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The Million Dollar Mystery

by Harold MacGrath · English · Gutenberg #39134 · 476,583 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Million Dollar Mystery

Author: Harold MacGrath
        F. Lonergan


        
Release date: March 14, 2012 [eBook #39134]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39134

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY ***




Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: THE PAPER SHE HAD PURLOINED WAS INDEED BLANK]





THE MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY


Novelized from the Scenario of

F. LONERGAN



BY

HAROLD MACGRATH



  AUTHOR OF
  THE MAN ON THE BOX,
  THE GOOSE GIRL, HEARTS AND MASKS, ETC.




  PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED
  WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTO PLAY




GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK




COPYRIGHT, 1915

HAROLD MACGRATH




  _Published by arrangement with
  The Bobbs-Merrill Company_.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


The paper she had purloined was indeed blank . . . . . . _Frontispiece._

Miss Farlow's Private School

You might have marked him for a successful lawyer.

The Princess Perigoff

The Black Hundred

Friends from Tophet

The Peaceful Butler entered into the field of action

She had gained the confidence of Florence

There was a stormy scene between Braine and the Princess

Norton reached the Captain first

She read with Susan

"Who is it?" Jones whispered, his lips white and dry.

He read: "Florence--the hiding place is discovered."

That night there was a meeting of the organization

Jones engaged a motorboat

"Leo, are you using any drugs these days?"

The Secret Panel

Four men were told off

"Better be sensible," he said

They had become secretly engaged

With her he was happy, for he had no time to plan over the future

They were to be married

Florence was permitted to wander about the ship as she pleased

Every one felt extremely sorry for this beautiful girl

Florence steals out in the night to jump overboard

A young and beautiful woman did not jump from a big Atlantic
  liner without the newspapers getting hold of the facts

"The poor young thing!" murmured the motherly Mrs. Barnes

"Come out o' that now!"

"I ain't goin' t' hurt ye"

Florence fought; but she was weak, and so the conquest was easy

"I know it now," she said, and she kissed him

He had put Florence and Braine in the boat and had landed them

They bound Florence and left her seated in a chair

They did not care a snap of the finger what Jones thought

She first thought of changing the clock

He took her straight to the executive chamber of the Black Hundred

Here was an operation that needed all his care and skill.

He examined the blotter with care

The men rioted about the house, searching nooks and corners

They were mapping out a plan when Susan's message came

Norton was idling at his desk when the city editor called him

"Give this to your father.  He knows how to read it."

Florence discovers the cave

Florence steals the papers from Braine's pocket

Braine procured a launch and began to prowl about

Braine reached the girl and pulled her into the boat

From the shore came another boat

"They have all three taken out naturalization papers."

"Just a minute, gentlemen!"

The Police Captain's desk

They were tumbling through the library and the living room

Braine sank inertly to the floor, dead

Instantly they sought the fallen man's side

A quick clutch and the policeman had her by the wrist

The Mystic Million

"Florence, that is all yours."

Immediately after the ceremony

After the storm, the sunshine




The Million Dollar Mystery




CHAPTER I

There are few things darker than a country road at night, particularly
if one does not know the lay of the land.  It is not difficult to
traverse a known path; no matter how dark it is, one is able to find
the way by the aid of a mental photograph taken in the daytime.  But
supposing you have never been over the road in the daytime, that you
know nothing whatever of its topography, where it dips or rises, where
it narrows or forks.  You find yourself in the same unhappy state of
mind as a blind man suddenly thrust into a strange house.

One black night, along a certain country road in the heart of New
Jersey, in the days when the only good roads were city thoroughfares
and country highways were routes to limbo, a carriage went forward
cautiously.  From time to time it careened like a blunt-nosed barge in
a beam sea.  The wheels and springs voiced their anguish continually;
for it was a good carriage, unaccustomed to such ruts and hummocks.

"Faster, faster!" came a muffled voice from the interior.

"Sir, I dare not drive any faster," replied the coachman.  "I can't see
the horses' heads, sir, let alone the road.  I've blown out the lamps,
but I can't see the road any better for that."

"Let the horses have their heads; they'll find the way.  It can't be
much farther.  You'll see lights."

The coachman swore in his teeth.  All right.  This man who was in such
a hurry would probably send them all into the ditch.  Save for the few
stars above, he might have been driving Beelzebub's coach in the
bottomless pit.  Black velvet, everywhere black velvet.  A wind was
blowing, and yet the blackness was so thick that it gave the coachman
the sensation of mild suffocation.

By and by, through the trees, he saw a flicker of light.  It might or
might not be the destination.  He cracked his whip recklessly and the
carriage lurched on two wheels.  The man in the carriage balanced
himself carefully, so that the bundle in his arms should not be unduly
disturbed.  His arms ached.  He stuck his head out of the window.

"That's the place," he said.  "And when you drive up make as little
noise as you can."

"Yes, sir," called down the driver.

When the carriage drew up at its journey's end the man inside jumped
out and hastened toward the gates.  He scrutinized the sign on one of
the posts.  This was the place:

  MISS FARLOW'S PRIVATE SCHOOL

[Illustration: MISS FARLOW'S PRIVATE SCHOOL]


The bundle in his arms stirred and he hurried up the path to the door
of the house.  He seized the ancient knocker and struck several times.
He then placed the bundle on the steps and ran back to the waiting
carriage, into which he stepped.

"Off with you!"

"That's a good word, sir.  Maybe we can make your train."

"Do you think you could find this place again?"

"You couldn't get me on this pike again, sir, for a thousand; not me!"

The door slammed and the unknown sank back against the cushions.  He
took out his handkerchief and wiped the damp perspiration from his
forehead.  The big burden was off his mind.  Whatever happened in the
future, they would never be able to get him through his heart.  So much
for the folly of his youth.

It was a quarter after ten.  Miss Susan Farlow had just returned to the
reception room from her nightly tour of the upper halls to see if all
her charges were in bed, where the rules of the school confined them
after nine-thirty.  It was at this moment that she heard the thunderous
knocking at the door.  The old maid felt her heart stop beating for a
moment.  Who could it be, at this time of night?  Then the thought came
swiftly that perhaps the parent of some one of her charges was ill and
this was the summons.  Stilling her fears, she went resolutely to the
door and opened it.

"Who is it?" she called.

No one answered.  She cupped her hand to her ear.  She could hear the
clatter of horses dimly.

"Well!" she exclaimed; rather angrily, too.

She was in the act of closing the door when the light from the hall
discovered to her the bundle on the steps.  She stooped and touched it.

"Good heavens, it's a child!"

She picked the bundle up.  A whimper came from it, a tired little
whimper of protest.  She ran back to the reception room.  A foundling!
And on her doorstep!  It was incredible.  What in the world should she
do?  It would create a scandal and hurt the prestige of the school.
Some one had mistaken her select private school for a farmhouse.  It
was frightful.

Then she unwrapped the child.  It was about a year old, dimpled and
golden haired.  A thumb was in its rosebud mouth and its blue eyes
looked up trustfully into her own.

"Why, you cherub!" cried the old maid, a strange turmoil in her heart.
She caught the child to her breast, and then for the first time noticed
the thick envelope pinned to the child's cloak.  She put the baby into
a chair and broke open the envelope.

"Name this child Florence Gray.  I will send annually a liberal sum for
her support and reclaim her on her eighteenth birthday.  The other half
of the inclosed bracelet will identify me.  Treat the girl well, for I
shall watch over her in secret."

Into the fixed routine of her humdrum life had come a mystery, a
tantalizing, fascinating mystery.  She had read of foundlings left on
doorsteps--from paper-covered novels confiscated from her pupils--but
that one should be placed upon her own respectable doorstep!  Suddenly
she smiled down at the child and the child smiled back.  And there was
nothing more to be done except to bow before the decrees of fate.  Like
all prim old maids, her heart was full of unrequited romance, and here
was something she might spend its floods upon without let or hindrance.
Already she was hoping that the man or woman who had left it might
never come back.

The child grew.  Regularly each year, upon a certain date, Miss Farlow
received a registered letter with money.  These letters came from all
parts of the world; always the same sum, always the same line--"I am
watching."

Thus seventeen years passed; and to Susan Farlow each year seemed
shorter than the one before.  For she loved the child with all her
heart.  She had not trained young girls all these years without
becoming adept in the art of reading the true signs of breeding.  There
was no ordinary blood in Florence; the fact was emphasized by her
exquisite face, her small hands and feet, her spirit and gentleness.
And now, at any day, some one with a broken bracelet might come for
her.  As the days went on the heart of Susan Farlow grew heavy.

"Never mind, aunty," said Florence; "I shall always come back to see
you."

She meant it, poor child; but how was she to know the terrors which lay
beyond the horizon!


The house of Stanley Hargreave, in Riverdale, was the house of no
ordinary rich man.  Outside it was simple enough, but within you
learned what kind of a man Hargreave was.  There were rare Ispahans and
Saruks on the floors and tapestries on the walls, and here and there a
fine painting.  The library itself represented a fortune.  Money had
been laid out lavishly but never wastefully.  It was the home of a
scholar, a dreamer, a wide traveler.

In the library stood the master of the house, idly fingering some
papers which lay on the study table.  He shrugged at some unpleasant
thought, settled his overcoat about his shoulders, took up his hat, and
walked from the room, frowning slightly.  The butler, who also acted in
the capacity of valet and was always within call when his master was
about, stepped swiftly to the hall door and opened it.

"I may be out late, Jones," said Hargreave.

"Yes, sir."

Hargreave stared into his face keenly, as if trying to pierce the grave
face to learn what was going on behind it.  "How long have you been
with me?"

"Fourteen years, sir."

"Some day I shall need you."

"My life has always been at your disposal, sir, since that night you
rescued me."

"Well, I haven't the least doubt that when I ask you will give."

"Without question, sir.  It was always so understood."

Hargreave's glance sought the mirror, then the smileless face of his
man.  He laughed, but the sound conveyed no sense of mirth; then he
turned and went down the steps slowly, like a man burdened with some
thought which was not altogether to his liking.  He had sent an order
for his car, but had immediately countermanded it.  He would walk till
he grew tired, hail a taxicab, and take a run up and down Broadway.
The wonderful illumination might prove diverting.  For eighteen years
nearly; and now it was as natural for him to throw a glance over his
shoulder whenever he left the house as it was for him to breathe.  The
average man would have grown careless during all these years; but
Hargreave was not an average man; he was, rather, an extraordinary
individual.  It was his life in exchange for eternal vigilance, and he
knew and accepted the fact.

Half an hour later he got into a taxicab and directed the man to drive
down-town as far as Twenty-third Street and back to Columbus circle.
The bewildering display of lights, however, in nowise served to lift
the sense of oppression that had weighed upon him all day.  South of
Forty-second Street he dismissed the taxicab and stared undecidedly at
the brilliant sign of a famous restaurant.  He was neither hungry nor
thirsty; but there would be strange faces to study and music.

It was an odd whim.  He had not entered a Broadway restaurant in all
these years.  He was unknown.  He belonged to no clubs.  Two months was
the longest time he had ever remained in New York since the disposal of
his old home in Madison Avenue and his resignation from his clubs.
This once, then, he would break the law he had written down for
himself.  Boldly he entered the restaurant.

Some time before Hargreave surrendered to the restless spirit of
rebellion, bitterly to repent for it later, there came into this
restaurant a man and a woman.  They were both evidently well known, for
the head waiter was obsequious and hurried them over to the best table
he had left and took the order himself.

The man possessed a keen, intelligent face.  You might have marked him
for a successful lawyer, for there was an earnestness about his
expression which precluded a life of idleness.  His age might have been
anywhere between forty and fifty.  The shoulders were broad and the
hands which lay clasped upon the table were slim but muscular.  Indeed,
everything about him suggested hidden strength and vitality.  His
companion was small, handsome, and animated.  Her frequent gestures and
mutable eyebrows betrayed her foreign birth.  Her age was a matter of
importance to no one but herself.

[Illustration: YOU MIGHT HAVE MARKED HIM FOR A SUCCESSFUL LAWYER]

They were at coffee when she said: "There's a young man coming toward
us.  He is looking at you."

The man turned.  Instantly his face lighted up with a friendly smile of
recognition.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"A chap worth knowing; a reporter just a little out of the ordinary.
I'm going to introduce him.  You never can tell.  We might need him
some day.  Ah, Norton, how are you?"

"Good evening, Mr. Braine."  The reporter, catching sight of a pair of
dazzling eyes, hesitated.

"The Countess Perigoff, Norton.  You're in no hurry, are you?"

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS PERIGOFF]

"Not now," smiled the reporter.

"Ah!" said the countess, interested.  It was the old compliment, said
in an unusual way.  It pleased her.

The reporter sank into a chair.  When inactive he was rather a
dreamy-eyed sort of chap.  He possessed that rare accomplishment of
talking upon one subject and thinking upon another at the same time.
So while he talked gaily with the young woman on varied themes, his
thoughts were busy speculating upon her companion.  He was quite
certain that the name Braine was assumed, but he was also equally
certain that the man carried an extraordinary brain under his thatch of
salt and pepper hair.  The man had written three or four brilliant
monographs on poisons and the uses of radium, and it was through and by
these that the reporter had managed to pick up his acquaintance.  He
lived well, but inconspicuously.

Suddenly the pupils of Braine's eyes narrowed; the eye became cold.
Over the smoke of his cigarette he was looking into the wall mirror.  A
man had passed behind him and sat down at the next table.  Still gazing
into the mirror, Braine saw Norton wave his hand; saw also the open
wonder on the reporter's pleasant face.

"Who is your friend, Norton?" Braine asked indifferently, his head
still unturned.

"Stanley Hargreave.  Met him in Hongkong when I was sent over to handle
a part of the revolution.  War correspondence stuff.  First time I ever
ran across him on Broadway at night.  We've since had some powwows over
some rare books.  Queer old cock; brave as a lion, but as quiet as a
mouse."

"Bookish, eh?  My kind.  Bring him over."  Underneath the table Braine
maneuvered to touch the foot of the countess.

"I don't know," said the reporter dubiously.  "He might say no, and
that would embarrass the whole lot of us.  He's a bit of a hermit.  I'm
surprised to see him here."

"Try," urged the countess.  "I like to meet men who are hermits."

"I haven't the least doubt about that," the reporter laughed.  "I'll
try; but don't blame me if I'm rebuffed."

He left the table with evident reluctance and approached Hargreave.
The two shook hands cordially, for the elder man was rather fond of
this medley of information known as Jim Norton.

"Sit down, boy; sit down.  You're just the kind of a man I've been
wanting to talk to to-night."

"Wouldn't you rather talk to a pretty woman?"

"I'm an old man."

"Bah!  That's a hypocritical bluff, and you know it.  My friends at the
next table have asked me to bring you over."

"I do not usually care to meet strangers."

"Make an exception this once," said the reporter, who had seen Braine's
eyes change and was curious to know why the appearance of Hargreave in
the mirror had brought about that metally gleam.  Here were two unique
men; he desired to see them face to face.

"This once.  My fault; I ought not to be here; I feel out of place.
What a life, though, you reporters lead!  To meet kings and presidents
and great financiers, socialists and anarchists, the whole scale of
life, and to slap these people on the back as if they were every-day
friends!"

"Now you're making fun of me.  For one king there are always twenty
thick brogans ready to kick me down the steps; don't forget that."

Hargreave laughed.  "Come, then; let us get it over with."

The introductions were made.  Norton felt rather chagrined.  As far as
he could see, the two men were total strangers.  Well, it was all in
the game.  Nine out of ten opportunities for the big story were fake
alarms; but he was always willing to risk the labor these nine entailed
for the sake of the tenth.

At length Braine glanced at his watch, and the countess nodded.  Adieux
were said.  Inside the taxicab Braine leaned back with a deep, audible
sigh.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The luck of the devil's own," he said.  "Child of the Steppes, for
years I've flown about seas and continents, through valleys and over
mountains--for what?  For the sight of the face of that man we have
just left.  At first glance I wasn't sure; but the sound of his voice
was enough.  Olga, the next time you see that reporter, throw your arms
around his neck and kiss him.  What did I tell you?  Without Norton's
help I would not have been sure.  I'm going to leave you at your
apartment."

"The man of the Black Hundred?" she whispered.

"The man who deserted and defied the Black Hundred, who broke his vows,
and never paid a kopeck for the privilege; the man who had been
appointed for the supreme work and who ran away.  In those days we
needed men of his stamp, and to accomplish this end...."

"There was a woman," she interrupted, with a touch of bitterness.

"Always the woman.  And she was as clever and handsome as you are."

"Thanks.  Sometimes..."

"Ah, yes!" ironically.  "Sometimes you wish you could settle down,
marry and have a family!  Your domesticity would last about a month."

She made no retort because she recognized the truth of this statement.

"There's an emerald I know of," he said ruminatively.  "It's quite
possible that you may be wearing it within a few days."

"I am mad over them.  There is something in the green stone that
fascinates me.  I can't resist it."

"That's because, somewhere in the far past, your ancestors were
orientals.  Here we are.  I'll see you to-morrow.  I must hurry.  Good
night."

She stood on the curb for a moment and watched the taxicab as it
whirled around a corner.  The man held her with a fascination more
terrible than any jewel.  She knew him to be a great and daring rogue,
cunning, patient, fearless.  Packed away in that mind of his there were
a thousand accomplished deeds which had roused futilely the police of
two continents.  Braine!  She could have laughed.  The very name he had
chosen was an insolence directed at society.

The subject of her thoughts soon arrived at his destination.  A flight
of stairs carried him into a dimly lighted hall, smelling evilly of
escaping gas.  He donned a black mask and struck the door with a series
of light blows; two, then one, then three, and again one.  The door
opened and he slipped inside.  Round a table sat several men, also
masked.  They were all tried and trusted rogues; but not one of them
knew what Braine looked like.  He alone remained unknown save to the
man designated as the chief, who was only Braine's lieutenant.  The
mask was the insignia of the Black Hundred, an organization with all
the ramifications of the Camorra without their abiding stupidity.  From
the assassination of a king, down to the robbery of a country
post-office, nothing was too great or too small for their nets.  Their
god dwells in the hearts of all men and is called greed.

The ordinary business over, the chief dismissed the men, and he and
Braine alone remained.

"Vroon, I have found him," said Braine.

"There are but few: which one?"

"Eighteen years ago, in St. Petersburg."

"I remember.  The millionaire's son.  Did he recognize you?"

"I don't know.  Probably he did.  But he always had good nerves.  He is
being followed at this moment.  We shall strike quick; for if he
recognized me he will act quick.  He is cool and brave.  You remember
how he braved us that night in Russia.  Jumped boldly through the
window at the risk of breaking his neck.  He landed safely; that is the
only reason he eluded us.  Millions--and they slipped through our
fingers.  If I could only find some route to his heart!  The lure we
held out to him is dead."

[Illustration: THE BLACK HUNDRED]

"Or in the fortress, which is the same thing.  What are your plans?"

"I have in mind something like this."

And Hargreave was working out his plans, too; and he was just as much
of a general as Braine.  He sat at his library table, the maxillary
muscles of his jaws working.  So they had found him?  Well, he had
broken the law of his own making and he must suffer the consequences.
Braine, who was Menshikoff in Russia, Schwartz in Germany, Mendoza in
Spain, Cartucci in Italy, and Du Bois in France; so the rogue had found
him out?  Poor fool that he had been!  High spirited, full of those
youthful dreams of doing good in the world, he had joined what he had
believed a great secret socialistic movement, to learn that he had been
trapped by a band of brilliant thieves.  Kidnapers and assassins for
hire; the Black Hundred; fiends from Tophet!  For nearly eighteen years
he had eluded them, for he knew that directly or indirectly they would
never cease to hunt for him; and an idle whim had toppled him into
their clutches.

He wrote several letters feverishly.  The last was addressed to Miss
Susan Farlow and read: "Dear Madam: Send Florence Gray to New York, to
arrive here Friday morning.  My half of the bracelet will be
identification.  Inclosed find cash to square accounts."  He would get
together all his available funds, recover his child, and fly to the
ends of the world.  He would tire them out.  They would find that the
peaceful dog was a bad animal to rouse.  He rang for the faithful Jones.

"Jones, they have found me," he said simply.

"You will need me, then?"

"Quite possible.  Please mail these and then we'll talk it over.  No
doubt some one is watching outside.  Be careful."

"Very good, sir."

Hargreave bowed his head in his hands.  Many times he had journeyed to
the school and hung about the gates, straining his eyes toward the
merry groups of young girls.  Which among them was his, heart of his
heart, blood of his blood?  That she might never be drawn into this
abominable tangle, he had resolutely torn her out of his life
completely.  The happiness of watching the child grow into girlhood he
had denied himself.  She at least would be safe.  Only when she was
safe in a far country would he dare tell her.  He tried in vain to
conjure up a picture of her; he always saw the mother whom he had loved
and hated with all the ardor of his youth.

Many things happened the next day.  There was a visit to the hangar of
one William Orts, the aviator, famous for his daredevil exploits.
There were two visitors, in fact, and the second visitor was knocked
down for his pains.  He had tried to bribe Orts.

There were several excited bankers, who protested against such large
withdrawals without the usual formal announcement.  But a check was a
check, and they had to pay.

[Illustration: FIENDS FROM TOPHET]

Hargreave covered a good deal of ground, but during all this time his
right hand never left the automatic in his overcoat pocket, except at
those moments when he was obliged to sign his checks.  He would shoot
and make inquiries afterward.

Far away a young girl and her companion got on the train which was to
carry her to New York, the great dream city she was always longing to
see.

And the spider wove his web.

Hargreave reached home at night.  He put the money in the safe and was
telephoning when Jones entered and handed his master an unstamped note.

"Where did you get this?"

"At the door, sir.  I judge that the house is surrounded."

Hargreave read the note.  It stated briefly that all his movements
during the day had been noted.  It was known that he had collected a
million in paper money.  If he surrendered this he would be allowed
twenty-four hours before the real chase began.  Otherwise he should die
before midnight.  Hargreave crushed the note in his hand.  They might
kill him; there was a chance of their accomplishing that; but never
should they touch his daughter's fortune.

"Jones, you go to the rear door and I'll take a look out of the front.
We have an hour.  I know the breed.  They'll wait till midnight and
then force their way in."

Hargreave saw a dozen shadows in the front yard.

"Men all about the back yard," whispered Jones down the hall.

The master eyed the man.

"Very well, sir," replied the latter, with understanding.  "I am ready."

The master went to the safe, emptied it of its contents, crossed the
hall to the bedroom, and closed the door softly behind him, Jones
having entered the same room through another door to befool any
possible watcher.  After a long while, perhaps an hour, the two men
emerged from the room from the same doors they had entered.  So
whispered the watcher to his friends below.

"Hargreave is going up-stairs."

"Let him go.  Let him take a look at us from the upper windows.  He
will understand that nothing but wings will save him."

Silence.  By and by a watcher reported that he heard the scuttle of the
roof rattle.

"Look!" another cried, startled.

A bluish glare came from the roof.

"He's shooting off a Roman candle!"

They never saw the man-made bird till it alighted upon the roof.  They
never thought of shooting at it until it had taken wing!  Then they
rushed the doors of the house.  They made short work of Jones, whom
they tied up like a Christmas fowl and plumped roughly into a chair.
They broke open the safe, to find it empty.  And while the rogues were
rummaging about the room, venting their spite upon many a treasure they
could neither appreciate nor understand, a man from the outside burst
in.

"The old man is dead and the money is at the bottom of the ocean!  We
punctured her.  She's gone!"

A thin, inscrutable smile stirred the lips of the man bound in the
chair.




CHAPTER II

Vroon faced Hargreave's butler somberly.  The one reason why Braine
made this man his lieutenant was because Vroon always followed the
letter of his instructions to the final period; he never sidestepped or
added any frills or innovations of his own, and because of this very
automatism he rarely blundered into a trap.  If he failed it was for
the simple fact that the master mind had overlooked some essential
detail.  The organization of the Black Hundred was almost totally
unknown to either the public or the police.  It is only when you fail
that you are found out.

"The patrolman has been trussed up like you," began Vroon.  "If they
find him they will probably find you.  But before that you will grow
thirsty and hungry.  Where did your master put that money?"

"He carried it with him."

"Why didn't you call for help?"

"The houses on either side are too far away.  I might yell till
doomsday without being heard.  They will have heard the pistol shots;
but Mr. Hargreave was always practising in the back yard."

"The people in those two houses have been called out of town.  The
servants are off for the night."

"Very interesting," replied Jones, staring at the rug.

"Your master is dead."

Jones' chin sank upon his breast.  His heart was heavy, heavier than it
had ever been before.

"Your master left a will?"

"Indeed, I could not say."

"We can say.  He has still three or four millions in stocks and bonds.
What he took to the bottom of the sea with him was his available cash."

"I know nothing about his finances.  I was his butler and valet."

Vroon nodded.  "Come, men; it is time we took ourselves off.  Put
things in order; close the safe.  You poor jackals, I always have to
watch you for outbreaks of vandalism.  Off with you!"

He was the last to leave.  He stared long and searchingly at Jones, who
felt the burning gaze but refused to meet it lest the plotter see the
fire in his.  The door closed.  For fully an hour Jones listened but
did not stir.  They were really gone.  He pressed his feet to the floor
and began to hitch the chair toward the table.  Half-way across the
intervening space he crumpled in the chair, almost completely
exhausted.  He let a quarter of an hour pass, then made the final
attack upon the remaining distance.  He succeeded in reaching the desk,
but he could not have stirred an inch farther.  The hair on his head
was damp with sweat and his hands were clammy.

When he felt strength returning he lifted the telephone off the hook
with his teeth.

"Central, central!  Call the police to come to this number at once;
Hargreave's house, Riverdale.  Tell them to break in."

After what seemed an age of waiting to the exhausted prisoner, with
crashing and smashing of doors, the police appeared in the room.

"Where's your gag?" demanded the first officer to reach Jones' side.

"There wasn't any."

"Then why didn't you yell for help?"

"The thieves lured our neighbors away from town.  The patrolman who
walks this beat is bound and gagged and is probably reposing back of
the billboard in the next block."

"Murphy, you watch this man while I make a call on the neighbors," said
the officer who seemed to be in authority.  When he returned he was
frowning seriously.  "We'd better telephone to the precinct to search
for Dennison.  There's nobody at home in either house and there's
nobody back of the billboards.  Untie the man."  When this was done,
the officer said: "Now, tell us what's happened; and don't forget any
of the details."

Jones told a simple and convincing story; it was so simple and
convincing that the police believed it without question.

"Well, if that ain't the limit!  Did you hear any autos outside?"

"I don't recollect," said Jones, stretching his legs gratefully.  "Why?"

"The auto bandits held up a bank messenger to-day and got away with
twenty thousand.  Whenever a man draws down a big sum they seem to know
about it.  And say, Murphy, call up and have the river police look out
for a new-fangled airship.  Your master may have been rescued," turning
to Jones.

"If I were only sure of that, sir!"

When the police took themselves off Jones proceeded to act upon those
plans laid down by Hargreave early that night.  When this was done he
sought his bed and fell asleep, the sleep of the exhausted.  When
Hargreave picked up Jones to share his fortunes, he had put his trust
in no ordinary man.

A dozen reporters trooped out to the Hargreave home, only to find it
deserted.  And while they were ringing bells and tapping windows, the
man they sought was tramping up and down the platform of the railway
station.

Through all this time Norton, the reporter, Hargreave's only friend,
slept the sleep of the just and unjust.  He rarely opened his eyes
before noon.

Group after group of passengers Jones eyed eagerly.  Often, just as he
was in the act of approaching a couple of young women, some man would
hurry up, and there would be kisses or handshakes.  At length the crowd
thinned, and then it was that he discovered a young girl perhaps
eighteen, accompanied by a young woman in the early thirties.  They had
the appearance of eagerly awaiting some one.  Jones stepped forward
with a good deal of diffidence.

"You are waiting for some one?"

"Yes," said the elder woman, coldly.

"A broken bracelet?"

The distrust on both faces vanished instantly.  The young girl's face
brightened, her eyes sparkled with suppressed excitement.

"You are ... my father?"

"No, miss," very gravely.  "I am the butler."

"Let me see your part of the bracelet," said the young girl's guardian,
a teacher who had been assigned to this delicate task by Miss Farlow,
who could not bring herself to say good-by to Florence anywhere except
at the school gates.

The halves were produced and examined.

"I believe we may trust him, Florence."

"Let us hurry to the taxicab.  We must not stand here."

"My mother?"

"She is dead.  I believe she died shortly after your birth.  I have
been with your father but fourteen years.  I know but little of his
life prior to that."

"Why did he leave me all these years without ever coming to see me?
Why?"

"It is not for me, Miss Florence, to inquire into your father's act.
But I do know that whatever he did was meant for the best.  Your
welfare was everything to him."

"It is all very strange," said the girl, bewilderedly.  "Why didn't he
come to meet me instead of you?"

Jones stared at his hands, miserably.

"Why?" she demanded.  "I have thought of him, thought of him.  He has
hurt me with all this neglect.  I expected to see him at the station,
to throw my arms, around his neck and ... forgive him!"  Tears swam in
her eyes as she spoke.

"Everything will be explained to you when we reach the house.  But
always remember this, Miss Florence: You were everything in this wide
world to your father.  You will never know the misery and loneliness he
suffered that you might not have one hour of unrest.  What are your
plans?" he asked abruptly of the teacher from Miss Farlow's.

"That depends," she answered, laying her hand protectingly over the
girl's.

"You could leave Miss Farlow's on the moment?"

"Yes."

"Then you will stay and be Miss Florence's companion?"

"Gladly."

"What is my father's name?"

"Hargreave, Stanley Hargreave."

The girl's eyes widened in terror.  Suddenly she burst into a wild
frenzy of sobbing, her head against the shoulder of her erstwhile
teacher.

Jones appeared visibly shocked.  "What is it?"

"We read the story in the newspaper," said the elder woman, her own
eyes filling with tears.  "The poor child!  To have all her
castles-in-air tumble down like this!  But what authority have you to
engage me?" sensibly.

Jones produced a document, duly signed by Hargreave, and witnessed and
sealed by a notary, in which it was set forth that Henry Jones, butler
and valet to Stanley Hargreave, had full powers of attorney in the
event of his (Hargreave's) disappearance; in the event of his death,
till Florence became of legal age.

Said Jones as he put the document back in his pocket: "What is your
name?"

"Susan Wane."

"Do you love this child?"

"With all my heart, the poor unhappy babe!"

"Thank you!"

Inside the home he conducted them through the various rooms, at the
same time telling them what had taken place during the preceding night.

"They have not found his body?" asked Florence.  "My poor, poor father!"

"No."

"Then he may be alive!"

"Please God that he may!" said the butler, with genuine piety, for he
had loved the man who had gone forth into the night so bravely and so
strangely.  "This is your room.  Your father spent many happy hours
here preparing it for you."

Tears came into the girl's eyes again, and discreetly Jones left the
two alone.

"What shall I do, Susan?  Whatever shall I do?"

"Be brave as you always are.  I will never leave you till you find your
father."

Florence kissed her fervently.  "What is your opinion of the butler?"

"I think we may both trust him absolutely."

Then Florence began exploring the house.  Susan followed her closely.
Florence peered behind the mirrors, the pictures, in the drawers of the
desk, in the bookcases.

"What are you hunting for, child?"

"A photograph of father."  But she found none.  More, there were no
photographs of any kind to be found in Stanley Hargreave's home.

When Norton awoke, he naturally went to the door for the morning papers
which were always placed in a neat pile before the sill.  He yawned,
gathered up the bundle, was about to climb back into bed, when a
headline caught his dull eyes.  Twenty-one minutes later, to be
precise, he ran up the steps of the Hargreave home and rang the bell.
He was admitted by the taciturn Jones, to whom the reporter had never
paid any particular attention.  Somehow Jones always managed to stand
in shadows.

"I can add nothing to what has already appeared in the newspapers,"
replied Jones, as Norton opened his batteries of inquiries.

"Mr. Jones, I have known your master several years, as you will
recollect.  There never was a woman in this house, not even among the
servants.  There are two in the other room.  Who are they?  And what
are they doing here?"

Jones shook his head.

"Well, I can easily find out."

Jones barred his path, and for the first time Norton gazed into the
eyes of the man servant.  They were as hard as gun metal.

"My dear Mr. Jones, you ought to know that sooner or later we reporters
find out what we seek."

Jones appeared to reflect.  "Mr. Norton, you claim to be a friend of
Mr. Hargreave?"

"I do not claim.  I am.  More than that I do not believe he is dead.
He was deep.  He had some relentless enemies--I don't know where from
or what kind--and he is pretending he's dead till this blows over and
is forgotten."

"You are not going to say that in your newspaper?"  Jones was visibly
agitated.

"Not if I can prove it."

"If I tell you who those young ladies are, will you give me your word
of honor not to write about them till I give my permission?"

Norton, having in mind the big story at the end of the mystery tangle,
agreed.

"The elder is a teacher from a private school; the other is Stanley
Hargreave's daughter."

"Good lord!" gasped the astonished reporter.  "He never mentioned the
fact to me, and we've been together in some tight places."

"He never mentioned it to any one but me."  Jones again seemed to
reflect.  At last he raised his glance to the reporter.  "Are you
willing to wait for a great story, the real story?"

"If there is one," answered Norton with his usual caution.

"On my word of honor, you shall have such a story as you never dreamed
of, if you will promise not to divulge it till the appointed time."

"I agree."

"The peace and happiness of that child depends upon how you keep your
word."

That was sufficient for Norton.  "Your master knew me.  He also knew
that I am not a man who promises lightly.  Now introduce me to the
daughter."

With plain reluctance Jones went about the affair.  Norton put a dozen
perfunctory questions to the girl.  What he was in search of was not
news but the sound of her voice.  In that quarter of an hour he felt
his heart disturbed as it had never before been disturbed.

"Now, Mr. Norton," said Jones gloomily, "will you be so kind as to
follow me?"

Norton was led to Jones' bedroom.  The butler-valet closed the door and
drew the window shade.  Always seeking shadows.  This did not impress
the reporter at the time; he had no other thought but the story.  Jones
then sat down beside the reporter and talked in an undertone.  When he
had done he took Norton by the elbow and gently but forcibly led him
down to the front door and ushered him forth.  Norton jumped into his
taxicab and returned to his rooms, which were at the top of the huge
apartment hotel.  He immediately called up his managing editor.

"Hello!  This is Norton.  Put Griffin on the Hargreave yarn.  I'm off
on another deal."

"But Hargreave was a friend of yours," protested the managing editor.

"I know it.  But you know me well enough, Mr. Blair.  I should not ask
the transfer if it was not vitally important."

"Oh, very well."

"We shan't be scooped."

"If you can promise that, I don't care who works on the job.  Will you
be in the office to-night?"

"If nothing prevents me."

"Well, good-by."

Norton filled his pipe, drew his chair to the window, and stared at the
great liner going down to sea.

"Lord, lord!" he murmured.  Then he smiled and chuckled.  Some bright
morning he would have all New York by the ears, the police running
round in circles, and the chiefs of the rival sheets tearing their
hair.  What a story!  Four columns on the first page, and two whole
pages Sunday....  And all of a sudden he ceased to smile and chuckle.

In the living room of the Countess Olga Perigoff's apartment the
mistress lay reading on the divan.  There was no cigarette between her
well shaped lips, for she was not the accepted type of adventuress.  In
fact, she was not an adventuress; she was really the Countess Perigoff.
Her maiden name had been Olga Pushkin; but more of that later.

When Braine came in he found her dreaming with half-closed eyes.  He
flourished an evening newspaper.

"Olga, even the best of us make mistakes.  Here, just glance over this."

The Russian accepted the newspaper and read the heading indicated:
"Aeronaut picked up far out at sea.  Slips ashore from tramp steamer.
Had five thousand in cash in his pockets."

"Hargreave escaped!"

"Not necessarily," she replied.  "If it was Hargreave he would have had
more than five thousand in his pockets.  My friend, I believe it an
attempt to fool you; or it is another man entirely."  She clicked her
teeth with the tops of her polished nails.

"There are two young women in the house.  What the deuce can that mean?"

"Two young women?  Oh! then everything's as simple as daylight.
Katrina Pushkin, my cousin, had a child."

"Child?  Hargreave had a child?  What do you mean by keeping this fact
from me?" he stormed.

"It was useless till this moment.  He probably sent for her yesterday;
but in his effort to escape had to turn her over to his butler.  We
shall soon learn whether Hargreave is dead or alive.  We can use the
child to bring him back."

The anger went out of his eyes.  "You're a wonder, Olga."

"But you should have gone with Vroon last night.  He does everything
just as you tell him.  When they reported that Hargreave had visited
Orts' hangar you ought to have prepared against such a coup as flight
through the air."

"I admit it.  But a daughter!  Well, I can bring him back," with a
sinister laugh.  "By the Lord Harry, I have him in my hands this time,
that is, if this girl turns out to be his daughter.  A million?  Two,
three, all he has in the world.  I want you to pay a visit right away.
Watch the butler, Jones.  He'll lie, of course; but note how he treats
the girl; and if you get the chance look around the walls for a secret
panel.  He might not have carried away the cash at all, only enough for
his immediate needs, which would account for that five thousand on the
man picked up at sea.  If I could only get inside that house for an
hour!"

"I believe I'll call at once.  Leo, was Hargreave the man's real name?"

Braine laughed.  "That is of no vital consequence.  He will be
Hargreave till the end of the chapter, dead or alive.  You can tell me
the news at dinner to-night."

So, later, when the butler accepted her card at the door, loath as he
might be, there was nothing for him to do but admit her.

"Whom do you wish to see, madam?" stepping back into the shadow.

"Miss Hargreave.  I'm an old friend of her mother's."

"There is no such person here."

"To whom, then, does this hat belong?" she asked quietly.  She waved
her hand indolently toward the hall rack.

Jones' lips tightened.  "That belongs to Miss Gray, a kind of protegee
of Mr. Hargreave's."

"Indeed!  You have no objections to my seeing her?  My maiden name was
Olga Pushkin, cousin to Katrina, wife of Stanley Hargreave.  I am, if
you will weigh the matter carefully, a kind of aunt."

To Jones it was as if ice had suddenly come into contact with his
heart's blood.  But as he still stood in the shadow, she did not
observe the pallor of his face.

"If you will state exactly why you wish to see her, madam."

"You seem to possess authority?"

"Yes, madam, absolute authority."

Jones produced his document and presented it to her.

"There is no flaw in that," she agreed readily.  "I wish to see the
child.  I have told you why."

"Very well, madam."  Why had they not telegraphed the child, even on
the train, to return to Farlow's.  He knew nothing of this woman,
whether she was an enemy or a friend.  He conducted his unwelcome guest
into the library.

"How did you know that she was here?" suddenly.

But she was ready.  "I did not.  But the death of Mr. Hargreave brought
me.  And that youthful hat in the hall was a story all its own.  Later
I shall show you some papers of my own.  You will have no cause to
doubt them.  They have not the legal power of yours, but they would
find standing in any court."

Jones turned and went in search of Florence.

The countess lost no time in beginning her investigations, but she
wasted her time.  There was no secret panel in evidence.

"Who is she?" asked Florence as she looked at the card.  "Did my father
know countesses?"

"Yes," said Jones briefly.  "Be very careful what you say to her.
Admit nothing.  She claims to be a cousin of your mother.  Perhaps."

"My mother?"  Without waiting for any further advice from Jones, whom
Florence in her young years thought presuming upon his authority, she
ran downstairs to the library.  Her mother, to learn some facts about
the mother of whom she knew nothing!

"You knew my mother?" she cried without ceremony,

Jones heard the countess say: "I did, my child; and heaven is witness
that you are the exact picture of her at your age.  And I knew your
father."

Jones straightened, his hands shut tightly.

"Tell me about my father!"

The countess smiled.  It was Katrina.  Pushkin come to life, the same
impulsiveness.  "I knew him but slightly.  I was a mere child myself
when he used to pinch my cheeks.  I met him again the other night, but
he did not recognize me; and I could not find it in my heart to awaken
his memory in a public restaurant."

Presently Jones came in to announce that two detectives requested to
see Florence.  The two men entered, informing her that they had been
instructed to investigate the disappearance of Stanley Hargreave.

"Who are you, miss?"

"I am his daughter."

"Ah!"

One of the detectives questioned Florence minutely, while the other
wandered about the rooms, feeling the walls, using the magnifying
glass, turning back the rugs.  Even the girl's pretty room did not
escape his scrutiny.  By and by he returned to the library and beckoned
to his companion.  The two conferred for a moment.  One chanced to look
into the mirror.  He saw the bright eyes of the countess gazing
intelligently into his.

[Illustration: THE PEACEFUL BUTLER ENTERED INTO THE FIELD OF ACTION]

"I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to accompany us to the station, miss."

"Why?"

"Some technicalities.  We must have some proof of your right to be in
this house.  So far as we have learned, Hargreave was unmarried.  It
will take but a few minutes."

"And I will accompany you," said the countess.  "We'll be back within
half an hour.  I'll tell them what I know."

Jones, in the hall, caught sight of the reporter coming up the steps.
Here was some one he could depend upon.

"Why, Mr. Norton!"

The reporter eyed the countess in amazement.

"You look surprised.  Naturally.  I am a cousin of Miss Florence's
mother.  You might say that I am her aunt.  It's a small world, isn't
it?"  But if wishing could poison, the reporter would have died that
moment.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" one of the detectives
demanded.

"I am going to ask that very question of you," said Norton urbanely.

"We are from headquarters," replied one, showing his badge.

"What headquarters?  What are they asking you to do?" he said to
Florence.

"They say I must go to the police station with them."

"Not the least in the world," laughed the reporter.  "You two clear out
of here as fast as your rascally legs can carry you.  I don't know what
your game is, but I do know every reputable detective in New York, and
you don't belong."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the countess; "do you mean to say that these
men are not real detectives?"

"This girl goes to the police station, young man.  So much the worse
for you if you meddle.  Take yourself off!"

"All in good time."

"Here, Jenner, you take charge of the girl.  I'll handle this guy.  He
shall go to the station, too."

What followed would always be vividly remembered by Florence, fresh
from the peace and happiness of her school life.  Norton knocked his
opponent down.  He rose and for a moment the room seemed full of legs
and arms and panting men.  A foot tripped up Norton and he went down
under the bogus detective.  He never suspected that the tripping foot
was not accidental.  He was too busy.

The other man dragged Florence toward the hall, but there the peaceful
butler entered into the field of action with a very unattractive
automatic.  The detective threw up his hands.

The struggle went on in the library.  A trick of jiu-jutsu brought
about the downfall of Norton's man, and Norton ran out into the hall to
aid Jones.  He searched the detective's pockets and secured the
revolver.  The result of all this was that the two bogus detectives
soon found themselves in charge of two policemen, and they were marched
off to the station.

"Your advent was most providential, Mr. Norton," said Jones in his
usual colorless tones.

"I rather believe so.  Why don't you pack up and clear out for a while?"

"I am stronger in this house than elsewhere," answered the butler
enigmatically.

"Well, you know best," said the reporter.

The countess was breathing rapidly.  No, on second thought she had no
wish to throw her arms about the reporter's neck and kiss him.




CHAPTER III

The countess did not remain long after the departure of the police with
the bogus detectives.  It had been a very difficult corner to wriggle
out of, all because Braine had added to his plans after she had left
the apartment.  But for the advent of the meddling reporter the coup
would have succeeded, herself apparently perfectly innocent of
complicity.  That must be the keynote of all her plans: to appear quite
innocent and leave no trail behind her.  She had gained the confidence
of Florence and her companion.  And she was rather certain that she had
impressed this lazy-eyed reporter and the stolid butler.  She had told
nothing but the truth regarding her relationship.  They would find that
out.  She was Katrina Pushkin's cousin.  But blood with her counted as
naught.  She had room in her heart but for two things, Braine and money
to spend on her caprices.

[Illustration: SHE HAD GAINED THE CONFIDENCE OF FLORENCE]

"How long has your highness known Mr. Braine?" asked the reporter idly,
as he smoothed away all signs of his recent conflict.

"Oh, the better part of a year.  Mr. Hargreave did not recognize me the
other night.  That was quite excusable, for when he last saw me I was
not more than twelve.  My child," she said to Florence, "build no hopes
regarding your mother.  She is doubtless dead.  Upon some trivial
matter--I do not know what it was--she was confined to the fortress.
That was seventeen years ago.  When you enter the fortress at St.
Petersburg, you cease to be."

"That is true enough."

"I did not recall myself to your father.  I did not care at that moment
to shock him with the remembrance of the past.  Is not Mr. Braine a
remarkable man?"  All this in her charming broken English.

"He is, indeed," affirmed Norton.  "He's a superb linguist, knows
everybody and has traveled everywhere.  No matter what subject you
bring up he seems well informed."

"Come often," urged Florence.

"I shall, my child.  And any time you need me, call for me.  After all,
I am nearly your aunt.  You will find life in the city far different
from that which you have been accustomed to."

She limped down to her limousine.  In tripping up Norton he had stepped
upon her foot heavily.

"She is lovely!" cried Florence.

"Well, I must be on my way, also," said Norton.  "I am a worldly-wise
man, Miss Florence.  So is Jones here.  Never go any place without
letting him know; not even to the corner drug store.  I am going to
find your father.  Some one was rescued.  I'm going to find out whether
it was the aviator or Mr. Hargreave."

Jones drew in a deep breath and his eyes closed for a moment.  At the
door he spoke to the reporter.

"What do you think of that woman?"

"I believe that she told the truth.  She is charming."

"She is.  But for all her charm and truth I can not help distrusting
her.  I have an idea.  I shall call up your office at the end of each
day.  If a day comes without a call, you will know that something is
wrong."

"A very good idea."  Norton shook hands with every one and departed.

"What a brave, pleasant young man!" murmured Susan.

"I like him, too; and I'd like him for a friend," said the guileless
girl.

"It is very good to have a friend like Mr. Norton," added Jones; and
passed out into the kitchen.  All the help had been discharged and upon
his shoulders lay the burden of the cooking till such time when he
could reinstate the cook.

There was a stormy scene between Braine and the countess that night.

[Illustration: THERE WAS A STORMY SCENE BETWEEN BRAINE AND THE PRINCESS]

"Are you in your dotage?" she asked vehemently.

"There, there; bring your voice down a bit.  Where's the girl?"

"In her home.  Where did you suppose she would be, after that botchwork
of letting me go to do one thing while you had in mind another?  And an
ordinary pair of cutthroats, at that!"

"The thought came to me after you left.  I knew you'd recognize the men
and understand.  I see no reason why it didn't work."

"It would have been all right if you had consulted a clairvoyant."

"What the deuce do you mean by that?" Braine demanded roughly.

"I mean that then you would have learned your friend the reporter was
to arrive upon the scene at its most vital moment."

"What, Norton?"

"Yes.  The trouble is with you, you have been so successful all these
years that you have grown overconfident.  I tell you that there is a
desperately shrewd man somewhere back of all this.  Mark me, I do not
believe Hargreave is dead.  He is in hiding.  It may be near by.  He
may have dropped from the balloon before it left land.  The man they
picked up may be Orts, the aeronaut.  The five thousand might have been
his fee for rescuing Hargreave.  Here is the greatest thing we've ever
been up against; and you start in with every-day methods!"

"Little woman, don't let your tongue run away with you too far."

"I'm not the least bit afraid of you, Leo.  You need me, and it has
never been more apparent than at this moment."

"All right.  I fell by the wayside this trip.  Truthfully, I realized
it five minutes after the men were gone.  The only clever thing I did
was to keep the mask on my face.  They can't come back at me.  But the
thing looked so easy; and it would have worked but for Norton's
appearance."

"You all but compromised me.  That butler worries me a little."  Her
expression lost its anger and grew thoughtful.  "He's always about,
somewhere.  Do you think Hargreave took him into his confidence?"

"Can't tell.  He's been watched straight for forty hours.  He hasn't
mailed a letter or telephoned to any place but the grocery.  There have
been no telegrams.  Some one in that house knows where the money is,
and it's ten to one that it will be the girl."

"She looks enough like Katrina to be her ghost."

Braine went over to the window and stared up at the stars.

"You have made a good impression on the girl?" with his back still
toward her.

"I had her in my arms."

"Olga, my hat is off to you," turning, now that his face was again in
repose.  "Your very frankness regarding your relationship will pull the
wool over their eyes.  Of course they'll make inquiries and they'll
find out that you haven't lied.  It's perfect.  Not even that newspaper
weasel will see anything wrong.  Toward you they will eventually ease
up and you can act without their even dreaming your part in the
business.  We must not be seen in public any more.  This butler may
know where I stand even though he can not prove it.  Now, I'm going to
tell you something.  Perhaps you've long since guessed it.  Katrina was
mine till Hargreave--never mind what his name was then--till Hargreave
came into the fold.  So sure of her was I that I used her as a lure to
bring him to us.  She fell in love with him, but too late to warn him.
I had the satisfaction of seeing him cast her aside, curse her, and
leave her.  In one thing she fooled us all.  I never knew of the child
till you told me."

He paused to light a cigarette.

"Hargreave was madly in love with her.  He cursed her, but he came back
to the house to forgive her, to find that she had been seized by the
secret police and entombed in the fortress.  I had my revenge.  It was
I who sent in the information, practically bogus.  But in Russia they
never question; they act and forget.  So he had a daughter!"

He paced the floor, his hands behind his back; the woman watched him,
oscillating between love and fear.  He came to a halt abruptly and
looked down at her.

"Don't worry.  You have no rival.  I'll leave the daughter to your
tender mercies."

"The butler," she said, "has full power of attorney to act for
Hargreave while absent, up to the day the girl becomes of legal age."

"I'll keep an eye on our friend Jones.  From now on, day and night,
there will be a cat at the knothole, and 'ware mouse!  Could you make
up anything like this girl?" suddenly.

"A fair likeness."

"Do it.  Go to the ship which picked up the man at sea and quiz the
captain.  Either the aviator or Hargreave is alive.  It is important to
learn which at once.  Be very careful; play the game only as you know
how to play it.  And if Hargreave is alive, we win.  To-morrow morning,
early.  Tears of anguish, and all that.  Sailors are easy when a woman
weeps.  No color, remember; just the yellow wig and the salient
features.  Now, by-by!"

"Aren't you going to kiss me, Leo?"

He caught her hands.  "There is a species of Delilah about you, Olga.
A kiss to-night from your lips would snip my locks; and I need a clear
head.  Whether we fail or win, when this game is played you shall be my
wife."  He kissed the hands and strode out into the hall.

The woman gazed down at her small white hands and smiled tenderly.
(The tigress has her tender moments!)  He meant it!

She went into her dressing-room and for an hour or more worked over her
face and hair, till she was certain that if the captain of the ship
described her to any one else he could not fail to give a fair
description of Florence Hargreave.

But Norton reached the captain first.  Other reporters had besieged
him, but they had succeeded in gathering the vaguest kind of
information.  They had no description of Hargreave, while Norton had.
Before going down to the boat, however, he had delved into the past of
the Countess Olga Perigoff.  It cost him a pocketful of money, but the
end justified the means.  The countess had no past worth mentioning.
By piecing this and that together he became assured that she had told
the simple truth regarding the relationship to Florence's mother.  A
cablegram had given him all the facts in her history; there were no
gaps or discrepancies.  It read clear and frank.  Trust a Russian
secret agent to know what he was talking about.

[Illustration: NORTON REACHED THE CAPTAIN FIRST]

So Norton's suspicions--and he had entertained some--were completely
lulled to sleep.  And he wouldn't have doubted her at all except for
the fact that Braine had been with her when he had introduced
Hargreave.  Hargreave had feared Braine; that much the reporter had
elicited from the butler.  But there wasn't the slightest evidence.
Braine had been in New York for nearly six years.  The countess had
arrived in the city but a year ago.  And Braine was a member of several
fashionable clubs, never touched cards, and seldom drank.  He was an
expert chess player and a wonderful amateur billiardist.  Perhaps
Jones, the taciturn and inscrutable, had not told him all he knew
regarding his master's past.  Well, well; he had in his time untangled
worse snarls.  The office had turned him loose, a free lance, to handle
the case as he saw fit, to turn in the story when it was complete.

But what a story it was going to be when he cleared it up!  The more
mystifying it was, the greater the zest and sport for him.  Norton was
like a gambler who played for big stakes, and only big stakes stirred
his cravings.

The captain of the tramp steamer _Orient_ told him the same tale he had
told the other reporters: he had picked up a man at sea.  The man had
been brought aboard totally exhausted.

"Was there another body anywhere?"

"No."

"What became of him?"

"I sent a wireless and that seemed to bother him.  It looked as though
he did not want anybody to learn that he had been rescued.  The moment
the boat touched the pier he lost himself in the crowd.  Fifty
reporters came aboard, but he was gone.  And I could but tell them just
what I'm telling you."

"He had money."

"About five thousand."

"Please describe him."

The captain did so.  It was the same description he had given to all
the reporters.  Norton looked over the rail at the big warehouse.

"Was it an ordinary balloon?"

"There you've got me.  My Marconi man says the balloon part was like
any other balloon; but the passenger car was a new business to him.  It
could be driven against the wind."

"Driven against the wind.  Did you tell this to the other chaps?"

"Don't think I did.  Just remembered it.  Probably some new invention;
and now it's at the bottom of the sea.  Two men, as I understand, went
off in this contraption.  One is gone for good."

"For good," echoed the reporter gravely.  "Gone for good, indeed, poor
devil!"

Norton took out a roll of bills.  "There's two hundred in this roll."

"Well?" said the captain, vastly astonished.

"It's yours if you will do me a small favor."

"If it doesn't get me mixed up with the police.  I'm only captain of a
tramp; and some of the harbor police have taken a dislike to me.  What
do you want me to do?"

"The police will not bother you.  This man Hargreave had some enemies;
they want either his life or his money; maybe both.  It's a peculiar
case, with Russia in the background.  He might have laid the whole
business before the police, but he chose to fight it out himself.  And
to tell the truth, I don't believe the police would have done any good."

"Heave her over; what do you want me to do for that handsome roll of
money?"

"If any man or woman who is not a reporter comes to pump you tell them
the man went ashore with a packet under his arm."

"Tie a knot in that."

"Say the man was gray-haired, clean-shaven, straight, with a scar high
up on his forehead, generally covered up by his hair."

"That's battened down, my lad.  Go on."

"Say that you saw him enter yonder warehouse, and later depart without
his packet."

"Easy as dropping my mudhook."

"That's all."  Norton gave the captain the money.  "Good-by and many
thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Norton left the slip and proceeded to the office of the warehouse.  He
approached the manager's desk.

"Hello, Grannis, old top!"

The man looked up from his work surlily.  Then his face brightened.

"Norton?  What's brought you here?  Oh, yes; that balloon business.
Sit down."

"What kind of a man is the captain of that old hooker in the slip?"

"Shifty in gun running, but otherwise as square as a die.  Looks funny
to see an old tub like that fixed up with wireless; but that has saved
his neck a dozen times when he was running it into a noose.  Not going
to interview me, are you?"

"No.  I'm going to ask you to do me a little favor."

"They always say that.  But spin her out.  If it doesn't cost me my
job, it's yours."

"Well, there will be a person making inquiries about the mysterious
aeronaut.  All I want you to say is, that he left a packet with you,
that you've put it in that safe till he calls to claim it."

Grannis nibbled the end of his pen.  "Suppose some one should come and
demand that I open the safe and deliver?"

"All you've got to do is to tell them to show the receipt signed by
you."

The warehouse manager laughed.  "Got a lot of sense in that ivory dome
of yours.  All right.  But if anything happens you've got to come
around and back me up.  What's it about?"

"That I dare not tell you.  This much, I'm laying a trap and I want
some one I don't know to fall into it."

"On your way, James.  But if you don't send me some prize fight tickets
next week for this, I'll never do you another favor."

In reply Norton took from his pocket two bits of pasteboard and laid
them on the desk.  "I knew you'd be wanting something like this."

"Ringside!" cried Grannis.  "You reporters are lucky devils!"

"I'd go myself if there was any earthly chance of a real scrap.  You
make me laugh, Gran.  You're always going, always hoping the next one
will be a real one.  But it's all bunk.  The pugs are the biggest
fakers on top of the sod.  They've got us newspaper men done to a
frazzle."

"I guess you're right.  Well, count on me regarding that mysterious
bundle in the safe."

"At three o'clock this afternoon I want you to call me up.  If no one
has called, why the game is up.  But if some one does come around and
make inquiries, don't fail to let me know."

"I'll be here till five.  I'd better call you up then."

Then Norton returned home and idled about till afternoon.  He went over
to Riverdale.  Five times he walked up and down in front of the
Hargreave place, finally plucked up his courage and walked to the door.
After all, he was a lucky mortal.  He had a good excuse to visit this
house every day in the week.  And there was something tantalizing in
the risk he took.  Besides, he wanted to prove to himself whether it
was a passing fancy or something deeper.  That's the way with humans;
we never see a sign "Fresh Paint" that we don't have to prove it.

He chatted with Florence for a while and found that, for all she might
be guileless to the world, she was a good linguist, a fine musician,
and talked with remarkable keenness about books and arts.  But unless
he roused her, the sadness of her position always lay written in her
face.  It was not difficult for him to conjure up her dreams in coming
to the city and the blow which, like a bolt of lightning from a clear
sky, had shattered them ruthlessly.

"You must come every day and tell me how you have progressed," she said.

"I'll obey that order gladly, whenever I can possibly do it.  My visits
will always be short."

"That is not necessary."

"No," said Norton in his heart, "but it is wise."

Always he found Jones waiting for him at the door, always in the shadow.

"Well?" the butler whispered.

"I have laid a neat trap.  Whether this balloon was the one that left
the top of this house I don't know.  But if there were two men in it,
one of them lies at the bottom of the sea."

"And the man who was found?"  The butler's voice was tense.

"It was not Hargreave.  I met Orts but once, and as he wore a beard
then, the captain's description did not tally with your recollection."

"Thank God!  But what is this trap?"

"I propose to find out by it who is back of all this, who Hargreave's
real enemies are."

Norton returned to his rooms, there to await the call from Grannis.  He
was sorry, but if Jones would not take him into his fullest confidence,
he must hold himself to blame for any blunder he (Norton) made.  Of
course, he could readily understand Jones' angle of vision.  He knew
nothing of the general run of reporters; he had heard of them by rumor
and distrusted them.  He was not aware of the fact that the average
reporter carries more secrets in his head than a prime minister.  It
was, then, up to him to set about to allay this distrust and gain the
man's complete confidence.

Meanwhile that same morning a pretty young woman boarded the _Orient_
and asked to be led to the captain.  Her eyes were red; she had
evidently been weeping.  When the captain, susceptible like all
sailors, saw her his promises to Norton took wings.

"This is Captain Hagan?" she asked, balling the handkerchief she held
in her hand.

"Yes, miss.  What can I do for you?"  He put his hands embarrassedly
into his pockets--and felt the crisp bills.  But for that magic touch
he would have forgotten his lines.  He squared his shoulders.

"I have every assurance that the man you picked up at sea is my father.
I am Florence Hargreave.  Tell me everything."

The captain's very blundering deceived her.  "And then he hustled down
the gangplank and headed for that warehouse.  He had a package which he
was as tender of as if it had been dynamite."

"Thank you!" impulsively.

"A man has to do his duty, miss.  A sailor's always glad to rescue a
man at sea," awkwardly.

When she finally went down the gangplank the sigh the captain heaved
was almost as loud as the exhaust from the donkey engines which were
working out the crates of lemons from the hold.

"Maybe she is his daughter; but two hundred is two hundred, and I'm a
poor sailor man."

Then Grannis came in for his troubles.  What was a chap to do when a
pretty girl appealed to him?

"I am sorry, miss, but I can't give you that package.  I gave the man a
receipt and till it is presented to me the package must remain in
yonder safe.  You understand enough about the business to realize that.
I did not solicit the job.  It was thrust upon me.  I'd give a hundred
dollars if the blame thing was out of my safe.  You say it is your
fortune.  That hasn't been proved.  It may be gunpowder, dynamite.  I'm
sorry, but you will have to find your father and bring the receipt."

The young woman left the warehouse, dabbing her eyes with the sodden
handkerchief.

"I wonder," mused Grannis, as he watched her from the window, "I wonder
what the deuce that chap Norton is up to.  The girl might have been the
man's daughter....  Good lord, what an ass I am!  There wasn't any
man!" And so he reached over for the telephone.

Immediately upon receipt of the message the reporter set his machinery
in motion.  Some time before dawn he would know who the
arch-conspirator was.  He questioned Grannis thoroughly, and Grannis'
description tallied amazingly with that of Florence Hargreave.  But a
call over the wire proved to him conclusively that Florence had not
been out of the house that morning.

On the morrow the newspapers had scare heads about an attempt to rob
the Duffy warehouse.  It appeared that the police had been tipped
beforehand and were on the grounds in time to gather in several
notorious gunmen, who, under pressure of the third degree, vowed that
they had been hired and paid by a man in a mask and had not the
slightest idea what he wanted them to raid.  Nothing further could be
got out of the gunmen.  That they were lying the police had no doubt,
but they were up against a stout wall and all they could do was to hold
the men for the grand jury.

Norton was in a fine temper.  After all his careful planning he had
gained nothing--absolutely nothing.  But wait; he had gained
something--the bitter enmity of a cunning and desperate man, who had
been forced to remain hidden under the pier till almost dawn.




CHAPTER IV

Braine crawled from his uncomfortable hiding place.  His clothes were
soiled and damp, his hat was gone.  By a hair's breadth he had escaped
the clever trap laid for him.  Hargreave was alive, he had escaped;
Braine was as certain of this fact as he was of his own breathing.  He
now knew how to account for the flickering light in the upper story of
the warehouse.  His ancient enemy had been watching him all the time.
More than this, Hargreave and the meddling reporter were in collusion.
In the flare of lights at the end of the gun-play he had caught the
profile of the reporter.  Here was a dangerous man, who must be watched
with the utmost care.

He, Braine, had been lured to commit an overt act, and by the rarest
good luck had escaped with nothing more serious than a cold chill and a
galling disappointment.

He crawled along the top of the pier, listening, sending his
dark-accustomed glance hither and thither.  The sky in the east was
growing paler and paler.  In and out among the bales of wool, bags of
coffee and lemon crates he slowly and cautiously wormed his way.  A
watchman patrolled the office side of the warehouse, and Braine found
it possible to creep around the other way, thence into the street.
After that he straightened up, sought a second-hand shop and purchased
a soft hat, which he pulled down over his eyes.

He had half a dozen rooms which he always kept in readiness for such
adventures as this.  He rented them furnished in small hotels which
never asked questions of their patrons.  To one of these he went as
fast as his weary legs could carry him.  He always carried the key.
Once in his room he donned fresh wearing apparel, linen, shoes, and
shaved.  Then he proceeded down-stairs, the second-hand hat shading his
eyes and the upper part of his face.

At half past twelve Norton entered the Knickerbocker cafe-restaurant,
and the first person he noticed was Braine, reading the morning's
paper, propped up against the water carafe.  Evidently he had just
ordered, for there was nothing on his plate.  Norton walked over and
laid his hand upon Braine's shoulder.  The man looked up with mild
curiosity.

"Why, Norton, sit down, sit down!  Have you had lunch?  No?  Join me."

"Thanks.  Came in for my breakfast," said Norton, drawing out the
chair.  Braine was sitting with his back to the wall on the lounge-seat.

"I wonder if you newspaper men ever eat a real, true enough breakfast.
I should think the hours you lead would kill you off.  Anything new on
the Hargreave story?"

"I'm not handling that," the reporter lied cheerfully.  "Didn't want
to.  I knew him rather intimately.  I've a horror of dead people, and
don't want to be called upon to identify the body when they find it."

"Then you think they will find it?"

"I don't know.  It's a strange mixup.  I'm not on the story, mind you;
but I was in the locality of Duffy's warehouse late last night and fell
into a gunman rumpus."

"Yes, I read about that.  What were they after?"

"You've got me there.  No one seems to know.  Some cock and bull story
about there being something valuable.  There was."

"What was it?  The report in this paper does not say."

"Ten thousand bags of coffee."

Braine lay back in his chair and laughed.

"If you want my opinion," said Norton, "I believe the gunmen were out
to shoot up another gang, and the police got wind of it."

"Don't you think it about time the police called a halt in this gunman
matter?"

"Oh, so long as they pot each other the police look the other way.  It
saves a long trial and passage up the river.  Besides, when they are
nabbed some big politician manages to open the door for them.  Great is
the American voter."

"Take Mr. Norton's order, Luigi," said Braine.

"A German pancake, buttered toast and coffee," ordered the reporter.

"Man, eat something!"

"It's enough for me."

"And you'll go all the rest of the day on tobacco.  I know something of
you chaps.  I don't see how you manage to do it."

"Food is the least of our troubles.  By the way, may I ask you a few
questions?  Nothing for print, unless you've got a new book coming."

"Fire away."

"What do you know about the Countess Perigoff?"

"Let me see.  H'm.  Met her first about a year ago at a reception given
to Nasimova.  A very attractive woman.  I see quite a lot of her.  Why?"

"Well, she claims to be a sort of aunt to Hargreave's daughter."

"She said something to me about that the other night.  You never know
where you're at in this world, do you?"

The German pancake, the toast, the coffee disappeared, and the reporter
passed his cigars.

"The president visits town to-day and I'm off to watch the show.  I
suppose I'll have to interview him about the tariff and all that rot.
When you start on a new book let me know and I'll be your press agent."

"That's a bargain."

"Thanks for the breakfast."

Braine picked up his newspaper, smoked and read.  He smoked, yes, but
he only pretended to read.  The young fool was clever, but no man is
infallible.  He had not the least suspicion; he saw only the newspaper
story.  Still, in some manner he might stumble upon the truth, and it
would be just as well to tie the reporter's hands effectually.

The rancor of early morning had been subdued; anger and quick temper
never paid in the long run, and no one appreciated this fact better
than Braine.  To put Norton out of the way temporarily was only a wise
precaution; it was not a matter of spite or reprisal.

He paid the reckoning, left the restaurant, and dropped into one of his
clubs for a game of billiards.  He drew quite a gallery about the
table.  He won easily, racked his cue and sought the apartments of the
countess.

What a piece of luck it was that Olga had really married that old
dotard, Perigoff!  He had left her a titled widow six months after her
marriage.  But she had had hardly a kopeck to call her own.

"Olga, Hargreave is alive.  He was there last night.  But somehow he
anticipated the raid and had the police in waiting.  The question is,
has he fooled us?  Did he take that million or did he hide it?  There
is one thing left--to get that girl.  No matter where Hargreave is
hidden, the knowledge that she is in my hands will bring him out into
the open."

"No more blind alleys."

"What's on your mind?"

"She has never seen her father.  She confessed to me that she has not
even seen a photograph of him."

There was a long pause.

"Do you understand me?" she asked.

"By the Lord Harry, I do!  You've a head on you worth two of mine.  The
very simplicity of the idea will win out for us.  Some one to pose as
her father; a message handed to her in secret; dire misfortune if she
whispers a word to any one; that her father's life hangs upon the
secrecy; she must confide in no one, least of all Jones, the butler.
It all depends upon how the letter gets to her.  Bred in the country,
she probably sleeps with her window open.  A pebble attached to a note,
tossed into the window.  I'll trust this to no one; I'll do it myself.
With the girl in our control the rest will be easy.  If she really does
not know where the money is Hargreave will tell us.  Great head, little
woman, great head.  She does not know her father's handwriting?"

"She has never seen a scrap of it.  Miss Farlow never showed her the
registered letters.  The original note left on the doorstep with
Florence has been lost.  Trust me to make all these inquiries."

"To-morrow night, then, immediately after dinner, a taxicab will await
her just around the corner.  Grange is the best man I can think of.
He's an artist when it comes to playing the old-man parts."

"Not too old, remember.  Hargreave isn't over forty-five."

"Another good point.  I'm going to stretch out here on the divan and
snooze for a while.  Had a devil of a time last night."

"When shall I wake you?"

"At six.  We'll have an early dinner sent in.  I want to keep out of
everybody's way.  By-by!"

In less than three minutes he was sound asleep.  The woman gazed down
at him in wonder and envy.  If only she could drop to sleep like that.
Very softly she pressed her lips to his hair.

At eleven o'clock the following night the hall light in the Hargreave
house was turned off and the whole interior became dark.  A shadow
crept through the lilac bushes without any more sound than a cat would
have made.  Florence's window was open as the arch-conspirator had
expected it would be.  With a small string and stone as a sling he sent
the letter whirling skilfully through the air.  It sailed into the
girl's room.  The man below heard no sound of the stone hitting
anything and concluded that it had struck the bed.

He waited patiently.  Presently a wavering light could be distinguished
over the sill of the window.  The girl was awake and had lit the
candle.  This knowledge was sufficient for his need.  The tragic letter
would do the rest, that is, if the girl came from the same pattern as
her father and mother--strong-willed and adventurous.

He tiptoed back to the lilacs, when a noise sent him close to the
ground.  Half a dozen feet away he saw a shadow creeping along toward
the front door.  Presently the shadow stood up as if listening.  He
stooped again and ran lightly to the steps, up these to the door, which
he hugged.

Who was this? wondered Braine.  Patiently he waited, arranging his
posture so that he could keep a lookout at the door.  By and by the
door opened cautiously.  A man holding a candle appeared.  Braine
vaguely recognized Olga's description of the butler.  The man on the
veranda suddenly blew out the light.

Braine could hear the low murmur of voices, but nothing more.  The
conversation lasted scarcely a minute.  The door closed and the man,
ran down the steps, across the lawn, with Braine close at his heels.

"Just a moment, Mr. Hargreave," he called ironically; "just a moment!"

The man he addressed as Hargreave turned with lightning rapidity and
struck.  The blow caught Braine above the ear, knocking him flat.  When
he regained his feet the rumble of a motor told him the rest of the
story.


By the dim light of her bedroom candle Florence read the note which had
found entrance so strangely and mysteriously into her room.  Her
father!  He lived, he needed her!  Alive, but in dread peril, and only
she could save him!  She longed to fly to him at once, then and there.
How could she wait till to-morrow night at eight?  Immediately she
began to plan how to circumvent the watchful Jones and the careful
Susan.  Her father!  She slept no more that night.


"My Darling Daughter: I must see you.  Come at eight o'clock to-morrow
night to 78 Grove Street, third floor.  Confide in no one, or you seal
my death warrant.

"Your unhappy
    "FATHER."


What child would refuse to obey a summons like this?

A light tap on the door startled her.

"Is anything the matter?" asked the mild voice of Jones.

"No.  I got up to get a drink of water."

She heard his footsteps die away down the corridor.  She thrust the
letter into the pocket of her dress, which lay neatly folded on the
chair at the foot of the bed, then climbed back into the bed itself.
She must not tell even Mr. Norton.

Was the child spinning a romance over the first young man she had ever
met?  In her heart of hearts the girl did not know.

Her father!

It was all so terribly and tragically simple, to match a woman's mind
against that of a child.  Both Norton and the sober Jones had
explicitly warned her never to go anywhere, receive telephone calls or
letters, without first consulting one or the other of them.  And now
she had planned to deceive them, with all the cunning of her sex.

The next morning at breakfast there was nothing unusual either in her
appearance or manners.  Under the shrewd scrutiny of Jones she was just
her every-day self, a fine bit of acting for one who had yet to see the
stage.  But it is born in woman to act, as it is born in man to fight,
and Florence was no exception to the rule.

She was going to save her father.

She read with Susan, played the piano, sewed a little, laughed, hummed
and did a thousand and one things young girls do when they have the
deception of their elders in view.

[Illustration: SHE READ WITH SUSAN...]

All day long Jones went about like an old hound with his nose to the
wind.  There was something in the air, but he could not tell what it
was.  Somehow or other, no matter which room Florence went into, there
was Jones within earshot.  And she dared not show the least impatience
or restiveness.  It was a large order for so young a girl, but she
filled it.

She rather expected that the reporter would appear some time during the
afternoon; and sure enough he did.  He could no more resist the desire
to see and talk to her than he could resist breathing.  There was no
use denying it; the world had suddenly turned at a new angle,
presenting a new face, a roseate vision.  It rather subdued his easy
banter.

"What news?" she asked.

"None," rather despondingly.  "I'm sorry.  I had hoped by this time to
get somewhere.  But it happens that I can't get any farther than this
house."

She did not ask him what he meant by that.

"Shall I play something for you?" she said.

"Please."

He drew a chair beside the piano and watched her fingers, white as the
ivory keys, flutter up and down the board.  She played Chopin for him,
Mendelssohn, Grieg and Chaminade; and she played them in a surprisingly
scholarly fashion.  He had expected the usual schoolgirl choice and
execution; _Titania_, the _Moonlight Sonata_ (which not half a dozen
great pianists have ever played correctly), _Monastery Bells_, and the
like.  He had prepared to make a martyr of himself; instead, he was
distinctly and delightfully entertained.

"You don't," he said whimsically, when she finally stopped, "you don't,
by any chance, know _The Maiden's Prayer_?"

She laughed.  This piece was a standing joke at school.

"I have never played it.  It may, however, be in the cabinet.  Would
you like to hear it?" mischievously.

"Heaven forfend!" he murmured, raising his hands.

All the while the letter burned against her heart, and the smile on her
face and the gaiety on her tongue were forced.  "Confide in no one,"
she repeated mentally, "or you seal my death warrant."

"Why do you shake your head like that?" he asked.

"Did I shake my head?"  Her heart fluttered wildly.  "I was not
conscious of it."

"Are you going to keep your promise?"

"What promise?"

"Never to leave this house without Jones or myself being with you."

"I couldn't if I wanted to.  I'll wager Jones is out there in the hall
this minute.  I know; it is all for my sake.  But it bothers me."

Jones was indeed in the hall, and when he sensed the petulance in her
voice his shoulders sank despondently and he sighed deeply if silently.

At a quarter to eight Florence, being alone for a minute, set fire to a
veil and stuffed it down the register.

"Jones," she called excitedly, "I smell something burning!"

Jones dashed into the room, sniffed, and dashed out again, heading for
the cellar door.  His first thought was naturally that the devils
incarnate had set fire to the house.  When he returned, having, of
course, discovered no fire, he found Florence gone.  He rushed into the
hall.  Her hat was missing.  He made for the hall door with a speed
which seemed incredible to the bewildered Susan's eyes.  Out into the
street, up and down which he looked.  Far away he discovered a
dwindling taxicab.  The child was gone.

In the house Susan was answering the telephone, talking incoherently.

"Who is it?" Jones whispered, his lips white and dry.

[Illustration: "WHO IS IT?" WHISPERED JONES, HIS LIPS WHITE AND DRY]

"The countess...." began Susan.

He took the receiver from her roughly.

"Hello, who is it?"

"This is Olga Perigoff.  Is Florence there?"

"No, madam.  She has just stepped out for a moment.  Shall I tell her
to call you when she returns?"

"Yes, please.  I want her and Susan and Mr. Norton to come to tea
to-morrow.  Good-by."

Jones hung up the receiver, sank into a chair near by and buried his
face in his hands.

"What is it?" cried Susan, terrified by the haggardness of his face.

"She's gone!  My God, those wretches have got her!  They've got her!"

Florence was whirled away at top speed.  Her father!  She was actually
on the way to her father, whom she had always loved in dreams, yet
never seen.

Number 78 Grove Street was not an attractive place, but when she
arrived she was too highly keyed to take note of its sordidness.  She
was rather out of breath when she reached the door of the third flat.
She knocked timidly.  The door was instantly opened by a man who wore a
black mask.  She would have turned then and there and flown but for the
swift picture she had of a well-dressed man at a table.  He lay with
his head upon his arms.

"Father!" she whispered.

The man raised his careworn face, so very well done that only the
closest scrutiny would have betrayed the paste of the theater.  He
arose and staggered toward her with outstretched arms.  But the moment
they closed about her Florence experienced a peculiar shiver.

"My child!" murmured the broken man.  "They caught me when I was about
to come to you.  I have given up the fight."

A sob choked him.

What was it? wondered the child, her heart burning with the misery of
the thought that she was sad instead of glad.  Over his shoulder she
sent a glance about the room.  There was a sofa, a table, some chairs
and an enormous clock, the face of which was dented and the hands
hopelessly tangled.  Why, at such a moment, she should note such
details disturbed her.  Then she chanced to look into the cracked
mirror.  In it she saw several faces, all masked.  These men were
peering at her through the half-closed door behind her.

"You must return home and bring me the money," went on the wretch who
dared to perpetrate such a mockery.  "It is all that stands between me
and death."

Then she knew!  The insistent daily warnings came home to her.  She
understood now.  She had deliberately walked into the spider's net.
But instead of terror an extraordinary calm fell upon her.

"Very well, father, I will go and get it."  Gently she released herself
from those horrible arms.

"Wait, my child, till I see if they will let you go.  They may wish to
hold you as hostage."

When he was gone she tried the doors.  They were locked.  Then she
crossed over to the window and looked out.  A leap from there would
kill her.  She turned her gaze toward the lamp, wondering.

The false father returned, dejectedly.

"It is as I said.  They insist upon sending some one.  Write down the
directions I gave to you.  I am very weak!"

"Write down the directions yourself, father; you know them better than
I."  Since she saw no escape, she was determined to keep up the tragic
farce no longer.

"I am not your father."

"So I see," she replied, still with the amazing calm.

Braine, in the other room, shook his head savagely.  Father and
daughter; the same steel in the nerves.  Could they bend her?  Would
they break her?  He did not wish to injure her bodily, but a million
was always a million, and there was revenge which was worth more to him
than the money itself.  He listened, motioning to the others to be
silent.

"Write the directions," commanded the scoundrel, who discarded the
broken-man style.

"I know of no hidden money."

"Then your father dies this night."  Grange put a whistle to his lips.
"Sign, write!"

"I refuse!"

"Once more.  The moment I blow this whistle the men in the other room
will understand that your father is to die.  Be wise.  Money is
nothing--life is everything."

"I refuse!"  Even as she had known this vile creature to be an impostor
so she knew that he lied, that her father was still free.

Grange blew the whistle.  Instantly the room became filled with masked
men.  But Florence was ready.  She seized the lamp and hurled it to the
floor, quite indifferent whether it exploded or went out.  Happily for
her, it was extinguished.  At the same moment she cast the lamp she
caught hold of a chair, remembering the direction of the window.  She
was superhumanly strong in this moment.  The chair went true.  A crash
followed.

"She has thrown herself out of the window!" yelled a voice.

Some one groped for the lamp, lit it and turned in time to see Florence
pass out of the room into that from which they had come.  The door
slammed.  The surprised men heard the key click.

She was free.  But she was no longer a child.




CHAPTER V

"Gone!"

Jones kept saying to himself that he must strive to be calm, to think,
think.  Despite all his warnings, the warnings of Norton, she had
tricked them and run away.  It was maddening.  He wanted to rave, tear
his hair, break things.  He tramped the hall.  It would be wasting time
to send for the police.  They would only putter about fruitlessly.  The
Black Hundred knew how to arrange these abductions.

How had they succeeded in doing it?  No one had entered the house that
day without his being present.  There had been no telephone call he had
not heard the gist of, nor any letters he had not first glanced over.
How had they done it?  Suddenly into his mind flashed the remembrance
of the candle-light under Florence's door the night before.  In a dozen
bounds he was in her room, searching drawers, paper boxes, baskets.  He
found nothing.  He returned in despair to Susan, who, during all this
turmoil, had sat as if frozen in her chair.

"Speak!" he cried.  "For God's sake, say something, think something!
Those devils are likely to torture her, hurt, her!"  He leaned against
the wall, his head on his arm.

When he turned again he was calm.  He walked with bent head toward the
door, opened it and stood upon the threshold for a space.  Across the
street a shadow stirred, but Jones did not see it.  His gaze was
attracted by something which shone dimly white on the walk just beyond
the steps.  He ran to it.  A crumpled letter, unaddressed.  He carried
it back to the house, smoothed it out and read, its contents.  Florence
in her haste had dropped the letter.

He clutched at his hat, put it on and ran to Susan.

"Here!" he cried, holding out an automatic.  "If any one comes in that
you don't know, shoot!  Don't ask questions, shoot!"

"I'm afraid!"  She breathed with difficulty.

"Afraid?" he roared at her.  He put the weapon in her hand.  It slipped
and thudded to the floor.  He stooped for it and slammed it into her
lap.  "You love your life and honor.  You'll know how to shoot when the
time comes.  Now, attend to me.  If I'm not back here by ten o'clock,
turn this note over to the police.  If you can't do that, then God help
us all!"  And with that he ran from the house.

Susan eyed the revolver with growing terror.  For what had she left the
peace and quiet of Miss Farlow's; assassination, robbery, thieves and
kidnapers?  She wanted to shriek, but her throat was as dry as paper.
Gingerly she touched the pistol.  The cold steel sent a thrill of fear
over her.  He hadn't told her how to shoot it!

Two blocks down the street, up an alley, was the garage wherein
Hargreave had been wont to keep his car.  Toward this Jones ran with
the speed of a track athlete.  There might be half a dozen taxicabs
about, but he would not run the risk of engaging any of them.  The
Black Hundred was capable of anticipating his every movement.

The shadow across the street stood undecided.  At length he concluded
to give Jones ten minutes in which to return.  If he did not return in
that time, the watcher would go up to the drug store and telephone for
instructions.

But Jones did not come back.

"Where's Howard?" he demanded.

"Hello, Jones; what's up?"

"Howard, get that car out at once."

"Out she comes.  Wait till I give her radiator a bucket of water.
Gee!" whispered Howard, whom Hargreave often used as his chauffeur,
"get on to his nibs!  First time I ever saw him awake.  I wonder what's
doing?  You never know what's back of those mummy-faced head
waiters....  All right, Jones!"

The chauffeur jumped into the car and Jones took the seat beside him.

"Where to?"

"Number 78..." and the rest of it trailed away, smothered in the
violent thunder of the big six's engines.

During the car's flight several policemen hailed it without success.
Down this street, up that, round this corner, fifty miles an hour; and
all the while Jones shouted: "Faster, faster!"

Within twelve minutes from the time it left the garage, the car stopped
opposite 78 Grove Street, and Jones got out.

"Wait here, Howard.  If several men come rushing out, or I don't appear
within ten minutes, fire your gun a couple of times for the police.  I
don't want them if we can manage without.  They'd only bungle."

"All right, Mr. Jones," said the chauffeur.  He had, in the past
quarter of an hour, acquired a deep and lasting respect for the butler
chap.  He was a regular fellow, for all his brass buttons.

As Jones reached the curb, Florence came forth as if on invisible
wings.  Jones caught her by the arm.  She flung him aside with a
strength he had not dreamed existed in her slim body.

"Florence, I am Jones!"

She stopped, recognized him, and without a word ran across the street
to the automobile and climbed into the tonneau.  Jones followed
immediately.

"Home!"

The car shot up the dimly lighted street, shone palely for a second
under the corner lamp, and vanished.

"Ah, child, child!" groaned the man at her side, all the tenseness gone
from his body.  He was Jones again.

Still she did not speak, but stared ahead with unseeing eyes.

No further reproach fell from the butler's lips.  It was enough that
God had guided him to her at the appointed moment.  He felt assured
that never again would she be drawn into any trap.  Poor child!  What
had they said to her, done to her?  How, in God's name, had she escaped
from them who never let anybody escape?  Presently she would become
normal, and then she would tell him.

"I found the lying note.  You dropped it."

"Horrible, horrible!" she said almost inaudibly.

"What did they do to you?"

"He said he was my father....  He put his arms around me....  And I
knew!"

"Knew what?"

"That he lied.  I can't explain."

"Don't try!"

Suddenly she laid her head against the butler's shoulder and cried.  It
was terrible to hear youth weep in this fashion.  Jones put his arm
about her and tried to console her.

"Horrible!" she murmured between the violent hiccoughs.  "I was wrong,
wrong!  Forgive me!"

Unconsciously the arm sustaining her drew her closer.

"Never mind," he consoled.  "Tell no one what has happened.  Go about
as usual.  Don't let even Susan know.  Whatever your poor father did
was for your sake.  He wanted you to be happy, without a care in the
world."

"I promise."  And gradually the sobs ceased.  "But I feel so old,
Jones, so very old.  I threw over the lamp.  I threw a chair through
the window.  They thought that it was I who had jumped out.  That gave
me the necessary time.  I don't understand how I did it.  I wasn't
frightened at all till I gained the street."

They found Susan still seated in the chair, the automatic in her lap.
She had not moved in all this time!


Braine paced the apartment of the Countess Perigoff.  From the living
room to the boudoir and back, fully twenty times.  From the divan Olga
watched him nervously.  He was like a tiger, fresh in captivity.  All
at once he paused in front of her.

"Do you realize what that mere chit did?"

"I do."

"Planned to the minute.  We had her; seven of us; doors locked, and all
that.  No weeping, no wailing; I could not understand then, but I do
now.  It's in the blood.  Hargreave was as peaceful as a St. Bernard
dog till you cornered him, and then he was a lion.  Oh, the devil!
Slipped out of our fingers like an eel.  And across the street, Jones
in a racer!  I never paid any particular attention to Jones, but from
now on I shall.  The girl may or may not know where the money is, but
Jones does, Jones does!  Two men shall watch.  Felton on the street and
Orloff from the windows of the deserted house.  With opera glasses he
will be able to take note of all that happens in the house during the
day.  He will be able to see the girl's room.  And that's the important
point.  It was a good plan, little woman; and it would have been plain
sailing if only we had remembered that the girl was Hargreave's
daughter.  Be very careful hereafter when you call on her.  A night
like this will have made her suspicious of every one.  Our hope lies
with you.  Anything on your mind?"

"Yes.  Why not insert a personal in the _Herald_?"  She drew some
writing paper toward her and scribbled a few words.

He read: "Florence--the hiding place is discovered.  Remove it to a
more secret spot at once.  S.H."--He laughed and shook his head.  "I'm
afraid that will never do."

[Illustration: HE READ ... FLORENCE ... THE HIDING-PLACE IS DISCOVERED]

"If she reads it, Jones will.  The man with the opera glasses may see
something.  There's a chance Jones might become worried."

"Well, we'll give it a chance."

It was midnight when he made his departure.  As he stepped into the
street, he glanced about cautiously.  On the corner he saw a policeman
swinging his night stick.  Otherwise the street was deserted.  Braine
proceeded jauntily down the street.

And yet, from the darkened doors of the house across the way, the
figure of a man emerged and stood contemplating the windows of the
Perigoff apartment.  Suddenly the lights went out.  The watcher made no
effort to follow Braine.  The knowledge he was after did not
necessitate any such procedure.

Of course, Florence read the "personal."  She took the newspaper at
once to Jones, who smiled grimly.

"You see, I trust you."

"And so long as you continue to trust me no harm will befall you.  You
were left in my care by your father.  I am to guard you at the expense
of my life.  Last night's affair was a miracle.  The next time you will
not find it so easy to escape."

Nor did she.

"There will be no next time," gravely.  "But I am going to ask you a
direct question.  Is my father alive?"

The butler's brow puckered.  "I have promised to say nothing, one way
or the other."

She laughed.

"Why do you laugh?"

"I laugh because if he were dead there would be no earthly reason for
your not saying so at once.  But I hate money, the name of it, the
sound of it, the sight of it.  It is at the bottom of all wars and
crimes.  I despise it!"

"The root of all evil.  Yet it performs many noble deeds.  But never
mind the money.  Let us give our attention to this personal.  Doubtless
it originated in the same mind which conceived the letter.  Your father
would never have inserted such a personal.  What!  Give his enemies a
chance to learn his secret?  No.  On the other hand, I want you to show
this personal to all you meet to-day, Susan, the reporter, to
everybody.  Talk about it.  Say that you wonder what you shall do.
Trust no one with your real thoughts."

"Not even you, Mr. Jones," thought the girl as she nodded.

"And tell them that you showed it to me and that I appeared worried."

That night there was a meeting of the organization called the Black
Hundred.  Braine asked if any one knew what the Hargreave butler looked
like.

[Illustration: THAT NIGHT THERE WAS A MEETING OF THE ORGANIZATION]

"I had a glimpse of him the other night; but being unprepared, I might
not recognize him again."

Vroon described Jones minutely.  Braine could almost see the portrait.

"Vroon, that memory of yours is worth a lot of money," was his only
comment.

"I hope it will be worth more soon."

"I believe I'll be able to recognize Mr. Jones if I see him.  Who is he
and what is he?"

"He has been with Hargreave for fourteen years.  There was a homicidal
case in which Jones was active.  Hargreave saved him.  He is faithful
and uncommunicative.  Money will not touch him.  If he does know where
that million is, hot irons could not make him own up to it.  The only
way is to watch him, follow him, wait for the moment when he'll grow
careless.  No man is always on his mettle; he lets up sooner or later."

"He is being watched, as you know."

Vroon nodded approvingly.  "The captain of the tramp steamer _Orient_,
by the way, was seen with a roll of money.  He was in one of the
water-front saloons, bragging how he had hoodwinked some one."

"Did he say where he'd got the cash?" asked Braine.

"They tried to pump him on that, but he shut up.  Well, we have agreed
that Felton shall watch from the street and Orloff from the window.
Orloff will whistle if he sees Jones removing anything from any of the
rooms.  The rest will be left to Felton."

"And, Felton, my friend," said Braine softly--he always spoke softly
when he was in a deadly humor--"Felton, you slept on duty the other
night.  Hargreave stole up, consulted Jones, and got away after
knocking me down.  The next failure will mean short shift.  Be warned!"

"I saw only you, sir.  So help me.  I was not asleep.  I saw you run
down the street after the taxicab.  I did not see any one else."

Braine shrugged.  "Remember what I said."

Felton bowed respectfully and made his exit.  He wished in his soul
that he might some day catch the master mind free of his eternal mask.
It was an iron hand which ruled them and there were friends of his
(Felton's) who had mysteriously vanished after a brief period of
rebellion.  The boss was a swell; probably belonged to clubs and
society which he adroitly pilfered.  The organization always had money.
Whenever there was a desperate job to be undertaken, Vroon simply
poured out the money necessary to promote it.  Whenever Braine and
Vroon became engaged in earnest conversation they talked Slav.  Braine
was never called by name here; the boss, simply that.

Well, ten per cent. of a million was a hundred thousand.  This would be
equally divided between the second ten of the Black Hundred.  Another
ten per cent. would go to eighty members; the balance would be divided
between Vroon and the boss.  But his soul rebelled at being ordered
about like so much dirt under another man's feet.  He would take his
ten thousand and make the grand getaway.

The next afternoon the countess called upon Florence.  Nothing was said
about the adventure, and this fact created a vague unrest in the
scheming woman's mind.  She realized that she must play her cards more
carefully than ever.  Not the least distrust must be permitted to enter
the child's head.  Once that happened good-by to the wonderful
emeralds.  Was it that she really craved the stone?  Was it not rather
a venom acquired from the knowledge that this child's mother had won
what she herself, with all her cleverness, was not sure of--Braine's
love?  Did he really care for her or was she only the cats-paw to pluck
his hot chestnuts from the fire?

When Florence showed her the "personal," her vague doubts became
instantly dissipated.  The child would not have shown her the newspaper
had there been any distrust on her part.

"My child, your father is alive, then?" animatedly.

"We don't know," sadly.

"Why, I should say that this proves it."

"On the contrary, it proves nothing of the sort, since I have yet to
discover a treasure in this house.  I have hunted in every nook,
drawer; I've searched for panels, looked in trunks for false bottoms.
Nothing, nothing!  Ah, if I could only find it!"

"And what would you do with it?"

"Take it at once to some bank and offer the whole of it for the safe
return of my father, every penny of it.  I don't know what to do, which
way to turn," tears gathering in her eyes and they were genuine tears,
too.  "There are millions in stocks and bonds and I can not touch a
penny of it because the legal documents have not been found.  I can't
even prove that I am his daughter, except for half an old bracelet, and
my father's lawyers say that that would not hold in any court."

"You were born in St. Petersburg, my dear.  Have the embassy there look
up the birth registers."

"That would not put me into possession.  Nothing but the return of my
father will avail me.  And there's a horrible thought always of my not
being his real daughter."

"There's no doubt in my mind.  I have only to recall Katrina's face to
know whose child you are.  But what will you live on?"  Here was a far
greater mixup than she had calculated upon.  Supposing after all it was
only a resemblance, that the child was not Hargreave's, a substitute
just to blind the Black Hundred?  To keep them away from the true
daughter?  Her mind grew bewildered over such possibilities.  The
single and only way to settle all doubts was to make this child a
prisoner.  If she was Hargreave's true daughter he would come out of
his hiding.

She heard Florence answering her question: "There is a sum of ten or
twelve thousand in the Riverdale bank, under the control of my father's
butler.  After that is gone, I don't know what will happen to us, Susan
and me."

"The door of Miss Farlow's will always be open to you, Florence,"
replied Susan, with love in her eyes.

This interesting conversation was interrupted by the advent of Norton.
He was always dropping in during the late afternoon hours.  Florence
liked him for two reasons.  One was that Jones trusted him to a certain
extent and the other was that ... that she liked him.  She finished
this sentence in her heart defiantly.

To-day he brought her a box of beautiful roses, and at the sight of
them the countess smiled faintly.  Set the wind in that quarter?  She
could have laughed.  Here was her revenge against this meddler who took
no particular notice of her while Florence was in the room.  She would
encourage him, poor grubbing newspaper writer, with his beggarly
pittance!  What chance had he of marrying this girl with millions
within reach of her hand?

The peculiar thing about this was that Norton was entertaining the same
thought at the same time: what earthly chance had he?

In the second-story window of the house over the way there was a
worried man.  But when his glasses brought in range the true contents
of the box he laughed sardonically.  "This watching is getting my goat.
I smell a rat every time I see a shadow."  He wiped the lenses of his
opera glasses and proceeded to roll a cigarette.

When the countess and Norton went away Jones stole quietly up to
Florence's room and threw up the curtain.  Two round points of light
flashed from the watcher's window, but the saturnine smile on Jones'
lips was not observed.  He went to the door, opened it cautiously, a
hand to his ear.  Then he closed the door, turned back the rug and
removed a section of the flooring.  Out of this cavity he raised a box.
There was lettering on the lid; in fact, the name of its owner, Stanley
Hargreave.  Jones replaced the flooring, tucked the box under his arm
and made his exit.

The man lounging in the shadow heard a faint whistle.  It was the
signal agreed upon.  The man Felton ran across the street and boldly
rang the bell.  It was only then that Florence missed the ever present
butler.  She hesitated, then sent Susan to the door.

"I must see Mr. Jones upon vitally important business."

"He has gone out," said Susan, and very sensibly closed the door before
Felton's foot succeeded in getting inside.

It was time to act.  He ran around to the rear.  The ladder convinced
him that Jones had tricked him.  He was wild with rage.  He was over
the wall in an instant.  Away down the back street his eye discovered
his man in full flight.  He gave chase.  As he came to the first corner
he was nearly knocked over by a man coming the other way.

"Who are you bumping into?" growled Felton.

"Not so fast, Felton!"

"Who the devil are you?"

The stranger made a sign which Felton instantly recognized.

"Quick!  What has happened?"

"Jones has the million and is making his getaway.  See him hiking
toward the water front?"

The two men began to run.

There followed a thrilling chase.  Jones engaged a motorboat and it was
speeding seaward when the two pursuers arrived.  They were not laggard.
There was another boat and they made for it.

[Illustration: JONES ENGAGED A MOTOR BOAT]

"A hundred if you overtake that boat," said Felton's strange companion.

Felton eyed him thoughtfully.  There was something familiar about that
voice.

Great plumes of water shot up into the air.  It did not prove a short
race by any means.  It took half an hour for the pursuer to overhaul
the pursued.

"Is that Jones?"

"Yes."  Felton fired his revolver into the air in hopes of terrifying
Jones' engineer; but there was five hundred dangling before that
individual's eyes.

"Let them get a little nearer," shouted the butler.

The engineer let down the speed a notch.  The other boat crept up
within twenty yards.  Jones sought a perfect range.  He would have to
find this spot again.

"Surrender!" yelled Felton.

In reply Jones raised the precious box and deliberately dropped it into
the sea.  Then he turned his automatic upon his pursuers and succeeded
in setting their boat afire.

All this within the space of an hour.  During dinner that night (there
was now a cook) Jones walked about the dining-table, rubbing his hands
together from time to time.

"Jones," said Florence, "why do you rub your hands like that?"

"Was I rubbing my hands, Miss Florence?" he asked innocently.




CHAPTER VI

"Did you get the range?" asked the countess, when that night Braine
recounted his adventure.

"Range!" he snarled.  "My girl, haven't I just told you that I had to
fight for my life?  My boat was in flames.  We had to swim for it till
we were picked up by a Long Island barge tug.  I don't know what became
of the motorman.  He must have headed straight for shore.  And I'm glad
he did.  Otherwise he'd be howling for the price of another boat.
Olga, for the first time I've had to let one of the boys have a look at
my face.  Doesn't know the name; but one of these days he'll stumble
across it, and the result will be blackmail, unless I push him off into
the dark.  It was accidental."

The countess leaned forward, her hands tightly clinched.

"But the box!"

Braine made a gesture of despair.

"Leo, are you using any drug these days?"

[Illustration: "LEO, ARE YOU USING ANY DRUGS THESE DAYS?"]

"Don't make fun of me, Olga," impatiently.  "Did you ever see me drink
more than a pint of wine or smoke more than two cigars in an evening?
Poor fools!  What!  Let my brain go into the wastebasket for the sake
of an hour or so of exhilaration?  No, and never will I!  I'm keen
about the gray matter I've got, and by the Lord Harry, I'm going to
keep it.  There's only one dope fiend in the Hundred, and he's one of
the best decoys we have; so we let him have his coke whenever he really
needs it.  But this man Felton has seen my face.  Some day he'll see it
again, ask questions, and then..."

"Then what?"

"A burial at sea," he laughed.  The laughter died swiftly as it came.
"Threw it into eight hundred feet of water, on a bar where the sands
are always shifting.  He'll never find it, even if he took the range.
He could not have got a decent one.  The sun was dropping and the
shadows were long.  He threw the chest into the water and then began
pegging away at us, cool as you please, and fired our tank."

"It looks to me as if he had wasted his time."

"That depends.  Between you and me and the gatepost, I've a sneaking
idea that this man Jones, whom nobody has given any particular
attention, is a deep, clever man.  He may have been honestly attempting
to find a new hiding place; the advertisement in the newspaper may have
drawn him.  He may have thrown the box over in pure rage at seeing
himself checkmated.  Again, the whole thing may have been worked up for
our benefit, a blind.  But if that's the case, Jones has us on the hip,
for we can't tell.  But we can do what in all probability he expects
we'll cease to do--watch him just as shrewdly as before."

Olga caught his hand and drew him down beside her.  "I wasn't going to
bother you to-night, but it may mean something vital."

"What?" alertly.

For reply she rose and walked over to the light button.  She pressed it
and the apartment became dark.

"Come over to the window, quick!"  She dragged him across the room.
"Over the way, the house with the marble frontage."

A man emerged, lit a cigarette, and walked leisurely down the street.

"No!" she cried, as Braine turned to make for the door doubtless with
the intention of finding out who the man was.  "Every night after you
leave he appears."

"Does he follow me?"

"No.  And that's what bothered me at first.  I believed he was watching
some apartment above.  But regularly when I turn out the lights he
comes forth.  So there's no doubt he watches you enter and takes note
of your departure."

"But doesn't follow me.  That's odd.  What the devil is his idea?"

"I'd give a good deal to learn."

The shadow and the glowing cigarette disappeared around the corner, and
the lights in the apartment were turned on again.

"He's gone.  You really think he's watching me?"

"He is watching this apartment, I know that much."

And even at that moment the watcher was watching from his vantage
behind the corner.

"Suspicious!" he murmured, tossing the cigarette into the gutter.
"They're watching me for a change.  I'll drop out.  I know what I know.
It's a great world.  It's fine to be alive and kicking on top of it."
He went on without haste and took the subway train for down-town.

"Is there any way I could get near him?" asked Braine.

"To-morrow night you might leave by the janitor's entrance.  I'll keep
the lights on till you're outside.  Then I'll turn them off and you can
follow and learn who he is."

"It's mighty important."

"Don't scowl.  At your age a wrinkle is apt to remain it you once get
it started."

He laughed.  "Wrinkles!"  She could talk of wrinkles!

"They are more important than you think.  Every morning I rub out the
wrinkle I go to bed with."

"I wish you could rub out the general stupidity which is wrinkling my
brain.  I've made three moves and failed in each.  What's come over me?"

"Perhaps you've had too many successes.  The wheel of chance is always
turning around."

"May I smoke?"

"Thanks.  At least it proves you still have some consideration for me.
You would smoke whether it was agreeable or not.  But I like the odor
of a good cigar.  And it always helps you to think."

Braine lighted his cigar and began his customary pacing.  At length he
paused.

"Suppose we have a real old-fashioned coaching party out to the old
mansion we know about?"

"And what shall we do there?"

"Make the mansion, an enchanted castle where sometimes people who enter
can't get out.  Do you think you could get her to go?"

"I can try."

"Olga, I must have that girl; and I must have her soon.  Sometimes I
find myself mightily puzzled over the whole thing.  If Hargreave is
alive, why doesn't he turn up now that it's practically known that his
daughter presides over his household?  I might understand it if I
didn't know that Hargreave is really afraid of nothing.  Where is the
man with the five thousand, picked up at sea?  What was the reason for
Jones carrying that box out in broad daylight?  Who is the chap
watching across the street?  Sometimes I believe in my soul--if I have
one!--that Hargreave is playing with us, playing!  Well," flinging the
half consumed cigar into the grate, "the Black Hundred always goes
forward, win or lose, and never forgets."

"We are a fine pair!" said the woman bitterly.

"We are exactly what fate intended us to be.  They wrote you down in
the book as a beautiful body with a crooked mind.  They wrote me down
as the devil, doomed to roam the earth's top till I'm killed."

"Killed?"

"Why, yes.  I'm not the kind of chap who dies in bed, surrounded by the
weeping members of the family, doctor, nurse, and priest.  I'm a
scoundrel; but it has this saving grace, I enjoy being the scoundrel.
Now, I'm going up to the club.  There's nothing like a game of
billiards or chess to smooth that wrinkle which seems to worry you."

In the great newspaper office there was a mighty racket.  Midnight
always means pandemonium in the city room of a metropolitan daily.
Copy boys were rushing to and fro, messengers and printers with sticky
galleys in their hands; reporters were banging away at their
typewriters, and intermingling you could hear the ceaseless
clickety-click from the telegraph room.

The managing editor came out of his office and approached the desk of
the night city editor.

"Editorial page gone down?"

"Twenty minutes ago," said the night city editor.

"I wanted a stick on that Panama rumpus."

"Too late."

"Where's Jim Norton?"

"At the chamber of commerce banquet.  The major is going to throw a
bomb into the enemy's camp."

"Nothing on the Hargreave stuff?"

"No.  Guess I'd better put that in the cubbyhole.  He's dead."

"No will found yet?"

"Not a piece as big as a postage stamp."

"That will leave the girl in a tough place.  No will, no birth
certificate; and, worst of all, no photograph of the old man himself.
I don't see why Jim sidestepped this affair.  He is the only man in
town who knew anything about Hargreave."

"He hasn't given it up; but he wants to cover it on his own, turn the
yarn over when he's got it, no false alarms."

"Ah!  So that's the game?"

"Yes; and Jim is the sort every paper needs.  When the time comes the
story turns up, if there is one.  Here he is now.  Looks like an actor
in the fourth act of a drama.  Good-looking chap, though."

Norton came in through the outer gates.  He was in evening clothes, top
hat.  A dead cigarette dangled between his lips.

"How much do you want?" asked the night city editor.

"Column and a half."

"Off with your glad rags!"

"Anything good?" asked the managing editor.

"The lid has been jammed on tight.  No wine in any restaurant after one
o'clock.  There'll be a roundup of every gunman in town."

"Good work!  Go to it."

It was one o'clock when Norton turned in his last sheet of copy and
started for home.  Just outside the entrance to the building a man with
a slouch hat drawn down over his eyes stepped forward.

"Mr. Norton?"

"Yes."  Norton stepped back suspiciously.

The other chuckled, raised and lowered his hat swiftly.

"Good lord!" murmured the reporter.

"Will you take a ride with me in a taxi?"

"All the way to Syracuse, if you say so.  Well, I'll be tinker d--d!"

"No names, please!"

What took place in that taxicab was never generally known.  But at ten
o'clock the next morning Norton surprised the elevator boy by going
out.  Norton proceeded down-town to the national bank, where he
deposited $5,000 in bills of large denominations.  The teller had some
difficulty in counting them.  They stuck together and retained the
sodden appearance of money recently submerged in water.


Florence was delighted at the idea of a coaching party.  Often during
her schoolgirl days she had seen the fashionable coaches go careening
along the road, with the sharp, clear note of the bugle rising above
the thunder of hoofs and rattling of wheels.  Jones was not
enthusiastic; neither was he a killjoy.

"But you are to go along, too," said Florence.

"I, Miss Florence?"

"The countess invited you especially.  You will go with a hamper."

"Ah, in my capacity as butler; very good, Miss Florence."  To her he
gave no sign of his secret great satisfaction.

The hour arrived, and the gay party bowled away.  They wound in and out
of the streets toward the country to the crack of the whip and the
blare of the horn.  Florence's enjoyment would have been perfect had it
not been for the absence of Norton.  Why hadn't he been invited?  She
did not ask because she did not care to disclose to the countess her
interest in the reporter.  They were nearing the limits of the city,
when the coach was forced to take a sharp turn to avoid an automobile
in trouble.  The man puttering at the engine raised his head.  It was
Norton, and Florence waved her hand vigorously.

"A coaching party," he murmured; "and your Uncle James was not invited!
Oh, very well!"  He laughed, and suddenly grew serious.  It would not
hurt to find out where that coach was going.

He set to work savagely, located the trouble, righted it, and set off
for the Hargreave home.  He found Susan and bombarded her with
questions which to Susan came with the rapidity of rain upon the roof.

"So Jones went along?"

"In his capacity of butler only."

Norton smiled.  "Well, I'll take a jaunt out there myself.  You are
sure of the location?"

"Yes."

"Well, good-by.  I'll go as a waiter, since they wouldn't invite me.
I'm one of the best little waiters you ever heard of; and all things
come to him who waits."

What a pleasant, affable young man he was! thought Susan as she watched
him jump into the car and go flying up the street.

Jones was a good deal surprised when Norton turned up at the old
Chilton manor.

"What made you come here dressed like this?" the butler demanded.

"I'm a suspicious duffer; maybe that's the reason."

"Do you know anything?"

"Well, no; I can't say that I do.  But, hang it, I just had to come out
here."

"Maybe it's just as well you did," said Jones moodily.

"I know this place.  The housekeeper used to be my nurse, and if she is
still on the job she may be of service to us.  You don't think they'll
question or recognize me?"

"Hardly.  I'll put in a word for you.  I'll say I sent for you, not
knowing if we had enough servants to take care of the luncheon."

"And now I'll go and hunt up Meg."

Sure enough, his old nurse was still in charge of the house; and when
her "baby" disclosed his identity she all but fell upon his neck.

"But what are you doing here, dressed up as a waiter?"

"It's a little secret, Meg.  I wasn't invited, and the truth is I'm
very desperately in love with the young lady in whose honor this
coaching party is being given.  And ... maybe she's in danger."

"Danger?  What about?"

"The Lord only knows.  But show me about the house.  I've not been here
in so long I've forgotten the run of it.  I remember one room with the
secret panel and another with a painting that turned.  Have they
changed them?"

"No; it is just the same here as it used to be.  Come along and I'll
show you."

Norton inspected the rooms carefully, stowing away in his mind every
detail.  He might be worrying about nothing; but so many strange things
had happened that it was better to be on the side of caution than on
the side of carelessness.  He left the house and ran across Jones
carrying a basket of wine.

"Here, Norton; take this to the party.  I want to reconnoiter."

"All right, m'lud!  Say, Jones, how much do you think I'd earn at this
job?" comically.

"Get along with you, Mr. Norton.  It may be the time to laugh, and then
it may not."

"I'm going back into the house and hide behind a secret panel.  I've
got my revolver.  You go to the stables and take a try at my car; see
if she works smoothly.  We may have to do some hiking.  Where is the
countess in this?"

"Leave that to me, Mr. Norton," said the butler with his grim smile.
"Be off; they are moving back toward the house."

So Norton carried the basket around to the lawn, where it was taken
from his hands by the regular servant.  He sighed as he saw Florence,
laughing and chatting with a man who was a stranger and whom he heard
addressed as count.  Some friend of the countess, no doubt.  Where was
all this tangle going to end?  He wished he knew.  And what a yarn he
was going to write some day!  It would read like one of Gaboriau's
tales.  He turned away to wander idly about the grounds, when beyond a
clump of cedars he saw three or four men conversing slowly.  He got as
near as possible, for when three or four men put their heads together
and whisper animatedly, it usually means a poker game or something
worse.  He caught a phrase or two as they came down the wind, and then
he knew that the vague suspicion that had brought him out here had been
set in motion by fate.  He heard "Florence" and "the old drawing room;"
and that was enough.

He scurried about for Jones.  It was pure luck that he had had old Meg
show him through the house, otherwise he would have forgotten all about
the secret panel in the wall and the painting.  Jones shrugged
resignedly.  Were these men of the countess' party?  Norton couldn't
say.

[Illustration: THE SECRET PANEL]

Norton made his hiding place in safety; and by and by he could hear the
guests moving about in the room.  Then all sounds ceased for a while.
A door closed sharply.

"No; here you must stay, young lady," said a man's voice.

"What do you mean, sir?" demanded the beloved voice.

"It means that no one will return to this room and that you will not be
missed until it is too late."

The sound of voices stopped abruptly, and something like scuffling
ensued.  Later Norton heard the back of a chair strike the panel and
some one sat heavily upon it.  He waited perhaps five minutes; then he
gently slid back the panel.  Florence sat bound and gagged under his
very eyes.  It was but the work of a moment to liberate her.

"It is I, Jim.  Do not speak or make the least noise.  Follow me."

Greatly astonished, Florence obeyed; and the panel slipped back into
place.  The room behind the secret panel had barred windows.  To
Florence it appeared to be a real prison.

"How did you get here?" she asked breathlessly.

"Something told me to follow you.  And something is always going to
tell me to follow you, Florence."

She pressed his hand.  It was to her as if one of those book heroes had
stepped out of a book; only book heroes always had tremendous fortunes
and did not have to work for a living.  Oddly enough, she was not
afraid.

"Who was the man?" he asked.

"The Count Norfeldt.  Some one has imposed upon the countess."

"Do you think so?" with a strange look in his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing just now.  The idea is to get out of here just as quickly as
we can.  See this painting?"  He touched a spot in the wall and the
painting slowly swung out like a door.  "Come; we make our escape to
the side lawn from here."

At the stable they were confronted with the knowledge that Norton's car
was out of commission; Jones could do nothing with it.  Then Norton
suggested that he make an effort to commandeer the limousine of the
countess; but there were men about, so the limousine was out of the
question.

"Horses!" whispered Jones.  "There are several saddle horses, already
saddled.  How about these people, the owners?"

"Oh, they are beyond reproach.  They have doubtless been imposed upon.
But let us get aboard first.  There will be time to talk later.  I'll
have to do some explaining, taking these nags off like this.  We won't
have to ride out in front where the picnickers are.  There's a lane
back of the stable, and a slight detour brings us back into the main
road."

The three mounted and clattered away.  To Florence it had the air of a
prank.  She was beginning to have such confidence in these two
inventive men that she felt as if she was never going to be afraid any
more.

When the Countess Olga saw the three horses it was an effort not to fly
into a rage.  But secretly she warned her people, who presently gave
chase in the limousine, while she prattled and jested and laughed with
her company, who were quite unaware that a drama was being enacted
right under their very noses.  The countess, while she acted superbly,
tore her handkerchief into shreds.  There was something sinister in the
way all their plans fell through at the very moment of consummation;
and that night she determined to ask Braine to withdraw from this
warfare, which gradually decimated their numbers without getting
anywhere toward the goal.

Jones shouted that the limousine was tearing down the road.  Something
must be done to stop it.  He suggested that he drop behind, leave his
horse, and take a chance at potting a tire from the shrubbery at the
roadside.

"Keep going.  Don't stop, Norton, till you are back in town.  I'll
manage to take good care of myself."




CHAPTER VII

When all three finally met at the Hargreave home Florence suddenly took
Jones by the shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek.  Jones
started back, pale and disturbed.

Norton laughed.  He did not feel the slightest twinge of jealousy, but
he was eaten up with envy, as the old wives say.

"You are wondering if I suspect the Countess Perigoff?" said Jones.

"I am."  This man Jones was developing into a very remarkable
character.  The reporter found himself side glancing at the thin, keen
face of this resourceful butler.  The lobe of the man's left ear came
within range.  Norton reached for a cigarette, but his hands shook as
he lit it.  There was a peculiar little scar in the center of the lobe.

"Well," said Jones, "I can find no evidence that she has been concerned
in any of these affairs."

"You are suspicious?"

"Of everybody," looking boldly into the reporter's eyes.

"Of me?" smiling.

"Even of myself sometimes."

Conversation dropped entirely after this declaration.

"You're a taciturn sort of chap."

"Am I?"

"You are.  But an agreement is an agreement, and while I'd like to
print this story, I'll not.  We newspaper men seldom break our word."

Jones held out his hand.

"Sometimes I wish I'd started life right," said the reporter gloomily.
"A newspaper man is generally improvident.  He never looks ahead for
to-morrow.  What with my special articles to the magazines, I earn
between four and five thousand the year; and I've never been able to
save a cent."

"Perhaps you've never really tried," replied Jones, with a glance at
his companion.  It was a good face, strong in outline; a little
careworn, perhaps, but free from any indications of dissipation.  "If I
had begun life as you did, I'd have made real and solid use of the
great men I met.  I'd have made financiers help me to invest my
earnings, or savings, little as they might be.  And to-day I'd be
living on the income."

"You never can tell.  Perhaps a woman might have made you think of
those things; but if you had remained unattached up to thirty-one, as I
have, the thought of saving might never have entered your head.  A man
in my present condition, financially, has no right to think of
matrimony."

"It might be the saving of you if you met and married the right woman."

"But the right woman might be heiress to millions.  And a poor devil
like me could not marry a girl with money and hang on to his
self-respect."

"True.  But there are always exceptions to all rules in life, except
those regarding health.  A healthy man is a normal man, and a normal
man has no right to remain single.  You proved yourself a man this
afternoon, considering that you did not know I occupied the wheel seat.
Come to think it over, you really saved the day.  You gave me the
opportunity of steering straight for the police station.  Well,
good-by."

"Queer duck!" mused the reporter as, after telephoning, he headed for
his office.  Queer duck, indeed!  What a game it was going to be!  And
this man Jones was playing it like a master.  It did not matter that
some one else laid down the rules; it was the way in which they were
interpreted.

Braine heard of the failure.  The Black Hundred was finding its stock
far below par value.  Four valuable men locked up in the Tombs awaiting
trial, to say nothing of the seven gunmen gathered in at the old
warehouse.  Braine began to suspect that his failures were less due to
chance than to calculation, that at last he had encountered a mind
which anticipated his every move.  He would have recognized this fact
earlier had it not been that revenge had temporarily blinded him.  The
spirit of revenge never makes for mental clarity.

There was a meeting that night of the Black Hundred.  Four men were
told off, and they drew their chairs up to Vroon's table for
instructions.  Braine sat at Vroon's elbow.  These four men composed
the most dangerous quartet in New York City.  They were as daring as
they were desperate.  They were the men who held up bank messengers and
got away with thousands.  They had learned to swoop down upon their
victims as the hawk swoops down upon the heron.  The newspapers
referred to them as the "auto bandits," and the men took a deal of
pride in the furore they had created.

[Illustration: FOUR MEN WERE TOLD OFF]

Vroon went over the Hargreave case minutely; he left no detail
unexplained.  Bluntly and frankly, the daughter of Stanley Hargreave
must be caught and turned over to the care of the Black Hundred.  It
must be quick action.  Four valuable members were in the Tombs.  They
might or might not weaken under pressure.  For the first time in its
American career the organization stood facing actual peril; and its one
possible chance of salvation lay in the fact that no one's face was
known to his neighbor.  He, Vroon, and the boss alone knew who and what
each man was.  But the plans, the ramifications of the organization
might become public property; and that would mean an end to an
exceedingly profitable business.

The daughter of Hargreave rode horseback early every morning.  She
sought the country road.  She was invariably attended by the riding
master of a school near by.

"You four will make your own plans."

"If she should be injured?"

"Avoid it if possible."

"We have a free hand?"

"Absolutely."

"We risk a bad fall from her horse if it's a spirited one."

"Pretend a breakdown in the road," interpolated Braine.  "As they
approach, draw and order them to dismount.  That method will prevent
any accident."

"We'll plan it somehow.  It looks easy."

"Nothing is easy where that girl is concerned.  A thousand eyes seem to
be watching her slightest move."

"We shan't leave anything to chance.  How many days will you give us?"

"Seven.  A failure, mind you, will prove unhealthy to all concerned,"
with a menace which made the four stir uneasily.

The telephone rang.  Braine reached for the receiver.

"A man just entered the Hargreave house at the rear.  Come at once,"
was the message.

"Is your car outside?" Braine asked.

"We are never without it."

"Then let us be off.  No one will stop us for speeding on a side
street."

Fourteen minutes by the clock brought the car to a stand at the curb a
few houses below the Hargreave home.  The men got out.  The watcher ran
up.

"He is still inside," he whispered.

"Good!  Spread out.  If any one leaves that house, catch him.  If he
runs too fast, shoot.  We can beat the police."

The man obeyed, and the watcher ran back to his post.  He was
desperately hoping the affair would terminate to-night.  He was growing
weary of this eternal vigilance; and it was only his fear of the man
known as the boss that kept him at his post.  He wanted a night to
carouse in, to be with the boys.

The man for whom they were lying in wait was seen presently to creep
cautiously round the side of the house.  He hugged a corner and paused.
They could see the dim outline of his body.  The light in the street
back of the grounds almost made a silhouette of him.  By and by, as if
assured that the coast was clear, he stole down to the street.

"Halt!"

Instantly the prowler took to his heels.  Two shots rang out.  The man
was seen to stop, stagger, and then go on desperately.

"He's hit!"

By the time the men reached the corner they heard the rumble of a
motor.  One dashed back to the car they had left standing at the curb.
He made quick work of the job, but he was not quick enough.  Still,
they gave chase.  They saw the car turn toward the city.  But,
unfortunately for the success of the chase, several automobiles passed,
going into town and leaving it.  Checkmate.

Braine was keen enough to-night.

"He is hit; whether badly or not remains to be seen.  We can find that
out.  Drive to the nearest drug store and get a list of hospitals.
It's a ten to one shot that we land him somewhere among the hospitals."

But they searched the hospitals in vain.  None of them had that night
received a shooting case, nor had they heard one reported.  The man had
been unmistakably hit.  He would not have dared risk the loss of time
for a bit of play-acting.  Evidently he had kept his head and sought
his lodgings.  To call up doctors would be utter folly; for it would
take a week for a thorough combing.  This was the second time the man
had got away.

"Perhaps I'm to blame," admitted Braine.  "I should have advised Miles
to stalk him and pot him if he got the chance.  There's a master mind
working somewhere back of all this, and it's time I woke up to the
fact.  But you," turning to the auto bandits, "you men have your
instructions.  More than that, you have been given a free rein.  See
that you make good, or by the Lord Harry!  I'll break the four of you
like pipestems."

"We haven't had a failure yet," spoke up one of the men, more
courageous than his companions.

"You are not holding up a bank messenger this trip.  Remember that.
Drive me as far as Columbus Circle.  Leave me on the side street,
between the lights, so I can take off this mask."

Later Braine sauntered into Pabst's and ordered a light supper.  This
night's work, more than anything else, brought home to him the fact
that his luck was changing.  For years he had proceeded with his shady
occupations without encountering any memorable failure.  He moved in
the high world, quite unsuspected.  He had written books, given
lectures, been made a lion of, all the while laughing in his sleeve at
the gullibility of human nature.  But within the last two weeks he had
received serious checks.  From now on he must move with the utmost
caution.  Some one was playing his own game, waging warfare unseen.  A
battle of wits?  So be it; but Braine intended to play with rough wits,
and he wasn't going to care which way the sword cut.

He hated Stanley Hargreave with all the hatred of his soul; the hatred
of a man balked in love.  And the man was alive, defying him; alive
somewhere in this city this very night, with a bullet under his skin.

"Is everything satisfactory, sir?" he heard the head waiter say.

"Satisfactory?" Braine repeated blankly.

"Yes, sir.  You struck the table as though displeased."

"Oh!"  Then Braine laughed relievedly.  "If I struck the table, it was
done unconsciously.  I was thinking."

"Beg pardon, sir.  Anything else, sir?"

"No.  Bring me the check."


"Your master gives riding lessons?"

The groom who had led the horse back from Hargreave's eyed his
questioner rather superciliously.

"Yes."  The groom fondled the animal's legs.

"How much is it?"

"Twenty dollars for a ticket of five rides.  The master is the fashion
up here.  He doesn't cater to any but the best families."

"Pretty steep.  Who was that young lady riding this morning with your
master?"

"That's the girl all the newspapers have been talking about," answered
the groom importantly.

"Actress?"

"Actress!  I should say not.  That young woman is the daughter of
Stanley Hargreave, the millionaire who was lost at sea.  And it won't
be long before she puts her finger in a pie of four or five millions.
If you want any rides, you'll have to talk it over with the boss.  He
may or may not take any more rides.  You'd probably have to ride in the
afternoon, anyhow, as every nag is out in the morning."

"Where's the most popular road?"

"Toward the park; but Miss Hargreave always goes along the riverside
road.  She doesn't like strangers about."

"Oh, I see.  Well, I'll drop in this afternoon and see your master.
They say that riding is good for a torpid liver.  Have a cigar?"

"Thanks."

The groom proceeded into the stables and the affable stranger took
himself off.

A free rein; they could work it to suit themselves.  There wasn't the
least obstacle in the way.  On the face of it, it appeared to be the
simplest job they had yet undertaken.  To get rid of the riding master
in some natural way after he and the girl had started.  It was like
falling off a log.

"Susan," said Florence, as she came into breakfast after her
exhilarating ride, "did you hear pistol shots last night?"

"I heard some noise, but I was so sleepy I didn't try to figure out
what it was."

"Did you, Jones?"

"Yes, Miss Florence.  The shots came from the street.  A policeman came
running up later and said he saw two automobiles on the run.  But
evidently there wasn't anybody hurt.  One has to be careful at night
nowadays.  There are pretty bad men abroad.  Did you enjoy the ride?"

"Very much.  But there were some spots of blood on the walk near the
corner."

"Blood?"  Jones caught the back of a chair to steady himself.

"Yes.  So some one was hurt.  Oh, let's leave this place!" impulsively.
"Let us go back to Miss Farlow's.  You could find a place in the
village, Jones.  But if I stay here much longer in this state of unrest
I shall lose faith in everything and everybody.  Whoever my father's
enemies are, they do not lack persistence.  They have made two attempts
against my liberty, and sooner or later they will succeed.  I keep
looking over my shoulder all the time.  If I hear a noise I jump."

"Miss Florence, if I thought it wise, you should be packed off to Miss
Farlow's this minute.  But not an hour of the day or night passes
without this house being watched.  I seldom see anybody about.  I can
only sense the presence of a watcher.  At Miss Farlow's you would be
far more like a prisoner than here.  I could not accompany you.  I am
forbidden to desert this house."

"My father's orders?"

Jones signified neither one way nor the other.  He merely gazed
stolidly at the rug.

"That blood!"  She sprang from her chair, horrified.  "It was his!  He
was here last night and they shot him!  Oh!"

"There, there, Miss Florence!  The man was only slightly wounded.  He's
where they never will look for him."  Then Jones continued, as with an
effort: "Trust me, Miss Florence.  It would not pay to run away.  The
whole affair would be repeated elsewhere.  We might go to the other end
of the world, but it would not serve us in the least.  It is not a
question of escape, but of who shall vanquish the other.  There is
nothing to do but remain here and fight, fight, fight.  We have put
four of them in the Tombs, to say nothing of the gunmen.  That is what
we must do--put them in a safe place, one by one, till we reach the
master.  Then only may we breathe in safety.  But if they watch, so do
we.  There is never a moment when help is not within reach, no matter
where you go.  So long as you do not deceive me, no real harm shall
befall you.  Don't cry.  Be your father's daughter, as I am his
servant."

"I am very unhappy!"  And Florence threw her arms around Susan and laid
her head upon her friend's shoulder.

"Poor child!"  Susan, however, recognized the wisdom of Jones'
statements.  They were safest here.

The morning rides continued.  To the girl, who loved the open, it was
glorious fun.  Those mad gallops along the roads, the smell of earth
and sea, the tingle in the blood, were the second best moments of the
day.  The first?  She invariably blushed when she considered what these
first best moments were.  He was a brave young man, good to look at,
witty, and always cheerful.  Why shouldn't she like him?  Even Jones
liked him--Jones, who didn't seem to like anybody.  It did not matter
whether he was wise or not; a worldly point of view was farthest from
her youthful thoughts.  It was her own affair; her own heart.

Five days later, as she and the riding master were cantering along the
road, enjoying every bit of it, they heard the beat of hoofs behind.
They drew up and turned.  A rider was approaching them at a run.  It
was the head groom.  The man stopped his horse in a cloud of dust.

"Sir, the stables are on fire."

"Fire?"

All the riding master's savings were invested in the stables.  The fact
that he had solemnly promised never to leave Florence alone, and that
he had accepted a generous bonus slipped from his mind at the thought
of fire, a terrible word to any horseman.  He wheeled and started off
at breakneck speed, his head groom clattering behind him.

Florence naturally wondered which of two courses to pursue: follow
them, when she would be perfectly helpless to aid them, or continue the
ride and save at least one horse from the terror of seeing flames.  She
chose the latter.  But she did not ride with the earlier zest.  She
felt depressed.  She loved horses, and the thought of them dying in
those wooden stables was horrifying.

The fire, however, proved to be incipient.  But it was plainly
incendiary.  Some one had set fire to the stables with a purpose in
view.  Norton recognized this fact almost as soon as the firemen.  He
had come this morning with the idea of surprising Florence.  He was
going out on horseback to join her.

His spine grew suddenly cold.  A trap!  She had been left alone on the
road!  He ran over to the garage, secured a car, and went humming out
toward the river road.  A trap, and only by the sheerest luck had he
turned up in time.

Meantime Florence was walking her mount slowly.  For once the scenery
passed unobserved.  She was deeply engrossed with thoughts, some of
which were happy and some of which were sad.  If only her father could
be with her she would be the happiest girl alive.

She was brought out of her revery by the sight of a man staggering
along the road ahead of her.  Finally he plunged upon his face in the
road.  Like the tender-hearted girl she was, she stopped, dismounted,
and ran to the fallen man to give him aid.  She suddenly found her
wrists clasped in two hands like iron.  The man rose to his feet,
smiling evilly.  She struggled wildly but futilely.

"Better be sensible," he said.  "I am stronger than you are.  And I
don't wish to hurt you.  Walk on ahead of me.  It will be utterly
useless to scream or cry out.  You can see for yourself that we are in
a deserted part of the road.  If you will promise to act sensibly I
shan't lay a hand on you.  Do you see that hut yonder, near the fork in
the road?  We'll stop there.  Now, march!"

[Illustration: "BETTER BE SENSIBLE," HE SAID]

She dropped her handkerchief, later her bracelet, and finally her crop,
in hope that these slight clues might bring her help.  She knew that
Jones would hear of the fire, and, finding that she had not returned
with the riding master, would immediately start out in pursuit.  She
was beginning to grow very fond of Jones, who never spoke unless spoken
to, who was always at hand, faithful and loyal.

From afar came the low rumble of a motor.  She wondered if her captor
heard it.  He did, but his ears tricked him into believing that it came
from another direction.  Eventually they arrived at the hut, and
Florence was forced to enter.  The man locked the door and waited
outside for the automobile which he was expecting.  He was rather
dumfounded when he saw that it was coming from the city, not going
toward it.

It was Norton.  The riderless horse told him enough; the handkerchief
and bracelet and crop led him straight for the hut.

The man before the hut realized by this time that he had made a
mistake.  He attempted to re-enter the hut and prepare to defend it
till his companions hove in sight.  But Florence, recognizing Norton,
held the door with all her strength.  The man snarled and turned toward
Norton, only to receive a smashing blow on the jaw.

Norton flung open the door.  "Into the car, Florence!  There's another
car coming up the road.  Hurry!"

It was not a long chase.  The car of the auto bandits, looking like an
ordinary taxicab, was a high-powered machine, and it gained swiftly on
Norton's four-cylinder.  The reporter waited grimly.

"Keep your head down!" he warned Florence.  "I'm going to take a pot at
their tires when they get within range.  If I miss I'm afraid we'll
have trouble.  Under no circumstances attempt to leave this car.  Here
they come!"

He suddenly leaned back and fired.  It was only chance.  The manner in
which the cars were lurching made a poor target for a marksman even of
the first order.  Chance directed Norton's first bullet into the right
forward tire, which exploded.  Going at sixty-odd miles an hour, they
could not stop the car in time to avoid fatality.  The car careened
wildly and plunged down the embankment into the river.

Florence covered her eyes with her hands, and, quite unconscious of
what he was doing, Norton put his arms around her.




CHAPTER VIII

After the affair of the auto bandits--three of whom were killed--a lull
followed.  If you're a sailor you know what kind of a lull I
mean--blue-black clouds down the southwest horizon, the water crinkly,
the booms wabbling.  Suddenly a series of "accidents" began to happen
to Norton.  At first he did not give the matter much thought.  The safe
which fell almost at his feet and crashed through the sidewalk merely
induced him to believe he was lucky.  At another time an automobile
came furiously around a corner while he was crossing the street, and
only amazing agility saved him from bodily hurt.  The car was out of
sight when he thought to recall the number.

Then came the jolt in the subway.  Only a desperate grab by one of the
guards saved him from being crushed to death.  Even then he thought
nothing.  But when a new box of cigarettes arrived and he tried one and
found it strangely perfumed, and, upon further analysis, found it to
contain a Javanese narcotic, a slow but sure death, he became wide
awake enough.  They were after him.  He began to walk carefully, to
keep in public places as often as he possibly could.

He was not really afraid of death, but he did abhor the thought of its
coming up from behind.  Except for the cigarettes they were all
"accidents;" he could not have proved anything before a jury of his
intimate friends.

He never entered an elevator without scrupulous care.  He never passed
under coverings over the sidewalks where construction was going on.
Still, careful as he was, death confronted him once more.  It was his
habit to have his coffee and rolls--he rarely ate anything more for his
breakfast--set down outside his door every morning.  The coffee, being
in a silver thermos bottle, kept its heat for hours.  When he took the
stopper out and poured forth a cup it looked oddly black, discolored.
It is quite probable that had there been no series of "accidents" he
would have drunk a cup--and died in mortal agony.  It contained
bichloride of mercury.

Very quietly he set about to make inquiries.  This was really becoming
serious.  In the kitchens clown-stairs nothing could be learned.  The
maid had set the thermos bottle before the door at ten-thirty.  Norton
had opened the door at one-thirty--three hours after.  The outlook was
not the cheerfulest.  He knew perfectly well why all these things
"happened;" he had interfered with the plans of the scoundrels who were
making every possible move to kidnap Florence Hargreave.

One afternoon he paid Florence a visit.  Of course he told her nothing.
They had become secretly engaged the day after he had rescued her from
the auto bandits.  They were secretly engaged because Florence wanted
it so.  For once Jones suspected nothing.  Why should he?  He had
troubles enough.  As a matter of fact, Norton was afraid of him in the
same sense as a boy is afraid of a policeman.

[Illustration: THEY HAD BECOME SECRETLY ENGAGED]

But on this day, when the time came, he accosted the butler and drew
him into the pantry.

"Jones, they are after me now."

"You?  Explain."

Norton briefly recounted the deliberate attempts against his life.

"You see, I'm not liar enough to say that I'm not worried.  I am,
devilishly worried.  I'm not worth any ransom.  I'm in the way, and
they seem determined to put me out of it."

"To any other man I would say travel.  But to you I say when you leave
your rooms don't go where you first thought you would--that is, some
usual haunt.  They'll be everywhere, near your restaurants, your clubs,
your office.  You're a methodical young man; become erratic.  Keep away
from here for at least three days, but always call me up by telephone
some time during the day.  Never under any circumstance, unless I send
for you, come here at night.  Only one man now watches the house during
the day, but five are prowling around after dark.  They might have
instructions to shoot you on sight.  I can't spare you just at present,
Mr. Norton.  You've been a godsend; and if it seems that sometimes I
did not trust you fully it was because I did not care to drag you in
too deep."

Deep?  Norton thought of Florence and smiled inwardly.  Could anybody
be in deeper than he was?  Once it was on the tip of his tongue to
confess his love for Florence, but the gravity of Jones' countenance
was an obstacle to such move; it did not invite it.

To be sure, Jones had no real authority to say what Florence should or
should not do with her heart.  Still, from all points of view, it was
better to keep the affair under the rose till there came a more
propitious hour in which to make the disclosure.

Love, in the midst of all these alarms!  Sharp, desperate rogues on one
side, millions on the other, and yet love could enter the scene
serenely, like an actor who had missed his cue and come on too soon.

Oddly enough, there was no real love-making such as you often read
about.  A pressure of the hand, a glance from the eye, there was seldom
anything more.  Only once--that memorable day on the river road--had he
kissed her.  No word of love had been spoken on either side.  In that
wild moment all conventionalities had disappeared like smoke in the
wind.  There had been neither past nor future, only the present in
which they knew that they loved.  With her he was happy, for he had no
time to plan over the future.  Away from her he saw the inevitable
barriers providing against the marriage between a poor young man and a
very rich young woman.  A man who has any respect for himself wants
always to be on equal terms with his wife.  It's the way this peculiar
organization called society has written down its rules.  Doubtless a
relic of the stone age, when Ab went out with his club to seek a wife
and drag her by the hair to his den, there to care for her and to guard
her with his life's blood.  It is one of the few primitive sensations
that remain to us, this wanting the female dependent upon the male.
Perhaps this accounts for man's lack of interest on the suffragette
question.

[Illustration: WITH HER HE WAS HAPPY, FOR HE HAD NO TIME TO PLAN OVER
THE FUTURE]

Only Susan suspected the true state of affairs, being a woman.  Having
had no real romance herself, she delighted in having a second-hand one,
as you might say.  She intercepted many a glance and pretended not to
see the stolen hand pressures.  The wedding was already full drawn in
her mind's eye.  These two young people should be married at Susan
Farlow's when the roses were climbing up the sides of the house and the
young robins were boldly trying their fuzzy wings.  It struck her as
rather strange, but she could not conjure up (at this wedding) more
than two men besides the minister, the bridegroom and the butler.

By forsaking his accustomed haunts, under the advice of Jones, the
hidden warfare ceased temporarily.  You can't very well kill a man when
you don't know where to find him.  He ate his breakfasts haphazardly,
now here, now there.  He received most of his assignments by telephone
and wrote his stories and articles in his club, in the writing rooms of
hotels, and invariably despatched them to the office by messenger.  The
managing editor wanted to know what all this meant; but Norton declined
to tell him.

It irked him to be forced to rearrange his daily life--his habits.  It
was a revolution against his ease, for he loved ease when he was not at
work.  He had the sensation of having been suddenly robbed of his home,
of having been cast out into the streets.  And on top of all this he
had to go and fall in love!

There was no longer a shadow opposite the apartments of the Countess
Perigoff.  Braine came and went nightly without discovering any one.
This rather worried him.  It gave him the impression that the shadow
had found out what he had been seeking and no longer needed to watch
the coming and going of either himself or the Countess Perigoff.

"Olga, it looks as if we were at the end of our rope," he said
discouragedly.  "We have failed in our attempts so far.  The devil
watches over that girl."

"Or God," replied the countess gloomily.  In nearly every instance
their success has been due to chance.  "Somehow I'm convinced that we
began wrong.  We should have let Hargreave escape quietly, followed
him, and made him fast when the right opportunity came.  After a month
or so his vigilance would have relaxed; he would have arrived at the
belief that he had eluded us."

"Indeed!" ironically.  "He wasn't vigilant all these years in which he
did elude us.  How about the child he never sought but guarded?
Vigilance!  He never was anything else all these seventeen years.  The
truth is, success has developed a coarseness in our methods.  And now
it is too late for finesse.  We have tried every device we can think
of; and there they are--the girl free, Norton unharmed, and the father
as secure in his retreat as though he wore an invisible cloak.  My head
aches.  I have ceased to be inventive."

[Illustration: THEY WERE TO BE MARRIED]

"The two are in love with each other."

"Are you sure of that?"

"I have my eyes.  But I begin to wonder."

"About what?"

"Whether or not Jones suspects me and is giving me rope to hang myself
with.  Not once have the police been called in and told what has really
happened.  They are totally at sea.  And what has become of the man
over the way?"

"By the Lord Harry!" exclaimed Braine, clapping his hands.  "I believe
I've solved that.  We shot a man coming out of Hargreave's.  Since then
there's been no one across the way.  One and the same man!"

"But that knowledge doesn't get us anywhere."

"No.  You say they are in love?"

"Secretly.  I don't believe the butler has an inkling of it.  It is
possible, however, that Susan has caught the trend of affairs.  But,
being rather romantic, she will in nowise interfere."

Braine smoked in silence.  Presently a smile twisted his lips.

"You have thought of something?" she asked.

"You might try it," he said.  "They have accepted your friendship;
whether with ulterior purpose remains to be learned.  She has been to
your apartments two or three times to tea and always got home safely."

"No," she said determinedly.  "Nothing shall happen here.  I will not
take the risk."

"Wait till I'm through.  Break up the romance in such a way that the
girl will bar Norton from the house.  That's what we've been aiming at;
to get rid of that meddling reporter.  We've tried poisons.  Try your
kind."

"What do you mean?"

"Lies."

"Ah!  I understand.  You want me to win him away from her.  It can not
be done."

"Pshaw!  You have a bag full of tricks.  You can easily manage to put
him into an equivocal position out of which he can not possibly squirm
so far as the girl is concerned.  A little melodrama, arranged for the
benefit of Florence.  Fall into Norton's arms at the right moment, or
something like that."

"I suppose I could.  But if I failed..."

"You're too damnably clever to fail in your own particular work.
Something has got to be done to keep those two apart.  I've often
thought of raiding the house and boldly carrying off the whole family,
Susan and all.  But a wholesale affair like that would be too noisy.
Think it over, Olga; we have gone too far to back down now.  There's
always Russia; and while I'm the boss over here they never cease to
watch me.  They'll make me answer for a failure like this."

She eyed him speculatively.  "You have money."

"Oh, the money doesn't matter.  It's the game.  It's the game of
playing fast and loose with society, of pilfering it with one hand and
making it kow-tow with the other.  It's the sport of the thing.  What
was your thought?"

"We could go away together, to South America."

"And tire of each other within a month," he retorted shrewdly.  "No; we
are in the same boat.  We could not live but for this never-ending
excitement.  And, more than that, we never could get far enough away
from the long arm of the First Ten.  We'll have to stick it out here.
Can't you see?"

"Yes, I can see."

But in her heart she knew that she would have lived in a hut with this
man till the end of her days.  She abhorred the life, though she never,
by the slightest word, let him become aware of it.  There was always
that abiding fear that at the first sign of weakness he would desert
her.  And she was wise in her deductions.  Braine was loyal to her
because she held his interest.  Once that failed, he would be off and
away.

The next afternoon the countess, having matured her plans against the
happiness of the young girl who trusted her, drew up before the
Hargreave place and alighted.  Her welcome was the same as ever, and
this strengthened her confidence.

The countess was always gesticulating.  Her hands fluttered to
emphasize her words.  And the beautiful diamond solitaire caught the
girl's eye.  She seized the hand.  Having an affair of her own, it was
natural that she should be interested in that of her friend.

"I never saw that ring before."

"A gift of yesterday."  The countess assumed a shy air which would have
deceived St. Anthony.  She twisted the ring on her finger.

"Tell me," cried Florence.  "You are engaged?"

"Mercy, no!"

"Is he rich?"

"No.  Money should not matter when your heart is involved."

As this thought was in accord with her own, Florence nodded her head
sagely.

"It's nothing serious.  Just a fancy.  I shall never marry again.  Men
are gay deceivers; they always have been and always will be.  Perhaps
I'm a bit wicked; but I rather like to prove my theory that all men are
weak.  If I had a daughter I'd rather have her be an old man's darling
than a young man's drudge.  I distrust every man I know.  I came to ask
you and Susan to go to the opera with me to-night.  You will come to my
apartments first.  You will come?"

"To be sure we will!"

"Simple little fool!" thought the Russian on the way home.  "She shall
see."

"I believe the countess is engaged to be married," said Florence to
Jones.

"Indeed, miss?"

"Yes.  I couldn't get anything definite out of her, but she had a
beautiful ring on her finger.  She wants Susan and me to go to the
opera with her to-night.  Will that be all right?"

Jones gazed abstractedly at the rug.  Whenever a problem bothered him
he seemed to find the solution in the delicate patterns of the Persian
rugs.  Finally he nodded.  "I see no reason why you should not go.
Only, watch out."

"Jones, there is one thing that will make me brave and happy.  Will you
tell me if you are in direct communication with my father?"

"Yes, Miss Florence," he answered promptly.  "But do not breathe this
to a single soul, neither Susan nor Norton."

"I promise that.  But, ah! hasten the day when he can come to me
without fear."

"That is my wish also."

"You need not call me miss.  Why should you?"

"It might not be wise to have any one hear me call you thus
familiarly," he objected gravely.

"Please yourself about that.  Now I must telephone Jim."

"Jim?" the butler murmured.

He caught the word which was not intended for his ears.  But for once
Jones had been startled out of himself.

"Is it wrong for me to call Mr. Norton Jim?" she asked with a bit of
banter.

"It is not considered quite the proper thing, Miss Florence, to call a
young man by his first name unless you are engaged to marry him, or
grew up with him from childhood."

"Well, supposing I were engaged to him?" haughtily.

"That would be a very grave affair.  What have you to prove that he may
not wish to marry you for your money?"

"Why, Jones, you know that I haven't a penny in the world I can call my
own!  There is nothing to prove, except your word, that I am Stanley
Hargreave's daughter."

"No, there is nothing to prove that you are his daughter.  But hasn't
it ever occurred to you that there might be a purpose back of this?
Might it not be of inestimable value that your father's enemies should
be left in doubt?  Might it not be a means of holding them on the
leash?  There is proof, ample proof, my child; and when the time comes
these will be shown you.  But meantime put all thought of marrying Mr.
Norton out of your mind."

"That I refuse to do," quietly.  "I am at least mistress of my heart;
and no one shall dictate to me whom I shall or shall not marry.  I love
Mr. Norton and he loves me, knowing that I may not be an heiress after
all.  And some day I shall marry him."

Jones bowed.  This seemed to appear final to him, and nothing more was
to be said.

Norton did not return to his rooms till seven.  He found the telephone
call and also a note in a handwriting unfamiliar.  He tore off the
envelope and found!  the contents to be from the Countess Perigoff.

"Call at eight to-night," he read.  "I have an important news story for
you.  Tell no one, as I can not be involved in the case.  Cordially,
Olga, Countess Perigoff."

Humph!  Norton twiddled the note in his fingers and at length rolled it
into a ball and threw it into the waste-basket.  He, too, made a
mistake; he should have kept that note.  He dressed, dined, and hurried
off to the apartments of the countess.

He arrived ten minutes before Florence and Susan.

And Jones did some rapid telephoning.

"How long, how long!" the butler murmured.  How long would this strange
combat last?  The strain was terrible.  He slept but little during the
nights, for his ears were always waiting for sounds.  He had cast the
chest into the sea, and it would take a dozen expert divers to locate
it.  And now, atop of all these worries, the child must fall in love
with the first comer!  It was heart-breaking.  Norton, so far as he had
learned, was cool and brave, honest and reliable in a pinch; but as the
husband of Stanley Hargreave's daughter, that was altogether a
different matter.  And he must devise some means of putting a stop to
it, but---

But he was saved that trouble.

Mongoose and cobra, that was the game being played; the cunning of the
one against the deadly venom of the other.  If he forced matters he
would only lay himself open to the strike of the snake.  He must have
patience.  Gradually they were breaking the organization, lopping off a
branch here and there, but the peace of the future depended upon
getting a grip on the spine of the cobra himself.

The trick was simple.  The countess had news; trust her for that.  She
exhibited a cablegram, dated at Gibraltar, in which the British
authorities stated definitely that no such a person as William Orts,
aviator, had arrived at Gibraltar.  And then, as Norton rose, she rose
also and gently precipitated herself into his arms, just at the moment
when Florence appeared in the doorway.

Very simple, indeed.  When a woman falls toward a man there is nothing
for him to do but extend his arms to prevent her from falling.
Outwardly, however, to the eye which saw only the picture and
comprehended not the cause, it had all the hallmarks of an affectionate
embrace.

Florence stood perfectly still for a moment, then turned away.

"I beg your pardon," said the countess, "but a sudden fainting spell
seized me.  My heart is a bit weak."

"Don't mention it," replied the gallant Norton.  He was as innocent as
a babe as to what had really taken place.

Florence went back home.  She wrote a brief note to Norton and inclosed
the ring which she had secretly worn attached to a little chain around
her neck.

When Norton came the next day she refused to see him.  It was all over.
She never wished to see him again.

"He says there has been some cruel mistake," said Jones.

"I saw him with the countess in his arms.  I do not see any cruel
mistake in that.  I saw him.  Tell him so.  And add that I never wish
to see him again."

Then she ran swiftly to her room, where she broke down and cried
bitterly and would not be comforted by Susan.

"In heaven's name, what has happened?" demanded the frantic lover,
"what has happened?"

The comedy of the whole affair lay in the fact that neither of the two
suspected the countess, who consoled them both.




CHAPTER IX

So far as Jones was concerned, he was rather pleased with the turn of
affairs.  This was no time for love-making; no time for silly,
innocuous quarrels and bickerings, in which love must indulge or die.
Florence no longer rode horseback, and Norton returned to his
accustomed haunts, where no one made the slightest attempt upon his
life.  In his present state of mind he would have welcomed it.

"What's the matter with Jim?" asked the night city editor, raising his
eye shade.

"I don't know," answered the copy reader.

"Goes around as if he'd been eating dope; bumped into the boss a while
ago and never stopped to apologize."

"Perhaps he's mapping out the front page for that Hargreave stuff,"
laughed the copy reader.  "Between you and me and the gate post, I
don't believe there ever was a man by the name of Hargreave."

"Oh, there was a chap by that name, all right.  He's dead.  A man can't
swim three hundred miles in rough water, life-buoy or no.  They ought
to have funeral services, and let it go at that."

"But what was the reason for that fake cable from Gibraltar saying that
Orts was alive?  I don't see any sense in that."

"The man who pulled it off did.  I think, for my part, that both Orts
and Hargreave are dead, and that the man picked up by the tramp steamer
_Orient_ was riding some other balloon."

"You're wrong there.  The description of it proved that it was Orts'
machine.  Oh, Jim probably has got a man's-size yarn up his sleeve, but
he's a long time in delivering the goods.  He's beginning to mope a
good deal.  Woman back of it somewhere.  Haven't held down this copy
job for twelve years without being able to make some tolerable guesses.
Jim's a star man.  When he gets started nothing can stop him.  He
covered the Chinese Boxer rebellion better than any other correspondent
there.  I wonder how old he is?"

"Oh, I should say about thirty-one or two.  Here he comes now.  'Lo,
Jim!"

"Hello!  Where's Ford?  He gave me a ticket to the theater to-night,
and I want to punch his head.  What's drama coming to, anyhow?
Cigarettes and booze and mismated couples.  Can't they find good enough
things out of doors?  Oh, I know.  They cater to a lot of fools who
believe that what they see is an expression of high life in New York
and London.  And it's rot, plain rot.  It's merely the scum of the
boiling pot.  Any old housewife would skim it off and chuck it into the
slops.  Life?  Piffle!"

"What's the grouch?"

"Looking for the dramatic job?"

"No.  I've just been wondering how far these theatrical managers can go
without slitting the golden goose."

Norton sought his desk and began rummaging the drawers.  He was not
hunting for anything; he was merely passing away the time.  By and by,
when the time no longer served, he pulled his chair over to the window
and sat down, staring at stars such as Copernicus never dreamed of.
Ships going down to sea, ferries swooping diagonally hither and
thither, the clockwork signs; but he took no note of these marvels of
light.

"Not at home!" he muttered.

He had called, written, telephoned.  No use.  The door remained shut,
Jones answered the telephone, and the letters came back.  He began to
think very deeply concerning the Perigoff woman.  Had she played a
trick?  Had that fainting spell been buncombe for his benefit as well
as Florence's?  But he had not a shadow of a proof.  The thing that
puzzled him equally with this was that all attempts against his life
had miraculously ceased; no safes thundered down in front of him, and
no autos tried to carve him in two.  The only thing that kept him
active was the daily call of Jones by wire.  Miss Florence was well;
that was all Jones was permitted to say.

Restlessly Norton spurned his chair and walked over to the telephone
booth.  It was midnight.  He might or might not be able to get Jones.
But almost instantly a voice said, "What is it?"

"Jones?"

"Yes.  Who is it?"

"Norton."

"Why, you called me up not ten minutes ago."

"Not I!"

"It was your voice, as plain as day."

"What did I want?" keen all at once.

The reply did not come immediately.  "You are certain it was not you?"

"Wait a moment and I'll call the editor.  He will prove to you that
I've been here for an hour, and that this is the first call I've made.
Some one has been imposing on you.  What did they ask you to do?"

"You asked me to come down to the office at once, and I requested you
to come to the house, and you said you could not.  I declined to stir."

"What did you think?"

"Exactly what you're thinking--that they have come to life again."

"Jones, is Miss Florence awake?"

"No."

"Do you think there is any hope of having her understand what really
happened?"

"I am only here to guard her.  I can not undertake to read her
thoughts."

"You're not quite in favor of a reconciliation?"

"Oh, yes, if it went no further.  Young people are young people the
world over."

"What does that mean?"

"That they would not create imaginary heartaches if they were not
young.  Better let things remain exactly as they are.  When all these
troubles are settled finally, the lesser trouble may be talked over
sensibly.  But this is not the time.  There is no news.  Good night."

Norton returned to his chair, gloomier than ever.  With his feet upon
the window sill he stared and stared and dreamed and dreamed till a
hand fell upon his shoulder.  It belonged to one of the office boys.

"Note f'r you, sir."

Norton read it and tore it into little pieces.  Then he rose and
distributed the pieces in the several yawning waste baskets which
strewed the aisle leading to the city desk.

"I'm not wanted for anything?" he asked.

"No.  Clear out!" laughed the night city editor.  "The sight of you is
putting everybody in the gloom ward."

Norton went down to the street.  At the left of the entrance he was
quietly joined by a man whose arm was carried in a sling.  He motioned
Norton to get into the taxicab.  They were dropped in a deserted spot
in Riverdale.  On foot they went forward to their destination, which
proved to be the deserted hangar of the aviator, William Orts.

"I want you to tell Jones that a tub and several divers are at work on
the spot where he threw the chest.  That's all.  Now, doctor, rewind
this arm of mine."

The amateur surgeon made a very good job of it; not for nothing had he
followed fighting armies to the front.

"Did they find anything?"

"Not up to date.  But we might if we cared to.  They have left a buoy
over the spot they're exploring.  But just now it floats a quarter of a
mile to the east of the spot."

"Who were the men in the motor boat that chased Jones?"

"Only Jones can tell you.  Queer old codger, eh?"

"A bit stubborn.  He wants to handle it without police assistance."

"And he's right.  We are not aiming to arrest any one," sinisterly.
"There can't be any draw to this game.  Here, no smoking.  Too much gas
afloat."

Norton put the cigarettes back into his pocket.  "What's the real
news?" he demanded.  "You would not bring me out here just to rebandage
that arm.  It really did not need it.  Come, out with it."

"You're sharp."

"I'm paid to be sharp."

"I've found where the Black Hundred hold their sessions."

"By George, that's news!"

"The room above is vacant.  A little hole in the ceiling, and who knows
what might happen?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Tell Jones.  When the next meeting comes around I'll advise you.  I've
stumbled upon a dissatisfied member.  So, buck up, as they say.  We've
got two ends of the net down, and with a little care we'll have them
all.  Now let me have a hundred."

Norton drew out a packet of bills and counted off five twenties.

"Why don't you draw the cash yourself?"

"It happens to be in your name, son."

"I forgot," said Norton.  "But what a chance for me!  Nearly five
thousand, all mine for a ticket to Algiers!"

A grunt was the only reply.

"I want you to tell me about the Perigoff woman."

"I know only one thing--that Braine is there every night."

"No!"

"The orders are for you to play the game just as you are playing it.
When we strike, it must be the last blow.  All this hide-and-seek
business may look foolish to you.  It's like that Japanese game called
'jo.'  It looks simple, but chess is a tyro's game beside it.  Can you
find your way back all right?"

"I can."

"Well, you'd better be going.  That's all the light I have, in this
torch here.  Got a lot to do to-morrow and need sleep."

Norton stole away with great caution.  His first intention was to
proceed straight to the city, but despite his resolution he found
himself within a quarter of an hour gazing up at the windows of the
Hargreave house.  "Not at home!"

Quite unconscious of the fact, he was as close to death as any mortal
man might care to be.  The policeman suddenly looming up under the arc
lamp proved to be his savior.


The lull made Jones doubly alert.  He was positive that they were
preparing to strike again.  But from what direction and in what manner?
He had not met the gift of clairvoyance so he had to wait; and waiting
is a terrible game when perhaps death is balancing the scales.  It is
always easier to make an assault than to await it; and it is a good
general who always finds himself prepared.

But it made his heart ache to watch the child.  She went about
cheerfully--when any one was in the room with her.  Many a time,
however, he had stolen to the door of her bedroom and heard the
heart-rending sobs, a vain attempt being made to stifle them among the
pillows.  She was only eighteen; it was first love; and first loves are
pale, evanescent attachments.  It hurt now; but she would get over it
presently.  Youth forgets.  Time, like water, smooths away the ragged
places.

The countess called regularly.  She was, of course, dreadfully sorry
over what had happened.  She had heard something about his character;
newspaper men weren't always the best.  This one was a mere fortune
hunter; a two-faced one, at that.  She was never more surprised in her
life than when he threw his arms around her.  And so on, and so forth,
half lies and half truths, till the patient Jones felt like wringing
her neck.

From his vantage point the butler smiled ironically.  He could read the
heart of the Perigoff woman as he could read the page of a book.  The
effrontery!  And all the while he must gravely admit her and pretend
when the blood rioted in his veins at the sight of her.  But he dared
not swerve a single inch from the plans laid down.  It was a cup of
bitter gall, and there was no way of avoiding the putting of it to his
lips.  She emanated poison as nightshade emanates it, the upas tree.
And he must bow when she entered and bow when she left!  Still, she had
done him an indirect favor in breaking up this love business.

One afternoon Braine summoned his runabout and called up two
physicians.  When he was ushered into the deserted office of the first
he sent his card in.  The doctor replied in person.  His face was pale
and his hands shook.

"Good afternoon," said Braine, smiling affably.

The doctor eyed him like a man hypnotized.  "You ... you wished to see
me on some particular business?"

"Very particular," dryly.  "My car is outside.  Will you be so good as
to accompany me?"

The doctor slowly went into the hall for his hat and coat.  He left the
house and got into the car with never a word of protest.

"Thinking?" said Braine.

"I am always thinking whenever I see your evil face.  What devilment do
you require of me this time?"

"A mere stroke of the pen."

"Where are we going?"

"To call on another physician of your standing," significantly.  "It is
a great thing to have friends like you two.  Always ready to serve us,
for the mere love of it."

"There's no need of using that kind of talk to me.  You have me in the
hollow of your hand.  Why should I bother to deny it?  I have broken
the law.  I broke it because I was starving."

"It is better to starve in freedom than to eat fat joints up the river.
To-day it is a question of sanity."

"And you want me to assist in signing away the liberty of some person
who is perfectly sane?"

"The nail on the head," urbanely.

"You're a fine scoundrel!"

"Not so loud!" warningly.

"As loud as I please.  I am not forgetting that you need me.  I'm no
coward.  I recognize that you hold the whip hand.  But you can send me
to the chair before I'll crawl to you.  Now, leave me alone for a
while."

The other physician had no such qualms of conscience.  He was ready at
all times for the generous emoluments which accrued from his dealings
with the man Braine.

The Countess Perigoff was indisposed; so it was quite in the order of
things that she should summon physicians.

There is a law in the state of New York--just or unjust, whichever you
please--that reads that any person may be adjudged insane if the
signatures of two registered physicians are affixed to the document.
It does not say that these physicians shall have been proved reputable.

There were, besides the physicians, a motherly looking woman and a man
of benign countenance.  Their faces were valuable assets.  To gain
another person's confidence is, perhaps, among the greatest human
achievements.  A confidence man and woman in the real sense of the
word.  In your mind's eye you could see this man carrying the
contribution plate down the aisle on Sunday mornings, and his wife Kate
putting her mite on the plate for the benefit of some poor, untidy
Hottentot.

On Tuesday of the following week Florence and Susan went shopping.  The
chauffeur was a strong young fellow whom Jones relied upon.  If you pay
a man well and hold out fine promises, you generally can trust him.  As
their car left the corner another followed leisurely.  This second
automobile contained Thomas Wendt and his wife Kate.  The two young
women stopped at the great dry goods shop near the public library, and
for the time being naturally forgot everything but the marvels which
had come from all parts of the world.  It is as natural for a woman to
buy as it is for a man to sell.

In some manner or other Florence became separated from Susan.  She
hunted through aisle after aisle, but could not find her; for the
simple reason that Susan was hunting for her.  It occurred to the girl
that Susan might have wisely concluded the best place to wait would be
in the taxicab.  And so Florence hurried out into the street, into the
arms of the Wendt family, who were patiently awaiting her.

The trusted chauffeur had been sent around to the side entrance by the
major domo.  The young lady had so requested, so he said.

Florence struggled and called for the policeman, who came running up,
followed by the usual idle, curious crowd.

"The poor young woman is insane," said the motherly Kate, tears in her
eyes.  The benign Thomas looked at heaven.  "We are her keepers."

"It is not true," cried Florence desperately.

"She has the hallucination that she is the daughter of the millionaire
Stanley Hargreave."  And Thomas exhibited his document, which was
perfectly legal, so far as appearances went.

"Hurry up and get her off the walk.  I can't have the crowd growing any
larger," said the policeman, convinced.

So, despite her cries and protestations, Florence was hustled into the
automobile, even the policeman lending a hand.

"Poor young thing!" he said to the crowd.  "Come now, move on.  I can't
have the walk blocked up.  Get a gait on you."

He was congratulating himself upon the orderliness of the affair when a
keen-eyed young man in the garb of a chauffeur touched his shoulder.

"What's this I hear about an insane young woman?" he demanded.

"She was insane, all right.  They had papers to prove it.  She kept
crying that she was Stanley Hargreave's daughter."

"My God!"  The young man struck his forehead in despair.  "You ass, she
was Stanley Hargreave's daughter, and they've kidnaped her right under
your nose!  What was the number of that car?"

"Cut out that line of talk, young fellah; I know my business.  They had
the proper documents."

"But you hadn't brains enough to inquire whether they were genuine or
not!  You wait!" shrilled the chauffeur.  "I'll have you broken for
this work."  He wheeled and ran back to his car, to find Susan and the
countess in a great state of agitation.  "They got her, they got her!
And I swore on the book that they never should, so long as I drove the
car."

[Illustration: FLORENCE WAS PERMITTED TO WANDER ABOUT THE SHIP AS SHE
PLEASED]

Susan wept, and the countess tried in vain to console her.

And when Jones was informed he frightened even the countess with the
snarl of rage which burned across his lips.  He tore into the hall,
seized his hat, and was gone.  Not a word of reproach did he offer to
the chauffeur.  He understood that no one is infallible.  He found the
blundering policeman, who now realized that he stood in for a whiff of
the commissioner's carpet.  All he could do was to give a good
description of the man and woman.  Word was sent broadcast through the
city.  The police had to be informed this time.

Late in the day an officer whose beat included the ferry landing at
Hoboken said he had seen the three.  Everything had looked all right to
him.  It was the motherly face of the one and the benign countenance of
the other that had blinded him.

At midnight Jones, haggard and with the air of one beaten, returned
home.

"No wireless yet?" asked Norton.

"The _George Washington_ of the North German Lloyd does not answer.
Something has happened to her wires; tampered with, possibly."

"So long as we know they are at sea, we can remedy the evil.  They will
not be able to land at a single port.  I have sent ten cables.  They
can't get away from the wire.  If I could only get hold of the names of
those damnable doctors who signed that document!  Twenty years."

Jones bent his head in his hands, and Norton tramped the floor till the
sound of his footsteps threatened to drive the moaning Susan into
hysterics.

"It is only a matter of a few days."

"But can the child stand the terrors?" questioned Jones.  "Who knows
that they may not really drive her insane?"

On board the _George Washington_ every one felt extremely sorry for
this beautiful girl.  It was a frightful misfortune to be so stricken
at her age.

"She is certainly insane," said one of the passengers, who had known
Hargreave slightly through some banking business.  "Hargreave wasn't
married.  He lived alone."

After the second day out Florence was permitted to wander about the
ship as she pleased.

A good many of the passengers were mightily worried when they learned
that the wireless had in some mysterious way been tampered with after
the boat had made the open sea.  It was impossible to put about.  The
apparatus must be fixed at sea.

[Illustration: EVERYONE FELT EXTREMELY SORRY FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL GIRL]

And when finally Norton's wireless caught the wires of the _George
Washington_ he was gravely informed that the young lady referred to had
leaped the rail off the banks at night and had been drowned.  She had
not been missed till the following morning.




CHAPTER X

It was perfectly true that Florence had cast herself into the sea.  It
had not been an act of despair, however.  On the contrary, hope and
courage had prompted her to leap.  The night was clear, with only a
moderate sea running.  At the time the great ship was passing the
banks, and almost within hail, she saw a fishing schooner riding
gracefully at anchor.  She quite readily believed that if she remained
on board the _George Washington_ she was lost.  She naturally forgot
the marvel of wireless telegraphy.  No longer may a man hide at sea.

So, with that quick thought which was a part of her inheritance, she
seized the life buoy, climbed the rail and leaped far out.  As the
great, dark, tossing sea swooped up to meet her she noted a block of
wood bobbing up and down.  She tried to avoid it, but could not, and
struck it head on.  Despite the blow and the shock of the chill water
she instinctively clung to the buoy.  The wash from the mighty
propellers tossed her about, hither and yon, from one swirl to another,
like a chip of wood.  Then everything grew blank.

Fortunately for her the master of the fishing schooner was at the time
standing on his quarterdeck by the wheel, squinting through his glass
at the liner and envying the ease and comfort of those on board her.
The mate, sitting on the steps and smoking his turning-in pipe, saw the
master lean forward suddenly, lower the glass, then raise it again.

"Lord A'mighty!"

"What's the matter, Cap'n?"

"Jake, in God's name, come 'ere an' take a peek through this glass.
I'm dreamin'!"

The mate jumped and took the glass.  "Where away, sir?"

"A p'int off th' sta'board bow.  See somethin' white bobbin' up?"

"Yessir!  Looks like some one dropped a bolster 'r a piller
overboard....  Cod's whiskers!" he broke off.

"Then I ain't really seein' things," cried the master.  "Hi, y'
lubbers," he yelled to the crew; "lower th' dory.  They's a woman in
th' water out there.  I seen her leap th' rail.  Look alive!  Sharp's
th' word!  Mate, you go 'long."

The crew dropped their tasks and sprang for the davits, and the
starboard dory was lowered in ship shape style.

It takes a good bit of seamanship to haul a body out of the sea, into a
dancing, bobtailed dory, when one moment it is climbing frantically
heavenward and the next heading for the bottomless pit.  They were very
tender with her.  They laid her out in the bottom of the boat, with the
life buoy as a pillow, and pulled energetically for the schooner.  She
was alive, because she breathed; but she did not stir so much as an
eyelid.  It was a stiff bit of work, too, to land her aboard without
adding to her injuries.  The master ordered the men to put her in his
own bunk, where he nearly strangled her by forcing raw brandy down her
throat.

"Well, she's alive, anyhow."

[Illustration: FLORENCE STEALS OUT IN THE NIGHT TO JUMP OVERBOARD]

When Florence finally opened her eyes the gray of dawn lay upon the
sea, dotted here and there by the schooners of the fleet, which seemed
to be hanging in midair, as at the moment there was visible to the eye
no horizon.

"Don't seem t' recognize nothin'."

"Mebbe she's got a fever," suggested the mate, rubbing his bristly chin.

"Fever nothin'!  Not after bein' in th' water half an hour.  Mebbe she
hit one o' them wooden floats we left.  Them dinged liners keep on
crowdin' us," growled Barnes, with a fisherman's hate for the floating
hotels.  "Went by without a toot.  See 'er, jes' like the banker's wife
goin' t' church on Sunday?  A mile a minute; fog or no fog, it's all
the same t' them.  They run us down and never stop.  What th' tarnation
we goin' to do?  She'll haff t' stay aboard till th' run is over.  I
can't afford t' yank up my mudhook this time o' day."

"Guess she can stand three 'r four days in our company, smellin'
oilcloths, fish, kerosene, an' punk t'bacco."

"If y' don't like th' kind o' t'bacco I buy buy your own.  I ain't
objectin' none."

The mate stepped over to the bunk and gingerly ran his hand over the
girl's head.  "Cod's whiskers, Cap'n, they's a bump as big's a cork on
th' back o' her head!  She's struck one o' them floats all right.
Where's the arnica?"

Barnes turned to his locker and rummaged about, finally producing an
ancient bottle and some passably clean cloth used frequently for
bandages.  Sometimes a man grew careless with his knife or got in the
way of a pulley block.  With blundering kindness the two men bound up
the girl's head, and then went about their duties.

For three days Florence evinced not the slightest inclination to leave
the bunk.  She lay on her back either asleep or with her eyes staring
at the beams above her head.  She ate just enough to keep her alive;
and the strong black coffee did nothing more than to make her wakeful.
No one knew what the matter was.  There was the bump, now diminished;
but that it should leave her in this comatose state vastly puzzled the
men.  The truth is she had suffered a slight concussion of the brain,
and this, atop of all the worry she had had for the last few weeks, was
sufficient to cause this blankness of the mind.

The final cod was cleaned and packed away in salt, the mudhook raised,
and the schooner _Betty_ set her sails for the southwest.  Barnes
realized that to save the girl she must have a doctor who knew his
business.  Mrs. Barnes would know how to care for the girl, once she
knew what the trouble was.  There would be some news in the papers.  A
young and beautiful woman did not jump from a big Atlantic liner
without the newspapers getting hold of the facts.

[Illustration: "A YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL WOMAN DID NOT JUMP FROM A BIG
ATLANTIC LINER WITHOUT THE NEWSPAPERS GETTING HOLD OF THE FACTS"]

A fair wind carried the _Betty_ into her haven, and shortly after
Florence was sleeping peacefully in a feather bed, ancient, it is true,
but none the less soft and inviting.  In all this time she had not
spoken a single word.

"The poor young thing!" murmured the motherly Mrs. Barnes.  "What
beautiful hair!  Oh, John, I wish you would give up the sea.  I hate
it.  It is terrible.  I am always watching you in my mind's eye, in
calm weather, in storms.  Pieces of wrecks come ashore, and I always
wonder over the death and terror back of them."

"Don't y' worry none about me, Betty.  I never take no chances.  Now
I'm goin' int' th' village an' bring back th' sawbones.  He'll tell us
what t' do."

The village doctor shook his grizzled head gravely.

"She's been hurt and shocked at the same time.  It will be many days
before she comes around to herself.  Just let her do as she pleases.
Only keep an eye on her so that she doesn't wander off and get lost.
I'll watch the newspapers and if I come across anything which bears
upon the case I'll notify you."

But he searched the newspapers in vain, for the simple fact that he di

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