← catalogue

Under Cover

by Wyndham Martyn · English · Gutenberg #40939 · 349,569 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Under Cover
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Under Cover

Author: Wyndham Martyn
        Roi Cooper Megrue

Illustrator: William Arber-Brown Kirkpatrick


        
Release date: October 5, 2012 [eBook #40939]
                Most recently updated: February 1, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40939

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images available at The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER COVER ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)







[The chapters in the original book pass from CHAPTER FIVE to CHAPTER
SEVEN; there is no chapter numbered SIX. A list of typographical errors
corrected follows the etext. (note of etext transcriber)]




UNDER COVER

[Illustration: HE FOUND DENBY’S GUN UNDER HIS NOSE.

Frontispiece. _See page 266_.]




UNDER COVER

BY

ROI COOPER MEGRUE

NOVELIZED BY WYNDHAM MARTYN

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WILLIAM KIRKPATRICK

[Illustration]

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1914

_Copyright_, _1914_,
BY ROI COOPER MEGRUE AND
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_

Published August, 1914

THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


HE FOUND DENBY’S GUN UNDER HIS NOSE _Frontispiece_

HE TURNED TO AMY. “YOUNG WOMAN, YOU’RE UNDER ARREST” PAGE 105

“DO MAKE ANOTHER BREAK SOMETIME, WON’T YOU--DICK?” 186

“NOW WE UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER,” HE SAID. “HERE’S YOUR MONEY” 288




UNDER COVER




CHAPTER ONE


Paris wears her greenest livery and puts on her most gracious airs in
early summer. When the National Fete commemorative of the Bastille’s
fall has gone, there are few Parisians of wealth or leisure who remain
in their city. Trouville, Deauville, Etretat and other pleasure cities
claim them and even the bourgeoisie hie them to their summer villas.

The city is given up to those tourists from America and England whom
Paris still persists in calling _Les Cooks_ in memory of that
enterprising blazer of cheap trails for the masses. Your true Parisian
and the stranger who has stayed within the city’s gates to know her
well, find themselves wholly out of sympathy with the eager crowds who
follow beaten tracks and absorb topographical knowledge from
guide-books.

Monty Vaughan was an American who knew his Paris in all months but those
two which are sacred to foreign travelers, and it irritated him one
blazing afternoon in late July to be persistently mistaken for a tourist
and offered silly useless toys and plans of the Louvre. The _camelots_,
those shrewd itinerant merchants of the Boulevards, pestered him
continually. These excellent judges of human nature saw in him one who
lacked the necessary harshness to drive them away and made capital of
his good nature.

He was a slim, pleasant-looking man of five and twenty, to whom the good
things of this world had been vouchsafed, with no effort on his part to
obtain them; and in spite of this he preserved a certain frank and
boyish charm which had made him popular all his life.

Presently on his somewhat aimless wanderings he came down the Avenue de
l’Opéra and took a seat under the awning and ordered an innocuous drink.
He was in a city where he had innumerable friends, but they had all left
for the seashore and this loneliness was unpleasant to his friendly
spirit. But even in the Café de Paris he was not to be left alone and he
was regarded as fair game by alert hawkers. One would steal up to his
table and deposit a little measure of olives and plead for two sous in
exchange. Another would place some nuts by his side and demand a like
amount. And when they had been driven forth and he had lighted a
cigarette, he observed watching him with professional eagerness a
_ramasseur de megot_, one of those men who make a livelihood of picking
up the butts of cigars and cigarettes and selling them.

When Monty flung down the half-smoked cigarette in hope that the man
would go away he was annoyed to find that the fellow was congratulating
himself that here was a tourist worth following, who smoked not the
wispy attenuated cigarettes of the native but one worth harvesting. He
probed for it with his long stick under the table and stood waiting for
another.

The heat, the absence of his friends and the knowledge that he must
presently dine alone had brought the usually placid Monty into a wholly
foreign frame of mind and he rose abruptly and stalked down the Avenue.

A depressed-looking sandwich-man, bearing a device which read, “One can
laugh uproariously at the Champs Elysées every night during the summer
months,” blocked his way, and permitted a woman selling fans of the kind
known to the _camelots_ as _les petits vents du nord_ to thrust one upon
him. “Monsieur does not comprehend our heat in Paris,” she said. “Buy a
little north wind. Two sous for a little north wind.”

Monty thrust a franc in her hand and turned quickly from her to carom
against a tall well-dressed man who was passing. As Monty began to utter
his apology the look of gloom dropped from his face and he seized the
stranger’s hand and shook it heartily.

“Steve, old man!” he cried, “what luck to find you amid this mob! I’ve
been feeling like a poor shipwrecked orphan, and here you come to my
rescue again.”

The man he addressed as Steve seemed just as pleased to behold Monty
Vaughan. The two were old comrades from the days at their preparatory
school and had met little during the past five years. Monty’s ecstatic
welcome was a pleasant reminder of happy days that were gone.

“I might ask what you are doing here,” Steven Denby returned. “I
imagined you to be sunning yourself in Newport or Bar Harbor, not doing
Paris in July.”

“I’ve been living here for two years,” Monty explained, when they were
sheltered from interruption at the café Monty had just left.

“Doing what?”

Monty looked at him with a diffident smile. “I suppose you’ll grin just
like everybody else. I’m here to learn foreign banking systems. My
father says it will do me good.”

Denby laughed. “I’ll bet you know less about it than I do.” The idea of
Monty Vaughan, heir to the Vaughan millions, working like a clerk in the
Crédit Lyonnais was amusing.

“Does your father make you work all summer?” he demanded.

“I’m not working now,” Monty explained. “I never do unless I feel like
it. I’m waiting for a friend who is sailing with me on the Mauretania
next week and I’ve just had a wire to say she’ll be here to-morrow.”

“She!” echoed Denby. “Have you married without my knowledge or consent?
Or is this a honey-moon trip you are taking?”

A look of sadness came into the younger man’s face.

“I shall never marry,” he returned.

But Steven Denby knew him too well to take such expressions of gloom as
final. “Nonsense,” he cried. “You are just the sort they like. You’re
inclined to believe in people too much if you like them, and a husband
who believes in his wife as you will in yours is a treasure. They’ll
fight for you, Monty, when you get home again. For all you know the trap
is already baited.”

“Trap!” Monty cried reproachfully. “I’ve been trying to make a girl
catch me for three years now and she won’t.”

“Do you mean you’ve been finally turned down?” Steven Denby asked
curiously. It was difficult to suppose that a man of his friend’s wealth
and standing would experience much trouble in offering heart and
fortune.

“I haven’t asked yet,” Monty admitted. “I’ve been on the verge of it
hundreds of times, but she always laughs as I’m coming around to it, and
someone comes in or something happens and I’ve never done it.” He sighed
with the deprecating manner of the devout lover. “If you’d only seen
her, Steve, you’d see what mighty little chance I stood. I feel it’s a
bit of impertinence to ask a girl like that to marry me.”

Steven patted him on the arm. “You’re just the same,” he said, “exactly
the silly old Monty I used to know. Next time you see your charmer, risk
being impertinent and ask her to marry you. Women hate modesty nowadays.
It’s just a confession of failure and we’re all hitched up to success. I
don’t know the girl you are speaking of but when you get home again
instead of declaring your great unworthiness, tell her you’ve left Paris
and its pleasures simply to marry her. Say that the Bourse begged you to
remain and guide the nation through a financial panic, but you left
them weeping and flew back on a fast Cunarder.”

“I believe you are right,” Monty said. “I’ll do it. I ought to have done
it years ago. Alice is frightfully disappointed with me.”

“Who is Alice?” the other demanded. “The lady you’re crossing with on
the Mauretania?”

“Yes,” said Monty. “A good pal of mine; one of those up-to-date women of
the world who know what to do and say at the right moment. She’s a sort
of elder sister to me. You’ll like her, Steve.”

Denby doubted it but pursued the subject no further. He conceived Alice
to be one of those capable managing women who do so much good in the
world and give so little pleasure.

“What are you doing in Paris now?” Monty presently demanded. It occurred
to him that it was odd that Denby, too, should be in the city now.

“Writing a book on the Race Courses of the World,” he said, smiling. “I
am now in the midst of Longchamps.”

Monty looked at him doubtfully. He had never known that his friend had
any literary aspirations, but he did remember him as one who, if he did
not choose to tell, would invent airy fairy fancies to deceive.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

“You are quite right,” Denby admitted. “You’ve got the key to the
mystery. I’ll confess that I have been engaged to guard Mona Lisa.
Suspicious looking tourists such as you engage my special attention.
Don’t get offended, Monty,” he added, “I’m just wandering through the
city on my way to England and that’s the truth, simple as it may seem. I
was desolate and your pleasing countenance as you bought a franc’s worth
of north wind was good to see. I wondered if you’d remember me.”

“Remember you!” Monty snorted. “Am I the kind to forget a man who saved
my life?”

“Who did that?” Denby inquired.

“Why, you did,” he returned, “You pulled me out of the Nashua river at
school!”

The other man laughed. “Why, it wasn’t five feet deep there.”

“I can drown anywhere,” Monty returned firmly. “You saved my life and
I’ve never had the opportunity to do anything in return.”

“The time will come,” Denby said lightly. “You’ll get a mysterious
message sometime and it will be up to you to rescue me from dreadful
danger.”

“I’d like to,” the other retorted, “but I’m not sure I’m cut out for
that rescue business.”

“Have you ever been--” Denby hesitated. “Have you ever been in any sort
of danger?”

“Yes,” Monty replied promptly, “but you pulled me out.”

“Please don’t go about repeating it,” Denby entreated, “I have enemies
enough without being blamed for pulling you out of the Nashua river.”

Monty looked at him in astonishment. Here was the most popular boy in
Groton School complaining of enemies. Monty felt a thrill that had
something of enjoyment in it. His own upbringing had been so free from
any danger and his parents had safeguarded him from so much trouble that
he had found life insipid at times. Yet here was a man talking of
enemies. It was fascinating.

“Do you mean it?” he demanded.

“Why not?” said Denby, rolling himself a cigarette.

“You hadn’t any at school,” Monty insisted.

“That was a dozen years ago nearly,” Denby insisted. “Since then--” He
paused. “My career wouldn’t interest you, my financial expert, but I am
safe in saying I have accumulated a number of persons who do not wish me
well.”

“You must certainly meet Alice,” Monty asserted. “She’s like you. She
often says I’m the only really uninteresting person she’s fond of.”

Denby assured himself that Alice would not interest him in the slightest
degree and made haste to change the subject, but Monty held on to his
chosen course.

“We’ll all dine together to-morrow night,” he cried.

“I’m afraid I’m too busy.”

“Too busy to dine with Alice Harrington when you’ve the opportunity?”
Monty exclaimed. “Are you a woman-hater?”

A more observant man might have noted the sudden change in expression
that the name Harrington produced in Steven Denby. He had previously
been bored at the idea of meeting a woman who he concluded would be
eager to impart her guide-book knowledge. Alice evidently had meant
nothing to him, but Alice Harrington roused a sudden interest.

“Not by any chance Mrs. Michael Harrington?” he queried.

Monty nodded. “The same. She and Michael are two of the best friends I
have. He’s a great old sport and she’s hurrying back because he has to
stay on and can’t get over this year.” Monty flushed becomingly. “I’m
going back with her because Nora is going to stay down in Long Island
with them.”

“Introduce me to Nora,” Denby insisted. “She is a new motif in your
jocund song. Who is Nora, what is she, that Monty doth commend her?”

“She’s the girl,” Monty explained. He sighed. “If you only knew how
pretty she was, you wouldn’t talk about a trap being baited. I don’t
think women are the good judges they pretend to be!”

“Why not?” Denby demanded.

“Because Alice says she’d accept me and I don’t believe I stand a ghost
of a chance.”

“Women are the only judges,” Denby assured him seriously. “If I were you
I’d bank on your friend Alice every time.”

“Then you’ll dine with me to-morrow?” Monty asked.

“Of course. You don’t suppose I am going to lose sight of you, do you?”

And Monty, grateful that this admired old school friend was so ready to
join him, forgot the previous excuse about inability to spare the time.

“That’s fine,” he exclaimed. “But what are we going to do to-night?”

“You are going to dine with me,” Denby told him. “I haven’t seen you,
let me see,” he reflected, “I haven’t seen you for about ten years and I
want to talk over the old days. What do you say to trying some of
Marguery’s _sole à la Normandie?_”

During the course of the dinner Monty talked frankly and freely about
his past, present and future. Denby learned that in view of the great
wealth which would devolve upon him, his father had determined that he
should become grounded in finance. When he had finished, he reflected
that while he had opened his soul to his old friend, his old friend had
offered no explanation of what in truth brought him to Europe, or why he
had for almost a decade dropped out of his old set.

“But what have you been doing?” Monty gathered courage to ask. “I’ve
told you all about me and mine, Steve.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Denby responded slowly. “I left Groton
because my father died. I’m afraid he wasn’t a shrewd man like your
father, Monty. He was one of the last relics of New York’s brown-stone
age and he tried to keep the pace when the marble age came in. He
couldn’t do it.”

“You were going into the diplomatic service,” Monty reminded him. “You
used to specialize in modern languages, I remember. I suppose you had to
give that up.”

“I had to try to earn my own living,” Denby explained, “and diplomacy
doesn’t pay much at first even if you have the luck to get an
appointment.”

Monty looked at him shrewdly. He saw a tall, well set up man who had
every appearance of affluence.

“You’ve done pretty well for yourself.”

Denby smiled, “The age demands that a man put up a good appearance. A
financier like you ought not to be deceived.”

Monty leaned over the table. “Steve, old man,” he said, a trifle
nervously, “I don’t want to butt in on your private affairs, but if you
ever want any money you’ll offend me if you don’t let me know. I’ve too
much and that’s a fact. Except for putting a bit on Michael’s horses
when they run and a bit of a flutter occasionally at Monte Carlo I don’t
get rid of much of it. I’ve got heaps. Do you want any?”

“Monty,” the other man said quietly, “you haven’t altered. You are still
the same generous boy I remember and it’s good for a man like me to know
that. I don’t need any money, but if ever I do I’ll come to you.”

Monty sighed with relief. His old idol was not hard up and he had not
been offended at the suggestion. It was a good world and he was happy.

“Steve,” he asked presently, “what did you mean about having enemies and
being in danger? That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“We most of us have enemies,” Steven said lightly, “and we are all in
danger. For all you know ptomaines are gathering their forces inside you
even now.”

“You didn’t mean that,” Monty said positively. “You were serious. What
enemies?”

“Enemies I have made in the course of my work,” the other returned.

“Well, what work is it?” Monty queried. It was odd, he thought, that
Denby would not let him into so harmless a secret as the nature of his
work. He felt an unusual spirit of persistence rising within him. “What
work?” he repeated.

Denby shrugged his shoulders. “You might call it a little irregular,” he
said in a lowered voice. “You represent high finance. Your father is one
of the big men in American affairs. You probably have his set views on
things. I don’t want to shock you, Monty.”

“Shock be damned!” cried Monty in an aggrieved voice. “I’m tired of
having to accommodate myself to other people’s views.”

Denby looked at him with mock wonder.

“Monty in revolt at the established order of things is a most remarkable
phenomenon. Have you a pirate in your family tree that you sigh for
sudden change and a life on the ocean wave?”

Monty laughed. “I don’t want to do anything like that but I’m tired of
a life that is always the same. You’ve enemies. I don’t believe I’ve
one. I’d like to have an enemy, Steve. I’d like to feel I was in danger;
it would be a change after being wrapped in wool all my life. You’ve
probably seen the world in a way I never shall. I’ve been on a
personally conducted tour, which isn’t the same thing.”

“Not by a long shot,” Steven Denby agreed. “But,” he added, “why should
you want to take the sort of risks that I have had to take, when there’s
no need? I have been in danger pretty often, Monty, and I shall again.
Why? Because I have my living to make and that way suits me best. You
notice I am sitting with my back to the wall so that none can come
behind me. I do that because two revengeful gentlemen have sworn
bloodthirsty oaths to relieve my soul of its body.”

Monty tingled with a certain pleasurable apprehension which had never
before visited him. He was experiencing in real life what had only
revealed itself before in novels or on the stage.

“What are they like?” he demanded in a low voice, looking around.

“Disappointing, I’m afraid,” Steven answered. “You are looking for a
tall man with a livid scar running from temple to chin and a look before
which even a waiter would blanch. Both my men have mild expressions and
wouldn’t attract a second glance, but they’ll either get me or I’ll get
them.”

“Steve!” Monty cried. “What did they do?”

Denby made a careless gesture. “It was over a money matter,” he
explained.

Monty thought for a moment in silence. Never had his conventional lot
seemed less attractive to him. He approached the subject again as do
timid men who fearfully hang on the outskirts of a street fight,
unwilling to miss what they have not the heart to enjoy.

“I wish some excitement like that would come my way,” he sighed.

“Excitement? Go to Monte and break the bank. Become the Jaggers of your
country.”

“There’s no danger in that,” Monty answered almost peevishly.

“Nor of it,” laughed his friend.

“That’s just the way it always is,” Monty complained. “Other fellows
have all the fun and I just hear about it.”

Denby looked at him shrewdly and then leaned across the table.

“So you want some fun?” he queried.

“I do,” the other said firmly.

“Do you think you’ve got the nerve?” Steven demanded.

Monty hesitated. “I don’t want to be killed,” he admitted. “What is it?”

“I didn’t tell you how I made a living, but I hinted my ways were a bit
irregular. What I have to propose is also a trifle out of the usual. The
law and the equator are both imaginary lines, Monty, and I’m afraid my
little expedition may get off the line. I suppose you don’t want to hear
any more, do you?”

Monty’s eyes were shining with excitement. “I’m going to hear everything
you’ve got to say,” he asserted.

“It means I’ve got to put myself in your power in a way,” Denby said
hesitatingly, “but I’ll take a chance because you’re the kind of man who
can keep things secret.”

“I am,” Monty said fervently. “Just you try me out, Steve!”

“It has to do with a string of pearls,” Denby explained, “and I’m afraid
I shall disappoint you when I tell you I’m proposing to pay for them
just as any one else might do.”

“Oh!” said Monty. “Is that all?”

“When I buy these pearls, as you will see me do, with Bank of France
notes, they belong to me, don’t they?”

“Sure they do,” Monty exclaimed. “They are yours to do as you like
with.”

“That’s exactly how I feel about it,” Denby said. “It happens to be my
particular wish to take those pearls back to my native land.”

“Then for heaven’s sake do it,” Monty advised. “What’s hindering you?”

“A number of officious prying hirelings called customs officials. They
admit that the pearls aren’t improved by the voyage, yet they want me to
pay a duty of twenty per cent. if I take them home with me.”

“So you’re going to smuggle ’em,” Monty cried. “That’s a cinch!”

“Is it?” Denby returned slowly. “It might have been in the past, but
things aren’t what they were in the good old days. They’re sending even
society women to jail now as well as fining them. The whole service from
being a joke has become efficient. I tell you there’s risk in it, and
believe me, Monty, I know.”

“Where would I come in?” the other asked.

“You’d come in on the profits,” Denby explained, “and you’d be a help as
well.”

“Profits?” Monty queried. “What profits?”

Denby laughed. “You simple child of finance, do you think I’m buying a
million-franc necklace to wear about my own fair neck? I can sell it at
a fifty thousand dollar profit in the easiest sort of way. There are
avenues by which I can get in touch with the right sort of buyers
without any risk. My only difficulty is getting the thing through the
customs. It’s up to you to get your little excitement if you’re game.”

Monty shut his eyes and felt as one does who is about to plunge for the
first swim of the season into icy water. It was one thing to talk about
danger in the abstract and another to have it suddenly offered him.

Steven had talked calmly about men who wanted to part his soul from his
body as though such things were in no way out of the ordinary. Suppose
these desperate beings assumed Montague Vaughan to be leagued with
Steven Denby and as such worthy of summary execution! But he put aside
these fears and turned to his old friend.

“I’m game,” he said, “but I’m not in this for the profits.” Now he was
once committed to it, his spirits began to rise. “What about the
danger?” he asked.

“There may be none at all,” the other admitted. “If there is it may be
slight. If by any chance it is known to certain crooks that I have it
with me there may be an attempt to get it. Naturally they won’t ask me
pleasantly to hand it over, they’ll take it by force. That’s one danger.
Then I may be trailed by the customs people, who could be warned through
secret channels that I have it and am purposing to smuggle it in.”

“But what can I do?” Monty asked. He was anxious to help but saw little
opportunity.

“You can tell me if any people follow me persistently while we’re
together in Paris or whether the same man happens to sit next to me at
cafés or any shows we take in.” He paused a moment, “By Jove, Monty,
this means I shall have to book a passage on the Mauretania!”

“That’s the best part of it,” Monty cried.

“But Mrs. Harrington,” Denby said. “She might not like it.”

“Alice can’t choose a passenger list,” Monty exclaimed; “and she’ll be
glad to have any old friend of mine.”

“That’s a thing I want to warn you of,” the other man said. “I don’t
want you to give away too many particulars about me. Don’t persist in
that fable about my saving your life. Know me just enough to vouch to
her that I’m house-broken but don’t get to the point where we have to
discuss common friends. I have my reasons, Monty, which I’ll explain
later on. I don’t court publicity this trip and I don’t want any
reporter to jump aboard at Quarantine and get interested in me.”

“I see,” cried the sapient Monty and felt he was plunging at last into
dark doings and mysterious depths. “But how am I to warn you if you’re
followed? I shall be with you and we ought not to let on that we know.”
He felt in that moment the hours he had spent with detective novels had
been time well spent.

“We must devise something,” Denby agreed, “and something simple.” He
meditated for a moment. “Here’s an idea. If you should think I’m being
followed or you want me to understand that something unusual is up, just
say without any excitement, ‘Will you have a cigarette, Dick?’”

“But why ‘Dick,’” Monty cried, “when you’re Steve!”

“For that very reason,” Denby explained. “If you said Steve merely I
shouldn’t notice it, but if you say Dick I shall be on the _qui vive_ at
once.”

“Great idea!” cried his fellow conspirator enthusiastically. “When do
you buy them?”

“I’ve an appointment at Cartier’s at eleven. Want to come?”

“You bet I do,” Monty asserted, “I’m going through with it from start to
finish.”

He looked at his friend a little anxiously. “What is the worst sort of a
finish we might expect if the luck ran against us?”

“As you won’t come in on the profits, you shan’t take any risks,” Denby
said. “If you agree to help me as we suggested that’s all I require of
you. In case I should not get by, you can explain me away as a passing
acquaintance merely. Don’t kick against the umpire’s decision,” he
commanded. “If they halved the sentence because two were in it I might
claim your help all the way, but they’d probably double it for
conspiracy, so you’d be a handicap. You’ll get a run for your money,
Monty, all right.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Monty doubtfully.

Denby fell into the bantering style the other knew so well. “There’s one
thing I’ll warn you about,” he said. “If a very beautiful young woman
makes your acquaintance on board, by accident of course, don’t tell her
what life seems to you as is your custom. She may be an agent of the
Russian secret police with an assignment to take you to Siberia. She may
force you to marry her at a pistol’s point and cost your worthy
progenitor a million. Be careful, Monty. You’re in a wicked world and
you’ve a sinful lot of money, and these big ships attract all that is
brightest and best in the criminal’s Who’s Who.”

Monty shivered a bit. “I never thought of that,” he said innocently.

“Then you’d better begin now,” his mentor suggested, “and have for once
a voyage where you won’t be bored.”

He glanced at the clock. “It’s later than I thought and I have to be up
early. I’ll walk to your hotel.”

During the short walk Monty glanced apprehensively over his shoulder a
score of times. Out of the shadows it seemed to him that mysterious men
stared evilly and banded themselves together until a procession followed
the two Americans. But Denby paid no sort of attention to these
problematic followers.

“Wait till I’ve got the pearls on me,” he whispered mischievously. “Then
you’ll see some fun.”




CHAPTER TWO


Although the carriages and automobiles of the wealthy were no longer
three deep in the Rue de la Paix, as they had been earlier in the
season, this ravishing thoroughfare was crowded with foot-passengers as
Monty and his friend made their way under the red and white awnings of
the shops into Cartier’s.

The transaction took very little time. The manager of the place seemed
to be expecting his client, to whom he accorded the respect that even a
Rue de la Paix jeweler may pay to a million-franc customer. Bank of
France notes of high denominations were passed to him and Steven Denby
received a small, flat package and walked out into the sunshine with it.

“Now,” said the owner of the pearls, “guard me as you would your honor,
Monty; the sport begins, and I am now probably pursued by a half dozen
of the super-crooks of high class fiction.”

“I wish you’d be serious,” Monty said plaintively.

“I am,” Denby assured him. “But I rely on your protection, so feel more
light-hearted than I should otherwise.”

“You are laughing at me,” Monty protested.

“I want you to look a little less like a detected criminal,” Denby
returned.

“If I happened to be a detective after a criminal I should arrest you on
sight. You keep looking furtively about as though you’d done murder and
bloodhounds were on your track.”

“Well, they are on our track,” Monty said excitedly, and then whispered
thrillingly: “Have a cigarette, Dick.” There was trembling triumph in
his voice. He felt he had justified himself in his friend’s eyes.

“What is it?” Denby asked with no show of excitement.

“There was a man in Cartier’s who watched us all the time,” Monty
confided. “He is on our trail now. We’re being shadowed, Steve. It’s all
up!”

“Nonsense!” his companion cried. “There’s nothing compromising in buying
a pearl necklace. I didn’t steal it.”

Suddenly he turned around and looked at the man Monty indicated. His
face cleared. “That’s Harlow. He’s one of Cartier’s clerks, who looks
after American women’s wants. Don’t worry about him.”

By this time the two had come to the Tuileries, that paradise for the
better class Parisian children. Denby pointed to a seat. “Sit down
there,” he commanded, “while I see what Harlow wants.”

Obediently Monty took a seat and watched the man he had mistaken for a
detective from the corner of his eye. Denby chatted confidentially with
him for fully five minutes and then, it seemed to the watcher, passed a
small packet into his hand. The man nodded a friendly adieu and walked
rapidly out of sight. For a few seconds Denby stood watching and then
rejoined his friend.

“Anything the matter?” the timorous one demanded eagerly.

“Why should there be?” Denby returned. “Don’t worry, Monty, there’s
nothing to get nervous about yet.”

Monty remembered the confidential conversation between the two.

“He seemed to have a lot to tell you,” he insisted.

Denby smiled. “He did; but he came as a friend. Harlow wanted to warn me
that while I was buying the necklace a stranger was mightily interested
and asked Harlow what he knew about me.”

“There you are,” Monty gasped excitedly, “I told you it was all up. Did
Harlow know who the man was?”

“He suspected him of being a customs spy. Our customs service takes the
civilized world as its hunting ground and Paris is specially beloved of
it.”

“What are you going to do?” Monty asked when he had looked suspiciously
at an amiable old priest who went ambling by. “They’ll get you.”

“They may,” Denby said, “but the interested gentleman at Cartier’s
won’t.”

“But he knows all about you,” Monty persisted. “It will be dead easy.”

“He doesn’t,” the other returned. “Harlow took the liberty of
transforming me into an Argentine ranch owner of unbounded wealth about
to purchase a mansion in the Parc Monceau.”

“That was mighty good of him,” Monty cried in relief. “That fellow
Harlow is certainly all right.”

Denby smiled a trifle oddly, Monty thought. “His kind ways have won him
a thousand dollars,” he returned. “Did you see me pass him something?”

Monty nodded.

“Well, that was five thousand francs. I passed it to him, not in the
least because I believe in the mythical stranger--”

“What do you mean?” the amazed Monty exclaimed. It seemed to him he was
getting lost in a world of whose existence he had been unaware.

“Simply this,” Denby told him, “that I disbelieve Harlow’s story and am
not as easily impressed by kind faces as you are. I think Harlow’s
inquisitive stranger was a fake.”

Monty looked at him with a superior air. “And you mean to say,” he said
with the air of one who has studied financial systems, “that you handed
over a thousand dollars without verifying it? I call that being easy.”

“It’s this way,” Denby explained patiently. “Harlow knows I have the
necklace and he’s in a position to know on what boat I sail. If I had
not remembered that I owed him five thousand francs just now he might
have informed the customs that I had bought a million-franc necklace and
I should have been marked down as one to whom a special search must be
made if I didn’t declare it.”

“But if he’s a clerk in Cartier’s what has he to do with the customs?”
Monty asked.

“Perhaps he is underpaid,” the other returned. “Perhaps he is
extravagant--I’ve seen him at the races and noticed that he patronized
the _pari mutuel_--perhaps he has a wife and twelve children. I’ll leave
it to you to decide, but I dare not take a risk.”

Monty shivered. “It looks to me as if we were going to have a hell of a
time.”

“A little excitement possibly,” Denby said airily, “but nothing to
justify language like that, though. You ought to have been with me last
year at Buenos Ayres, Monty, and I could have shown you some sport.”

“I don’t think I’m built for a life like that,” Monty admitted, and then
reflected that this friend of his was an exceedingly mysterious being of
whose adult life and adventures he knew nothing. For an uneasy moment he
hoped his father would never discover this association, but there soon
prevailed the old boyish spirit of hero-worship. Steven Denby might not
conform to some people’s standards, but he felt certain he would do
nothing criminal. One had to live, Monty reflected, and his father
complained constantly of hard times.

“What sort of sport was it?” he hazarded.

“It had to do with the secret of a torpedo controlled by wireless,”
Denby said. “A number of governments were after it and there collected
in Buenos Ayres the choicest collection of high-grade adventurers that I
have ever seen. Some day when I’m through with this pearl trouble I’ll
tell you about it.”

But what Denby had carelessly termed “pearl trouble” was quite
sufficient for the less experienced man. He had a vivid imagination,
more vivid now than at any period of his career. Paris was full of
Apaches, he knew, and not all spent their days lying in the sun outside
the barriers. Supposing one sprang from behind a tree and fell upon
Denby and seized the precious package whose outline was discernible
through the breast pocket of his coat. Monty suddenly took upon himself
the rôle of an adviser.

“It’s no use taking unnecessary risks,” he said. “I saw you put those
pearls in your breast pocket, and there were at least six people who had
the same opportunity as I. It’s just putting temptation in the way of a
thief.”

“I welcome this outbreak of caution on your part,” said Denby, laughing
at his expression of anxiety, “but you’ll need it on board ship most.
The greatest danger is that a couple of crooks may rob me and then pitch
me overboard. Monty, for the sake of our boyhood recollections, don’t
let them throw me overboard.”

“Now you are laughing at me,” Monty said a trifle sulkily.

“What do you want me to do?” Denby demanded.

“Put those pearls in some other place,” he returned stubbornly.

Denby made a pass or two in the air as conjurers do when they perform
their marvels.

“It’s done,” he cried. “From what part of my anatomy or yours shall I
produce them?”

“There you go,” Monty exclaimed helplessly, “you won’t be serious. I’m
getting all on the jump.”

“A cigarette will soothe you,” Denby told him, taking a flat leathern
pouch from his pocket and offering it to the other.

“I can’t roll ’em,” Monty protested.

“Then a look at my tobacco has a soothing effect,” the elder man
insisted. “I grow it in my private vineyard in Ruritania.”

Monty turned back the leather flap to look at his friend’s private brand
and saw nestling in a place where once tobacco might have reposed a
necklace of pearls for which a million of francs had been paid.

“Good Lord!” Monty gasped. “How did you do it?”

“A correspondence school course in legerdemain,” Steven explained. “It
comes in handy at times.”

“But I didn’t see you do it and I was watching.”

“An unconscious tribute to my art,” Denby replied. “Monty, I thank you.”

Monty grew less anxious. If Steven had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve
there was no reason to suppose he must fail.

“I don’t think you need my advice,” he admitted. “It doesn’t seem I can
help you.”

“You may be able to help a great deal,” Denby said more seriously, “but
I don’t want you to act as if you were a criminal. Pass it off easily.
Of course,”--he hesitated,--“I’ve had more experience in this sort of
thing than you, and am more used to being up against it, but it will
never do if you look as anxiously at everybody on the Mauretania as you
do at the passers-by here. You can help me particularly by observing if
I am the subject of special scrutiny.”

“That will be a cinch,” Monty asserted.

“Then start right away,” his mentor commanded. “We have been under
observation for the last five minutes by someone I’ve never laid eyes on
before.”

“Good Lord!” Monty cried. “It was that old priest who stared at us. I
knew he was a fake. That was a wig he had on!”

“Try again,” Denby suggested. “It happens to be a woman and a very
handsome one. As we went into Cartier’s she passed in a taxi. I only
thought then that she was a particularly charming American or English
woman out on a shopping expedition. When we came out she was in one of
those expensive _couturier’s_ opposite, standing at an upper window
which commands a view of Cartier’s door. They may have been
coincidences, but at the present moment, although we are sauntering
along the Champs Elysées, she is pursuing us in another taxi. She has
passed us once. When she went by she told the chauffeur to turn, but he
was going at such a pace that he couldn’t pull up in time. He has just
turned and is now bearing down on us. Take a look at the lady, Monty, so
you will know her again.”

A sense of dreadful responsibility settled on Montague Vaughan. He was
now entering upon his rôle of Denby’s aid and must in a few seconds be
brought face to face with what was unquestionably an adventuress of the
highest class. He knew all about them from fiction. She would have the
faintest foreign accent, be wholly charming and free from vulgarity, and
yet like Keats’ creation be a _belle dame sans merci_. But, he wondered
uneasily, what would be his rôle if his friend fell victim to her
charms?

He was startled out of his vain imaginings when Denby exclaimed: “By all
that’s wonderful, she seems to know one of us, and it’s not I! You’re
the fortunate man, Monty.”

A pretty woman with good features and laughing eyes was certainly
looking out of a taxi and smiling right at him. And when he realized
this, Monty’s depression was lifted and he sprang forward to meet her.
“It’s Alice,” he cried.

Denby, following more leisurely, was introduced to her.

“I came last night,” she explained. “Michael’s horse won and there was
no more interest in Deauville or Trouville and as I must buy some things
I came on here as soon as I could. I thought I saw you in Cartier’s,”
she explained, “and tried to make you see me when you came out, but only
Mr. Denby looked my way so I dared not make any signs of welcome.”

She seemed exceedingly happy to be in Paris again, and Denby, looking at
her with interest, knew he was in the company of one of the most notable
and best liked of the smart hostesses among the sporting set on Long
Island. The Harringtons were enormously rich and lived at a great estate
near Westbury, not far from the Meadow Brook Club. The Directory of
Directors showed the name of Michael Harrington in a number of
influential companies, but of recent years his interest in business had
slackened and he was more interested in the development of his estate
and the training of his thoroughbreds than in Wall Street activities.

For her part she took him, although the name was totally unfamiliar, as
a friend of Monty’s, and was prepared to like him. Whereas an
Englishwoman of her class might have been insistent to discover whether
any of his immediate ancestors had been engaged in retail trade before
she accepted him as an equal, Alice Harrington was willing to take
people on their face value and retain them on their merits.

She saw a tall, well-bred man with strong features and that air of
_savoir faire_ which is not easy of assumption. She felt instantly that
he was the sort of man Michael would like. He talked about racing as
though he knew, and that alone would please her husband.

“I’ve spent so much money,” she said presently, “that I shall dismiss
this taxi-man and walk. One can walk in Paris with two men, whereas one
may be a little pestered alone.”

“Fine,” Monty cried. “We’ll go and lunch somewhere. What place strikes
your fancy?”

“Alas,” she said, “I’m booked already. I have an elderly relation in the
Boulevard Haussmann who stays here all summer this year on account of
alterations in the house which she superintends personally, and I’ve
promised.”

“I hope she hasn’t sacrificed you at a dinner table, too,” Denby said,
“because if you are free to-night you’d confer a blessing on a fellow
countryman if you’d come with Monty and me to the Ambassadeurs. Polin
is funnier than ever.”

“I’d love to,” she cried. “You have probably delivered me from my aunt’s
dismal dinner. I hadn’t an engagement but now I can swear to one
truthfully. Men are usually so vain that if you say you’re dreadfully
sorry but you’ve another engagement they really believe it. The dear
things think no other cause would make a woman refuse. But my aunt would
interrogate me till I faltered and contradicted myself.”

They left her later at one of those great mansions in the Boulevard
Haussmann. The house was enlaced with scaffolding and workmen swarmed
over its roof.

“It’s old Miss Woodwarde’s house,” Monty explained. “She’s worth
millions and will probably leave it to Alice, who doesn’t need any,
because she’s the only one of all her relatives who speaks the truth and
doesn’t fawn and flatter.”

“It takes greater strength of mind than poor relations usually have, to
tell rich relatives the truth,” Steven reminded him.

Monty had evidently recovered his good spirits. “I knew you’d like her,”
he said later, “and I knew she’d take to you. We’ll have a corking
dinner and a jolly good time.”

“There’s one thing I want to ask of you,” Denby said gravely. “Don’t
give any particulars about me. If she’s the sort I think her she won’t
ask, but you’ve got a bad habit of wanting people to hear how I fished
you out of the river. I want to slip into New York without any
advertisement of the fact. I’m not the son of a plutocrat as you are.
I’m the hard-up son of a man who was once rich but is now dead and
forgotten.”

“Do hard-up men hand a million francs across for a string of pearls to
put in their tobacco-pouches?” Monty demanded shrewdly.

“You may regard that as an investment if you like,” Denby answered. “It
may be all my capital is tied up in it.”

“You’re gambling for a big stake then,” Monty said seriously. “Is it
worth it, old man?”

For a moment he had an idea of offering him a position in some of the
great corporations in which his father was interested, but refrained.
Steven Denby was not the kind of man to brook anything that smacked of
patronage and he feared his offer might do that although otherwise
meant.

“It means a whole lot more to me than you can think,” Denby returned. “I
have made up my mind to do it and I think I can get away with it in just
the way I have mapped out.” Then, with a smile: “Monty, I’ve a proper
respect for your imaginative genius, but I’d bet you the necklace to the
tobacco-pouch that you don’t understand how much I want to get that
string of pearls through the customs.”

“The pouch is yours,” Monty conceded generously. “How should I guess?
How do I know who’s a smuggler or who isn’t? Alice says she always gets
something through and for all I know may have a ruby taken from the eye
of a Hindoo god in her back hair!”

He looked at his friend eagerly, a new thought striking him. He often
surprised himself in romantic ideas, ideas for which Nora was
responsible.

“Perhaps you are taking it for someone, someone you’re fond of,” he
suggested.

“Why not?” Denby returned. “If I were really fond of any woman I’d risk
more than that to please her.”

Monty noticed that he banished the subject by speaking of Alice
Harrington’s _penchant_ for smuggling.

“I hope Mrs. Harrington won’t run any risks,” he said. “In her case it
is absolutely senseless and unnecessary.”

“Oh, they’d never get after her,” Monty declared. “She’s too big. They
get after the little fellows but they’d leave Mrs. Michael Harrington
alone.”

“Don’t you believe it,” his friend answered. “They’re doing things
differently now. They’re getting a different class of men in the
Collector’s office.”

“I suppose you’d like the old style better,” Monty observed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the other. “It’s more risky now and so one has
to be cleverer. I’ve often heard it said the hounds have all the fun and
the fox none.

“I’m not so sure of that, Monty; I think a fox that can fool thirty
couple of hounds and get back to his earth ought to be a gladsome
animal.”

“I’ll find out when we’re in West Street, New York,” Monty said grimly.
“I’ll take particular notice of how this fox acts and where the hounds
are. If you harp on this any more I shall lose my appetite. What about
Voisin’s?”

“Eat lightly,” Denby counseled him. “I’m going to treat you to a
remarkable meal to-night; I know the chef at the Ambassadeurs, and the
wine-steward feeds out of my hand.”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t buy necklaces like that if you have those
Ambassadeurs waiters corralled. They soaked me six francs for a single
peach once,” Monty said reminiscently. But he wondered, all the same,
how it was Steven should be able to fling money away as he chose.

His friend looked at him shrewdly. “You’re thinking I ought to patronize
the excellent Duval,” he observed. “Well, sometimes I do. I think I’ve
patronized most places in Paris once.”

“Steve, you’re a mystery,” Monty asserted.

“I hope I am,” said the other; “I make my living out of being just
that.”

They walked in silence to the Rue St. Honoré, Monty still a bit uneasy
at being in a crowded place with a friend in whose pocket was a million
francs’ worth of precious stones. Once or twice as the pocket gaped open
he caught a glimpse of the worn pigskin pouch. Steven was taking wholly
unnecessary risks, he thought.

As they were leaving Voisin’s together after their luncheon it happened
that Monty walked behind his friend through the door. Deftly he inserted
his hand into the gaping pocket and removed the pouch to his own. He
chuckled to think of the object lesson he would presently dilate upon.

When they were near one of those convenient seats which Paris provides
for her street-living populace Monty suggested a minute’s rest.

With an elaborate gesture he took out the pouch and showed it to Denby.

“Did you ever see this before?” he demanded.

“I’ve got one just like it,” his friend returned without undue interest.
“Useful things, aren’t they, and last so much longer than the rubber
ones?”

“My pouch,” said Monty, beginning to enjoy his own joke, “looks better
inside than outside. I keep in it tobacco I grow in my private orchid
house. Look!”

He pulled back the flap and held it out to Denby.

Denby gazed in it obediently with no change of countenance.

“You’re not a heavy smoker, are you?” he returned.

Instantly Monty gazed into it. It was empty except for a shred of
tobacco.

“Good God!” he cried. “They’ve been stolen from me and they put the
pouch back!”

“What has?” the other exclaimed.

“The pearls,” Monty groaned. “I took them for a joke, and now they’re
gone!”

He looked apprehensively at Steven, meditating meanwhile how quickly he
could turn certain scrip he held into ready money.

Steven evinced no surprise. Instead he rose from his seat and placed a
foot upon it as though engaged in tying a lace. But he pointed to the
cuff on the bottom of the trouser leg that was on the seat by Monty’s
side. And Monty, gazing as he was bid, saw his friend’s slender fingers
pick therefrom a string of pearls.

“I know no safer place,” Denby commented judicially. “Of course the
customs fellows are on to it, but no pickpocket who ever lived can get
anything away from you if you cache it there. On board ship I shall
carry it in my pocket, but this is the best place in Paris when one is
in strange company.”

Monty said no word. His relief was too great and he felt weak and
helpless.

“What’s the matter?” Denby demanded.

“I want a drink,” Monty returned, “but it isn’t on you.”




CHAPTER THREE


THERE are still restaurants in Paris where a well chosen dinner delights
the chef who is called upon to cook it and the waiters who serve. And
although it is true that most of the diners of to-day know little of
that art which is now disappearing, it happened that Steven Denby was
one who delighted the heart of the Ambassadeurs’ chef.

Monty was a happy soul who had never been compelled to consult his
pocketbook in a choice of restaurants, and Mrs. Michael Harrington was
married to a gourmand who well distinguished the difference between that
and the indefensible fault of gluttony. Thus both of Denby’s guests were
in a sense critical. They admitted that they had dined with one who
agreed with Dumas’ dictum that a dinner is a daily and capital action
that can only worthily be accomplished by _gens d’esprit_.

There are few places in Paris where a dinner in summer can be more
pleasantly eaten than the balcony at the Ambassadeurs, among slim
pillars of palest green and banks of pink roses. In the distance--not
too near to be disturbed by the performers unless they chose--the three
Americans saw that idol of the place, the great Polin at his best.
French waiters do not bring courses on quickly with the idea of using
the table a second time during the dining-hour. The financial genius who
calculates _l’addition_ knows a trick worth two of that.

Still a little anxious that Denby might not be able to stand the
expense, Monty fell to thinking of the charges that Parisian
restaurateurs can make. “They soaked me six francs for a peach here
once,” he said for the second time that day.

“That’s nothing to what Bignon used to charge,” Alice Harrington
returned. “Once when Michael’s father was dining there he was charged
fifteen francs. When he said they must be very scarce in Paris, Bignon
said it wasn’t the peaches that were scarce, it was the Harringtons.”

“Good old Michael,” said Monty, “I wish he were here. Why isn’t he?”

“Something is being reorganized and the other people want his advice.”
She laughed. “I suppose he is really good at that sort of thing, but he
gets so hopelessly muddled over small accounts that I can’t believe it.
He was fearfully sorry not to have seen his colt run at Deauville. I
shall have to tell him all about it.”

“I read the account,” said Denby. “St. Mervyn was the name, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “He won by a short head. Michael always likes to beat French
horses. I’m afraid he isn’t as fond of the country as I am. The only
thing he really likes here is the _heure de l’aperitif_. He declares it
lasts from four-thirty till seven.” She laughed. “He has carried the
habit home with him.”

“Did you win anything?” Denby asked.

“Enough to buy some presents at Cartier’s,” she returned. “I’ve bought
something very sweet for Nora Rutledge,” she said, turning to Monty.
“Aren’t you curious to know what? It’s a pearl la vallière.”

“Then for Heaven’s sake, declare it!” Monty cried.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I’ll pay if it’s found, but it’s a sporting risk to
take and you can’t make me believe smuggling’s wrong. Michael says it’s
a Democratic device to rob Republican women.”

“Ask Mr. Denby,” Monty retorted. “He knows.”

“And what do you know, Mr. Denby?” she demanded.

“That the customs people and the state department see no humor in that
sort of a joke any longer. You read surely that society women even have
been imprisoned for taking sporting risks?”

“Milliners who make a practice of getting things through on their annual
trip,” she said lightly. “Of course one wouldn’t make a business of it,
but I’ve always smuggled little things through and I always shall.”

“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Monty. “Mr. Denby has frightened
me.”

Alice Harrington looked at him curiously.

“Have you been caught?” she asked with a smile.

“I’ve seen others caught,” he returned, “and if any sister of mine had
to suffer as they did by the publicity and the investigation the customs
people are empowered and required to make, I should feel rather
uncomfortable.”

“What a depressing person you are,” she laughed. “I had already decided
where to hide the things. I think I shall do it after all. It’s been all
right before, so why not now?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It may be the new brooms are sweeping clean
or it may be the state department has said smuggling shall no longer be
condoned. I only know that things are done very differently now.”

Monty looked at him in amazement. His expression plainly meant that he
considered his friend the proprietor of an unusually large supply of
sheer gall.

“I heard about that,” she said, “but one can’t believe it. There’s a
mythical being known only by his initials who is investigating for the
state department. Even Michael warned me, so he may have some inside
tip. Have you heard of him, Mr. Denby?”

“I was thinking of him,” he answered. “I think they call him R. B. or R.
D. or some non-committal thing like that.”

“And you believe in him?” she asked sceptically.

“I’m afraid I do,” he returned.

“The deuce you do!” Monty cried, aggrieved. He had been happy for the
last few hours in the belief that his friend was too well armed to get
detected, and here he was admitting, in a manner that plainly showed
apprehension, that this initialed power might be even on his track.

“You never smuggle,” Alice Harrington said, smiling. “You haven’t the
nerve, Monty, so you need not take it to heart.”

“But I do nevertheless,” he retorted.

“Monty,” she cried, “I believe you’re planning to smuggle something
yourself! We’ll conspire together and defeat that abominable law.”

“If you must,” Denby said, still gravely, “don’t advertise the fact.
Paris has many spies who reap the reward of overhearing just such
confidences.”

“Spies!” She laughed. “How melodramatic, Mr. Denby.”

“But I mean it,” he insisted. “Not highly paid government agents, but
perhaps such people as chambermaids in your hotel, or servants to whom
you pay no attention whatsoever. How do you and I know for example that
Monty isn’t high up in the secret service?”

“Me?” cried Monty. “Well, I certainly admire your brand of nerve,
Steve!”

“That’s no answer,” his friend returned. “You say you have been two
years here studying Continental banking systems. I’ll bet you didn’t
even know that the Banque de France issued a ten thousand franc note!”

“Of course I did,” Monty cried, a little nettled.

Denby turned to Mrs. Harrington with an air of triumph.

“That settles it, Monty is a spy.”

“I don’t see how that proves it,” she answered.

“The Banque de France has no ten thousand franc note,” he returned; “its
highest value is five thousand francs. In two years Montague Vaughan has
not found that out. The ordinary tourist who passes a week here and
spends nothing to speak of might be excused, but not a serious student
like Monty.”

“I will vouch for him,” Mrs. Harrington said. “I’ve known him for years
and I don’t think it’s a life suited to him at all, is it, Monty?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said he airily. “I may be leading a double life.” He
looked at her not without an expression of triumph. Little did she know
in what a conspiracy he was already enlisted. After an excellent repast
and a judicious indulgence in some rare wine Monty felt he was
extraordinarily well fitted for delicate intrigue, preferably of an
international character. He stroked his budding moustache with the air
of a gentleman adventurer.

Alice Harrington smiled. She was a good judge of character and Monty was
too well known to her to lend color to any such notion.

“It won’t do,” she averred, “but Mr. Denby has every earmark of it.
There’s that piercing look of his and the obsequious way waiters attend
on him.”

Monty laughed heartily. He was in possession of a secret that made such
an idea wholly preposterous. Here was a man with a million-franc pearl
necklace in his pocket, a treasure he calmly proposed to smuggle in
against the laws of his country, being taken for a spy.

“Alice,” he said still laughing, “I’ll go bail on Steve for any amount
you care to name. I am also willing to back him against all comers for
brazen nerve and sheer gall.”

Denby interrupted him a little hastily.

“As we two men are free from suspicion, only Mrs. Harrington remains
uncleared.”

“This is all crazy talk,” Monty asserted.

“I know one woman, well known in New York, who goes over each year and
more than once has made her expenses by tipping off the authorities to
things other women were trying to get through without declaration.”

“You speak with feeling,” Mrs. Harrington said, and wondered if this
friend of Monty’s had not been betrayed by some such confidence.

“Are you going to take warning?” Denby asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’ve been reading the American
papers and are deceived by the annual warnings to intending European
tourists. I’m a hardened and successful criminal.” She leaned forward to
look at a dancer on the stage below them and Denby knew that his
monitions had left her unmoved.

“When were you last at home?” she demanded presently of Denby.

“About six months ago,” he answered. “I shall be there a week from
to-morrow if I live.”

The last three words vaguely disturbed Monty. Why, he wondered crossly,
was Denby always reminding him of danger? There was no doubt that what
his friend really should have said was: “If I am not murdered by
criminals for the two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of valuables they
probably know I carry with me.”

“Have you booked your passage yet?” she asked.

It occurred to her that it would be pleasant to have a second man on the
voyage. Like all women of her world, she was used to the attentions of
men and found life deplorably dull without them, although she was not a
flirt and was still in love with her husband.

“Not yet,” he answered, “but La Provence goes from Havre to-morrow.”

“Come with us,” she insisted. “The Mauretania sails a couple of days
later but gets you in on the same morning as the other.” She turned to
Monty. “Isn’t that a brilliant idea?”

“It’s so brilliant I’m blinded by it,” he retorted, gazing at his friend
with a look of respect. Not many hours ago Steven had asserted that he
and Monty must sail together on the fastest of ships, and now he had
apparently decided to forsake the Compagnie Transatlantique only on
account of Alice Harrington’s invitation.

“I shall be charmed,” was all he had said.

Monty felt that he was a co-conspirator of one who was not likely to be
upset by trifles. He sighed. A day or so ago he had imagined himself
ill-used by Fate because no unusual excitement had come his way, and now
his prayers had been answered too abundantly. The phrase “If I live”
remained in his memory with unpleasant insistency.

“We ought to cross the Channel by the afternoon boat to-morrow,” Alice
said. “There are one or two things I want to get for Michael in London.”

“It will be a much nicer voyage for me than if I had gone alone on La
Provence,” Denby said gratefully, while Monty continued to meditate on
the duplicity of his sex.

When they had taken Mrs. Harrington to her hotel Monty burst out with
what he had been compelled to keep secret all the evening.

“What in thunder makes you so careful about people smuggling?” he
demanded.

“About other people smuggling, you mean,” Denby corrected.

“It’s the same thing,” Monty asserted.

“Far from it,” his friend made answer. “If Mrs. Harrington is suspected
and undeclared stuff found on her, you and I as her companions will be
more or less under suspicion too. It is not unusual for women to ask
their men friends to put some little package in their pockets till the
customs have been passed. The inspectors may have an idea that she has
done this with us. Personally I don’t relish a very exhaustive search.”

“You bet you don’t,” his friend returned. “I shall probably be the only
honest man aboard.”

“Mrs. Harrington may ask you to hold some small parcel till she’s been
through the ordeal,” Denby reminded him. “If she does, Monty, you’ll be
caught for a certainty.”

“Damn it all!” Monty cried petulantly, “why can’t you people do the
right thing and declare what you bring in, just as I do?”

“What is your income?” Denby inquired. “Your father was always liberal
with you.”

“You mean I have no temptation?” Monty answered. “I forgot that part of
it. I don’t know what I’d do if there wasn’t always a convenient paying
teller who passed me out all the currency I wanted.”

He looked at his friend curiously, wondering just what this act of
smuggling meant to him. Perhaps Denby sensed this.

“You probably wondered why I wrung that invitation out of Mrs.
Harrington instead of being honest and saying I, too, was going by the
Cunard line. I can’t tell you now, Monty, old man, but I hope some day
if I’m successful that I can. I tell you this much, though, that it
seems so much to me that no little conventionalities are going to stand
in my way.”

Monty, pondering on this later when he was in his hotel room, called to
mind the rumor he had heard years ago that Steven’s father had died
deeply in debt. It was for this reason that the boy was suddenly
withdrawn from Groton. It might be that his struggles to make a living
had driven him into regarding the laws against smuggling as arbitrary
and inequitable just as Alice Harrington and dozens of other people he
knew did. Denby, he argued, had paid good money for the pearls and they
belonged to him absolutely; and if by his skill he could evade the
payment of duty upon them and sell them at a profit, why shouldn’t he?
Before slumber sealed his eyes, Montague Vaughan had decided that
smuggling was as legitimate a sport as fly-fishing. That these views
would shock his father he knew. But his father always prided himself
upon a traditional conservatism.




CHAPTER FOUR


Less than an hour before the Mauretania reached Quarantine, James
Duncan, whose rank was that of Customs Inspector and present assignment
the more important one of assistant to Daniel Taylor, a Deputy-Surveyor,
threw away the stub of cigar and reached for the telephone.

When central had given him his number he called out: “Is that you,
Ford?” Apparently the central had not erred and his face took on a look
of intentness as he gave the man at the other end of the line his
instructions. “Say, Ford,” he called, “I’ve got something mighty
important for you. Directly the Mauretania gets into Quarantine, go
through the declarations and ’phone me right away whether a man named
Steven Denby declares a pearl necklace valued at two hundred thousand
dollars. No. No, not that name, Denby, D-E-N-B-Y. Steven Denby. That’s
right. A big case you say? I should bet it is a big case. Never you mind
who’s handling it, Ford. It may be R. J., or it may not. Don’t you worry
about a little thing like that. It’s your job to ’phone me as soon as
you get a peek at those declarations. Let Hammett work with you.
Bye-bye.”

He hung up the receiver and leaned back in his chair, well satisfied
with himself. He was a spare, hatchet-faced man, who held down his
present position because he was used to those storm warnings he could
see on his chief’s face and knew enough to work in the dark and never
ask for explanations.

He did not, for instance, lean back in his chair and smoke cigars with a
lordly air when Deputy-Surveyor Daniel Taylor was sitting in his big
desk in the window opposite. At such times Duncan worked with silent
fury and felt he had evened up matters when he found a Customs Inspector
whom he could impress with his own superiority.

When a step in the outside passage warned him that his chief might
possibly be coming in, he settled down in an attitude of work. But there
entered only Harry Gibbs, dressed in the uniform of a Customs Inspector.
Gibbs was a fat, easy man, whose existence was all the more pleasant
because of his eager interest in gossip. None knew so well as Gibbs the
undercurrent of speculation which the lesser lights of the Customs term
office politics. If the Collector frowned, Gibbs instantly dismissed the
men upon whom his displeasure had fallen and conjured up erroneous
reasons concerning high official wrath. Since Duncan was near to a man
in power, Gibbs welcomed any opportunity to converse with him. He seldom
came away from such an interview empty-handed. He was a pleasant enough
creature and filled with mild wonder at the vagaries of Providence.

Just now he seemed hot but that was not unusual, for he was rarely
comfortable during the summer months as he complained frequently. He
seemed worried, Duncan thought.

“Hello, Jim,” he said when he entered.

Duncan assumed the inquisitorial air his chief had in a marked degree.

“Thought you were searching tourists on the Olympic this afternoon,” he
replied.

Gibbs mopped his perspiring head, “I was,” he answered. “I had two
thousand crazy women, all of ’em swearing they hadn’t brought in a
thing. Gosh! Women is liars.”

“What are you doing over here?” Duncan asked.

“I brought along a dame they want your boss Taylor to look over. It
needs a smart guy like him to land her. Where is he?”

“Down with Malone now; he’ll be back soon.”

Gibbs sank into a chair with a sigh of relief. “He don’t have to hurry
on my account. I’ll be tickled to stay here all day. I’m sick of
searching trunks that’s got nothing in ’em but clothes. It ain’t like
the good old days, Jim. In them times if you treated a tourist right
he’d hand you his business card, and when you showed up in his office
next day, he’d come across without a squeal. I used to know the
down-town business section pretty well in them days.”

“So did I. Why, when I was inspector, if you had any luck picking out
your passenger you’d find twenty dollars lying right on the top tray of
the first trunk he opened up for you.”

Gibbs sighed again. It seemed the golden age was passing.

“And believe me,” he said, “when that happened to me I never opened any
more of his trunks, I just labeled the whole bunch. But now--why, since
this new administration got in I’m so honest it’s pitiful.”

Duncan nodded acquiescence.

“It’s a hell of a thing when a government official has to live on his
salary,” he said regretfully. “They didn’t ought to expect it of us.”

“What do they care?” Gibbs asserted bitterly, and then added with that
inquiring air which had frequently been mistaken for intelligence:
“Ain’t it funny that it’s always women who smuggle? They’ll look you
right in the eye and lie like the very devil, and if you do land ’em
they ain’t ashamed, only sore!”

Duncan assumed his most superior air.

“I guess men are honester than women, Jim, and that’s the whole secret.”

“They certainly are about smuggling,” the other returned. “Why, we
grabbed one of these here rich society women this morning and pulled out
about forty yards of old lace--and say, where do you think she had it
stowed?”

“Sewed it round her petticoat,” Duncan said with a grin. He had had
experience.

Gibbs shook his head, “No. It was in a hot-water bottle. That was a new
one on me. Well, when we pinched her she just turned on me as cool as
you please: ‘You’ve got me now, but damn you, I’ve fooled you lots of
times before!’”

Gibbs leaned back in enjoyment of his own imitation of the society
lady’s voice and watched Duncan looking over some declaration papers.
Duncan looked up with a smile. “Say, here’s another new one. Declaration
from a college professor who paid duty on spending seventy-five francs
to have his shoes half-soled in Paris.”

But Gibbs was not to be outdone.

“That’s nothing,” said he, “a gink this morning declared a gold tooth.
I didn’t know how to classify it so I just told him nobody’d know if
he’d keep his mouth shut. It was a back tooth. He did slip me a cigar,
but women who are smugglin’ seem to think it ain’t honest to give an
inspector any kind of tip.” Gibbs dived into an inner pocket and brought
out a bunch of aigrettes. “The most I can do now is these aigrettes. I
nipped ’em off of a lady coming down the gangplank of the Olympic. They
ain’t bad, Jim.”

Duncan rose from his chair and came over to Gibbs’ side and took the
plume from his hand.

“Can’t you guys ever get out of the habit of grafting?” he demanded.
“Queer,” he continued, looking at the delicate feathers closely, “how
some soft, timid little bit of a woman is willing to wear things like
that. Do you know where they come from?”

“From some factory, I s’pose,” Gibbs answered with an air of candor.

“No they don’t,” Duncan told him. “They take ’em from the mother bird
just when she’s had her young ones; they leave her half dead with the
little ones starving. Pretty tough, I call it, on dumb animals,” he
concluded, with so sentimental a tone as to leave poor Gibbs amazed. He
was still more amazed when his fellow inspector put them in his own
pocket and went back to his desk.

“Say, Jim,” Gibbs expostulated, “what are you doing with them?”

“Why, my wife was asking this morning if I couldn’t get her a bunch.
These’ll come in just right.”

“You’re a funny guy to talk about grafting,” Gibbs grumbled, “I ain’t
showing you nothin’ more.”

“Never you mind me,” Duncan commanded. “You keep your own eyes peeled.
Old man Taylor’s been raising the deuce around here about reports that
some of you fellows still take tips.”

Gibbs had heard such rumors too often for them to affect him now. “Oh,
it’s just the usual August holler,” he declared.

Duncan contradicted him, “No, it isn’t,” he observed. “It’s because the
Collector and the Secretary of the Treasury have started an
investigation about who’s getting the rake-off for allowing stuff to
slip through. I heard the Secretary was coming over here to-day. You
keep your eyes peeled, Harry.”

“If times don’t change,” Gibbs said with an air of gloom, “I’m going
into the police department.”

He turned about to see if the steps he heard at the door were those of
the man he had come to see. He breathed relief when he saw it was only
Peter, the doorkeeper.

“Mr. Duncan,” said the man, “Miss Ethel Cartwright has just ’phoned
that she’s on her way and would be here in fifteen minutes.”

Gibbs looked from one to the other with his accustomed mild interest. He
could see that the news of which he could make little had excited
Duncan. It was evidently something important. Directly the doorkeeper
had gone Duncan called his chief on the telephone and Gibbs sauntered
nearer the ’phone. To hear both sides of the conversation would make it
much easier.

“Got a cigar, Jim?” he inquired casually of the other, who was holding
the wire.

“Yes,” said Duncan, taking one from his pocket.

Gibbs reached a fat hand over for it, “Thanks,” he returned simply.

Duncan bit the end off and put it in his own mouth. “And I’m going to
smoke it myself,” he observed.

Gibbs shook his head reprovingly at this want of generosity and took a
cigar from his own pocket. “All right then; I’ll have to smoke one of my
own.”

Just then Duncan began to speak over the wire. “Hello. Hello, Chief.
Miss Ethel Cartwright just ’phoned she’d be here in fifteen minutes....
Yes, sir.... I’ll have her wait.”

When he had rung off, Gibbs could see his interest was increasing.
“What do you think of her falling for a bum stall like that?”

“Who?” Gibbs demanded. “Which? What stall?”

“Why, Miss Cartwright!” said Duncan. “Ain’t I talking about her?”

“Well, who is she?” the aggrieved Gibbs cried. “Is she a smuggler?”

“No. She’s a swell society girl,” said Duncan in a superior manner.

“If she ain’t a smuggler, what’s she here for then?” Gibbs had a gentle
pertinacity in sticking to his point.

“The Chief wants to use her in the Denby case, so he had me write her a
letter saying we’d received a package from Paris containing dutiable
goods, a diamond ring, and would she kindly call this afternoon and
straighten out the matter.” Duncan now assumed an air of triumph. “And
she fell for a fake like that!”

“I get you,” said Gibbs. “But what does he want her for?”

“I told you, the Denby case.”

“What’s that?” Gibbs entreated.

Duncan lowered his voice. “The biggest smuggling job Taylor ever
handled.”

“You don’t say so,” Gibbs returned, duly impressed. “Why, nobody’s told
me anything about it.”

“Can you keep your mouth shut?” Duncan inquired mysteriously.

“Sure,” Gibbs declared. “I ain’t married.”

“Then just take a peek out of the door, will you?” Duncan directed.

The other did as he was bid. “It’s all right,” he declared, finding the
corridor empty.

“I never know when he may stop out there and listen to what I’m saying.
You can hear pretty plain.”

“He is the original pussy-foot, ain’t he,” Gibbs returned. He had known
of Taylor’s reputation for finding out what was going on in his office
by any method. “Now, what’s it all about?”

Duncan grew very confidential.

“Last week the Chief got a cable from Harlow, a salesman in Cartier’s.”

“What’s Cartier’s?” Gibbs inquired.

“The biggest jewelry shop in Paris. Harlow’s our secret agent there. His
cable said that an American named Steven Denby had bought a pearl
necklace there for a million francs. That’s two hundred thousand
dollars.”

“Gee!” Gibbs cried, duly impressed by such a sum, “But who’s Steven
Denby? Some new millionaire? I never heard of him.”

“Neither did I,” Duncan told him; “and we can’t find out anything about
him and that’s what makes us so suspicious. You ought to be able to get
some dope on a man who can fling two hundred thousand dollars away on a
string of pearls.”

Gibbs’ professional interest was aroused. “Did he slip it by the
Customs, then?”

“He hasn’t landed yet,” Duncan answered. “He’s on the Mauretania.”

“Why, she’s about due,” Gibbs cried.

“I know,” Duncan retorted, “I’ve just had Ford on the ’phone about it.
This fellow Denby is traveling with Montague Vaughan--son of the big
banker--and Mrs. Michael Harrington.”

“You mean _the_ Mrs. Michael Harrington?” Gibbs demanded eagerly.

“Sure,” Duncan exclaimed, “there’s only one.”

Gibbs was plainly disappointed at this ending to the story.

“If he’s a friend of Mrs. Harrington and young Vaughan, he ain’t no
smuggler. He’ll declare the necklace.”

“The Chief has a hunch he won’t,” Duncan said. “He thinks this Denby is
some slick confidence guy who has wormed his way into the Harringtons’
confidence so he won’t be suspected.”

Gibbs considered the situation for a moment.

“Maybe he ain’t traveling with the party at all but just picked ’em up
on the boat.”

Duncan shook his head. “No, he’s a friend all right. She’s taking him
down to the Harrington place at Westbury direct from the dock. One of
the stewards on the Mauretania is our agent and he sent us a copy of her
wireless to old man Harrington.”

“He sounds to me like a sort of smart-set Raffles,” Gibbs asserted.

“You’ve got it right,” Duncan said approvingly.

“What’s Taylor going to do?” Gibbs asked next.

“He’s kind of up against it,” Duncan returned. “I don’t know what he’ll
do yet. If Denby’s on the level and we pinch him and search him and
don’t find anything, think of the roar that Michael Harrington--and he’s
worth about ninety billion--will put up at Washington because we frisked
one of his pals. Why, he’d go down there and kick to his swell friends
and we’d all be fired.”

“I ain’t in on it,” Gibbs said firmly; “they’ve no cause to fire me. But
how does this Miss Cartwright come in on the job?”

“I don’t know except that she is going down to the Harringtons’ this
afternoon and Taylor’s got some scheme on hand. I tell you he’s a pretty
smart boy.”

“You bet he is,” Gibbs returned promptly, “and may be he’s smarter than
you know. Ever hear of R. J.?”

“R. J.?” Duncan repeated. “You mean that secret service agent?”

“Yes,” Gibbs told him with an air of one knowing secret things. “They
say he’s a pal of the President’s.”

“Well, what’s that to do with this?” Duncan wanted to know.

“Don’t you know who he is?”

“No,” Duncan retorted, “and neither does anyone else. Nobody but the
President and the Secretary of the Treasury knows who he really is.”

Gibbs rose from his chair and patted his chest proudly. “Well, I know,
too,” he declared.

Duncan laughed contemptuously. “Yes, you do, just the same as I do--that
he’s the biggest man in the secret service, and that’s all you know.”

Gibbs smiled complacently. “Ain’t it funny,” he observed, “that you
right here in the office don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” Duncan retorted sharply; he disliked Gibbs in a
patronizing rôle.

“That your boss Taylor is R. J.”

“Taylor!” Duncan cried. “You’re crazy! The heat’s got you, Harry.”

“Oh, indeed!” Gibbs said sarcastically. “Do you remember the Stuyvesant
case?”

Duncan nodded.

“And do you remember that when Taylor took his vacation last year R. J.
did some great work in the Crosby case? Put two and two together, Jim,
and may be you’ll see daylight.”

“By George!” Duncan exclaimed, now impressed by Gibbs’ news. “I believe
you’re right. Taylor never will speak about this R. J., now I come to
think of it.” He raised his head as the sound of voices was heard in the
passage.

“There he is,” Duncan whispered busying himself with a sheaf of
declarations.

Gibbs looked toward the opening door nervously. It was one thing to
criticize the deputy-surveyor in his absence and another to meet his
look and endure his satire. His collar seemed suddenly too small, and he
chewed his cigar violently.




CHAPTER FIVE


Daniel Taylor entered quickly without acknowledging the presence of his
inferiors and crossed to his desk by the window. He was a man above
medium height, broad of shoulder, thick through the chest and giving the
idea of one who was alert and aggressive mentally and physically. Those
in the service who had set themselves against him had been broken. His
path had been strewn with other men’s regrets; but Taylor climbed
steadily, never caring for what was below, but grasping eagerly for
power.

Naturally a man of his type must have had other qualities than mere
aggressiveness to aid him in such vigorous competition. He had commended
himself to the powers above him for snap judgment and quick action. And
although men of his temperament must inevitably make mistakes, it was
notorious that Taylor made fewer than his rivals.

Toward men like Duncan and Gibbs who were not destined to rise, men who
could be replaced without trouble, Taylor paid small heed. They did what
he told them and if they failed he never forgot. It was to the men
above him that Taylor showed what small social gifts nature had given
him. He had sworn to rise in the service and he cultivated only those
who might aid him.

After glancing over the papers arranged on his desk he called to Duncan:
“Has Miss Cartwright been here yet?”

“No, sir,” Duncan responded promptly.

His superior pushed the buzzer on his desk and then looked across at the
uncomfortable Gibbs. “Want to see me?” he snapped.

“Yes, sir,” Gibbs made answer as Peter the doorkeeper entered in answer
to Taylor’s summons.

“Then wait outside,” Taylor said, “I’ll see you in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” Gibbs said obediently and made his exit.

The deputy-surveyor turned toward the attendant. “Peter, let me know the
instant Miss Cartwright arrives. Don’t forget; it’s important. That’s
all.”

He dismissed Peter with a nod and then called to Duncan.

“Did Bronson of the New York Burglar Insurance Company send over some
papers to me relating to the theft of Miss Cartwright’s jewels?”

Duncan took a long envelope and laid it on his chief’s desk. “Here they
are, sir.”

Taylor looked at the documents eagerly. “By George!” he cried, when he
had looked into them, “I knew I was right. I knew there was something
queer about the way her diamonds were stolen.”

Duncan looked at him frowning. He prided himself upon his grasp of
detail and here was the Chief talking about a case he knew naught of.
“What diamonds?” he asked. “The case wasn’t in our office, was it?”

“No,” said Taylor, “this is a little outside job my friend Bronson’s
mixed up in, but it may be a help to us.” He went on reading the papers
and presently exclaimed: “It’s a frame-up. She wasn’t robbed, although
she collected from the company on a false claim.”

“But I can’t see--” the puzzled Duncan returned.

“No,” said his chief, cutting him short. “If you could, you’d have my
job. Has the Mauretania got to Quarantine yet?”

“Not yet, sir,” Duncan answered.

“Telephone Brown to notify you the minute she does. Tell him we’ve got
to know as soon as possible whether Denby declares that necklace;
everything depends on that.”

“But he may declare it,” Duncan observed sagely.

“If he does we haven’t a case,” his superior said briefly, “but I’ve a
feeling there’s not going to be a declaration.”

“I think so, too,” Duncan asserted, “and I’m holding Ford and Hammett to
search him.”

Taylor frowned and drummed on the desk with his fingers. “I don’t know
that I want him searched. Let them do nothing without my instructions.”

“But, Chief,” Duncan protested, “if he doesn’t declare the necklace and
you don’t have him searched he’ll smuggle it in.”

“I know, I know,” Taylor said impatiently, “but I’ve got to be cautious
how I go about taking liberties with a friend of Michael Harrington’s.
He has more influence than you’ve any idea of. We’ve got to be sure we
have the goods on Denby.”

Duncan looked at the other with grudging admiration. “Well, I guess it
won’t take R. J. very long to land him.”

Taylor turned on the speaker with a scowl. “What’s he got to do with
this?”

“I thought you might have interested him in it,” Duncan said meaningly.

“I don’t know anything about him,” Taylor returned.

It was like the Chief to refuse to take his underlings into his
confidence, Duncan thought, so he took his cue and changed the subject.

“Well,” he said, reverting to the proposed search of Denby, “if we don’t
go through him at the dock, what are we going to do?”

“Let him slide through easily and think he’s fooled us,” Taylor said.
“He may be pretty clever. Do you remember that man who stuck the
sapphire we were hunting for into a big rosy apple he gave to a woman in
the second cabin and then took it away from her before she had time to
eat it? We’ll see if he talks to anyone, but I think he’ll take the
pearls right down to Westbury. He’ll be off his guard when once he gets
down there.”

“Have you got one of the Harrington servants to spy for us?” Duncan
cried.

“I’ve got what will be better than that with a little luck,” Taylor said
with a smile. “Don’t you know that Miss Ethel Cartwright is going down
to Westbury this afternoon to spend the week-end with the Harringtons?”

“You don’t mean you’re going to use her?” Duncan exclaimed, incredulity
in his tone.

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea, would it, Jim?”

“It would be a peach of an idea if you could do it, but can you?”

Taylor chuckled. It was plain he had some scheme in his crafty brain
that pleased him more than a little.

“I’m going to answer that as soon as I’ve had a little confidential chat
with Miss Cartwright.”

He broke off to turn to the doorway through which Gibbs’ head protruded.

“Can I see you now, Chief?” Gibbs asked.

“What is it?” Taylor snapped.

“There’s a deaf and dumb chicken out here,” Gibbs replied anxiously.

“A what?” the other demanded.

“A girl that can’t hear or speak or write. They say she’s smuggled a
bracelet in but they’ve searched her eight times and can’t get a trace
of it, so they sent her to you.”

“They don’t expect me to make the ninth attempt, do they?” the Chief
queries.

“Why, no,” Gibbs told him, “but they thought you might hand her the
third degree.”

“Bring her in,” the autocrat commanded. When Gibbs had closed the door
Taylor turned to Duncan. “She’s probably bluffing. Put that chair here.
We’ll try the gun gag on her. There’s a revolver in my second drawer.
When I say ‘Go,’ you shoot. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Duncan said, anticipating a theatrical scene in which his
chief would shine as usual. Duncan always enjoyed such episodes; he felt
he shone with reflected power.

Gibbs dragged in a young girl and stood her in front of the chair to
which the Chief had beckoned. “Sit down,” Gibbs commanded. The afflicted
woman who was named, so Gibbs said, Sarah Peabody, remained standing.
“Hey, _squattez-vous,_” her captor commanded again in a louder voice.
Still Sarah was unmoved. Gibbs scratched his head and summoned his
linguistic attainments to his aid.

“_Setzen sie_,” he shouted, but Miss Peabody remained erect.

Gibbs turned away with a gesture of despairing dignity. “I’m done,” he
asserted; “that’s all the languages I know. I used to think it was a
terrible thing that women could talk, but I guess the Almighty knowed
more than I did.”

Duncan essayed more active measures. He pushed her into the seat. “Hey
you,” cried he, “sit down there.”

Gibbs watched a little apprehensively. If Sarah Peabody had been normal,
he would have pictured her as a slangy and fluent young woman with a
full-sized temper. He had dealt with such before and they invariably
defeated him in wordy combat. In duels of this sort Gibbs was slow to
get off the mark.

Taylor came toward the afflicted one and looked shrewdly into her face.
“She’s not shamming,” said he. “She’s got that stupid look they all have
when they’re deaf and dumb.” He watched her closely as he said this.

“She ain’t spoke all day,” Gibbs volunteered, “and no woman what could,
would keep from talking that long.”

“Women will do a lot for diamonds,” his chief observed.

“None of ’em ever do me for none,” Gibbs remarked placidly.

Suddenly Taylor addressed the girl roughly. “If you’re acting,” he
cried, “you’d better give it up, because I’m certain to find out, and if
I do, I’ll send you to jail.” Still the girl paid no attention but only
stared ahead blankly. “So you won’t answer, eh?” said her inquisitor.
“Going to force my hand, are you?” He raised his hand to signal Duncan
and then added: “Go.”

The loud report of the revolver, while it made Gibbs jump, had no effect
upon the young woman. Taylor shook his head wisely. “I guess she’s deaf
and dumb all right, poor girl. What’s it all about, Gibbs? What is it
you think she’s done?”

“She’s got a bracelet chuck-full of diamonds, and we can’t find it.”

“How do you know she’s got it?” the Chief asked.

“She showed it to a woman who was in the same cabin,” Gibbs returned,
“and the woman came and tipped us off.”

“Why, the dirty hussy!” cried the girl, who had previously been bereft
of hearing and speech, rising to her feet, her eyes flashing, and her
whole face denoting rage.

Gibbs looked at her, his eyes bulging with startled surprise, and then
turned his ox-like gaze upon Taylor.

“For the love of Mike!” said Gibbs at length, but Sarah Peabody cut
short any other exclamations.

“Do you know why she told about me?” the girl demanded. “She wanted to
alibi herself and make you folks thinks she was an honest God-fearing
lady that would never smuggle--and she had four times as much as I did.
Why, it was her who put me up to smuggling and taught me to be deaf and
dumb.” Sarah ground her white teeth in anger. “I’d like to meet her
again some time.”

“You shall,” Taylor cried. “When we arrest her we’ll need your evidence
to testify against her.”

“You can bet I won’t be deaf and dumb then,” Miss Peabody cried
viciously.

“Where’s the bracelet?” Taylor snapped. “Don’t waste time now.”

But the smuggler was no fool and not intimidated by his tones. “Wait a
minute,” she said craftily. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Produce it, pay the duty, and we’ll let you go free for the tip.”

“You’re on,” said Sarah joyously. “Just take a look at the ring handle
of my parasol. I’ve painted over the stones, that’s all.”

Gibbs grabbed it from her and examined it closely. “Well, can you
approach that?” he said helplessly. “And I’ve been carrying it around
all day!”

Taylor turned from his examination of the parasol as Peter the
doorkeeper entered. “Miss Cartwright here?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, sir,” answered the man. “She’s just arrived.”

“Bring her in as soon as these get out,” Taylor said dismissing him.

“Take her away now, Gibbs,” he said, indicating the owner of the magic
parasol. “Turn her over to Shorey, he can handle her from now on.”

“All right, sir,” Gibbs said, still undecided as to why he had been
fooled.

Sarah looked at him with scorn. “I’ll be glad to have someone else on
the job. I’m sick o’ trottin’ around with a fat guy like him.”

“Say, now,” Gibbs protested in an injured manner.

But Taylor had a bigger scheme on hand and waved her away impatiently.
“Take her along, Gibbs.”

She gave Taylor an impudent little nod of farewell. “Ta-ta old Sport. I
certainly fooled you, when you had that gun shot off.”

Gibbs had grabbed her by the arm and was now pushing her toward the
door. “And I could have kept it up,” Miss Peabody asserted in a shrill
tone, “if it hadn’t made me sore, her putting over one on me like that.
And she was so blamed nice to me. But when one woman’s nice to another
she means mischief, you can bet your B. V. D.’s.”

Even Taylor smiled as she went. He had nearly met defeat but his
habitual luck had made him victor in the end. He hoped it would aid him
in a far more difficult interview which was to come.

Duncan took advantage of his good humor to ask a question.

“Do you really think you can get Miss Cartwright to help us on the Denby
case?”

He had so often seen her name in the society columns that he doubted if
his chief, clever as he was, could successfully influence her.

Taylor looked at him curiously. There was in his eyes a look that spoke
of more than a faint hope of success. Few knew better than Duncan of his
ability to make men and women his tools.

“Jim,” he said with an air of confidence, “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised
if she offered to help us.”

The door opened and Peter entered.

“Miss Ethel Cartwright,” he announced.

Taylor rose to his feet as she entered and bowed with what grace he
could as he motioned her to a chair.

Miss Cartwright was a tall, strikingly pretty woman of twenty-seven, who
looked at the deputy-surveyor with the perfect self-possession which
comes so easily to those whose families have long been of the cultured
and leisured classes. It was plain that this rather languid young lady
regarded him merely as some official whom she was bound to see regarding
a matter of business.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting, Miss Cartwright,” Taylor said briskly.

“It doesn’t matter in the least,” she returned graciously. “I’ve never
been at the Customs before. I found it quite interesting.”

“My name is Taylor,” he said, “and I’m a deputy-surveyor.”

“You wanted to see me about a ring, I think, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he answered. “The intention evidently was to smuggle it through
the Customs.”

“Do you really think so?” she demanded, interested. “I haven’t the
faintest idea who could have sent it to me.”

“Of course you haven’t,” he said in his blandest, most reassuring
manner. It was a manner that made the listening Duncan wonder what was
to follow. His chief was always most deadly when he purred. “It’s a
mistake,” he continued, “but the record will probably shed some light on
the matter. Duncan,” he called sharply, “go and get those papers
relating to Miss Cartwright.”

His assistant looked at him blankly.

“Papers?” he repeated. “What papers, sir?”

“The papers relating to the package sent Miss Cartwright from Paris.”
There was a significance in his tone that was not lost on Duncan. Gibbs
would have argued it out, but Duncan though in the dark followed his
cue.

“Oh, _those_ papers,” he answered. “I’ll get ’em, sir.”

When he had gone the girl turned to Taylor.

“Do you know,” she asserted, “I feel quite excited at being here and
sitting in a chair in which you probably often examine smugglers. One
reads about it constantly.”

“It’s being done all the time,” he responded, “among all sorts of
people. Now, Miss Cartwright, since we are talking of smuggling, I’d
like to have a little business chat with you if I may.”

The girl looked at him astonished. She could not conceive that a man
like the one looking at her could be serious in talking of a business
proposition.

“With me?” she demanded, and Taylor could see that the idea was not
pleasing. He resolved to abandon his usual hectoring tactics and adopt
softer modes.

“I mean it,” he asserted. “You said you’ve read about all this smuggling
and so on. Believe me, you’ve not read a thousandth part of what’s going
on all the time, despite all our efforts to check it. The difficult part
is that many of the women are so socially prominent that it isn’t easy
to detect them. They move in the sort of world you move in.” He leaned
forward and spoke impressively. “But it’s a world where neither I nor my
men could pass muster for a moment. Do you follow me?”

“I hear what you say,” she said, “but--”

He interrupted her, “Miss Cartwright, we are looking for someone who
belongs in society by right. Someone who is clever enough to provide us
with information and yet never be suspected. We want someone above
suspicion. We want someone, for instance, like you.”

That his proposition was offensive to her he could see from the faint
flush that passed over her face and the rather haughty tone that she
adopted.

“Really, Mr. Taylor,” she cried, “you probably mean well, but--”

Again he cut her short.

“Just listen a moment, Miss Cartwright,” he begged. “I have reason to
know that your family has been in financial difficulties since your
father died.” He looked at her shrewdly. “The position I hinted at could
be made very profitable. How would you like to enter the secret service
of the United States Customs?” He could see she was far from being
placated at his hint of financial reward.

“This is quite too preposterous,” she said icily. “It may possibly be
your idea of a joke, Mr. Taylor, but it is not mine.”

“I’m not joking,” he cried, “I’m in dead earnest.”

“If that’s the case,” she returned, rising, “I must ask you to get the
papers regarding the ring.”

“They’ll be here at any moment,” he answered. “I’m sorry you don’t care
to entertain my proposition, but it’s your business after all. By the
way,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “there’s another little matter
I’d like to take up with you while we’re waiting. Do you recall a George
Bronson, the claim agent of the New York Burglar Insurance Company, the
company which insured the jewels that were stolen from you?”

“I think I do,” she returned slowly, “but--”

“Well, that company has had a great deal of trouble with society women
who have got money by pawning their jewels and then putting in a claim
that they were stolen and so recovering from the company on the alleged
loss.”

The girl looked at him, frowning. “Are you trying to insinuate that--”

“Certainly not,” Taylor purred amiably. “Why, no. I’m merely explaining
that that’s what Bronson thought at first, but after investigating, he
found out how absurd the idea was.”

“Naturally,” she said coldly.

She had come into the deputy-surveyor’s office with an agreeable
curiosity regarding a present sent her from Paris. But the longer she
stayed, the less certain did she feel concerning this hard-faced man
opposite her, who had the strangest manner and made the most
extraordinary propositions. What business was it of his that her jewels
had been stolen?

“But there were some things he could not understand,” Taylor went on.

“May I ask,” she cried, “what Mr. Bronson’s inability to understand has
to do with you?”

“Simply,” said Taylor with an appearance of great frankness, “that he
happens to be a very good friend of mine and often consults me about
things that puzzle him. The theft of those jewels of yours mystified him
greatly.”

“Mystified him?” the girl retorted. “It was perfectly simple.”

“Perhaps you won’t mind telling me the circumstances of the case.”

“Really,” she returned sub-acidly, “I don’t quite understand how this
concerns the Customs.”

“It doesn’t,” he agreed readily, “I am acting only as Bronson’s friend
and if you’ll answer my questions I may be able to recover the jewels
for you.”

The girl’s face cleared. So far from acting inimically, Mr. Taylor was
actually going to help her. She smiled for the first time, and resumed
her seat.

“That will be splendid,” she exclaimed. “I did not understand. Of course
I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“The first feature that impressed Bronson,” said the deputy-surveyor,
“and me, I’m bound to add, was that the theft seemed to be an inside
job.”

“What does that mean?” Miss Cartwright queried, interested.

“That there was no evidence that a thief had broken into your home.”

“But what other explanation could there be?” she inquired. “Our family
consists of just my mother, my sister and myself, and two old servants
who have lived with us for years, so of course it wasn’t any of us.”

“Naturally not,” Taylor agreed as though this explanation had solved his
doubts. “But how did you come to discover the loss of the diamonds?”

“I didn’t discover it myself,” she told him. “I was at Bar Harbor.”

“Oh,” said Taylor with the confidential air of a family physician. “You
were away. I see! Who did find out?”

“My sister. It was she who missed them.”

“Oh, your sister missed them, did she?” he said.

He pushed the buzzer and wrote something on a slip of paper.

“So of course,” the girl continued, “it must have been some thief from
the outside.”

Taylor looked thoughtful. “I suppose you’re right,” he admitted, and
then asked quickly: “I wonder if you’d mind telephoning your sister to
come down here now?”

“Why, she came with me,” Miss Cartwright returned. “She’s outside.”

“That’s fine,” he said brightly. “It makes it easier.” He pushed the
buzzer again. “Perhaps she’ll be able to help us.”

“She’ll come if I wish,” said the elder sister, “but she knows even less
about it than I do.”

“I understand that,” Taylor said smoothly, “but she may remember a few
seemingly unimportant details that will help me where they wouldn’t seem
significant to you.”

He looked up as Peter came in. “Ask Miss Cartwright’s sister to come in
for a moment. Tell her Miss Ethel wants to talk to her.”

“Amy will tell you all she can,” the girl asserted.

“Just as you would yourself,” Taylor said confidentially. He had no
other air than of a man who is sworn to recover stolen diamonds. Ethel
Cartwright admitted she had misjudged him.

“It must be wonderful to be a detective and piece together little
unimportant facts into an important whole.”

“It is,” he answered a trifle drily; “quite wonderful.”

Amy Cartwright was brought into the deputy-surveyor’s room by Peter.
Plainly she was of a less self-reliant type than her elder sister, for
the rather startled expression her face wore was lost when she saw
Ethel. She was a pretty girl not more than eighteen and like her sister
dressed charmingly.

“You wanted me, Ethel?” she asked.

“Yes, dear,” the elder returned. “Amy, this is Mr. Taylor, who thinks he
may be able to get back my diamonds for me.”

Amy Cartwright shot a quick, almost furtive look at Taylor and then
gripped her sister’s arm. “Your diamonds!” she cried.

Taylor had missed nothing of her anxious manner. “Yes,” he said. “Your
sister has been kind enough to give me some information in reference to
the theft, and I thought you might be able to add to the facts we
already have.”

“I?” the younger girl exclaimed.

“Yes,” her sister commanded. “You must answer all Mr. Taylor’s
questions.”

“Of course,” Amy said with an effort to be cheerful.

Taylor looked at her magisterially. “How did you discover your sister’s
jewels were stolen?”

“Why,” she replied nervously, not meeting his eye, “I went to her
dressing-table one morning and they weren’t there.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed meaningly. “So they weren’t there! Then what did you
do?”

“Why, I telephoned to the company she insured them in.”

“Without consulting your sister?” he asked. His manner, although quick
and alert, was friendly. Ethel Cartwright felt he was desirous of
helping her, and if Amy seemed nervous, it was her first experience with
a man of this type. She had so little experience in relying on herself
that this trifling ordeal was magnified into a judicial
cross-examination. She determined to help Amy out.

“You must remember,” she said to Taylor, “that I was out of town.”

“Of course!” Amy exclaimed with a show of relief. “How could I consult
her when she was in Maine?”

“Were you certain she hadn’t taken her diamonds with her?” he asked.

Amy hesitated for a moment. “I think she must have told me before she
left.”

“Hm!” he ejaculated. “You _think_ she did?”

Amy turned to her sister. “Didn’t you tell me, Ethel?”

Miss Cartwright knit her brows in thought. “Perhaps I did,” she
admitted.

“But you didn’t telegraph your sister to make sure?” Taylor queried.

“Why, no,” the girl said hesitating and seemingly confused. “No, I
didn’t.” She was now staring at her interrogator with real fear in her
eyes.

“Well, that doesn’t make any difference,” he said genially, “so long as
the jewels were stolen and not merely mislaid, does it?”

“No,” she said with a sigh of relief.

“There’s one other point,” he said, turning to the elder sister. “You
received the compensation money from the company, didn’t you?”

“Naturally,” she said tranquilly.

“Please don’t think me impertinent,” he said, “but you still have it
intact, I presume?”

“Only part,” the girl returned. “I gave half of it to my sister.”

“I rather thought you might have done that,” he purred as though his
especial hobby was discovering affection in other families, “That was a
very nice generous thing to do, Miss Cartwright. But you realize of
course that if I get your jewels back the money must be returned to the
Burglar Insurance people in full,”--he looked significantly at the
shrinking younger girl,--“from both of you.”

Amy Cartwright clasped her hands nervously. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,”
she exclaimed.

Ethel turned to her in astonishment.

“But Amy, why not?”

“I haven’t got it all now.”

“But, dear, what did you do with it?” Ethel persisted.

Taylor seemed to take a keen interest in Amy Cartwright’s financial
affairs.

“That’s quite an interesting question,” he observed judiciously. “What
did you do with your half?”

“I--I paid a lot of bills,” the girl stammered.

“Paid a lot of bills!” her sister exclaimed. “But Amy, you distinctly
told me--”

“One minute,” Taylor interrupted. “Now, Miss Amy,” he said sharply,
“what sort of bills did you pay?”

“Oh, dressmakers and hats and things,” she answered with a trace of
sullenness.

“Of course they gave you receipts?” he suggested.

“I don’t remember,” she answered.

“Oh, you don’t remember,” he said, fixing her with his cold eye. “But
you remember whom you paid the money to?”

“Of course she does,” Ethel cried, coming to her sister’s aid. She was
herself puzzled at this strange man’s attitude. “You do, don’t you,
Amy?”

“Why, yes,” the other said weakly.

“Give me the names!” Taylor demanded, and then looked angrily up to see
who had entered his office unbidden. It was James Duncan, apologetic,
but urged by powers higher than those of his chief.

“The Collector and the Secretary want to see you right away, sir,” he
announced.

“I can’t leave now,” Taylor cried angrily. And in that moment both girls
realized of what ruthless metal he was cast. Gone was the amiable
interest in family matters and the kindly wish to aid two girls in
getting back their trinkets, and there was left a strong remorseless man
who showed he had them very nearly in his power.

But Duncan dared not go back with such a message.

“I explained you were busy, Chief,” he said, “but they would have you
come down at once, as the Secretary has to go back to Washington. It’s
about that necklace. The one coming in on the Mauretania this
afternoon.”

“Oh, very well,” his superior snapped. “I shall have to ask you ladies
to excuse me for five minutes.”

“Certainly,” Ethel Cartwright returned.

At the door Taylor beckoned to Duncan and spoke in a whisper. “Get
outside in the corridor and if they try to leave, stop ’em. And I shall
want to know what they’ve been talking about. Understand?”

“Sure, Chief,” Duncan returned.

When both men had gone from the room Amy clung half-hysterically to her
strong, calm sister. “Oh, Ethel, they know, they know!”

“Know what?” Ethel asked, amazed at the change in the other.

“That man suspects,” Amy whispered. “I know he does. Did you see how he
glared at me and the way he spoke?”

“Suspects what?” Ethel asked. “Amy, what do you mean? What is there to
suspect?”

“Don’t let them take me away!” the younger sister wailed. “Oh, don’t,
don’t!”

Ethel drew back a step and looked into the trembling Amy’s tear-stained
face.

“What is this you are saying?” she asked sharply.

“Ethel, your jewels weren’t stolen.” There was a pause as if the girl
were trying to gather courage enough to confess. “I took them. I pawned
them.”

“Amy!” cried the other. “You?”

“I had to have money. I took them. A woman told me I could get it by
pretending to the company the things were stolen. She said they’d never
find it out and would pay. I tried it, and they paid.”

Miss Cartwright looked down at her, amazed, indignant, horrified.

“Do you mean to say you deliberately swindled the company?”

“I couldn’t help it, Ethel,” she declared piteously. “I didn’t think of
it in that way. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t, indeed.”

“Why, why, why? Why in God’s name did you do it? Tell me quickly, why?”

Amy could no longer meet her sister’s glance. She dropped her head.

“I lost a lot of money gambling, playing auction bridge.”

“Playing with whom?” Ethel demanded sharply.

“People you don’t know,” the younger answered evasively. “It was while
you were away. It wouldn’t have happened if you’d been home. We all
dined together at the Claremont and afterwards they simply would play
auction. I said no at first but they made me. I got excited and began to
lose, and then they said if I kept on the luck would turn, but it
didn’t, and I lost a thousand dollars.”

Ethel Cartwright needed no other explanation as a key to Taylor’s
manner. It was certain that he knew and would presently force her poor
frightened little sister into a confession. It was no time for blaming
the child or pointing out morals, but for protecting her.

“Ssh,” she whispered, “Ssh!”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Amy reiterated. “Believe me, I didn’t.”

“Tell me what happened then?” Ethel asked in a low tone.

“I couldn’t pay, of course, and the other women said they’d have to ask
mother or you for the money and if you wouldn’t pay I should have to go
to jail. I didn’t know what to do. I nearly went out of my head, I
think. At last Philip Sloane offered to lend it me.”

The elder recoiled from her. “That man!” she cried horrified. “Oh, Amy,
and how often I have warned you against him!”

“There was nothing else to do,” her sister explained. “You were away and
I had no one to go and ask.”

“Stop a minute,” Ethel said. “If you borrowed the money and paid the
debts, why did you need to take my diamonds?”

Amy hung her head. “When he lent me the money he said I could pay it
back whenever I wanted to, in a hundred years if I liked.”

“Well?” Ethel cried anxiously. “Well?”

“But a day or so later he came to see me, mother was out, and his
manner was so different I was frightened. He--he said a girl who accepts
money from a man is never any good, and nobody will believe them no
matter what they say. I didn’t think men could be like that. He said
he’d forget about it if I went away with him. He said nobody would know
it--he could arrange all that--and he threatened all sorts of things.
Oh, everything you said about him was right.”

“Go on,” her sister commanded, in a hard staccato tone. “What then?”

“At first I thought of killing myself but I was afraid. And then I saw
your jewel-case and I pretended they were stolen. I got half the money
from the pawn-shop and the other half from you when the company settled.
It was wicked of me, Ethel, but what could I do?”

Ethel put her arm about the poor sobbing girl very tenderly.

“My poor little sister,” she whispered, “my little Amy, you did the
better thing after all. But you should have told me before, so that I
could have helped you.”

“I was afraid to,” the girl said, looking into the face above her, “I
meant to have told you next month when that money is coming from
father’s estate. I thought we could pay the company then so that I
shouldn’t feel like a thief. I’m so glad I’ve told you; it has
frightened me so!” But the grave expression on Ethel’s face alarmed her.
“Why do you look like that?” she demanded.

“It will be all right,” Ethel assured her. “But you know those dividends
have been delayed this month and neither mother nor I have any spare
money if the Burglar Insurance people want to be paid back. I daresay we
can arrange something, so don’t be frightened. And remember, this man
Taylor can’t know certainly. He only suspects, and we ought to be able
to beat him if we are very careful. I’m so glad you told me so that I
know what to do.”

“But I’m afraid of him,” Amy cried. “I shall break down and they’ll put
me in prison. Ethel, I should die if they did that.”

“I’ll save you, dear,” Ethel said comfortingly. “You know you have
always been able to believe in me, and I will save you if only you try
to control yourself.”

“Then let me go home,” Amy cried, panic-stricken by the thought of
another interview with the resourceful Taylor. “I shall break down if I
stay here.”

“That will be best,” Ethel agreed, and went quickly to the door, behind
which she found Duncan on guard.

“Sorry, miss,” he said respectfully, “but you can’t go.”

“I’m not leaving,” Ethel Cartwright explained, “I still have to talk
with Mr. Taylor, but my sister must go. She isn’t feeling very well. She
wants to go home.”

Duncan shook his head. “Neither of you can go,” he returned, as he
closed the door. Amy looked about her nervously for other means of
escape.

“You see,” she whispered, “they’re going to keep me here a prisoner!
What shall I do?”

“Leave everything to me,” Ethel commanded. “Let me do the talking. I
shall be able to think of some way out.”

“There isn’t, there isn’t!” Amy moaned.

“Stop crying,” the elder insisted. “That won’t help us. I’ve thought of
a plan. I’ll invent a story to fool him. He won’t be able to find out
whether it’s true or not, so he’ll have to let us go, and when he does,
he won’t get us back here again in a hurry.”

“Oh, Ethel, you’re wonderful!” Amy exclaimed, her face clearing. In all
her small troubles she had always gone to this beautiful, serene elder
sister, who had never yet failed her and never would, she was confident.

When Taylor entered a minute later he found the two girls looking out
of the big window across the harbor. They seemed untroubled and unafraid
and were discussing the dimensions of a big liner making her way out.

“Sorry to have had to leave you,” he said briskly, “especially as things
were getting a bit interesting.”

Ethel Cartwright looked at him coldly. It was a glance which Taylor
rightly interpreted as a warning to remember that he occupied a wholly
different sphere from that of the daughters of the late Vernon
Cartwright. But it daunted him little. The Secretary of the Treasury had
just told him that his work was evoking great interest in Washington.
And the Collector somewhat cryptically had said that Daniel Taylor might
always be relied upon to do the unexpected. For Washington and
Collectors, Taylor had little respect. Unconsciously he often
paraphrased that royal boast, “_L’État c’est moi!_” by admitting to his
confidants that he, Daniel Taylor, was the United States Customs.

“I quite fail to see,” Miss Cartwright observed chillingly, “what all
this rather impertinent cross-questioning of my sister has to do with--”

“You will in a minute,” he interrupted.

“Meanwhile,” she said, “I can’t wait any longer for those papers about
the ring.”

“There isn’t any ring,” he said suavely. “That was just a pretext to get
you here. I was afraid the truth wouldn’t be sufficiently luring so I
had to employ a ruse.”

She looked at him, her eyes flashing at his daring to venture on such a
deception. “You actually asked me to come here because you thought I had
swindled the company?”

“Well,” he observed genially, “we all make our little mistakes.”

“So you admit it was a mistake?” she said, hardly knowing what to make
of this changed manner.

“I’m quite sure of it,” he asserted. “_You_ are innocent, Miss
Cartwright. How am I so sure of it? Because I happen to have the thief
already.”

“You have the thief?” Amy cried, startled out of her determination to
say nothing.

“Yes,” he told her nonchalantly, “I’ve arrested the man who robbed your
sister. Poor devil, he has a wife and children. He swears they’ll
starve, and very likely they will, but he’s guilty and to jail he goes.”

“Are you sure he’s guilty?” Amy stammered.

He leaned over his desk and looked at her surprised. “Why, yes,” he said
slowly. “Have you any reason to think different?”

“No, no!” she cried, shrinking back.

“But I have,” Ethel said calmly. “I have every reason to believe he is
innocent.”

“_You_ have?” Taylor cried, himself perplexed at the turn things were
taking.

Amy looked at her sister, wondering what was coming next.

“I know who stole them,” Ethel went on. “It was my maid.”

“Your maid!” the deputy-surveyor cried. “Why didn’t you tell the company
that? Bronson never told me about it.”

“She didn’t disappear till after the claim was paid, you see,” Miss
Cartwright explained. “Then I got a note from her confessing, a note
written in Canada.”

“Whereabouts in Canada?” he demanded.

“I don’t recall it,” he was told.

“You don’t? Well, what was your maid’s name then? I’d like to know that,
if you can remember it for me.”

“Marie Garnier was her name.”

He took up a scribbling pad and inscribed the name on it. “Marie
Garnier,” he muttered, and pushed the buzzer. “Why didn’t you tell me
this before?”

“What was the good?” Miss Cartwright returned. “I was fond of Marie--she
was almost one of the family--and I didn’t want to brand her as a
thief. When I learned she had escaped to Canada where the law couldn’t
reach her--”

She was interrupted by Duncan’s entrance. “Yes, sir?” said he to his
chief.

Taylor handed him the leaf he had torn from the pad. “Attend to this at
once,” he ordered.

“Now, Miss Cartwright,” he remarked, “I’d like to ask why it was you
made this admission about Marie Garnier.”

“Because I do not want to see an innocent man go to prison,” she
returned promptly.

“Oh, I see. And did your sister know it, too?”

“No,” she answered quickly.

“Why hadn’t you told her?” he demanded.

“Really,” said the elder Miss Cartwright with an expression of
innocence, “I didn’t think it made any difference.”

Taylor was obviously annoyed at such a view. “Your behavior is most
extraordinary,” he commented.

“You see, I know so little about law, and insurance and things like
that,” she said apologetically. She did not desire to offend him.

“You ought at least to have known that you owed it to the company to
give them all the information in your possession,” he grumbled.

“I never thought of it in that way,” she said meditating.

“There seems a whole lot you young ladies haven’t thought of,” he said
sourly.

Miss Cartwright rose from her seat without haste. “Come, Amy,” she
commanded. “We can’t wait any longer and we are not needed.”

As they turned toward the door the telephone bell rang and Taylor stayed
them with a gesture. “Just one moment, please, Miss Cartwright.”

The girls watching him saw that the news was pleasant for he chuckled as
he hung up the receiver. Then he rose from his seat and came to where he
stood between them and the door.

“Miss Cartwright,” he cried, “when you didn’t know what town in Canada
your maid was, I felt you were lying. Now I know you were. I just had my
assistant telephone to your mother.” He pointed an accusing finger at
them. “You never had a maid named Garnier, and the last one you
had--over a year ago--was called Susan. You put the blame on a woman who
doesn’t exist, and you did it to shield the real thief.” He touched the
crouching Amy on the shoulder. “This is the real thief!”

“She isn’t, she isn’t!” Ethel cried.

But Taylor paid no attention to her. He concentrated his gaze on the
younger girl. “You swindled the company,” he affirmed.

“No, no,” she wailed, “I didn’t.”

Ethel came to her rescue. “How dare you,” she cried to Taylor, “make
such an accusation when you have no proof, nor anyone else either?”

“That’s all very well,” Taylor exclaimed, “but when we get the proof--”

“You can’t, because there isn’t any,” she asserted.

“Of course I see your game,” the man said; “you’re just trying to
protect your sister. That’s natural enough, but it will go easier with
both of you if you’ll tell the truth.”

The two girls answered him never a word. Amy was too frightened and
Ethel, her tactics unavailing, found her best defense in silence.

“So you won’t answer?” Taylor said after a pause. “Well, of course the
stuff is pawned some place. That’s what they all do. So far, Bronson has
only searched the pawn-shops in New York. He didn’t give you credit for
pawning them outside the city, but I do. Now we’ll see where your sister
did go.” He went to the telephone again. “Hello, Bill,” he said when he
had secured the number, “Go over to Bronson at the New York and get a
description of the jewels reported stolen from a Miss Ethel Cartwright.
Have all the pawn-shops searched in Trenton,”--he fastened his harsh
look on Amy Cartwright as he called out the names,--“Boston, Washington,
Providence, Baltimore, Albany, Philadelphia--”

[Illustration: HE TURNED TO AMY. “YOUNG WOMAN, YOU’RE UNDER ARREST.”
_Page 105_.]

As he called out the last city the girl gave a gasp of terror, and
triumph instantly lighted up her inquisitor’s grim face.

“So you pawned them in Philadelphia?” he cried.

“No, no!” she moaned.

“I did it,” Ethel Cartwright exclaimed.

“No, you didn’t,” Taylor said sharply. “You’re only trying to save her.
You can’t deceive me.” He turned to Amy, “Young woman, you’re under
arrest.”

“No, no,” the elder sister besought. “Take me. She’s only a child; don’t
spoil her life. I’ll do whatever you like; it doesn’t matter about me.
For God’s sake don’t do anything to my little sister.”

“She’s guilty,” he reminded her, “and the law says--”

“If somebody pays, what difference does it make to you or the law? Isn’t
there anything I can do?” she pleaded.

Taylor paced up and down the room for a half minute before answering,
while the two watched him in agony. To them he was one who could deliver
them over to prison if it were his whim, or spare if he inclined to
mercy.

“Surely there is some way out?” Ethel asked again.

“Yes,” he said, “there is. You can accept my proposition to enter the
secret service of the United States Customs.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she cried, “anything!”

Taylor rubbed his hands together with satisfaction and pride in his
inimitable craft. “Now you’re talking!” he exclaimed. “Then we won’t
send the little sister to prison.”

Amy sobbed relief in her sister’s arms.

“Then you won’t tell Bronson?” Ethel asked.

“No,” he said, “I won’t tell Bronson.”

Ethel sighed, and felt almost that she would faint.

“Now I’m sorry for you two,” Taylor said more genially, “and as long as
you do what I tell you to, we’ll leave the little matter of the jewels
as between your sister and her conscience. I’ll let you know when I need
you. It may be to-night, it may be not for a month or a year, but when I
do want you--”

“I shall be ready,” the girl declared.

“Say, Chief,” Duncan said looking in at the door,--

“Get out, I’m busy,” Taylor shouted.

“I thought you’d like to know the Mauretania was coming up the bay,”
his satellite returned, slightly aggrieved at this reception.

“She is?” said the other. “Wait a minute then. Now, Miss Cartwright,
good afternoon. Remember what is at stake, your future, and your
sister’s happiness. And don’t forget that my silence depends on your not
failing me.”

Only a man of Taylor’s coarse and cruel mould could have looked at her
without remorse or compunction. He did not see a beautiful refined woman
cheerfully bearing another’s cross. He saw only a society girl, who had
matched her immature wits against his and lost, was beaten and in the
dust. There was a pathetic break in her voice as she answered him.

“I shall not fail you,” she said.

Duncan closed the door after them.

“Well?” Taylor demanded eagerly when they were alone. “Did Denby declare
the necklace?”

“No, sir,” Duncan returned promptly.

“Then I was right,” the other commented. “He’s trying to smuggle it in.
Jim, this is the biggest job we’ve ever handled.”

“Ford and Hammett are at the dock all ready to search him when I give
the word.”

Duncan was sharing in his chief’s triumph, but Taylor’s next command was
disappointing.

“Don’t give the word,” he enjoined. “There’s to be no search.”

“No search?” exclaimed the chagrined Duncan.

“No,” Taylor told him. “Just let him slide through with the ordinary
examination. Trail Denby and his party to Westbury and be sure none of
them slip the necklace to anyone on the way out there, but no fuss and
no arrests, remember. Meanwhile, get up a fake warrant for the arrest of
Miss Amy Cartwright. It may come in handy.”

“Yes, sir,” said Duncan obediently.

“And when you’ve told Ford and Hammett what they are to do, change your
clothes and make Gibbs do the same, and meet me at the Pennsylvania
Station at six o’clock.”

“Where are we going?” Duncan asked. He could see from his chief’s manner
that something important was in the wind.

“To Long Island,” he was told. “We are going to call on Miss Ethel
Cartwright.”

“Then you can use her to land Denby?” his subordinate cried excitedly.

“Use her?” the deputy-surveyor said with a grim smile. “Say, Jim, she
doesn’t know it, but she’s going to get that necklace for me to-night.”

He hurried out of the room, leaving Duncan shaking his head in
wonderment. His chief might have qualities that were not endearing, and
his manner might at times be rough, but where was there a man who rode
through obstacles with the same fine disregard as Daniel Taylor?




CHAPTER SEVEN


Mrs. Harrington admitted freely that she had been very far-seeing in
asking Denby to travel on the Mauretania with her and Monty. She was one
of those modern women who count days damaging to their looks if there
comes an hour of boredom in them, and her new acquaintance was always
amusing.

One day when they were all three sitting on deck she asked him: “What
are you going to do when you get home?”

“Nothing particular,” he replied, “except that I want to run down to
Washington some time during the month.”

“You see,” Monty explained, “Steve is a great authority on the tariff.
The Secretary of the Treasury does nothing without consulting him. He
has to go down and help the cabinet out.”

“That’s hardly true,” Denby said mildly, “but I have friends in
Washington nevertheless.” It was obvious Monty was not taken in by this.
He only regarded his friend as a superb actor who refused to be
frightened by the hourly alarms his faithful assistant took to him with
fast-beating heart. Young Vaughan told himself a dozen times a day that
this excitement, this suspicion of the motives of all strangers, was
undermining his health. He had complained of the dull evenness of his
existence before meeting Denby in Paris, but he felt such a lament could
never again be justified. He found himself unable to sit still for long.
He marvelled to see that Denby could sit for hours in a deck-chair
talking to Alice without seeming to care whether mysterious strangers
were eyeing him or not.

“I asked you,” Mrs. Harrington went on, “because, if you’ve nothing
better to do, will you spend a week with us at Westbury? Michael will
like you, and if you don’t like Michael, there’s something seriously
wrong with you.”

“I’d love to come,” he said eagerly. “Thank you very much.”

“Hooray,” said Monty. “Alice, you’re a sweet soul to ask him. Of course
he’ll like Michael. Who doesn’t?”

“Everybody ought to,” she said happily. “Do you know, Mr. Denby, I’m one
of the only three women in our set who still love their husbands. I
wouldn’t tell you that except for the reason you’ll find out. He’s the
most generous soul in the world and when I go to him with a bank-book
that won’t balance, he adds it up and says I’ve made a mistake and that
I’m on the right side. How many husbands would do that?”

“I might,” Monty asserted, “because I can’t add up long columns, but
Michael’s a demon at statistics, or used to be.”

“He’s such an old dear,” Mrs. Harrington went on. “His one peculiar
talent is the invention of new and strange drinks. I never come back
from any long absence but he shows me something violently colored which
is built in my honor. And Monty will tell you,” she added laughing,
“that I have never been seen to shudder while he was looking. Have I,
Monty?”

“You’re a good sport,” said Monty, “and if ever I kill a man, it will be
Michael, and my motive will be jealousy.”

“Well, you needn’t look so unhappy about it,” she cried, as a frown
passed over his face and he sank back in his chair, all his good-humor
gone.

Monty had in that careless phrase, “If ever I kill a man,” reminded
himself vividly of the dangers that he felt beset him and his friend
Steven Denby. He had been trying to forget it and now it was with him to
stay. And another and a dreadful thought occurred. Would Denby take
those accursed pearls with him to the Harrington mansion on Long
Island? It was so disquieting that he rose abruptly and went into a
secluded corner of the upper smoking-room and called for a cigar and a
pony of brandy.

His attention was presently attracted to a stout comfortable-looking man
who was staring at him as though to encourage a bow of recognition. He
had noticed the stout and affable gentleman before and always in the
same seat, but never before had he sought acquaintance in this manner.
There was no doubt in Monty’s mind that the man was one of those suave
gamblers who reap their richest harvests on the big fast liners. No
doubt he knew that Monty was a Vaughan and had occasionally fallen for
such professionals and inveigled into a quiet little game. But Monty
felt himself of a different sort now.

There was no doubt that the affable gentleman had fully made up his mind
as to his plan of action. He rose from his comfortable chair and made
his way to the younger man with his hand held out in welcome.

“I thought it was you,” he said, and wrung Monty’s reluctant hand, “but
you are not quite the same as when I saw you last.”

“No doubt,” Monty said coldly; “I am older and _I_ am not the fool I
used to be.”

“That’s good,” said the affable gentleman pressing the button that was
to summon a steward. “Your father will be glad to hear that.”

“Have the kindness to leave my father alone,” the younger commanded.
Never in his life had Monty found himself able to be so unpleasant.
There was, he discovered, a certain joy in it.

“Why, certainly,” said the other a trifle startled, “if you wish it.
Only as he and I were old friends, I saw no harm in it.”

“Old friends?” sneered Monty. “Let me see, you were the same year at
Yale, weren’t you?”

“Of course,” the affable stranger said, and turned to see the advancing
steward. “What will you have?” he asked.

“I don’t drink with strangers,” Monty said rising.

“Strangers!” cried the other with the rising intonation of indignation.
“Well, I like that!”

“Then I shall leave you with a pleasant memory,” Monty said. “Good day.”

“Stop a moment,” the stranger asked after a pause in which rage and
astonishment chased themselves across his well-nourished countenance.
“Who do you think I am, anyway?”

“Your name and number don’t interest me,” Monty said loftily. He noted
that the steward was enjoying it after the quiet inexpressive manner of
the English servant. “But I’ve no doubt at some time or another I lost
money to you--your old college friend’s money of course--in some quiet
game with your confederates.”

“Now, what do you think of that!” the red-faced man exclaimed as he
watched Monty’s retreating figure. But the steward was non-committal. He
was not paid to give up his inner thoughts but to bring drinks on a
tray.

The stout and affable gentleman was a member of the Stock Exchanges of
London and New York and made frequent journeys between these cities. He
held the ocean record of having crossed more times and seen the waves
less than any stock-broker living. He had passed more hours in a
favorite chair in the Mauretania’s smoking-room than any man had done
since time began. He was raconteur of ability and had been a close
friend of the elder Vaughan’s years before at Yale. And he burned with
fierce indignation when he remembered that he had held the infant Monty
years ago and prophesied to a proud mother that he would be her joy and
pride. Joy and pride! He snorted and fell away from his true form so far
as to seek the deck and suck in fresh air.

There he happened upon Mrs. Harrington talking to Denby. She knew
Godfrey Hazen. He had often been to Westbury, and Michael esteemed him
for his great knowledge of the proper beverage to take for every
emergency that may arise upon an ocean voyage.

“What makes you look so angry?” she exclaimed.

He calmed down when he saw her. “I’ve just been taken for a professional
gambler,” he cried.

“I thought all stock-brokers were that,” she said smiling.

“I mean a different sort,” he explained, “the kind that work the big
liners. I just asked him to have a drink when he said he didn’t drink
with strangers and hinted I had my picture in the rogues’ gallery.”

“Who was it?” she inquired.

“That ne’er-do-well, Monty Vaughan,” he answered.

“Monty?” she said. “Impossible!”

“Is it?” he said grimly. “We’ll see. Here comes the young gentleman.”

Monty sauntered up without noticing him at first. When he did, he
stopped short and was in no whit abashed. “Trying a new game?” he
inquired.

“Monty, don’t you remember Mr. Hazen?” Alice said reproachfully.

“Have I made an ass of myself?” he asked miserably.

“I wouldn’t label any four-footed beast by the name I’d call you,” said
Mr. Hazen firmly.

“Why didn’t you tell me your name?” Monty asked.

“You ought to have remembered me,” the implacable Hazen retorted. “Why,
I held you in my arms when you were only three months old.”

“Then I wish you had dropped me and broken me,” Monty exclaimed, “and I
should have been spared a lot of worry.” Things were piling up to make
him more than ever nervous. He had overheard two passengers saying they
understood the Mauretania’s voyagers were to have a special examination
at the Customs on account of diamond smuggling. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hazen,”
he said more graciously, “but I’ve things on my mind and you must accept
that as the reason.”

When he had gone Mr. Hazen was introduced to Denby and prevailed upon to
occupy Monty’s seat.

“I don’t like the look of it,” Mr. Hazen said, shaking his head. “At his
age he oughtn’t to have any worries. I didn’t.”

“If you can keep a secret,” Mrs. Harrington confided, “I think I can
tell you exactly what is the matter with Monty and I’m sure you’ll make
excuses for him, Mr. Hazen.”

“Maybe,” he returned dubiously, “but you should have heard how he called
me down before a steward!”

“Monty’s in love,” Mrs. Harrington declared, “and after almost two
years’ absence he is going to meet her again; and the dread of not
daring to propose is sapping his brain. You’re not the first. He’s been
out of sorts the whole time and I’ve had to smooth things over with
other people. Come, now,” she said coaxingly, “when you were young I’m
sure you had some episodes of that sort yourself, now didn’t you?”

Mr. Hazen tried not to let her see the proud memories that came surging
back through a quarter of a century. “Well,” he admitted, “if you put it
that way, Mrs. Harrington, I’ve got to forgive the boy.”

“I knew you would,” she said, and talked nicely to him for reward.

Then the romance which he had resurrected faded; and the sight of so
much salt in the waves--the unaccustomed waves--induced a provoking
thirst and he rose and after a conventional lie retired to the
smoking-room.

“All the same,” Mrs. Harrington remarked to Denby, “I am worried about
the boy.”

“He’ll get over it,” said Steven.

“I hope so,” she returned. “His nerves are all wrong. I thought he had
the absinthe habit at first, but he’s really quite temperate, and it’s
mental, I suspect. It may be Nora; I hope it is. She’s a dear girl and
Monty’s really a big catch.”

“Didn’t you say you had bought her a present, some valuable piece of
jewelry?”

“Which I have sworn to smuggle,” she returned brightly, “despite your
warning.”

“For your sake I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, “but if your mind’s made
up, what will my words avail?”

“I’m not stubborn,” she cried, “even Michael admits that. I am always
open to conviction.”

“If you smuggle, you are,” he said meaningly. “Really, Mrs. Harrington,
you’ve no idea how strict these examinations are becoming, and this
vessel seems specially marked out for extra strict inspections. The
popular journals have harped on the fact that the rich, influential
women who use this and boats of this class, are exempt, while the woman
who saves up for a few weeks’ jaunt and brings little inexpensive
presents back, is caught.”

“Are you sure of that?” she demanded.

“Why, yes,” he returned. “It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” he
demanded, looking at her keenly. “It doesn’t seem playing the game for
the first cabin on the Mauretania to get in free while the second cabin
gets caught.”

“Have you ever smuggled?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said, “but if I have, it has not been a habit with me as
with some rich people I know, who could so easily afford to pay.”

“Suppose I do smuggle and get caught, I can pay without any further
trouble, can’t I?” she queried.

“You’re just as likely to be detained,” he told her. “To all intents and
purposes, it’s like being under arrest.”

“Oh, Lord!” she cried. “And I shouldn’t be able to get back to Michael?”

“Probably not,” he said. “You see, Mrs. Harrington, you’d be a splendid
tribute to the impartiality of the service. The publicity the Customs
people would get from your case would be worth a lot to them.
Indirectly, you’d possibly promote hard-working inspectors.”

“But I don’t want to be a case,” she exclaimed, “I’m not anxious to be
put in a cell and promote hard-working inspectors. And think of poor
Michael all ready with a crimson newly-devised drink pacing the floor
while I’m undergoing the third degree! Mr. Denby, I still think the laws
are absurd, but I shall declare everything I’ve got. I wonder if they
would let Michael hand me his crimson drink through the bars.”

Just then Monty made for them and dropped into his deck-chair.

“I’m going to be an honest woman,” she declared, “and smuggle no more.
Mr. Denby is the miracle-worker. I shall probably have to borrow money
to pay the duty, so be at hand, Monty.”

He looked across at Denby and sighed. His friend’s serene countenance
and absence of nerves was always a source of wonderment to him.
Hereafter, he swore, a life in consonance with his country’s laws. And
if the first few days of the voyage had made him nervous, it was small
comfort to think that the really risky part had yet to be gone through.
In eliminating Alice Harrington as a fellow smuggler Monty saw
extraordinary cunning. “Well,” he thought, “if anyone can carry it
through it will be old Steve,” and rose obediently at Alice’s behest and
brought back a wireless form on which he indited a message to the absent
Michael.

Monty Vaughan had crossed the ocean often, and each time had been
cheered to see in the distance the long flat coast-line of his native
land. There had always been a sense of pleasurable excitement in the
halt at Quarantine and the taking on board the harbor and other
officials.

But this time they clambered aboard--the most vindictive set of mortals
he had ever laid eyes on--and each one of them seemed to look at Monty
as though he recognized a law breaker and a desperado. Incontinently he
fled to the smoking-room and ran into the arms of Godfrey Hazen.

“Never mind, my boy,” said that genial broker, “you’ll soon be out of
your misery. Brace up and have a drink. I know how you feel. I’ve felt
like that myself.”

“Did you get caught?” Monty gasped.

“No,” he said, for he was a bachelor, “but I’ve had some mighty narrow
squeaks and once I thought I was gone.”

He watched Monty gulp down his drink with unaccustomed rapidity. “That’s
right,” he said commendingly. “Have another?”

“It would choke me,” the younger answered, and fled.

Hazen shook his head pityingly. He had never been as afflicted as the
heir to his old friend Vaughan. Poets might understand love and its
symptoms but such manifestations were beyond him.

When Steven Denby opened his trunks to a somewhat uninterested inspector
and answered his casual questions without hesitation, Monty stood at his
side. It cost him something to do so but underneath his apparent
timorous nature was a strength and loyalty which would not fail at need.

And when the jaded Customs official made chalk hieroglyphics and stamped
the trunks as free from further examination Monty felt a relief such as
he had never known. As a poet has happily phrased it, “he chortled in
his joy.”

“What’s the matter?” he demanded of Denby when he observed that his own
hilarity was not shared by his companion in danger. “Why not celebrate?”

“We’re not off the dock yet,” Denby said in a low voice. “They’ve been
too easy for my liking.”

“A lot we care,” Monty returned, “so long as they’re finished with us.”

“That’s just it,” he was warned, “I don’t believe they have. It’s a bit
suspicious to me. Better attend to your own things now, old man.”

Monty opened his trunks in a lordly manner. So elaborate was his gesture
that an inspector was distrustful and explored every crevice of his
baggage with pertinacity. He unearthed with glee a pair of military
hair-brushes with backs of sterling silver that Monty had bought in Bond
street for Michael Harrington as he passed through London and forgotten
in his alarm for bigger things.

“It pays to be honest,” said Mrs. Harrington, who had declared her
dutiable importations and felt more than ordinarily virtuous. “Monty,
you bring suspicion on us all. I’m surprised at you. Just a pair of
brushes, too. If you had smuggled in a diamond necklace for Nora there
would be some excuse!”

The word necklace made him tremble and he did not trust himself to say a
word.

“He’s too ashamed for utterance,” Denby commented, helping him to repack
his trunk.

There were two Harrington motors waiting, both big cars that would carry
a lot of baggage. When they were ready it was plain that only two
passengers could be carried in one and the third in the second car.

“How shall we manage it?” Mrs. Harrington asked.

“If you don’t mind I’ll let you two go on,” Denby suggested, “and when
I’ve sent off a telegram to my mother, I’ll follow.”

“I see,” she laughed, “you want the stage set for your entrance. Very
well. Au revoir.”

Monty surprised her by shaking his friend’s hand. “Good-by, old man,”
said Monty sorrowfully. He was not sure that he would ever see Steven
again.




CHAPTER EIGHT


Michael Harrington walked up and down the big hall of his Long Island
home looking at the clock and his own watch as if to detect them in the
act of refusing to register the correct time of day. Although it was
probable his wife, Monty and the guest of whose coming a wireless
message had apprised him, would not be home for another hour, he was
always anxious at such a moment.

He was a man of fifty-eight, exceedingly good-tempered, and very much in
love with his wife. When Alice had married a man twenty-four years her
senior there had been prophecies that it would not last long. But the
two Harringtons had confounded such dismal predictions and lived--to
their own vast amusement--to be held up as exemplars of matrimonial
felicity in a set where such a state was not too frequent.

His perambulations were interrupted by the entrance of Lambart, a butler
with a genius for his service, who bore on a silver tray a siphon of
seltzer water, a decanter of Scotch whiskey and a pint bottle of fine
champagne.

Lambart had, previously to his importation, valeted the late lamented
Marquis of St. Mervyn, an eccentric peer who had broken his noble neck
in a steeplechase. Like most English house-servants he was profoundly
conservative; and after two positions which he had left because his
employers treated him almost as an equal, he had come to the Harringtons
and taken a warm but perfectly respectful liking to his millionaire
employer. Lambart was a remarkably useful person and it was his proud
boast that none had ever beheld him slumbering. Certain it was that a
bell summoned him at any hour of the day or night, and he had never
grumbled at such calls.

Harrington looked at the refreshment inquiringly. “Did I order this?” he
demanded.

“No, sir,” Lambart answered, “but my late employer Lord St. Mervyn
always said that when he was waiting like you are, sir, it steadied his
nerves to have a little refreshment.”

“I should have liked the Marquis if I’d known him,” Michael Harrington
observed when his thirst was quenched. “I think I could have paid him no
prettier compliment than to have named a Rocksand colt after him,
Lambart. The colt won at Deauville last week, by the way.”

“Yes, sir,” Lambart returned, “I took the liberty of putting a bit on
him; I won, too.”

“Good,” said his employer, “I’m glad. He ought to have a good season in
France. I like France for two things--racing and what they call the
_heure de l’aperitif_. When I go to Rome I do as the Romans do, and I
have the pleasantest recollections of my afternoons in France.”

He noticed that Lambart, bringing over to him a box of cigars, turned
his head as though to listen. “I believe, sir,” said the butler, “that
the car is coming up the drive.”

He hurried to the open French window and looked out. “Yes, sir,” he
cried, “it is one of our cars and Mrs. Harrington is in it.”

Michael Harrington rose hastily to his feet. “Great Scott, my wife! The
boat must have docked early.” He pointed to the whiskey and champagne.
“Get rid of these; and not a word, Lambart, not a word.”

“Certainly not, sir,” Lambart answered; “I couldn’t make a mistake of
that sort after being with the Marquis of St. Mervyn for seven years.”

He took up the tray quickly and carried it off as Nora Rutledge--the
girl for whose sake poor Monty had passed hours of alternate misery and
hope--came in to tell her host the news.

“Alice is here,” she cried, “and Monty Vaughan with her.”

Nora was a pretty, clever girl of two and twenty with the up-to-date
habit of slangy smartness fully developed and the customary lack of
reticence over her love-affairs or those of anyone else in whom she was
interested. But for all her pert sayings few girls were more generally
liked than she, for the reason that she was genuine and wholesome.

“Fine,” Michael said heartily. “Where are they? How is she? Was it a
good voyage?”

A moment later his wife had rushed into his arms.

“You dear old thing,” she exclaimed affectionately.

“By George! I’m glad to see you,” he said, “you’ve been away for ages.”

“You seem to have survived it well enough,” she laughed.

“Tell me everything you’ve done,” he insisted.

While she tried to satisfy this comprehensive order, Monty was assuring
Nora how delighted he was to see her.

“It’s bully to find you here,” he said, shaking her hand. “I nearly
hugged you.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” she retorted.

“I’ve half a mind to,” he said, stretching out his arms; but she drew
back.

“No. Not now. It’s cold. Hugs must be spontaneous.”

“Where’s Ethel?” Mrs. Harrington called to her.

“Upstairs, changing. You see we didn’t think you could get in so early
and you weren’t expected for another half-hour. She ought to be down in
a minute or so.”

“Why didn’t you come down and meet us, old man?” Monty asked of his
host.

“Wife’s orders,” Harrington responded promptly.

“It’s such a nuisance to have people meet one at the pier,” Alice
explained. “I’m sure Monty was glad you weren’t there to witness his
humiliation. He was held up for smuggling and narrowly escaped
deportation.”

“Oh, Monty,” Nora cried, “how lovely! Was it something for me? Don’t
scowl when I ask a perfectly reasonable question.”

“It wasn’t,” Monty said wretchedly. He had in his joy at meeting her
forgotten all about smuggling and now the whole thing loomed up again.
“I’ve got half Long Island in my eyes, and if you don’t mind, Alice,
I’ll go and wash up.”

“And you won’t tell me anything about your crime?” Nora pouted.

“Meet me in the Pagoda in five minutes,” he whispered, “and I will. It’s
mighty nice to see a pretty girl again who can talk American.”

“As if men cared what girls say,” she observed sagely. “It’s the way
they look that counts.”

When Monty was gone she strolled back to where Alice was sitting.

“Did you have a good trip?” she demanded.

“Bully,” Alice answered her. “Steven Denby’s most attractive and
mysterious.”

“Denby!” Harrington repeated. “Why, I’d clean forgotten about Denby.
Where is he?”

“The limousine was so full of Monty and me and my hand-baggage that we
sent him on in the other car. He had to send some telegrams, so he
didn’t overtake us till we were this side of Jamaica, where they
promptly had a blow-out. He won’t be long.”

“What Mr. Denby is he?” Nora asked with interest.

“Yes,” Michael asked, “do I know him? I don’t think I ever heard of
him.”

“Nor did I,” his wife told him. “Perhaps that’s what makes him so
mysterious.”

“Then why on earth have him down here?” her husband asked mildly.

“Because Monty’s devoted to him. They were at school together. And also,
Michael dear, because I like him and you’ll like him. Even if I am
married, love has not made me blind to other charming men.”

“But, shall I like him?” Nora wanted to know.

“I did the minute I met him,” Alice confessed. “He has a sort of ’come
hither’ in his eyes and the kind of hair I always want to run my hand
through. You will, too, Nora.”

“But you see I’m not a married woman,” Nora retorted, “so I mayn’t have
your privileges.”

Alice laughed. “Don’t be absurd. I haven’t done it yet--but I may.”

“I don’t doubt it in the least,” said Michael, contentedly caressing her
hand.

“He has such an air,” Mrs. Harrington explained, “sort of secret and
wicked. He might be a murderer or something fascinating like that.”

“Splendid fellow for a week-end,” her husband commented.

She looked at her watch. “I’d no idea it was so late. I must dress.”

“All right,” Nora agreed. “Let’s see what’s become of Ethel.”

“Just a minute, Alice,” her husband called as she was mounting the broad
stairway that led from the hall.

“Run along, Nora,” Alice said, “I’ll be up in a minute.”

“I’ll go and wait for Monty,” the girl returned. “I think you’re going
to be lectured.” She sauntered out of the French windows toward the
Pagoda.

“Well,” said Alice smiling, “what is it?”

“I just wanted to tell you how mighty glad I was to see you,” he
confessed.

“And, Mikey dear,” she said simply, “I’m mighty glad to see you.”

“Are you really?” he demanded. “You’re not missing Paris?”

“Paris be hanged,” she retorted; “I’m in love with a man and not with a
town.”

“It’s still me?” Michael asked a little wistfully.

“Always you,” she said softly. “One big reason I like to go abroad is
because it makes me so glad to get back to you.” She sat on the arm of
his chair and patted his head affectionately.

“But look here,” said Michael with an affectation of reproof, “whenever
I want a little trot around the country and suggest leaving, you
begin--”

She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him.

“Oh, that’s very different. When we do separate I always want to be the
one to leave, not to be left.”

“It _is_ much easier to go than to stay,” he agreed, “and I’ve been
pretty lonely these last six weeks.”

“But you’ve had a lot of business to attend to,” she reminded him.

“That’s finished two weeks ago.”

“And then you’ve had the insidious Lambart and all the Scotch you
wanted.”

“’Tisn’t nearly as much fun to drink when you’re away,” he insisted. “It
always takes the sport out of it not to be stopped.”

“Oh, Fibber!” she said, shaking her head.

“Well, most of the sport,” he corrected. He held her off at arm’s length
and regarded her with admiration. “Do you know, I sometimes wonder what
ever made you marry me.”

“Sometimes I wonder, too,” she answered, “but not often! I really think
we’re the ideal married couple, sentimental when we’re alone, and
critical when we have guests.”

“That’s true,” he admitted proudly, “and most people hate each other in
private and love each other in public.” Michael hugged her to emphasize
the correctness of their marital deportment.

“You are a dear old thing,” she said affectionately.

“Do you know I don’t feel a bit married,” he returned boyishly, “I just
feel in love.”

“That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me,” she said, rising and
kissing him. “But I’ve got to go and find Ethel now.”

“You’ve made me feel fairly dizzy,” he asserted, still holding her hand,
“I need a drink to sober up.”

“Oh, Michael,” she cried reprovingly, and drew away from him “I believe
you’ve been trying to get around me just for that!”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said smiling. “Now, do you?”

“No, I don’t, Mikey,” she admitted. “But be careful, here’s Monty and
Nora.”

“Heavens!” cried Nora, looking in, “still lecturing, you two?”

“You do look rather henpecked,” Monty said, addressing his host.

“Yes,” Michael sighed, “we’ve been having a dreadful row, but I’m of a
forgiving nature and I’m going to reward her. Monty, touch that button
there, I want Lambart.”

Alice looked at him in wonderment. “What do you mean?”

“Wait,” he said with a chuckle. “Lambart,” he commanded, as the butler
stood before him, “bring it in.” There was respect in his tone. “It
ought to be at its best now.”

On a silver salver Lambart bore in and presented to his mistress a large
liqueur glass filled with a clear liquid of delicate mauve hue.

Alice looked at it a little fearfully. “Oh, Mikey,” she said, “is this
another new invention?”

“My best,” he said proudly.

“Can’t I share it?” she pleaded.

“No more than I can my heart,” he said firmly. “It is to be named after
you.”

Heroically she gulped it down.

“Oh, how sweet it is,” she exclaimed.

“I know,” he admitted. “But as it isn’t sugar you needn’t mind. I use
saccharin which is about a thousand times as sweet. And the beauty of
saccharin,” he confided to the others, “is that it stays with you. When
I first discovered this Crême d’Alicia as I call it, I tasted it for
days.”

“It’s a perfectly divine color,” Nora remarked enthusiastically. “I’ve
always dreamed of a dress exactly that shade. How did you do it?”

“Experimenting with the coal tar dyes,” he said proudly. “I’m getting
rather an expert on coal tar compounds. That color was Perkins’ mauve.”

“That was more than mauve,” Nora insisted. “I’ve plenty of mauve
things.”

He raised his hand. “No you don’t, Nora! You don’t get the result of my
years of close study like that. I’ll make you each a present of a bottle
before you go. We’ll have it with coffee every night. Mauve was the
foundation upon which I built.”

“It’s a little rich for me, Mikey dear,” his wife said anxiously. “I
think it will make a far better winter cordial. I’m going upstairs to
see Ethel now.”

He watched her disappear and then turned to Nora and Monty with a
twinkle in his eye. “I think after my labors I need a little cocktail.
In France they call this the _heure de l’aperitif_, as Monty probably
knows, and I have a private bar of my own. Don’t give me away,
children.”

Nora looked at her companion with a frown. She had been looking for his
coming, and now when he was here, he had nothing to say.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded suddenly.

“I’m wondering where Steven is,” he returned anxiously. “A blow-out
oughtn’t to keep him all this time.”

“But what makes you jump so?” she insisted. “You never used to be like
this. Is it St. Vitus’s dance?”

He turned to her with an assumption of freedom from care.

“I am a bit nervous, Nora,” he admitted. “You see, Steven and I are in a
big deal together, and, er, the markets go up and down like the
temperature and it keeps me sorts of anxious.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve gone into business?” she said.

“Not exactly,” he prevaricated, “and yet I have in a way. It’s something
secret.”

“Well,” said Nora, with sound common sense, “if it frightens you so, why
go in for it?”

“Well, everything was kind of tepid in Paris,” he explained.

“Tepid in Paris?” she cried.

“Why, yes,” he told her. “Paris can’t always live up to her reputation.
I’d been there studying French banking systems so long that I wanted
some excitement and joined Steve in his scheme.”

“Oh, Monty,” she said interested, and sitting on the couch at his side,
“if it’s really exciting, tell me everything. Are you being pursued?”

He looked at her aggrieved. “Now what do you suggest that for?” he
demanded.

“But what is it?” she insisted.

“I can’t tell you,” he said decidedly. “Steve is one of my oldest
friends and I promised him.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard all about him,” she cried a little impatiently.
“You and he went to college together and sang, ‘A Stein on the Table,’
and went on sprees together and made love to the same girls, and played
on the same teams. I know all that college stuff.”

“But we didn’t go to college together,” he said.

“Alice said you did,” she returned, “or to school or something together,
but don’t take that as an excuse to get reminiscent. I hate men’s
reminiscences; they make me so darned envious. I wish I’d been a man,
Monty.”

“I don’t,” said he smiling.

“Don’t try to flirt with me,” she exclaimed, as he edged a little
nearer.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“You don’t know how,” she said and smiled provokingly.

For a moment Monty forgot pearls and Customs and all unpleasant things.

“Teach me,” he entreated.

“It can’t be taught,” she said. “It’s got to be born in you.” She cast
her eyes down and looked alluringly at him through curling lashes.
There was the opportunity for Monty to see whether he had any skill at
the ancient game, but a sudden numbing nervousness took hold of him. And
while he could have written a prize essay on what he should have done,
he had not the courage to make the attempt.

“Well?” she said presently. “Go on.”

“I wonder where Steve is?” he said desperately.

“You’re hopeless,” she cried exasperated. “I don’t know where ‘Steve’
is, and I don’t care. I hope he’s under the car with gasoline dripping
into his eyes.”

Poor Monty groaned; for it was equally true that he at this particular
moment was anxious to forget everything but the pretty girl at his side.

“Nora,” he said nervously, “for the last year there’s been something
trembling on my lips--”

“Oh, Monty,” she cried ecstatically, “don’t shave it off, I love it!”

He rose, discomfited, to meet his hostess coming toward him with Miss
Ethel Cartwright, a close friend of hers whom he had never before met.
He noticed Michael quietly working his unobtrusive way back to the
position where Alice had left him, wiping his moustache with
satisfaction.

“Monty,” said Mrs. Harrington, “I don’t think you’ve ever met my very
best friend, Miss Cartwright.”

“How do you do,” the girl said smiling.

“Be kind to him, Ethel,” Michael remarked genially. “He’s a nice boy and
the idol of the Paris Bourse.”

“And an awful flirt,” Nora chimed in. “If I had had a heart he would
have broken it long ago.”

“Do you know,” Alice said, “it has never occurred to me to think of
Monty as a flirt. Are you a flirt, Monty?”

“No,” he said indignantly.

“You needn’t be so emphatic when I ask you,” she said reprovingly. She
sighed. “I suppose it’s one of the penalties of age. I’ve known him a
disgracefully long time, Ethel, before the Palisades were grown-up.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get down to meet you, Alice,” Miss Cartwright said,
“I did mean to, but business detained me.”

“Business in August!” Nora commented.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” her hostess observed. “We were disgraced by
having in our merry party a smuggler who was caught with the goods and
narrowly escaped Sing Sing.”

“There you go again,” Monty grumbled. “I hate the very sound of the
word.”

“I say, Ethel,” Michael observed, watching her closely, “you do look a
bit pale. Business in weather like this doesn’t suit you. No bad news, I
hope?”

He knew that the division of the late Vernon Cartwright’s fortune was
very disappointing and might narrow the girls’ income considerably.

“It turned out all right, thank you,” the girl answered nervously.

“How’s Amy?” Mr. Harrington asked. He was fond of the Cartwrights and
had known them from childhood. “Why isn’t she here?”

“It isn’t to be a big party, Michael,” his wife reminded him. “Men are
so scarce in August I didn’t ask Amy. She’s all right, I hope, Ethel?”

“Yes, thanks,” Miss Cartwright answered.

“I wonder where Steve is?” Monty said for the fifth time. “He ought to
have that tire fixed by now.”

“I hope he hasn’t smashed up,” said Alice.

“So do I,” Michael retorted. “It was a mighty good car--almost new--and
I left a silver pocket-flask in it, I remember.”

“Is someone else coming?” Ethel Cartwright asked.

“A perfectly charming man, a Steven Denby.”

“Steven Denby?” Miss Cartwright cried, her face lighting up. “Really?”

“Do you know him then?” Mrs. Harrington asked.

“Indeed I do,” she answered.

“What, you know Steve?” Monty asked in surprise.

“Tell us about him,” Nora besought her.

“Yes, who is he?” Michael wanted to know. “Alice has been trying to
rouse me to the depths of my jealous nature about him!”

“Isn’t he fascinating?” Alice observed.

“I can only tell you all,” Ethel Cartwright declared, “that I know him.
I met him in Paris a year ago.”

“Didn’t you like him?” Alice inquired.

“I did, very much,” the girl said frankly.

Nora spoke in a disappointed manner. “Well, he’s evidently yours for
this week-end.”

“I daresay he won’t even remember me,” the other girl returned.

“Oh, I bet he will,” said Nora, who was able to give Ethel credit for
her charm and beauty. “I shall just have to stick around with Monty--a
wild tempestuous flirt like Monty!”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Monty said with an air of condescension, “not
particularly.”

“It’s time to dress, good people,” Michael reminded them.

“Come on, Nora,” Alice said rising. “Come, Monty. Ethel, you’ll have to
amuse yourself, as Michael isn’t to be depended on.”

“You wrong me, my dear,” Michael retorted. “I’m going for my one
solitary cocktail and then I’ll be back.”

“And only one, remember,” Alice warned him.

“You know me, my dear,” he said, “when I say one.”

“You sometimes mean only one at a time,” she laughed. “You are still the
same consistent old Michael. And by the way, if Mr. Denby does happen to
turn up, tell him we’ll be down soon.”

“I’ll send him in to Ethel if he comes.”

“Yes, please do,” the girl said brightly.

When she was left alone in the big hall, the coolest apartment in the
big house during the afternoon, Ethel Cartwright went to the French
windows and looked out over the smooth lawns to the trees at the back of
them. A long drive wound its way to the highroad, up which she could see
speeding a big motor. The porte-cochère was at the other side of the
house and she retraced her steps to the hall she had left with the hope
of meeting the man she had liked so much a year ago in Paris.

A minute later he was ushered in, but did not at first see her. Then, as
he looked about the big apartment, he caught sight of the girl, and
stood for a moment staring as though he could hardly venture to believe
it was she.

“Miss Cartwright,” he cried enthusiastically, “is it really you?”

She took his outstretched hands graciously. “How do you do, Mr. Denby,”
she said.

“Mr. Harrington told me to expect a surprise,” he cried, “but I was
certainly not prepared for such a pleasant one as this. How are you?”

“Splendid,” she answered. “And you?”

“Very, very grateful to be here.”

“I wondered if you’d remember me,” she said; “it’s a long time ago since
we were in Paris.”

“It was only the day before yesterday,” he asserted.

“And what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Oh, I thought I’d run over and see if New York was finished yet.”

“Are you still doing--nothing?” she demanded, a tinge of disappointment
in her voice.

He looked at her with a smile. “Still--nothing,” he answered.

“Ah,” she sighed, “I had such hopes of you, a year ago in Paris.”

“And I of you,” he said, boldly looking into her eyes.

Her manner was more distant now. “I’m afraid I don’t admire idlers very
much. Why don’t you do something? You’ve ability enough, Mr. Denby.”

“It’s so difficult to get a thrill out of business,” he complained.

“And you must have thrills?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, “it’s such a dull old world nowadays.”

“Then why,” she exclaimed jestingly, “why don’t you take to crime?”

“I have thought of it,” he laughed, “but the stake’s too high--a thrill
against prison.”

“So you want only little thrills then, Mr. Denby?”

“No,” he told her, “I’d like big ones better. Life or even death--but
not prison. And what have you done since I saw you last? You are still
doing nothing, too?”

“Nothing,” she said, smiling.

“And you’re still Miss Cartwright?”

“_Only_ Miss Cartwright,” she corrected.

“Good,” he said, looking at her steadily. “By George, it doesn’t seem a
year since that week in Paris. What made you disappear just as we were
having such bully times?”

“I had to come back to America suddenly. I had only an hour to catch the
boat. I explained all that in my note though. Didn’t you even take the
trouble to read it?”

He looked at her amazed. “I never even received it.” There was a touch
of relief in his voice. “So you sent me a note! Do you know, I thought
you’d dropped me, and I tell you I hit with an awful crash.”

“I sent it by a porter and even gave him a franc,” she smiled. “I ought
to have given him five.”

“I’d willingly have given him fifty,” Denby said earnestly. “It wasn’t
nice to think that I’d been dropped like that.”

“And I thought you’d dropped me,” she said.

“I should say not,” he exclaimed. “I was over here six months ago and I
did try to see you, but you were at Palm Beach. I can’t tell you how
often I’ve sent you telepathic messages,” he added whimsically. “Ever
get any of ’em?”

“Some of them, I think,” she said smiling. “And now to think we’ve met
here on Long Island. It’s a far cry to Paris.”

“For me it’s people who make places--the places themselves don’t
matter--you and I are here,” he said gently.

The girl sighed a little. “Still, Paris is Paris,” she insisted.

“Rather!” he answered, sighing too. “Do you remember that afternoon in
front of the Café de la Paix? We had _vin gris_ and watched the
Frenchman with the funny dog, and the boys calling _La Presse_, and the
woman who made you buy some ‘North Wind’ for me, and the people crowding
around the newspaper kiosks.”

In the adjoining room Nora was strumming the piano, and was now playing
“_Un Peu d’Amour_.” She had looked in the hall and finding the stranger
so wholly absorbed in Ethel Cartwright, had retired to solitude.

“And do you remember the hole in the table-cloth?” Ethel demanded.

“And wasn’t it a dirty table-cloth?” he reminded her. “And afterwards we
had tea in the Bois at the Cascade and the Hungarian Band played ‘_Un
Peu d’Amour_.’” He looked at the girl smiling. “How did you arrange to
have that played just at the right moment?”

They listened in silence for a moment to the dainty melody, and then she
hummed a few bars of it. Her thoughts were evidently far away from Long
Island.

“And don’t you remember that poor skinny horse in our fiacre?” she asked
him. “He was so tired he fell down, and we walked home in pity.”

“Ah, you were tender-hearted,” he sighed.

“And we had dinner at Vian’s afterwards,” she reminded him, and then,
after a pause: “Wasn’t the soup awful?”

“Ah, but the string-beans were an event,” he asserted. “And that
evening, I remember, there was a moon over the Bois, and we sat under
the trees. Have you forgotten that?”

“I don’t think that would be very easy,” she said softly.

“And we went through the Louvre the next day,” he said eagerly, “the
whole Louvre in an hour, and the loveliest picture I saw there
was--_you_.”

Denby glanced up with a frown as Lambart’s gentle footfall was heard,
and rose to his feet a trifle embarrassed by this intrusion. Lambart
came to a respectful pause at Miss Cartwright’s side.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but there is a gentleman to see you.” She took a
card that was on the tray he held before her.

“To see me?” she cried, startled, gazing at the card. Denby, watching
her closely, saw her grow, as he thought, pale. “Ask him to come in. Mr.
Denby,” she said, “will you forgive me?”

“Surely,” he assented, walking toward the great stairway. “I have to
dress, anyway.”

“Your room is at the head of the stairs,” Lambart reminded him. “All
your luggage is taken in, sir.”

Denby looked down at her. “Till dinner?” he asked.

“Till dinner,” she said, and watched him pass out of sight. She was a
girl whose poise of manner prevented the betrayal of vivid emotion in
any but a certain subdued fashion. But it was plain she was laboring now
under an agitation that amounted almost to deadly fear.

A few seconds later Daniel Taylor strode in with firm assured tread and
looked at the luxurious surroundings with approval.

“Good evening, Miss Cartwright,” he exclaimed genially. “Good evening.”

“My sister,” she returned, trembling, “nothing’s happened to her? She’s
all right?”

“Sure, sure,” he returned reassuringly, “I haven’t bothered her; the
little lady’s all right, don’t you worry.”

“Then what do you want here?” she cried alarmed. No matter what his
manner this man had menace in every look and gesture. She had never been
brought into contact with one who gave in so marked a degree the
impression of ruthless strength.

“I thought I’d drop in with reference to our little chat this
afternoon,” he remarked easily. “Nice place they’ve got here.”

“But I don’t understand why you have come,” she persisted.

“You haven’t forgotten our little conversation, I hope?”

“Of course not,” she said.

“Well,” he continued, “you said when I needed you, you’d be ready.” He
looked about him cautiously as though fearing interruption. “I said it
might be a year, or it might be a month, or it might be to-night. Well,
it’s to-night, Miss Cartwright. I need you right now.”

“Now?” she said puzzled. “Still, I don’t understand.”

He lowered his voice. “A man has smuggled a two hundred thousand dollar
necklace through the Customs to-day. For various reasons which you
wouldn’t understand, we allowed him to slip through, thinking he’d
fooled us. Now that he believes himself safe, it ought to be easy to get
that necklace. We’ve got to get it; and we’re going to get it, through
one of our agents.” He pointed a forefinger at her. “We’re going to get
it through you.”

“But I shouldn’t know how to act,” she protested, “or what to do.”

Taylor smiled. “You’re too modest, Miss Cartwright. I’ve seen some of
your work in my own office, and I think you’ll be successful.”

“But don’t you see I’m staying here over Sunday?” she explained. “I
can’t very well make an excuse and leave now.”

“You don’t have to leave,” he told her.

“What do you mean, then?” she demanded.

“That the man who smuggled the necklace is staying here, too. His name
is Steven Denby.”

“Steven Denby!” the girl cried, shrinking away from him. “Oh, no, you
must be mad--he isn’t a smuggler.”

“Why isn’t he?” Taylor snapped.

“I know him,” she explained.

“You do?” he cried. “Where did you meet him?”

“In Paris,” she replied.

“How long have you known him?”

“Just about a year,” she answered.

“What do you know about him?” Taylor asked quickly. It was evident that
her news seemed very important to him. “What’s his business? How does he
make his living? Do you know his people?”

“I don’t think he does anything,” she said hesitatingly.

“Nothing, eh?” Taylor laughed disagreeably. “I suppose you think that’s
clear proof he couldn’t be a smuggler?”

“I’m sure you are wrong,” she said with spirit; “he’s my friend.”

“Your friend!” Taylor returned. His manner from that of the bluff
cross-examiner changed to one that had something confidential and
friendly in it. “Why, that ought to make it easier.”

“Easier?” she repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you can get into his confidence. See?”

“But you’re wrong,” she said indignantly. “I’m sure he is absolutely
innocent.”

“Then you’ll be glad of a chance to prove we’re wrong and you’re right.”

“But I couldn’t spy on a friend,” she declared.

“If your friend is innocent it won’t do him any harm,” Taylor observed,
“and he’d never know. But if he’s guilty he deserves punishment, and
you’ve no right to try and protect him. Any person would only be doing
right in helping to detect a criminal; but you,”--he paused
significantly,--“it’s just as much your duty as it is mine.” He showed
her his gold badge of authority for a brief moment, and although it
terrified her there was too much loyalty in her nature to betray a
friend or even to spy upon one.

“No, no! I can’t do it,” she said.

“So you’re going back on your agreement,” he sneered. “Two can play that
game. Suppose I go back on mine, too?”

“You wouldn’t do that,” she cried horrified at his threat.

“Why not?” he returned. “It’s give and take in this world.”

“But I couldn’t be so contemptible.”

Taylor shrugged his shoulders. “If I were you I’d think it over,” he
recommended.

“But supposing you’re wrong,” she said earnestly. “Suppose he has no
necklace?”

“Don’t let that disturb you,” he retorted. “Our information is positive.
We got a telegram late this afternoon from a pal of his who squealed,
giving us a tip about it. Now what do you say?”

“I can’t,” she said, “I can’t.”

He came closer, and said in a low harsh voice: “Remember, it’s Steven
Denby or your sister. There’s no other way out. Which are you going to
choose?”

He watched her pale face eagerly. “Well,” he cried, “which is it to be?”

“I have no choice,” she answered dully. “What do you want me to do?”

“Good,” Taylor cried approvingly. “That’s the way to talk! Denby has
that necklace concealed in a brown leather tobacco-pouch which he always
carries in his pocket. You must get me that pouch.”

“How can I?” she asked despairingly.

“I’ll leave that to you,” he answered.

“But couldn’t you do it?” she pleaded. “Or one of your men? Why ask me?”

“It may be a bluff, some clever scheme to throw me off the track and I’m
not going to risk a mix-up with the Harringtons or tip my hand till I’m
absolutely sure. It don’t pay me to make big mistakes. You say Denby’s
your friend, well, then, it’ll be easy to find out. If you discover that
the necklace is in the tobacco-pouch, get him to go for a walk in the
garden; say you want to look at the moon, say anything, so long as you
get him into the garden where we’ll be on the lookout and grab him.”

“But he might go out there alone,” she suggested.

“If he does,” Taylor assured her, “we won’t touch him, but if he comes
out there with you, we’ll _know_.”

“But if I can’t get him into the garden?” she urged. “Something may
happen to prevent me!”

“If you’re sure he has it on him,” Taylor instructed her, “or if you
make out where it is concealed, pull down one of these window-shades. My
men and I can see these from the garden. When we get your signal we’ll
come in and arrest him. Sure you understand?”

“I’m to pull down the window-shade,” she repeated.

“That’s it, but be careful, mind. Don’t bring him out in the garden,
and don’t signal unless you are absolutely certain.”

“Yes, yes,” she said.

“And under no circumstances,” he commanded, “must you mention my name.”

“But,” she argued, “suppose--”

“There’s no ‘buts’ and no ‘supposes’ in it,” he said sharply. “It’s most
important to the United States Government and to me, that my identity is
in no way disclosed.”

“It may be necessary,” she persisted.

“It _cannot_ be necessary,” he said with an air of finality. “If it
comes to a show-down and you tell Denby I’m after him, I’ll not only
swear I never saw you, but I’ll put your sister in prison. Now, good
night, Miss Cartwright, and remember you’ve got something at stake, too,
so don’t forget--Denby to-night.”

He went silently through the French windows and disappeared, leaving her
to face for the second time in a day an outlook that seemed hopeless.

But she was not the only one in the great Harrington mansion to feel
that little zest was left in life. Monty was obsessed with the idea that
his friend’s long delay was due to his having been held up. The
automobile lends itself admirably to highway robbery, and it would be
easy enough for armed robbers to overpower Denby and the chauffeur.

Directly he heard Denby’s voice talking to Lambart as he was shown into
his room, Monty burst in and wrung his hands again and again.

“Why, Monty,” his friend said, “you overpower me.”

“I thought you’d been held up and robbed,” the younger man cried.

“Neither one nor the other,” Denby said cheerfully, “I was merely the
victim of two blow-outs. But,” he added, looking keenly at his
confederate, “if I had been held up the pearls wouldn’t have been taken.
I didn’t happen to have them with me.”

“Thank God!” Monty cried fervently. “I wondered if that telegraphing to
people was just a ruse or not. Hooray, I feel I can eat and drink and be
merrier than I’ve been for a month. I never want to hear about them
again.”

“I’m sorry, old man,” Denby said smiling, “but I shall have to ask you
for them.”

“Me?” Monty stammered. “Don’t joke, Steve.”

“But you very kindly brought them over for me,” Denby returned mildly.
“They’re in the right-hand shoe of a pair of buckskin tennis shoes. I
put them there when I helped you to repack your trunk. Do you mind
bringing them before I’ve finished dressing?”

Monty looked at him reproachfully. “Sometimes I think I ought to have
gone into the ministry. I’m getting a perfect horror of crime.”

“You’re not a criminal,” Denby said. “You helped me out on the voyage,
but here you are free to do as you like.”

Monty set his jaw firmly. “I’m in it with you, Steve, till you’ve got
the damned things where you want ’em, and you can’t prevent me, either.”

When he brought the precious necklace back Denby calmly placed the pouch
in his pocket. “Thanks, old man,” he said casually. “Now the fun
begins.”

“Fun!” Monty snorted. “Do you remember the classic remark of the frog
who was pelted by small mischievous boys? ‘This may be the hell of a
joke to you,’ said the frog, ‘but it’s death to me.’”

“I’ve always been sorry for that frog,” Denby commented.

“But, man alive, you are the frog,” Monty cried.

“Oh, no,” Denby returned, making a tie that had no likeness to a vast
butterfly.

“Your frog hadn’t a ghost of a chance, and he knew it, while with me
it’s an even chance. One oughtn’t to ask any more than that in these
hard times.”

He sauntered down the stairs cool and debonair to find Ethel Cartwright
still looking listlessly across the green lawns.

“Those gentle chimes,” he said, as the dinner-gong pealed out, “call the
faithful to dinner. I wish it were in Paris, don’t you?”

She pulled herself together and tried to smile as she had done before
Taylor had dashed all her joy to the ground.

“Aren’t you hungering for string-beans?” he asked, “and the hole in the
table-cloth, and the gay old moon? But after all, what do they matter
now? You’re here, and I’m hungry.” He offered her his arm. “Aren’t you
hungry, too?”




CHAPTER NINE


Very much to Denby’s disappointment he found that he was not to take
Ethel Cartwright in to dinner. Nora Rutledge fell to his lot, and
although she was witty and sparkling, she shared none of those happy
Parisian memories as did the girl his host had taken in.

Plainly Nora was piqued. “I thought from what Monty told me you were
really interesting,” she said.

“One must never believe anything Monty says,” he observed. “It’s only
his air of innocence that makes people think him honest. His flirtations
on board ship were nothing short of scandalous and yet look at him now.”

And poor Monty, although to him had fallen the honor of taking in his
hostess, was paying no sort of attention to her sallies.

Nora glanced at him and then looked up at Denby. “I’m really awfully
fond of Monty, and I’m worried--if you’ll believe it--because he seems
upset. Monty,” she called, “what’s the matter with you, and what are you
thinking about?”

“Frogs,” he said promptly.

“We’ll have some to-morrow,” Michael observed amiably. “They induce in
me a most remarkable thirst, so I keep off them on that account.”

“He’s thinking,” Denby reminded her, “of the old song, ‘A frog he would
a-wooing go!’ I’ve heard of you often enough, Miss Rutledge, from
Monty.”

“Well, I wish you’d started being confidential with the _hors
d’œuvres_,” she said, “instead of waiting until dessert. If you had,
by this time you’d probably have been really amusing.”

She rose at Mrs. Harrington’s signal and followed her from the room.

“What I can’t see,” observed she, “is why we didn’t stay and have our
cigarettes with the men.”

“I always leave them together,” Alice Harrington said with a laugh,
“because that’s the way to get the newest naughty stories. Michael
always tells ’em to me later.”

“Alice!” cried Nora with mock reproof.

“Oh, I like ’em,” Alice declared, “when they’re really funny, and so
does everybody else. Besides, nowadays it’s improper to be proper.
Cigarette, Ethel?”

Miss Cartwright shook her head. “You know I don’t smoke,” she returned.

Nora lighted a cigarette unskilfully. “That’s so old-fashioned,” she
said, in her most sophisticated manner, “and I’d rather die than be
that.” She coughed as she drew in a fragrant breath of Egyptian tobacco.
“I do wish, though, that I really enjoyed smoking.”

“What do you think of our new friend, Mr. Denby?” Alice asked of her.

“I like him in spite of the fact that he hardly noticed me. He couldn’t
take his eyes off Ethel.”

“I saw that myself,” Mrs. Harrington returned. “You know, Ethel, I meant
him to take you in to dinner, but Nora insisted that she sit next to
him. She’s such a man-hunter!”

“You bet I am,” the wise Nora admitted--“that’s the only way you can get
’em.”

Mrs. Harrington turned to Ethel Cartwright. “Didn’t you and Mr. Denby
have a tiny row? You hardly spoke to him through dinner.”

“Didn’t I?” the girl answered. “I’ve a bit of a headache.”

“I’ll bet they had a lovers’ quarrel before dinner,” Nora hazarded.

Alice Harrington arched her eyebrows in surprise. “A lovers’ quarrel!”

“Certainly,” Nora insisted. “I’m sure Ethel is in love with him.”

“How perfectly ridiculous,” Ethel said, with a trace of embarrassment in
her manner. “Don’t be so silly, Nora. I met him for a week in Paris,
that’s all, and I found him interesting. He had big talk as well as
small, but as for love--please don’t be idiotic!”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” laughed her hostess.

“I don’t blame you, Ethel,” Nora admitted frankly. “If he’d give me a
chance I’d fall for him in a minute, but attractive young men never
bother about me. The best I can draw is--Monty! I’m beginning to dislike
the whole sex.”

“Theoretically you are quite right, my dear,” said the maturer Alice;
“men are awful things--God bless ’em--but practically, well, some day
you’ll explode like a bottle of champagne and bubble all over some man.”

“Speaking of champagne,” Nora said after a disbelieving gesture at the
prophecy, “I wish I had another of Michael’s purple drinks. He’s a
genius.”

“Do tell him that,” the fond wife urged. “The very surest way to
Michael’s heart is through his buffet. I knew he’d taken to mixing
cocktails in a graduated chemist’s glass, but this excursion into the
chemistry of drinks is rather alarming. He would have been a most
conscientious bartender.”

“Does he really drink much?” Nora demanded.

“Not when I’m at home,” Alice declared. “Nothing after one. If he goes
to bed then he’s all right; if he doesn’t, he sits up till five going
the pace that fills. I wouldn’t mind if it made him amusing, but it
makes him merely sleepy. But he doesn’t drink nearly as much as most of
the men he knows. What makes you think he does, is that he makes such a
ceremony out of drinking. I don’t think he enjoys drinking alone. Nora,”
she added, “do sit down; you make me dizzy.”

“I can’t,” Nora told her. “I always stand up for twenty minutes after
each meal. It keeps you thin.”

“Does it?” Mrs. Harrington asked eagerly, rising from her comfortable
chair. “Does it really? Still, I lost nine pounds abroad!”

“Goodness!” Nora cried enviously. “How?”

“Buttermilk!” Alice cried triumphantly.

“And I walked four miles this morning in a rubber suit and three
sweaters, _and_ gained half a pound,” Nora declared disconsolately.

“I do wish hips would come in again,” Alice Harrington sighed. “Ah, here
come the men,” she said more brightly, as the three entered.

Michael was still bearing, with what modesty he could, the encomiums on
a purple punch he had brewed after exhaustive laboratory experiments.

“It’s delicious,” Denby declared.

Michael sighed. “I used to think so until my wife stopped my drinking.”

Even Monty seemed cheered by it. “Fine stuff,” he asserted. “I can feel
it warming up all the little nooks and crannies.”

“Purple but pleasing,” Denby said, with the air of an epigrammatist.

“Did they tell you any purple stories?” Michael’s wife demanded.

“We don’t know any new stories,” Denby told her; “we’ve been in
England.”

“Do sit down, all of you,” Alice commanded. “We’ve all been standing up
to get thin.”

“If they’re going to discuss getting thin and dietetics,” Michael said,
“let’s get out.”

“Woman’s favorite topic,” Monty remarked profoundly.

“But you mustn’t sit down, Alice,” Nora warned, as her hostess seemed
about to sink into her chair. “It isn’t twenty minutes!”

“Well, I think it is twenty minutes,” she returned smiling, “and if it
isn’t I don’t care a continental.”

“Women are so self-denying,” Michael Harrington observed with gentle
satire.

“And sometimes it pays,” his wife said. “Do you know, Nora, there was a
girl on the boat who lost twelve pounds.”

“Twelve pounds,” Michael exclaimed, and then by a rapid-fire bit of
mental arithmetic added: “Why, that’s sixty dollars. How women do gamble
nowadays!”

“Pounds of flesh, Michael, pounds of flesh. She was on a diet. She
didn’t eat for three days.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Nora said approvingly. “Sometime when I’m not
hungry I’ll try it.”

Ethel Cartwright had refrained from joining in the conversation for the
reason she had no part just now in their lighter moods. Their talk of
weight losing had been well enough, but Michael’s misinterpretation of
the twelve pounds brought back to her the cause of Amy’s misfortune and
plunged her deeper into misery.

She walked toward the window and looked over the grass to the deep gloom
of the cedar trees opposite. And it seemed to her that there were moving
shadows that might be Taylor and his men ready to pounce upon a man to
whom a year ago she had been deeply drawn. There was a charm about Denby
when he set himself to please a woman to which she, although no blushing
ingénue, was keenly sensible.

“Seeing ghosts?” said a voice at her elbow, and she turned, startled,
to see his smiling face looking down at her.

She assumed a lighter air. “No,” she told him brightly. “Ghosts belong
to the past. I was seeing spirits of the future.”

“Can’t we see them together?” he suggested. “I shall never tire of
Parisian ghosts if you are there to keep me from being too scared. Let’s
go out and see if the moon looks good-tempered. The others are talking
about smuggling and light and airy nothings like that. Shall we?”

“No, no!” she said, with a tremor in her voice that did not escape him.
“Not yet; later, perhaps.”

She could, in fact, hardly compose her face. Here he was suggesting that
she take him into a trap to be prepared later by her treachery. But she
had what seemed to her a duty to perform, and no sentiment must stand in
the way of her sister’s salvation. And there was always the hope that he
was innocent. At any other time than this she would have wagered he was
without blame; but this was a day on which misfortunes were visiting
her, and she was filled with dread as to its outcome.

She moved over to Mrs. Harrington’s side, gracefully and slowly, free so
far as the ordinary observer could see from any care.

“So you are talking of smuggling,” she said. “Alice, did you really
bring in anything without paying duty on it?”

“Not a thing,” Alice returned promptly. “I declared every solitary
stitch.”

“I’d like to believe you,” her husband remarked, “but knowing you as I
do--”

“I paid seven hundred dollars’ duty,” his spouse declared.

“Disgusting!” Nora exclaimed. “Think of what you could have bought for
that!”

“Please tell me,” Michael inquired anxiously, “what mental revolution
converted you from the idea that smuggling was a legitimate and noble
sport?”

“I still don’t think it’s wrong,” Alice declared honestly. “Some of you
men seem to, but I’d swindle the government any day.”

“Then, for Heaven’s sake,” Nora wanted to know, “why waste all that good
money?”

Alice waved a jewelled white hand toward Steven Denby.

“Behold my reformer!”

Ethel Cartwright looked at him quickly. Her distrust of motives was the
result of her conversation with Daniel Taylor, who believed in no man’s
good faith.

“Mr. Denby?” she asked, almost suspiciously.

“What has Mr. Denby to do with it?” Nora cried, equally surprised that
it was his influence which had stayed the wilful Alice.

“He frightened me,” Alice averred.

“I want to have a good look at the man who can do that,” Michael cried.

“I’m afraid Mrs. Harrington is exaggerating,” Denby explained patiently;
“I merely pointed out that things had come to a pass when it might be
very awkward to fool with the Customs.”

“They didn’t give us the least bit of trouble at the dock,” she
answered. “I wish I’d brought in a trunk full of dutiable things. They
hardly looked at my belongings.”

“That sometimes means,” Denby explained, “that there will be the
greatest possible trouble afterwards.”

“I don’t see that,” Nora asserted. “How can it be?”

“Well,” he returned, “according to some articles in McClure’s a few
months ago by Burns, very often a dishonest official will let a
prominent woman like Mrs. Harrington slip through the lines without the
least difficulty--even if she is smuggling--so that afterwards he can
come to her home and threaten exposure and a heavy fine. Usually the
woman or her husband will pay any amount to hush things up. I was
thinking of that when I advised Mrs. Harrington to declare everything
she had.”

“But you said a whole lot more than that,” Mrs. Harrington reminded him.
“When our baggage was being examined at Dover, you spoke about that man
of mystery who is known as R. J. It was cumulative, Mr. Denby, and on
the whole you did it rather well. My bank-book is a living witness to
your eloquence.”

Ethel asked rather eagerly, “But this R. J., Mr. Denby, what is he?”

“I’ve heard of him,” Michael answered. “Some man at the club told me
about him, but I very soon sized that matter up. If you want to know my
opinion, Ethel, R. J. is the bogey man of the Customs. If they suspect
an inspector he receives a postal signed R. J., and telling him to watch
out. It’s a great scheme, which I recommend to the heads of big business
corporations. I don’t believe in R. J.”

Ethel looked up at Denby brightly. “But you really believe in him, don’t
you?”

“I only know,” he told her, “that R. J. has many enemies because he has
made many discoveries. Unquestionably he does exist for all Mr.
Harrington’s unbelief. He’s supposed to be one of these impossible
secret service agents, travelling incognito all over the globe. He is
known only by his initials. Some people call him the storm-petrol,
always in the wake of trouble. Where there is intrigue among nations,
diplomatic tangles, if the Japs steal a fortification plan, or a German
cross-country aeroplane is sent to drop a bomb on the Singer Building,
R.J. is supposed to be there to catch it.”

“What an awfully unpleasant position,” Nora shuddered.

“Think of a man deliberately choosing a job like that!” Monty commented.

“So,” Denby continued, “when a friend of mine in Paris told me that R.J.
had been requested by the government to investigate Customs frauds, I
knew there would be more danger in the smuggling game than ever. I
warned Mrs. Harrington because I did not want to see her humiliated by
exposure.”

“That’s mighty good of you, Denby,” Michael said appreciatively; “but
all the same I don’t see how--supposing she had slipped in without any
fuss some stuff she had bought in Paris or London and ought to have
declared--I don’t see how if they didn’t know it, they could blackmail
her.”

“That’s the simplest part of it,” Denby assured him. “The clerk in the
kind of store your wife would patronize is most often a government spy,
unofficially, and directly after he has assured the purchaser that it
is so simple to smuggle, and one can hide things so easily, he has
cabled the United States Customs what you bought and how much it cost.”

“They do that?” said Michael indignantly. “I never did trust Frenchmen,
the sneaks. I’ve no doubt that the _heure de l’aperitif_ was introduced
by an American.”

Miss Cartwright had been watching Denby closely. There was forced upon
her the unhappy conviction that this explanation of the difficulties of
smuggling was in a sense his way of boasting of a difficulty he had
overcome. And she alone of all who were listening had the key to this.
It was imperative--for the dread of Taylor and his threats had eaten
into her soul--to gain more explicit information. Her manner was almost
coquettish as she asked him:

“Tell me truly, Mr. Denby, didn’t you smuggle something, just one tiny
little scarf-pin, for example?”

“Nothing,” he returned. “What makes you think I did?”

“It seemed to me,” she said boldly, “that your fear that Mrs. Harrington
might be caught was due to the fear suspicion might fall on you.”

Denby looked at her curiously. He had never seen Ethel Cartwright in
this mood. He wondered at what she was driving.

“It does sound plausible,” he admitted.

“Then ’fess up,” Michael urged. “Come on, Denby, what did you bring in?”

“Myself and Monty,” Denby returned, “and he isn’t dutiable. All the
smuggling that our party did was performed by Monty out of regard for
you.”

“I still remain unconvinced,” Ethel Cartwright declared obstinately. “I
think it was two thoughts for yourself and one for Alice.”

“Now, Denby,” Michael cried jocularly, “you’re among friends. Where have
you hidden the swag?”

“Do tell us,” Nora entreated. “It’d be so nice if you were a criminal
and had your picture in the rogues’ gallery. The only criminals I know
are those who just run over people in their motors, and that gets so
commonplace. Do tell us how you started on a life of crime.”

“Nora!” Monty cried reprovingly. Things were increasing his nervousness
to a horrible extent. Why wouldn’t they leave smuggling alone?

“I’m not interested in your endeavors,” Nora said superciliously.
“You’re only a sort of petty larceny smuggler with your silver
hair-brushes. Mr. Denby does things on a bigger scale. You’re safe with
us, Mr. Denby,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he answered, “so safe that if I had any dark secrets to reveal
I’d proclaim them with a loud voice.”

“That’s always the way,” Nora complained. “Every time I meet a man who
seems exciting he turns out to be just a nice man--I hate nice men.” She
crossed over to the agitated Monty.

“Mr. Denby is a great disappointment to me, too,” Ethel Cartwright
confessed. “Couldn’t you invent a new way to smuggle?”

“It wasn’t for lack of inventive powers,” he assured her, “it was just
respect for the law.”

“I didn’t know we had any left in America,” Michael observed, and then
added, “but then you’ve lived a lot abroad, Denby.”

“Mr. Denby must be rewarded with a cigarette,” Ethel declared, bringing
the silver box from the mantel and offering him one. “A cigarette, Mr.
Denby?”

“Thanks, no,” he answered, “I prefer to roll my own if you don’t mind.”

It seemed that the operation of rolling a cigarette was amazingly
interesting to the girl. Her eager eyes fastened themselves intently on
a worn pigskin pouch he carried.

“Can’t you do it with one hand?” she asked disappointedly; “just like
cowboys do in plays?”

“It seems I’m doomed to disappoint you,” he smiled. “I find two hands
barely sufficient.”

“Sometime you must roll me one,” she said. “Will you?”

“With pleasure,” he returned, lighting his own.

“But you don’t smoke,” Alice objected.

“Ah, but I’ve been tempted,” she confessed archly.

“The only thing that makes my life worth living is yielding to
temptation,” Nora observed.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Michael said rising. “I’m tempted to take a
small drink. Who’ll yield with me and split a pint of Brut Imperial?”

“That’s your last drink to-night,” his wife warned him.

“I’m not likely to forget it,” he said ruefully. “My wife,” he told the
company, “thinks I’m a restaurant, and closes me up at one sharp.”

“Let’s have some bridge,” Mrs. Harrington suggested. “Ethel, what do you
say?”

“I’ve given it up,” she answered.

“Why, you used to love it,” Nora asserted, surprised.

“I’ve come to think all playing for money is horrible,” Ethel returned,
thinking to what trouble Amy’s gambling had brought her.

“Me too,” Michael chimed in. “Unless stocks go up, or the Democratic
party goes down, I’ll be broke soon. How about a game of pool?”

“I’d love to,” Nora said. “I’ve been dying to learn.”

“That’ll make it a nice interesting game,” Monty commented. He knew he
could never make a decent shot until the confounded necklace was miles
away.

“Then there’s nothing else to do but dance,” Alice decreed. “Come,
Nora.”

“No,” Michael cried, “I’ll play pool or auction or poker, I’ll sit or
talk or sing, but I’m hanged if I hesitate and get lost, or maxixe!”

Alice shook her head mournfully. “Ah, Michael,” she said, “if you were
only as light-footed as you are light-headed, what a partner you’d make.
We are going to dance anyway.”

Ethel hesitated at the doorway. “Aren’t you dancing or playing pool, Mr.
Denby?”

“In just a moment,” he said. “First I have a word to say to Monty.”

“I understand,” she returned. “Man’s god--business! Men use that excuse
over the very littlest things sometimes.”

“But this is a big thing,” he asserted; “a two hundred thousand dollar
proposition, so we’re naturally a bit anxious.”

Monty shook his head gravely. “Mighty anxious, believe me.”

Whatever hope she might have cherished that Taylor was wrong, and this
man she liked so much was innocent, faded when she heard the figure two
hundred thousand dollars. That was the amount of the necklace’s value,
exactly. And she had wondered at Monty’s strained, nervous manner. Now
it became very clear that he was Denby’s accomplice, dreading, and
perhaps knowing as well as she, that the house was surrounded.

She told herself that the law was just, and those who disobeyed were
guilty and should be punished; and that she was an instrument,
impersonal, and as such, without blame. But uppermost in her mind was
the thought of black treachery, of mean intriguing ways, and the
certainty that this night would see the end of her friendship with the
man she had sworn to deliver to the ruthless, cruel, insatiable Taylor.
It was, as Taylor told her, a question of deciding between two people.
She could help, indirectly, to convict a clever smuggler, or she could
send her weak, dependent, innocent eighteen-year-old sister to jail. And
she had said to Taylor: “I have no choice.”

Denby looked at her a little puzzled. In Paris, a year ago, she had
seemed a sweet, natural girl, armed with a certain dignity that would
not permit men to become too friendly on short acquaintance. And here it
seemed that she was almost trying to flirt with him in a wholly
different way. He was not sure that her other manner was not more in
keeping with the ideal he had held of her since that first meeting.

“I should be anxious, too,” she said, “if I had all that money at stake.
But all the same, don’t be too long. I think I may ask you for that
cigarette presently.”




CHAPTER TEN


Denby stood looking after her. “Bully, bully girl,” he muttered.

“Anything wrong, Steve?” Monty inquired, not catching what he said.

Denby turned to the speaker slowly; his thoughts had been more
pleasantly engaged.

“I don’t understand why they haven’t done anything,” he answered. “I’m
certain we were followed at the dock. When I went to send those
telegrams I saw a man who seemed very much disinterested, but kept near
me. I saw him again when we had our second blow-out near Jamaica. It
might have been a coincidence, but I’m inclined to think they’ve marked
us down.”

“I don’t believe it,” Monty cried. “If they had the least idea about the
necklace, they’d have pinched you at the pier, or got you on the road
when it was only you and the chauffeur against their men.”

Still Denby seemed dubious. “They let me in too dashed easily,” he
complained, “and I can’t help being suspicious.”

“They seemed to suspect me,” Monty reminded him.

“The fellow thought you were laughing at him, that’s all. They’ve no
sense of humor,” Denby returned. “What I said to-night was no fiction,
Monty. Carti

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/40939