her speed perceptibly, and
seeking, it seemed to me, to walk a little aloof from her companion,
which caused me to wonder if she could be expecting or hoping to meet
anyone. I was no longer able to hear their conversation, but they
again paused and gazed long at the fine colonial building of the State
of Massachusetts.
I had hardly looked to see Miss Jenrys enter the placid New York
halls, but when she turned away from Massachusetts without entering or
so much as climbing the terrace steps, I wondered; and then, as the
pair turned away, and after a moment of seeming hesitation moved on
toward the lake, a man, tall and well dressed, passed me so closely
and at such a rapid pace as to attract my attention to himself. He
walked well, with a quick, swinging stride, and I think I never saw a
man's clothes fit better. His hands were gloved, and in one of them he
carried a natty umbrella, using it as a cane. I had not seen his face,
for he turned it neither to right nor left; and his splendid disregard
for the beauties all about him was explained when I saw him halt
beside Miss Jenrys and hold out a hand with the assured air of an old
friend. I was near enough to see the smile on her face when she turned
to greet him, but the few quick words they exchanged were of course
unheard. Then I saw her turn toward the brunette on the other side;
but that brisk little person had already drawn back, and now she said
a word or two, nodded airily, and, turning, went quickly away.
A moment later Miss Jenrys and her companion turned about and went
toward the Massachusetts Building, and I saw his face. It was dark and
handsome; and as they mounted the terrace side by side I pressed
boldly forward, under the shadow of my umbrella, and thanking my lucky
stars that I had it with me, and that--because it was on the cards
that at ten o'clock I was to go to the rendezvous where Farmer Camp
was to meet, or await, Mr. Smug, for he knew him by no other name--I
was lightly but sufficiently disguised in a wig slightly sprinkled
with gray, and long about my neck and ears, and a very respectable
looking short and light set of moustaches and whiskers, the whole
finished with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
Wearing these, I ventured so close that I heard, while toiling behind
them up the broad old-fashioned stairway, a few fragmentary words from
the lips of Miss Jenrys, who seemed replying to some question.
'I cannot, indeed--the best of reasons. My aunt is not here, Mr.
Voisin.'
'Mr. Voisin!' I fell back and meditated. So this was the handsome
Frenchman, the rival of 'him'! I did not again attempt to overhear
their conversation, but I followed them about the building as they
moved slowly from room to room, and now I did not follow with my eyes
upon the graceful and stately movements, the lovely profiles and turns
of the head, of the fair woman moving on before me, but I noted
carefully every gesture, every pose and turn, the gait, carriage, and
as correctly as possible the height, weight, and length of limb of
Mr. Maurice Voisin of France, and I felt that I was doing well.
When at last they turned from the building, which neither had seemed
in haste to leave, I looked at my watch, and knew that I had barely
time to reach the southern end of the grounds even aided by the
Intramural. As I came out upon the street once more, and was passing
hurriedly by the eastern portico of the New York Building, I chanced
to lift my eyes toward it. The great curtains between the fluted
columns were swaying in the breeze, and from between two, which she
seemed to be trying to hold together with unsteady hands, the face of
the little brunette, dark and frowning, looked cautiously out.
CHAPTER VIII.
'STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER.'
When Farmer Camp had presented himself at the rendezvous after his
visit to the bureau, he had found Smug awaiting him, but in company
with a muscular stranger, with whom he represented himself to have
important business; and after a few 'leading questions,' which Camp
answered quite naively, the two excused themselves, Smug making a
second appointment for the following day.
Again the farmer was prompt, and this time Mrs. Camp also. I did not
make my presence known to them, and Smug did not appear, so I left
them to digest this clear case of perfidy, while they viewed the
wonders of the Transportation Building and the great golden doorway;
and, believing, like Brainerd, that the Midway was a mine likely to
yield us at least a clue, I turned my steps westward, my thoughts a
singular medley, in which the Camps, Miss Jenrys, Delbras, Greenback
Bob, the little brunette, and Monsieur Voisin were strangely
intermingled; and--I am obliged to admit it--the young fellow who had
accosted me upon Midway, and avowed a knowledge of Miss Jenrys, was
also in my thoughts.
If it was true that he knew the owner of the black bag, why not
question him--carelessly, of course? Perhaps--well, perhaps he knew
Monsieur Voisin also.
I could hardly have given myself a reason for this sudden anxiety, but
it was there, and it sent me straight down Midway Plaisance, as nearly
in my former tracks as was possible. It was too late for breakfast, I
assured myself, and far too early for luncheon, ergo, if my friend the
guard was still upon his beat, I must surely see him, sooner or later.
And so it proved. As I emerged from the shadow of the viaduct, over
which the Intramural rattled and rolled, I saw him, not far ahead and
coming toward me, his hands clasped behind him, his chin-strap down,
his face absorbed, and seemingly oblivious of all about him.
When we were but a few feet apart, he turned upon his heel and began
his backward march, with the same air of indifference to all about
him.
As he neared the long low cottage opposite the village of the little
Javanese, and having 'Java or Home Restaurant' over its door in big
letters, and as I was nearing him, I saw him suddenly throw up his
head and spring forward. At the same moment I noted a man--hatless,
coatless, and wearing upon his waistcoat the badge which indicated his
position as 'head waiter'--come running from the direction of the Home
Restaurant, pointing as he ran, breathlessly, toward a man and woman
who were walking rather briskly eastward.
As the guard came opposite this couple I saw him halt just a
perceptible instant, his eye upon the hurrying waiter; then he stepped
quickly before the coming couple and made a courteous but positive
gesture, clearly an order to halt. The man did not halt, but brushed
past the polite guard with a scowling face. He was a big fellow,
flashily dressed, and with a countenance at once coarse and
dissipated; and as he made a second forward movement I could
distinctly see his hand drop, with a significant gesture, toward his
right hip.
'Stop him!' cried the almost breathless head-waiter. 'A beat.'
At the word the woman made a little forward spring, and the man made a
movement to follow.
'Halt!' commanded the guard, at the same time clapping a hand upon the
man's shoulder, and then----
It was only the work of a moment.
There was a quick movement on the man's part, and I saw the butt of a
big revolver, and called out in warning: 'Take care!' I might have
saved my breath. The tall guard stood moveless until the weapon was
actually in sight, and then the arm in the blue coat shot out, strong,
swift, straight from the shoulder, and the pistol-arm dropped, the
weapon fell to the ground, and the man staggered back, to be received
in the unwilling arms of the head-waiter, to struggle there for a
moment, and then to submit, quite as much to the fire in the young
guard's eye as to the strength of his arm. The woman at the first sign
of struggle had drawn away from her companion, slipped into the crowd
about them, and was making off in haste, when I said, addressing the
waiter:
'Must she be stopped?'
The fellow shook his head. 'Let her go,' he said; 'they were dodging
their breakfast-bill.'
It was the common trick of a common sharper. Having ordered and eaten
a late breakfast, they had called for something additional, and in the
absence of the waiter had left their places near the door and slipped
away.
It was over in a moment. The man, forced into honesty by strength
superior to his own, sulkily paid the bill, while denying the claim,
and then, like his companion, he slipped through the crowd and was
soon out of sight.
Meantime, my friend the guard, with a look of disgust and weariness
upon his face, had turned away the moment his duty was done, and I
followed him, smiling a little over this reversal of our positions.
'Well,' I said, as I reached his side, 'I see there is good reason for
your ability to judge a "straight-from-the-shoulder" knock-out blow.'
He turned quickly, and with a shade of haughtiness upon his face,
which was lost in a smile as he recognised me.
'Ah,' he said courteously, 'good-morning! So you witnessed that
pitiful affair. It does not fall to my lot to serve ladies.' He
hesitated slightly, and then asked, 'Did you deliver up your find?'
I laughed and shook my head. I had fallen into step with him, and we
were now moving slowly along his beat.
'If you refer to the lady with the dark eyes, who had the poor taste
to ignore your presence,' I said, 'I did not. I may have committed a
blunder, but my judgment condemned the little person.'
He turned toward me a quick look of interest.
'Then you thought----' He stopped, and the red blood dyed his face as
on that first day.
'I thought,' I instantly took up the word, 'that she was an
adventuress, not a companion or friend to the owner of the little
bag.'
'And you were right,' he exclaimed. 'The lady who--who dropped the bag
you found was alone when those foreign brutes with their palanquin ran
against her. I was not near enough to reach her promptly; but I
saw--and the other--the brunette, it is a strange fancy, perhaps, but
I have thought that she had been following Miss--the lady, though for
what purpose----' He stopped. 'It is no affair of mine. I--I am glad
that the lady has her property.'
'But she has not got her property.'
'No? Pardon me, I did not understand.'
He had turned his face to the front, but I could see that he was
agitated, and was holding himself under with a strong hand. As I
walked beside him and noted his fine physique, the well-set head and
clear-cut features, I felt genuinely attracted toward the manly
fellow, and wondered what was the secret of his interest in that
lovely girl, whom he had yet shunned; for, looking back upon the
events of the previous day, I could see that he had purposely held
aloof from the moment when he saw that a champion and protector was at
hand.
'I had thought,' he said after a little, 'that is, I fancied there
might be something--some clue to her whereabouts in the bag.'
'It was not complete,' I answered. 'When I could not overtake her, and
the brunette did not recommend herself to my confidence, I opened the
bag, after some hesitation.'
'Yes?' The syllable was a direct and eager question.
'I found nothing by way of identification save two letters, both
unsealed, and these, after some reluctance, I opened.'
'Ah!' A trifle stiffly.
'The first was from a lady in Boston to a lady here at the World's
Fair.'
'Indeed!' A freer tone, almost a sigh of relief.
'This gave me so little information that I was obliged to open the
second letter, which was written, I suppose, by the owner of the bag,
and not as yet posted; even this did not give me her address.'
'How strange!'
We had reached the end of his beat, and now I turned with him, and we
sauntered slowly toward the Ferris Wheel. I felt that he was worthy
of a grain of comfort, if I were able to give it, and I said:
'It was like this. The letter from Boston was written on the eve of a
start for this place. The other letter, if posted, would have passed
the lady for whom it was intended upon the road. This last letter,
written supposedly by the owner of the bag, states that she, having
left her New York home some time since, is now in the World's Fair
City in company with an aunt, whom she describes as rustic, but
delightful, and that because they are stopping very near the Fair she
feels safe in coming alone on such days as her aunt elects to pass in
the quiet of her own apartment; and the only clue to an address is the
statement that she enters the grounds by the Fifty-seventh Street
gate.'
'Ah!' It is a sigh of genuine relief. At last he has a clue, if a
slight one. But what does he want of a clue? Having gotten thus far, I
relate briefly my experience of this morning, omitting description and
the name of Monsieur Voisin, whom I describe as a tall dark-haired
gentleman, evidently a foreigner, and then I play my card.
I am here upon business of an important nature; my time is limited; I
do not know the lady; and having committed the folly of holding back
first because of the brunette, and last--well, because I had an
especial reason for not coming under the notice of this strange
man--in short, had I found the lady alone I should have returned her
property; in the presence of a third party I did not wish to do so;
and then I put my question.
He had said that he knew this young lady, and, being here day after
day, he would be likely to see her again. She would be sure to revisit
the Midway; and what could be more easy than for him to return her
lost property, explaining as he chose? It would relieve me much; it
would be to me a genuine favour.
The guard was silent for a time; then he paused in his measured walk
and turned to face me.
'If I have not misunderstood,' he said slowly, 'you set out this
morning for the purpose of restoring to the lady her lost property?'
'True.'
'And--do you mean to tell me that because of the presence of this
brunette first, and then of the man, you gave up the idea?'
'Quite so.'
'I confess,' he said, 'that I cannot understand why those people
should be a hindrance; nevertheless, I am ready to believe that your
reason is good and sufficient.'
'Thank you.'
'I trust,' he hastened to add, 'that you will judge me as generously
when I say that I cannot oblige you. I know the name of the lady, it
is true; but, much as I may desire to serve you, I cannot do so. My
desire to avoid the lady, to remain unrecognised by her, is as strong
as is yours to hold aloof from her escort. It's an odd position,' he
added, with a slow half-smile. 'I trust the contents of Miss--of the
bag were not of too great value--not indispensable to her?'
'By no means--quite the contrary; and this being the case, we will
trouble ourselves no more about it. Of course I can't urge my request
under the circumstances.' I could not repress a smile at the absurdity
of the situation. 'And to say that I don't bear malice, as they say in
making up a quarrel, let us exchange cards.' I produced my card, a
simple pasteboard of the size known as the visiting-card, and with
only my name engraved across it.
The guard drew back a step, and again that ready flush dyed his face.
'Pardon me. You are addressing me as one gentleman to another, and if
I were to give you the name by which I am known here it would not be
my true one. I will not give you a fictitious name, and--I can give no
other.'
I was silent a moment, then--'I will not urge you,' I said; 'but at
least, as man and man, equals, we can shake bands.' And I held out my
own.
His face cleared instantly, and he promptly placed his palm upon mine.
'I can do that,' he said, 'as man to man, as an equal, and'--he threw
back his handsome head--'I shall never, I trust, have reason to
hesitate before giving my hand as an honest man to an honest man; and
now----' He paused, and I with him.
'And now,' I supplemented, 'we are neither of us idlers. This is your
beat?'
'For the present.'
'Then--I hope we shall meet again. Success to you.'
'And to you.' He lifted his hat as I turned away, and looking back a
moment after, I saw him once more a Columbian Guard on duty, piloting
an old woman across the street and away from a sprinkling-cart.
'Handsome enough to be a prince,' I thought. 'An American prince, and
poor, doubtless. Honest, I'll wager; and with a mystery. I wonder if
the world is pouring all its mysteries into this White City of the
world.'
CHAPTER IX.
IN DISGUISE.
Two days had passed since my talk with my friend the guard, and
although Brainerd, myself, and others had thoroughly searched Midway
Plaisance, hoping to obtain a glimpse of our quarry or a hint of their
presence, we had been unsuccessful. We found many things in Midway,
but neither Greenback Bob nor his friend Delbras.
'I tell you,' Dave had said on the previous night, when we were
discussing our failure and its probable reasons--'I tell you, Carl,
these men began their business in Midway--I'm sure of it; and I
solemnly believe that you're the fellow that scared them away.'
'I, indeed--how?'
'Simply by springing upon them in that Camp affair. I believe they
spotted you.'
I felt chapfallen, for I was more than half inclined to believe that
Dave's notion was the correct one, and I wondered that I had not
thought of this myself.
'And if they did,' went on Dave, 'it would be the most natural thing
in the world for them to "fold up their tents like the Arabs," etc.
Don't you think so?'
'Granting your first premises,' I conceded grudgingly, 'your second,
of course, are tenable. Perhaps you have an idea where their "tents"
are now spread?'
'Oh, you always try the sarcastic dodge when you are beaten a bit,'
grinned Dave good-humouredly; 'but that's all right. I think we may as
well give the Midway a rest, at any rate.'
'I suppose you have noted that the Woman's Building has had more than
its share of stealing of late?' said I.
''M--no.'
'Well, you should read the papers, and look in at the bureau, once a
day at least. They've had an attack upon the exhibits--failed, I
believe--and a number of pockets picked.'
'Do you suggest the Woman's Building?'
'To-morrow I suggest the vicinity of the Court of Honour and the
Administration Building. It's the Princess Eulalia's day, you
remember; or had you failed to note that?'
'Go on, boy; wound me where I'm weakest,' scoffed Dave.
But I chose to ignore Dave's chaff.
'I suggest that we join the crowd early, and stay with it late.'
'Done!' cried he.
'It's hard to tell where they will elect to work. There will be a
thinning out inside the buildings, but a crowd outside, and such a
crowd as this will be--all with necks craned and attention fixed;
ladies in gay attire, the cream of the city's visitors as well as the
other side; and there will be at least half a dozen false cries of
"There she comes!" and somebody's pocket will suffer at each cry.'
'Right you are!' agreed Dave. 'It'll be a swell crowd, and it's my
opinion that our men will be in the thick of it.'
* * * * *
Early the next morning I went to see if anything had been reported
concerning the diamond robbery, for as yet little had been
accomplished. There was one of the attendants, a young woman, whom I
had felt uncertain about. She was pretty, and I thought artful and
vain; and I had learned from another employé of the Lausch Pavilion
that she had formed the acquaintance of a rather flashily dressed
person wearing much jewellery, and that just before the robbery she
had been seen to receive two or three slyly-delivered _billets-doux_.
The girl was being closely watched, and one of the guards, who was
stationed near, and who was said to have been seen loitering near the
pavilion oftener and longer than was needful, was likewise under close
surveillance.
But this morning there was something to report. It did not come
through any of the men at work upon the case, nor was it in the nature
of a discovery. It was an anonymous letter, and it came through the
United States mail, having been posted in Chicago, at the up-town
post-office.
It was addressed 'To whom it may concern,' at the bureau, and was
brief and to the point.
'If you do not want to waste time,' the letter began, 'turn your
attention to the men in charge of the robbed jewellery exhibit; and if
you also keep an eye upon a certain up-town man who keeps a place
advertised as a "jewellery-store," and with rather a shady
reputation--a man not above doing a little business in uncut gems,
say, in a very quiet way--you may find some of the lost gems between
the two.'
There was no signature, and I saw at a glance that the writing was
carefully disguised.
I was not inclined to treat this document seriously, though I could
see that it had created quite a sensation at the office, and when
asked my opinion concerning it I said:
'If this letter means anything but to mislead, it can mean but one of
two things; either it is written by one of the thieves to draw us away
from the right track, or it is written by someone who belongs to a
gang, and who means, if possible and safe, to sell out his comrades
for all he can get and a promise of safety. I've seen this done.'
'And what is your opinion?'
'I'm more than half inclined to think it is a hoax.'
'As how?'
'It may be the work of a crank or a practical joker,' I replied; and I
thought it possible, though hardly probable.
'If we had advertised this thing,' said the officer slowly, 'I should
think little of this letter, but it has not been made public.'
'It is known,' I reminded him, 'to some three hundred men here in the
grounds, and it has been told to--how many sellers of jewellery up in
the city, not to mention their employés? Half a dozen picked men have
been detailed to work upon the case. I don't think it likely, but
some officer who covets a bit of special work might have thought it
worth while to muddle the job for us; or some revengeful clerk up-town
may be trying to get even with some enemy. However, the thing can't be
ignored, and my advice would be, trace the letter to its author, if
possible.'
There were no letters for us that morning, and I left the place soon,
certain that the machinery of the bureau was quite equal to the task
of looking after the anonymous letter, which, after all, did not
occupy a large place in my mind.
Since my talk with my mysterious guard, I had made next day another
effort to see Miss Jenrys. I had waited at the gate at Fifty-seventh
Street for three long and precious morning hours, and then I had
turned away anathematizing myself, and vowing that hereafter I would
attend to my own legitimate business, and not prowl about after an
evasive beauty, who, no doubt, had already purchased a new bag and
forgotten her loss. But in my heart I knew it was not to restore the
bag alone that I so earnestly looked for Miss Jenrys. I had not fallen
in love, not at all; but yet somehow I had a singular anxiety to see
again the face of this sweet blonde, and to hear her mellow, musical
voice, if only in the two words, 'Thank you.'
Even as I turned away after my long and fruitless waiting, I did not
promise myself to forget her, nor altogether to quit the chase. I
hypocritically said, 'Now I will trust a little to chance.' How Dave
would have laughed could he have known my thoughts!
* * * * *
By nine o'clock that morning there were thousands of people thronging
the Court of Honour, drifting out and in under the arches of the
Administration Building, and up and down upon the streets on either
side of it. Everywhere there was a look of expectancy, and no
apparent desire to move on.
As the morning advanced, and the active guards began to stretch ropes
at either side of the entrance through which the procession would
pass, the throng drew together from various directions and massed
themselves, as many of them as could drawing close to the rope
outside; some with the narrow comfortless-looking red chairs seating
themselves with the great rope actually resting upon their knees, to
be hemmed in and pressed upon at once by row after row of crowding,
pushing humanity, while others swarmed boldly between the ropes and
filled the smooth gravelled space reserved for the honoured guests and
the city magnates attendant upon them.
It was a good-humoured crowd, but it held its place until, from the
entrance of the building, a line of guards in full uniform came slowly
out, while from the east a second company came forward, two by two,
and these spreading into a line, single file, and facing about, united
with the others in forming an L, and thus slowly, quietly, but none
the less surely, they advanced, while just as slowly and almost as
composedly the crowd fell back, and outward, until the roped-in space
was cleared, only to partially fill, and to be again cleared, once and
again.
Brainerd and I had separated upon reaching the place, and I had not
seen him since, although I had moved about from point to point almost
ceaselessly.
As eleven o'clock approached the crowd began to grow restless, and
questions to be bandied about from one to another, while guards, as
ignorant for the most part as their questioners, were interviewed
endlessly.
'When is she coming?'
'Is she coming soon?'
'Are you sure she will come here?'
'Is it eleven o'clock?' etc.
It was eleven o'clock when I drew out from the throng that had pressed
within the ropes, only to be slowly driven out again, and passed
through an aisle of fans and parasols, which had been opened and kept
open, the width of three men, shoulder to shoulder, by a constant
passing of its length; and I was skirting one side of the building
slowly and with my eyes searching the crowd of faces, when I heard a
familiar voice near me speaking in impatient tones.
'Law, pa, it's no use! I ain't a-goin' to set on that tottlin' thing
one minit longer--not for all the infanties in Ameriky! What more's a
furrin infanty than a home-born one, anyhow?' There was a stir next
the rope and a break in the wall of humanity about it, and then Mrs.
Camp emerged, her bonnet very much awry, and her husband bringing up
the rear, puffing and worried, with a little red chair hanging from
one shoulder and the faded umbrella clutched in one hand.
They saw me at the same moment.
'Wal,' began the lady, 'I'm glad I ain't the only simpleton in the
world! If here you ain't! I can't get over thinkin' what a ridickerlus
thing it is fur half of Ameriky, a'most, to turn out jest to see a
baby that's brought acrost from where Columbus used to live! Jest as
if a Spanish baby was a-goin' to enjoy sech a crowd as this! One
thing's certain, I ain't goin' to wait; if the pore leetle creetur is
half as tired's I be, it'll want a nap fust thing! Come on, pa!'
A shout of laughter drowned her last words, and after explaining to
Mr. Camp that I was 'looking for a friend,' I got away from the absurd
old woman, who, with her husband at her heels, was marching toward the
lake--'Where there was enough water, maybe, to make a ripple and where
one wouldn't get stepped on if one happened to tumble down.'
As I found myself upon the outskirts of the crowd, someone set up a
cry of 'There she comes!' and there was a movement toward the west end
of the Administration Building.
Two or three carriages had drawn up inside the roped-in space, and
several smiling gentlemen with _boutonnières_ upon their immaculate
coats stood in waiting near. I turned the corner to the north, where
the crowd was less dense, and had begun to deliberate upon the wisdom
of moving on, when, straight across my path, half running and
evidently in pursuit of some one, I saw the little brunette. I had
made a quick step in pursuit, when a gloved hand was thrust out before
me. 'Stand back!' was the order. There was a rush from the south end,
a sudden prancing of hoofs upon the gravel, and a carriage drawn by
four fine bay horses came into view around the corner of the Mines
Building.
'Here she comes!' is again the cry. I am pressed back against the
wall, and close beside me the soft-rolling carriage is drawn up; a
gentleman alights, and, waving aside the obsequious footman, assists a
lady to descend. In a moment they are gone, swallowed up by the big
arched entrance, and a murmur runs through the crowd. If not the
'infanty,' they have seen one as fair and as gracious, the first lady
of the White City, the able and beloved president of the Woman's
Board.
When she has passed within I replace my uplifted hat and seek an
egress through the crowd, past the restive four-in-hand and down the
street which leads to Wooded Island, in pursuit of the little
brunette, who had vanished in that direction. And now there seemed a
breaking up of the crowd, strains of music could be heard in the
distance, and rumours of an approaching parade are rife. Wooded
Island, at the south end, seems quite alive with moving forms; and I
saunter over the first bridge, cross the tiny island of the hunters'
camp and Australian squatters' hut, cross a second picturesque
bridge, and begin to examine the faces moving about the
flower-bordered paths, thronging the rhododendron exhibit, and resting
upon the scattered benches.
I pass some time in this way, and have turned my face toward the
mainland once more, when a burst of music, near at hand, draws my eyes
to the opposite bank, where, between the west façade of the great
Manufactures Building and the lagoon, the 'wild riders' led by Buffalo
Bill, prince of show-men, are defiling past, with their fine horses
curvetting and restless under their gorgeous trappings and the weight
of their fantastic and variously costumed riders; their banners are
fluttering and their weapons glisten in the breeze and the sunshine.
There is a grand rush toward the two bridges, and as I hasten on with
the rest I catch a glimpse once more, as she comes down a side-path,
of the elusive brunette.
She is close in the wake of two women, who are running hand in hand,
and I hasten to place myself as near her as possible, but discreetly
in the rear.
And now, from the opposite side of the lagoon, we hear another burst
of music and a cry, 'The princess! the princess!' We cross the first
bridge and dash upon the next, which, being high and arched in the
centre, is at once filled with spectators, while the more venturesome
hurry over and line the banks of the lagoon and the sides of the two
opposite roads, by which, from the east and west, the two cavalcades
will approach--that of the 'Wild West' coming from the east, filing
past the north end of the Electricity Building, and turning opposite
the bridge to file southward, straight down from our coigne of vantage
to the entrance to the Administration Building opposite us.
I had followed the brunette closely, and when she arrived at the end
of the bridge, where the head of the 'Wild West' column was just
turning southward, the crowd upon the sloping south end was dense, and
some hardy spirits were scaling the five-foot pedestals of the great
deer upon either side.
Upon these pedestals, straight-sided and square, there was
'standing-room at the top,' as some wag observed, and I pressed
forward, meaning to mount with the aid of the iron handrail; as I
reached the pedestal on the left, near which the brunette had halted
beside the two women before mentioned, and who I began to think were
in her company, the wag at the top bent down and put out an inviting
hand.
'Help you up, ladies; good view up here, and nobody to make us get
down in this crowd. It's quite easy; just step on that rail.'
One of the two women stepped forward, put out her hand, paused,
measured the distance with her eye, put a foot upon the rail, and
uttered a little squeak.
'O-w! I ca-an't, pos-sibly!'
Without a word the little brunette, at least six inches shorter,
stepped forward, put out her hand, set one foot upon the rail, and
went to the top of the big block with an agility that was amazing in a
woman.
As for me, I had been quite near her, and it almost took away my
breath.
I kept my eyes upon her like one fascinated, until the beautiful
princess, preceded by the white-plumed hussars and escorted by the
mayor and city council, came from the west, and passed us so close
that her charming face, aglow with smiles and bright looks of
interest, was distinctly seen and roundly cheered.
We watched her drive slowly down the avenue formed by open ranks of
her escort, and then the crowd was ready to follow her and surround
the Administration Building, watching wondering--an American throng
attendant upon, and admiring, not royalty alone, but royalty, beauty,
and gracious womanhood combined in one charming whole.
When the cheer which announced the infanta's descent from her carriage
had died away, I turned to see what my brunette, safely bestowed upon
her pedestal, would elect to do next.
I was soon enlightened, for she turned at the first movement of the
crowd about her, and, seating herself upon the edge of the pedestal,
dropped lightly to the ground and walked briskly away.
I followed, of course, determined not to be easily left behind again;
and as I went, my mind was occupied with an entirely new thought. I
had made a discovery, and it might be an important one. I had found
that the brunette, like myself, was in disguise.
CHAPTER X.
CARL MASTERS.
When Brainerd and I compared notes that night, we came to the mutual
conclusion that the Camps were ordained to mingle their destiny with
ours in some measure, we chanced upon them so often; and they seemed,
since our encounter at the bureau, to take it for granted that we were
to continue the acquaintance, now set, in their opinion, upon an
official basis, and that it would be a mutual pleasure.
After leaving me, or, rather, after I had separated myself from them
at the Administration Building, they had wandered down the Grand Plaza
and made their way to the Peristyle, where, after some time, they had
encountered Brainerd; and in the course of their amiable converse they
had given him some valuable information, or so he thought it.
'You see,' he said, 'to begin at the beginning, I had mingled all the
morning with crowds here and there, and as it was nearing noon I
wandered across the Plaza and came to that handsome bridge spanning
the canal at the north-west corner of the Liberal Arts. As I crossed
this bridge I saw a launch slip out from the landing at the further
end, and in that launch two men, one of whom I was sure was Greenback
Bob, and the other, from your description, I'll wager was your friend
Smug.'
'Are you sure?' I demanded.
'Morally certain, yes. Well, as you may guess, I scurried across the
little bridge and jumped into the next launch, for they were not easy
to follow by the land route, with always the chance that they might go
ashore on the wrong side of the lagoon. Well, I kept them in sight
until we had made the round of the basin, and they made no offer to
land, although the launch filled and emptied before we were back at
the bridge from which we started. As we passed under the bridge my
heart was in my mouth, for the boat was out of sight for some moments,
but when we shot out into the sunlight there they were, not so far
ahead of us, and about to run underneath the bridge at the end of the
south canal. I wondered a little at their going away from the crowd
just then, but that was their affair, so I just shifted my position in
order to keep a better watch upon their boat as we came abreast of the
bridge, and then, as the mischief would have it, a launch coming from
the other way pushed through and under the bridge and struck us such a
blow that the women screamed, and one of them let her parasol fall
into the water. Then, of course, there was an exchange of compliments
between the two crews, and a scramble and delay in securing the
parasol: and when at last we were out on the other side the boat ahead
was so far away from the landing, where she had of course made her
stop, that I could just make out that the two men had left her and
she was almost empty. To add to my agony, two boats had passed us
while we floundered after that parasol and exchanged compliments with
the other boat, and as we lay there waiting I looked wildly about me,
and saw at last, on the bridge almost over my head, my two men,
standing close by the railing and talking with a little dark woman,
who----'
'Describe her!' I broke in.
'Well, now----'
'Was she something under five feet?'
'Yes.'
'Dark eyes and hair?'
'Exact.'
'A broad black hat with plumes, a red veil, and four-in-hand tie?'
'Upon my word, she had 'em all.'
'I knew it; but go on.'
'I can't, not very far at least. I just kept myself from swearing
while I sat and saw those three so sociable up there, and I not in it.
Before I got to the landing I had seen the woman trip away.'
'Toward the Plaza?'
'Precisely. Everybody seemed going that way. It was almost time for
the infanta to appear. When I set foot on shore I made for that
bridge. I had seen them start slowly on after the woman; but when I
got upon the bridge I could just see the hat of your friend Smug in a
jam some distance ahead, near the Electricity Building, and Bob, the
eel, had vanished once more.'
'At what time was this?'
He named the time, and then I told him how I had encountered the
little brunette, lost her, and found her again, and of her agile leap
at the bridge.
'Lively girl!' Dave commented. I had told him the story of her
agility with some _empressement_, but he did not seem to see my drift.
'You're sure it's the same who tried to claim the young woman's bag?'
'Quite sure--from your description.'
'Umph! Mine? And she's the one who met the lady at the gate, and left
her when the man appeared?'
'The same.'
'Um-m! She tries to secure the young lady's bag; she meets her as
though by appointment; and she meets our quarry, too. She seems to
know them all. Query: Does she, by any chance, know--well, say you?
Who is she? What is she?'
'Who she is I don't know, what she is I can tell you,' said I.
'Well?'
'She, as we have called her, is a man.'
I had nothing to add to this, and Dave was not willing to accept my
statement, based as it was upon that leap at the bridge. 'No woman
ever made that jump; I knew it. It showed practice, and that not of
the sort that is taken by women.' This had been my argument, and after
some discussion and difference of opinions Dave got back to the Camps.
He had met them wandering about the Peristyle, and gazing across the
grand basin at the splendid MacMonnies Fountain.
'Which ort,' Mrs. Camp had declared, 'to sail out, leastwise, the boat
with that white woman settin' up there on top, and come across to
serlute that big gold goddiss. For my part,' she added, 'I've seen one
thing that was as it ort to be. They took an' set a woman up in the
midst of their court, and made her bigger and brighter and handsomer
than anything else. But if they was bent on calling her Justice, why,'
she opined, 'that there court ought to be called a court of justice.'
The two old people had evidently grown lonely and sated with grandeur,
and when she had aired her views concerning the golden goddess, Mrs.
Camp began to talk about our adventure with the counterfeiters.
'That friend of yours was right,' she said. 'That Sunday-school chap
didn't come to time; and we ain't seen him sence not to speak to.' And
then she related how, on coming away from their rooms on Stony Island
Avenue that morning, they had seen, just across the street from them,
the man Smug in earnest conversation with a tall man whose back was
turned toward them, and who after a few words had turned and walked
away southward, while Smug had entered a café close at hand, doubtless
to breakfast.
Dave had questioned them closely, hoping to learn more; but beyond the
facts as first stated little was added.
The men had met at a point 'a few squares' from the Camps'
'boarding-house'--possibly four or five. The man in conversation with
Smug was tall, and very straight, 'sort of stiff like,' and well
dressed. They were quite sure, also, that he was dark, and that he
wore a beard. Incidentally they gave Dave the number of their Stony
Island residence.
'We shan't have much trouble to find the Camps,' Dave said in
concluding his narration. 'The old lady has taken a great fancy for
the Liberal Arts Building, and she generally spends her time sitting
upon a chair in the centre of Columbia Avenue and admiring at her
leisure. She says she "'d ruther see things in the lump, sort of." And
I believe they take a walk every morning around the Plaza, the Court,
the Peristyle, and then up the lake shore from Victoria House, which
she won't enter--because she "hates old England and all the
Englishers"--to the point where Fifty-seventh Street drops into Lake
Michigan. And every afternoon, I verily believe, they walk arm-in-arm
up and down the length of Midway, without stopping or entering
anywhere.'
In our summing up we found we had accomplished very little legitimate
business. We had established the fact that Greenback Bob was at the
Fair, and the presumption was strong, amounting almost to a certainty,
that Delbras was also there. We had connected the man Smug with one,
if not both, for Dave was sure that the man's companion on Stony
Island Avenue was Delbras, and now this brunette, whom I believed to
be a man in woman's attire, seemed to be identifying herself, or
himself, with the 'gang.'
'If you can prove that the brunette's a man or boy,' said Dave, 'then
I'll say don't look farther for the third party who came with Delbras
from France; and if that should prove the case, tell me, what designs
have this gang upon Miss--what do you call her?'
I started. It was Dave who was growing imaginative now. And yet----
'I had only thought of the brunette as having seen the bag fall, and
hoping for a find,' I said doubtfully.
'Then how did you account for her being at the entrance gate two days
after?' queried Dave scornfully.
'Supposing it to have been an accidental meeting, I fancied she might
have thought of telling Miss Jenrys what she knew of her loss, hoping
for a reward, perhaps.'
'Carl, you are growing stupid! You have thought too much of the blonde
and not enough of the brunette! Think! In the first instance both are
alone; Miss J. drops her bag; why does this particular--well, say
woman for the present--why does this woman see it? She must have been
some paces behind, or you would have seen her; or if not you, the
guard, or even the young lady herself. That brunette was shadowing
Miss J.'
I was silent before his arguments. I began to think I had been
one-sided in my thoughts of the two; and now how simple it all seemed!
'The girl, you say, was watching the gate through a glass, and from a
protected and safe point of view. She rushes to meet the young lady,
perhaps introduces herself, perhaps is known, and she leaves her when
the good-looking man appears. Carl, what use do you intend to make of
that black bag?'
'Hitherto,' I replied, 'it has been a side issue; now it seems to me
that we may serve both its owner and ourselves by restoring the bag,
and keeping an eye upon all concerned.'
* * * * *
The next day I was early at the Fifty-seventh Street gate, and I
waited long, but no Miss Jenrys came through; and after loitering near
until almost noon, I took a light luncheon at the nearest point
possible, and at noon went back to my post. But if Miss Jenrys entered
the grounds that day, it was through some other entrance.
On the next morning she came at an early hour, her fair face radiant
as the June weather, and beside her was a small-faced little woman who
might have seen forty years or sixty; except for her snowy hair, time
seemed to have forgotten her. Her dress was a near approach to the
Quaker garb of the followers of Penn. Everything about her was of
softest gray; but the face, framed by the prim Quaker bonnet, was as
fair as an infant's, and with a child's soft colouring in the cheeks
that had not yet lost the charming curves of young womanhood. She
looked like a creature whom Life had loved so well that Time had not
been permitted to touch or tarry near her, so gentle, and sweet, and
good.
But there was no weakness in the placid, fair face, nor in the smooth,
even step, neither swift nor slow, with which she moved on beside the
fair young woman at her side.
I had watched for this arrival while I sauntered about, now on one
side of the bridge, now on the other, and vibrating between the
buildings of Nebraska and South Dakota, on either side the broad
promenade beginning at the bridge. The west windows of both these
hospitable houses overlooked the little stream, proffering a welcome
to the visitor at the very outset; and when the two ladies crossed the
arching bridge on the side nearest the Nebraska Building I was not
surprised to see them halt, look for a moment upon the shady bit of
greensward with the inviting rustic seats beneath the vine-draped
trees close to the water's edge, and then enter. I was very near them,
meaning this time to make a prompt and bold approach, and as I turned
to enter I heard the elder say:
'No, June, my child. Thee must let me go my way.' She halted and laid
her hand upon the girl's arm. 'I must take these beauties in slowly,
else they will not take lodgment in my memory; besides, this place is
too tempting.'
They moved on towards the shaded seats, and I took from my pocket a
map of the grounds, and, standing on the lowest step of the portico,
affected to study it, while the talk went on.
'Thee can go through this house while I look at the place and the
people, child, and hear the music. Where is that music?'
'Oh, aunty! That horrid Esquimaux band! They've never happened to be
in tune before when we came in, fortunately.'
'Fie, June! I'm sure it's very good. Now go. You know I care little
for fine furnishings, but if there is anything that you think I shall
like to see, you may show it to me when you have seen your fill, and I
mine. There, go, child! I am going to knit.'
The Quakeress took out her knitting, and her niece, uttering a soft
laugh, and giving the shoulder of the other an affectionate pat,
turned away, saying over her shoulder:
'You're a wilful auntie, and you shall have your way. I'll not be
long, so look and listen your fill.'
This was the chance for which I had waited, and I took advantage of it
by closing my map and following her into the building and up the
stairs.
I did not accost her at once, but waited until she had looked about
the larger room facing the south and west, where the case of minerals,
the great deer, and other western treasures and trophies were
displayed, and had sauntered about the cosy and tasteful parlours,
looking at the pictures and bits of decorative work; and when she had
re-entered the big sunny south room again, and after a little more
loitering among the exhibits went to one of the windows and stood
looking down into the street, I, who had been standing near an
opposite window, was about to cross the room and accost her, when a
sudden shout from the street caused me to look out once more.
My window faced the bridge, and I saw that a chair-boy, coming too
hastily over the bridge with his freight, and perhaps unaccustomed to
his wheeled steed, had let slip his hold upon the handle at the back
of the chair just as he had reached the downward slope of the bridge,
and chair and occupant, a burly man looking quite able to walk, went
whirling down the slope, charging into a couple of young men dressed
in killing style and wearing big yellow _boutonnières_, and
overturning itself and all concerned.
They were gathering themselves up in much disorder, and I could not
resist a smile at the ludicrous scene; but the smile soon left my face
when I saw, passing the scene of distress with rapid steps and without
a glance toward it, and coming straight toward the entrance below, the
little brunette.
With rapid steps I crossed to the opposite window, and, taking off my
hat, bowed before the surprised and now somewhat haughty-looking
blonde.
'Miss Jenrys?' I said interrogatively.
She bowed assent.
'May I speak with you a moment?'
She did not answer promptly, and I put my hand to my pocket and drew
out my card--the same that I had proffered to the guard a few days
before.
She took it and read the name aloud, and in a tone of polite inquiry:
'Carl Masters?'
CHAPTER XI.
'I DISLIKE A MYSTERY.'
I had not meant to do it, but while I stood there with her clear brown
eyes, not repellent but fearless and full of dignity, fixed upon my
face in polite but guarded inquiry, the determination suddenly seized
me to be as frank and truthful in dealing with this frank and truthful
woman as I had a right to be.
I had meant to return the bag, ask her pardon for tampering with its
contents, and say no more; only keeping as much as possible an eye to
her welfare and safety if I saw it menaced. Now I meant something
more; and so, while she held my card in daintily gloved fingers and
looked at me with level, questioning eyes, I said, with the thought of
the approaching brunette underlying my words:
'Miss Jenrys, I am the person who was of some small assistance a few
days ago when you came near incurring serious injury at the hands of a
pair of Turks and a sedan-chair.' I saw a look of remembrance, if not
of recognition, flash into her face, and I hurried on. 'I do not
mention this as entitling me to your notice, but I ask you to accept
my word as that of one having no personal motive save the desire to
serve you, and to listen to me for a few moments.'
She was scanning my face nervously, and now she said:
'I do not recall your face, though I remember the circumstance to
which you refer. If you are the gentleman who held back that reckless
foreigner with a strong arm, and so saved me from something more
serious than a little pain in the shoulder, I am certainly your
debtor, and I am glad of this opportunity to thank you.'
A little back of the place where she stood, in a corner, hemmed in on
one side by a long glass case of exhibits of various sorts, was an
armchair, placed there, doubtless, for the ease of the person in
charge of said case and its contents. There was no such person
present, however, at that hour, and I pointed toward the chair, and
said:
'If you will kindly take that seat, so that I may not feel that I am
compelling you to stand, I will not detain you long.'
She turned toward the seat, looked at it, at me, and finally beyond me
and across the room, as if debating, and half inclined to pass me and
escape; and then I saw a sudden withdrawal of the eyes and a
compression of the lips, slight but perceptible. She turned as if in
haste, almost, and seated herself in the chair, first turning it
toward the windows so that her back would be toward the interior of
the room, and then, to my surprise, she beckoned me, with a
half-smile, to a place upon the window-seat, which would narrowly
serve this purpose.
I had not once looked back or about me, but I did not flatter myself
that my words alone had won for me this graciousness; she had seen
the little brunette, and desired to avoid her.
'Thank you,' I said, when we were both seated. 'I will now come to the
point at once. You must know, then, that after you had passed on and
out of sight in the crowd I discovered at my very feet--so close that
no one had ventured to pick it up, if anyone had seen it in that
crowd--a black leather bag--a chatelaine, I think you ladies call it.'
'Oh! you found my bag?' The look of reserve was lost in a quick and
charming smile. 'I am very glad!'
'I found it, and I tried to follow you and restore it, but you had
disappeared.'
'I had indeed; in at the first gate, which happened to be the Javanese
Village.'
'That explains my failure. I had given up my search, and was about to
go on my way, when I was approached by a young lady, a small person
with dark eyes and wearing a large plumed sailor-hat, who explained
that she was a friend to the lady whose bag I had in my hand, that she
had seen me pick it up, and would now restore it to her.'
'And you gave it to her?'
'Was it not right?'
'The person was an impostor.'
'Is it possible? And yet two days after, as you were entering the
grounds, and I was about to approach you, I saw this same person greet
you, seemingly, and walk on in your company. It made a coward of me. I
dared not approach in the face of a friend of yours whom I had treated
as an impostor.'
'How do you mean?'
'I mean that I doubted the person, and refused to give her the bag.'
And I hurriedly made confession, telling her how at last I was forced
to read first her friend's letter and then her own, in order to learn
her name, and that then her address was still a mystery. 'I had but
one chance of finding you,' I concluded. 'You had informed your friend
that your apartments were conveniently near the Fifty-seventh Street
entrance.'
'Oh! Indeed!' I had seen the quick colour flash into her face at my
mention of the letters, and of having read them, and the restraint was
once more evident in face and voice when she said:
'I thank you, sir; but the contents of the bag--it was hardly worth
the trouble you have taken to restore it--that is----'
'I have it with me, Miss Jenrys, and when I am sure that we are not
under surveillance I will place it in your hands; and now I owe it to
myself to make my own conduct in this affair and my present position
clearer. At first it was with me a simple matter of returning a lost
article to a lady. Failing to overtake you, I might perhaps have
turned it over to some guard but for the interference of the brunette,
who at once put me on the defensive and aroused my suspicion. It
somehow seemed to me that the young person was more than commonly
anxious to possess your bag, and then it occurred to me that the bag
might contain something or some information that she especially wished
to possess. My interest was aroused, and then I took the liberty of
examining your bag, and having done so, I determined at least to
attempt to return it to you, and to ask you to pardon the liberty I
had taken with your correspondence.'
'I suppose anyone would have done the same,' she said, rather coldly.
'What I do not comprehend is why you did not return the bag to me in
the presence of this person, of whom you might have warned me.'
'It is that which I am about to explain,' I replied gravely. 'And I
must, for the sake of others whose interests I represent, ask you to
regard what I am now about to tell you as a confidence made necessary
because of the circumstances. Miss Jenrys, the card in your hand bears
my real name, but few know me by it, because I so often bear others,
as one of the necessities of my profession. I am known here to those
who know me at all as one of those secret service men you have no
doubt heard or read of. In other words----'
'A detective?' She bent forward and scanned my face narrowly.
'When I saw you in company with the little brunette, as I have since
called her for want of a better title, I was at first amazed and
inclined to doubt my own sagacity; but when--I am making a clean
breast of it, Miss Jenrys--when I followed you, doubtful what course
to pursue, I saw you joined by a gentleman, and I saw the brunette
slip away from you as she would hardly have done, as you would hardly
have allowed her to do, had she been friend or acquaintance. I am
enrolled here as a "special," but I came, in company with another,
with a definite object in view. Within these grounds are several
persons under suspicion, and whom we are hoping to capture and
convict, and when I tell you that only yesterday I learned that this
same little brunette who claimed your property and friendship was seen
in company with two suspected persons, you will hardly wonder that
what I had attempted to do from purest courtesy from one stranger to
another, and that other a lady, I felt impelled to do from a sense of
duty, as well as desire to save one whom I had seen to be alone, and
who might, for aught I could tell, be menaced by some unsuspected
danger.'
There was no fear on her face, only a slightly troubled look, as she
asked:
'What do you mean?'
'Simply that it is my duty to warn you, and to ask you if you know of
any reason why you should be followed, or watched, or menaced by any
manner of danger?'
'No'--she slowly shook her fair head--'no reason whatever.'
'And may I ask you about this person, this brunette? I would not say
'this woman.''
She started slightly, and leaned toward me.
'Is she here still?' she whispered.
I turned my head and cast a deliberate glance around the room.
'I do not see her,' I said; 'but she may be below, with an eye on the
staircase.'
'It's more than likely. It's little I can tell you,' she said. 'She
ran up to me that morning at the gate, her face beaming and her hand
held out, and when she was close to me, and I drew away from her, she
began the most profuse apologies: she was very near-sighted, and she
had mistaken me for an old acquaintance she had not seen for some
time; then she kept on by my side, prattling about her "mamma," who
had not been able to leave the hotel since they came; of her dread of
being alone, and her eagerness to see the Fair. She had hoped, when
she saw me, that she had found someone who would let her "just follow
along, so that she would not feel so much alone," etc. I did not like
her volubility, yet I could see no way, short of absolute rudeness, of
shaking her off. When I met a New York acquaintance, down near the
lake shore, she quite surprised me by quietly slipping away. Do you
think----' She paused, and arose with a quick, easy grace which seemed
inherent. 'Will you come down and be introduced to my aunt?' she
asked. 'I have great confidence in her judgment of--gentlemen, and she
ought to know this; that is, if you can give me the time.'
'My time is entirely yours,' I declared recklessly, 'and nothing would
give me more pleasure than to pay my entirely sincere respects to
that lovely woman I saw in your company, and who, I am almost certain,
saw me playing the spy upon her niece.'
She smiled as she moved toward the stairway, at the head of which she
turned and paused a moment.
'Do you think she will approach us?' she asked.
'I can't imagine what she will do.'
'But she will see you, and----'
I think the smile on my face stopped her.
'You did not recognise me,' I said. 'She may not.'
She looked into my face keenly, and then a quick look of intelligence
flashed into her eyes.
'Oh!' It was all she said, but it meant much. She took a step
downward, and turned again. 'Of course I must not enlighten my aunt?'
'If you are willing to let it lie between us two--at first?'
'Certainly,' she said gravely, and went on down the stairs.
At the landing, half-way down, where the staircase turned to right and
left, I saw, over her shoulder, a little dark figure standing in the
west doorway.
'Turn to the right,' I said, over her shoulder. '"The longest way
round," you know.'
She nodded, and without a glance in the other direction went down the
east side, turned at the foot to wait for me with the air of one quite
absorbed in an agreeable companion, and we went out at the door facing
the Minnesota Building and the morning sun. As we stepped outside I
paused in my turn.
'One word, if you will allow it. I may have to learn more of this
person. It may make difficulties for me, and--who knows?--perhaps for
you, if she imagines that you know her for--what she is. Or guesses,
as she might----'
'What you are?' she interposed. 'You may trust me.'
We turned at the corner, and came once more to the west side and the
little arbour. As we rounded the corner my companion suddenly slipped
her little hand beneath my elbow, giving it at the same time a
significant little pressure. The brunette, having doubtless watched
our progress through the window, was coming down the steps and
straight toward us.
For just a passing moment I knew how Miss Jenrys looked to the friends
who knew her, and whom she knew best. She was smiling and preoccupied
as we stepped within the inclosure.
'See,' she said, hastening her own steps and mine, with a bright look
toward the benches, 'there is auntie.'
The little brunette was almost abreast of us, and my companion's
smiling gaze was still fixed upon the figure under the vines; then she
turned her head, and, just at the place where we could turn from the
walk, let her eyes turn toward the figure just opposite us.
It was charmingly done. Just as she made a step in the direction of
the arbour her eyes fell quite naturally upon the face of the
brunette. 'Good-morning,' she said smilingly, and with a little nod of
her head. But there was no slackening of her steps; with the words on
her lips we were off the walk, and crossing the grass to the place,
not ten paces away, where the sweet-faced Quakeress sat, knitting and
looking her surprise.
'Auntie, I have brought you a new acquaintance,' Miss Jenrys said, in
a voice slightly raised; and then, looking after the retreating figure
of the brunette and seeing that she was quite out of hearing, she
added, 'and I have found my bag.'
I took the bag from my pocket, where it had grown to seem a quite
familiar bulk, and laid it in her lap, and she began at once to
narrate to the wondering Quakeress the adventures of the little bag.
She heard it through, with here and there a soft little exclamation of
wonder, and I saw that she was slightly deaf, and quite given to
misunderstanding and miscalling words and phrases.
'Thee has been very lucky, my dear,' the good soul said when Miss
Jenrys had done, 'and the young man has been at great pains to restore
thy reticule. It was hardly worth so much trouble, do you think?'
'Not in actual value perhaps, auntie, but it contained one or two
little keepsakes that I valued'--she breathed a little fluttering
sigh--'for the sake of the giver.'
'Is that why thee has mourned the loss of the little bag so much, and
said so many unkind things about those poor benighted men of Turkey?
Then, indeed, I must add my thanks to thine.' And she turned and
extended to me a soft slim hand, ungloved and delicately veined; and
then she began to question me about the Fair and the things I had
seen, showing in her questions and comments a singular mixture of
innocent unworldliness, and native shrewdness, and mother wit.
In the midst of our talk Miss Jenrys broke in with a low, quick
exclamation, which caused us to cease and turn toward her.
'Mr. Masters,' she said, in a low tone, 'our friend the brunette is
looking over from the gallery windows of the Dakota Building--see! the
one next the corner, toward the bridge. She does not make herself
needlessly conspicuous, and it was only by the peculiar shade her
figure threw, as she stood at one side--the eastern side--that I was
drawn to observe her. My eyes are very strong--I am sure I am not
mistaken.'
'It is only what I expected,' I replied. 'She will wait, no doubt,
until she gets an opportunity to speak with you. Evidently she has
some object in view, something to learn from you, or something to tell
you. I would give something to know what it is.'
She looked at me a moment with thoughtful eyes. I had purposely
spoken in a guarded tone, and when she answered it was in the same
manner.
'Would it help you to learn her object?'
'It might, and it might give us a hint as to their reasons for
following you.'
'Their reasons? Do you think----' She stopped abruptly.
'I don't know what to think, Miss Jenrys. It looked as if this person
were following you on the day you lost your bag, and I am convinced
that she is in some way connected with two or more men who are more
than suspected of being offenders against the law. Miss Jenrys, do you
know of any reason why you should be watched--followed? Have you an
enemy? Are you in anyone's way?'
Instead of answering, she turned to the elder lady, who had been
listening like one who but half comprehends.
'Auntie, you heard me say that Mr. Masters has strong reasons for
thinking that the young woman who just passed us, and who has forced
herself upon my notice, and tried to claim my bag, is loitering about
now for the purpose of speaking to me?'
'I heard thee: yes, June, surely I did, and I cannot understand the
thing at all.'
'Nor do we, Aunt Ann.' She turned to me again. 'I am getting the fever
for investigation,' she said, slightly smiling. 'I am not alarmed at
what you have told me, but I do not doubt it, and if you think it
best, if it will help you, I will give that young woman a chance to
ease her mind to me. I will leave you here with Aunt Ann, and go,
under her eyes, to the building next to this, on to the Washington
House, and give her a chance to follow.'
I waited for the elder lady to speak, and my own surprise was great at
her brave proposition--for it was brave, braver than she knew; and I
was asking myself if I had the right to let her go to meet--an
adventuress at the least, a criminal possibly. But her aunt gave the
decisive word.
'My dear June, thee knows I do not like a mystery. If anything is to
be learned concerning this person's strange conduct, we should find it
out, and end the following and spying, else it will not be safe for
thee to come here alone, even by day.'
'Fie! Aunt Ann--with all these guards and half the world looking on?
Then I had better go, Mr. Masters.'
'If you will.'
'Have you any advice or instructions to give me?'
'I think you will know how to proceed. Only it might be well to let
her talk, if she will.'
'Certainly.'
'And, Miss Jenrys, let me beg of you, do not go away from this
immediate vicinity, and do not walk upon the streets with this person
if it can be avoided. Above all, do not make a further appointment
with her.'
'I will be discreet. Good-bye for a short time, Aunt Ann.' She dropped
the newly-returned bag into her aunt's lap and went away, as lithe and
careless-seeming as the veriest pleasure-seeker.
She looked up and down at the windows of the South Dakota House and
then walked deliberately in.
CHAPTER XII.
'MORE DANGEROUS THAN HATE.'
When we had watched her vanish within the walls of the opposite
building, Miss Ross--for 'Aunt Ann' was a spinster--deliberately arose
and took the place beside me.
'We can talk better so,' she said placidly, 'and I want to talk with
thee.' And she began to roll up her knitting with care.
As we sat there I was almost hidden from view from the streets,
because of the thick vine tendrils that fell like a curtain between me
and the passers-by, while it did not prevent my looking through the
green drapery at my pleasure. But Aunt Ann had placed herself where
she was plainly visible to all who passed.
'Now,' she began, having put away her knitting, 'I ask thee honestly,
sir, does thee think my niece in real danger of any sort? I cannot
understand this strangeness.'
'Truly, Miss Ross,' I answered, 'I know no more than you have heard;
but I could do no less than warn the young lady, knowing what I did.'
She bent toward me and scrutinized my face closely, keenly.
'Thy face is a good face,' she said then, 'and I like thy voice; but,
young man, I am only a woman, and I have no right to do rashly. My
niece trusts thee, but she is but a girl, with all her self-reliance.
Forgive an old woman's caution, and--tell me what is thy reason for
the interest thee takes in my niece? Cannot thee give me some
credential, some voucher for thy good faith, before I say to thee what
I wish to say?'
Again I found myself forced to a sudden decision. In my experience as
a detective I had found myself in many strange situations, but never
before had I felt that I must speak the truth, or not at all, in a
position like this. I answered, with scarce a moment's hesitation:
'You are right and wise, madam, and I am sure that I can confide to
you the truth concerning my business at the Fair--only asking, because
others are concerned with myself, that you regard my information as
confidential.'
'S
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