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The Intrusion of Jimmy

by P. G. Wodehouse · English · Gutenberg #4075 · 400,824 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Intrusion of Jimmy

Author: P. G. Wodehouse


        
Release date: May 1, 2003 [eBook #4075]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team









THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY

BY

P.G. WODEHOUSE




CONTENTS

CHAPTER
      I. JIMMY MAKES A BET
     II. PYRAMUS AND THISBE
    III. MR. MCEACHERN
     IV. MOLLY
      V. A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
     VI. AN EXHIBITION PERFORMANCE
    VII. GETTING ACQUAINTED
   VIII. AT DREEVER
     IX. FRIENDS, NEW AND OLD
      X. JIMMY ADOPTS A LAME DOG
     XI. AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD
    XII. MAKING A START
   XIII. SPIKE'S VIEWS
    XIV. CHECK AND A COUNTER MOVE
     XV. MR. McEACHERN INTERVENES
    XVI. A MARRIAGE ARRANGED
   XVII. JIMMY REMEMBERS SOMETHING
  XVIII. THE LOCHINVAR METHOD
    XIX. ON THE LAKE
     XX. A LESSON IN PICQUET
    XXI. LOATHSOME GIFTS
   XXII. TWO OF A TRADE DISAGREE
  XXIII. FAMILY JARS
   XXIV. THE TREASURE-SEEKER
    XXV. EXPLANATIONS
   XXVI. STIRRING TIMES FOR SIR THOMAS
  XXVII. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
 XXVIII. SPENNIE'S HOUR OF CLEAR VISION
   XXIX. THE LAST ROUND
    XXX. CONCLUSION




CHAPTER I

JIMMY MAKES A BET


The main smoking-room of the Strollers' Club had been filling for
the last half-hour, and was now nearly full. In many ways, the
Strollers', though not the most magnificent, is the pleasantest club
in New York. Its ideals are comfort without pomp; and it is given
over after eleven o'clock at night mainly to the Stage. Everybody is
young, clean-shaven, and full of conversation: and the conversation
strikes a purely professional note.

Everybody in the room on this July night had come from the theater.
Most of those present had been acting, but a certain number had been
to the opening performance of the latest better-than-Raffles play.
There had been something of a boom that season in dramas whose
heroes appealed to the public more pleasantly across the footlights
than they might have done in real life. In the play that had opened
to-night, Arthur Mifflin, an exemplary young man off the stage, had
been warmly applauded for a series of actions which, performed
anywhere except in the theater, would certainly have debarred him
from remaining a member of the Strollers' or any other club. In
faultless evening dress, with a debonair smile on his face, he had
broken open a safe, stolen bonds and jewelry to a large amount, and
escaped without a blush of shame via the window. He had foiled a
detective through four acts, and held up a band of pursuers with a
revolver. A large audience had intimated complete approval
throughout.

"It's a hit all right," said somebody through the smoke.

"These near-'Raffles' plays always are," grumbled Willett, who
played bluff fathers in musical comedy. "A few years ago, they would
have been scared to death of putting on a show with a crook as hero.
Now, it seems to me the public doesn't want anything else. Not that
they know what they DO want," he concluded, mournfully.

"The Belle of Boulogne," in which Willett sustained the role of
Cyrus K. Higgs, a Chicago millionaire, was slowly fading away on a
diet of paper, and this possibly prejudiced him.

Raikes, the character actor, changed the subject. If Willett once
got started on the wrongs of the ill-fated "Belle," general
conversation would become impossible. Willett, denouncing the
stupidity of the public, as purely a monologue artiste.

"I saw Jimmy Pitt at the show," said Raikes. Everybody displayed
interest.

"Jimmy Pitt? When did he come back? I thought he was in Italy."

"He came on the Lusitania, I suppose. She docked this morning."

"Jimmy Pitt?" said Sutton, of the Majestic Theater. "How long has he
been away? Last I saw of him was at the opening of 'The Outsider' at
the Astor. That's a couple of months ago."

"He's been traveling in Europe, I believe," said Raikes. "Lucky
beggar to be able to. I wish I could."

Sutton knocked the ash off his cigar.

"I envy Jimmy," he said. "I don't know anyone I'd rather be. He's
got much more money than any man except a professional 'plute' has
any right to. He's as strong as an ox. I shouldn't say he'd ever had
anything worse than measles in his life. He's got no relations. And
he isn't married."

Sutton, who had been married three times, spoke with some feeling.

"He's a good chap, Jimmy," said Raikes.

"Yes," said Arthur Mifflin, "yes, Jimmy is a good chap. I've known
him for years. I was at college with him. He hasn't got my
brilliance of intellect; but he has some wonderfully fine qualities.
For one thing, I should say he had put more deadbeats on their legs
again than half the men in New York put together."

"Well," growled Willett, whom the misfortunes of the Belle had
soured, "what's there in that? It's mighty easy to do the
philanthropist act when you're next door to a millionaire."

"Yes," said Mifflin warmly, "but it's not so easy when you're
getting thirty dollars a week on a newspaper. When Jimmy was a
reporter on the News, there used to be a whole crowd of fellows just
living on him. Not borrowing an occasional dollar, mind you, but
living on him--sleeping on his sofa, and staying to breakfast. It
made me mad. I used to ask him why he stood for it. He said there
was nowhere else for them to go, and he thought he could see them
through all right--which he did, though I don't see how he managed
it on thirty a week."

"If a man's fool enough to be an easy mark--" began Willett.

"Oh, cut it out!" said Raikes. "We don't want anybody knocking Jimmy
here."

"All the same," said Sutton, "it seems to me that it was mighty
lucky that he came into that money. You can't keep open house for
ever on thirty a week. By the way, Arthur, how was that? I heard it
was his uncle."

"It wasn't his uncle," said Mifflin. "It was by way of being a
romance of sorts, I believe. Fellow who had been in love with
Jimmy's mother years ago went West, made a pile, and left it to Mrs.
Pitt or her children. She had been dead some time when that
happened. Jimmy, of course, hadn't a notion of what was coming to
him, when suddenly he got a solicitor's letter asking him to call.
He rolled round, and found that there was about five hundred
thousand dollars just waiting for him to spend it."

Jimmy Pitt had now definitely ousted "Love, the Cracksman" as a
topic of conversation. Everybody present knew him. Most of them had
known him in his newspaper days; and, though every man there would
have perished rather than admit it, they were grateful to Jimmy for
being exactly the same to them now that he could sign a check for
half a million as he had been on the old thirty-a-week basis.
Inherited wealth, of course, does not make a young man nobler or
more admirable; but the young man does not always know this.

"Jimmy's had a queer life," said Mifflin. "He's been pretty much
everything in his time. Did you know he was on the stage before he
took up newspaper-work? Only on the road, I believe. He got tired of
it, and cut it out. That's always been his trouble. He wouldn't
settle down to anything. He studied law at Yale, but he never kept
it up. After he left the stage, he moved all over the States,
without a cent, picking up any odd job he could get. He was a waiter
once for a couple of days, but they fired him for breaking plates.
Then, he got a job in a jeweler's shop. I believe he's a bit of an
expert on jewels. And, another time, he made a hundred dollars by
staying three rounds against Kid Brady when the Kid was touring the
country after he got the championship away from Jimmy Garwin. The
Kid was offering a hundred to anyone who could last three rounds
with him. Jimmy did it on his head. He was the best amateur of his
weight I ever saw. The Kid wanted him to take up scrapping
seriously. But Jimmy wouldn't have stuck to anything long enough in
those days. He's one of the gypsies of the world. He was never
really happy unless he was on the move, and he doesn't seem to have
altered since he came into his money."

"Well, he can afford to keep on the move now," said Raikes. "I wish
I--"

"Did you ever hear about Jimmy and--" Mifflin was beginning, when
the Odyssey of Jimmy Pitt was interrupted by the opening of the door
and the entrance of Ulysses in person.

Jimmy Pitt was a young man of medium height, whose great breadth and
depth of chest made him look shorter than he really was. His jaw was
square, and protruded slightly; and this, combined with a certain
athletic jauntiness of carriage and a pair of piercing brown eyes
very much like those of a bull-terrier, gave him an air of
aggressiveness, which belied his character. He was not aggressive.
He had the good-nature as well as the eyes of a bull-terrier. Also,
he possessed, when stirred, all the bull-terrier's dogged
determination.

There were shouts of welcome.

"Hullo, Jimmy!"

"When did you get back?"

"Come and sit down. Plenty of room over here."

"Where is my wandering boy tonight?"

"Waiter! What's yours, Jimmy?"

Jimmy dropped into a seat, and yawned.

"Well," he said, "how goes it? Hullo, Raikes! Weren't you at 'Love,
the Cracksman'? I thought I saw you. Hullo, Arthur! Congratulate
you. You spoke your piece nicely."

"Thanks," said Mifflin. "We were just talking about you, Jimmy. You
came on the Lusitania, I suppose?"

"She didn't break the record this time," said Sutton.

A somewhat pensive look came into Jimmy's eyes.

"She came much too quick for me," he said. "I don't see why they
want to rip along at that pace," he went on, hurriedly. "I like to
have a chance of enjoying the sea-air."

"I know that sea-air," murmured Mifflin.

Jimmy looked up quickly.

"What are you babbling about, Arthur?"

"I said nothing," replied Mifflin, suavely.

"What did you think of the show tonight, Jimmy?" asked Raikes.

"I liked it. Arthur was fine. I can't make out, though, why all this
incense is being burned at the feet of the cracksman. To judge by
some of the plays they produce now, you'd think that a man had only
to be a successful burglar to become a national hero. One of these
days, we shall have Arthur playing Charles Peace to a cheering
house."

"It is the tribute," said Mifflin, "that bone-headedness pays to
brains. It takes brains to be a successful cracksman. Unless the
gray matter is surging about in your cerebrum, as in mine, you can't
hope--"

Jimmy leaned back in his chair, and spoke calmly but with decision.

"Any man of ordinary intelligence," he said, "could break into a
house."

Mifflin jumped up and began to gesticulate. This was heresy.

"My good man, what absolute--"

"_I_ could," said Jimmy, lighting a cigarette.

There was a roar of laughter and approval. For the past few weeks,
during the rehearsals of "Love, the Cracksman," Arthur Mifflin had
disturbed the peace at the Strollers' with his theories on the art
of burglary. This was his first really big part, and he had soaked
himself in it. He had read up the literature of burglary. He had
talked with men from Pinkerton's. He had expounded his views nightly
to his brother Strollers, preaching the delicacy and difficulty of
cracking a crib till his audience had rebelled. It charmed the
Strollers to find Jimmy, obviously of his own initiative and not to
be suspected of having been suborned to the task by themselves,
treading with a firm foot on the expert's favorite corn within five
minutes of their meeting.

"You!" said Arthur Mifflin, with scorn.

"I!"

"You! Why, you couldn't break into an egg unless it was a poached
one."

"What'll you bet?" said Jimmy.

The Strollers began to sit up and take notice. The magic word "bet,"
when uttered in that room, had rarely failed to add a zest to life.
They looked expectantly at Arthur Mifflin.

"Go to bed, Jimmy," said the portrayer of cracksmen. "I'll come with
you and tuck you in. A nice, strong cup of tea in the morning, and
you won't know there has ever been anything the matter with you."

A howl of disapproval rose from the company. Indignant voices
accused Arthur Mifflin of having a yellow streak. Encouraging voices
urged him not to be a quitter.

"See! They scorn you," said Jimmy. "And rightly. Be a man, Arthur.
What'll you bet?"

Mr. Mifflin regarded him with pity.

"You don't know what you're up against, Jimmy," he said. "You're
half a century behind the times. You have an idea that all a burglar
needs is a mask, a blue chin, and a dark lantern. I tell you he
requires a highly specialized education. I've been talking to these
detective fellows, and I know. Now, take your case, you worm. Have
you a thorough knowledge of chemistry, physics, toxicology--"

"Sure."

"--electricity and microscopy?"

"You have discovered my secret."

"Can you use an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe?"

"I never travel without one."

"What do you know about the administration of anaesthetics?"

"Practically everything. It is one of my favorite hobbies."

"Can you make 'soup'?"

"Soup?"

"Soup," said Mr. Mifflin, firmly.

Jimmy raised his eyebrows.

"Does an architect make bricks?" he said. "I leave the rough
preliminary work to my corps of assistants. They make my soup."

"You mustn't think Jimmy's one of your common yeggs," said Sutton.
"He's at the top of his profession. That's how he made his money. I
never did believe that legacy story."

"Jimmy," said Mr. Mifflin, "couldn't crack a child's money-box.
Jimmy couldn't open a sardine-tin."

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.

"What'll you bet?" he said again. "Come on, Arthur; you're earning a
very good salary. What'll you bet?"

"Make it a dinner for all present," suggested Raikes, a canny person
who believed in turning the wayside happenings of life, when
possible, to his personal profit.

The suggestion was well received.

"All right," said Mifflin. "How many of us are there? One, two,
three, four--Loser buys a dinner for twelve."

"A good dinner," interpolated Raikes, softly.

"A good dinner," said Jimmy. "Very well. How long do you give me,
Arthur?"

"How long do you want?"

"There ought to be a time-limit," said Raikes. "It seems to me that
a flyer like Jimmy ought to be able to manage it at short notice.
Why not tonight? Nice, fine night. If Jimmy doesn't crack a crib
tonight, it's up to him. That suit you, Jimmy?"

"Perfectly."

Willett interposed. Willett had been endeavoring to drown his
sorrows all the evening, and the fact was a little noticeable in his
speech.

"See here," he said, "how's J-Jimmy going to prove he's done it?"

"Personally, I can take his word," said Mifflin.

"That be h-hanged for a tale. Wha-what's to prevent him saying he's
done it, whether he has or not?"

The Strollers looked uncomfortable. Nevertheless, it was Jimmy's
affair.

"Why, you'd get your dinner in any case," said Jimmy. "A dinner from
any host would smell as sweet."

Willett persisted with muddled obstinacy.

"Thash--thash not point. It's principle of thing. Have thish thing
square and 'bove board, _I_ say. Thash what _I_ say."

"And very creditable to you being able to say it," said Jimmy,
cordially. "See if you can manage 'Truly rural'."

"What _I_ say is--this! Jimmy's a fakir. And what I say is what's
prevent him saying he's done it when hasn't done it?"

"That'll be all right," said Jimmy. "I'm going to bury a brass tube
with the Stars and Stripes in it under the carpet."

Willett waved his hand.

"Thash quite sh'factory," he said, with dignity. "Nothing more to
say."

"Or a better idea," said Jimmy. "I'll carve a big J on the inside of
the front door. Then, anybody who likes can make inquiries next day.
Well, I'm off home. Glad it's all settled. Anybody coming my way?"

"Yes," said Arthur Mifflin. "We'll walk. First nights always make me
as jumpy as a cat. If I don't walk my legs off, I shan't get to
sleep tonight at all."

"If you think I'm going to help you walk your legs off, my lad,
you're mistaken. I propose to stroll gently home, and go to bed."

"Every little helps," said Mifflin. "Come along."

"You want to keep an eye on Jimmy, Arthur," said Sutton. "He'll
sand-bag you, and lift your watch as soon as look at you. I believe
he's Arsene Lupin in disguise."




CHAPTER II

PYRAMUS AND THISBE


The two men turned up the street. They walked in silence. Arthur
Mifflin was going over in his mind such outstanding events of the
evening as he remembered--the nervousness, the relief of finding
that he was gripping his audience, the growing conviction that he
had made good; while Jimmy seemed to be thinking his own private
thoughts. They had gone some distance before either spoke.

"Who is she, Jimmy?" asked Mifflin.

Jimmy came out of his thoughts with a start.

"What's that?"

"Who is she?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do! The sea air. Who is she?"

"I don't know," said Jimmy, simply.

"You don't know? Well, what's her name?"

"I don't know."

"Doesn't the Lusitania still print a passenger-list?"

"She does."

"And you couldn't find out her name in five days?"

"No."

"And that's the man who thinks he can burgle a house!" said Mifflin,
despairingly.

They had arrived now at the building on the second floor of which
was Jimmy's flat.

"Coming in?" said Jimmy.

"Well, I was rather thinking of pushing on as far as the Park. I
tell you, I feel all on wires."

"Come in, and smoke a cigar. You've got all night before you if you
want to do Marathons. I haven't seen you for a couple of months. I
want you to tell me all the news."

"There isn't any. Nothing happens in New York. The papers say things
do, but they don't. However, I'll come in. It seems to me that
you're the man with the news."

Jimmy fumbled with his latch-key.

"You're a bright sort of burglar," said Mifflin, disparagingly. "Why
don't you use your oxy-acetylene blow-pipe? Do you realize, my boy,
that you've let yourself in for buying a dinner for twelve hungry
men next week? In the cold light of the morning, when reason returns
to her throne, that'll come home to you."

"I haven't done anything of the sort," said Jimmy, unlocking the
door.

"Don't tell me you really mean to try it."

"What else did you think I was going to do?"

"But you can't. You would get caught for a certainty. And what are
you going to do then? Say it was all a joke? Suppose they fill you
full of bullet-holes! Nice sort of fool you'll look, appealing to
some outraged householder's sense of humor, while he pumps you full
of lead with a Colt."

"These are the risks of the profession. You ought to know that,
Arthur. Think what you went through tonight."

Arthur Mifflin looked at his friend with some uneasiness. He knew
how very reckless Jimmy could be when he had set his mind on
accomplishing anything, since, under the stimulus of a challenge, he
ceased to be a reasoning being, amenable to argument. And, in the
present case, he knew that Willett's words had driven the challenge
home. Jimmy was not the man to sit still under the charge of being a
fakir, no matter whether his accuser had been sober or drunk.

Jimmy, meanwhile, had produced whiskey and cigars. Now, he was lying
on his back on the lounge, blowing smoke-rings at the ceiling.

"Well?" said Arthur Mifflin, at length.

"Well, what?"

"What I meant was, is this silence to be permanent, or are you going
to begin shortly to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something's
happened to you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a bright
little chap, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs, your flashes of
merriment that were wont to set the table in a roar when you were
paying for the dinner? You remind me more of a deaf-mute celebrating
the Fourth of July with noiseless powder than anything else on
earth. Wake up, or I shall go. Jimmy, we were practically boys
together. Tell me about this girl--the girl you loved, and were
idiot enough to lose."

Jimmy drew a deep breath.

"Very well," said Mifflin complacently, "sigh if you like; it's
better than nothing."

Jimmy sat up.

"Yes, dozens of times," said Mifflin.

"What do you mean?"

"You were just going to ask me if I had ever been in love, weren't
you?"

"I wasn't, because I know you haven't. You have no soul. You don't
know what love is."

"Have it your own way," said Mifflin, resignedly.

Jimmy bumped back on the sofa.

"I don't either," he said. "That's the trouble."

Mifflin looked interested.

"I know," he said. "You've got that strange premonitory fluttering,
when the heart seems to thrill within you like some baby bird
singing its first song, when--"

"Oh, cut it out!"

"--when you ask yourself timidly, 'Is it? Can it really be?' and
answer shyly, 'No. Yes. I believe it is!' I've been through it
dozens of times; it is a recognized early symptom. Unless prompt
measures are taken, it will develop into something acute. In these
matters, stand on your Uncle Arthur. He knows."

"You make me sick," Jimmy retorted.

"You have our ear," said Mifflin, kindly. "Tell me all."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Don't lie, James."

"Well, practically nothing."

"That's better."

"It was like this."

"Good."

Jimmy wriggled himself into a more comfortable position, and took a
sip from his glass.

"I didn't see her until the second day out."

"I know that second day out. Well?"

"We didn't really meet at all."

"Just happened to be going to the same spot, eh?"

"As a matter of fact, it was like this. Like a fool, I'd bought a
second-class ticket."

"What? Our young Rockerbilt Astergould, the boy millionaire,
traveling second-class! Why?"

"I had an idea it would be better fun. Everybody's so much more
cheery in the second cabin. You get to know people so much quicker.
Nine trips out of ten, I'd much rather go second."

"And this was the tenth?"

"She was in the first-cabin," said Jimmy.

Mifflin clutched his forehead.

"Wait!" he cried. "This reminds me of something--something in
Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet? No. I've got it--Pyramus and Thisbe."

"I don't see the slightest resemblance."

"Read your 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' 'Pyramus and Thisbe,' says the
story, 'did talk through the chink of a wall,'" quoted Mifflin.

"We didn't."

"Don't be so literal. You talked across a railing."

"We didn't."

"Do you mean to say you didn't talk at all?"

"We didn't say a single word."

Mifflin shook his head sadly.

"I give you up," he said. "I thought you were a man of enterprise.
What did you do?"

Jimmy sighed softly.

"I used to stand and smoke against the railing opposite the barber's
shop, and she used to walk round the deck."

"And you used to stare at her?"

"I would look in her direction sometimes," corrected Jimmy, with
dignity.

"Don't quibble! You stared at her. You behaved like a common rubber-neck,
and you know it. I am no prude, James, but I feel compelled to
say that I consider your conduct that of a libertine. Used she to
walk alone?"

"Generally."

"And, now, you love her, eh? You went on board that ship happy,
careless, heart-free. You came off it grave and saddened.
Thenceforth, for you, the world could contain but one woman, and
her you had lost."

Mifflin groaned in a hollow and bereaved manner, and took a sip from
his glass to buoy him up.

Jimmy moved restlessly on the sofa.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" he asked, fatuously. He was
in the mood when a man says things, the memory of which makes him
wake up hot all over for nights to come.

"I don't see what first sight's got to do with it," said Mifflin.
"According to your own statement, you stood and glared at the girl
for five days without letting up for a moment. I can quite imagine
that you might glare yourself into love with anyone by the end of
that time."

"I can't see myself settling down," said Jimmy, thoughtfully. "And,
until you feel that you want to settle down, I suppose you can't be
really in love."

"I was saying practically that about you at the club just before you
came in. My somewhat neat expression was that you were one of the
gypsies of the world."

"By George, you're quite right!"

"I always am."

"I suppose it's having nothing to do. When I was on the News, I was
never like this."

"You weren't on the News long enough to get tired of it."

"I feel now I can't stay in a place more than a week. It's having
this money that does it, I suppose."

"New York," said Mifflin, "is full of obliging persons who will be
delighted to relieve you of the incubus. Well, James, I shall leave
you. I feel more like bed now. By the way, I suppose you lost sight
of this girl when you landed?"

"Yes."

"Well, there aren't so many girls in the United States--only twenty
million. Or is it forty million? Something small. All you've got to
do is to search around a bit. Good-night."

"Good-night."

Mr. Mifflin clattered down the stairs. A minute later, the sound of
his name being called loudly from the street brought Jimmy to the
window. Mifflin was standing on the pavement below, looking up.

"Jimmy."

"What's the matter now?"

"I forgot to ask. Was she a blonde?"

"What?"

"Was she a blonde?" yelled Mifflin.

"No," snapped Jimmy.

"Dark, eh?" bawled Mifflin, making night hideous.

"Yes," said Jimmy, shutting the window.

"Jimmy!"

The window went up again.

"Well?"

"Me for blondes!"

"Go to bed!"

"Very well. Good-night."

"Good-night."

Jimmy withdrew his head, and sat down in the chair Mifflin had
vacated. A moment later, he rose, and switched off the light. It was
pleasanter to sit and think in the dark. His thoughts wandered off
in many channels, but always came back to the girl on the Lusitania.
It was absurd, of course. He didn't wonder that Arthur Mifflin had
treated the thing as a joke. Good old Arthur! Glad he had made a
success! But was it a joke? Who was it that said, the point of a
joke is like the point of a needle, so small that it is apt to
disappear entirely when directed straight at oneself? If anybody
else had told him such a limping romance, he would have laughed
himself. Only, when you are the center of a romance, however
limping, you see it from a different angle. Of course, told badly,
it was absurd. He could see that. But something away at the back of
his mind told him that it was not altogether absurd. And yet--love
didn't come like that, in a flash. You might just as well expect a
house to spring into being in a moment, or a ship, or an automobile,
or a table, or a--He sat up with a jerk. In another instant, he
would have been asleep.

He thought of bed, but bed seemed a long way off--the deuce of a
way. Acres of carpet to be crawled over, and then the dickens of a
climb at the end of it. Besides, undressing! Nuisance--undressing.
That was a nice dress the girl had worn on the fourth day out.
Tailor-made. He liked tailor-mades. He liked all her dresses. He
liked her. Had she liked him? So hard to tell if you don't get a
chance of speaking! She was dark. Arthur liked blondes, Arthur was a
fool! Good old Arthur! Glad he had made a success! Now, he could
marry if he liked! If he wasn't so restless, if he didn't feel that
he couldn't stop more than a day in any place! But would the girl
have him? If they had never spoken, it made it so hard to--

At this point, Jimmy went to sleep.




CHAPTER III

MR. McEACHERN


At about the time when Jimmy's meditations finally merged themselves
in dreams, a certain Mr. John McEachern, Captain of Police, was
seated in the parlor of his up-town villa, reading. He was a man
built on a large scale. Everything about him was large--his hands,
his feet, his shoulders, his chest, and particularly his jaw, which
even in his moments of calm was aggressive, and which stood out,
when anything happened to ruffle him, like the ram of a battle-ship.
In his patrolman days, which had been passed mainly on the East
side, this jaw of his had acquired a reputation from Park Row to
Fourteenth Street. No gang-fight, however absorbing, could retain
the undivided attention of the young blood of the Bowery when Mr.
McEachern's jaw hove in sight with the rest of his massive person in
close attendance. He was a man who knew no fear, and he had gone
through disorderly mobs like an east wind.

But there was another side to his character. In fact, that other
side was so large that the rest of him, his readiness in combat and
his zeal in breaking up public disturbances, might be said to have
been only an off-shoot. For his ambition was as large as his fist
and as aggressive as his jaw. He had entered the force with the
single idea of becoming rich, and had set about achieving his object
with a strenuous vigor that was as irresistible as his mighty
locust-stick. Some policemen are born grafters, some achieve graft,
and some have graft thrust upon them. Mr. McEachern had begun by
being the first, had risen to the second, and for some years now had
been a prominent member of the small and hugely prosperous third
class, the class that does not go out seeking graft, but sits at
home and lets graft come to it.

In his search for wealth, he had been content to abide his time. He
did not want the trifling sum that every New York policeman
acquires. His object was something bigger, and he was prepared to
wait for it. He knew that small beginnings were an annoying but
unavoidable preliminary to all great fortunes. Probably, Captain
Kidd had started in a small way. Certainly, Mr. Rockefeller had. He
was content to follow in the footsteps of the masters.

A patrolman's opportunities of amassing wealth are not great. Mr.
McEachern had made the best of a bad job. He had not disdained the
dollars that came as single spies rather than in battalions. Until
the time should arrive when he might angle for whales, he was
prepared to catch sprats.

Much may be done, even on a small scale, by perseverance. In those
early days, Mr. McEachern's observant eye had not failed to notice
certain peddlers who obstructed the traffic, divers tradesmen who
did the same by the side-walk, and of restaurant keepers not a few
with a distaste for closing at one o'clock in the morning. His
researches in this field were not unprofitable. In a reasonably
short space of time, he had put by the three thousand dollars that
were the price of his promotion to detective-sergeant. He did not
like paying three thousand dollars for promotion, but there must be
sinking of capital if an investment is to prosper. Mr. McEachern
"came across," and climbed one more step up the ladder.

As detective-sergeant, he found his horizon enlarged. There was more
scope for a man of parts. Things moved more rapidly. The world
seemed full of philanthropists, anxious to "dress his front" and do
him other little kindnesses. Mr. McEachern was no churl. He let them
dress his front. He accepted the little kindnesses. Presently, he
found that he had fifteen thousand dollars to spare for any small
flutter that might take his fancy. Singularly enough, this was the
precise sum necessary to make him a captain.

He became a captain. And it was then that he discovered that El
Dorado was no mere poet's dream, and that Tom Tiddler's Ground,
where one might stand picking up gold and silver, was as definite a
locality as Brooklyn or the Bronx. At last, after years of patient
waiting, he stood like Moses on the mountain, looking down into the
Promised Land. He had come to where the Big Money was.

The captain was now reading the little note-book wherein he kept a
record of his investments, which were numerous and varied. That the
contents were satisfactory was obvious at a glance. The smile on his
face and the reposeful position of his jaw were proof enough of
that. There were notes relating to house-property, railroad shares,
and a dozen other profitable things. He was a rich man.

This was a fact that was entirely unsuspected by his neighbors, with
whom he maintained somewhat distant relations, accepting no
invitations and giving none. For Mr. McEachern was playing a big
game. Other eminent buccaneers in his walk of life had been content
to be rich men in a community where moderate means were the rule.
But about Mr. McEachern there was a touch of the Napoleonic. He
meant to get into society--and the society he had selected was that
of England. Other people have noted the fact--which had impressed
itself very firmly on the policeman's mind--that between England and
the United States there are three thousand miles of deep water. In
the United States, he would be a retired police-captain; in England,
an American gentleman of large and independent means with a
beautiful daughter.

That was the ruling impulse in his life--his daughter Molly. Though,
if he had been a bachelor, he certainly would not have been
satisfied to pursue a humble career aloof from graft, on the other
hand, if it had not been for Molly, he would not have felt, as he
gathered in his dishonest wealth, that he was conducting a sort of
holy war. Ever since his wife had died, in his detective-sergeant
days, leaving him with a year-old daughter, his ambitions had been
inseparably connected with Molly.

All his thoughts were on the future. This New York life was only a
preparation for the splendors to come. He spent not a dollar
unnecessarily. When Molly was home from school, they lived together
simply and quietly in the small house which Molly's taste made so
comfortable. The neighbors, knowing his profession and seeing the
modest scale on which he lived, told one another that here at any
rate was a policeman whose hands were clean of graft. They did not
know of the stream that poured week by week and year by year into
his bank, to be diverted at intervals into the most profitable
channels. Until the time should come for the great change, economy
was his motto. The expenses of his home were kept within the bounds
of his official salary. All extras went to swell his savings.

He closed his book with a contented sigh, and lighted another cigar.
Cigars were his only personal luxury. He drank nothing, ate the
simplest food, and made a suit of clothes last for quite an unusual
length of time; but no passion for economy could make him deny
himself smoke.

He sat on, thinking. It was very late, but he did not feel ready for
bed. A great moment had arrived in his affairs. For days, Wall
Street had been undergoing one of its periodical fits of jumpiness.
There had been rumors and counter-rumors, until finally from the
confusion there had soared up like a rocket the one particular stock
in which he was most largely interested. He had unloaded that
morning, and the result had left him slightly dizzy. The main point
to which his mind clung was that the time had come at last. He could
make the great change now at any moment that suited him.

He was blowing clouds of smoke and gloating over this fact when the
door opened, admitting a bull-terrier, a bull-dog, and in the wake
of the procession a girl in a kimono and red slippers.




CHAPTER IV

MOLLY


"Why, Molly," said the policeman, "what are you doing out of bed? I
thought you were asleep."

He placed a huge arm around her, and drew her to his lap. As she sat
there, his great bulk made her seem smaller than she really was.
With her hair down and her little red slippers dangling half a yard
from the floor, she seemed a child. McEachern, looking at her, found
it hard to realize that nineteen years had passed since the moment
when the doctor's raised eyebrows had reproved him for his
monosyllabic reception of the news that the baby was a girl.

"Do you know what the time is?" he said. "Two o'clock."

"Much too late for you to be sitting here smoking," said Molly,
severely. "How many cigars do you smoke a day? Suppose you had
married someone who wouldn't let you smoke!"

"Never stop your husband smoking, my dear. That's a bit of advice
for you when you're married."

"I'm never going to marry. I'm going to stop at home, and darn your
socks."

"I wish you could," he said, drawing her closer to him. "But one of
these days you're going to marry a prince. And now run back to bed.
It's much too late--"

"It's no good, father dear. I couldn't get to sleep. I've been
trying hard for hours. I've counted sheep till I nearly screamed.
It's Rastus' fault. He snores so!"

Mr. McEachern regarded the erring bull-dog sternly.

"Why do you have the brutes in your room?"

"Why, to keep the boogaboos from getting me, of course. Aren't you
afraid of the boogaboos getting you? But you're so big, you wouldn't
mind. You'd just hit them. And they're not brutes--are you,
darlings? You're angels, and you nearly burst yourselves with joy
because auntie had come back from England, didn't you? Father, did
they miss me when I was gone? Did they pine away?"

"They got like skeletons. We all did."

"You?"

"I should say so."

"Then, why did you send me away to England?"

"I wanted you to see the country. Did you like it?"

"I hated being away from you."

"But you liked the country?"

"I loved it."

McEachern drew a breath of relief. The only possible obstacle to the
great change did not exist.

"How would you like to go back to England, Molly?"

"To England! When I've just come home?"

"If I went, too?"

Molly twisted around so that she could see his face better.

"There's something the matter with you, father. You're trying to say
something, and I want to know what it is. Tell me quick, or I'll
make Rastus bite you!"

"It won't take long, dear. I've been lucky in some investments while
you were away, and I'm going to leave the force, and take you over
to England, and find a prince for you to marry--if you think you
would like it."

"Father! It'll be perfectly splendid!"

"We'll start fair in England, Molly. I'll just be John McEachern,
from America, and, if anybody wants to know anything about me, I'm a
man who has made money on Wall Street--and that's no lie--and has
come over to England to spend it."

Molly gave his arm a squeeze. Her eyes were wet.

"Father, dear," she whispered, "I believe you've been doing it all
for me. You've been slaving away for me ever since I was born,
stinting yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good
time later on."

"No, no!"

"It's true," she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. "I
don't believe you've had enough to eat for years. I believe you're
all skin and bone. Never mind. To-morrow, I'll take you out and buy
you the best dinner you've ever had, out of my own money. We'll go
to Sherry's, and you shall start at the top of the menu, and go
straight down it till you've had enough."

"That will make up for everything. And, now, don't you think you
ought to be going to bed? You'll be losing all that color you got on
the ship."

"Soon--not just yet. I haven't seen you for such ages!" She pointed
at the bull-terrier. "Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He
can't believe I've really come back. Father, there was a man on the
Lusitania with eyes exactly like Tommy's--all brown and bright--and
he used to stand and stare just like Tommy's doing."

"If I had been there," said her father wrathfully, "I'd have knocked
his head off."

"No, you wouldn't, because I'm sure he was really a very nice young
man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn't
have got at him to knock his head off, because he was traveling
second-class."

"Second-class? Then, you didn't talk with him?"

"We couldn't. You wouldn't expect him to shout at me across the
railing! Only, whenever I walked round the deck, he seemed to be
there."

"Staring!"

"He may not have been staring at me. Probably, he was just looking
the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I
don't think you can make much of a romance out of it, father."

"I don't want to, my dear. Princes don't travel in the
second-cabin."

"He may have been a prince in disguise."

"More likely a drummer," grunted Mr. McEachern.

"Drummers are often quite nice, aren't they?"

"Princes are nicer."

"Well, I'll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of.
Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can't you
behave, like Rastus? Still, you don't snore, do you? Aren't you
going to bed soon, father? I believe you've been sitting up late and
getting into all sorts of bad habits while I've been away. I'm sure
you have been smoking too much. When you've finished that cigar,
you're not even to think of another till to-morrow. Promise!"

"Not one?"

"Not one. I'm not going to have my father getting like the people
you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don't want to
feel sudden shooting pains, do you?"

"No, my dear."

"And have to take some awful medicine?"

"No."

"Then, promise."

"Very well, my dear. I promise."

As the door closed, the captain threw away the stump he was smoking,
and remained for a moment in thought. Then, he drew another cigar
from his case, lighted it, and resumed the study of the little
note-book. It was past three o'clock when he went to his bedroom.




CHAPTER V

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT


How long the light had been darting about the room like a very much
enlarged firefly, Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours,
for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and
for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he
fancied that he was dreaming still. Then, sleep left him, and he
realized that the light, which was now moving slowly across the
bookcase, was a real light.

That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or
he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be
taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly and
gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light
passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the
left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.

From the position of the ray, Jimmy could see that the burglar was
approaching on his side of the table. Though until that day he had
not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly
stamped on his mind's eye. He knew almost to a foot where his
visitor was standing. Consequently, when, rising swiftly from the
chair, he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no
speculative dive. It had a conscious aim, and it was not restrained
by any uncertainty as to whether the road to the burglar's knees was
clear or not.

His shoulder bumped into a human leg. His arms closed
instantaneously on it, and pulled. There was a yelp of dismay, and a
crash. The lantern bounced away across the room, and wrecked itself
on the reef of the steam-heater. Its owner collapsed in a heap on
top of Jimmy.

Jimmy, underneath at the fall, speedily put himself uppermost with a
twist of his body. He had every advantage. The burglar was a small
man, and had been taken very much by surprise, and any fight there
might have been in him in normal circumstances had been shaken out
of him by the fall. He lay still, not attempting to struggle.

Jimmy half-rose, and, pulling his prisoner by inches to the door,
felt up the wall till he found the electric-light button.

The yellow glow that flooded the room disclosed a short, stocky
youth of obviously Bowery extraction. A shock of vivid red hair was
the first thing about him that caught the eye. A poet would have
described it as Titian. Its proprietor's friends and acquaintances
probably called it "carrots." Looking up at Jimmy from under this
wealth of crimson was a not unpleasing face. It was not handsome,
certainly; but there were suggestions of a latent good-humor. The
nose had been broken at one period of its career, and one of the
ears was undeniably of the cauliflower type; but these are little
accidents which may happen to any high-spirited young gentleman. In
costume, the visitor had evidently been guided rather by individual
taste than by the dictates of fashion. His coat was of rusty black,
his trousers of gray, picked out with stains of various colors.
Beneath the coat was a faded red-and-white sweater. A hat of soft
felt lay on the floor by the table.

The cut of the coat was poor, and the fit of it spoiled by a bulge
in one of the pockets. Diagnosing this bulge correctly, Jimmy
inserted his hand, and drew out a dingy revolver.

"Well?" he said, rising.

Like most people, he had often wondered what he should do if he were
to meet a burglar; and he had always come to the conclusion that
curiosity would be his chief emotion. His anticipations were proved
perfectly correct. Now that he had abstracted his visitor's gun, he
had no wish to do anything but engage him in conversation. A
burglar's life was something so entirely outside his experience! He
wanted to learn the burglar's point of view. Incidentally, he
reflected with amusement, as he recalled his wager, he might pick up
a few useful hints.

The man on the floor sat up, and rubbed the back of his head
ruefully.

"Gee!" he muttered. "I t'ought some guy had t'rown de buildin' at
me."

"It was only little me," said Jimmy. "Sorry if I hurt you at all.
You really want a mat for that sort of thing."

The man's hand went furtively to his pocket. Then, his eye caught
sight of the revolver, which Jimmy had placed on the table. With a
sudden dash, he seized it.

"Now, den, boss!" he said, between his teeth.

Jimmy extended his hand, and unclasped it. Six shells lay in the
palm.

"Why worry?" he said. "Sit down and let us talk of life."

"It's a fair cop, boss," said the man, resignedly.

"Away with melancholy," said Jimmy. "I'm not going to call the
police. You can beat it whenever you like."

The man stared.

"I mean it," said Jimmy. "What's the trouble? I've no grievance. I
wish, though, if you haven't any important engagement, you would
stop and talk awhile first."

A broad grin spread itself across the other's face. There was
something singularly engaging about him when he grinned.

"Gee! If youse ain't goin' to call de cops, I'll talk till de
chickens roost ag'in."

"Talking, however," said Jimmy, "is dry work. Are you by any chance
on the wagon?"

"What's dat? Me? On your way, boss!"

"Then, you'll find a pretty decent whiskey in that decanter. Help
yourself. I think you'll like it."

A musical gurgling, followed by a contented sigh, showed that the
statement had been tested and proved correct.

"Cigar?" asked Jimmy.

"Me fer dat," assented his visitor.

"Take a handful."

"I eats dem alive," said the marauder jovially, gathering in the
spoils.

Jimmy crossed his legs.

"By the way," he said, "let there be no secrets between us. What's
your name? Mine is Pitt. James Willoughby Pitt."

"Mullins is my monaker, boss. Spike, dey calls me."

"And you make a living at this sort of thing?"

"Not so woise."

"How did you get in here?"

Spike Mullins grinned.

"Gee! Ain't de window open?"

"If it hadn't been?"

"I'd a' busted it."

Jimmy eyed the fellow fixedly.

"Can you use an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe?" he demanded.

Spike was on the point of drinking. He lowered his glass, and gaped.

"What's dat?" he said.

"An oxy-acetylene blow-pipe."

"Search me," said Spike, blankly. "Dat gets past me."

Jimmy's manner grew more severe.

"Can you make soup?"

"Soup, boss?"

"He doesn't know what soup is," said Jimmy, despairingly. "My good
man, I'm afraid you have missed your vocation. You have no business
to be trying to burgle. You don't know the first thing about the
game."

Spike was regarding the speaker with disquiet over his glass. Till
now, the red-haired one had been very well satisfied with his
methods, but criticism was beginning to sap his nerve. He had heard
tales of masters of his craft who made use of fearsome implements
such as Jimmy had mentioned; burglars who had an airy
acquaintanceship, bordering on insolent familiarity, with the
marvels of science; men to whom the latest inventions were as
familiar as his own jemmy was to himself. Could this be one of that
select band? His host began to take on a new aspect in his eyes.

"Spike," said Jimmy.

"Huh?"

"Have you a thorough knowledge of chemistry, physics--"

"On your way, boss!"

"--toxicology--"

"Search me!"

"--electricity and microscopy?"

"... Nine, ten. Dat's de finish. I'm down an' out."

Jimmy shook his head, sadly.

"Give up burglary," he said. "It's not in your line. Better try
poultry-farming."

Spike twiddled his glass, abashed.

"Now, I," said Jimmy airily, "am thinking of breaking into a house
to-night."

"Gee!" exclaimed Spike, his suspicions confirmed at last. "I t'ought
youse was in de game, boss. Sure, you're de guy dat's onto all de
curves. I t'ought so all along."

"I should like to hear," said Jimmy amusedly, as one who draws out
an intelligent child, "how you would set about burgling one of those
up-town villas. My own work has been on a somewhat larger scale and
on the other side of the Atlantic."

"De odder side?"

"I have done as much in London, as anywhere else," said Jimmy. "A
great town, London, full of opportunities for the fine worker. Did
you hear of the cracking of the New Asiatic Bank in Lombard Street?"

"No, boss," whispered Spike. "Was dat you?"

Jimmy laughed.

"The police would like an answer to the same question," he said,
self-consciously. "Perhaps, you heard nothing of the disappearance
of the Duchess of Havant's diamonds?"

"Wasdat--?"

"The thief," said Jimmy, flicking a speck of dust from his coat
sleeve, "was discovered to have used an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe."

The rapturous intake of Spike's breath was the only sound that broke
the silence. Through the smoke, his eyes could be seen slowly
widening.

"But about this villa," said Jimmy. "I am always interested even in
the humblest sides of the profession. Now, tell me, supposing you
were going to break into a villa, what time of night would you do
it?"

"I always t'inks it's best either late like dis or when de folks is
in at supper," said Spike, respectfully.

Jimmy smiled a faint, patronizing smile, and nodded.

"Well, and what would you do?"

"I'd rubber around some to see isn't dere a window open somewheres,"
said Spike, diffidently.

"And if there wasn't?"

"I'd climb up de porch an' into one of de bedrooms," said Spike,
almost blushing. He felt like a boy reading his first attempts at
original poetry to an established critic. What would this master
cracksman, this polished wielder of the oxy-acetylene blow-pipe,
this expert in toxicology, microscopy and physics think of his
callow outpourings!

"How would you get into the bedroom?"

Spike hung his head.

"Bust de catch wit' me jemmy," he whispered, shamefacedly.

"Burst the catch with your jemmy?"

"It's de only way I ever learned," pleaded Spike.

The expert was silent. He seemed to be thinking. The other watched
his face, humbly.

"How would youse do it, boss?" he ventured timidly, at last.

"Eh?"

"How would youse do it?"

"Why, I'm not sure," said the master, graciously, "whether your way
might not do in a case like that. It's crude, of course, but with a
few changes it would do."

"Gee, boss! Is dat right?" queried the astonished disciple.

"It would do," said the master, frowning thoughtfully; "it would do
quite well--quite well!"

Spike drew a deep breath of joy and astonishment. That his methods
should meet with approval from such a mind...!

"Gee!" he whispered--as who would say, "I and Napoleon."




CHAPTER VI

AN EXHIBITION PERFORMANCE


Cold reason may disapprove of wagers, but without a doubt there is
something joyous and lovable in the type of mind that rushes at the
least provocation into the making of them, something smacking of the
spacious days of the Regency. Nowadays, the spirit seems to have
deserted England. When Mr. Asquith became Premier of Great Britain,
no earnest forms were to be observed rolling peanuts along the
Strand with a toothpick. When Mr. Asquith is dethroned, it is
improbable that any Briton will allow his beard to remain unshaved
until the Liberal party returns to office. It is in the United
States that the wager has found a home. It is characteristic of some
minds to dash into a wager with the fearlessness of a soldier in a
forlorn hope, and, once in, to regard it almost as a sacred trust.
Some men never grow up out of the schoolboy spirit of "daring."

To this class Jimmy Pitt belonged. He was of the same type as the
man in the comic opera who proposed to the lady because somebody bet
him he wouldn't. There had never been a time when a challenge, a
"dare," had not acted as a spur to him. In his newspaper days, life
had been one long series of challenges. They had been the essence of
the business. A story had not been worth getting unless the getting
were difficult.

With the conclusion of his newspaper life came a certain flatness
into the scheme of things. There were times, many times, when Jimmy
was bored. He hungered for excitement, and life appeared to have so
little to offer! The path of the rich man was so smooth, and it
seemed to lead nowhere! This task of burgling a house was like an
unexpected treat to a child. With an intensity of purpose that
should have touched his sense of humor, but, as a matter of fact,
did not appeal to him as ludicrous in any way, he addressed himself
to the work. The truth was that Jimmy was one of those men who are
charged to the brim with force. Somehow, the force had to find an
outlet. If he had undertaken to collect birds' eggs, he would have
set about it with the same tense energy.

Spike was sitting on the edge of his chair, dazed but happy, his
head still buzzing from the unhoped-for praise. Jimmy looked at his
watch. It was nearly three o'clock. A sudden idea struck him. The
gods had provided gifts: why not take them?

"Spike!"

"Huh?"

"Would you care to come and crack a crib with me, now?"

Reverential awe was written on the red-haired one's face.

"Gee, boss!"

"Would you?"

"Surest t'ing you know, boss."

"Or, rather," proceeded Jimmy, "would you care to crack a crib while
I came along with you? Strictly speaking, I am here on a vacation,
but a trifle like this isn't real work. It's this way," he
explained. "I've taken a fancy to you, Spike, and I don't like to
see you wasting your time on coarse work. You have the root of the
matter in you, and with a little coaching I could put a polish on
you. I wouldn't do this for everyone, but I hate to see a man
bungling who might do better! I want to see you at work. Come right
along, and we'll go up-town, and you shall start in. Don't get
nervous. Just work as you would if I were not there. I shall not
expect too much. Rome was not built in a day. When we are through, I
will criticize a few of your mistakes. How does that suit you?"

"Gee, boss! Great! An' I know where dere's a peach of a place, boss.
Regular soft proposition. A friend of mine told me. It's--"

"Very well, then. One moment, though."

He went to the telephone. Before he had left New York on his
travels, Arthur Mifflin had been living at a hotel near Washington
Square. It was probable that he was still there. He called up the
number. The night-clerk was an old acquaintance of his.

"Hello, Dixon," said Jimmy, "is that you? I'm Pitt--Pitt! Yes, I'm
back. How did you guess? Yes, very pleasant. Has Mr. Mifflin come in
yet? Gone to bed? Never mind, call him up, will you? Good."
Presently, the sleepy and outraged voice of Mr. Mifflin spoke at the
other end of the line.

"What's wrong? Who the devil's that?"

"My dear Arthur! Where you pick up such expressions I can't think--not
from me."

"Is that you, Jimmy? What in the name of--!"

"Heavens! What are you kicking about? The night's yet young. Arthur,
touching that little arrangement we made--cracking that crib, you
know. Are you listening? Have you any objection to my taking an
assistant along with me? I don't want to do anything contrary to our
agreement, but there's a young fellow here who's anxious that I
should let him come along and pick up a few hints. He's a
professional all right. Not in our class, of course, but quite a
fair rough workman. He--Arthur! Arthur! These are harsh words! Then,
am I to understand you have no objection? Very well. Only, don't say
later on that I didn't play fair. Good-night."

He hung up the receiver, and turned to Spike.

"Ready?"

"Ain't youse goin' to put on your gum-shoes, boss?"

Jimmy frowned reflectively, as if there was something in what this
novice suggested. He went into the bedroom, and returned wearing a
pair of thin patent-leather shoes.

Spike coughed tentatively.

"Won't youse need your gun?" he hazarded.  Jimmy gave a short laugh.

"I work with brains, not guns," he said. "Let us be going."

There was a taxi-cab near by, as there always is in New York. Jimmy
pushed Spike in, and they drove off. To Jimmy, New York stopped
somewhere about Seventy-Second Street. Anything beyond that was
getting on for the Middle West, and seemed admirably suited as a
field for the cracksman. He had a vague idea of up-town as a remote,
desolate district, badly lighted--if lighted at all--and sparsely
dotted with sleepy policemen.

The luxury of riding in a taxi-cab kept Spike dumb for several
miles. Having arrived at what seemed a sufficiently remote part of
America, Jimmy paid the driver, who took the money with that
magnificently aloof air which characterizes the taxi-chauffeur. A
lesser man might have displayed some curiosity about the ill-matched
pair. The chauffeur, having lighted a cigarette, drove off without
any display of interest whatsoever. It might have been part of
his ordinary duties to drive gentlemen in evening clothes and
shock-headed youths in parti-colored sweaters about the city at three
o'clock in the morning.

"We will now," said Jimmy, "stroll on and prospect. It is up to you,
Spike. Didn't you say something about knowing a suitable house
somewhere? Are we anywhere near it?"

Spike looked at the number of the street.

"We got some way to go, boss," he said. "I wisht youse hadn't sent
away de cab."

"Did you think we were going to drive up to the door? Pull yourself
together, my dear man."

They walked on, striking eastward out of Broadway. It caused Jimmy
some surprise to find that the much-enduring thoroughfare extended
as far as this. It had never occurred to him before to ascertain
what Broadway did with itself beyond Times Square.

It was darker now that they had moved from the center of things, but
it was still far too light for Jimmy's tastes. He was content,
however, to leave matters entirely to his companion. Spike probably
had his methods for evading publicity on these occasions.

Spike plodded on. Block after block he passed, until finally the
houses began to be more scattered.

At last, he halted before a fair-sized detached house.

"Dis is de place," he said. "A friend of mine tells me of it. I
didn't know he was me friend, dough, before he puts me wise about
dis joint. I t'ought he'd got it in fer me 'cos of last week when I
scrapped wit' him about somet'in'. I t'ought after that he was
layin' fer me, but de next time he seen me he put me wise to dis
place."

"Coals of fire," said Jimmy. "He was of a forgiving disposition." A
single rain-drop descended on the nape of his neck. In another
moment, a smart shower had begun.

"This matter has passed out of our hands," said Jimmy. "We must
break in, if only to get shelter. Get busy, my lad."

There was a handy window only a few feet from the ground. Spike
pulled from his pocket a small bottle.

"What's that?" inquired Jimmy.

"Molasses, boss," said Spike, deferentially.

He poured the contents of the bottle on a piece of paper, which he
pressed firmly against the window-pane. Then, drawing out a short
steel instrument, he gave the paper a sharp tap. The glass broke
almost inaudibly. The paper came away, leaving a gap in the pane.
Spike inserted his hand, shot back the catch, and softly pushed up
the window.

"Elementary," said Jimmy; "elementary, but quite neat."

There was now a shutter to be negotiated. This took longer, but in
the end Spike's persuasive methods prevailed.

Jimmy became quite cordial.

"You have been well-grounded, Spike," he said. "And, after all, that
is half the battle. The advice I give to every novice is, 'Learn to
walk before you try to run.' Master the a, b, c, of the craft first.
With a little careful coaching, you will do. Just so. Pop in."

Spike climbed cautiously over the sill, followed by Jimmy. The
latter struck a match, and found the electric light switch. They
were in a parlor, furnished and decorated with surprising taste.
Jimmy had expected the usual hideousness, but here everything from
the wall-paper to the smallest ornaments was wonderfully well
selected.

Business, however, was business. This was no time to stand admiring
artistic effects in room-furnishing. There was that big J to be
carved on the front door. If 'twere done, then 'twere well 'twere
done quickly.

He was just moving to the door, when from some distant part of the
house came the bark of a dog. Another joined in. The solo became a
duet. The air was filled with their clamor.

"Gee!" cried Spike.

The remark seemed more or less to sum up the situation.

"'Tis sweet," says Byron, "to hear the watch-dog's honest bark."
Jimmy and Spike found two watch-dogs' honest barks cloying. Spike
intimated this by making a feverish dash for the open window.
Unfortunately for the success of this maneuver, the floor of the
room was covered not with a carpet but with tastefully scattered
rugs, and underneath these rugs it was very highly polished. Spike,
treading on one of these islands, was instantly undone. No power of
will or muscle can save a man in such a case. Spike skidded. His
feet flew from under him. There was a momentary flash of red head,
as of a passing meteor. The next moment, he had fallen on his back
with a thud that shook the house. Even in the crisis, the thought
flashed across Jimmy's mind that this was not Spike's lucky night.

Upstairs, the efforts of the canine choir had begun to resemble the
"A che la morte" duet in "Il Trovatore." Particularly good work was
being done by the baritone dog.

Spike sat up, groaning. Equipped though he was by nature with a
skull of the purest and most solid ivory, the fall had disconcerted
him. His eyes, like those of Shakespeare's poet, rolling in a fine
frenzy, did glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. He
passed his fingers tenderly through his vermilion hair.

Heavy footsteps were descending the stairs. In the distance, the
soprano dog had reached A in alt., and was holding it, while his
fellow artiste executed runs in the lower register.

"Get up!" hissed Jimmy. "There's somebody coming! Get up, you idiot,
can't you!"

It was characteristic of Jimmy that it never even occurred to him to
desert the fallen one, and depart alone. Spike was his brother-in-arms.
He would as soon have thought of deserting him as a sea-captain
would of abandoning the ship.

Consequently, as Spike, despite all exhortations, continued to
remain on the floor, rubbing his head and uttering "Gee!" at
intervals in a melancholy voice, Jimmy resigned himself to fate, and
stood where he was, waiting for the door to open.

It opened the next moment as if a cyclone had been behind it.




CHAPTER VII

GETTING ACQUAINTED


A cyclone, entering a room, is apt to alter the position of things.
This cyclone shifted a footstool, a small chair, a rug, and Spike.
The chair, struck by a massive boot, whirled against the wall. The
foot-stool rolled away. The rug crumpled up and slid. Spike, with a
yell, leaped to his feet, slipped again, fell, and finally
compromised on an all-fours position, in which attitude he remained,
blinking.

While these stirring acts were in progress, there was the sound of a
door opening upstairs, followed by a scuttering of feet and an
appalling increase in the canine contribution to the current noises.
The duet had now taken on quite a Wagnerian effect.

There raced into the room first a white bull-terrier, he of the
soprano voice, and--a bad second--his fellow artiste, the baritone,
a massive bull-dog, bearing a striking resemblance to the big man
with the big lower jaw whose entrance had started the cyclone.

And, then, in theatrical parlance, the entire company "held the
picture." Up-stage, with his hand still on the door, stood the man
with the jaw; downstage, Jimmy; center, Spike and the bull-dog,
their noses a couple of inches apart, inspected each other with
mutual disfavor. On the extreme O. P. side, the bull-terrier, who
had fallen foul of a wicker-work table, was crouching with extended
tongue and rolling eyes, waiting for the next move.

The householder looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the householder.
Spike and the bull-dog looked at each other. The bull-terrier
distributed his gaze impartially around the company.

"A typical scene of quiet American home-life," murmured Jimmy.

The householder glowered.

"Hands up, you devils!" he roared, pointing a mammoth revolver.

The two marauders humored his whim.

"Let me explain," said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily around in
order to face the bull-terrier, who was now strolling in his
direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.

"Keep still, you blackguard!"

Jimmy kept still. The bull-terrier, with the same abstracted air,
was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser-leg.

Relations between Spike and the bull-dog, meanwhile, had become more
strained. The sudden flinging up of the former's arms had had the
worst effects on the animal's nerves. Spike, the croucher on
all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the semaphore, inspired
him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective
manner. His eye was full of purpose.

It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder.
Till then, he had been too busy to shift his gaze, but now the
bull-dog's eye had become so unpleasing that he cast a pathetic glance up
at the man by the door.

"Gee!" he cried. "It's de boss. Say, boss, call off de dawg. It's
sure goin' to nip de hull head off'n me."

The other lowered the revolver in surprise.

"So, it's you, you limb of Satan!" he remarked. "I thought I had
seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my
house?"

Spike uttered a howl in which indignation and self-pity were nicely
blended.

"I'll lay for that Swede!" he cried. "I'll soak it to him good!
Boss, I've had a raw deal. On de level, I has. Dey's a feller I
know, a fat Swede--Ole Larsen his monaker is--an' dis feller an' me
started in scrapping last week, an' I puts it all over him, so he
had it in for me. But he comes up to me, like as if he's meanin' to
be good, an' he says he's got a soft proposition fer me if I'll give
him half. So, I says all right, where is it? An' he gives me de
number of dis house, an' says dis is where a widder-lady lives all
alone, an' has got silver mugs and t'ings to boin, an' dat she's
away down Sout', so dere ain't nobody in de house. Gee! I'll soak it
to dat Swede! It was a raw deal, boss. He was just hopin' to put me
in bad wit' you. Dat's how it was, boss. Honest!"

The big man listened to this sad story of Grecian gifts in silence.
Not so the bull-dog, which growled from start to finish.

Spike eyed it uneasily.

"Won't you call off de dawg, boss?" he said.

The other stooped, and grasped the animal's collar, jerking him
away.

"The same treatment," suggested Jimmy with approval, "would also do
a world of good to this playful and affectionate animal--unless he
is a vegetarian. In which case, don't bother."

The big man glowered at him.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"My name," began Jimmy, "is--"

"Say," said Spike, "he's a champion burglar, boss--"

The householder shut the door.

"Eh?" he said.

"He's a champion burglar from de odder side. He sure is. From
Lunnon. Gee, he's de guy! Tell him about de bank you opened, an' de
jools you swiped from de duchess, an' de what-d'ye-call-it
blow-pipe."

It seemed to Jimmy that Spike was showing a certain want of tact.
When you are discovered by a householder--with revolver--in his
parlor at half-past three in the morning, it is surely an
injudicious move to lay stress on your proficiency as a burglar. The
householder may be supposed to take that for granted. The side of
your character that should be advertised in such a crisis is the
non-burglarious. Allusion should be made to the fact that, as a
child, you attended Sunday school regularly, and to what the
minister said when you took the divinity prize. The idea should be
conveyed to the householder's mind that, if let off with a caution,
your innate goodness of heart will lead you to reform and to avoid
such scenes in future.

With some astonishment, therefore, Jimmy found that these
revelations, so far from prejudicing the man with the revolver
against him, had apparently told in his favor. The man behind the
gun was regarding him rather with interest than disapproval.

"So, you're a crook from London, are you?"

Jimmy did not hesitate. If being a crook from London was a passport
into citizens' parlors in the small hours, and, more particularly,
if it carried with it also a safe-conduct out of them, Jimmy was not
the man to refuse the role. He bowed.

"Well, you'll have to come across, now you're in New York.
Understand that! And come across good."

"Sure, he will," said Spike, charmed that the tension had been
relieved, and matters placed upon a pleasant and business-like
footing. "He'll be good. He's next to de game, sure."

"Sure," echoed Jimmy, courteously. He did not understand; but things
seemed to be taking a turn for the better, so why disturb the
harmony?

"Dis gent," said Spike respectfully, "is boss of de cops. A
police-captain," he corrected himself.

A light broke upon Jimmy's darkness. He wondered he had not
understood before. He had not been a newspaper-man in New York for a
year without finding out something of the inner workings of the
police force. He saw now why the other's manner had changed.

"Pleased to meet you," he said. "We must have a talk together one of
these days."

"We must," said the police-captain, significantly. He was rich,
richer than he had ever hoped to be; but he was still on Tom
Tiddler's ground, and meant to make the most of it.

"Of course, I don't know your methods on this side, but anything
that's usual--"

"I'll see you at my office. Spike Mullins will show you where it
is."

"Very well. You must forgive this preliminary informal call. We came
in more to shelter from the rain than anything."

"You did, did you?"

Jimmy felt that it behooved him to stand on his dignity. The
situation demanded it.

"Why," he said with some hauteur, "in the ordinary course of
business I should hardly waste time over a small crib like--"

"It's banks fer his," murmured Spike, rapturously. "He eats dem
alive. An' jools from duchesses."

"I admit a partiality for jewels and duchesses," said Jimmy. "And,
now, as it's a little late, perhaps we had better--Ready, Spike?
Good-night, then. Pleased to have met you."

"I'll see you at my office."

"I may possibly look in. I shall be doing very little work in New
York, I fancy. I am here merely on a vacation."

"If you do any work at all," said the policeman coldly, "you'll look
in at my office, or you'll wish you had when it's too late."

"Of course, of course. I shouldn't dream of omitting any formality
that may be usual. But I don't fancy I shall break my vacation. By
the way, one little thing. Have you any objections to my carving a
J on your front-door?"

The policeman stared.

"On the inside. It won't show. It's just a whim of mine. If you have
no objection?"

"I don't want any of your--" began the policeman.

"You misunderstand me. It's only that it means paying for a dinner.
I wouldn't for the world--"

The policeman pointed to the window.

"Out you get," he said, abruptly. "I've had enough of you. And don't
you forget to come to my office."

Spike, still deeply mistrustful of the bull-dog Rastus, jumped at
the invitation. He was through the window and out of sight in the
friendly darkness almost before the policeman had finished speaking.
Jimmy remained.

"I shall be delighted--" he had begun. Then, he stopped. In the
doorway was standing a girl--a girl whom he recognized. Her startled
look told him that she, too, had recognized him.

Not for the first time since he had set out from his flat that night
in Spike's company, Jimmy was conscious of a sense of the unreality
of things. It was all so exactly as it would have happened in a
dream! He had gone to sleep thinking of this girl, and here she was.
But a glance at the man with the revolver brought him back to earth.
There was nothing of the dream-world about the police-captain.

That gentleman, whose back was toward the door, had not observed the
addition to the company. Molly had turned the handle quietly, and
her slippered feet made no sound. It was the amazed expression on
Jimmy's face that caused the captain to look toward the door.

"Molly!"

The girl smiled, though her face was white. Jimmy's evening clothes
had reassured her. She did not understand how he came to be there,
but evidently there was nothing wrong. She had interrupted a
conversation, not a conflict.

"I heard the noise and you going downstairs, and I sent the dogs
down to help you, father," she said. "And, then, after a little, I
came down to see if you were all right."

Mr. McEachern was perplexed. Molly's arrival had put him in an
awkward position. To denounce the visitor as a cracksman was now
impossible, for he knew too much. The only real fear of the
policeman's life was lest some word of his money-making methods
might come to his daughter's ears.

Quite a brilliant idea came to him.

"A man broke in, my dear," he said. "This gentleman was passing, and
saw him."

"Distinctly," said Jimmy. "An ugly-looking customer!"

"But he slipped out of the window, and got away," concluded the
policeman.

"He was very quick," said Jimmy. "I think he may have been a
professional acrobat."

"He didn't hurt you, father?"

"No, no, my dear."

"Perhaps I frightened him," said Jimmy, airily.

Mr. McEachern scowled furtively at him.

"We mustn't detain you, Mr.-"

"Pitt," said Jimmy. "My name is Pitt." He turned to Molly. "I hope
you enjoyed the voyage."

The policeman started.

"You know my daughter?"

"By sight only, I'm afraid. We were fellow-passengers on the
Lusitania. Unfortunately, I was in the second-cabin. I used to see
your daughter walking the deck sometimes."

Molly smiled.

"I remember seeing you--sometimes."

McEachern burst out.

"Then, you--!"

He stopped, and looked at Molly. The girl was bending over Rastus,
tickling him under the ear.

"Let me show you the way out, Mr. Pitt," said the policeman,
shortly. His manner was abrupt, but when one is speaking to a man
whom one would dearly love to throw out of the window, abruptness is
almost unavoidable.

"Perhaps I should be going," said Jimmy.

"Good-night, Mr. Pitt," said Molly.

"I hope we shall meet again," said Jimmy.

"This way, Mr. Pitt," growled McEachern, holding the door.

"Please don't trouble," said Jimmy. He went to the window, and,
flinging his leg over the sill, dropped noiselessly to the ground.

He turned and put his head in at the window again.

"I did that rather well," he said, pleasantly. "I think I must take
up this--sort of thing as a profession. Good-night."




CHAPTER VIII

AT DREEVER


In the days before he began to expend his surplus energy in playing
Rugby football, the Welshman was accustomed, whenever the monotony
of his everyday life began to oppress him, to collect a few friends
and make raids across the border into England, to the huge
discomfort of the dwellers on the other side. It was to cope with
this habit that Dreever Castle, in the county of Shropshire, came
into existence. It met a long-felt want. In time of trouble, it
became a haven of refuge. From all sides, people poured into it,
emerging cautiously when the marauders had disappeared. In the whole
history of the castle, there is but one instance recorded of a
bandit attempting to take the place by storm, and the attack was an
emphatic failure. On receipt of a ladleful of molten lead, aimed to
a nicety by one John, the Chaplain (evidently one of those sporting
parsons), this warrior retired, done to a turn, to his mountain
fastnesses, and was never heard of again. He would seem, however, to
have passed the word around among his friends, for subsequent
raiding parties studiously avoided the castle, and a peasant who had
succeeded in crossing its threshold was for the future considered to
be "home" and out of the game.

Such was the Dreever of old. In later days, the Welshman having
calmed down considerably, it had lost its militant character. The
old walls still stood, gray, menacing and unchanged, but they were
the only link with the past. The castle was now a very comfortable
country-house, nominally ruled over by Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de
Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever
("Spennie" to his relatives and intimates), a light-haired young
gentleman of twenty-four, but in reality the possession of his uncle
and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Julia Blunt.

Lord Dreever's position was one of some embarrassment. At no point
in their history had the Dreevers been what one might call a
parsimonious family. If a chance presented itself of losing money in
a particularly wild and futile manner, the Dreever of the period had
invariably sprung at it with the vim of an energetic blood-hound.
The South Sea Bubble absorbed two hundred thousand pounds of good
Dreever money, and the remainder of the family fortune was
squandered to the ultimate penny by the sportive gentleman who held
the title in the days of the Regency, when Watier's and the Cocoa
Tree were in their prime, and fortunes had a habit of disappearing
in a single evening. When Spennie became Earl of Dreever, there was
about one dollar and thirty cents in the family coffers.

This is the point at which Sir Thomas Blunt breaks into Dreever
history. Sir Thomas was a small, pink, fussy, obstinate man with a
genius for trade and the ambition of an Alexander the Great;
probably one of the finest and most complete specimens of the
came-over-Waterloo-Bridge-with-half-a crown-in-my-pocket-and-now-look-at-me
class of millionaires in existence. He had started almost
literally with nothing. By carefully excluding from his mind every
thought except that of making money, he had risen in the world with
a gruesome persistence which nothing could check. At the age of
fifty-one, he was chairman of Blunt's Stores, L't'd, a member of
Parliament (silent as a wax figure, but a great comfort to the party
by virtue of liberal contributions to its funds), and a knight. This
was good, but he aimed still higher; and, meeting Spennie's aunt,
Lady Julia Coombe-Crombie, just at the moment when, financially, the
Dreevers were at their lowest ebb, he had effected a very
satisfactory deal by marrying her, thereby becoming, as one might
say, Chairman of Dreever, L't'd. Until Spennie should marry money,
an act on which his chairman vehemently insisted, Sir Thomas held
the purse, and except in minor matters ordered by his wife, of whom
he stood in uneasy awe, had things entirely his own way.

One afternoon, a little over a year after the events recorded in the
preceding chapter, Sir Thomas was in his private room, looking out
of the window, from which the view was very beautiful. The castle
stood on a hill, the lower portion of which, between the house and
the lake, had been cut into broad terraces. The lake itself and its
island with the little boat-house in the center gave a glimpse of
fairyland.

But it was not altogether the beauty of the view that had drawn Sir
Thomas to the window. He was looking at it chiefly because the
position enabled him to avoid his wife's eye; and just at the moment
he was rather anxious to avoid his wife's eye. A somewhat stormy
board-meeting was in progress, and Lady Julia, who constituted the
board of directors, had been heckling the chairman. The point under
discussion was one of etiquette, and in matters of etiquette Sir
Thomas felt himself at a disadvantage.

"I tell you, my dear," he said to the window, "I am not easy in my
mind."

"Nonsense," snapped Lady Julia; "absurd--ridiculous!"

Lady Julia Blunt, when conversing, resembled a Maxim gun more than
anything else.

"But your diamonds, my dear."

"We can take care of them."

"But why should we have the trouble? Now, if we--"

"It's no trouble."

"When we were married, there was a detective--"

"Don't be childish, Thomas. Detectives at weddings are quite
customary."

"But--"

"Bah!"

"I paid twenty thousand pounds for that rope of diamonds," said Sir
Thomas, obstinately. Switch things upon a cash basis, and he was
more at ease.

"May I ask if you suspect any of our guests of being criminals?"
inquired Lady Julia, with a glance of chill disdain.

Sir Thomas looked out of the window. At the moment, the sternest
censor could have found nothing to cavil at in the movements of such
of the house-party as were in sight. Some were playing tennis, some
clock-golf, and others were smoking.

"Why, no," he admitted.

"Of course. Absurd--quite absurd!"

"But the servants. We have engaged a number of new servants lately."

"With excellent recommendations."

Sir Thomas was on the point of suggesting that the recommendations
might be forged, but his courage failed him. Julia was sometimes so
abrupt in these little discussions! She did not enter into his point
of view. He was always a trifle inclined to treat the castle as a
branch of Blunt's Stores. As proprietor of the stores, he had made a
point of suspecting everybody, and the results had been excellent.
In Blunt's Stores, you could hardly move in any direction without
bumping into a gentlemanly detective, efficiently disguised. For the
life of him, Sir Thomas could not see why the same principle should
not obtain at Dreever. Guests at a country house do not as a rule
steal their host's possessions, but then it is only an occasional
customer at a store who goes in for shop-lifting. It was the
principle of the thing, he thought: Be prepared against every
emergency. With Sir Thomas Blunt, suspiciousness was almost a mania.
He was forced to admit that the chances were against any of his
guests exhibiting larcenous tendencies, but, as for the servants, he
thoroughly mistrusted them all, except Saunders, the butler. It had
seemed to him the merest prudence that a detective from a private
inquiry agency should be installed at the castle while the house was
full. Somewhat rashly, he had mentioned this to his wife, and Lady
Julia's critique of the scheme had been terse and unflattering.

"I suppose," said Lady Julia sarcastically, "you will jump to the
conclusion that this man whom Spennie is bringing down with him
to-day is a criminal of some sort?"

"Eh? Is Spennie bringing a friend?"

There was not a great deal of enthusiasm in Sir Thomas's voice. His
nephew was not a young man whom he respected very highly. Spennie
regarded his uncle with nervous apprehension, as one who would deal
with his short-comings with vigor and severity. Sir Thomas, for his
part, looked on Spennie as a youth who would get into mischief
unless under his uncle's eye.

"I had a telegram from him just now," Lady Julia explained.

"Who is his friend?"

"He doesn't say. He just says he's a man he met in London."

"H'm!"

"And what does, 'H'm!' mean?" demanded Lady Julia.

"A man can pick up strange people in London," said Sir Thomas,
judicially.

"Nonsense!"

"Just as you say, my dear."

Lady Julia rose.

"As for what you suggest about the detective, it is of course
absolutely absurd."

"Quite so, my dear."

"You mustn't think of it."

"Just as you say, my dear."

Lady Julia left the room.

What followed may afford some slight clue to the secret of Sir
Thomas Blunt's rise in the world. It certainly suggests singleness
of purpose, which is one of the essentials of success.

No sooner had the door closed behind Lady Julia than he went to his
writing-table, took pen and paper, and wrote the following letter:

To the Manager, Wragge's Detective Agency. Holborn Bars, London E.
C.

SIR: With reference to my last of the 28th, ult., I should be glad
if you would send down immediately one of your best men. Am making
arrangements to receive him. Kindly instruct him to present himself
at Dreever Castle as applicant for position of valet to myself. I
will see and engage him on his arrival, and further instruct him in
his duties.

Yours faithfully,

THOS. BLUNT.

P. S. I shall expect him to-morrow evening. There is a good train
leaving Paddington at 2:15.

Sir Thomas read this over, put in a comma, then placed it in an
envelope, and lighted a cigar with the air of one who can be
checked, yes, but vanquished, never.




CHAPTER IX

FRIENDS, NEW AND OLD


On the night of the day on which Sir Thomas Blunt wrote and
dispatched his letter to Wragge's Detective Agency, Jimmy Pitt
chanced to stop at the Savoy.

If you have the money and the clothes, and do not object to being
turned out into the night just as you are beginning to enjoy
yourself, there are few things pleasanter than supper at the Savoy
Hotel, London. But, as Jimmy sat there, eying the multitude through
the smoke of his cigarette, he felt, despite all the brightness and
glitter, that this was a flat world, and that he was very much alone
in it.

A little over a year had passed since the merry evening at Police-Captain
McEachern's. During that time, he had covered a good deal of
new ground. His restlessness had reasserted itself. Somebody had
mentioned Morocco in his hearing, and a fortnight later he was in
Fez.

Of the principals in that night's drama, he had seen nothing more.
It was only when, after walking home on air, rejoicing over the
strange chance that had led to his finding and having speech with
the lady of the Lusitania, he had reached Fifty-Ninth Street, that
he realized how he had also lost her. It suddenly came home to him
that not only did he not know her address, but he was ignorant of
her name. Spike had called the man with the revolver "boss"
throughout--only that and nothing more. Except that he was a
police-captain, Jimmy knew as little about the man as he had before their
meeting. And Spike, who held the key to the mystery, had vanished.
His acquaintances of that night had passed out of his life like
figures in a waking dream. As far as the big man with the pistol was
concerned, this did not distress him. He had known that massive
person only for about a quarter of an hour, but to his thinking that
was ample. Spike he would have liked to meet again, but he bore the
separation with much fortitude. There remained the girl of the ship;
and she had haunted him with unfailing persistence during every one
of the three hundred and eighty-four days that had passed since
their meeting.

It was the thought of her that had made New York seem cramped. For
weeks, Jimmy had patrolled the likely streets, the Park, and
Riverside Drive, in the hope of meeting her. He had gone to the
theaters and restaurants, but with no success. Sometimes, he had
wandered through the Bowery, on the chance of meeting Spike. He had
seen red heads in profusion, but never again that of his young
disciple in the art of burglary. In the end, he had wearied of the
other friends of the Strollers, had gone out again on his
wanderings. He was greatly missed, especially by that large section
of his circle which was in a perpetual state of wanting a little to
see it through till Saturday. For years, Jimmy had been to these
unfortunates a human bank on which they could draw at will. It
offended them that one of those rare natures which are always good
for two dollars at any hour of the day should be allowed to waste
itself on places like Morocco and Spain--especially Morocco, where,
by all accounts, there were brigands with almost a New York sense of
touch.

They argued earnestly with Jimmy. They spoke of Raisuli and Kaid
MacLean. But Jimmy was not to be stopped. The gad-fly was vexing
him, and he had to move.

For a year, he had wandered, realizing every day the truth of
Horace's philosophy for those who travel, that a man cannot change
his feelings with his climate, until finally he had found himself,
as every wanderer does, at Charing Cross.

At this point, he had tried to rally. Such running away, he told
himself, was futile. He would stand still and fight the fever in
him.

He had been fighting it now for a matter of two weeks, and already
he was contemplating retreat. A man at luncheon had been talking
about Japan--

Watching the crowd, Jimmy had found his attention attracted chiefly
by a party of three, a few tables away. The party consisted of a
girl, rather pretty, a lady of middle age and stately demeanor,
plainly her mother, and a light-haired, weedy young man in the
twenties. It had been the almost incessant prattle of this youth and
the peculiarly high-pitched, gurgling laugh which shot from him at
short intervals that had drawn Jimmy's notice upon them. And it was
the curious cessation of both prattle and laugh that now made him
look again in their direction.

The young man faced Jimmy; and Jimmy, looking at him, could see that
all was not well with him. He was pale. He talked at random. A
slight perspiration was noticeable on his forehead.

Jimmy caught his eye. There was a hunted look in it.

Given the time and the place, there were only two things that could
have caused this look. Either the light-haired young man had seen a
ghost, or he had suddenly realized that he had not enough money to
pay the check.

Jimmy's heart went out to the sufferer. He took a card from his
case, scribbled the words, "Can I help?" on it, and gave it to a
waiter to take to the young man, who was now in a state bordering on
collapse.

The next moment, the light-haired one was at his table, talking in a
feverish whisper.

"I say," he said, "it's frightfully good of you, old chap! It's
frightfully awkward. I've come out with too little money. I hardly
like to--you've never seen me before--"

"Don't rub in my misfortunes," pleaded Jimmy. "It wasn't my fault."

He placed a five-pound note on the table.

"Say when," he said, producing another.

"I say, thanks fearfully," the young man said. "I don't know what
I'd have done." He grabbed at the note. "I'll let you have it back
to-morrow. Here's my card. Is your address on your card? I can't
remember. Oh, by Jove, I've got it in my hand all the time." The
gurgling laugh came into action again, freshened and strengthened by
its rest. "Savoy Mansions, eh? I'll come round to-morrow. Thanks
frightfully again, old chap. I don't know what I should have done."

"It's been a treat," said Jimmy, deprecatingly.

The young man flitted back to his table, bearing the spoil. Jimmy
looked at the card he had left. "Lord Dreever," it read, and in the
corner the name of a well-known club. The name Dreever was familiar
to Jimmy. Everyone knew of Dreever Castle, partly because it was one
of the oldest houses in England, but principally because for
centuries it had been advertised by a particularly gruesome ghost-story.
Everyone had heard of the secret of Dreever, which was known
only to the earl and the family lawyer, and confided to the heir at
midnight on his twenty-first birthday. Jimmy had come across the
story in corners of the papers all over the States, from New York to
Onehorseville, Iowa. He looked with interest at the light-haired
young man, the latest depository of the awful secret. It was
popularly supposed that the heir, after hearing it, never smiled
again; but it did not seem to have affected the present Lord Dreever
to any great extent. His gurgling laugh was drowning the orchestra.
Probably, Jimmy thought, when the family lawyer had told the
light-haired young man the secret, the latter's comment had been, "No,
really? By Jove, I say, you know!"

Jimmy paid his bill, and got up to go.

It was a perfect summer night--too perfect for bed. Jimmy strolled
on to the Embankment, and stood leaning over the balustrade, looking
across the river at the vague, mysterious mass of buildings on the
Surrey side.

He must have been standing there for some time, his thoughts far
away, when a voice spoke at his elbow.

"I say. Excuse me, have you--Hullo!" It was his light-haired
lordship of Dreever. "I say, by Jove, why we're always meeting!"

A tramp on a bench close by stirred uneasily in his sleep as the
gurgling laugh rippled the air.

"Been looking at the water?" inquired Lord Dreever. "I have. I often
do. Don't you think it sort of makes a chap feel--oh, you know. Sort
of--I don't know how to put it."

"Mushy?" said Jimmy.

"I was going to say poetical. Suppose there's a girl--"

He paused, and looked down at the water. Jimmy was sympathetic with
this mood of contemplation, for in his case, too, there was a girl.

"I saw my party off in a taxi," continued Lord Dreever, "and came
down here for a smoke; only, I hadn't a match. Have you--?"

Jimmy handed over his match-box. Lord Dreever lighted a cigar, and
fixed his gaze once more on the river.

"Ripping it looks," he said.

Jimmy nodded.

"Funny thing," said Lord Dreever. "In the daytime, the water here
looks all muddy and beastly. Damn' depressing, I call it. But at
night--" He paused. "I say," he went on after a moment, "Did you see
the girl I was with at the Savoy?"

"Yes," said Jimmy.

"She's a ripper," said Lord Dreever, devoutly.

On the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of a summer morning,
there is no such thing as a stranger. The man you talk with is a
friend, and, if he will listen--as, by the etiquette of the place,
he must--you may pour out your heart to him without restraint. It is
expected of you!

"I'm fearfully in love with her," said his lordship.

"She looked a charming girl," said Jimmy.

They examined the water in silence. From somewhere out in the
night came the sound of oars, as the police-boat moved on its
patrol.

"Does she make you want to go to Japan?" asked Jimmy, suddenly.

"Eh?" said Lord Dreever, startled. "Japan?"

Jimmy adroitly abandoned the position of confidant, and seized that
of confider.

"I met a girl a year ago--only really met her once, and even then--oh,
well! Anyway, it's made me so restless that I haven't been able
to stay in one place for more than a month on end. I tried Morocco,
and had to quit. I tried Spain, and that wasn't any good, either.
The other day, I heard a fellow say that Japan was a pretty
interesting sort of country. I was wondering whether I wouldn't give
it a trial."

Lord Dreever regarded this traveled man with interest.

"It beats me," he said, wonderingly. "What do you want to leg it
about the world like that for? What's the trouble? Why don't you
stay where the girl is?"

"I don't know where she is."

"Don't know?"

"She disappeared."

"Where did you see her last?" asked his lordship, as if Molly were a
mislaid penknife.

"New York."

"But how do you mean, disappeared? Don't you know her address?"

"I don't even know her name."

"But dash it all, I say, I mean! Have you ever spoken to her?"

"Only once. It's rather a complicated story. At any rate, she's
gone."

Lord Dreever said that it was a rum business. Jimmy conceded the
point.

"Seems to me," said his lordship, "we're both in the cart."

"What's your trouble?"

Lord Dreever hesitated.

"Oh, well, it's only that I want to marry one girl, and my uncle's
dead set on my marrying another."

"Are you afraid of hurting your uncle's feelings?"

"It's not so much hurting his feelings. It's--oh, well, it's too
long to tell now. I think I'll be getting home. I'm staying at our
place in Eaton Square."

"How are you going? If you'll walk, I'll come some of the way with
you."

"Right you are. Let's be pushing along, shall we?"

They turned up into the Strand, and through Trafalgar Square into
Piccadilly. Piccadilly has a restful aspect in the small hours. Some
men were cleaning the road with water from a long hose. The swishing
of the torrent on the parched wood was musical.

Just beyond the gate of Hyde Park, to the right of the road, stands
a cabmen's shelter. Conversation and emotion had made Lord Dreever
thirsty. He suggested coffee as a suitable conclusion to the night's
revels.

"I often go in here when I'm up in town," he said. "The cabbies
don't mind. They're sportsmen."

The shelter was nearly full when they opened the door. It was very
warm inside. A cabman gets so much fresh air in the exercise of his
professional duties that he is apt to avoid it in private life. The
air was heavy with conflicting scents. Fried onions seemed to be
having the best of the struggle for the moment, though plug tobacco
competed gallantly. A keenly analytical nose might also have
detected the presence of steak and coffee.

A dispute seemed to be in progress as they entered.

"You don't wish you was in Russher," said a voice.

"Yus, I do wish I wos in Russher," retorted a shriveled mummy of a
cabman, who was blowing patiently at a saucerful of coffee.

"Why do you wish you was in Russher?" asked the interlocutor,
introducing a Massa Bones and Massa Johnsing touch into the
dialogue.

"Because yer can wade over yer knees in bla-a-a-ad there," said the
mummy.

"In wot?"

"In bla-a-ad--ruddy bla-a-ad! That's why I wish I wos in Russher."

"Cheery cove that," said Lord Dreever. "I say, can you give us some
coffee?"

"I might try Russia instead of Japan," said Jimmy, meditatively.

The lethal liquid was brought. Conversation began again. Other
experts gave their views on the internal affairs of Russia. Jimmy
would have enjoyed it more if he had been less sleepy. His back was
wedged comfortably against the wall of the shelter, and the heat of
the room stole into his brain. The voices of the disputants grew
fainter and fainter.

He had almost dozed off when a new voice cut through the murmur and
woke him. It was a voice he knew, and the accent was a familiar
accent.

"Gents! Excuse me."

He looked up. The mists of sleep shredded away. A ragged youth with
a crop of fiery red hair was standing in the doorway, regarding the
occupants of the shelter with a grin, half-whimsical, half-defiant.

Jimmy recognized him. It was Spike Mullins.

"Excuse me," said Spike Mullins. "Is dere any gent in dis bunch of
professional beauts wants to give a poor orphan dat suffers from a
painful toist something to drink? Gents is courteously requested not
to speak all in a crowd."

"Shet that blanky door," said the mummy cabman, sourly.

"And 'op it," added his late opponent. "We don't want none of your
sort 'ere."

"Den you ain't my long-lost brudders after all," said the newcomer,
regretfully. "I t'ought youse didn't look handsome enough for dat.
Good-night to youse, gents."

"Shet that door, can't yer, when I'm telling yer!" said the mummy,
with increased asperity.

Spike was reluctantly withdrawing, when Jimmy rose.

"One moment," he said.

Never in his life had Jimmy failed to stand by a friend in need.
Spike was not, perhaps, exactly a friend, but even an acquaintance
could rely on Jimmy when down in the world. And Spike was manifestly
in that condition.

A look of surprise came into the Bowery Boy's face, followed by one
of stolid woodenness. He took the sovereign that Jimmy held out to
him with a muttered word of thanks, and shuffled out of the room.

"Can't see what you wanted to give him anything for," said Lord
Dreever. "Chap'll only spend it getting soused."

"Oh, he reminded me of a man I used to know."

"Did he? Barnum's what-is-it, I should think," said his lordship.
"Shall we be moving?"




CHAPTER X

JIMMY ADOPTS A LAME DOG


A black figure detached itself from the blacker shadows, and
shuffled stealthily to where Jimmy stood on the doorstep.

"That you, Spike?" asked Jimmy.

"Dat's right, boss."

"Come on in."

He led the way up to his rooms, switched on the electric light, and
shut the door. Spike stood blinking at the sudden glare. He twirled
his battered hat in his hands. His red hair shone fiercely.

Jimmy inspected him out of the corner of his eye, and came to the
conclusion that the Mullins finances must be at a low ebb. Spike's
costume differed in several important details from that of the
ordinary well-groomed man about town. There was nothing of the
flaneur about the Bowery Boy. His hat was of the soft black felt
fashionable on the East Side of New York. It was in poor condition,
and looked as if it had been up too late the night before. A black
tail-coat, burst at the elbows and stained with mud, was tightly
buttoned across his chest, this evidently with the idea of
concealing the fact that he wore no shirt--an attempt which was not
wholly successful. A pair of gray flannel trousers and boots out of
which two toes peeped coyly completed the picture.

Even Spike himself seemed to be aware that there were points in his
appearance which would have distressed the editor of a men's
fashion-paper.

"'Scuse these duds," he said. "Me man's bin an' mislaid de trunk
wit' me best suit in. Dis is me number two."

"Don't mention it, Spike," said Jimmy. "You look a perfect matinee
idol. Have a drink?"

Spike's eyes gleamed as he reached for the decanter. He took a seat.

"Cigar, Spike?"

"Sure. T'anks, boss."

Jimmy lighted his pipe. Spike, after a few genteel sips, threw off
his restraint, and finished the rest of his glass at a gulp.

"Try another," suggested Jimmy.

Spike's grin showed that the idea had been well received.

Jimmy sat and smoked in silence for a while. He was thinking the
thing over. He felt like a detective who has found a clue. At last,
he would be able to discover the name of the Lusitania girl. The
discovery would not take him very far certainly, but it would be
something. Possibly, Spike might even be able to fix the position of
the house they had broken into that night.

Spike was looking at Jimmy over his glass in silent admiration. This
flat which Jimmy had rented for a year, in the hope that the
possession of a fixed abode might help to tie him down to one spot,
was handsomely, even luxuriously, furnished. To Spike, every chair
and table in the room had a romance of its own, as having been
purchased out of the proceeds of that New Asiatic Bank robbery, or
from the revenue accruing from the Duchess of Havant's jewels. He
was dumb with reverence for one who could make burglary pay to this
extent. In his own case, the profession had rarely provided anything
more than bread and butter, and an occasional trip to Coney Island.

Jimmy caught his eye, and spoke.

"Well, Spike," he said. "Curious that we should meet like this?"

"De limit," agreed Spike.

"I can't imagine you three thousand miles from New York. How do you
know the cars still run both ways on Broadway?"

A wistful look came into Spike's eyes.

"I've been dis side t'ree months. I t'ought it was time I give old
Lunnon a call. T'ings was gettin' too fierce in Noo York. De cops
was layin' fer me. Dey didn't seem like as if they had any use fer
me. So, I beat it."

"Bad luck," said Jimmy.

"Fierce," agreed Spike.

"Say, Spike," said Jimmy, "do you know, I spent a whole heap of time
before I left New York looking for you?"

"Gee! I wish you'd found me! Did youse want me to help on some lay,
boss? Is it a bank, or--jools?"

"Well, no, not that. Do you remember that night we broke into that
house uptown--the police-captain's house?"

"Sure."

"What was his name?"

"What, de cop's? Why, McEachern, boss."

"McWhat? How do you spell it?"

"Search me," said Spike, simply.

"Say it again. Fill your lungs, and enunciate slowly and clearly. Be
bell-like. Now."

"McEachern."

"Ah! And where was the house? Can you remember that?"

Spike's forehead wrinkled.

"It's gone," he said, at last. "It was somewheres up some street up
de town."

"That's a lot of help," said Jimmy. "Try again."

"It'll come back some time, boss, sure."

"Then, I'm going to keep an eye on you till it does. Just for the
moment, you're the most important man in the world to me. Where are
you living?"

"Me! Why, in de Park. Dat's right. One of dem swell detached benches
wit' a Southern exposure."

"Well, unless you prefer it, you needn't sleep in the Park any more.
You can pitch your moving tent with me."

"What, here, boss?"

"Unless we move."

"Me fer dis," said Spike, rolling luxuriously in his chair.

"You'll want some clothes," said Jimmy. "We'll get those to-morrow.
You're the sort of figure they can fit off the peg. You're not too
tall, which is a good thing."

"Bad t'ing fer me, boss. If I'd been taller, I'd have stood fer
being a cop, an' bin buyin' a brownstone house on Fifth Avenue by
dis. It's de cops makes de big money in little old Manhattan, dat's
who it is."

"The man who knows!" said Jimmy. "Tell me more, Spike. I suppose a
good many of the New York force do get rich by graft?"

"Sure. Look at old man McEachern."

"I wish I could. Tell me about him, Spike. You seemed to know him
pretty well."

"Me? Sure. Dere wasn't a woise old grafter dan him in de bunch. He
was out fer de dough all de time. But, say, did youse ever see his
girl?"

"What's that?" said Jimmy, sharply.

"I seen her once." Spike became almost lyrical in his enthusiasm.
"Gee! She was a boid--a peach fer fair. I'd have left me happy home
fer her. Molly was her monaker. She--"

Jimmy was glaring at him.

"Cut it out!" he cried.

"What's dat, boss?" said Spike.

"Cut it out!" said Jimmy, savagely.

Spike looked at him, amazed.

"Sure," he said, puzzled, but realizing that his words had not
pleased the great man.

Jimmy chewed the stem of his pipe irritably, while Spike, full of
excellent intentions, sat on the edge of his chair, drawing
sorrowfully at his cigar and wondering what he had done to give
offense.

"Boss?" said Spike.

"Well?"

"Boss, what's doin' here? Put me next to de game. Is it de old lay?
Banks an' jools from duchesses? You'll be able to let me sit in at
de game, won't you?"

Jimmy laughed.

"I'd quite forgotten I hadn't told you about myself, Spike. I've
retired."

The horrid truth sank slowly into the other's mind.

"Say! What's dat, boss? You're cuttin' it out?"

"That's it. Absolutely."

"Ain't youse swiping no more jools?"

"Not me."

"Nor usin' de what's-its-name blow-pipe?"

"I have sold my oxy-acetylene blow-pipe, given away my anaesthetics,
and am going to turn over a new leaf, and settle down as a
respectable citizen."

Spike gasped. His world had fallen about his ears. His excursion
with. Jimmy, the master cracksman, in New York had been the highest
and proudest memory of his life; and, now that they had met again in
London, he had looked forward to a long and prosperous partnership
in crime. He was content that his own share in the partnership
should be humble. It was enough for him to be connected, however
humbly, with such a master. He had looked upon the richness of
London, and he had said with Blucher, "What a city to loot!"

And here was his idol shattering the visions with a word.

"Have another drink, Spike," said the lost leader sympathetically.
"It's a shock to you, I guess."

"I t'ought, boss--"

"I know, I know. These are life's tragedies. I'm very sorry for you.
But it can't be helped. I've made my pile, so why continue?"

Spike sat silent, with a long face. Jimmy slapped him on the
shoulder.

"Cheer up," he said. "How do you know that living honestly may not
be splendid fun? Numbers of people do it, you know, and enjoy
themselves tremendously. You must give it a trial, Spike."

"Me, boss! What, me, too?"

"Sure. You're my link with--I don't want to have you remembering
that address in the second month of a ten-year stretch at Dartmoor
Prison. I'm going to look after you, Spike, my son, like a lynx.
We'll go out together, and see life. Brace up, Spike. Be cheerful.
Grin!"

After a moment's reflection, the other grinned, albeit faintly.

"That's right," said Jimmy. "We'll go into society, Spike, hand in
hand. You'll be a terrific success in society. All you have to do is
to look cheerful, brush your hair, and keep your hands off the
spoons. For in the best circles they invariably count them after the
departure of the last guest."

"Sure," said Spike, as one who thoroughly understood this sensible
precaution.

"And, now," said Jimmy, "we'll be turning in. Can you manage
sleeping on the sofa one night? Some fellows would give their bed up
to you. Not me, however. I'll have a bed made up for you tomorrow."

"Me!" said Spike. "Gee! I've been sleepin' in de Park all de last
week. Dis is to de good, boss."




CHAPTER XI

AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD


Next morning, when Jimmy, having sent Spike off to the tailor's,
with instructions to get a haircut en route, was dealing with a
combination of breakfast and luncheon at his flat, Lord Dreever
called.

"Thought I should find you in," observed his lordship. "Well,
laddie, how goes it? Having breakfast? Eggs and bacon! Great Scott!
I couldn't touch a thing."

The statement was borne out by his looks. The son of a hundred earls
was pale, and his eyes were markedly fish-like.

"A fellow I've got stopping with me--taking him down to Dreever with
me to-day--man I met at the club--fellow named Hargate. Don't know
if you know him? No? Well, he was still up when I got back last
night, and we stayed up playing billiards--he's rotten at billiards;
something frightful: I give him twenty--till five this morning. I
feel fearfully cheap. Wouldn't have got up at all, only I'm due to
catch the two-fifteen down to Dreever. It's the only good train." He
dropped into a chair.

"Sorry you don't feel up to breakfast," said Jimmy, helping himself
to marmalade. "I am generally to be found among those lining up when
the gong goes. I've breakfasted on a glass of water and a bag of
bird-seed in my time. That sort of thing makes you ready to take
whatever you can get. Seen the paper?"

"Thanks."

Jimmy finished his breakfast, and lighted a pipe. Lord Dreever laid
down the paper.

"I say," he said, "what I came round about was this. What have you
got on just now?"

Jimmy had imagined that his friend had dropped in to return the
five-pound note he had borrowed, but his lordship maintained a
complete reserve on the subject. Jimmy was to discover later that
this weakness of memory where financial obligations were concerned
was a leading trait in Lord Dreever's character.

"To-day, do you mean?" said Jimmy.

"Well, in the near future. What I mean is, why not put off that
Japan trip you spoke about, and come down to Dreever with me?"

Jimmy reflected. After all, Japan or Dreever, it made very little
difference. And it would be interesting to see a place about which
he had read so much.

"That's very good of you," he said. "You're sure it will be all
right? It won't be upsetting your arrangements?"

"Not a bit. The more the merrier. Can you catch the two-fifteen?
It's fearfully short notice."

"Heavens, yes. I can pack in ten minutes. Thanks very much."

"Good business. There'll be shooting and all that sort of rot. Oh,
and by the way, are you any good at acting? I mean, there are going
to be private theatricals of sorts. A man called Charteris insisted
on getting them up--always getting up theatricals. Rot, I call it;
but you can't stop him. Do you do anything in that line?"

"Put me down for what you like, from Emperor of Morocco to Confused
Noise Without. I was on the stage once. I'm particularly good at
shifting scenery."

"Good for you. Well, so long. Two-fifteen from Paddington, remember.
I'll meet you there. I've got to go and see a fellow now."

"I'll look out for you."

A sudden thought occurred to Jimmy. Spike! He had forgotten Spike
for the moment. It was vital that the Bowery boy should not be lost
sight of again. He was the one link with the little house somewhere
beyond One Hundred and Fiftieth Street. He could not leave the
Bowery boy at the flat. A vision rose in his mind of Spike alone in
London, with Savoy Mansions as a base for his operations. No, Spike
must be transplanted to the country. But Jimmy could not seem to see
Spike in the country. His boredom would probably be pathetic. But it
was the only way.

Lord Dreever facilitated matters.

"By the way, Pitt," he said, "you've got a man of sorts, of course?
One of those frightful fellows who forgot to pack your collars?
Bring him along, of course."

"Thanks," said Jimmy. "I will."

The matter had scarcely been settled when the door opened, and
revealed the subject of discussion. Wearing a broad grin of mingled
pride and bashfulness, and looking very stiff and awkward in one of
the brightest tweed suits ever seen off the stage, Spike stood for a
moment in the doorway to let his appearance sink into the spectator,
then advanced into the room.

"How do dese strike you, boss?" he inquired genially, as Lord
Dreever gaped in astonishment at this bright being.

"Pretty nearly blind, Spike," said Jimmy. "What made you get those?
We use electric light here."

Spike was full of news.

"Say, boss, dat clothin'-store's a willy wonder, sure. De old mug
what showed me round give me de frozen face when I come in foist.
'What's doin'?' he says. 'To de woods wit' you. Git de hook!' But I
hauls out de plunks you give me, an' tells him how I'm here to get a
dude suit, an', gee! if he don't haul out suits by de mile. Give me
a toist, it did, watching him. 'It's up to youse,' says de mug.
'Choose somet'in'. You pays de money, an' we does de rest.' So, I
says dis is de one, an' I put down de plunks, an' here I am, boss."

"I noticed that, Spike," said Jimmy. "I could see you in the dark."

"Don't you like de duds, boss?" inquired Spike, anxiously.

"They're great," said Jimmy. "You'd make Solomon in all his glory
look like a tramp 'cyclist."

"Dat's right," agreed Spike. "Dey'se de limit."

And, apparently oblivious to the presence of Lord Dreever, who had
been watching him in blank silence since his entrance, the Bowery
boy proceeded to execute a mysterious shuffling dance on the carpet.

This was too much for the overwrought brain of his lordship.

"Good-bye, Pitt," he said, "I'm off. Got to see a man."

Jimmy saw his guest to the door.

Outside, Lord Dreever placed the palm of his right hand on his
forehead.

"I say, Pitt," he said.

"Hullo?"

"Who the devil's that?"

"Who? Spike? Oh, that's my man."

"Your man! Is he always like that? I mean, going on like a frightful
music-hall comedian? Dancing, you know! And, I say, what on earth
language was that he was talking? I couldn't understand one word in
ten."

"Oh, that's American, the Bowery variety."

"Oh, well, I suppose it's all right if you understand it. I
can't. By gad," he broke off, with a chuckle, "I'd give something to
see him talking to old Saunders, our butler at home. He's got the
manners of a duke."

"Spike should revise those," said Jimmy.

"What do you call him?"

"Spike."

"Rummy name, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know. Short for Algernon."

"He seemed pretty chummy."

"That's his independent bringing-up. We're all like that in
America."

"Well, so long."

"So long."

On the bottom step, Lord Dreever halted.

"I say. I've got it!"

"Good for you. Got what?"

"Why, I knew I'd seen that chap's face somewhere before, only I
couldn't place him. I've got him now. He's the Johnny who came into
the shelter last night. Chap you gave a quid to."

Spike's was one of those faces that, without being essentially
beautiful, stamp themselves on the memory.

"You're quite right," said Jimmy. "I was wondering if you would
recognize him. The fact is, he's a man I once employed over in New
York, and, when I came across him over here, he was so evidently
wanting a bit of help that I took him on again. As a matter of fact,
I needed somebody to look after my things, and Spike can do it as
well as anybody else."

"I see. Not bad my spotting him, was it? Well, I must be off. Good-bye.
Two-fifteen at Paddington. Meet you there. Take a ticket for
Dreever if you're there before me."

"Eight. Good-bye."

Jimmy returned to the dining-room. Spike, who was examining as much
as he could of himself in the glass, turned round with his wonted
grin.

"Say, who's de gazebo, boss? Ain't he de mug youse was wit' last
night?"

"That's the man. We're going down with him to the country to-day,
Spike, so be ready."

"On your way, boss. What's dat?"

"He has invited us to his country house, and we're going."

"What? Bot'of us?"

"Yes. I told him you were my servant. I hope you aren't offended."

"Nit. What's dere to be raw about, boss?"

"That's all right. Well, we'd better be packing. We have to be at
the station at two."

"Sure."

"And, Spike!"

"Yes, boss?"

"Did you get any other clothes besides what you've got on?"

"Nit. What do I want wit more dan one dude suit?"

"I approve of your rugged simplicity," said Jimmy, "but what you're
wearing is a town suit. Excellent for the Park or the Marchioness's
Thursday crush, but essentially metropolitan. You must get something
else for the country, something dark and quiet. I'll come and help
you choose it, now."

"Why, won't dis go in de country?"

"Not on your life, Spike. It would unsettle the rustic mind. They're
fearfully particular about that sort of thing in England."

"Dey's to de bad," said the baffled disciple of Beau Brummel, with
deep discontent.

"And there's just one more thing, Spike. I know you'll excuse my
mentioning it. When we're at Dreever Castle, you will find yourself
within reach of a good deal of silver and other things. Would it be
too much to ask you to forget your professional instincts? I
mentioned this before in a general sort of way, but this is a
particular case."

"Ain't I to get busy at all, den?" queried Spike.

"Not so much as a salt-spoon," said Jimmy, firmly. "Now, we'll
whistle a cab, and go and choose you some more clothes."

Accompanied by Spike, who came within an ace of looking almost
respectable in new blue serge ("Small Gent's"--off the peg), Jimmy
arrived at Paddington Station with a quarter of an hour to spare.
Lord Dreever appeared ten minutes later, accompanied by a man of
about Jimmy's age. He was tall and thin, with cold eyes and tight,
thin lips. His clothes fitted him in the way clothes do fit one man
in a thousand. They were the best part of him. His general
appearance gave one the idea that his meals did him little good, and
his meditations rather less. He had practically no conversation.

This was Lord Dreever's friend, Hargate. Lord Dreever made the
introductions; but, even as they shook hands, Jimmy had an
impression that he had seen the man before. Yet, where or in what
circumstances he could not remember. Hargate appeared to have no
recollection of him, so he did not mention the matter. A man who has
led a wandering life often sees faces that come back to him later
on, absolutely detached from their context. He might merely have
passed Lord Dreever's friend on the street. But Jimmy had an idea
that the other had figured in some episode which at the moment had
had an importance. What that episode was had escaped him. He
dismissed the thing from his mind. It was not worth harrying his
memory about.

Judicious tipping secured the three a compartment to themselves.
Hargate, having read the evening paper, went to sleep in the far
corner. Jimmy and Lord Dreever, who sat opposite each other, fell
into a desultory conversation.

After awhile, Lord Dreever's remarks took a somewhat intimate turn.
Jimmy was one of those men whose manner invites confidences. His
lordship began to unburden his soul of certain facts relating to the
family.

"Have you ever met my Uncle Thomas?" he inquired. "You know Blunt's
Stores? Well, he's Blunt. It's a company now, but he still runs it.
He married my aunt. You'll meet him at Dreever."

Jimmy said he would be delighted.

"I bet you won't," said the last of the Dreevers, with candor. "He's
a frightful man--the limit. Always fussing round like a hen. Gives
me a fearful time, I can tell you. Look here, I don't mind telling
you--we're pals--he's dead set on my marrying a rich girl."

"Well, that sounds all right. There are worse hobbies. Any
particular rich girl?"

"There's always one. He sicks me on to one after another. Quite nice
girls, you know, some of them; only, I want to marry somebody else,
that girl you saw me with at the Savoy."

"Why don't you tell your uncle?"

"He'd have a fit. She hasn't a penny; nor have I, except what I get
from him. Of course, this is strictly between ourselves."

"Of course."

"I know everybody thinks there's money attached to the title; but
there isn't, not a penny. When my Aunt Julia married Sir Thomas, the
whole frightful show was pretty well in pawn. So, you see how it
is."

"Ever think of work?" asked Jimmy.

"Work?" said Lord Dreever, reflectively. "Well, you know, I
shouldn't mind work, only I'm dashed if I can see what I could do. I
shouldn't know how. Nowadays, you want a fearful specialized
education, and so on. Tell you what, though, I shouldn't mind the
diplomatic service. One of these days, I shall have a dash at asking
my uncle to put up the money. I believe I shouldn't be half-bad at
that. I'm rather a quick sort of chap at times, you know. Lots of
fellows have said so."

He cleared his throat modestly, and proceeded.

"It isn't only my Uncle Thomas," he said. "There's Aunt Julia, too.
She's about as much the limit as he is. I remember, when I was a
kid, she was always sitting on me. She does still. Wait till you see
her. Sort of woman who makes you feel that your hands are the color
of tomatoes and the size of legs of mutton, if you know what I mean.
And talks as if she were biting at you. Frightful!"

Having unburdened himself of these criticisms, Lord Dreever yawned,
leaned back, and was presently asleep.

It was about an hour later that the train, which had been taking
itself less seriously for some time, stopping at stations of quite
minor importance and generally showing a tendency to dawdle, halted
again. A board with the legend, "Dreever," in large letters showed
that they had reached their destination.

The station-master informed Lord Dreever that her ladyship had come
to meet the train in the motorcar, and was now waiting in the road
outside.

Lord Dreever's jaw fell.

"Oh, lord!" he said. "She's probably motored in to get the afternoon
letters. That means, she's come in the runabout, and there's only
room for two of us in that. I forgot to telegraph that you were
coming, Pitt. I only wired about Hargate. Dash it, I shall have to
walk."

His fears proved correct. The car at the station door was small. It
was obviously designed to seat four only.

Lord Dreever introduced Hargate and Jimmy to the statuesque lady in
the tonneau; and then there was an awkward silence.

At this point, Spike came up, chuckling amiably, with a magazine in
his hand.

"Gee!" said Spike. "Say, boss, de mug what wrote dis piece must have
bin livin' out in de woods. Say, dere's a gazebo what wants to swipe
de heroine's jools what's locked in a drawer. So, dis mug, what 'do
you t'ink he does?" Spike laughed shortly, in professional scorn.
"Why--"

"Is this gentleman a friend of yours, Spennie?" inquired Lady
Julia politely, eying the red-haired speaker coldly.

"It's--" Spennie looked appealingly at Jimmy.

"It's my man," said Jimmy. "Spike," he added in an undertone, "to
the woods. Chase yourself. Fade away."

"Sure," said the abashed Spike. "Dat's right. It ain't up to me to
come buttin' in. Sorry, boss. Sorry, gents. Sorry loidy. Me for de
tall grass."

"There's a luggage-cart of sorts," said Lord Dreever, pointing.

"Sure," said Spike, affably. He trotted away.

"Jump in, Pitt," said Lord Dreever. "I'm going to walk."

"No, I'll walk," said Jimmy. "I'd rather. I want a bit of exercise.
Which way do I go?"

"Frightfully good of you, old chap," said Lord Dreever. "Sure you
don't mind? I do bar walking. Right-ho! You keep straight on."

He sat down in the tonneau by his aunt's side. The last Jimmy saw
was a hasty vision of him engaged in earnest conversation with Lady
Julia. He did not seem to be enjoying himself. Nobody is at his best
in conversation with a lady whom he knows to be possessed of a firm
belief in the weakness of his intellect. A prolonged conversation
with Lady Julia always made Lord Dreever feel as if he were being
tied into knots.

Jimmy watched them out of sight, and started to follow at a
leisurely pace. It certainly was an ideal afternoon for a country
walk. The sun was just hesitating whether to treat the time as
afternoon or evening. Eventually, it decided that it was evening,
and moderated its beams. After London, the country was deliciously
fresh and cool. Jimmy felt an unwonted content. It seemed to him
just then that the only thing worth doing in the world was to settle
down somewhere with three acres and a cow, and become pastoral.

There was a marked lack of traffic on the road. Once he met a cart,
and once a flock of sheep with a friendly dog. Sometimes, a rabbit
would dash out into the road, stop to listen, and dart into the
opposite hedge, all hind-legs and white scut. But, except for these,
he was alone in the world.

And, gradually, there began to be borne in upon him the conviction
that he had lost his way.

It is difficult to judge distance when one is walking, but it
certainly seemed to Jimmy that he must have covered five miles by
this time. He must have mistaken the way. He had doubtless come
straight. He could not have come straighter. On the other hand, it
would be quite in keeping with the cheap substitute which served the
Earl of Dreever in place of a mind that he should have forgotten to
mention some important turning. Jimmy sat down by the roadside.

As he sat, there came to him from down the road the sound of a
horse's feet, trotting. He got up. Here was somebody at last who
would direct him.

The sound came nearer. The horse turned the corner; and Jimmy saw
with surprise that it bore no rider.

"Hullo?" he said. "Accident? And, by Jove, a side-saddle!"

The curious part of it was that the horse appeared in no way a wild
horse. It gave the impression of being out for a little trot on its
own account, a sort of equine constitutional.

Jimmy stopped the horse, and led it back the way it had come. As he
turned the bend in the road, he saw a girl in a riding-habit running
toward him. She stopped running when she caught sight of him, and
slowed down to a walk.

"Thank you ever so much," she said, taking the reins from him.
"Dandy, you naughty old thing! I got off to pick up my crop, and he
ran away."

Jimmy looked at her flushed, smiling face, and stood staring.

It was Molly McEachern.




CHAPTER XII

MAKING A START


Self-possession was one of Jimmy's leading characteristics, but for
the moment he found himself speechless. This girl had been occupying
his thoughts for so long that--in his mind--he had grown very
intimate with her. It was something of a shock to come suddenly out
of his dreams, and face the fact that she was in reality practically
a stranger. He felt as one might with a friend whose memory has been
wiped out. It went against the grain to have to begin again from the
beginning after all the time they had been together.

A curious constraint fell upon him.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Pitt?" she said, holding out her hand.

Jimmy began to feel better. It was something that she remembered his
name.

"It's like meeting somebody out of a dream," said Molly. "I have
sometimes wondered if you were real. Everything that happened that
night was so like a dream."

Jimmy found his tongue.

"You haven't altered," he said, "you look just the same."

"Well," she laughed, "after all, it's not so long ago, is it?"

He was conscious of a dull hurt. To him, it had seemed years. But he
was nothing to her--just an acquaintance, one of a hundred. But what
more, he asked himself, could he have expected? And with the thought
came consolation. The painful sense of having lost ground left him.
He saw that he had been allowing things to get out of proportion. He
had not lost ground. He had gained it. He had met her again, and she
remembered him. What more had he any right to ask?

"I've crammed a good deal into the time," he explained. "I've been
traveling about a bit since we met."

"Do you live in Shropshire?" asked Molly.

"No. I'm on a visit. At least, I'm supposed to be. But I've lost the
way to the place, and I am beginning to doubt if I shall ever get
there. I was told to go straight on. I've gone straight on, and here
I am, lost in the snow. Do you happen to know whereabouts Dreever
Castle is?"

She laughed.

"Why," she said, "I am staying at Dreever Castle, myself."

"What?"

"So, the first person you meet turns out to be an experienced guide.
You're lucky, Mr. Pitt."

"You're right," said Jimmy slowly, "I am."

"Did you come down with Lord Dreever? He passed me in the car just
as I was starting out. He was with another man and Lady Julia Blunt.
Surely, he didn't make you walk?"

"I offered to walk. Somebody had to. Apparently, he had forgotten to
let them know he was bringing me."

"And then he misdirected you! He's very casual, I'm afraid."

"Inclined that way, perhaps."

"Have you known Lord Dreever long?"

"Since a quarter past twelve last night."

"Last night!"

"We met at the Savoy, and, later, on the Embankment. We looked at
the river together, and told each other the painful stories of our
lives, and this morning he called, and invited me down here."

Molly looked at him with frank amusement.

"You must be a very restless sort of person," she said. "You seem to
do a great deal of moving about."

"I do," said Jimmy. "I can't keep still. I've got the go-fever, like
that man in Kipling's book."

"But he was in love."

"Yes," said Jimmy. "He was. That's the bacillus, you know."

She shot a quick glance at him. He became suddenly interesting to
her. She was at the age of dreams and speculations. From being
merely an ordinary young man with rather more ease of manner than
the majority of the young men she had met, he developed in an
instant into something worthy of closer attention. He took on a
certain mystery and romance. She wondered what sort of girl it was
that he loved. Examining him in the light of this new discovery, she
found him attractive. Something seemed to have happened to put her
in sympathy with him. She noticed for the first time a latent
forcefulness behind the pleasantness of his manner. His self-possession
was the self-possession of the man who has been tried and
has found himself.

At the bottom of her consciousness, too, there was a faint stirring
of some emotion, which she could not analyze, not unlike pain. It
was vaguely reminiscent of the agony of loneliness which she had
experienced as a small child on the rare occasions when her father
had been busy and distrait, and had shown her by his manner that she
was outside his thoughts. This was but a pale suggestion of that
misery; nevertheless, there was a resemblance. It was a rather
desolate, shut-out sensation, half-resentful.

It was gone in a moment. But it had been there. It had passed over
her heart as the shadow of a cloud moves across a meadow in the
summer-time.

For some moments, she stood without speaking. Jimmy did not break
the silence. He was looking at her with an appeal in his eyes. Why
could she not understand? She must understand.

But the eyes that met his were those of a child.

As they stood there, the horse, which had been cropping in a
perfunctory manner at the short grass by the roadside, raised its
head, and neighed impatiently. There was something so human about
the performance that Jimmy and the girl laughed simultaneously. The
utter materialism of the neigh broke the spell. It was a noisy
demand for food.

"Poor Dandy!" said Molly. "He knows he's near home, and he knows
it's his dinner-time."

"Are we near the castle, then?"

"It's a long way round by the road, but we can cut across the
fields. Aren't these English fields and hedges just perfect! I love
them. Of course, I loved America, but--"

"Have you left New York long?" asked Jimmy.

"We came over here about a month after you were at our house."

"You didn't spend much time there, then."

"Father had just made a good deal of money in Wall Street. He must
have been making it when I was on the Lusitania. He wanted to leave
New York, so we didn't wait. We were in London all the winter. Then,
we went over to Paris. It was there we met Sir Thomas Blunt and Lady
Julia. Have you met them? They are Lord Dreever's uncle and aunt."

"I've met Lady Julia."

"Do you like her?"

Jimmy hesitated.

"Well, you see--"

"I know. She's your hostess, but you haven't started your visit yet.
So, you've just got time to say what you really think of her, before
you have to pretend she's perfect."

"Well--"

"I detest her," said Molly, crisply. "I think she's hard and
hateful."

"Well, I can't say she struck me as a sort of female Cheeryble
Brother. Lord Dreever introduced me to her at the station. She
seemed to bear it pluckily, but with some difficulty."

"She's hateful," repeated Molly. "So is he, Sir Thomas, I mean. He's
one of those fussy, bullying little men. They both bully poor Lord
Dreever till I wonder he doesn't rebel. They treat him like a
school-boy. It makes me wild. It's such a shame--he's so nice and
good-natured! I am so sorry for him!"

Jimmy listened to this outburst with mixed feelings. It was sweet of
her to be so sympathetic, but was it merely sympathy? There had been
a ring in her voice and a flush on her cheek that had suggested to
Jimmy's sensitive mind a personal interest in the down-trodden peer.
Reason told him that it was foolish to be jealous of Lord Dreever, a
good fellow, of course, but not to be taken seriously. The primitive
man in him, on the other hand, made him hate all Molly's male
friends with an unreasoning hatred. Not that he hated Lord Dreever:
he liked him. But he doubted if he could go on liking him for long
if Molly were to continue in this sympathetic strain.

His affection for the absent one was not put to the test. Molly's
next remark had to do with Sir Thomas.

"The worst of it is," she said, "father and Sir Thomas are such
friends. In Paris, they were always together. Father did him a very
good turn."

"How was that?"

"It was one afternoon, just after we arrived. A man got into Lady
Julia's room while we were all out except father. Father saw him go
into the room, and suspected something was wrong, and went in after
him. The man was trying to steal Lady Julia's jewels. He had opened
the box where they were kept, and was actually holding her rope of
diamonds in his hand when father found him. It's the most
magnificent thing I ever saw. Sir Thomas told father he gave a
hundred thousand dollars for it."

"But, surely," said Jimmy, "hadn't the management of the hotel a
safe for valuables?"

"Of course, they had; but you don't know Sir Thomas. He wasn't going
to trust any hotel safe. He's the sort of a man who insists on doing
everything in his own way, and who always imagines he can do things
better himself than anyone else can do them for him. He had had this
special box made, and would never keep the diamonds anywhere else.
Naturally, the thief opened it in a minute. A clever thief would
have no difficulty with a thing like that."

"What happened?"

"Oh, the man saw father, and dropped the jewels, and ran off down
the corridor. Father chased him a little way, but of course it was
no good; so he went back and shouted, and rang every bell he could
see, and gave the alarm; but the man was never found. Still, he left
the diamonds. That was the great thing, after all. You must look at
them to-night at dinner. They really are wonderful. Are you a judge
of precious stones at all?"

"I am rather," said Jimmy. "In fact, a jeweler I once knew told me I
had a natural gift in that direction. And so, of course, Sir Thomas
was pretty grateful to your father?"

"He simply gushed. He couldn't do enough for him. You see, if the
diamonds had been stolen, I'm sure Lady Julia would have made Sir
Thomas buy her another rope just as good. He's terrified of her, I'm
certain. He tries not to show it, but he is. And, besides having to
pay another hundred thousand dollars, he would never have heard the
last of it. It would have ruined his reputation for being infallible
and doing everything better than anybody else."

"But didn't the mere fact that the thief got the jewels, and was
only stopped by a fluke from getting away with them, do that?"

Molly bubbled with laughter.

"She never knew. Sir Thomas got back to the hotel an hour before she
did. I've never seen such a busy hour. He had the manager up,
harangued him, and swore him to secrecy--which the poor manager was
only too glad to agree to, because it wouldn't have done the hotel
any good to have it known. And the manager harangued the servants,
and the servants harangued one another, and everybody talked at the
same time; and father and I promised not to tell a soul; so Lady
Julia doesn't know a word about it to this day. And I don't see why
she ever should--though, one of these days, I've a good mind to tell
Lord Dreever. Think what a hold he would have over them! They'd
never be able to bully him again."

"I shouldn't," said Jimmy, trying to keep a touch of coldness out of
his voice. This championship of Lord Dreever, however sweet and
admirable, was a little distressing.

She looked up quickly.

"You don't think I really meant to, do you?"

"No, no," said Jimmy, hastily. "Of course not."

"Well, I should think so!" said Molly, indignantly. "After I
promised not to tell a soul about it!"

Jimmy chuckled.

"It's nothing," he said, in answer to her look of inquiry.

"You laughed at something."

"Well," said Jimmy apologetically, "it's only--it's nothing really--only,
what I mean is, you have just told one soul a good deal about
it, haven't you?"

Molly turned pink. Then, she smiled.

"I don't know how I came to do it," she declared. "It just rushed
out of its own accord. I suppose it is because I know I can trust
you."

Jimmy flushed with pleasure. He turned to her, and half-halted, but
she continued to walk on.

"You can," he said, "but how do you know you can?"

She seemed surprised.

"Why--" she said. She stopped for a moment, and then went on
hurriedly, with a touch of embarrassment. "Why, how absurd! Of
course, I know. Can't you read faces? I can. Look," she said,
pointing, "now you can see the castle. How do you like it?"

They had reached a point where the fields sloped sharply downward. A
few hundred yards away, backed by woods, stood the gray mass of
stone which had proved such a kill-joy of old to the Welsh sportsmen
during the pheasant season. Even now, it had a certain air of
defiance. The setting sun lighted the waters of the lake. No figures
were to be seen moving in the grounds. The place resembled a palace
of sleep.

"Well?" said Molly.

"It's wonderful!"

"Isn't it! I'm so glad it strikes you like that. I always feel as if
I had invented everything round here. It hurts me if people don't
appreciate it."

They went down the hill.

"By the way," said Jimmy, "are you acting in these theatricals they
are getting up?"

"Yes. Are you the other man they were going to get? That's why Lord
Dreever went up to London, to see if he couldn't find somebody. The
man who was going to play one of the parts had to go back to London
on business."

"Poor brute!" said Jimmy. It seemed to him at this moment that there
was only one place in the world where a man might be even reasonably
happy. "What sort of part is it? Lord Dreever said I should be
wanted to act. What do I do?"

"If you're Lord Herbert, which is the part they wanted a man for,
you talk to me most of the time."

Jimmy decided that the piece had been well cast.

 The dressing-gong sounded just as they entered the hall. From a
door on the left, there emerged two men, a big man and a little one,
in friendly conversation. The big man's back struck Jimmy as
familiar.

"Oh, father," Molly called. And Jimmy knew where he had seen the
back before.

The two men stopped.

"Sir Thomas," said Molly, "this is Mr. Pitt."

The little man gave Jimmy a rapid glance, possibly with the object
of detecting his more immediately obvious criminal points; then, as
if satisfied as to his honesty, became genial.

"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Pitt, very glad," he said. "We have
been expecting you for some time."

Jimmy explained that he had lost his way.

"Exactly. It was ridiculous that you should be compelled to walk,
perfectly ridiculous. It was grossly careless of my nephew not to
let us know that you were coming. My wife told him so in the car."

"I bet she did," said Jimmy to himself. "Really," he said aloud, by
way of lending a helping hand to a friend in trouble, "I preferred
to walk. I have not been on a country road since I landed in
England." He turned to the big man, and held out his hand. "I don't
suppose you remember me, Mr. McEachern? We met in New York."

"You remember the night Mr. Pitt scared away our burglar, father,"
said Molly.

Mr. McEachern was momentarily silent. On his native asphalt, there
are few situations capable of throwing the New York policeman off
his balance. In that favored clime, savoir faire is represented by a
shrewd blow of the fist, and a masterful stroke with the truncheon
amounts to a satisfactory repartee. Thus shall you never take the
policeman of Manhattan without his answer. In other surroundings,
Mr. McEachern would have known how to deal with the young man whom
with such good reason he believed to be an expert criminal. But
another plan of action was needed here. First and foremost, of all
the hints on etiquette that he had imbibed since he entered this
more reposeful life, came the maxim: "Never make a scene." Scenes,
he had gathered, were of all things what polite society most
resolutely abhorred. The natural man in him must be bound in chains.
The sturdy blow must give way to the honeyed word. A cold, "Really!"
was the most vigorous retort that the best circles would
countenance. It had cost Mr. McEachern some pains to learn this
lesson, but he had done it. He shook hands, and gruffly acknowledged
the acquaintanceship.

"Really, really!" chirped Sir Thomas, amiably. "So, you find
yourself among old friends, Mr. Pitt."

"Old friends," echoed Jimmy, painfully conscious of the
ex-policeman's eyes, which were boring holes in him.

"Excellent, excellent! Let me take you to your room. It is just
opposite my own. This way."

In his younger days, Sir Thomas had been a floor-walker of no mean
caliber. A touch of the professional still lingered in his brisk
movements. He preceded Jimmy upstairs with the restrained suavity
that can be learned in no other school.

They parted from Mr. McEachern on the first landing, but Jimmy could
still feel those eyes. The policeman's stare had been of the sort
that turns corners, goes upstairs, and pierces walls.




CHAPTER XIII

SPIKE'S VIEWS


Nevertheless, it was in an exalted frame of mind that Jimmy dressed
for dinner. It seemed to him that he had awakened from a sort of
stupor. Life, so gray yesterday, now appeared full of color and
possibilities. Most men who either from choice or necessity have
knocked about the world for any length of time are more or less
fatalists. Jimmy was an optimistic fatalist. He had always looked on
Fate, not as a blind dispenser at random of gifts good and bad, but
rather as a benevolent being with a pleasing bias in his own favor.
He had almost a Napoleonic faith in his star. At various periods of
his life (notably at the time when, as he had told Lord Dreever, he
had breakfasted on bird-seed), he had been in uncommonly tight
corners, but his luck had always extricated him. It struck him that
it would be an unthinkable piece of bad sportsmanship on Fate's part
to see him through so much, and then to abandon him just as he had
arrived in sight of what was by far the biggest thing of his life.
Of course, his view of what constituted the biggest thing in life
had changed with the years. Every ridge of the Hill of Supreme
Moments in turn had been mistaken by him for the summit; but this
last, he felt instinctively, was genuine. For good or bad, Molly was
woven into the texture of his life. In the stormy period of the
early twenties, he had thought the same of other girls, who were now
mere memories as dim as those of figures in a half-forgotten play.
In their case, his convalescence had been temporarily painful, but
brief. Force of will and an active life had worked the cure. He had
merely braced himself, and firmly ejected them from his mind. A week
or two of aching emptiness, and his heart had been once more in
readiness, all nicely swept and garnished, for the next lodger.

But, in the case of Molly, it was different. He had passed the age
of instantaneous susceptibility. Like a landlord who has been
cheated by previous tenants, he had become wary. He mistrusted his
powers of recuperation in case of disaster. The will in these
matters, just like the mundane "bouncer," gets past its work. For
some years now, Jimmy had had a feeling that the next arrival would
come to stay; and he had adopted in consequence a gently defensive
attitude toward the other sex. Molly had broken through this, and he
saw that his estimate of his will-power had been just. Methods that
had proved excellent in the past were useless now. There was no
trace here of the dimly consoling feeling of earlier years, that
there were other girls in the world. He did not try to deceive
himself. He knew that he had passed the age when a man can fall in
love with any one of a number of types.

This was the finish, one way or the other. There would be no second
throw. She had him. However it might end, he belonged to her.

There are few moments in a man's day when his brain is more
contemplative than during that brief space when he is lathering his
face, preparatory to shaving. Plying the brush, Jimmy reviewed the
situation. He was, perhaps, a little too optimistic. Not
unnaturally, he was inclined to look upon his luck as a sort of
special train which would convey him without effort to Paradise.
Fate had behaved so exceedingly handsomely up till now! By a series
of the most workmanlike miracles, it had brought him to the point of
being Molly's fellow-guest at a country-house. This, as reason
coldly pointed out a few moments later, was merely the beginning,
but to Jimmy, thoughtfully lathering, it seemed the end. It was only
when he had finished shaving, and was tying his cravat, that he
began to perceive obstacles in his way, and sufficiently big
obstacles, at that.

In the first place, Molly did not love him. And, he was bound to
admit, there was no earthly reason why she ever should. A man in
love is seldom vain about his personal attractions. Also, her father
firmly believed him to be a master-burglar.

"Otherwise," said Jimmy, scowling at his reflection in the glass,
"everything's splendid." He brushed his hair sadly.

There was a furtive rap at the door.

"Hullo?" said Jimmy. "Yes?"

The door opened slowly. A grin, surmounted by a mop of red hair,
appeared round the edge of it.

"Hullo, Spike. Come in. What's the matter?"

The rest of Mr. Mullins entered the room.

"Gee, boss! I wasn't sure was dis your room. Say, who do you t'ink I
nearly bumped me coco ag'inst out in de corridor downstairs? Why,
old man McEachern, de cop. Dat's right!"

"Yes?"

"Sure. Say, what's he doin' on dis beat? I pretty near went down an'
out when I seen him. Dat's right. Me breath ain't got back home
yet."

"Did he recognize you?"

"Did he! He starts like an actor on top de stoige when he sees he's
up ag'inst de plot to ruin him, an' he gives me de fierce eye."

"Well?"

"I was wonderin' was I on Thoid Avenoo, or was I standin' on me
coco, or what was I doin' anyhow. Den I slips off, an' chases meself
up here. Say, boss, what's de game? What's old man McEachern doin'
stunts dis side fer?"

"It's all right, Spike. Keep calm. I can explain. He has retired--like
me! He's one of the handsome guests here."

"On your way, boss! What's dat?"

"He left the force just after that merry meeting of ours when you
frolicked with the bull-dog. He came over here, and butted into
society. So, here we are again, all gathered together under the same
roof, like a jolly little family party."

Spike's open mouth bore witness to his amazement.

"Den--" he stammered.

"Yes?"

"Den, what's he goin' to do?"

"I couldn't say. I'm expecting to hear shortly. But we needn't worry
ourselves. The next move's with him. If he wants to comment on the
situation, he won't be backward. He'll come and do it."

"Sure. It's up to him," agreed Spike.

"I'm quite comfortable. Speaking for myself, I'm having a good time.
How are you getting along downstairs?"

"De limit, boss. Honest, it's to de velvet. Dey's an old gazebo, de
butler, Saunders his name is, dat's de best ever at handin' out long
woids. I sits an' listens. Dey calls me Mr. Mullins down dere," said
Spike, with pride.

"Good. I'm glad you're all right. There's no reason why we shouldn't
have an excellent time here. I don't think that Mr. McEachern will
try to have us turned out, after he's heard one or two little things
I have to say to him--just a few reminiscences of the past which may
interest him. I have the greatest affection for Mr. McEachern--I
wish it were mutual--but nothing he can say is going to make me stir
from here."

"Not on your life," agreed Spike. "Say, boss, he must have got a lot
of plunks to be able to butt in here. An' I know how he got dem,
too. Dat's right. I comes from little old New York, meself."

"Hush, Spike, this is scandal!"

"Sure," said the Bowery boy doggedly, safely started now on his
favorite subject. "I knows, an' youse knows, boss. Gee! I wish I'd
bin a cop. But I wasn't tall enough. Dey's de fellers wit' de big
bank-rolls. Look at dis old McEachern. Money to boin a wet dog wit'
he's got, an' never a bit of woik fer it from de start to de finish.
An' look at me, boss."

"I do, Spike, I do."

"Look at me. Gittin' busy all de year round, woikin' to beat de
band--"

"In prisons oft," said Jimmy.

"Sure t'ing. An' chased all roun' de town. An' den what? Why, to de
bad at de end of it all. Say, it's enough to make a feller--"

"Turn honest," said Jimmy. "That's it, Spike. Reform. You'll be glad
some day."

Spike seemed to be doubtful. He was silent for a moment, then, as if
following up a train of thought, he said:

"Boss, dis is a fine big house."

"I've seen worse."

"Say, couldn't we--?"

"Spike!" said Jimmy, warningly.

"Well, couldn't we?" said Spike, doggedly. "It ain't often youse
butts into a dead-easy proposition like dis one. We shouldn't have
to do a t'ing excep' git busy. De stuff's just lyin' about, boss."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Aw, it's a waste to leave it."

"Spike," said Jimmy, "I warned you of this. I begged you to be on
your guard, to fight against your professional instincts. Be a man!
Crush them. Try and occupy your mind. Collect butterflies."

Spike shuffled in gloomy silence.

"'Member dose jools youse swiped from de duchess?" he said,
musingly.

"The dear duchess!" murmured Jimmy. "Ah, me!"

"An' de bank youse busted?"

"Those were happy days, Spike."

"Gee!" said the Bowery boy. And then, after a pause: "Dat was to de
good," he said, wistfully.

Jimmy arranged his tie at the mirror.

"Dere's a loidy here," continued Spike, addressing the chest of
drawers, "dat's got a necklace of jools what's wort' a hundred
t'ousand plunks. Honest, boss. A hundred t'ousand plunks. Saunders
told me dat--de old gazebo dat hands out de long woids. I says to
him, 'Gee!' an' he says, 'Surest t'ing youse know.' A hundred
t'ousand plunks!"

"So I understand," said Jimmy.

"Shall I rubber around, an' find out where is dey kept, boss?"

"Spike," said Jimmy, "ask me no more. All this is in direct
contravention of our treaty respecting keeping your fingers off the
spoons. You pain me. Desist."

"Sorry, boss. But dey'll be willy-wonders, dem jools. A hundred
t'ousand plunks. Dat's goin' some, ain't it? What's dat dis side?"

"Twenty thousand pounds."

"Gee!...Can I help youse wit' de duds, boss?"

"No, thanks, Spike, I'm through now. You might just give me a brush
down, though. No, not that. That's a hair-brush. Try the big black
one."

"Dis is a boid of a dude suit," observed Spike, pausing in his
labors.

"Glad you like it, Spike. Rather chic, I think."

"It's de limit. Excuse me. How much did it set youse back, boss?"

"Something like seven guineas, I believe. I could look up the bill,
and let you know."

"What's dat--guineas? Is dat more dan a pound?"

"A shilling more. Why these higher mathematics?"

Spike resumed his brushing.

"What a lot of dude suits youse could git," he observed
meditatively, "if youse had dem jools!" He became suddenly animated.
He waved the clothes-brush. "Oh, you boss!" he cried. "What's eatin'
youse? Aw, it's a shame not to. Come along, you boss! Say, what's
doin'? Why ain't youse sittin' in at de game? Oh, you boss!"

Whatever reply Jimmy might have made to this impassioned appeal was
checked by a sudden bang on the door. Almost simultaneously, the
handle turned.

"Gee!" cried Spike. "It's de cop!"

Jimmy smiled pleasantly.

"Come in, Mr. McEachern," he said, "come in. Journeys end in lovers
meeting. You know my friend Mr. Mullins, I think? Shut the door, and
sit down, and let's talk of many things."




CHAPTER XIV

CHECK AND A COUNTER MOVE


Mr. McEachern stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. As the result
of a long connection with evil-doers, the ex-policeman was somewhat
prone to harbor suspicions of those round about him, and at the
present moment his mind was aflame. Indeed, a more trusting man
might have been excused for feeling a little doubtful as to the
intentions of Jimmy and Spike. When McEachern had heard that Lord
Dreever had brought home a casual London acquaintance, he had
suspected as a possible drawback to the visit the existence of
hidden motives on the part of the unknown. Lord Dreever, he had
felt, was precisely the sort of youth to whom the professional
bunco-steerer would attach himself with shouts of joy. Never, he had
assured himself, had there been a softer proposition than his
lordship since bunco-steering became a profession.  When he found
that the strange visitor was Jimmy Pitt, his suspicions had
increased a thousand-fold.

And when, going to his room to get ready for dinner, he had nearly
run into Spike Mullins in the corridor, his frame of mind had been
that of a man to whom a sudden ray of light reveals the fact that he
is on the brink of a black precipice. Jimmy and Spike had burgled
his house together in New York. And here they were, together again,
at Dreever Castle. To say that the thing struck McEachern as
sinister is to put the matter baldly. There was once a gentleman who
remarked that he smelt a rat, and saw it floating in the air.
Ex-Constable McEachern smelt a regiment of rats, and the air seemed to
him positively congested with them.

His first impulse had been to rush to Jimmy's room there and then;
but he had learned society's lessons well. Though the heavens might
fall, he must not be late for dinner. So, he went and dressed, and
an obstinate tie put the finishing touches to his wrath.

Jimmy regarded him coolly, without moving from, the chair in which
he had seated himself. Spike, on the other hand, seemed embarrassed.
He stood first on one leg, and then on the other, as if he were
testing the respective merits of each, and would make a definite
choice later on.

"You scoundrels!" growled McEachern.

Spike, who had been standing for a few moments on his right leg, and
seemed at last to have come to, a decision, hastily changed to the
left, and grinned feebly.

"Say, youse won't want me any more, boss?" he whispered.

"No, you can go, Spike."

"You stay where you are, you red-headed devil!" said McEachern,
tartly.

"Run along, Spike," said Jimmy.

The Bowery boy looked doubtfully at the huge form of the
ex-policeman, which blocked access to the door.

"Would you mind letting my man pass?" said Jimmy.

"You stay--" began McEachern.

Jimmy got up and walked round to the door, which he opened. Spike
shot out. He was not lacking in courage, but he disliked
embarrassing interviews, and it struck him that Jimmy was the man to
handle a situation of this kind. He felt that he himself would only
be in the way.

"Now, we can talk comfortably," said Jimmy, going back to his chair.

McEachern's deep-set eyes gleamed, and his forehead grew red, but he
mastered his feelings.

"And now--" said he, then paused.

"Yes?" asked Jimmy.

"What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, at the moment."

"You know what I mean. Why are you here, you and that red-headed
devil, Spike Mullins?" He jerked his head in the direction of the
door.

"I am here because I was very kindly invited to come by Lord
Dreever."

"I know you."

"You have that privilege. Seeing that we only met once, it's very
good of you to remember me."

"What's your game? What do you mean to do?"

"To do? Well, I shall potter about the garden, you know, and shoot a
bit, perhaps, and look at the horses, and think of life, and feed
the chickens--I suppose there are chickens somewhere about--and
possibly go for an occasional row on the lake. Nothing more. Oh,
yes, I believe they want me to act in some theatricals."

"You'll miss those theatricals. You'll leave here to-morrow."

"To-morrow? But I've only just arrived, dear heart."

"I don't care about that. Out you go to-morrow. I'll give you till
to-morrow."

"I congratulate you," said Jimmy. "One of the oldest houses in
England."

"What do you mean?"

"I gathered from what you said that you had bought the Castle. Isn't
that so? If it still belongs to Lord Dreever, don't you think you
ought to consult him before revising his list of guests?"

McEachern looked steadily at him. His manner became quieter.

"Oh, you take that tone, do you?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'that tone.' What tone would you take
if a comparative stranger ordered you to leave another man's house?"

McEachern's massive jaw protruded truculently in the manner that had
scared good behavior into brawling East Siders.

"I know your sort," he said. "I'll call your bluff. And you won't
get till to-morrow, either. It'll be now."

"'Why should we wait for the morrow? You are queen of my heart
to-night," murmured Jimmy, encouragingly.

"I'll expose you before them all. I'll tell them everything."

Jimmy shook his head.

"Too melodramatic," he said. "'I call on heaven to judge between
this man and me!' kind of thing. I shouldn't. What do you propose to
tell, anyway?"

"Will you deny that you were a crook in New York?"

"I will. I was nothing of the kind."

"What?"

"If you'll listen, I can explain--"

"Explain!" The other's voice rose again. "You talk about explaining,
you scum, when I caught you in my own parlor at three in the
morning--you--"

The smile faded from Jimmy's face.

"Half a minute," he said. It might be that the ideal course would be
to let the storm expend itself, and then to explain quietly the
whole matter of Arthur Mifflin and the bet that had led to his one
excursion into burglary; but he doubted it. Things--including his
temper--had got beyond the stage of quiet explanations. McEachern
would most certainly disbelieve his story. What would happen after
that he did not know. A scene, probably: a melodramatic
denunciation, at the worst, before the other guests; at the best,
before Sir Thomas alone. He saw nothing but chaos beyond that. His
story was thin to a degree, unless backed by witnesses, and his
witnesses were three thousand miles away. Worse, he had not been
alone in the policeman's parlor. A man who is burgling a house for a
bet does not usually do it in the company of a professional burglar,
well known to the police.

No, quiet explanations must be postponed. They could do no good, and
would probably lead to his spending the night and the next few
nights at the local police-station. And, even if he were spared that
fate, it was certain that he would have to leave the castle--leave
the castle and Molly!

He jumped up. The thought had stung him.

"One moment," he said.

McEachern stopped.

"Well?"

"You're going to tell them that?" asked Jimmy.

"I am."

Jimmy walked up to him.

"Are you also going to tell them why you didn't have me arrested
that night?" he said.

McEachern started. Jimmy planted himself in front of him, and glared
up into his face. It would have been hard to say which of the two
was the angrier. The policeman was flushed, and the veins stood out
on his forehead. Jimmy was in a white heat of rage. He had turned
very pale, and his muscles were quivering. Jimmy in this mood had
once cleared a Los Angeles bar-room with the leg of a chair in the
space of two and a quarter minutes by the clock.

"Are you?" he demanded. "Are you?"

McEachern's hand, hanging at his side, lifted itself hesitatingly.
The fingers brushed against Jimmy's shoulder.

Jimmy's lip twitched.

"Yes," he said, "do it! Do it, and see what happens. By God, if you
put a hand on me, I'll finish you. Do you think you can bully me? Do
you think I care for your size?"

McEachern dropped his hand. For the first time in his life, he had
met a man who, instinct told him, was his match and more. He stepped
back a pace.

Jimmy put his hands in his pockets, and turned away. He walked to
the mantelpiece, and leaned his back against it.

"You haven't answered my question," he said. "Perhaps, you can't?"

McEachern was wiping his forehead, and breathing quickly.

"If you like," said Jimmy, "we'll go down to the drawing-room now,
and you shall tell your story, and I'll tell mine. I wonder which
they will think the more interesting. Damn you," he went on, his
anger rising once more, "what do you mean by it? You come into my
room, and bluster, and talk big about exposing crooks. What do you
call yourself, I wonder? Do you realize what you are? Why, poor
Spike's an angel compared with you. He did take chances. He wasn't
in a position of trust. You--"

He stopped.

"Hadn't you better get out of here, don't you think?" he said,
curtly.

Without a word, McEachern walked to the door, and went out.

Jimmy dropped into a chair with a deep breath. He took up his
cigarette-case, but before he could light a match the gong sounded
from the distance.

He rose, and laughed rather shakily. He felt limp. "As an effort at
conciliating papa," he said, "I'm afraid that wasn't much of a
success."

It was not often that McEachern was visited by ideas. He ran rather
to muscle than to brain. But he had one that evening during dinner.
His interview with Jimmy had left him furious, but baffled. He knew
that his hands were tied. Frontal attack was useless. To drive Jimmy
from the castle would be out of the question. All that could be done
was to watch him while he was there. For he had never been more
convinced of anything in his life than that Jimmy had wormed his way
into the house-party with felonious intent. The appearance of Lady
Julia at dinner, wearing the famous rope of diamonds, supplied an
obvious motive. The necklace had an international reputation.
Probably, there was not a prominent thief in England or on the
Continent who had not marked it down as a possible prey. It had
already been tried for, once. It was big game, just the sort of lure
that would draw the type of criminal McEachern imagined Jimmy to be.

From his seat at the far end of the table, Jimmy looked at the
jewels as they gleamed on their wearer's neck. They were almost too
ostentatious for what was, after all, an informal dinner. It was not
a rope of diamonds. It was a collar. There was something Oriental
and barbaric in the overwhelming display of jewelry. It was a prize
for which a thief would risk much.

The conversation, becoming general with the fish, was not of a kind
to remove from his mind the impression made by the sight of the
gems. It turned on burglary.

Lord Dreever began it.

"Oh, I say," he said, "I forgot to tell you, Aunt Julia, Number Six
was burgled the other night."

Number 6a, Eaton Square, was the family's London house.

"Burgled!" cried Sir Thomas.

"Well, broken into," said his lordship, gratified to find that he
had got the ear of his entire audience. Even Lady Julia was silent
and attentive. "Chap got in through the scullery window about one
o'clock in the morning."

"And what did you do?" inquired Sir Thomas.

"Oh, I--er--I was out at the time," said Lord Dreever. "But
something frightened the feller," he went on hurriedly, "and he made
a bolt for it without taking anything."

"Burglary," said a young man, whom Jimmy subsequently discovered to
be the drama-loving Charteris, leaning back and taking advantage of
a pause, "is the hobby of the sportsman and the life work of the
avaricious." He took a little pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and
made a rapid note on his cuff.

Everybody seemed to have something to say on the subject. One young
lady gave it as her opinion that she would not like to find a
burglar under her bed. Somebody else had heard of a fellow whose
father had fired at the butler, under the impression that he was a
house-breaker, and had broken a valuable bust of Socrates. Lord
Dreever had known a man at college whose brother wrote lyrics for
musical comedy, and had done one about a burglar's best friend being
his mother.

"Life," said Charteris, who had had time for reflection, "is a house
which we all burgle. We enter it uninvited, take all that we can lay
hands on, and go out again." He scribbled, "Life--house--burgle," on
his cuff, and replaced the pencil.

"This man's brother I was telling you about," said Lord Dreever,
"says there's only one rhyme in the English language to 'burglar,'
and that's 'gurgler--' unless you count 'pergola'! He says--"

"Personally," said Jimmy, with a glance at McEachern, "I have rather
a sympathy for burglars. After all, they are one of the hardest-working
classes in existence. They toil while everybody else is
asleep. Besides, a burglar is only a practical socialist. People
talk a lot about the redistribution of wealth. The burglar goes out
and does it. I have found burglars some of the decentest criminals I
have ever met."

"I despise burglars!" ejaculated Lady Julia, with a suddenness that
stopped Jimmy's eloquence as if a tap had been turned off. "If I
found one coming after my jewels, and I had a pistol, I'd shoot
him."

Jimmy met McEachern's eye, and smiled kindly at him. The
ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled, but
malignant basilisk.

"I take very good care no one gets a chance at your diamonds, my
dear," said Sir Thomas, without a blush. "I have had a steel box
made for me," he added to the company in general, "with a special
lock. A very ingenious arrangement. Quite unbreakable, I imagine."

Jimmy, with Molly's story fresh in his mind, could not check a rapid
smile. Mr. McEachern, watching intently, saw it. To him, it was
fresh evidence, if any had been wanted, of Jimmy's intentions and of
his confidence of success. McEachern's brow darkened. During the
rest of the meal, tense thought rendered him even more silent than
was his wont at the dinner-table. The difficulty of his position
was, he saw, great. Jimmy, to be foiled, must be watched, and how
could he watch him?

It was not until the coffee arrived that he found an answer to the
question. With his first cigarette came the idea. That night, in his
room, before going to bed, he wrote a letter. It was an unusual
letter, but, singularly enough, almost identical with one Sir Thomas
Blunt had written that very morning.

It was addressed to the Manager of Dodson's Private Inquiry Agency,
of Bishopsgate Street, E. C., and ran as follows:

Sir,--

On receipt of this, kindly send down one of your smartest men.
Instruct him to stay at the village inn in character of American
seeing sights of England, and anxious to inspect Dreever Castle. I
will meet him in the village and recognize him as old New York
friend, and will then give him further instructions. Yours
faithfully,

J. McEACHERN.

P. S. Kindly not send a rube, but a real smart man.


This brief, but pregnant letter cost some pains in its composition.
McEachern was not a ready writer. But he completed it at last to his
satisfaction. There was a crisp purity in the style that pleased
him. He sealed up the envelope, and slipped it into his pocket. He
felt more at ease now. Such was the friendship that had sprung up
between Sir Thomas Blunt and himself as the result of the jewel
episode in Paris that he could count with certainty on the
successful working of his scheme. The grateful knight would not be
likely to allow any old New York friend of his preserver to languish
at the village inn. The sleuth-hound would at once be installed at
the castle, where, unsuspected by Jimmy, he could keep an eye on the
course of events. Any looking after that Mr. James Pitt might
require could safely be left in the hands of this expert.

With considerable fervor, Mr. McEachern congratulated himself on his
astuteness. With Jimmy above stairs and Spike below, the
sleuth-hound would have his hands full.




CHAPTER XV

MR. MCEACHERN INTERVENES


Life at the castle during the first few days of his visit filled
Jimmy with a curious blend of emotions, mainly unpleasant. Fate, in
its pro-Jimmy capacity, seemed to be taking a rest. In the first
place, the part allotted to him was not that of Lord Herbert, the
character who talked to Molly most of the time. The instant
Charteris learned from Lord Dreever that Jimmy had at one time
actually been on the stage professionally, he decided that Lord
Herbert offered too little scope for the new man's talents.

"Absolutely no good to you, my dear chap," he said. "It's just a
small dude part. He's simply got to be a silly ass."

Jimmy pleaded that he could be a sillier ass than anybody living;
but Charteris was firm.

"No," he said. "You must be Captain Browne. Fine acting part. The
biggest in the piece. Full of fat lines. Spennie was to have played
it, and we were in for the worst frost in the history of the stage.
Now you've come, it's all right. Spennie's the ideal Lord Herbert.
He's simply got to be him-self. We've got a success now, my boy.
Rehearsal after lunch. Don't be late." And he was off to beat up the
rest of the company.

From that moment, Jimmy's troubles began. Charteris was a young man
in whom a passion for the stage was ineradicably implanted. It
mattered nothing to him during these days that the sun shone, that
it was pleasant on the lake, and that Jimmy would have given five
pounds a minute to be allowed to get Molly to himself for half-an-hour
every afternoon. All he knew or cared about was that the local
nobility and gentry were due to arrive at the castle within a week,
and that, as yet, very few of the company even knew their lines.
Having hustled Jimmy into the part of CAPTAIN BROWNE, he gave his
energy free play. He conducted rehearsals with a vigor that
occasionally almost welded the rabble he was coaching into something
approaching coherency. He painted scenery, and left it about--wet,
and people sat on it. He nailed up horseshoes for luck, and they
fell on people. But nothing daunted him. He never rested.

"Mr. Charteris," said Lady Julia, rather frigidly, after one
energetic rehearsal, "is indefatigable. He whirled me about!"

It was perhaps his greatest triumph, properly considered, that he
had induced Lady Julia to take a part in his piece; but to the born
organizer of amateur theatricals no miracle of this kind is
impossible, and Charteris was one of the most inveterate organizers
in the country. There had been some talk--late at night, in the
billiard room--of his being about to write in a comic footman role
for Sir Thomas; but it had fallen through, not, it was felt, because
Charteris could not have hypnotized his host into undertaking the
part, but rather because Sir Thomas was histrionically unfit.

Mainly as a result of the producer's energy, Jimmy found himself one
of a crowd, and disliked the sensation. He had not experienced much
difficulty in mastering the scenes in which he appeared; but
unfortunately those who appeared with him had. It occurred to Jimmy
daily, after he had finished "running through the lines" with a
series of agitated amateurs, male and female, that for all practical
purposes he might just as well have gone to Japan. In this confused
welter of rehearsers, his opportunities of talking with Molly were
infinitesimal. And, worse, she did not appear to mind. She was
cheerful and apparently quite content to be engulfed in a crowd.
Probably, he thought with some melancholy, if she met his eye and
noted in it a distracted gleam, she put it down to the cause that
made other eyes in the company gleam distractedly during this week.

Jimmy began to take a thoroughly jaundiced view of amateur
theatricals, and of these amateur theatricals in particular. He felt
that in the electric flame department of the infernal regions there
should be a special gridiron, reserved exclusively for the man who
invented these performances, so diametrically opposed to the true
spirit of civilization. At the close of each day, he cursed
Charteris with unfailing regularity.

There was another thing that disturbed him. That he should be unable
to talk with Molly was an evil, but a negative evil. It was
supplemented by one that was positive. Even in the midst of the
chaos of rehearsals, he could not help noticing that Molly and Lord
Dreever were very much together. Also--and this was even more
sinister--he observed that both Sir Thomas Blunt and Mr. McEachern
were making determined efforts to foster the state of affairs.

Of this, he had sufficient proof one evening when, after scheming
and plotting in a way that had made the great efforts of Machiavelli
and Richelieu seem like the work of raw novices, he had cut Molly out
from the throng, and carried her off for the alleged purpose of
helping him feed the chickens. There were, as he had suspected,
chickens attached to the castle. They lived in a little world of
noise and smells at the back of the stables. Bearing an iron pot
full of a poisonous-looking mash, and accompanied by Molly, he had
felt for perhaps a minute and a half like a successful general. It
is difficult to be romantic when you are laden with chicken-feed in
an unwieldy iron pot, but he had resolved that this portion of the
proceedings should be brief. The birds should dine that evening on
the quick-lunch principle. Then--to the more fitting surroundings of
the rose-garden! There was plenty of time before the hour of the
sounding of the dressing-gong. Perhaps, even a row on the lake--

"What ho!" said a voice.

Behind them, with a propitiatory smile on his face, stood his
lordship of Dreever.

"My uncle told me I should find you out here. What have you got in
there, Pitt? Is this what you feed them on? I say, you know, queer
coves, hens! I wouldn't touch that stuff for a fortune, what? Looks
to me poisonous."

He met Jimmy's eye, and stopped. There was that in Jimmy's eye that
would have stopped an avalanche. His lordship twiddled his fingers
in pink embarrassment.

"Oh, look!" said Molly. "There's a poor little chicken out there in
the cold. It hasn't had a morsel. Give me the spoon, Mr. Pitt. Here,
chick, chick! Don't be silly, I'm not going to hurt you. I've
brought you your dinner."

She moved off in pursuit of the solitary fowl, which had edged
nervously away. Lord Dreever bent toward Jimmy.

"Frightfully sorry, Pitt, old man," he whispered, feverishly.
"Didn't want to come. Couldn't help it. He sent me out." He
half-looked over his shoulder. "And," he added rapidly, as Molly came
back, "the old boy's up at his bedroom window now, watching us
through his opera-glasses!"

The return journey to the house was performed in silence--on Jimmy's
part, in thoughtful silence. He thought hard, and he had been
thinking ever since.

He had material for thought. That Lord Dreever was as clay in his
uncle's hands he was aware. He had not known his lordship long, but
he had known him long enough to realize that a backbone had been
carelessly omitted from his composition. What his uncle directed,
that would he do. The situation looked bad to Jimmy. The order, he
knew, had gone out that Lord Dreever was to marry money. And Molly
was an heiress. He did not know how much Mr. McEachern had amassed
in his dealings with New York crime, but it must be something
considerable. Things looked black.

Then, Jimmy had a reaction. He was taking much for granted. Lord
Dreever might be hounded into proposing to Molly, but what earthly
reason was there for supposing that Molly would accept him? He
declined even for an instant to look upon Spennie's title in the
light of a lure. Molly was not the girl to marry for a title. He
endeavored to examine impartially his lordship's other claims. He
was a pleasant fellow, with--to judge on short acquaintanceship--an
undeniably amiable disposition. That much must be conceded. But
against this must be placed the equally undeniable fact that he was
also, as he would have put it himself, a most frightful ass. He was
weak. He had no character. Altogether, the examination made Jimmy
more cheerful. He could not see the light-haired one, even with Sir
Thomas Blunt shoving behind, as it were, accomplishing the knight's
ends. Shove he never so wisely, Sir Thomas could never make a Romeo
out of Spennie Dreever.

It was while sitting in the billiard-room one night after dinner,
watching his rival play a hundred up with the silent Hargate, that
Jimmy came definitely to this conclusion. He had stopped there to
watch, more because he wished to study his man at close range than
because the game was anything out of the common as an exposition of
billiards. As a matter of fact, it would have been hard to imagine a
worse game. Lord Dreever, who was conceding twenty, was poor, and
his opponent an obvious beginner. Again, as he looked on, Jimmy was
possessed of an idea that he had met Hargate before. But, once more,
he searched his memory, and drew blank. He did not give the thing
much thought, being intent on his diagnosis of Lord Dreever, who by
a fluky series of cannons had wobbled into the forties, and was now
a few points ahead of his opponent.

Presently, having summed his lordship up to his satisfaction and
grown bored with the game, Jimmy strolled out of the room. He paused
outside the door for a moment, wondering what to do. There was
bridge in the smoking-room, but he did not feel inclined for bridge.
From the drawing-room came sounds of music. He turned in that
direction, then stopped again. He came to the conclusion that he did
not feel sociable. He wanted to think. A cigar on the terrace would
meet his needs.

He went up to his room for his cigar-case. The window was open. He
leaned out. There was almost a full moon, and it was very light out
of doors. His eye was caught by a movement at the further end of the
terrace, where the shadow was. A girl came out of the shadow,
walking slowly.

Not since early boyhood had Jimmy descended stairs with such a rare
burst of speed. He negotiated the nasty turn at the end of the first
flight at quite a suicidal pace. Fate, however, had apparently
wakened again and resumed business, for he did not break his neck. A
few moments later, he was out on the terrace, bearing a cloak which,
he had snatched up en route in the hall.

"I thought you might be cold," he said, breathing quickly.

"Oh, thank you," said Molly. "How kind of you!" He put it round her
shoulders. "Have you been running?"

"I came downstairs rather fast."

"Were you afraid the boogaboos would get you?" she laughed. "I was
thinking of when I was a small child. I was always afraid of them. I
used to race downstairs when I had to go to my room in the dark,
unless I could persuade someone to hold my hand all the way there
and back."

Her spirits had risen with Jimmy's arrival. Things had been
happening that worried her. She had gone out on to the terrace to be
alone. When she heard his footsteps, she had dreaded the advent of
some garrulous fellow-guest, full of small talk. Jimmy, somehow, was
a comfort. He did not disturb the atmosphere. Little as they had
seen of each other, something in him--she could not say what--had
drawn her to him. He was a man whom she could trust instinctively.

They walked on in silence. Words were pouring into Jimmy's mind, but
he could not frame them. He seemed to have lost the power of
coherent thought.

Molly said nothing. It was not a night for conversation. The moon
had turned terrace and garden into a fairyland of black and silver.
It was a night to look and listen and think.

They walked slowly up and down. As they turned for the second time,
Molly's thoughts formed themselves into a question. Twice she was on
the point of asking it, but each time she checked herself. It was an
impossible question. She had no right to put it, and he had no right
to answer. Yet, something was driving her on to ask it.

It came out suddenly, without warning.

"Mr. Pitt, what do you think of Lord Dreever?"

Jimmy started. No question could have chimed in more aptly with his
thoughts. Even as she spoke, he was struggling to keep himself from
asking her the same thing.

"Oh, I know I ought not to ask," she went on. "He's your host, and
you're his friend. I know. But--"

Her voice trailed off. The muscles of Jimmy's back tightened and
quivered. But he could find no words.

"I wouldn't ask anyone else. But you're--different, somehow. I don't
know what I mean. We hardly know each other. But--"

She stopped again; and still he was dumb.

"I feel so alone," she said very quietly, almost to herself.
Something seemed to break in Jimmy's head. His brain suddenly
cleared. He took a step forward.

A huge shadow blackened the white grass. Jimmy wheeled round. It was
McEachern.

"I have been looking for you, Molly, my dear," he said, heavily. "I
thought you must have gone to bed."

He turned to Jimmy, and addressed him for the first time since their
meeting in the bedroom.

"Will you excuse us, Mr. Pitt?"

Jimmy bowed, and walked rapidly toward the house. At the door, he
stopped and looked back. The two were standing where he had left
them.




CHAPTER XVI

A MARRIAGE ARRANGED


Neither Molly nor her father had moved or spoken while Jimmy was
covering the short strip of turf that ended at the stone steps of
the house. McEachern stood looking down at her in grim silence. His
great body against the dark mass of the castle wall seemed larger
than ever in the uncertain light. To Molly, there was something
sinister and menacing in his attitude. She found herself longing
that Jimmy would come back. She was frightened. Why, she could not
have said. It was as if some instinct told her that a crisis in her
affairs had been reached, and that she needed him. For the first
time in her life, she felt nervous in her father's company. Ever
since she was a child, she had been accustomed to look upon him as
her protector; but, now, she was afraid.

"Father!" she cried.

"What are you doing out here?"

His voice was tense and strained.

"I came out because I wanted to think, father, dear."

She thought she knew his moods, but this was one that she had never
seen. It frightened her.

"Why did he come out here?"

"Mr. Pitt? He brought me a wrap."

"What was he saying to you?"

The rain of questions gave Molly a sensation of being battered. She
felt dazed, and a little mutinous. What had she done that she should
be assailed like this?

"He was saying nothing," she said, rather shortly.

"Nothing? What do you mean? What was he saying? Tell me!"

Molly's voice shook as she replied.

"He was saying nothing," she repeated. "Do you think I'm not telling
the truth, father? He had not spoken a word for ever so long. We
just walked up and down. I was thinking, and I suppose he was, too.
At any rate, he said nothing. I--I think you might believe me."

She began to cry quietly. Her father had never been like this
before. It hurt her.

McEachern's manner changed in a flash. In the shock of finding Jimmy
and Molly together on the terrace, he had forgotten himself. He had
had reason, to be suspicious. Sir Thomas Blunt, from whom he had
just parted, had told him a certain piece of news which had
disturbed him. The discovery of Jimmy with Molly had lent an added
significance to that piece of news. He saw that he had been rough.
In a moment, he was by her side, his great arm round her shoulder,
petting and comforting her as he had done when she was a child. He
believed her word without question; and his relief made him very
tender. Gradually, the sobs ceased. She leaned against his arm.

"I'm tired, father," she whispered.

"Poor little girl. We'll sit down."

There was a seat at the end of the terrace. McEachern picked Molly
up as if she had been a baby, and carried her to it. She gave a
little cry.

"I didn't mean I was too tired to walk," she said, laughing
tremulously. "How strong you are, father! If I was naughty, you
could take me up and shake me till I was good, couldn't you?"

"Of course. And send you to bed, too. So, you, be careful, young
woman."

He lowered her to the seat. Molly drew the cloak closer round her,
and shivered.

"Cold, dear?"

"No."

"You shivered."

"It was nothing. Yes, it was," she went on quickly; "it was. Father,
will you promise me something?"

"Of course. What?"

"Don't ever be angry with me like that again, will you? I couldn't
bear it. Really, I couldn't. I know it's stupid of me, but it hurt.
You don't know how it hurt."

"But, my dear--"

"Oh, I know it's stupid. But--"

"But, my darling, it wasn't so. I was angry, but it wasn't with
you."

"With--? Were you angry with Mr. Pitt?"

McEachern saw that he had traveled too far. He had intended that
Jimmy's existence should be forgotten for the time being. He had
other things to discuss. But it was too late now. He must go
forward.

"I didn't like to see you out here alone with Mr. Pitt, dear," he
said. "I was afraid--"

He saw that he must go still further forward. It was more than,
awkward. He wished to hint at the undesirability of an entanglement
with Jimmy without admitting the possibility of it. Not being a man,
of nimble brain, he found this somewhat beyond his powers.

"I don't like him," he said, briefly. "He's crooked."

Molly's eyes opened wide. The color had gone from her face.

"Crooked, father?"

McEachern perceived that he had traveled very much too far, almost
to disaster. He longed to denounce Jimmy, but he was gagged. If
Molly were to ask the question, that Jimmy had asked in the
bedroom--that fatal, unanswerable question! The price was too great to pay.

He spoke cautiously, vaguely, feeling his way.

"I couldn't explain to you, my dear. You wouldn't understand. You
must remember, my dear, that out in New York I was in a position to
know a great many queer characters--crooks, Molly. I was working
among them."

"But, father, that night at our house you didn't know Mr. Pitt. He
had to tell you his name."

"I didn't know him--then," said her father slowly, "but--but--" he
paused--"but I made inquiries," he concluded with a rush, "and found
out things."

He permitted himself a long, silent breath of relief. He saw his way
now.

"Inquiries?" said Molly. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why did you suspect him?"

A moment earlier, the question might have confused McEachern, but
not now. He was equal to it. He took it in his stride.

"It's hard to say, my dear. A man who has had as much to do with
crooks as I have recognizes them when he sees them."

"Did you think Mr. Pitt looked--looked like that?" Her voice was
very small. There was a drawn, pinched expression on her face. She
was paler than ever.

He could not divine her thoughts. He could not know what his words
had done; how they had shown her in a flash what Jimmy was to her,
and lighted her mind like a flame, revealing the secret hidden
there. She knew now. The feeling of comradeship, the instinctive
trust, the sense of dependence--they no longer perplexed her; they
were signs which she could read.

And he was crooked!

McEachern proceeded. Belief made him buoyant.

"I did, my dear. I can read them like a book. I've met scores of his
sort. Broadway is full of them. Good clothes and a pleasant manner
don't make a man honest. I've run up against a mighty high-toned
bunch of crooks in my day. It's a long time since I gave up thinking
that it was only the ones with the low foreheads and the thick ears
that needed watching. It's the innocent Willies who look as if all
they could do was to lead the cotillon. This man Pitt's one of them.
I'm not guessing, mind you. I know. I know his line, and all about
him. I'm watching him. He's here on some game. How did he get here?
Why, he scraped acquaintance with Lord Dreever in a London
restaurant. It's the commonest trick on the list. If I hadn't
happened to be here when he came, I suppose he'd have made his haul
by now. Why, he came all prepared for it! Have you seen an ugly,
grinning, red-headed scoundrel hanging about the place? His valet.
So he says. Valet! Do you know who that is? That's one of the most
notorious yegg-men on the other side. There isn't a policeman in New
York who doesn't know Spike Mullins. Even if I knew nothing of this
Pitt, that would be enough. What's an innocent man going round the
country with Spike Mullins for, unless they are standing in together
at some game? That's who Mr. Pitt is, my dear, and that's why maybe
I seemed a little put out when I came upon you and him out here
alone together. See as little of him as you can. In a large party
like this, it won't be difficult to avoid him."

Molly sat staring out across the garden. At first, every word had
been a stab. Several times, she had been on the point of crying out
that she could bear it no longer. But, gradually, a numbness
succeeded the pain. She found herself listening apathetically.

McEachern talked on. He left the subject of Jimmy, comfortably
conscious that, even if there had ever existed in Molly's heart any
budding feeling of the kind he had suspected, it must now be dead.
He steered the conversation away until it ran easily among
commonplaces. He talked of New York, of the preparations for the
theatricals. Molly answered composedly. She was still pale, and a
certain listlessness in her manner might have been noticed by a more
observant man than Mr. McEachern. Beyond this, there was nothing to
show that her heart had been born and killed but a few minutes
before. Women have the Red Indian instinct; and Molly had grown to
womanhood in those few minutes.

Presently, Lord Dreever's name came up. It caused a momentary pause,
and McEachern took advantage of it. It was the cue for which he had
been waiting. He hesitated for a moment, for the conversation was
about to enter upon a difficult phase, and he was not quite sure of
himself. Then, he took the plunge.

"I have just been talking to Sir Thomas, my dear," he said. He tried
to speak casually, and, as a natural result, infused so much meaning
into his voice that Molly looked at him in surprise. McEachern
coughed confusedly. Diplomacy, he concluded, was not his forte. He
abandoned it in favor of directness. "He was telling me that you had
refused Lord Dreever this evening."

"Yes. I did," said Molly. "How did Sir Thomas know?"

"Lord Dreever told him."

Molly raised her eyebrows.

"I shouldn't have thought it was the sort of thing he would talk
about," she said.

"Sir Thomas is his uncle."

"Of course, so he is," said Molly, dryly. "I forgot. That would
account for it, wouldn't it?"

Mr. McEachern looked at her with some concern. There was a hard ring
in her voice which he did not altogether like. His greatest admirer
had never called him an intuitive man, and he was quite at a loss to
see what was wrong. As a schemer, he was perhaps a little naive. He
had taken it for granted that Molly was ignorant of the maneuvers
which had been going on, and which had culminated that afternoon in
a stammering proposal of marriage from Lord Dreever in the rose-garden.
This, however, was not the case. The woman incapable of
seeing through the machinations of two men of the mental caliber of
Sir Thomas Blunt and Mr. McEachern has yet to be born. For some
considerable time, Molly had been alive to the well-meant plottings
of that worthy pair, and had derived little pleasure from the fact.
It may be that woman loves to be pursued; but she does not love to
be pursued by a crowd.

Mr. McEachern cleared his throat, and began again.

"You shouldn't decide a question like that too hastily, my dear."

"I didn't--not too hastily for Lord Dreever, at any rate, poor
dear."

"It was in your power," said Mr. McEachern portentously, "to make a
man happy--"

"I did," said Molly, bitterly. "You should have seen his face light
up. He could hardly believe it was true for a moment, and then it
came home to him, and I thought he would have fallen on my neck. He
did his very best to look heart-broken--out of politeness--but it
was no good. He whistled most of the way back to the house--all
flat, but very cheerfully."

"My dear! What do you mean?"

Molly had made the discovery earlier in their conversation that her
father had moods whose existence she had not expected. It was his
turn now to make a similar discovery regarding herself.

"I mean nothing, father," she said. "I'm just telling you what
happened. He came to me looking like a dog that's going to be
washed--"

"Why, of course, he was nervous, my dear."

"Of course. He couldn't know that I was going to refuse him."

She was breathing quickly. He started to speak, but she went on,
looking straight before her. Her face was very white in the moon-light.

"He took me into the rose-garden. Was that Sir Thomas's idea? There
couldn't have been a better setting, I'm sure. The roses looked
lovely. Presently, I heard him gulp, and I was so sorry for him! I
would have refused him then, and put him out of his misery, only I
couldn't very well till he had proposed, could I? So, I turned my
back, and sniffed at a rose. And, then, he shut his eyes--I couldn't
see him, but I know he shut his eyes--and began to say his lesson."

"Molly!"

She laughed, hysterically.

"He did. He said his lesson. He gabbled it. When he had got as far
as, 'Well, don't you know, what I mean is, that's what I wanted to
say, you know,' I turned round and soothed him. I said I didn't love
him. He said, 'No, no, of course not.' I said he had paid me a great
compliment. He said, 'Not at all,' looking very anxious, poor
darling, as if even then he was afraid of what might come next. But
I reassured him, and he cheered up, and we walked back to the house
together, as happy as could be."

McEachern put his hand round her shoulders. She winced, but let it
stay. He attempted gruff conciliation.

"My dear, you've been imagining things. Of course, he isn't happy.
Why, I saw the young fellow--"

Recollecting that the last time he had seen the young fellow--shortly
after dinner--the young fellow had been occupied in juggling, with
every appearance of mental peace, two billiard-balls and a box of
matches, he broke off abruptly.

Molly looked at him.

"Father."

"My dear?"

"Why do you want me to marry Lord Dreever?"

He met the attack stoutly.

"I think he's a fine young fellow," he said, avoiding her eyes.

"He's quite nice," said Molly, quietly.

McEachern had been trying not to say it. He did not wish to say it.
If it could have been hinted at, he would have done it. But he was
not good at hinting. A lifetime passed in surroundings where the
subtlest hint is a drive in the ribs with a truncheon does not leave
a man an adept at the art. He had to be blunt or silent.

"He's the Earl of Dreever, my dear."

He rushed on, desperately anxious to cover the nakedness of the
statement in a comfortable garment of words.

"Why, you see, you're young, Molly. It's only natural you shouldn't
look on these things sensibly. You expect too much of a man. You
expect this young fellow to be like the heroes of the novels you
read. When you've lived a little longer, my dear, you'll see that
there's nothing in it. It isn't the hero of the novel you want to
marry. It's the man who'll make you a good husband."

This remark struck Mr. McEachern as so pithy and profound that he
repeated it.

He went on. Molly was sitting quite still, looking into the
shrubbery. He assumed she was listening; but whether she was or not,
he must go on talking. The situation was difficult. Silence would
make it more difficult.

"Now, look at Lord Dreever," he said. "There's a young man with one
of the oldest titles in England. He could go anywhere and do what he
liked, and be excused for whatever he did because of his name. But
he doesn't. He's got the right stuff in him. He doesn't go racketing
around--"

"His uncle doesn't allow him enough pocket-money," said Molly, with
a jarring little laugh. "Perhaps, that's why."

There was a pause. McEachern required a few moments in which to
marshal his arguments once more. He had been thrown out of his
stride.

Molly turned to him. The hardness had gone from her face. She looked
up at him wistfully.

"Father, dear, listen," she said. "We always used to understand each
other so well!" He patted her shoulder affectionately. "You can't
mean what you say? You know I don't love Lord Dreever. You know he's
only a boy. Don't you want me to marry a man? I love this old place,
but surely you can't think that it can really matter in a thing like
this? You don't really mean, that about the hero of the novel? I'm
not stupid, like that. I only want--oh, I can't put it into words,
but don't you see?"

Her eyes were fixed appealingly on him. It only needed a word from
him--perhaps not even a word--to close the gulf that had opened
between them.

He missed the chance. He had had time to think, and his arguments
were ready again. With stolid good-humor, he marched along the line
he had mapped out. He was kindly and shrewd and practical; and the
gulf gaped wider with every word.

"You mustn't be rash, my dear. You mustn't act without thinking in
these things. Lord Dreever is only a boy, as you say, but he will
grow. You say you don't love him. Nonsense! You like him. You would
go on liking him more and more. And why? Because you could make what
you pleased of him. You've got character, my dear. With a girl like
you to look after him, he would go a long way, a very long way. It's
all there. It only wants bringing out. And think of it, Molly!
Countess of Dreever! There's hardly a better title in England. It
would make me very happy, my dear. It's been my one hope all these
years to see you in the place where you ought to be. And now the
chance has come. Molly, dear, don't throw it away."

She had leaned back with closed eyes. A wave of exhaustion

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