WHENhe left Weems, it was too late to start a round of golf so Trent took his homeward way intent on starting another story. Crosbeigh was always urging him to turn out more of them.
His boarding house room seemed shabbier than ever. The rug, which had never been a good one, showed its age. The steel engravings on the wall were offensive. “And Weems,” he thought, “owns a Constable!”
His upright piano sounded thinner to his touch. “And Weems,” he sighed, “has been able to buy a grand.”
Up from the kitchen the triumphant smell of a “boiled New England dinner” sought out every corner of the house. High above all the varied odors, cabbage was king. The prospect of the dinner table was appalling, with Mr. Lund, distant and ready to quarrel over any infringement of his rights or curtailment of his portion. Mrs. Clarke ready to resent any jest as to her lord’s habits. The landlady eager to give battle to such as sniffed at what her kitchen had to offer. Wearisome banter between brainless boarders tending mainly to criticism of moving picture productions and speculations as to the salaries of the stars. Not a soul there who had ever heardof William Blake or Ravel! Overdressed girls who were permanently annoyed with Anthony Trent because he would never take them to ice-cream parlors. Each new boarder as she came set her cap for him and he remained courteous but disinterested.
One of the epics of Mrs. Sauer’s boarding house was that night when Miss Margaret Rafferty, incensed at the coldness with which her advances were received and the jeers of her girl friends, brought as a dinner guest a former sweetheart, now enthusiastically patrolling city sidewalks as a guardian of the peace. It was not difficult to inflame McGuire. He disliked Anthony Trent on sight and exercised an untrammeled wit during the dinner at his expense. It was afterwards in the little garden where the men went to smoke an after dinner cigar that the unforgivable phrase was passed.
McGuire was just able to walk home. He had met an antagonist who was a lightning hitter, whose footwork was quick and who boxed admirably and kept his head.
After this a greater meed of courtesy was accorded the writer of stories. But the bibulous Clarke alone amused him, Clarke who had been city editor of a great daily when Trent was a police reporter on it, and was now a Park Row derelict supported by the generosity of his old friends and acquaintances. Only Mrs. Clarke knew that Anthony Trent on numerous occasions gave her a little money each week until that day in the Greek kalends when her husband would find another position.
Anthony Trent settled himself at his typewriter and began looking over the carbon copy of the story hehad just sold to Crosbeigh. He wished to assure himself of certain details in it. Among the pages was an envelope with the name of a celebrated Fifth Avenue club embossed upon it. Written on it in pencil was Crosbeigh’s name. Unquestionably he had swept it from the editorial desk when he had taken up the carbon copy of his story.
Opening it he found a note written in a rather cramped and angular hand. The stationery was of the Fifth Avenue club. The signature was unmistakable, “Conington Warren.” Trent read:
“My dear Crosbeigh:“I am sending this note by Togoyama because I want to be sure that you will lunch with me at Voisin’s to-morrow at one o’clock. I wish affairs permitted me to see more of my old Yale comrades but I am enormously busy. By the way, a little friend of mine thinks she can write. I don’t suppose she can, but I promised to show her efforts to you. I’m no judge but it seems to me her work is very much the kind you publish in your magazine. We will talk it over to-morrow. Of course she cares nothing about what you would pay her. She wants to see her name in print.“Yours ever,“CONINGTON WARREN.”
“My dear Crosbeigh:
“I am sending this note by Togoyama because I want to be sure that you will lunch with me at Voisin’s to-morrow at one o’clock. I wish affairs permitted me to see more of my old Yale comrades but I am enormously busy. By the way, a little friend of mine thinks she can write. I don’t suppose she can, but I promised to show her efforts to you. I’m no judge but it seems to me her work is very much the kind you publish in your magazine. We will talk it over to-morrow. Of course she cares nothing about what you would pay her. She wants to see her name in print.
“Yours ever,“CONINGTON WARREN.”
Trent picked up an eraser and passed it over the name on the envelope. It had been written with a soft pencil and was easily swept away.
Over the body of the letter he spent a long time. He copied it exactly. A stranger would have swornthat the copy had been written by the same hand which indited the original. And when this copy had been made to Trent’s satisfaction, he carefully erased everything in the original but the signature. Then remembering Weems’ description of the Conington Warren camp in the Adirondacks, he wrote a little note to one Togoyama.
It was five when he had finished. There was no indecision about him. Twenty minutes later he was at the Public Library consulting a large volume in which were a hundred of the best known residences in New York. So conscientious was the writer that there were plans of every floor and in many instances descriptions of their interior decoration. Anthony Trent chuckled to think of the difficulties with which the unlettered crook has to contend. “Chicago Ed. Binner,” for example, had married half a hundred servant maids to obtain information as to the disposition of rooms that he could have obtained by the mere consultation of such a book as this.
It was while Mrs. Sauer’s wards were finishing their boiled dinner that some of them had a glimpse of Anthony Trent in evening dress descending the stairs.
“Dinner not good enough for his nibs,” commented one boarder seeking to curry the Sauer favor.
“I’d rather have my boarders pay and not eat than eat and not pay,” said Mrs. Sauer grimly. It was three weeks since she had received a dollar from the speaker.
“Drink,” exclaimed Mr. Clarke, suddenly roused from meditation of a day now dead when a highball could be purchased for fifteen cents. “This food shortage now. That could be settled easily. Take thetax off liquor and people wouldn’t want to eat so much. It’s the high cost of drinking that’s the trouble. What’s the use of calling ourselves a free people? I tell you it was keeping vodka from the Russians that caused the whole trouble. Don’t argue with me. I know.”
Mr. Clarke went from the dinner table to his bed and awoke around midnight possessed with the seven demons of unsatiated thirst. He determined to go down and call upon Anthony Trent. He would plead for enough money to go to the druggist and get his wife’s prescription filled. Trent, good lad that he was, always fell for it. And, he argued, it was a friendly act to do, this midnight call on a hard working young writer who had once been at his command.
For the first time Anthony Trent’s door was locked. And the voice that snapped out an interrogation was different from the leisurely and amiable invitation to enter which was usual. The door was suddenly flung open, so sudden that poor Clarke was startled. And facing him, his fists clenched and a certain tensity of attitude that was a strange one to the visitor, was Anthony Trent still in evening dress. Clarke construed it into an expression of resentment at his intrusion. He could not understand the sudden affability that took possession of his former reporter.
“Come in, Mr. Clarke,” said Trent cordially. “I am sorry your wife’s heart is troubling her but I agree with you that you should rush with all haste to the nearby druggist and have that prescription filled. And as the man who owes you money did not pay you to-day as he promised, but will without fail to-morrowat midday, take this five dollar bill with my blessing.”
“How did you know?” gasped Clarke.
“I am a mind reader,” Trent retorted. “It saves time.” He led Mr. Clarke gently to the door. “Now I’m tired and want to go to sleep so don’t call in on your way back with the change. Just trot up to bed as quietly as you can.”
When the door was locked and a chair-back wedged against the handle, Trent lowered the shades. Then he cleared his table of the litter of paper. A half dozen pages of the first draft of his new story held his attention for a few seconds. Then he deliberately tore the pages into little fragments, threw them into the waste paper basket. And to this cenotaph he added the contents of the table drawer, made up of notes for future stories, the results of weeks of labor.
“Dust to dust,” he murmured, “ashes to ashes!”
It was the end of the career of Anthony Trent, writer.
And on the table which had formerly held only writing paper a quaint miscellany was placed. Eight scarf pins, each holding in golden claws stones of price. Apparently Conington Warren had about him only what was good. And there was a heavy platinum ring with a ruby of not less than four carats, a lady’s ring. It would not be difficult for a man so clever with his hands and apt mechanically to remove these jewels from their setting. Nor was there any difficulty in melting the precious metals.
It seemed to Trent that he had gloated over these glistening stones for hours before he put them away.
Then he took out a roll of bills and counted them. Conington Warren, it seemed, must have had considerable faith in the excellent Togoyama now hurrying to the Adirondack camp, for he had left three thousand dollars in the upper left hand drawer of a Sheraton desk.
Morning was coming down the skies when Trent, now in dressing gown, lighted his pipe and sat down by the window.
“Well,” he muttered softly, “I’ve done it and there’s no going back. Yesterday I was what people call an honest man. Now——?”
He shrugged his shoulders and puffed quickly. Out of the window grey clouds of smoke rose as fragrant incense.
He had never meant to take up a career of crime. Looking back he could see how little things coming together had provoked in him an insatiable desire for an easier life. In all his personal dealings heretofore, he had been scrupulously honest, and there had never been any reflection on his honor as a sportsman. He had played games for their own sake. He had won without bragging and lost with excuses. Up in Hanover there were still left those who chanted his praise. What would people think of him if he were placed in the dock as a criminal?
His own people were dead. There were distant cousins in Cleveland, whom he hardly remembered. There was no family honor to trail in the dust, no mother or sweetheart to blame him for a broken heart.
He stirred uneasily as he thought of the possibility of capture. Even now those might be on his trailwho would arrest him. It would be ironical if, before he tasted the fruits of leisure, he were taken to prison—perhaps by Officer McGuire! It had all been so absurdly easy. Within a few minutes of receiving the forged note the Japanese was on his way to the mountains.
The bishop-like butler who adored his master according to Crosbeigh, had seemed utterly without suspicion when he passed Trent engaged in animated converse with his supposed employer. The bad moment was when the man had come into the library where the intruder was hiding himself and stood there waiting for an answer to his question. Trent had seen to it that the light was low. It was a moment of inspiration when he called to mind Conington Warren’s imperious gesture as he waved away Voisin’s head waiter, and another which had made him put on the velvet smoking jacket. And it had all come out without a hitch. But he was playing a game now when he could never be certain he was not outguessed. It might be the suave butler was outside in the shadows guiding police to the capture.
He looked out of the window and down the silent street. There was indeed a man outside and looking up at him. But it was only poor Clarke whose own prescription had been too well filled. He had captured, so he fancied, an errant lamppost wantonly disporting itself.
Anthony Trent looked at him with a relief in which disgust had its part. He swore, by all the high gods, never to sink to that level. A curious turn of mind, perhaps, for a burglar to take. But so far the sporting simile presented itself to him. It was a game, abig game in which he took bigger risks than any one else. He was going to pit his wit, strength and knowledge against society as it was organized.
“I don’t see why I can’t play it decently,” he said to himself as he climbed into bed.
WHENthose two great Australians, Norman Brooks and Anthony Wilding, had played their brilliant tennis in America, Trent had been a close follower of their play. He had interviewed them for his paper. In those days he himself was a respectable performer at the game. Brooks had given him one of his own rackets which was no longer in first class condition. It was especially made for the Australian by a firm in Melbourne. So pleased was Trent with it that he, later, sent to Australia for two more. It happened that the manager of the sporting goods store in Melbourne was a young American who believed in the efficacy of “follow up” letters. It was a large and prosperous firm and it followed up Anthony Trent with thoroughness. He received square envelopes addressed by hand by every third Australian mail.
Mrs. Sauer’s boarders, being of that kind which interests itself in others’ affairs and discusses them, were intrigued at these frequent missives from the Antipodes.
Finally Trent invented an Uncle Samuel who had, so he affirmed, left his native land when an adventurous child of nine and made a great fortune among the Calgoorlie gold fields. Possessing a nimble wit herelated to his fellow boarders amazing accounts of his uncle’s activities. The boarders often discussed this uncle, his strange dislike of women, the beard which fell to his knees, the team of racing kangaroos which drew his buggy, and so forth.
At the breakfast table on the morning when Anthony Trent faced his world no longer an honest man, it was observed that he was disinclined to talk. As a matter of fact he wanted a reasonable excuse for leaving the Sauer establishment. The woman had been kind and considerate to him and he had few grievances.
The mail brought him an enticing letter from Melbourne offering him all that the tennis player needs, at special prices.
“I trust your uncle is well,” Mrs. Clarke observed.
It was in that moment Trent got his inspiration.
“I’m afraid he is very ill,” he said sadly, “at his age—he must be almost ninety——”
“Only eighty-four,” Mrs. Clarke reminded him. She remembered the year of his emigration.
“Eighty-four is a great age to attain,” he declared, “and he has lived not wisely but well. I feel I should go out and see if there’s anything I can do.”
“You are going to leave us?” gasped Mrs. Sauer. His going would deprive her of a most satisfactory lodger.
“I’m afraid my duty is plain,” he returned gravely.
Thus he left Mrs. Sauer’s establishment. Years later he wondered whether if he had enjoyed better cooking he would have fallen from grace, and if he could not with justice blame a New England boiled dinner for his lapse.
For a few days he stayed at a quiet hotel. He wanted a small apartment on Central Park. There were reasons for this. First, he must live alone in a house where no officious elevator boys observed his going and his coming. Central Park West offered many such houses. And if it should happen that he ever had to flee from the pursuit of those who guarded the mansions that faced him on the park’s eastern side, there was no safer way home than across the silent grass. He was one of those New Yorkers who know their Central Park. There had been a season when a friend gave him the use of a saddle horse and there was no bridle path that he did not know.
He was fortunate in finding rooms at the top of a fine old brownstone house in the eighties. There were four large rooms all overlooking the Park. That he was compelled to climb five flights of stairs was no objection in his eyes. A little door to the left of his own entrance gave admission to a ladder leading to the roof. None of the other tenants, so the agent informed him, ever used it. Anthony Trent was relieved to hear it.
“I sleep badly,” he said, “possibly because I read a great deal and am anxious to try open air sleeping. If I might have the right to use the roof for that I should be very willing to pay extra.”
“Glad to have you there,” said the agent heartily, “you’ll be a sort of night watchman for the property.” He laughed at his jest. “Insomnia is plain hell, ain’t it? I used to suffer that way. I walk a great deal now and that cures me. Do you take drugs?”
“I’m afraid of them,” Anthony Trent declared. “Iwalk a good deal at night when the streets are quiet.”
The agent reported to his office that Trent was a studious man who slept badly and wanted to sleep on the roof; also that he took long tramps at night. A good tenant, in fine. Thus he spread abroad the report which Trent desired.
The selection of a housekeeper was of extreme importance. She must be an elderly, quiet body without callers or city relatives. Her references must be examined thoroughly. He interviewed a score of women before he found what he wanted. She was a Mrs. Phoebe Kinney from Agawam, a village overlooking Buzzard’s Bay. A widow, childless and friendless, she had occupied similar positions in Massachusetts but this would be the first one in New York. He observed in his talk with her that she conceived the metropolis to be the world center of wickedness. She assured her future employer that she kept herself to herself because she could never be certain that the man or woman who addressed a friendly remark to her might not be a criminal.
“Keep that attitude and we two shall agree splendidly,” he said. “I have few friends and no callers. I am of a studious disposition and cannot bear interruptions. If you had friends in New York I should not hire you. I sometimes keep irregular hours but I shall expect to find you there all the time. You can have two weeks in the summer if you want them.”
Next day Mrs. Kinney was inducted to her new home. It was a happy choice for she cooked well and had the New England passion for cleanliness. Trent noticed with pleasure that she was even suspicious of the tradespeople who sent their wares up the dumbwaiter. And she discouraged their gossip who sold meat and bread to her. The many papers he took were searched for their crimes by Mrs. Kinney. Discovery of such records affirmed her in her belief of the city’s depravity.
In his examination of her former positions Trent discovered that she had been housekeeper to the Clent Bulstrodes. He knew they were a fine, old Boston family of Back Bay, with a mansion on Beacon street. When he questioned her about it she told him it was as housekeeper of their summer home on Buzzards’ Bay. Young Graham Bulstrode had been a tennis player of note years before. Many a time Anthony Trent had seen him at Longwood. He had dropped out because he drank too much to keep fit. The two were of an age. Mrs. Kinney related the history of the Bulstrode family at length and concluded by remarking that when she first saw her employer at the agency she was reminded of Mr. Graham. “But he looks terrible now,” she added, “they say he drinks brandy before breakfast!”
The next day the society columns of theHeraldinformed him that the Clent Bulstrodes had bought a New York residence in East 73d street, just off the Avenue. This information was of peculiar interest to Trent. Now he was definitely engaged in a precarious profession he was determined to make a success of it. He had smoked innumerable pipes in tabulating those accidents which brought most criminals to sentence. He believed in the majority of cases they had not the address to get away with plausible excuses. It was an ancient and frayed excuse, that of pretending to be sent to read the water or electricmeter. And besides, it was not Trent’s intention to take to disguises of this sort.
He was now engaged in working out the solution of his second adventure. He was to make an attempt upon the house of William Drummond, banker, who lived in 93rd street and in the same number as did the Clent Bulstrodes, twenty blocks to the south. He had learned a great deal about Drummond from Clarke, his one-time city editor. Clarke remembered most of the interesting things about the big men of his day. He told Trent that Drummond invariably carried a great deal of money on his person. He expatiated on the Drummond history. This William Drummond had begun life on an Iowa farm. He had gradually saved a little money and then lent it at extravagant interest. Later he specialized on mortgages, foreclosing directly he knew his client unable to meet his notes. His type was a familiar one and had founded many fortunes. Clarke painted him as a singularly detestable creature.
“But why,” demanded Anthony Trent, “does a man like that risk his money if he’s so keen on conserving it? One would think he wouldn’t take out more than his car fare for fearing either of being robbed or borrowed from.”
“As for robbing,” Clarke returned, “he’s a great husky beast although he’s nearly sixty. And as to being borrowed from, that’s why he takes it out. He belongs to a lot of clubs—not the Knickerbocker type—but the sort of clubs where rich young fellows go to play poker. They know old Drummond can lend ’em the ready cash without any formalities any time they wish it. Ever sit in a poker game, son, andget a hunch that if you were able to buy just one more pile of chips you’d clean up?”
“I have,” said the other smiling, “but my hunch has generally been wrong.”
“Most hunches are,” Clarke commented. “Theirs are, too, but that old scoundrel makes thousands out of just such hunches. He puts it up to the borrower that it’s between club members and so forth, not a money lending transaction. Tells ’em he doesn’t lend money as a rule, and so forth and so on. I know he was asked to resign from one club for it. He’s a bloodsucker and if I had an automobile I’d watch for him to cross the street and then run him down.”
“Has he ever stung you?” Trent asked.
“Me? Not on your life. He specializes in rich men’s sons. He wouldn’t lend you or me a nickel if we were starving. You remember young Hodgson Grant who committed suicide last year. They said it was the heat that got him. It was William Drummond.”
“Why does he keep up a house on such a street as he does? I should think he’d live cheaper.”
“A young second wife. Threw the old one away, so to speak, and got a high stepper that makes him speed up. She thinks she will get into society. Not a chance, son, not a chance. I know.”
It was on some of William Drummond’s money that Anthony Trent had set his heart. It salved what was still a conscience to know that he was taking back profits unlawfully made, bleeding a blood sucker.
Owing to the second Mrs. Drummond’s desire to storm society she cultivated publicity. There were pictures of herself and her prize winning Red Chowsin dog papers. In other magazines she was seen driving her two high stepping hackneys, Lord Ping and Lady Pong, at the Mineola Horse Show. Also, there was an article on her home in a magazine devoted to interior decoration. A careful study of it answered every question concerning its lay-out that the most careful cracksman needed to know. Trent spent a week in learning how Drummond occupied his time. The banker invariably left his most profitable club at midnight, never earlier. By half past twelve he was in his library smoking one of the cigars that had been given him that night. Then a drink of gin and water. Afterwards, bed. The house was protected by the Sherlock system of burglar alarm, a tiresome invention to those who were ignorant of it. Anthony Trent regarded it as an enemy and had mastered it successfully for there were tricks of lock opening not hard to one as mechanically able as he and many a criminal had talked to him openly when he had covered police headquarters years before.
Drummond drank very little. When asked he invariably took a cigar. He was possessed of great strength and still patronized the club gymnasium. For two hours one night Drummond sat near him at a certain famous athletic club. On that night there were certain changes to be observed in the appearance of Anthony Trent. He seemed to have put on twenty pounds in weight and ten years in age. The art of make-up which had been forced upon him in college theatricals had recently engaged his attention. It was an art of which he had thought little until for his paper he had once interviewed Beerbohm Tree andhad seen the amazing changes skilful make-up may create.
Ordinarily he slipped in and out silently, not encouraging Mrs. Kinney to talk. On this particular night he asked her a question concerning a missing letter and she came out into the lighted hall.
“You gave me quite a shock,” she said. “You look as like Mr. Graham Bulstrode as one pea is like another, although I’ve never seen him in full evening dress.”
She was plainly impressed by her employer’s magnificence although she feared this unusual flush on his ordinarily pale face meant that he had been having more to drink than was good for him.
It was the tribute for which Trent had waited. If Mrs. Kinney had never seen the son of her former master in the garb of fashion, her present employer had, and that within the week. And he had observed him carefully. He had seen that Bulstrode was wearing during the nights of late Autumn an Inverness cape of light-weight black cloth, lined with white silk. To Trent it seemed rather stagey but that did not prevent him from ordering its duplicate from Bulstrode’s tailor. Bulstrode clung to the opera hat rather than to the silk hat which has almost superseded it. To-night Trent wore an opera hat.
Bulstrode came into the athletic club at half past eleven. He was slightly under the influence of liquor and his face no redder than that of Trent who waited across the street in the shadow of the Park wall. No sooner had Bulstrode been whirled off in a taxi than Anthony Trent went into the club. To the attendants it seemed that he had returned for somethingforgotten. With his Inverness still on and his hat folded he lost himself in the crowded rooms and found at last William Drummond. The banker nodded cordially. It was evident to the impostor that the banker wished to ingratiate himself with the new member. The Bulstrodes had enormous wealth and a name that was recognized. To his greeting Anthony Trent returned a solemn owl-like stare. “Shylock!” he hiccoughed insolently.
Drummond flushed but said nothing. Indeed he looked about him to see if the insult had been overheard by any other member. Inwardly Trent chuckled. He had now no fear of being discovered. Bulstrode probably knew few men at the club. He had not been in town as a resident for a month yet. He sank into a chair and read an evening paper watching in reality the man Drummond.
THEnight that he entered Drummond’s house was slightly foggy and visibility was low. He was dressed as he had been when he encountered Drummond at the club. He had seen the banker climb the five steps to his front door at half past twelve. At half past one the lights were switched off in the bedroom on the second floor. At two the door gently opened and admitted Anthony Trent. He left it unlocked and ready for flight. And he memorized the position of the furniture so that hasty flight would be possible.
It was not a big house. The articles of furniture, the pictures, rugs and hangings were splendid. The interior decorators had taken care of that. But he had seen them all in the magazine. Trent knew very well that to obtain such prizes as he sought could not be a matter of certainty. Somewhere in this house was a lot of currency. And it might be in a safe. Old fashioned safes presented few difficulties, but your modern strong box is a different matter. Criminal investigator as he was, he knew one man seldom attempted to dynamite a safe. It was a matter for several men. In itself the technique was not difficult but he had no accomplices and at best it is a matter better fitted for offices in the night silences than a private residence.
He had been told by criminals that it was astonishing how careless rich men were with their money. Anthony Trent proposed to test this. He had made only a noiseless progress on a half dozen stairs on his upward flight when a door suddenly opened, flooding the stairway with light. It was from a room above him. And there were steps coming along a corridor toward him. Feeling certain that the reception rooms leading off the entrance hall were empty, he swiftly opened a door and stepped backward into the room, watching intently to see that he had escaped the observation of some one descending the staircase.
From the frying pan’s discomfort to the greater dangers of the fire was what he had done for himself. He found himself in a long room at one end of which he stood, swearing under breath at what he saw. At the other Mr. William Drummond was seated at a table. And Mr. Drummond held in his hand an ugly automatic of .38 calibre. Covering him with the weapon the banker came swiftly toward him. It was the unexpected moment for which Anthony Trent was prepared. Assuming the demeanor of the drunken man he peered into the elder man’s face. He betrayed no fear of the pistol. His speech was thickened, but he was reasonably coherent.
“It is old Drummond, isn’t it?” he demanded.
“What are you doing here?” the other snapped, and then gave a start when he saw to whom he spoke. “Mr. Bulstrode!”
“I’ve come,” said the other swaying slightly, “to tell you I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said it but the other fellers said it wasn’t right. I’ve come toshake your hand.” He caught sight of the weapon. “Put that damn thing down, Drummond.”
Obediently the banker slipped it into the pocket of his dressing gown. He followed the swaying man as he walked toward the lighted part of the room. He was frankly amazed. Wild as he was, and drunken as was his evening custom, why had this heir to the Bulstrode millions entered his house like a thief in the night? And for what was he sorry?
In a chair by the side of the desk Anthony Trent flung himself. He wanted particularly to see what the banker had hidden with a swift motion as he had risen. The yellow end of some notes of high denomination caught his eye. Right on the table was what he sought. The only method of getting it would be to overpower Drummond. There were objections to this. The banker was armed and would certainly shoot. Or there might be a terrific physical encounter in which the younger man might kill unintentionally. And an end in the electric chair was no part of Trent’s scheme of things. Also, there was some one else awake in the house.
Drummond resumed his seat and the watcher saw him with elaborate unconcern slide an evening paper over the partially concealed notes.
“Just what is on your mind, Mr. Bulstrode?” he began.
“I called you ‘Shylock,’” Trent returned. “No right to have said it. What I should have said was, ‘Come and have a drink.’ Been ashamed of myself ever since.”
Drummond looked at him fixedly. It was a calculating glance and a cold one. And there was thecontempt in it that a sober man has for one far gone in drink.
“And do you usually break into a man’s house when you want to apologize?” There was almost a sneer in his voice.
“Break in?” retorted the other, apparently slow at comprehending him, “the damn door wasn’t locked. Any one could get in. Burglars could break through and steal. Most foolish. I lock my door every night. All sensible people do. Surprised at you.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Drummond. He took a grip on his visitor’s arm and led him through the hall to the door. It was unlocked and the burglar alarm system disconnected. It was not the first time that Drummond’s man had forgotten it. In the morning he would be dismissed. Apparently this irresponsible young ass had got the idea in his stupid head that he had acted offensively and had calmly walked in. It was the opportunity for the banker to cultivate him.
“As I came in,” Trent told him, “some one was coming down the stairs. Better see who it was.”
Drummond looked at him suspiciously. Trent knew that he was not yet satisfied that his visitor’s story was worthy of belief. Then he spoke as one who humors a child.
“We’ll go and find out.”
Outside the door they came upon an elderly woman servant with a silver tray in her hands.
“Madame,” she explained, “was not able to eat any luncheon or dinner and has waked up hungry.”
Drummond raised the cover of a porcelain dish.
“Caviare sandwiches,” he grunted, “bad things to sleep on.”
He led the way back to the room. In his scheming mind was a vague scheme to use this bêtise of Graham Bulstrode as a means to win his wife social advancement. Mrs. Clent Bulstrode could do it. Money would not buy recognition from her. Perhaps fear of exposure might. He glanced with contempt at the huddled figure of the heir to Bulstrode millions. The young man was too much intoxicated to offer any resistance.
Tall, huge and menacing he stood over Anthony Trent. There was a look in his eye that caused a certain uneasiness in the impostor’s mind. In another age and under different conditions Drummond would have been a pirate.
“If it had been any other house than mine,” he began, “and you had not been a fellow clubman an unexpected call like this might look a little difficult of explanation.”
Anthony Trent acted his part superbly. Drunkenness in others had always interested him. Drummond watching his vacuous face saw the inebriated man’s groping for a meaning admirably portrayed.
“What do yer mean?”
“Simply this,” said Drummond distinctly. “At a time when I am supposed to be in bed you creep into my house without knocking or ringing. You come straight into a room where very valuable property is. While I personally believe your story I doubt whether the police would. They are taught to be suspicious. There would be a lot of scandal. Your mother, for instance, would be upset. New York papers revel inthat sort of thing. You have suppressed news in Boston papers but that doesn’t go here.” He nodded his head impressively. “I wouldn’t like to wager that the police would be convinced. In fact it might take a lot of publicity before you satisfied the New York police.”
The idea seemed to amuse the younger man.
“Let’s call ’em up and see,” he suggested and made a lurching step toward the phone.
“No, no,” the other exclaimed hastily, “I wouldn’t have that happen for the world.”
Over his visitor’s face Drummond could see a look of laboring comprehension gradually stealing. It was succeeded by a frown. An idea had been born which was soon to flower in high and righteous anger.
“You’re a damned old blackmailer!” cried Anthony Trent, struggling to his feet. “When a gentleman comes to apologize you call him a robber. I’m going home.”
Drummond stood over him threatening and powerful.
“I don’t know that I shall let you,” he said unpleasantly. “Why should I? You are so drunk that in the morning you won’t remember a word I’ve said to you. I’m going to make use of you, you young whelp. You’ve delivered yourself into my hands. If I were to shoot you for a burglar I should only get commended for it.”
“Like hell you would,” Trent chuckled, “that old girl with the caviare sandwiches would tell the jury we were conversing amiably. You’d swing for it, Drummond, old dear, and I’d come to see your melancholy end.”
“And there’s another thing,” Drummond reminded him, “you’ve got a bad record. Your father didn’t give up the Somerset Club because he liked the New York ones any better. They wanted to get you away from certain influences there. I’ve got your whole history.”
“Haven’t you anything to drink?” Anthony Trent demanded.
From a cupboard in his black walnut desk Drummond took a large silver flask. He did not want his guest to become too sober. Since it was the first drink that Anthony Trent had taken that night he gulped eagerly.
“Good old Henessey!” he murmured. “Henessey’s a gentleman,” he added pointedly.
“Look here,” said Drummond presently after deep thought. “You’ve got to go home. I’m told there’s a butler who fetches you from any low dive you may happen to be.”
“He hates it,” Trent chuckled. “He’s a prohibitionist. I made him one.”
Drummond came over to him and looked him clear in the eye.
“What’s your telephone number?” he snapped.
Trent was too careful a craftsman to be caught like that. He flung the Bulstrode number back in a flash. “Ring him up,” he commanded, “there’s a direct wire to his room after twelve.”
“What’s his name?” Drummond asked.
“Old Man Afraid of His Wife,” he was told. Mrs. Kinney had told him of the nickname young Bulstrode had given the butler.
Drummond flushed angrily. “His real name? I’m not joking.”
“Nor am I,” Trent observed, “I always call him that.” He put on an expression of obstinacy. “That’s all I’ll tell you. Give me the phone and let me talk.”
It was a bad moment for Anthony Trent. It was probable that William Drummond was going to call up the Bulstrode residence to make certain that his visitor was indeed Graham Bulstrode. And if the butler were to inform him that the heir already snored in his own bed there must come the sudden physical struggle. And Drummond was armed. He had not failed to observe that the door to the entrance hall was locked. When Drummond had spoken to the servant outside he had taken this precaution. For a moment Trent entertained the idea of springing at the banker as he stood irresolutely with the telephone in his hand. But he abandoned it. That would be to bring things to a head. And to wait might bring safety.
But he was sufficiently sure of himself to be amused when he heard Drummond hesitatingly ask if he were speaking to Old Man Afraid of His Wife. The banker hastily disclaimed any intention of being offensive.
“Mr. Graham Bulstrode is with me,” he informed the listener, “and that is the only name he would give. I am particularly anxious that you inform his father I am bringing him home. Also,” his voice sank to a whisper, “I must speak to Mr. Bulstrode when I come. I shall be there within half an hour. He will be sorry all his days if he refuses to see me.” As he hung up the instrument he noted with pleasure thatyoung Bulstrode was conversing amicably with his old friend Henessey, whose brandy is famous.
Drummond had mapped it all out. He would not stay to dress. Over his dressing gown he would pull an automobile duster as though he had been suddenly disturbed. He would accuse Graham of breaking in to steal. He would remind the chastened father of several Boston scandals. He could see the Back Bay blue blood beg for mercy. And the end of it would be that in the society columns of the New York dailies it would be announced that Mr. and Mrs. William Drummond had dined with Mr. and Mrs. Clent Bulstrode.
No taxi was in sight when they came down the steps to the silent street. Drummond was in an amazing good humor. His captor was now reduced through his friendship with Henessey to a silent phase of his failing. He clung tightly to the banker’s stalwart arm and only twice attempted to break into song. Since the distance was not great the two walked. Trent looked anxiously at every man they met when they neared the Bulstrode mansion. He feared to meet a man of his own build wearing a silk lined Inverness cape. It may be wondered why Anthony Trent, fleet of foot and in the shadow of the park across which his modest apartment lay, did not trip up the banker and make his easy escape. The answer lies in the fact that Trent was not an ordinary breaker of the law. And also that he had conceived a very real dislike to William Drummond, his person, his character and his aspirations. He was determined that Drummond should ride for a fall.
A tired looking man yawning from lack of sleeplet them into the house. It was a residence twice the size of Drummond’s. The banker peered about the vast hall, gloomy in the darkness. In fancy he could see Mrs. Drummond sweeping through it on her way to dinner.
“Mr. Bulstrode is in the library,” he said acidly. That another should dare to use a nickname that fitted him so aptly filled him with indignation. He barely glanced at the man noisily climbing the stairs to his bedroom, the man who had coined the opprobrious phrase. Drummond was ushered into the presence of Clent Bulstrode.
The Bostonian was a tall man with a cold face and a great opinion of his social responsibilities. The only New Yorkers he cared to know were those after whose families downtown streets had been named.
“I am not in the habit, sir,” he began icily, “of being summoned from my bed at this time of night to talk to a stranger. I don’t like it, Mr. Dummles——”
“Drummond,” his visitor corrected.
“The same thing,” cried Bulstrode. “I know no one bearing either name. I can only hope your errand is justified. I am informed it has to do with my son.”
“You know it has,” Drummond retorted. “He broke into my house to-night. And he came, curiously enough, at a time when there was a deal of loose cash in my room. Mr. Bulstrode, has he done that before? If he has I’m afraid he could get into trouble if I informed the police.”
It was a triumphant moment when he saw a lookof fear pass over Bulstrode’s contemptuous countenance. It was a notable hit.
“You wouldn’t do that?” he cried.
“That depends,” Drummond answered.
Upon what it depended Clent Bulstrode never knew for there came the noise of an automobile stopping outside the door. There was a honking of the horn and the confused sound of many voices talking at once.
Drummond followed the Bostonian through the great hall to the open door. They could see Old Man Afraid of His Wife assisting a young inebriate in evening dress. And his Inverness cape was lined with white silk and over his eyes an opera hat was pulled.
The chauffeur alone was sober. He touched his hat when he saw Mr. Bulstrode.
“Where have you come from?” he demanded.
“I took the gentlemen to New Haven,” he said.
“Has my son been with you all the evening?”
“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur returned.
Drummond, his hopes dashed, followed Bulstrode to the library. “Now,” said the clubman sneering, “I shall be glad to hear your explanation of your slander of my son. In the morning I can promise you my lawyers will attend to it in detail.”
“I was deceived,” the wretched Drummond sought to explain. “A man dressed like your son whom I know by sight came in and——”
He went through the whole business. By this time the butler was standing at the open door listening.
“I can only say,” Mr. Bulstrode remarked, “that these excuses you offer so glibly will be investigated.”
“Excuses!” cried the other goaded to anger. “Excuses! I’ll have you know that a father with a son like yours is more in need of excuses than I am.”
He turned his head to see the butler entering the room. There was an unpleasant expression on the man’s face which left him vaguely uneasy.
“Show this person out,” said Bulstrode in his most forbidding manner.
“Wait a minute,” Drummond commanded, “you owe it to me to have this house searched. We all saw that impostor go upstairs. For all we know he’s in hiding this very minute.”
“You needn’t worry,” Old Man Afraid of His Wife observed. “He went out just before Mr. Graham came back in the motor. I was going to see what it was when the car came between us.” The man turned to Clent Bulstrode. “It’s my belief, sir, they’re accomplices.”
“What makes you say that?” demanded his master. He could see an unusual expression of triumph in the butler’s eye.
“The black pearl stick pin that Mr. Graham values so much has been stolen from his room.”
“What have I to do with that?” Drummond shouted.
“Simply this,” the other returned, “that you introduced this criminal to my house and I shall expect you to make good what your friend took.”
“Friend!” repeated the outraged Drummond. “My friend!”
“It is a matter for the police,” Bulstrode yawned.
Drummond watched his tall, thin figure ascending the stairs. Plainly there was nothing left but togo. Never in his full life had things broken so badly for William Drummond. He could feel the butler’s baleful stare as he slowly crossed the great hall. He felt he hated the man who had witnessed his defeat and laughed at his humiliation. And Drummond was not used to the contempt of underlings.
Yet the butler had the last word. As he closed the door he flung a contemptuous good-night after the banker.
“Good-night,” he said, “Old Man Afraid of the Police.”
A broken and dispirited man William Drummond, banker, came to his own house. The pockets in which he had placed his keys were empty. There was no hole by which they might have been lost and he had not removed the long duster. Only one man could have taken them. He called to mind how the staggering creature who claimed to be Graham Bulstrode had again and again clutched at him for support. And if he had taken them, to what use had they been put?
It seemed he must have waited half an hour before a sleepy servant let him in. Drummond pushed by him with an oath and went hastily to the black walnut desk. There, seemingly unmoved, was the paper that he had pulled over the notes when the unknown came into the room. It was when he raised it to see what lay beneath that he understood to the full what a costly night it had been for him. Across one of his own envelopes was scrawled the single word—Shylock.
AFTERleaving Drummond’s house Anthony Trent started without intemperate haste for his comfortable apartment. In accordance with his instructions, Mrs. Kinney retired not later than ten. There might come a night when he needed to prove the alibi that she could unconsciously nullify if she waited up for him.
In these early days of his career he was not much in fear of detection and approached his door with little of the trepidation he was to experience later when his name was unknown still but his reputation exceedingly high with the police. Later he knew he must arrange his mode of life with greater care.
New York, for example, is not an easy city for a man fleeing from police pursuit. Its brilliant lighting, its sleeplessness, the rectangular blocks and absence of helpful back alleys, all these were aids to the law abiding.
He had not chosen his location heedlessly. From the roof on which he often slept he could see five feet distant from its boundary, the wall that circumscribed the top of another house such as his but having its entrance on a side street. It would not be hard to get a key to fit the front door; and since he would make use of it infrequently and then only late at night there was little risk of detection.
Thinking several moves ahead of his game was one of Trent’s means to insure success. He must have some plausible excuse in case he were caught upon the roof. The excuse that suggested itself instantly was a cat. He bought a large and frolicsome cat, tiger-striped and a stealthy hunter by night, and introduced him to Mrs. Kinney. That excellent woman was not pleased. A cat, she asserted, needed a garden. “Exactly,” agreed her employer, “a roof garden.” So it was that Agrippa joined the household and sought to prey upon twittering sparrows. And since Agrippa looking seventy feet below was not in fear of falling, he leaped the intermediate distance between the roofs and was rewarded with a sparrow. Thereafter he used what roof offered the best hunting.
Two maiden ladies occupied the topmost flat, the Misses Sawyer, and were startled one evening at a knock upon their door. An affable young gentleman begged permission to retrieve his cat from their roof. The hunting Agrippa had sprung the dreadful space and feared, he asserted plausibly, to get back.
The Misses Sawyer loved cats, it seemed, but had none now, fearing to seem disloyal to the memory of a peerless beast about whom they could not talk without tear-flooded eyes. They told their neighbor cordially that whenever Agrippa strayed again he was to make free of the roof.
“Ring our bell,” said one of them, “and we’ll let you in.”
“But how did you get in?” the other sister demanded, suddenly.
“The door was open,” he said blandly.
“That’s that dreadful Mr. Dietz again,” they criedin unison. “He drinks, and when he goes out to the saloon, he puts the catch back so there won’t be the bother of a key. I have complained but the janitor takes no notice. I suppose we don’t offer him cigars and tips, so he takes the part of Dietz.”
By this simple maneuver Anthony Trent established his right to use the roof without incurring suspicion.
The Drummond loot proved not to be despised by one anxious to put a hundred thousand dollars to his credit. The actual amount was three thousand, eight hundred dollars. Furthermore, there was some of the Drummond stationery, a bundle of letters and the two or three things he had taken hastily from young Bulstrode’s room. He regretted there had been so small an opportunity to investigate the Bulstrode mansion but time had too great a value for him. The black pearl had flung itself at him, and some yale keys and assorted club stationery—these were all he could take. The stationery might prove useful. He had discovered that fact in the Conington Warren affair. If it had not been that the butler crept out of the dark hall to watch him as he left the Bulstrode house, he would have tried the keys on the hall door. That could be done later. It is not every rich house which is guarded by burglar resisting devices.
It was the bundle of letters and I. O. U.’s that he examined with peculiar care. They were enclosed in a long, blue envelope on which was written “Private and Personal.”
When Trent had read them all he whistled.
“These will be worth ten times his measly thirty-eight hundred,” he said softly.
But there was no thought of blackmail in his mind. That was a crime at which he still wholesomely rebelled. It occurred to him sometimes that a life such as his tended to lead to progressive deterioration. That there might come a time when he would no longer feel bitterly toward blackmailers. It was part of his punishment, this dismal thought of what might be unless he reverted to the ways of honest men. Inasmuch as a man may play a crooked game decently, so Anthony Trent determined to play it.
Many of the letters in the blue envelope were from women whose names were easily within the ken of one who studied the society columns of the metropolitan dailies. Most of them seemed to have been the victims of misplaced bets at Belmont Park or rash bidding at Auction. There was one letter from the wife of a high official at Washington begging him on no account to let her husband know she had borrowed money from him. A prominent society golfing girl whose play Trent had a score of times admired for its pluck and skill had borrowed a thousand dollars from Drummond. There was her I. O. U. on the table. Scrawling a line on Drummond stationery in what seemed to be Drummond handwriting, Anthony Trent sent it back to her. There were acknowledgments of borrowings from the same kind of rich waster that Graham Bulstrode represented. A score of prominent persons would have slept the better for knowing that their I. O. U.’s had passed from Drummond’s keeping. The man was more of a usurer than banker.
What interested Anthony Trent most of all was a collection of letters signed “N.G.” and written onthe stationery of a very exclusive club. It was a club to which Drummond did not belong.
The first letter was merely a request that Drummond meet the writer in the library of the athletic club where Anthony Trent had seen him.
The second was longer and spelled a deeper distress.
“It’s impossible in a case like this,” wrote “N.G.,” “to get any man I know well to endorse my note. If I could afford to let all the world into my secret, I should not have come to you. You know very well that as I am the only son your money is safe enough. I must pay this girl fifty thousand dollars or let my father know all about it. He would be angry enough to send me to some god-forsaken ranch to cut wild oats.”
The third letter was still more insistent. The writer was obviously afraid that he would have to beg the money from his father.
“I have always understood,” he wrote, “that you would lend any amount on reasonable security. I want only fifty thousand dollars but I’ve got to have it at once. It’s quite beyond my mother’s power to get it for me this time. I’ve been to that source too often and the old man is on to it. E.G. insists that the money in cash must be paid to her on the morning of the 18th when she will call at the house with her lawyer. I am to receive my letters back and she will leave New York. Let me know instantly.”
The next letter indicated that William Drummond had decided to lend “N.G.” the amount but that his offer came too late.
“I wish you had made up your mind sooner,” said“N.G.” “It would have saved me the devil of a lot of worry and you could have made money out of it. As it is my father learned of it somehow. He talked about the family honor as usual. But the result is that when she and her lawyer call at ten on Thursday morning the money will be there. No check for her; she’s far too clever, but fifty thousand in crisp new notes. As for me, I’m to reform. That means I have to go down town every morning at nine and work in my father’s brokerage business. Can you imagine me doing that? I blame you for it, Drummond. You are too cautious by a damn sight to please me.”
Anthony Trent was thus put into possession of the following facts. That a rich man’s son, initials only known, had got into some sort of a scrape with a girl, initials were E.G., who demanded fifty thousand dollars in cash which was to be paid at the residence of the young man’s father. The date set was Thursday the eighteenth. It was now the early morning of Tuesday the sixteenth.
Trent had lists of the members of all the best clubs. He went through the one on whose paper N.G. had written. There were several members with those initials. Careful elimination left him with only one likely name, that of Norton Guestwick. Norton Guestwick was the only son and heir of a very rich broker. The elder Guestwick posed as a musical critic, had a box in the Golden Horseshoe and patronized such opera singers as permitted it. Many a time Anthony Trent had gazed on the Guestwick family seated in their compelling box from the modest seat that was his. Guestwick had even written a book, “Operas IHave Seen,” which might be found in most public libraries. It was an elaborately illustrated tome which reflected his shortcomings as a critic no less than his vanity as an author. A collector of musical books, Trent remembered buying it with high hopes and being disgusted at its smug ineffectiveness.
He had seldom seen Norton in the family box but the girls were seldom absent. They, too, upheld the Arts. Long ago he had conceived a dislike for Guestwick. He hated men who beat what they thought was time to music whose composers had other ideas of it.
Turning up a recent file ofGotham Gossiphe came upon a reference to the Guestwick heir. “We understand,” said this waspish, but usually veracious weekly, “that Norton Guestwick’s attention to pretty Estelle Grandcourt (née Sadie Cort) has much perturbed his aristocratic parents who wish him to marry a snug fortune and a girl suited to be their daughter-in-law. It is not violating a confidence to say that the lady in question occupies a mansion on Commonwealth avenue and is one of the most popular girls in Boston’s smart set.”
While many commentators will puzzle themselves over the identity of the dark lady of the immortal sonnets, few could have failed to perceive that E.G. was almost certain to be Estelle Grandcourt. Sundry tests of a confirmatory nature proved it without doubt. He had thus two days in which to make his preparations to annex the fifty thousand dollars. There were difficulties. In these early days of his adventuring Anthony Trent made no use of disguises. He had so far been but himself. Vaguely he admitted thathe must sooner or later come to veiling his identity. For the present exploit it was necessary that he should find out the name of the Guestwick butler.
He might have to get particulars from Clarke. But even Clarke’s help could not now be called in and it was upon this seemingly unimportant thing that his plan hinged. In a disguise such as many celebrated cracksmen had used, he might have gained a kitchen door and learned by what name Guestwick’s man called himself. Or he might have found it out from a tradesman’s lad. But to ask, as Anthony Trent, what might link him with a robbery was too risky.
Unfortunately for Charles Newman Guestwick his book, which had cost Trent two dollars and was thrown aside as worthless, supplied the key to what was needed.
It was the wordy, garrulous book that only a multi-millionaire author might write and have published. The first chapter, “My Childhood,” was succeeded by a lofty disquisition on music. Later there came revelations of the Guestwick family life with portraits of their various homes. The music room had a chapter to itself. Reading on, Anthony Trent came to the chapter headed, rather cryptically, “After the Opera.”
“It is my custom,” wrote the excellent Guestwick, “to hold in my box an informal reception after the performance is ended. My wide knowledge of music, of singers and their several abilities lends me, I venture to say, a unique position among amateurs.
“We rarely sup at hotel or restaurant after the performance. In my library where there is also a grand piano—we have three such instruments in our New York home and two more at Lenox—Mrs. Guestwickand my daughters talk over what we have heard, criticizing here, lauding there, until a simple repast is served by the butler who always waits up for us. The rest of the servants have long since retired. My library consists of perhaps the most valuable collection of musical literature in the world.
“I have mentioned in another chapter the refining influence of music on persons of little education. John Briggs, my butler, is a case in point. He came to me from Lord Fitzhosken’s place in Northamptonshire, England. The Fitzhoskens are immemoriably associated with fox-hunting and the steeple-chase and all Briggs heard there in the way of music were the cheerful rollicking songs of the hunt breakfast. I sent him to see Götterdämmerung. He told me simply that it was a revelation to him. He doubted in his uneducated way whether Wagner himself comprehended what he had written.”
There were thirty other chapters in Mr. Guestwick’s book. In all he revealed himself as a pompous ass assured only of tolerance among a people where money consciousness had succeeded that of caste. But Anthony Trent felt kindly toward him and the money he had spent was likely to earn him big dividends if things went well.
Caruso sang on the night preceding the morning on which Estelle Grandcourt was to appear and claim her heart balm. This meant a large attendance; for tenors may come and go, press agents may announce other golden voiced singers, but Caruso holds his pride of place honestly won and generously maintained. It had been Trent’s experience that the Guestwicks rarely missed a big night.
It was at half past nine Anthony Trent groaned that a professional engagement compelled him to leave the Metropolitan. He had spent money on a seat not this time for an evening of enjoyment, but to make certain that the Guestwicks were in their box.
There was Charles Newman Guestwick beating false time with a pudgy hand. His lady, weighted with Guestwick jewels, tried to create the impression that, after all, Caruso owed much of his success to her amiable patronage. The two daughters upheld the Guestwick tradition by being exceedingly affable to those greater than they and using lorgnettes to those who strove to know the Guestwicks.
Mr. John Briggs, drinking a mug of ale and wondering who was winning a light weight contest at the National Sporting Club, was resting in his sitting-room. He liked these long opera evenings, which gave him the opportunity to rest, as much as he despised his employer for his inordinate attendance at these meaningless entertainments. He shuddered as he remembered “The Twilight of the Gods.”
At ten o’clock when Mr. Briggs was nodding in his chair the telephone bell rang. Over the wire came his employer’s voice. It was not without purpose that Anthony Trent’s unusual skill in mimicry had been employed. As a youth he had acquired a reputation in his home town for imitations of Henry Irving, Bryan, Otis Skinner and their like.
“Is this you, Briggs?” demanded the supposed Mr. Guestwick.
“Yes, sir,” returned Briggs.
“I wish you to listen carefully to my instructions,” he was commanded. “They are very important.”
“Certainly, sir,” the man returned. He sensed a something, almost agitation in the usually placid voice. “I hope there’s nothing serious, sir.”
“There may be,” the other said, “that I can’t say yet. See that every one goes to bed but you. Send them off at once. You must remain up until a man in evening dress comes to the front door and demands admittance. It will be a detective. Show him at once to the library and leave him absolutely undisturbed. Absolutely undisturbed, Briggs, do you understand?”
“I’ll do as you say, sir,” Briggs answered, troubled. He was sure now that serious sinister things were afoot and wished the Guestwicks had been as well disposed to dogs in the house as had been that hard drinking, reckless Lord Fitzhosken. Suddenly an important thought came to him. “Is there any way of making sure that the man who comes is the detective?”
“I am glad you are so shrewd, Briggs,” said the millionaire. “It had not occurred to me that an impostor might come. Say to the man, ‘What is your errand?’ I shall instruct him to answer, ‘I have come to look at Mr. Guestwick’s rare editions.’”
“Very good, sir,” said Briggs.
“Unless he answers that, do not admit him. You understand?”
“Perfectly,” the butler made answer.
At half past ten a man in evening dress rang the door of the Guestwick mansion. He was a tall man with a hard look and a biting, gruff voice.
Briggs interposed his sturdy body between the stranger and the entrance.
“What is your errand?” said Briggs suavely.
“I have come to look at Mr. Guestwick’s rare editions,” he was told.
“Step inside,” urged Briggs with cordiality.
“Everybody in bed?” the man snapped.
“Except me,” said the butler.
“Any one here except the servants?”
“We have no house guests,” said Briggs. “We don’t keep a deal of company.”
“Show me to the library,” the stranger commanded.
Briggs, now stately and offended, led the way. Briggs resented the tone the detective used. In his youth the butler had been handy with the gloves. It was for this reason he was taken into service by the fox-hunting nobleman so that he might box with his lordship every day before breakfast. Briggs would have liked the opportunity to put on the gloves with this frowning, overbearing, hawknosed detective.
“You’ve got your orders?” cried the stranger.
“I have,” Briggs answered, a trace of insolence perceptible.
“Then get out and don’t worry me. Remember this, answer no phone messages or door bells. My men outside will attend to the people who want to get into this house.”
Briggs tried new tactics. He was feverishly anxious to find out what was suspected.
“As man to man,” Briggs began with a fine affability.
Imperiously he was ordered from the room.
Anthony Trent sank into a chair and laughed gently. It had all been so absurdly easy. Two good hours were before him. None would interrupt. It wasknown that young Norton had been bundled out of town until his charmer had disappeared.Gotham Gossiphad told him so much. It was almost certain that the Guestwicks would not return to their home until half past twelve. That would give him a sufficient time to examine every likely looking place in the house. The old time crook would no doubt have hit Mr. Briggs over the head with a black jack and run a risk in the doing of it. The representative of the newer school had simply sent all the servants to bed.
Looking quickly about the great apartment, book-lined and imposing, Trent’s eyes fell on an edition in twenty fat volumes ofPenroy’s Encyclopædia of Music and Art. Scrutiny told the observer that behind these steel-bound fake books there was a safe. It was an old dodge, this. If the money for Miss Grandcourt was not here there were, no doubt, negotiable papers and jewels. This was just the sort of sacro-sanct spot where valuables might be laid away.
To pry open the glass door of the book case, roll back the works of the unknown Penroy and come face to face with the old fashioned safe took less than two minutes. It was amazing that so shrewd a man as Guestwick must be in business matters should rely on this. It was rather that he relied on the integrity of his servants and an efficient system of burglar alarm.
From the cane that Anthony Trent had carelessly thrown on a chair, he took some finely tempered steel drills and presently assembled the tools necessary to his task. As a boy he had been the rare kind who could take a watch apart and put it together again and have no parts left over. It was largely owingto an inborn mechanical skill that he had persuaded himself he could make good at his calling.
It was striking eleven by the ship’s clock—six bells—when he rolled the doors open. He rose to his feet and stretched. Kneeling before the safe had cramped his muscles. Sinking into a big black leathern chair he contemplated the strong box that was now at his mercy. He allowed himself the luxury of a cigarette. There passed before his mind’s eye a vista of pleasant shaded pools wherein big trout were lying. Weems did not own the only desirable camp on Kennebago.
He was suddenly called back from this dreaming, this castle-building, to a realization that such prospects might never be his. It was the low, pleasant, tones of a cultivated woman’s voice which wrought the amazing change.
“I suppose you’re a burglar,” the voice said. There was no trace of nervousness in her tone.
He sprang to his feet and looked around. Not twenty feet distant he saw her. She was a tall, graceful girl about twenty-two or three, clad in a charming evening gown. Over her white arm trailed a fur cloak costly and elegant. And, although the moment was hardly one for thinking of female charms, he was struck by her unusual beauty. She possessed an air of extreme sophistication and stood looking at him as if the man before her were some unusual and bizarre specimen of his kind.