ANTHONYTRENTapparently was in no way confused at this interruption. The woman was not to guess that hisnonchalantmanner and the careless lighting of a cigarette, cloaked in reality a feeling of despair at the untoward ending of his adventure. Calmly she walked past him and looked at the assemblage of finely tempered steel instruments of his profession.
“So you’re a burglar!” she said with an air of decision.
“That is a term I dislike,” said Anthony Trent genially. “Call me rather a professional collector, an abstractor, a connoisseur—anything but that.”
“It amounts to the same thing,” she returned severely, “you came here to steal my father’s money.”
“Your father’s money,” he returned slowly. “Then—then you are Miss Guestwick?”
“Naturally,” she retorted eyeing him keenly, “and if you offer any violence I shall have you arrested.”
She was amazed to see a pleasant smile break over the intruder’s face. He was exceedingly attractive when he smiled.
“What a hard heart you have!”
“You ought to realize this is no time to jest,” she said stiffly.
“I am not so sure,” he made answer.
She looked at him haughtily. He realized that he had rarely seen so beautiful a girl. There was a look of high courage about her that particularly appealed to him. She had long Oriental eyes of jade green. He amended his guess as to her age. She must be seven and twenty he told himself.
“It is my duty to call the police and have you arrested,” she exclaimed.
“That is the usual procedure,” he agreed.
She stood there irresolute.
“I wonder what makes you steal!”
“Abstract,” he corrected, “collect, borrow, annex—but not steal.”
She took no notice of his interruption.
“It isn’t as though you were ill or starving—that might be some sort of excuse—but you are well dressed. I’ve done a great deal of social work among the poor and often I’ve met the wives of thieves and have actually found myself pitying men who have stolen for bread.”
“Jean Valjean stuff,” he smiled, “it has elements of pathos. Jean got nineteen years for it if you remember.”
She paid no heed to his flippancy.
“You talk like an educated man. Economic determination did not bring you to this. You have absolutely no excuse.”
“I have offered none,” he said drily.
She spoke with a sudden air of candor.
“Do you know this situation interests me very much. One reads about burglars, of course, but that sort of thing seems rather remote. We’ve never hadany robberies here before, and now to come face to face with a real burglar, cracking—isn’t that the word you use?—a safe, is rather disconcerting.”
“You bear up remarkably well,” he assured her.
It was her turn to smile.
“I’m just wondering,” she said slowly. “My father detests notoriety.”
The intruder permitted himself to laugh gently. He thought of that pretentious tome “Operas I Have Seen.”
“How well Mr. Guestwick conceals it!”
Apparently she had not heard him. It was plain she was in the throes of making up her mind.
“I wonder if I ought to do it,” she mused.
“Do what?” he demanded.
“Let you get away. You have so far stolen nothing so I should not be aiding or abetting a crime.”
“Indeed you would,” he said promptly. “My very presence here is illegal and as you see I have opened that absurd safe.”
“What an amazing burglar!” she cried, “he does not want his freedom.”
“It is your duty as Mr. Guestwick’s daughter to send me to jail and I shan’t respect you if you don’t.”
She was again the haughty young society woman gazing at a curious specimen of man.
“It is very evident,” she snapped, “that you don’t appreciate your position. Instead of sending you to prison I am willing to give you another chance. Will you promise me never to do this sort of thing again if I let you go?”
Trent looked up.
“I have enjoyed your conversation very much,” heobserved genially, “but I have work to do. Inside that safe I expect to find fifty thousand dollars and possibly some odd trinkets. I am in particular need of the money and I propose to get it.”
Swiftly she crossed the room to a telephone.
“I don’t think you’ll succeed,” she said, her hand on the instrument.
“Put it to the test,” he suggested. “The wires are not cut.”
“Why aren’t you afraid?” she demanded; “don’t you realize your position?”
“Fully,” he retorted, “but remember you’ll have just the same difficulty as I in explaining your presence here. Now go ahead and get the police.”
“What do you mean?” she cried. He noticed that she paled at what he said and her hands had been for a moment not quite steady.
“First that you are not a Miss Guestwick. There are only two of them and I have just left them at the Opera. Next you are neither servant nor guest. The servants are all abed and there are no house guests. I am not accustomed to making mistakes in matters of this sort. Now, I’m not inviting confidences and I’m not making threats, but the doors are locked and I intend to get what I came for. Ring all you like and see if a servant answers you. By the way how is it I overlooked you when I came in?”
“I hid behind those portières.”
“It was excusable,” he commented, “not to have looked there.”
She sank into a chair her whole face suffused with gloom. He steeled his heart against feeling sympathy for her. He would liked to have learned all about herbut there was not much time. The Guestwicks might return earlier than usual or Briggs might be lurking the other side of the door.
“You’ve found me out,” she said quietly, “I’m not one of the Guestwick girls.”
“I told you so,” he said a little impatiently.
“Don’t you want to know anything about me?” she demanded.
“Some other time,” he returned, “I’m busy now.”
“But what are you going to do?” she asked.
“I thought I told you. I’m going to see what Mr. Guestwick has which interests me. Then I shall get a bite to eat somewhere and go home to bed.”
“Are you going to take that fifty thousand dollars?” she demanded. Her tone was a tragic one.
“That’s what I came for,” he told her.
“You mustn’t, you mustn’t,” she declared and then fell to weeping bitterly.
Beauty in distress moved Anthony Trent even when his business most engrossed his attention. It was his nature to be considerate of women. When he had garnered enough money to buy himself a home he intended to marry and settle down to domestic joys. As to this weeping woman, there was little doubt in his mind as to the reason she was in the Guestwick home. Perhaps she noticed the harder look that came to his face.
“Whom do you think I am?” she asked.
“I have not forgotten,” he answered, “that women also are abstractors at times.”
She gazed at him wide open eyes, a look of horror on her face.
“You think I’m here to steal?”
“I wish I didn’t,” he answered. “It’s bad enough for a man, but for a woman like you. What am I to think when I find you hiding in a house where you have no right to be?”
“That’s the whole tragedy of it,” she exclaimed, “that I’ve no right to be here. I suppose I shall have to tell you everything. Can’t you guess who I am?”
Anthony Trent looked at the clock. Precious seconds were chasing one another into minutes and he had wasted too much time already.
“I don’t see that it matters at all to me,” he pointed to the safe, “I’m here on business.”
It annoyed him to feel he was not quite living up to the debonair heroes he had created once upon a time. They would not have permitted themselves to be so brusque with a lovely girl upon whose exquisite cheeks tears were still wet.
“You must listen to me,” she implored, “I’m Estelle Grandcourt. Now do you understand why I’ve come?”
“For the money that you think is already yours,” he said, a trifle sulkily. Matters were becoming complicated.
“Money!” cried the amazing chorus girl, “I hate it!”
His face cleared.
“If that’s the case,” he said genially, “we shall not quarrel. Frankly, Miss Grandcourt, I love it.”
She glanced at him through tear-beaded lashes.
“I suppose you’ve always thought of a show girl as a scheming adventuress always on the lookout for some foolish, rich old man or else some silly boy with millions to spend.”
“Not at all!” he protested.
“But you have,” she contradicted, “I can tell by your manner. For my part I have always thought of burglars as brutal, low-browed men without chivalry or courtesy. I’ve been wrong too. I imagined the gentleman-crook was only a fiction and now I find him a fact. Will you please tell me what you’ve heard about me. I’m not fishing for compliments. I want, really and truly, to know.”
Trent hesitated a moment. He thought, as he looked at her, that never had he seen a sweeter face. She was wholly in earnest.
“Please, please,” she entreated.
“It’s probably all wrong,” he observed, “but the general impression is that Norton Guestwick is a wild, weak lad for whom you set your snares. And when Mr. Guestwick tried to break it off you asked fifty-thousand dollars in cash as a price.”
“Do you believe that?” she asked looking at him almost piteously.
“It was common report,” he said, seeking to exonerate himself, “I read some of it inGotham Gossip.”
“And just because of what some spiteful writer said you condemn me unheard.”
He looked at the inviting safe and fidgeted.
“I’m not condemning,” he reminded her. “I don’t know anything about the affair. I don’t yet see why you are here, Miss Grandcourt.”
“Because I have the right to be,” she said, looking him full in the face. “I pretended I was a Miss Guestwick. If you wish to know the truth, I am Mrs. Norton Guestwick. I can show you our marriage certificate.This is the first time I have ever been in the house of my father-in-law.”
“How did you get in?” he demanded. He felt certain that Briggs the butler had shown him into the library believing it to be unoccupied.
“I bribed a servant who used to be in our employ.”
“Your employ?” he queried.
“Why not?” she flung back at him. “Is it also reported that I come from the slums? We were never rich as the Guestwicks are rich, but until my father died we lived in good style as we know it in the South. I am at least as well educated as my sisters-in-law who refuse to recognize that I exist. I was at the Sacred Heart Convent in Paris. I sing and paint and play the piano as well as most girls but do none of these well enough to make a living at it. I came here to New York hoping that through the influence of my father’s friends I could get some sort of a position which would give me a living wage.” She shrugged her shoulders, “I wonder if you know how differently people look at one when one is well off and when one comes begging favors?”
“None better,” he exclaimed bitterly.
“So I had to get in to the chorus because they said my figure would do even if I hadn’t a good enough voice. Then I met Norton.”
She looked at Anthony Trent with a little friendly smile that stirred him oddly. In that moment he envied Norton Guestwick more than any living creature.
“What do they say about my husband?” she asked.
“You can never believe reports,” he said evasively.
“I’ll tell you,” she returned, “they say he is a waster, a libertine, weak and degenerate. They are wrong.He is full of sweet, generous impulses. His mother has so pampered him that he was almost hopeless till I met him. I expect you think it’s conceited of me but I have a great influence on him.”
“You would on any man,” he said fervently.
She looked at him in a way that suggested a certain subtle tribute to his best qualities.
“Ah, but you are different,” she sighed, “you are strong and resolute. You would sway the woman you loved and make her what you wanted her to be. He is clay for my molding and I want him to be a splendid, fine son like my father.” She looked at Trent with a tender, proud smile, “If you had ever met my father you would understand.”
Anthony Trent shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. He had not dared for months now to think of that kindly country physician who died from the exposure attendant on a trip during a blizzard to aid a penniless patient.
“I know what you mean,” he said at length, “and I think it is splendid of you. Good God! why can people like the Guestwicks object to a girl like you?”
“They’ve never seen me,” she explained, “and that’s the main trouble. They persist in thinking of me as a champagne-drinking adventuress who wants to blackmail them. That money"—she pointed to the safe, “I didn’t ask for it. Mr. Guestwick offered it to me as a bribe to give up my husband and consent to a divorce.”
“But I still don’t see why you are here,” he said.
“Our old servant arranged it. She says they always come up here after the opera, all four of them. If I confront them they must see I’m not the sort of girlthey think me. I’m dreading it horribly but it’s the only way.”
Anthony Trent looked at her with open admiration.
“You’ll win,” he cried enthusiastically, “I feel it in my bones.”
“And when I absolutely refuse to take their money theymustsee I’m not the adventuress they call me.”
Anthony Trent had by this time forgotten the money. The mention of it reminded him of his errand and the fleeting minutes.
“If you don’t take it, what is going to happen to it?”
“I’m going to tell Mr. Guestwick that he can’t buy me.”
“But I’m willing to be bought,” he said, forcing a smile. “In fact that’s what I came for.”
She shrunk back as though he had struck her. Her big eyes looked reproach at him. Tremulous eager words seemed forced from her by the agitation into which his words had thrown her.
“You couldn’t do that now,” she wailed, “not now you know. They’ll be in very soon now and what could I say if the money was gone? Don’t you see they would send me away in disgrace and Norton would believe that I was just as bad as they said? Then he’d divorce me and I think my heart would break.”
“Damn!” muttered Trent. Things were happening in an unexpected fashion. He tried not to look at her piteous face.
“Please be kind to me,” she begged, “this is your opportunity to do one great noble thing.”
“It really means so much to you?” he asked.
“It means everything,” she said simply.
He paced the room for a minute or more. He was fighting a great battle. There remained in him, despite his mode of living, a certain generosity of character, a certain fineness bequeathed him by generations of honorable folk. He saw clearly what the girl meant. She was here to fight for her happiness and the redemption of the man she loved. How small a thing, it seemed to him suddenly, was the necessity he had felt for obtaining the miserable money. What stinging mordant memories would always be his if he refused her!
There was a tenderness, a protective look in his eyes when he glanced down at her. He was his father’s son again.
“It means something to me, too,” he told her, “to do as you want, and I don’t believe there’s a person on this green earth I’d do it for but you.”
His hand lingered for a moment on her white shoulder.
“Good luck, little girl.”
The partly lighted hall full of mysterious shadows awakened no fear in him as he quietly descended the stairs. And when he came to the avenue he did not glance up and down as he usually did to see whether or not he was being followed.
There was a lightness of heart and an exaltation of spirit which he had never experienced. It was that happiness which alone comes to the man who has made a sacrifice. There was never a moment since he had abandoned fiction that he was nearer to returning to its uncertain rewards. Pipe after pipe he smoked when he was once more in hisquiet room and asked himself why he had done this thing. There were two reasons hard to dissociate. First, this wonderful girl had reminded him of the man he had passionately admired—his father, the father who had taught him to play fair. And then he was forced to admit he had never been more drawn to any woman than to this girl, who must, before his last pipe was smoked, have won her victory or gone down to defeat. Again and again he told himself that there was no man he envied so much as Norton Guestwick.
The next morning Anthony Trent observed that Mrs. Kinney was filled with the excitement that attended the reading of an unusual crime as set forth by the morning papers. It was in those crimes committed in the higher circles of society which intrigued her most, that society which she had served.
As a rule Trent let her wander on feeling that her pleasures were few. Sometimes he thought it a little curious that she should concern herself with affairs in which he was sure, sooner or later, to be involved. It was a relief to know she spoke of them to none but him. He rarely bothered to follow her rambling recitals, contenting himself now and again with exclamations of supposed interest. But this morning he was suddenly roused from his meditations by the mention of the word Guestwick.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“I was telling you about the Guestwick robbery, sir,” she said as she filled his cup.
He did not as a rule look at the paper until his breakfast was done. To send her for it now might, later, be used as a chain in the evidence that might even now be forging for him. He affected a luke-warm interest.
“What was it?” he asked.
“Money mad!” returned Mrs. Kinney, shaking her head. “All money mad. The root of all evil.”
“A robbery was it?”
“It was like this,” Mrs. Kinney responded, strangely gratified that her employer found her recital worth listening to. “There was fifty-thousand dollars in cash in the safe in Mr. Guestwick’s library. He’s a millionaire and lives on Fifth Avenue. It’s a most mysterious case. The butler swears his master rang him up and told him to send all the servants to bed.”
At length Mrs. Kinney recited Briggs’s evidence before the police captain who was hurriedly summoned to the mansion. “They arrested the butler,” said Mrs. Kinney. “Mr. Guestwick says he came from one of those castles in England where dissolute noblemen do nothing but shoot foxes all day and play cards all night. The police theory is that the butler admitted them and then went bed so as to prove an alibi.”
“Mr. Guestwick denies sending any such message?”
“Yes. He was at the Opera.”
Anthony Trent fought down the desire to rush out into the kitchen and take the paper from before Mrs. Kinney’s plate. She had said that Briggs was to have admitted more than one person.
“How many did this suspected butler let in?”
“Only one, the man. He was in evening dress. Briggs suspected him from the first, but daren’t go against his master’s positive instructions. Briggs, the butler, says the man must have opened the door to his accomplice when he’d been sent off to bed with instructions not to answer any bell or telephone. The other was a beautiful young woman dressed just as she’d come from the Opera herself.”
“Who saw her if Briggs did not?” he demanded.
“They caught her,” Mrs. Kinney returned triumphantly, “and the arrest of her accomplice is expected any minute. They know who he is.”
Anthony Trent put down his untasted coffee.
“That’s interesting,” he commented. “Do they mention his name?”
“I don’t know as they did,” she replied. “I’ll go fetch the paper.”
He read it through with a deeper interest than he had ever taken in printed sheet before. Such was Guestwick’s importance that two columns had been devoted to him.
Mr. Guestwick on returning from the Opera was incensed to find none to let him in his own house. He was compelled to use a latchkey. The house was silent and unlighted. Mr. Guestwick, although a man of courage, felt the safety of his women folk would be better guarded if he called in a passing policeman. In the library they came face to face with crime.
There, standing at the closed safe, her skirt caught as the heavy doors had swung to, was a beautiful woman engaged as they came upon her in trying to tear off the imprisoning garments. Five minutes later and she would have escaped said police sapience.
Finger prints revealed her as a very well-known criminal known to the continental police as “The Countess.” She was one of a high-class gang which operated as a rule on the French and Italian Riviera, and owed its success to the ease with which it could assume the manners and customs of the aristocracy it planned to steal from. “The Countess,” for example, spoke English with a perfection of idiom and inflectionthat was unequaled by a foreigner. She was believed to come from an old family of Tuscany. Despite a rigid examination by the police she had declined to make any explanation. That, she told them, would be done in court.
Anthony Trent looked at the clock. It was nine and she would be brought before a magistrate at half-past ten.
So he had been fooled! All those high resolves of his had been brought into being by a woman who must have been laughing at him all the while, who must have congratulated herself that her lies had touched a man’s heart and left fifty thousand dollars for her.
It was a bitter and harder Anthony Trent that came to the police court; a man who was now almost as ashamed at his determination of last night to abandon his career as he was now anxious to pursue it.
There was possibly some danger in going. Briggs would be there. The woman might point at him in open court. There were a hundred dangers, but they had no power to deter him. He swore to watch her, gain what particulars he might as to her past life and associates, and then take his revenge. God! How she had hoodwinked him!
His face he must, of course, disguise in some simple manner. It was not difficult. In court he took a seat not too far back. Chewing gum, as he had often observed in the subway, had a marvelous power in altering an expression. He sat there, his lower jaw thrust out and his mouth drawn down, ceaselessly chewing. And one eye was partially closed. He had brought the thing to perfection. With shoulders hunched helooked without fear of detection into the fascinating green eyes of “The Countess.”
By this time her defense was arranged. Last night, her lawyer explained, she was so overcome with the shock that she could not make even a simple statement to the police.
Miss Violet Benyon, he declared, of London, England, and temporarily at the Plaza, had felt on the previous evening need for a walk. Knowing Fifth Avenue to be absolutely safe she walked North. Passing the Guestwick mansion she saw a man in evening dress stealing down the steps, across the road and into the Park. Fearing robbery she had rung the bell. Getting no answer and finding the door open she went in. The only light was in the library. Of a fearless nature, Miss Benyon of London went boldly in. There was an open safe. This she closed and in the doing of it was imprisoned. That was all. The lawyer swept the finger-prints aside as unworthy evidence. He was appearing before a neolithic magistrate who was prejudiced against them.
An imposing old lady who claimed to be Miss Benyon’s aunt went bail for her niece’s appearance to the amount of ten thousand dollars. She mentioned as close friends names of well known Americans, socially elect, who would rush to her rescue ere the day was out. So impressive was she, and so splendid a witness did Miss Benyon make, that the magistrate disregarded Mr. Guestwick’s plea and admitted her to bail.
Trent knew very well that Central Office men would dog the steps of aunt and niece, making escape almost impossible. But he was nevertheless convinced that Miss Violet Benyon of London, or the Countess fromthe Riviera, would never return to the magistrate’s court as that trusting jurist anticipated.
And Anthony Trent was right. The two women, despite police surveillance, left the hotel and merged themselves among the millions. The younger woman taking advantage of a new maid’s inexperience offered her a reward for permitting her to escape by back ways in order to win, as she averred, a bet. The aunt’s escape was unexplained by the police. They found awaiting the elder woman’s coming a girl from a milliner’s shop. She was allowed to go without examination. Trent read the account very carefully and stored every published particular in his trained memory. There was no doubt in his mind that the milliner’s assistant was the so-called aunt. He remembered her as a slim, elderly woman, very much made-up.
On his own account he called at the milliner’s and made some inquiries. He found that there was no account with the Benyons and no assistant had been sent to the hotel. It was none of his business to aid police authorities. And he was not anxious that the two should be caught in that way. There would come a time when he was retired from his present occupation when he would feel the need of excitement. Getting even with the clever actress who prevented him from taking the Guestwick money would call for his astutest planning.
FORsome months now Trent had been preparing a campaign against the collection of precious stones belonging to Carr Faulkner whose white stone mansion looked across the Park from his home. But whereas Trent’s house faced east, the Faulkner abode looked west. And in matter of residence locality there is an appreciable difference in this outlook.
The Faulkner millions were in the main inherited. There was a conservative banking house on Broad Street bearing the Faulkner name but it did not look for new business and found its principal work in guarding the vast Faulkner fortune.
Faulkner’s first wife had been a collector of pearls, those modest stones whose assembled value is always worth the criminal’s attention. The second wife, a young woman of less aristocratic stock, eschewed pearls, holding the theory that each one was a tear. She wanted flashing stones which advertised their value more ostentatiously. Trent had seen her at the Opera and marked her down as a profitable client.
It was because Trent worked so carefully that he made so few mistakes. He had no friends to ask him leading questions and gossip about his mode of life. He had been half a year collecting information about the Carr Faulkners, the style in which they lived, theintimate friends they had and a hundred little details which a careful professional must know before he can hope to make a success.
The system of burglar alarm installed in the mansion was an elaborate one but he was not unskilled in matters of this sort. For three months he had worked in the shop where they were made and his general inborn mechanical skill had been aided by conscientious study. Attention to detail had saved him more than once, and is an aid to be counted on more than luck.
Yet it was sheer blind, kindly, garrulous luck that finally took Trent unsuspected into the Carr Faulkner mansion. Riding up Madison avenue in a trolley car late one afternoon, he overheard one of the Faulkner’s maids discussing the family.
One of the girls had knocked over a vase of cut flowers which stood on a grand piano in Mrs. Carr Faulkner’s boudoir and the water had leaked through onto the wire and wood, doing some little damage.
“She was madder’n a wet hen,” said the girl.
“Them things cost a lot of money,” her companion commented, “and that was inlaid like all the other things in her room. Gee! the way Mr. Faulkner spends the money on her is a crime.”
“Second wives have a cinch,” said the first girl, sneering. “From all I hear the first was a perfect lady and kind to the maids, but this one is down-right ordinary. You should have heard what she said about me over the ‘phone when she told the piano people to send a tuner up, and me standing there. Said I was “clumsy” and “stupid” and “a love-sick fool.” I couldtell something about love-sick fools if I wanted to! And she knows it.”
Her friend cautioned her.
“Be careful,” she whispered, “you may want to lose your job but I don’t. Don’t talk so loud.”
It was hardly five o’clock. Anthony Trent left the car and started for a telephone booth. He went methodically through the lists of the better known piano makers. There was one firm whose high-priced instrument was frequently encased in rare woods for specially furnished rooms.
“This is Mr. Carr Faulkner’s secretary speaking,” he began when the number was given to him. “Have you been instructed to see about a piano here?”
“We are sending a man right away,” he was told.
“To-morrow morning will do,” said the supposed secretary. “We are giving a small dance to-night and it will not be convenient.”
“We should prefer to send now,” came the answer. “A valuable instrument might be extensively damaged if not attended to right away.”
Trent became confidential. He dropped his voice.
“It’s nothing for Mr. Faulkner to buy a new instrument if it’s needed, but it’s a serious thing if a dance that Mrs. Faulkner gives is interrupted. Money is no consideration here as you ought to know.”
The piano man, remembering the price that was exacted for the special case, smiled to himself. It would be better for him to sell a new instrument. It would not surprise him if this affable secretary called in some fine morning and hinted at commission. Such things had been done before in the trade.
“It’s just as you say,” he returned. “At what hour shall our Mr. Jackson call?”
“As soon as he likes after ten,” said the obliging Trent, and rang off.
Then he called up the Carr Faulkner house and told the answering man servant that Mr. Jackson of Stoneham’s would call at half past six. He was switched on to the private wire of Mrs. Carr Faulkner.
“It’s disgraceful that you can’t come before,” she stormed.
“Yours is specially made instrument,” he reminded her, “and I need special tools.”
Then he took the crosstown car to his home and changed into a neat dark business suit. He also arrayed himself in a brand new shirt and collar. Mrs. Kinney always washed these, and many a criminal has had his identity proved by his laundry mark. Trent, like a wise man, admitted the possibility that some day he might be caught but was determined never to take the risks that lesser craftsmen hardly thought of.
Anthony Trent thought it most probable that the Faulkner’s butler would be of the imported species. He hoped so. He found that they were more easily impressed by good manners and dress than the domestic breed.
Some day he determined to write an essay on butlers. There was Conington Warren’s bishop-like Austin, cold, severe, aloof. There was Guestwick’s man, the jovial sportsman type molding himself no doubt on some admired employer of earlier days.
Faulkner’s butler was an amiable creature and inclined to associate with a piano tuner on equal terms. He had rather fine features and was admired of thefemale domestics. His dignity forbade him to indulge in much familiarity with the men beneath him and he welcomed the pseudo-tuner as an opportunity to converse.
“I knew you by your voice,” said the butler cordially. “Come in.”
There was little chance that the maid servants behind whom he had sat on the car would recognize him. Or if they did there was no reason why they should be suspicious.
Mrs. Carr Faulkner’s boudoir was a delightful room on the third floor. A little electric, self-operated elevator leading to it was pointed out by the butler.
“Not for the likes of you or me,” said the man. “We can walk.”
Mrs. Carr Faulkner was a dissatisfied looking blonde woman. In her opera box surrounded by friends and displaying her famous jewels she had seemed a vision of loveliness to the gazing far-away Trent. Here in her own home and dealing with those whom she considered her inferiors, she made no effort to be even civil.
“Who is this person?” she demanded of the butler.
“The man come to look at the piano, ma’am,” he returned.
“You’re not Mr. Jackson,” she said with abruptness.
It was plain Jackson was known. Trent blamed himself for not thinking of this possibility.
“I am the head tuner,” he said with dignity, “we understood it was a case where the highest skill was needed.”
She looked at him coldly.
“I don’t know that it demands much of what youcall skill,” she retorted acidly. “You have come at a singularly inconvenient hour. Please get to work at once.”
With this she left the room. The butler gazed after her scowling.
“Do you have to put up with that all day?” Trent asked him.
“How the boss stands it I don’t know,” said the butler.
“Why take it out on a mere piano tuner?” Trent asked.
The butler winked knowingly. He dug Trent in the ribs with a fine, free and friendly gesture.
“Speaking as one man of the world to another,” he observed, “I guess you spoiled a littletête-à-têteas we say in gay Paree. Mr. Carr Faulkner leaves the Union Club at seven and walks up the Avenue in time to dress for his dinner at eight. There’s another gentleman leaves another club on the same Avenue and gets here as a rule at six and leaves in time to avoid the master.” The butler leaned forward and whispered in the tuner’s ear, “She’s crazy about him. The only man who doesn’t know is the boss. It’s always the way,” added the self-confessed man of the world, “I wouldn’t trust any woman living. The more they have the worse they are. If ever I marry I’ll take a job as lighthouse keeper and take my wife along.”
“Will they come in here?” Trent asked anxiously. He wanted the opportunity to do his own work while the family dined and he did not want to be seen by an unnecessary person. He disliked taking even a million to one shot.
The cynical butler interpreted his interest differently.
“You won’t understand a word of what they’re saying. They talk in French. She was at school in Lausanne and he’s a French count, or says he is. I’ve made a mistake in scorning foreign languages,” the butler admitted, “I’d give a lot to know what they talk about.” He was not to know that Trent knew French moderately well.
Left to himself Trent called to mind the actions of a piano tuner. He had often watched his own grand being tuned. When Mrs. Carr Faulkner came into the room she beheld an earnest young man delving among the piano’s depths. She was interested in no man but Jules d’Aucquier who filled her heart and emptied her purse.
“Is the thing much damaged?” she asked presently.
“I think not,” he replied.
“Then you need not stay long?”
“I shall go as soon as possible,” he said.
She sank into a deep chair and thought of Jules. And there came to her face a softer, happier look. The butler’s talk Trent dismissed as mere servants’ gossip. Of Carr Faulkner he knew nothing except that he was years older than his wife. He was, probably, a wealthy roué who had coveted this beautiful woman and bought her in marriage. In high society it was often that way, he mused. Family coercion, perhaps, or the need to aid impoverished parents. It was being done every day. This man of whom the butler spoke was probably her own age. Since the stone age this domestic intrigue must have been going on.
He touched the keyboard—pianissimo at first andthen growing bolder plunged into the gloriousLiebestod. It was not the sort of thing Mr. Jackson would have done but then Anthony Trent was a head tuner as he had explained. He watched the woman’s face to see into what mood the music would lead her. He was speedily to find out.
“Stop,” she commanded and rising to her feet came to his side. “Why do you do that?”
“I must try it,” he answered, a little sheepishly, “we always have to test an instrument.”
“But to play theLiebestod” she said severely. “I have heard them all play it, Bauer, Borwick, Grainger, d’Albert and Hoffman and you dare to try! It was impertinent of you. Of course if you must play just play those chords tuners always use.”
Trent admitted afterwards he had never been more angry or felt more insulted in his life. He had not for a moment supposed this butterfly woman even knew the name of what he played.
“I won’t offend again,” he said with what he hoped was a sarcastic inflection. She answered never a word. She seemed to be listening. Trent heard a sound that might have been the opening of the elevator door. Then came hurried steps along the hall and Jules d’Aucquier entered.
He was dark to the point of swarthiness, tall and graceful. His rather small head reminded Trent of a snake’s. As a man who knew men Trent determined that the newcomer was dangerous. The look that he threw across the room to the intruder was not pleasant.
He spoke very quickly in French.
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“No one who matters,” she answered in the same tongue.
“But what is the pig doing here at this hour?” he asked.
“Repairing the piano,” she told him, “a poor tuner I imagine for the reason that he plays so well. I had to stop him when he began theLiebestod. It affects me too much. That was being played when you first looked into my eyes, dear one.”
“Send him away,” the man commanded.
“But that would look suspicious,” she declared.
Trent noticed that Jules did not respond to the affection which was in the woman’s tone.
“You should not telephone to me at the club,” he said as he took a seat at her side. “I am only a temporary member and do not want to embarrass my sponsor.”
“But you were so cruel to me yesterday,” she murmured.
“Cruel?” he repeated and turned his cold, snake eyes on her, eyes that could, when he willed it, glow with fire and passion. “Who is the crueler, you or I?”
“What do you mean?” she cried almost tearfully. “You know I love you.”
“And yet when I ask you to do a favor which is easily within your power to perform you refuse. I must have money; that you know.”
“It is always money now,” she complained. “You no longer say that you love me.”
“How can I when my creditors bark at my heelslike hungry dogs? Unless I pay by to-morrow it is finished. You and I see one another no more, that is certain.”
He looked at her in annoyed surprise when she suddenly smiled. He watched her with an even greater interest than the man gazing from behind the piano. From an escritoire she took a package wrapped in lavender paper. This she placed in the pocket of the coat that he had thrown across a chair.
“What good are cigarettes to me now?” he demanded. “I have told you that unless I have fifteen thousand dollars by noon to-morrow, I am done.”
“When you get to your rooms,” she said, smiling, “open your cigarettes and see if I do not love you.”
Trent admitted this Jules was undeniably handsome now that the dark face was wreathed in smiles. Jules gathered her in his arms.
“My soul,” he whispered, and covered her face with kisses. When he attempted to rise and go to the coat his eyes were staring at, she held him tight.
“I got twenty thousand from him,” she said. “You will find the twenty bills each wrapped in the cigarette papers. I pushed the tobacco out and they fitted in.”
“Wasteful one,” he said in tender reproach and sought again to retrieve his coat.
Unfortunately for the debonair Jules d’Aucquier this was not immediately possible. The click of the little elevator was heard. The two looked at one another in alarm.
“It must be Carr,” she whispered. “Nobody else could possibly use that elevator now. Somebody has told him.” She looked about her in despair. “Youmust hide. Quick, behind the piano there until I get him away.”
Trent working industriously amid the wreckage of what had been a grand piano looked up with polite surprise at the tall man who flung himself almost at his feet and tried to conceal himself behind part of the instrument.
“Hide me, quickly,” Jules whispered, “do you hear. I will give you money. Quick, fool, don’t gape at me.”
For the second time that evening Anthony Trent smothered his anger and smiled when rage was in his heart. And he did so for the second time not because he was conscious of fear but because he saw himself suitably rewarded for his efforts. He felt a note thrust into his hand but this was not the reward he looked for. He was arranging the piano débris around the prostrate Jules when there was a knock on the door and Carr Faulkner entered.
The millionaire’s eye fell first of all upon the coat over the chair.
“Who’s is this?” he demanded.
The pause was hardly perceptible before she answered.
“I suppose it belongs to the piano man.”
Faulkner looked across at the instrument and beheld the busy Trent taking what else was possible from the Stoneman. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put that instrument together again easily. Trent went about his business with quiet persistence.
Carr Faulkner’s voice was very courteous and kind as he addressed the tuner.
“I’m afraid I must ask you to wait outside in the hall for a few minutes until I have had a little private talk with my wife.”
“Is that necessary,” she said quickly. “I’m just going to dress for dinner. We have people coming, remember.”
“There is time,” he said meaningly. “I left my club half an hour earlier to-day. Did the change incommode you?”
“Why should it?” she said lightly.
Faulkner was a man of middle age with a fine thoughtful face. It was a face that made an instant appeal to Trent. It mirrored kindliness and good breeding, and reminded him in a subtle way of his own father, a country physician who had died a dozen years before his only son left the way of honest men.
“A few minutes only,” he said and Trent passed out into the hall taking care to leave the door opened an inch or so. It was necessary for his peace of mind that he should know what it was Mr. Faulkner had to say to his wife. It might concern him vitally. It was possible that inquiry at Stoneman’s might have informed Faulkner of his trickery. While this was improbable Trent was not minded to be careless. This kindly aspect of the millionaire might be assumed to put him off his guard; even now men might be stationed at the exits to arrest him. Very quietly he stole back to the door and listened.
“I have found out for certain what I have long suspected,” Faulkner was saying to his wife. “It is always the husband who learns last. Don’t protest,” he added. “I know too much. I know for examplethat you have sold many of your jewels to provide funds for a gambler and a rascal.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she cried white-faced.
“You do,” he said, and there was a trace of deep sadness in his voice. “You know too well. This man Jules d’Aucquier is not of a noble French family at all. He is a French-Canadian and was formerly a valet to an English officer of title at Ottawa. It was there he picked up this smattering of knowledge which has made it easy to fool the unsuspecting.”
“I don’t believe it,” she cried vehemently.
He looked at her sadly. The whole scene was crucifixion for him.
“I shall prove it,” he said quietly.
“I don’t care if you do,” she flung back at him.
“You would care for him just the same?” he asked.
“I have not said that I care for him at all,” she said, a trace of caution creeping into her manner.
“I shall give you the opportunity to prove it one way or another within a few minutes. We have come to the parting of the ways.”
It was at this moment Anthony Trent knocked timidly upon the door. The stage was set to his liking. When he was bidden to enter his quick eye took in everything. There, out of sight d’Aucquier skulked while he prepared to hear his despicable history told to the woman who was his victim. As for the woman she was defiant. She would probably elect to follow a scoundrel who had fascinated her and leave a man behind whose good name she had trailed in the dust. The situation was not a new one but Trent was moved by it. Carr Faulkner had all his sympathy. He registereda vow if ever he met d’Aucquier, or whatever his name might be, to exact a punishment.
“Excuse me,” said Anthony Trent, stepping into the room, “but my train leaves in twenty minutes—I live out in Long Island—and I’ve got to catch it or else the missus will be worrying.”
Mrs. Faulkner looked at him frowning. She wanted to get this scene over. He was a good looking piano tuner, she decided, and now his tragedy was plain. He who had no doubt once aimed at the concert stage tuned pianos to support a wife and home in Long Island!
“I’ll finish the job to-morrow morning.”
She waved him toward the door imperiously. Every moment she and her husband spent in this room added to the chance of the hiding man’s discovery.
“Why don’t you go?” she cried.
Anthony Trent permitted himself to smile faintly.
“I’ve come for my coat, Ma’am,” he said, and glanced at the raiment d’Aucquier had thrown carelessly over a chair, the coat now laden with such precious cigarettes.
Carr Faulkner was growing impatient at this interruption. He could not understand the look of anger on his wife’s face.
“Don’t you understand,” he exclaimed, “that the man merely wants to go home and take his coat with him?”
He turned to the deferential Trent.
“All right, all right,” Trent moved to the chair and took the garment. At the door he turned about and bowed profoundly.
In the lower hall he found the cynical butler whose ideas on matrimony were so decided. He startled that functionary by thrusting into his hand the ten dollars d’Aucquier had forced upon him.
“What’s this for?” demanded the butler. When piano tuners came with gifts in their hands he was suspicious. “I don’t understand this.” He observed that the affability which had made the tuner seem kin to himself was vanished. A different man now looked at him.
“It’s for you,” said Trent. “I’m not a piano tuner. I’m a detective and I came here after that ex-valet who pretends to be a French nobleman.”
The butler breathed hard.
“I ’ate that man, sir,” he said simply. “I’d like to dot him one.”
“You’ll be able to and that within five minutes,” Trent assured him. “He is concealed behind the lid of the grand piano I was supposed to repair. Mr. and Mrs. Faulkner are both in the room buthedoesn’t know Jules is there. You take two footmen and yank him out and then if you want to ‘dot him one’ or two, there’s your chance.”
The muscles of the butler’s big shoulders swelled with anticipation. “Where are you going?” he asked of Trent, now making for the front door.
“To get the patrol wagon,” said Anthony Trent.
“How long will you be?” asked the man.
“I shall be back in no time,” Trent answered cryptically.
Arrived in his quiet rooms he undid the box of cigarettes. At first he thought he had been fooledfor the top layer of cigarettes were tobacco-filled and normal.
But it was on the next row that Mrs. Carr Faulkner had expended her trouble. Each one contained a new thousand dollar bill and their tint enthralled him.
CASHINGa modest check at the Colonial bank one morning, Trent had fallen in line with a queue at the paying teller’s window. He made it a point to observe what went on while he waited. He was not much interested in bank robberies. To begin with the American Bankers’ Association is a vengeful society pursuing to the death such as mulct its clients. Furthermore, a successful bank robbery, unless the work of an inside man, needs careful planning and collaboration.
On this particular morning Trent saw a stout and jocund gentleman push his check across the glass entrance to the cashier’s cave and received without hesitation a large sum of money. He passed the time of day with the official, climbed into a limousine and was whirled up Broadway.
“Did yer see that?” a youth demanded who stood before Trent.
“What?” he asked quietly. It was not his pose to be interested in other of the bank’s customers.
“That guy took out twenty thousand dollars,” the boy said, reverence in his tone.
“That’s a lot of money,” said Trent.
“He lives well,” said the lad. “I ought to know, he gets his groceries from us and he only eats and drinks the best.”
“He looks like it,” the other said genially. If the stout and jocund gourmet had known what was in Trent’s mind he would have hied him back to the bank and redeposited his cash. “It’s Rudolf Liebermann, isn’t it?”
“That’s Frederick Williams, and he lives on Ninety-third, near the Drive.”
What additional information Trent wanted to know might be obtained from other than this boy. To make many inquiries might, if Frederick Williams were relieved of his roll, bring back the incident to the grocer’s boy.
Directly dusk fell Anthony Trent, in the evening garb of fashion, crossed over to Riverside Drive and presently came to the heroic statue of Jeanne d’Arc which stands at the foot of Ninety-third Street. By this time he knew the license number of the Williams’ limousine and the address. It was one of those small residences of gray stone containing a dozen rooms or so. Such houses, as he knew, were usually laid out on a similar plan and he was familiar with it.
It was very rarely that he made a professional visit to a house without having a definite plan of attack carefully worked out. This was the first time he sought to gain entrance to a strange house on the mere chance of success. But the twenty thousand dollars in crisp notes tempted him. In his last affair he had netted this sum in notes of a similar denomination and he was superstitious enough to feel that this augured well for to-night’s success.
Careful as ever, Trent had made his alibis in case of failure. In one of his pockets was a pint flask ofBourbon, empty save for a dram of spirit. In another was a slip of paper containing the name of the house-holder who occupied a house with the same number as that of Williams, but on Ninety-fifth Street. Once before he had saved himself by this ruse. He had protested vigorously when detected by a footman that he was merely playing a practical joke on his old college chum who lived, as he thought, in this particular house, but was found to be on the next block. And in this case the emptied whiskey flask and the cheerful tipsiness of the amiable young man of fashion—Trent’s most successful pose—saved him.
In his pockets nothing would be found to incriminate him. He knew well the folly of carrying the automatic so beloved of screen or stage Raffles. In the first place, the sudden temptation to murder in a tight pinch, and in the second the Sullivan law. In the bamboo cane, carefully concealed, were slender rods of steel whose presence few would suspect. He had left such a cane in Senator Scrivener’s Fifth Avenue mansion when he was compelled to make an unrehearsed exit. Once he met the Senator coming down the steps of the Union Club with this cane in his hand. He chuckled to think what might be that worthy’s chagrin to know he had been carrying burglar’s tools with him.
As there was little light on the lower floor of Frederick Williams’ house, Trent let himself in cautiously. There was a dim hanging light which showed that the Williams idea of furnishing was in massive bad taste. At the rear of the hall were the kitchens. Under the swinging door he could see a bright light. The stairs were wide and did not creak. Carefully he ascendedthem and stood breathless in a foyer between the two main reception-rooms. There were voices in the rear room, which should, if Williams conformed to the majority of dwellers in such houses, be the dining-room. Big doors shut out view and sound until he crept nearer and peeped through a keyhole. He could see Williams sitting in a Turkish rocker smoking a cigar. There were two other men and all three chattered volubly in German. Unfortunately it was a tongue of which the listener knew almost nothing. Reasonably fluent in French, the comprehension of German was beyond him. There was a small safe in the corner and it was not closed. Trent felt certain that in it reposed those notes he had come for.
In the corner of the foyer was a carven teakwood table with a glass top, and on it was a large Boston fern. It would be easy enough to crouch there unobserved. The only possibility of discovery was the remote contingency that Williams and his friends might choose to use this foyer. But Trent had seen that it was not furnished as a sitting-room.
He had barely determined on his hiding place when he found the sudden necessity to use it. Williams arose quickly and advanced to the door. When he threw it open the path of light left the unbidden one completely obscured. The three men passed by him and entered the drawing-room in front. Trent caught a view of a luxuriously overfurnished room and a grand piano. Then Williams began to play a part of a Brahms sonata so well that Trent’s heart warmed toward him. But his appreciation of the master did not permit him to listen to the whole movement. He crept cautiously from his cover and into the room thethree had just vacated. If there were other of Williams’ friends or family here Trent might be called upon to exercise his undoubted talents. One man he would not hesitate to attack since his working knowledge of jiu-jitsu was beyond the average. If there were two, attack would be useless in the absence of a revolver. But if the coast were clear—ah, then, a competence, all the golf and fishing he desired. There would be only the Countess to deal with at his leisure.
The room was empty, butthe safe was closed! Williams was not devoid of caution. A glance at the thing showed Trent that in an uninterrupted half hour he could learn its secrets. But he could hardly be assured of that at nine o’clock at night. His very presence in the room was fraught with danger. The one door leading from it opened into a butler’s pantry from which a flight of stairs led into the kitchen part of the house. Downstairs he could hear faucets running. A dumbwaiter offered a way of escape if he were put to it. To the side of the dumbwaiter was a zinc-lined compartment used for drying dishes. It was four feet long and three in height and a shelf bisected it. This he took out carefully and placed upon the floor of the compartment, making an ample space for concealment. A radiator opened into it, giving the heat desired, and two iron gratings in the doors afforded Trent the opportunity to overhear what might be said. He satisfied himself that the doors opened noiselessly. The burglar’s rôle was not always an heroic one, he told himself, and thought of the popular misconception of such activities.
It must have been an hour later when he heard sounds in the adjoining room. By this time he wasfighting against the drowsiness induced by the heat of his prison.
The swinging door between the butler’s pantry and the dining-room was thrown open and Williams came in. He leaned over the staircase and shouted something in German to some one in the kitchen, who answered him in the same tongue. There was the sound below of locking and bolting the doors. The servants had evidently been sent to bed.
When Williams went back to the other room the door between did not swing to by four or five inches. So far as Williams was concerned this carelessness was to cost him more than he guessed. Even in his hiding place the conversation was audible to Trent, although its meaning was incomprehensible.
He was suddenly awakened to a more vivid interest when he became aware that it was now English that they were talking. There was a newcomer in the room, a man with a nasal carrying voice and a prodigious brogue.
“This, gentlemen,” he heard Williams say, “is Mr. O’Sheill, who has done so much good work for us and for the freedom of oppressed, starving, shackled Ireland, which we shall free. I may tell Mr. O’Sheill that the highest personages in the Fatherland weep bitter tears for Ireland’s wrongs.”
“That’s all right,” said the Sinn Feiner a trifle ungraciously, “but what’s behind yonder door?”
For answer one of the other men flung it open, turned up the lights and permitted Mr. O’Sheill to make his examination. Trent heard the man’s heavy tread as he descended the stairway and found at the bottom a locked door.
“You’ve got to be careful,” O’Sheill said when he rejoined Williams and the rest. “These damned secret service men are everywhere, they tell me.”
“That is why we have rented a private house,” one of the Germans declared. “At an hotel privacy is impossible. We have had our experiences.”
These scraps of conversation aroused Anthony Trent immediately. It required only a cursory knowledge of the affairs of the moment for a duller man than he to realize that he had come across the scent of one of those plots which were so hampering his government in their prosecution of the war. Very cautiously he crawled from his hiding place and made his silent way to the barely opened door.
O’Sheill was lighting a large cigar. His was a suspicious, dour face. Williams, urbane and florid, was very patient.
“That I do not tell you the names of my colleagues,” he said, “is of no moment. It is sufficient to say that you have the honor to be in the presence of one of the most illustrious personages in my country.” Here he bowed in the direction of a small, thin, dapper man who did not return the salutation.
“I came for the money,” said O’Sheill.
“You came first for your instructions,” snapped the illustrious personage coldly.
“That’s so, yer Honor,” O’Sheill answered. There was something menacing in the tone of the other man and he recognized it.
“This money,” said Williams, “is given for very definite purposes and an accounting will be demanded.”
“Ain’t you satisfied with the way I managed it at Cork?” O’Sheill demanded.
“It was a beginning,” Williams conceded. “Here is what you must do: Wherever along the Irish coast the English bluejackets and the American sailors foregather you must stir up bad blood. I do not pretend to give you any more precise direction than this. Let the Americans understand that the British call them cowards. Let the British think the same of the Yankees. Let there be bitter street fights, not in obscure drinking dens, but in the public streets in the light of day. I will see to it that the news gets back here and let Americans have something to think about when the next draft is raised. Find men in England to do what you must do in your own country. Let there be black blood between Briton and American from Belfast to Portsmouth. Let there be doubt and recrimination so that preparations are hindered here.”
The man who passed as Williams looked venomous as he said this. The man to whom he spoke, thinking in his ignorance that he was indeed helping his native land instead of hurting it, and forgetful that in aiding the enemies of America he was stabbing a country which had ever been a faithful friend of Erin’s, gave particulars of his operations which Trent memorized as best he might. He was appalled to hear to what length these men were prepared to go if only the good relations between the Allies might be brought to naught.
So engrossed was he with the importance of what he heard that the passing of the large sum of money from Williams to the Sinn Feiner lost much of its entrancing interest. Trent meant to have the money, but he intended also to give the Department of Justice what help he could.
It was not the first time that he had gone from one floor to another by means of a dumbwaiter. It was never an easy operation and rarely a noiseless one. In this instance he was fortunate in finding well-oiled pulleys. It was only when he stepped out in the kitchen that he ran into danger. There was a man asleep on a folding bed which had been drawn across the door. To leave by the front door immediately was imperative. Even were it possible to leave by a rear entrance he would find himself in the little garden at the back and could only get out by climbing a dozen fences. This would be to court observation and run unnecessary risks.
To invite electrocution by killing men was no part of Anthony Trent’s practice. It was plain that the servant was slumbering fitfully and the act of stepping over him to freedom likely to awaken him instantly. Even if he had the needed rope at hand binding and gagging a vigorous man was at best a matter of noise and struggle. But something had to be done. He must reach the street in time to follow O’Sheill.
Superimposed on the bed’s frame was a mattress and army blanket. Directly behind the sleeper’s head was a door which led, as Trent knew from his knowledge of house design, to the cellar. It opened inward and without noise. He bent quietly over the man, put his hands gently beneath the mattress and then with a tremendous effort flung him, mattress, army blanket and all, down the cellar stairs. There was a clatter of breaking bottles, a cry that died away almost as it was uttered, and then the door was shut on silence.
A little later Williams, feeling the need for icedbeer and cheese sandwiches, rang the bell for Fritz. When he received no answer he descended to the kitchen with the intention of buffeting soundly a man who could so forget his duties to his superiors. Mr. Williams found only the bare bed. Fritz, with his bedding, had disappeared.
A front door unlocked when instructions had been exact as to the necessity of its careful fastening at all hours, brought uneasy conjectures to his mind. It was only so long as he and his companions were invested with the immunity of neutrality that he was of value to his native land. Of late he had been conscious of Secret Service activities.
Obedient to his training, Williams instantly reported the matter to the thin, acid-faced man under whose instructions he had been commanded to act.
“They have taken Fritz away,” he cried.
“Who?” demanded his superior.
“The Secret Service,” said Williams wildly. He was now beginning to ascribe aggressive skill to a service at which he had formerly sneered.
Going down to the kitchen, they were startled by a feeble cry from the cellar. There they discovered the frightened Fritz, cut about the face from the bottles he had broken in his fall. His injuries gave him less concern than the admission he had slept at his post. He was, therefore, of no aid to them.
“I do not know,” he repeated as they questioned him. “There must have been many of them. One man alone could not do it.”
The thin man turned to Williams: “This O’Sheill is in danger. Arm yourself and go to his hotel. It will go badly with you if harm comes to him.”