ITwas not a matter of much difficulty for Trent, still Mr. Maltby, to become acquainted with male members of the set in San Francisco which Miss Thompson affected. He knew that she dined each night at a café which attracted many motion picture people. And he learned that there was a producer from Los Angeles now looking for easy money in San Francisco who was very friendly with her. Since this man Weiller was easy of approach to such as seemed prosperous it was not difficult for Trent to strike up an acquaintance one day at the St Charles. Weiller first of all, as became a loyal native son, spoke of climate. Then with even greater enthusiasm he spoke of the movies as money-makers. He wanted to get a little money together, put on a feature and sell it. He arranged all the details on the back of a St. Charles menu card. He had an idea which, if William Reynard of New York could learn of it, would bring that eminent producer of features a cool million.
Anthony Trent hung back with the lack of interest a man with money to invest may properly exhibit. Weiller was sure he had money. He lived at a first class hotel, he dined well and he was a “dresser” to be admired. Also Weiller had seen a sizeable roll of bills on occasion.
There came a night when at Anthony Trent’s expense, Miss Norah Thompson, Weiller and a svelte girl called by Weiller California’s leading “anjenou,” partook of a sumptuous repast. Had it not been that Trent was out for business the whole thing would have disgusted him. Weiller and Norah were blatantly vulgar and intent on impressing their host. The “anjenou” said a hundred times that he was like one of her dearest “gentlemen friends” now being featured by the Jewbird Film company. Her friend was handsome but she liked Anthony’s nose better.
With coffee came the great scheme. Weiller wanted to make a five reel feature of the Andrew Apthorpe murder. Norah Thompson was to play the lead!
“It’ll knock ’em dead!” cried Weiller. “Gee! What press agent stuff!” He helped himself with a hand trembling from excitement to another gulp of wine. “My boy, you’re in luck. We’ll go into this thing on equal shares. I’m putting up fifty thousand dollars and you shall put up a like sum. We’ll clear up five hundred per cent.”
“You’ve put up fifty thousand in actual cash?” Trent demanded.
“That’s what I capitalize my knowledge of pictures at,” Weiller explained.
“George is one of the best known producers in the game,” Miss Thompson said, a trifle nettled at what she thought was a smile of contempt on the other’s face. “He don’t need your money. I’ve got enough in this bag right here to produce it.” She waived a black moiré bag before Trent’s eyes.
George Weiller looked at her and frowned. Whata foolish project, he thought, to spend one’s own money when here was a victim.
“You keep that, little one,” he said generously. “We’re gentlemen; we don’t want to take a lady’s money. We’ll talk it over later.”
A keen salesman, he noted Trent was growing restive. If the matter were persisted in he might either take a fright or take offence. All this he explained later. “You see, Norah,” he remarked, “that guy has a chin on him that means you can’t drive him.”
“He’s got a cold, nasty eye,” said Norah who was not without her just fears of strangers.
“I’m going to play the game so he’ll beg me to let him in on it,” Weiller boasted. “I know the way to play that sort of bird.”
The negotiations resulted in Trent’s seeing a great deal more of this precious couple than he cared for. The “anjenou” finding her charms made no impression on him was rarely included in the little dinners and excursions.
It was when Trent had met Miss Thompson a dozen times that he consulted the notes he had made on each occasion. It was a method of working unique so far as he could learn. It might yield no results in a thousand cases. In the thousand and first it might be the clue. It was nothing more than a list of the costumes he had seen the ex-nurse wear.
On going through the list he saw that whereas Miss Thompson had worn a new dress on each occasion of the dinners in public restaurants with shoes and hosiery to harmonize or match the color scheme of her gown she had always carried the black moiré bag. And since it was a fashion of the moment for womento own many and elaborate bags of this sort to match or harmonize with the color scheme or details of their costumes, it seemed odd that Norah Thompson, who had been buying everything that seemed modish, should fail to follow the way of the well dressed.
The bag as he remembered it was about seven inches wide and perhaps ten inches long. It was closed by a silver buckle and a pendant of some sort swung at each corner. Concentrating upon it he remembered they were not beads but made of the same material as the bag itself and in size about that of an English walnut. He called to mind the fact that he had never seen her without this bag. Why should she cling so closely to what was already demodé? Were he a genuine detective the problem had been an easy one. He could seize the bag, search it and denounce her. But that would entail giving up a priceless stone for a few thousand dollars of reward.
On the pretext of having to buy a present for a Chicago cousin, Anthony Trent led the willing Weiller into one of the city’s exclusive department stores. Weiller was anxious to do anything and everything for his new friend. That night he, Norah and some other friends were to be Trent’s guests at a very recherché dinner. He felt, as the born salesman senses these things, that he would get his answer that night and that it would be favorable. And with fifty thousand dollars to play with he might do anything. Probably the last project would be to make a picture himself.
Trent asked to be shown the very latest thing in bags. The counter was presently laden with what the salesgirl claimed to be direct importations from Paris.Trent selected one which he said would suit his cousin.
“You ought to get one for Norah,” he said. “What color is she going to wear to-night?”
“Light blue,” Weiller returned almost sulkily. He had been with her when she purchased the gown and resented the extravagance. If she went on at that rate there would be nothing left for him. “What they call gentian blue.”
The salesgirl picked out an exquisite blue bag on which the lilies of France had been painted daintily by hand. It was further decorated with a border of fleur-de-lis in seed pearls.
“This is the biggest bargain we have,” the girl assured them. “The government won’t allow any more to be brought over. It’s marked down to a hundred dollars.” She looked at George Weiller, “Will you take it?”
“I’m not sure it’s the shade my friend wants,” he prevaricated. In reality he cursed Trent for dragging him into a proposition which could cost such a sum. He had not a tenth of the amount upon him.
“I’ll take it,” Trent said carelessly, pushing a hundred dollar bill over the counter, “I’ve plenty of cousins and girls always like these things.”
Weiller sighed enviously. He often remarked if he could capitalize his brains he would pay an income tax of a million dollars; but that did not prevent him from being invariably short of ready money.
He was looking forward to the dinner Trent was to give him and his friends that night. Besides Norah there were five other moving picture people who were to be used to impress Trent with their knowledge of the game and the money he could make out of it. Theywould be amply repaid by the dinner; for there are those who serve the screened drama whose salaries are small. These ancilliary salesmen and women were to meet at half past six in the furnished flat Norah Thompson had rented. There they were to be drilled.
It was while they were receiving the finishing touches that Anthony Trent knocked upon the door, blandly announcing that he had brought an automobile to take Norah and George to the hotel where he was staying.
Instantly the gathering registered impatience to start. Weiller, always suspicious, feared that Trent might think it curious that so many were engaged in earnest conversation, and he wondered if their voices had carried to the hall where Trent had waited.
Suave and courteous, Trent made himself at home among the crowd of people who were, so they informed him, world famous in a screen sense.
Trent, as usual, had timed things accurately. It was part of his scheme that Norah should want to banish from his mind the idea that there had been any collusion. She was bright and vivacious in her manner toward him.
“You are a sweet man,” she exclaimed, “I’m dreadfully hungry—and thirsty. Come on boys and girls.”
He noticed that although arrayed in a new costume of blue, she clung to her back moiré bag. He called Weiller aside while Norah mixed a last cocktail for the men.
“George,” he whispered, “that blue bag I bought is just the thing to give Norah.” George felt a parcel thrust into his hand. “It’s a little present from me to you and she mustn’t know I bought it.”
“She shan’t from me,” Weiller said almost tremulously. Nothing could have happened more delightfully. Not ten minutes ago in the presence of his even less prosperous motion picture colleagues, Norah had called him a tightwad who didn’t think enough of the woman he was to marry to buy her a ring. He explained that easily enough by saying nothing in San Francisco was good enough for her and that he was ordering one from New York. This present from a rich and careless spender would prove affluence no less than affection. “Thanks, old man, a million times.”
Norah was at the door when he presented it. She was genuinely affected by the gift. Perhaps her thanks were even warmer when one of her friends picked up the sales slip which had fluttered to the ground and read aloud the price. “I’m tired of that black bag,” George complained.
“Norah’s never going to carry that when she’s got this,” one of the other women cried. “It matches her gown exactly.”
“I took care of that,” George said complacently. “I told the saleswoman to get me the best she had but it must be gentian blue.”
There seemed a momentary hesitation before the black bag was discarded. To cling to it at such a moment would be to court suspicion. This was Trent’s strategy. Her manner was not lost upon one of the others, a character woman named Richards.
“Why, George,” she laughed, “I believe a former lover gave Norah that bag and she hates to part with it. I was in a picture once where the heroine carried the ashes of her first sweetheart around with her. I’d look into it if I was you.”
Nonchalantly Norah emptied the contents of the black bag into the new one. Then she pitched the old one onto a chair.
“Now for the eats,” she said cheerily.
THEdinner was a wearisome affair to Trent. His companions were vulgar, their conversation tedious and the flattery they offered him nauseous. It was exactly half-past nine when a waiter came to his side and told him there was a long distance call for him from Denver. Apologizing he left the table.
“His brother is a mining man out in Colorado,” Weiller informed the company. “They’re a rich bunch, the Chicago Maltbys.”
“They can’t come too rich for us,” one of his friends chuckled. “Pass me the wine, George.”
“This is a great little opportunity for rehearsing,” Weiller reminded them. “I’ve got to sign this bird up to-night. If I do we’ll have another little dinner on Saturday with a souvenir beside each plate.”
Directly Trent reached the hotel lobby he slipped the waiter a five dollar bill. “If they get impatient,” he cautioned the man, “say I’m still busy on the long distance and must not be interrupted.”
Five minutes later he opened the door of Norah’s flat and turned on the light. There, upon a chair, was the bag on which he had built so many hopes. His long sensitive fingers felt each of the pendants. Then with the small blade of a pocket knife he cut a few stitches and drew out the Takowaja emerald. For afull minute he gazed at its green glittering glory. Then from a waistcoat pocket he took the brilliant which had been purchased with the Benares lamp. They were much of a size and he placed the glass where the jewel had been and with a needle of black silk already prepared sewed up the cut stitches. The whole time occupied from entering the apartment to leaving it was not five minutes. He was back with his guests within a quarter of an hour.
“You must have had good news,” Norah exclaimed when he took his seat. His face which had been expressionless before was now lighted up. He was a new man, vivacious, witty and bubbling over with fun.
“I had very good news,” he smiled, “I put through a deal which means a whole lot to me. Let’s have some more wine to celebrate.”
The dinner was taking place in a private room and he had insisted that the service be of the best. Now he was free from the tension that inevitably preceded one of his adventures he could enjoy himself. For the first time he looked at the omnibus by the door behind him. It was not the youthful fledgling waiter he expected to see but a big, dark man with a black moustache and imperial. Norah observed his glance.
“George offered to star him as the mysterious count but the poor wop don’t speak English.”
“I’ll bet he left spaghetti land because he done a murder,” George commented, “a nasty looking rummy I call him.”
“I’ll swear he wasn’t here when I went to the ’phone,” said Trent. “I should have noticed him.”
None heard him. The new bottle demanded attention. There was something vaguely familiar aboutthe face but for the life of him Trent could not place it. Uneasily he was aware that the man of whom this strange waiter reminded him had come at a moment of danger. The more he looked the more certain he was that imperial and moustache were the disguising features. But it is not easy to strip such appendages off in the mind’s eye and see clearly what lies beneath. But there was a way to do so. On the back of an envelope Trent sketched the waiter as he appeared. It was a good likeness. Then with the rubber on his pencil end he erased moustache and imperial. The face staring at him now was beyond a question that of Devlin, the man who had run foul of him over the case of the Mount Aubyn ruby. He remembered now that Devlin had left Jerome Dangerfield’s employ to join a New York detective agency.
What was Devlin doing here disguised as a waiter if not on his trail? And pressed against his side was a stone of world fame. There was no possibility of escape. The dining room was twenty feet from the street below and he had no way of reaching it. The door was guarded by Devlin and outside in the corridor waiters flitted to and fro. “Old Sir Richard caught at last.”
He was roused from his eager scheming by a waiter asking what liqueur he would have. Automatically he ordered the only liqueur he liked, green chartreuse. Would Devlin allow the party to break up? If so he had a place of safety already prepared for the emerald. But if arrest and search were to take place before he could reach his room there was no help. He would be lucky to get off with fifteen years.
Something told him that Devlin was about to act.Waiters were now grouped about the door. He knew that Devlin must long ago have marked him down and this was the final scene. And yet, oddly enough, when suddenly the door closed and a truculent detective advanced to the table tearing off moustache and imperial, Anthony Trent, who had not left his seat, had no longer the incriminating stone upon him. He felt, in fact, reasonably secure.
“Quiet youze,” Devlin shouted and flashed a badge at them. Five of the eight felt certain he had come for them. Weiller owed much money in the vicinity of Fort Lee, New Jersey and was never secure. And more than that he had passed many opprobrious remarks concerning the waiter whom he supposed did not understand him.
“I’m employed,” said Devlin, “to recover the emerald stolen from the home of the late Andrew Apthorpe of Groton, Massachusetts, on the third of last month, and you can be searched here or in the station house.”
“It’s an outrage,” exclaimed Miss Richards the character woman.
“Sure it is,” Devlin agreed cynically, “but what are you going to do about it?”
A woman operative was introduced who took the ladies of the party into an adjoining room for search. The emerald was not found. The search revealed merely, that Miss Richards had been souvenir hunting and her spoils were a knife, spoon and olive fork.
The men had passed the ordeal successfully. That they had made the most of their host’s temporary absence the pockets full of cigars, cigarettes and salted almonds testified. Anthony Trent seemed hugely amused at the procedure. Alone of them he did notbreathe suits for defamation of character and the like.
“I have rooms here,” he reminded Devlin, “by all means search them.”
“I have,” snapped the other, showing his teeth.
“I regret I didn’t bring my golf clubs,” Trent taunted him.
“I hope I’ll put you in a place where they don’t play golf,” Devlin cried angrily. “I’m wise to you.”
“It’s good he’s wise to something,” shouted Miss Richards.
“Isn’t it?” Trent returned equably. “I’ve had no experience of it so far.” He resumed his seat and beckoned a waiter, “Some more coffee. Sit down, ladies, the ordeal is over.”
“Not by a long shot,” snarled Devlin, “I’ve got a search warrant to search the apartment rented by Norah Thompson and I want you, Weiller, to come with me.” He turned to the moving picture celebrities—self confessed celebrities—“as for you, you’d better beat it quick.”
Devlin’s last impression of the ornate dining room was the sight of the debonair Trent sipping his green chartreuse. Devlin ground his strong teeth when the other raised the green filled glass and drank his health.
He was not to know that in the glass invisible amid the enveloping fluid was the Takowaja emerald, slipped there in the moment of peril.
HALFan hour later the stone, reposing in a tin box of cigarettes, was in the mails on the way to Trent’s camp at Kennebago. Mrs. Kinney had instructions to hold all mail and its safety was thus assured. There was nothing more to fear. He wanted very much to know what had happened at Miss Thompson’s apartment and proposed to call after breakfast.
But Devlin called first upon him. It was a depressed Devlin. Not indeed a Devlin come to be apologetic, but one less assured.
“Well?” said Trent affably, “come to search me again. I’m getting a little tired of it, my good man.”
“I want to know why you pass here under the name of Maltby of Chicago when your name is Trent and you live in New York City.”
“A private detective has no right to demand any such knowledge. Last night you took upon yourself powers and authority which we could have resisted if we chose. You had no legal right to search us. I submitted first because I had nothing to fear and secondly to see if the others had the stone. I didn’t think they had.”
“What do you know about the stone?” Devlin demanded suspiciously.
“Everything except just where it is at this presentmoment. Between you and me, Devlin, I’m here after it too. I was at Groton, as can easily be proved, on the day after the murder.” Trent smiled as a curious look passed over the detective’s face, “I’m going to disappoint you. I passed the day and night in Boston when the murder was done. I have just as much use for that ten thousand dollars as you have. By the way I suppose you got the stone?”
“Like hell I did,” Devlin cried red in the face, “I got this.” He showed Trent the piece of cut glass which had hung in his room for so long. “Glass, that’s what it is.” Devlin leaned forward and looked hard into Anthony Trent’s eyes. “You know more about this than you pretend. It ain’t accident that brings you around when two such stones as Dangerfield’s ruby and this here emerald get stolen. There’s something more to it than that. There’s something mighty queer about you, Mister Anthony Trent, and I’m going to see what it is.”
Trent looked at him for a moment and then smiled. It was the tolerant smile of the superior. It angered Devlin. His red face grew redder still.
“My good Devlin,” said Trent, “stupidity such as yours may be a good armor but it is a poor diving suit.”
“Talk sense,” Devlin commanded.
“If you wish,” Trent agreed easily. “I mean that you haven’t the mental equipment to live up to your desires. You have the impertinence to thinkyoucan outwitme. I’m your superior in everything. Mentally, morally and physically I can beat you and in your heart you know it. I think I’ve stood about as much from you as I care to take from any man. For a time you amused me. At Sunset Park you thought you werebeing very subtle searching my room with your twin ass, O’Brien, but I was laughing at you.”
“You was drunk,” said Devlin slowly.
“That’s how gin takes me,” said the other, “I see the ludicrous in men and things. Just listen to me. My past and present bears investigation. You looked me up and you know.” Trent drew his bow at a venture. “You found that out, didn’t you?”
“Because I couldn’t find anything against you doesn’t prove you’re what you pretend,” Devlin admitted grudgingly.
“The point I wish to make is this,” Anthony Trent said incisively, “I’m tired of you. You bore me. You weary me. You exasperate me. I am willing to overlook your blundering stupidity this time but if you worry me again I shall go after you so hard you’ll wish you’d never heard my name. I’ve got money and that means influence. You’ve neither. Think it over. Now get out.”
Devlin looked at him doubtfully. There was a strong personal animus against Anthony Trent. He hated anything suave, smiling or polite. And when these qualities were in conjunction with physical prowess they spelled danger. But for the moment nothing was to be gained by violence. Devlin essayed a genial air.
“We all of us make mistakes,” he admitted. “I’m willing to say it. I’m sorry I’ve gone wrong over this case.” He held out a big short fingered hand. “Good-bye.”
“What’s the use?” Trent demanded. “You will always be my enemy and I never shake hands with an enemy if I can get out of it.”
Devlin was at a loss for the moment. It had been his experience that when he offered a hand it was grasped gladly, eagerly. There was something in this harder unsmiling Trent which impressed him against his will.
“They shake hands before the last round of a prize fight,” he reminded the other man.
“So they do,” said Trent smiling a little, and offered his hand.
Two weeks later he was compelled to concede that Devlin’s pertinacity sometimes won its reward.
Devlin had always been an advocate of the third degree. Together with some operatives from his agency he staged a gruesome drama into which hysterical and frightened the drink-enervated Norah Thompson was dragged. Under the pitiless cross-examination of these hard men she broke down. Andrew Apthorpe’s murderer was found. But the triumph was incomplete. She convinced them that although the emerald had been hers for a time, of its destination or present ownership she had no idea. She went into penal servitude for life with a newspaper notoriety that made the Takowaja emerald the most famous stone in existence.
The expert has usually a critical sense well developed. It was so with Anthony Trent. He read the details of all the crimes treated in the daily press almost jealously. What the police regarded as clever criminals were seldom such in his eyes. There were occasionally crimes which won his admiration but they were few and far between. Violence to Trent’s mind was a confession of incompetency, the grammar school type of crime to a university trained mind. One morning the papers were unusually full of such examples of robberies with attendant assaults. Clumsy work, he commented, and then came to a robbery in Long Island of jewels whose aggregate value was more than a hundred thousand dollars.
The home of Peter Chalmers Rosewarne at the Montauk Point end of Long Island was the victimized abode. All Americans knew Peter Chalmers Rosewarne. He was the “Tin King,” enormously wealthy, splendidly generous and fortune’s favorite. His father had been a Cornish mining captain who had come from Huel Basset to make a million in the United States. His son had made ten millions.
His Long Island place, known as St. Michael’s Mount after that estate in Cornwall near where his father had been born, was a show place. The gardenswere extraordinary. The house was filled with treasures which only the intelligent rich may gather together. Rosewarne was a convivial soul in the best sense of the phrase. He loved company and he loved display and more than all he loved his wife on whom he showered the beautiful things women adore. Abstractors of precious stones would gravitate naturally to such a home as his.
Anthony Trent remembered that the Rosewarne strain of Airedales was the best the breed had to show. He had read once that Rosewarne turned his dogs loose at nights and laughed burglars to scorn. And well he might, for of all dogs, the gods have blessed none with such sense as the Airedales possess. Theirs not to bark indiscriminately or bite their master’s friends. Theirs to reason why: to know instinctively what is hidden from the lesser breeds.
A dozen such dogs roaming their master’s grounds, their guardian instincts aroused, would effectually bar out strangers. That a robbery had been committed at St. Michael’s Mount spelled for Trent an inside job. The papers told him that a large house party was gathered under the hospitable Rosewarne roof. Rosewarne himself indignantly denied the possibility of his guests’ guilt. The servants seemed equally satisfactory.
Sifting the news Anthony Trent learned that the suspected person was a girl who had been member of a picnic party using the Rosewarne grounds. There was a space of nearly ten acres which the mining man had reserved for parties, suitably recommended, who made excursions from the Connecticut side of the Sound. Here Sunday Schools passed blameless days andorganized clambakes. The party to which the suspected girl belonged was a camp for working girls situated on one of the Thimble Islands.
Nearly forty of them, enjoying the privilege of the Rosewarne grounds, had spent the day there. Mrs. Rosewarne herself had seen them depart into the evening mist. Then she had seen, thirty minutes later, a girl running to the water’s edge. She was dressed, as were the others of her party, with red trimmed middy blouse and red ribbons in her hair. A brunette, rather tall and slight, and awed when the chatelaine of the great estate asked what was the matter. It seemed she had become tired and had slept. When she awoke the boat was gone; she had not been missed.
Mrs. Rosewarne was not socially inept enough to bring the simple girl to her own sophisticated dinner table. Instead the girl had an ample meal in the housekeeper’s room. At nine o’clock a fast launch was to be ready to take her to her camp. It might easily overtake the sail boat if the breezes died down.
At nine-fifteen the mechanician in charge of the boat came excitedly into the house to relate his unhappy experiences. The girl, wrapped in motor coat, was safely in the boat when she begged the man to get her a glass of water from the boat house at the dock. It was while he was doing so that the boat disappeared. He heard her call to him in fright and then saw the boat—one capable of twenty knots an hour—glide away with the girl holding her hands out to him supplicatingly. She had fooled with the levers, he averred, and would probably perish in consequence. It was while Rosewarne considered the matter of sending out his yacht in pursuit that the discovery was madethat a hundred thousand dollars worth of jewels had been taken.
The mechanician had been fooled, of that they were now assured, and the working girl became a fleeing criminal. The sudden temptation through seeing sparkling stones in profusion was the result. A number of boats went in pursuit and the ferries were watched, but the fast motor launch was not found.
Considering the case from the evidence he had at command Trent was certain it was no genuine member of the working girls’ camp who had done this thing. Every move spoke of careful preparation. Some one had chosen a moment to appear at the Mount when suspicion would be removed and her coming seem logical. And no ordinary person would have been able to drive a high powered boat as she had done. Another thing which seemed conclusive proof of his correctness was the fact that the girl had overlooked—this was as the police phrased it—Mrs. Simeon Power’s pearl necklace and the diamond tiara belonging to Mrs. Campbell Glenelg. This omission supported the police theory that it was the work of an inexperienced criminal.
Anthony Trent chuckled as he read this. He also had rejected the Power’s pearls and the Glenelg tiara. They had been in his appraising hand.They were both extraordinarily good imitations!Assuredly a timid working girl could not be such a judge of this. She was a professional and a clever one. Probably she had sunk the launch and swam ashore.
Later reports veered around to his view. The camp people were highly indignant at being saddled with a criminal. They had counted noses before embarkationand none was missing. Mrs. Rosewarne described the girl and so did the housekeeper. The latter, remarking on the slightly foreign intonation, was told by the girl herself that she came from New Bedford where her father was employed in a textile mill belonging to Dangerfield. Like so many of the inhabitants of this mill town he was of French Canadian stock and habitually spoke French in the home. But the housekeeper who had served the wealthy in England and Continental Europe would have it that this intruder come of a higher social class than New Bedford mills afford.
Interviewing the housekeeper in the guise of a Branford newspaper man Trent asked her a hundred questions. And each one of her answers confirmed the belief that had grown in him. This clever woman was “The Countess.” He felt certain of it. That slight intonation was hers. The figure, the height, the coloring. And of course the exact knowledge of what stones were good and what were not. This was another count against her for Trent had marked St. Michael’s Mount for his hunting ground and now precautions against abstractors would be redoubled.
He felt almost certain that this was the Countess’s first exploit since her escape from the hotel after the Guestwick robbery. He had followed the papers too closely to miss any unusual crime. A woman of her breeding need never drop to association with the typical criminal. Since she was marooned in the United States during the war she was of necessity cut off from her favorite Riviera hunting grounds. Where, then, might she meet the wealthy set if not among the owners of big estates on Long Island?Trent felt it probable that she was near some such social center as Meadowbrook or Piping Rock. How was he to find her?
To begin with he decided to attend the Mineola Horse and Dog show. This country fair, held during late September, invariably attracted, as he knew, all the horse-loving polo-riding elements of the smart set. Not to go there, not to be interested intelligently in horses, hounds and dogs was a confession of ineligibility to the great Long Island homes.
Although he entertained a bare hope of seeing her and passed the first day in disappointment, he saw her almost directly he entered the show grounds on the second morning. She looked very smart in her riding habit, her hair was done in a more severe coiffure than he had noticed before. She was talking to a well known society woman, also in riding kit, a Mrs. Hamilton Buxton, famous for her horses and her loves. But he could not judge from this whether or not the Countess was on friendly terms with her or not. There is acamaraderieamong those who exhibit horses or dogs which is of the ring-side and not the salon. Outside it was possible Mrs. Hamilton Buxton might not recognize her.
Later on he saw that both women were riding in the class for ladies’ hunters, to be ridden side saddle by the owners. So the Countess owned hunters now! Well, he expected something of the sort from a woman who had outwitted so astute a craftsman as himself. In a sense he was glad of it. It was better to find her in such a set as this. When she rode around the ring he saw by the number she bore that she was a Madame de Beaulieu of Old Westbury. She rodevery well. There was thehaute écolestamp about her work and she was placed second to Mrs. Hamilton Buxton whose chestnut was of a better type.
Anthony Trent went straightway to New York. He did not want to be seen—yet. He called up a certain number and made an appointment with a Mr. Moor. This man, David Moor, was a private detective without ambition and without imaginative talent. It always amused Trent when he employed a detective to find out details that were laborious in the gathering. In some subtle manner Trent had given Moor the impression that he was a secret service agent exceedingly high in the department.
“Moor,” he said briskly as the small and depressed David entered the room, “I want to find all about a Madame de Beaulieu who lives in Old Westbury, Long Island. I suspect her of being a German spy. Find out what other members of the household there are, and who calls. Whether they are in society or only trying to be. I want a full and reliable report. The tradesmen know a whole lot as a rule and servants generally talk. I want to know as soon as possible but keep on the job until you have something real.” He knew that Moor by reason of an amazingly large family was always hard up. He handed him fifty dollars. “Take this for expenses.”
Moor went from the room with tears in his eyes. He looked at Trent as a loving dog looks at its master. Two years before his wife lay at the point of death, needing, more than anything, a rest from household worries and the noise of her offspring. Trent sent her to a sanitarium and the children to camps for the whole of a hot summer. In his dull, depressed fashion,Moor was always hoping that some day he could do something to help this benefactor who waved his thanks aside.
The report, written in Moor’s small, clear writing, entertained Trent vastly. Madame de Beaulieu was a daughter of France whose husband was fighting as an officer of Chasseurs and had been decorated thrice. Many pictures adorned the house of her hero. She had a French maid who allowed herself to be very familiar with her mistress. Undoubtedly she was the “aunt” of the Guestwick occasion. The men of the household were doubtful according to Moor. One was Madame’s secretary, an American named Edward Conway, who looked after her properties, and the other an Englishman, Captain Monmouth, a former officer of cavalry who had broken an ankle in a steeple chase, so the report ran, and was debarred from military service. He was a cousin by marriage. The servants asserted that he was an amazingly lucky player at bridge or indeed of any card game. So much so indeed that the neighboring estate owners who had been inclined to be friendly were now stiffly aloof. The captain’s skill at dealing was uncanny. Bills were piling up against them all. It was due largely to this that Moor was able to get so much information. A vituperative tradesman sets no watch on his tongue. Conway, the secretary, confined his work almost entirely to drinking. There were many bitter wrangles at the table but the English tongue was never adopted on such occasions. The part of Moor’s screed which interested Trent most was that there had been a discussion overheard by a disgruntled maid to take in some wealthy paying guest and offer to get him into Long Island’s huntingset. It would be worth a great deal to an ambitious man to gain an entrée into some of these famous Westbury homes. Of course the odd household could probably not live up to such promises but its members had done a great deal. For example, a Sunday paper in its photogravure supplement had snapped Madame de Beaulieu talking with Mrs. Hamilton Buxton; and Captain Monmouth was there to be seen chatting with Wolfston Colman, the great polo player. An excellent beginning astutely planned.
It was while Anthony Trent debated as to whether he dare risk the Countess’s recognition of him that a wholly accidental circumstance offered him the opportunity.
Suffering from a slightly inflamed neck he was instructed to apply dioxygen to the area. This he did with such cheerful liberality that his shaving mirror next day showed him a man with black hair at the front and a vivid blond at the back. The dioxygen had helped him to blondness as it had helped a million brunettes of the other sex. For a moment he was chagrined. Then he saw how it might aid. It was his intention to go back to Kennebago for the deer hunting and accordingly he despatched Mrs. Kinney post haste. She was used to these erratic commands and saw nothing out of the ordinary in the fact that he was in a bath robe with a turkish towel wound about his head. He was in dread of becoming bald and was continually fussing with his hair. In a day or so Anthony Trent was a changed being. His eyes had a hazel tint in them which formed not too startling a contrast to his new blondness. He was careful to touch up his eyebrows also.
Shutting up his flat he registered at a newly built hotel as Oscar Lindholm of Wisconsin. He would pass for what we assume the handsome type of Scandinavian to be. It was at this hotel Captain Monmouth stayed when he came to indulge in what he termed a “flutter” with the cards. There were still a few houses in the city where one could be reasonably sure of quiet. Hard drinking youths were barred at these houses. They became quarrelsome. The men who played were in the main big business men who could win without exhuberance or lose without going to the district attorney. They were invariably good players and lost only to the professionals. And their tragedy was that they could not tell a professional until the game was done. Captain Monmouth always excited in players of this type a certain spirit of contempt. He was so languid, so gently spoken, so bored at things. And he consumed so much Scotch whiskey that he seemed primed for sacrifice. But he was never the altar’s victim. He was always so staggered at his unexpected good fortune that he readily offered a revenge. A servant had told David Moor that the household was supported on these earnings.
Captain Monmouth, stepping through the lounge on the way to his taxi, caught sight of Oscar Lindholm. Oscar was leaning against the bar rail talking loudly of the horse. Five hours later Oscar was still standing at the bar and the horse was still his theme. Monmouth was a careful soul for all his gentle languors and sauntered into the tap room and demanded an Alexander cocktail. As became a son of Wisconsin, Oscar was free and friendly. The “Alexander” wasa new one on him, he explained, dropping for a moment themes equine.
Monmouth never made the mistake of offering friendship to a bar-room stranger unless he knew exactly what he was and how he might fit into the Monmouth scheme of things. He referred Mr. Lindholm to the guardian of the bottles. It was the size of the Lindholm wad that decided Captain Monmouth to accept an invitation to a golden woodcock in the grill room. There it was that Lindholm opened his heart. He wanted to follow hounds from the back of a horse.
“Well, why don’t you, my good sir?” Monmouth replied languidly. For a moment a light of interest had passed across the dark blue eyes of the ex-cavalryman. Trent knew he was interested.
Trent explained. He said that the following of hounds near New York was only possible to one who passed the social examination demanded by these who controlled the hunting set.
“You’re quite right,” Monmouth admitted, “for the outsider it’s impossible.”
“I’ll show ’em,” Oscar Lindholm returned chuckling. Then he took the proof of an advertisement from the columns of a great New York daily and passed it over to Monmouth.
“Wealthy westerner wants to share home among hunting set of Long Island. Private house and right surroundings essential. References. O. L.”
“Wealthy westerner wants to share home among hunting set of Long Island. Private house and right surroundings essential. References. O. L.”
And that light passed over the Englishman’s eyes, and was succeeded by a look of boredom.
“You don’t suppose, do you,” he asked, “that the kind of people you want to know will admit a stranger from Wisconsin into their family?”
“Why not?” the other cried, indignantly. “Isn’t this a free country and ain’t I as good as any other man?”
“In Wisconsin, undoubtedly: I can’t speak for Westbury. By the way, can you ride?”
“I could ride your head off,” Lindholm bragged.
“Yes?” said Monmouth softly. “Now that’s very interesting. Perhaps we could arrange a little match somewhere?”
“Any time at all,” Trent returned. He did not for a moment believe he had a chance against Monmouth but he could afford to lose a little money to him. In fact he was anxious for the opportunity.
“You are staying here?” Monmouth demanded.
Trent pushed a visiting card toward him. It was newly done. “Oscar Lindholm, Spartan Athletic Club, Madison, Wisconsin.”
“Yes, I’m staying here,” he admitted. “Are you?”
“My home is in Westbury,” Captain Monmouth replied.
“Then you could get me right in to the set I want?”
“Impossible,” cried the other, rising stiffly to his feet. “One owes too much to one’s friends.”
“Bull!” said Oscar Lindholm rudely. “You only owe yourself anything. If I have a lot of money and you want some of it why consult your friends? What have they done for you?”
“I don’t care to discuss it,” Captain Monmouth exclaimed. “Good night, Mr. Lindholm.” He limped away.
Assuredly he was no simpleton. He was not sure of this blond lover of cross-country sport. If Lindholm were genuine in his desire to break into the sort of society he aimed at he would come back to the attack. If he were not genuine it were wiser to shake him off.
As for Trent, he felt reasonably sure things would come his way. But there was a certain subtlety about these foreign gentlemen of fortune which called for careful treading. Were he once to win his way to the establishment of Madame de Beaulieu he would be in dangerous company. The man who had just left him was dangerous, he sensed. The Countess already commanded his respect. Then there was the so-called secretary and the woman who posed now as a maid. And in the house there might be a treasure trove that would make his wildest expenditures justified. Looked at in a cool and reasonable manner it was a very dangerous experiment for Anthony Trent to make. He would be one against four. One man against a gang of international crooks, all the more deadly because they were suave and polished.
It was while he was breakfasting that Captain Monmouth took a seat near him. Trent commanded his waiter to transport his food to Monmouth’s table.
“What about that horse race?” he demanded.
“Let me see,” the other murmured. “Oh yes, you say you can ride?”
“I can trim you up in good style,” Trent said cheerfully, “any old time.”
“What stakes?” Monmouth asked, without eagerness. “What distance? Over the sticks or on the flat?”
“Stakes?” Trent said as though not understanding.
“I never ride or play cards for love,” Monmouth told him.
“That can be arranged later,” Trent said, “the main thing is where can we pull it off? Out west there’s a million places but here everything is private property.”
Captain Monmouth reflected for a moment.
“I shall be in town again in three days’ time. You’ll be here?”
“Depends what answers I get to my advertisement.”
“Oh yes,” Monmouth returned, “they will be very amusing. Very amusing indeed.”
“Why?” Trent demanded.
“Because the people who will answer will not suit your purpose at all. There may be many who would be glad of help in running a house in these hard times but they dare not answer an advertisement like yours for fear it might be known. And then again think of the risk of taking an unknown into the home?”
“I offer references,” Trent reminded him.
“But my dear sir,” Monmouth protested, “what are athletic clubs in Madison to do with those who have the entrée to Meadowbrook?”
“Supposing,” Trent said presently, “a family such as I want did get into communication with me, how much would they expect?”
Captain Monmouth looked at him appraisingly. Trent felt certain that if a figure were named it would be the one he would have to pay for the privilege of meeting the charming Madame de Beaulieu.
“One couldn’t stay at a decent hotel under two hundred and fifty a week,” the cavalryman returned. “You’d have to pay at least five hundred.”
“That’s a lot,” Trent commented.
“I imagined you’d think that,” Monmouth said drily.
“But I could pay it easy enough,” the pseudo-Scandinavian retorted.
And in the end, he did. When Captain Monmouth suggested that the match between the two be ridden off on his own grounds near Westbury, Anthony Trent felt certain that he was taken there to be inspected by the other members of the household.
Edward Conway was a taciturn, drink-sodden man not inclined to be friendly with the affable Oscar Lindholm. Of the match little need be said. Trent, a good rider, had engaged to beat a professional at his own game. Captain Monmouth was the richer by a thousand dollars.
In the billiard room of Elm Lodge after the race Monmouth offered his guest some excellent Scotch whiskey and grew a little more amiable.
“I presume, Mr. Lindholm,” he said, “that you would have no objection to my man of business looking up your rating in Madison?”
“Go as far as you like. What you will find will be satisfactory.”
“It is,” Monmouth smiled. “I wish I had half the money that you have. I should consider myself rich enough and God knows my tastes are not simple.”
“So you had me investigated?” Trent smiled a little. “When?”
“When we made this match.”
Trent had found that the assumption of a name might be dangerous if investigations were made concerning it. It was with his customary caution that he had taken Lindholm’s name. David Moor, his little detective, often spoke of his cases to his patron. He had spoken at length about the case of Oscar Lindholm of Madison, Wisconsin. A lumber millionaire, Oscar came to New York to have a good time in the traditional manner of wealthy men from far states. A joyride in which a man was run down figured prominently in his first night’s entertainment. Fearing that the notoriety of this would affect his political aspirations in the west he was sentenced to a month on Blackwell’s Island under an assumed name. During this month his name could safely be used. The day that Trent became a member of the household at Elm Lodge the real Lindholm had ten days more to serve.
The wardrobe which Trent had gathered about him was utterly unlike his own perfect outfit. He conceived Oscar Lindholm to be without refinements and he dressed the part. He could see Captain Monmouth shudder as he came into the drawing room on the night of his arrival. Lindholm wore a Prince Albert coat and wore it aggressively.
His patent leather shoes had those hideous knobs on them wherein a dozen toes might hide themselves.
“My dear man,” gasped Monmouth, “we dress for dinner always.”
“What’s the matter with me?” the indignant guest asked.
“Everything,” Monmouth cried. “You look like an undertaker. Fortunately we are very much of a size and I have some dress clothes I’ve never worn. IfMadame de Beaulieu had seen you I don’t know what would have happened.”
In ten minutes Trent was back in the drawing room this time arrayed as he himself desired to be. Madame de Beaulieu had not yet come down.
“Madame is particular then?” Trent hazarded.
“She has a right to be,” Monmouth said a little stiffly, “she belongs to one of the great families of France.”
Trent, watching him, saw that he believed it. This was a new angle. She had deceived Monmouth without a doubt. For the first time, and the last, Trent observed a certain confusion about Captain Monmouth.
“In confidence,” he said, “Madame de Beaulieu and I are engaged to be married. Captain de Beaulieu and she were negotiating for divorce when the war broke out and we must wait therefore.”
Trent remembering Moor’s report as to the members of the household pointed to Edward Conway sipping his third cocktail. “That’s the chaperon, eh?”
“Madame de Beaulieu’s aunt, Madame de Berlaymont, is here,” Monmouth said affably. “It is our custom to use French at the table as much to starve the servants of food for gossip as anything else. You speak French of course?”
“Not a word,” Trent lied promptly, “now if you want to talk Danish or Swedish I’m with you.”
Madame de Berlaymont! No doubt the French maid resuming the aunt pose. At the Guestwick affair she had been an English lady of fashion. Had they put themselves to this bother simply for his sake? He doubted it.
“We’ve not been here long,” Captain Monmouthwent on, “and we know very few people. Of course we could easily know the wrong sort but that’s dangerous. To-night one of the most popular and influential men in the country is coming.”
Captain Monmouth had no time to mention his name for Madame de Beaulieu came in. It was the first time Trent had met her face to face since that night at the Guestwick’s. He was not without a certain nervousness. Looking at himself in the mirror he seemed so much the product of peroxide that it must easily be recognized. But Madame de Beaulieu gave him the most cursory of glances. There was a certain nervousness about her and Monmouth which had little enough to do with him.
This visit of the influential neighbor plainly was what concerned them. Trent assumed, shrewdly enough, that they were trying, for reasons of their own, to break into the wealthy hunting set and had not found it easy.
Madame de Beaulieu was beautifully gowned. She looked to be a woman of thirty, whereas when he had first seen her she looked no more than two and twenty. She carried herself splendidly. Her French accent was marked. In the police court she spoke as the English do. When the little bent, gray-ringletted but distinguished aunt came in, he could not recognize her at all. Assuredly he had stumbled upon as high class band of crooks as had ever bothered police. He could sense that they regarded him as a necessary nuisance whose five hundred dollars a week helped the household expenses. And he knew, instinctively, that Captain Monmouth and Edward Conway wouldplan to get some of the millions he was supposed to have.
Trent’s Swedish accent was copied faithfully from his janitor who had been of a superior class in his own country before he had fallen to furnace tending. He did not overdo it. To those listening, he appeared anxious to overcome his accent and lapsed into it only occasionally.
Trent heard Monmouth tell Madame de Beaulieu that Lindholm’s dress was terrible and that by God’s grace their measurements were identical or they would have been disgraced by a guest in a frock coat. He spoke in rapid French and in an undertone but Trent’s ears were sharp and had ere this warned him of danger where another man would have heard nothing.
The guest of honor was no less than Conington Warren. He was ripely affable. He had come to this dinner more to report on the behavior of the strangers occupying Elm Lodge than anything else. A bachelor may sit at a table—or a divorced man—where the married man cannot go. At the Mineola Show Madame de Beaulieu had made a good impression on the women but they were not sure of her. They had found that Captain Monmouth was indeed the second son of Sir John Monmouth, Bart, and formerly an officer of Lancers. He had wasted his money at the race track and the gaming table; but then that was not wholly frowned upon by the young bloods of American society.
Trent could see that Warren was impressed. There was an air of breeding about his hostess and host he had not thought to see. The dinner was good enoughto win his distinguished commendation. He unbent so far as to question Mr. Lindholm about political conditions in his native state. He congratulated Madame de Beaulieu on the single string of exquisite pearls that were about her white throat. And well he might. Cartier had charged Peter Chalmers Rosewarne a pretty penny for them not so long ago.
Had he but known it he would have been even more interested in the ring which Oscar Lindholm wore. It was a plain gold band in which a single ruby blazed. He had never worn it till now. He felt Lindholm might easily allow himself the luxuries of which Anthony Trent was denied. The stone had adorned a stick pin which Conington Warren once loved and lost.
Monmouth’s knowledge of horses commended itself to the owner of thoroughbreds. Two men such as these could not play a part where horses were concerned. Conington Warren remembered seeing Monmouth win that greatest of all steeplechases the Grand National. Acamaraderiewas instantly established. It was a triumphant night. Undoubtedly the household at Elm Lodge would be accepted.
Thinking over the situation in his own room that night Trent admitted he was puzzled. Why this struggle for social recognition? His first theory that it was in order to rob wealthy homes was dismissed as untenable. To begin with it was an old trick and played out. Directly an alien household in a colony of old friends attracts attention it also attracts suspicion. And if this section of Westbury were to suffer an epidemic of burglaries Madame de Beaulieu’s home would come under police supervision.
There was little doubt in Trent’s mind that this Captain Monmouth was a member of the family he claimed as his. Conington Warren and he had common friends in England. What was his game?
And yet Madame de Beaulieu, or “The Countess,” had been notorious as the leading member of a gang of high class crooks. She had even been fingerprinted and had he believed served a sentence. Not a month before she had taken a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewels from St. Michael’s Mount and an amount of currency not specified. As the days went by Trent made other discoveries. He found for one thing that the man whose name he had taken had a reputation for drinking for he found a decanter and siphon ever at his elbow. By degrees he and Edward Conway gravitated together. This Conway, whose part in the game he could not yet guess, was drinking himself steadily to death.
One morning Trent came upon Conway scribbling on a pad of paper. He stared hard at what he wrote and then tossed the crumpled paper into a nearby open fire. The day was chilly and the blazing logs were cheerful. When Conway was gone Trent retrieved the paper and saw the signature he had assumed copied to a nicety. Conway probably had his uses as a forger. The gang of the Countess had accomplished notable successes by these means.
Trent had not been an hour in the house when he discovered that Monmouth and Madame de Beaulieu had eyes only for one another. It was a vulgar intrigue Trent supposed and explained the situation. But as day succeeded day he found he was wrong. Here were two people, a beautiful woman accomplishedand fascinating and a man of uncommon good looks and distinction, head over ears in love with one another. Conceivably such people, removed from the conventions of society, would pay small attention to theconvenancesand yet he saw no gesture or heard no word in French or English that was not proper. Sometimes he felt he must have mistaken the aristocratic Madame de Beaulieu and her Empire aunt for the wrong women. But he could not mistake the Rosewarne pearls which he had viewed in Cartier’s only a week before the mining man bought them as a birthday present for his wife.
The night that Monmouth and the woman he loved were asked to a dinner party at Conington Warren’s home, Oscar Lindholm had two more days to serve on Blackwell’s Island. So far Anthony Trent had accomplished nothing. He had lost a thousand dollars on a horse race, two weekly payments of five hundred dollars for board and another thousand in small amounts at auction and pool. He was most certainly a paying guest.
Conway and Trent were not asked. Madame de Berlaymont was indisposed. It was the opportunity he had wanted. It was Conway’s habit to sleep from about ten in the evening until midnight. Every night since Trent had been at Elm Lodge the so-called secretary had done so. In a large wing chair with an evening paper unopened on his knees he would fall into sleep. He could be counted upon therefore not to interrupt. The servants retired no later than ten to their distant part of the rambling house. Only Madame de Berlaymont might be in the way. In reality this amiable chaperone was a woman in the early twentiesTrent believed and could not be counted upon to remain unmoved if she heard strange noises in the night as of burglars moving.
Trent already knew the lay-out of the house. It was just past ten when the servants went to bed and Conway sunk in his two hours’ slumber that Oscar Lindholm went exploring.
Stepping very carefully by Madame de Berlaymont’s room he listened a long while. No sound met his ears. Then with a practiced skill he turned the door knob and entered an unlighted room. Still there was no sound of breathing. And when he switched on the light the apartment was empty. The indisposition which had kept the aged lady two days confined to her chamber was plainly a ruse. Trent could return to it later.
Never before to-night had Trent carried an automatic pistol and been prepared to use it if necessary. He was now in a house whose inmates were, like himself, shrewd, resourceful and strong. For all he knew Conway might long ago have suspected him.
Madame de Beaulieu and her chaperone occupied the bedrooms of one wing of the low rambling house. In the other wing Monmouth, Lindholm and Conway slept. Over this bachelor wing as it was called were some smaller rooms where the four maid servants slept.
The rooms of Madame de Beaulieu were beautifully furnished. It was a suite, with salon, bedroom and a large bathroom. Trent determined to allow himself an hour and a half. Skilled as he was in searching he felt he would discover something in those ninety minutes.
But the time had almost gone by and he was baffled.There was nothing. He probed and sounded and measured as he had seen Dangerfield’s detectives do but nothing rewarded him. What jewels Madame de Beaulieu owned she had probably worn. But how dare she wear at a dinner party where the Rosewarne’s might conceivably be, so well known a string of pearls? And what of those other baubles which were missing from St. Michael’s home?
A carved ivory jewel box on her dressing table revealed only a ball the size of a golf ball made of silver paper. She had begged him to save the tinsel in the boxes of cigarettes he smoked so that she might bind this mass until it became worthy of sending to the Red Cross.
Anthony Trent balanced the silver sphere in his hand. Naturally it was heavy. “If I,” he mused, “wanted to hide my three beauties I couldn’t think of anything safer than this. She’s clever, too. Why shouldn’t she use it for something she’s afraid of anybody seeing?”
A steel hat pin was to his hand. Exerting a deal of wrist strength he thrust it through the mass. In the middle it met with a resistance that the pin could not pierce. It was twelve o’clock as he put it in his pocket and locked the door of his own room. It seemed minutes before his eager fingers could strip off piece after piece of silver paper. And then the palm of his hand cupped one of the most beautiful diamonds he had ever seen.
It was fully a hundred carats in weight and its value he could hardly approximate. No stone of this size had ever been lost in the United States. He remembered however some four years ago the Nizam ofHyderabad—one of the greatest of Indian potentates and owner of an unparalleled collection of diamonds—had bought a famous stone in London. It was never delivered to him. The messenger had been found floating in the Thames off Greenhithe. The reputed price of purchase had been thirty-five thousand pounds. The Nizam’s had been a blue-white diamond and Anthony Trent believed he held it in his hand. He thought of his Benares lamp and chuckled. If he desired to avenge himself on Madame de Beaulieu for the loss of the Guestwick money he was amply rewarded now. The blazing thing in his hand would fetch at least two hundred thousand dollars if he dared dispose of it.
Obviously the correct procedure for the supposed Oscar Lindholm was to make his escape at once. He would have little chance to do so were the abstraction to become known. Of course Madame de Beaulieu would look in her ivory casket directly she came in. Did he himself not always glance anxiously at his lamp whenever he had been away from it for a few hours?
Cautiously he made his way down to the hall where his coat and hat were.
As he passed the door it opened and Madame de Beaulieu entered with Monmouth. She was pale, so pale indeed that Trent stopped to look at her.
“Back early, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Madame has had bad news,” said Monmouth and looked at her anxiously. She sank into a big chair before the open fire. Certainly she was very beautiful. Looking at her it seemed incredible that she could be one of the best known adventuresses inthe world. Perhaps, after all, much of the anecdote that was built about her was legendary. Presently she spoke in French to Monmouth.
“Bear with me, my dear one,” she said, “but I must see him alone. I am a creature of premonitions. Let me have my way.”
The look that Captain Monmouth bent upon Anthony Trent was not a friendly one. There was a new quality of suspicion and antagonism in it.
“Madame de Beaulieu,” he said stiffly, “wants to speak with you alone. I see no occasion for it but her wish is law. I shall leave you here.”
When they were alone she did not speak for some minutes. Then she turned to him and looked at him searchingly. He felt the necessity of being on his guard.
“Mr. Lindholm,” she said quietly, “I do not understand you.”
“Why should you bother to?” he asked.
“Because I am afraid of everything I do not trust. You say you are a naturalized Swede. That would explain your hair.” She leaned forward and looked him full in the face, “Mr. Lindholm, you have made one very silly mistake which no woman would make.”
“And that is—what?” he demanded.
“You have let your bleached hair get black at the roots. You are a blackhaired man. Why deny it?”
“I don’t,” he said. “I admit it.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Captain Monmouth knows. A desire to break into society if you like.”
“Will you answer me one question truthfully,” she asked, “on your honor?”
“Yes,” he said. There was no reason why he should not.
“Are you a detective?”
“On my honor, no. Why should Madame de Beaulieu fear detectives?”
There was a faint flush in her cheeks now and a brighter color in her eyes. She was enormously relieved at his answer.
“Why are you here, then?”
“If you must know,” he told her, “it was for revenge.”
“Not to harm Captain Monmouth?” she cried paling.
“I came on your account,” he said quietly. “You don’t remember me?”
She shook her head. “When did we meet? In Europe?”
“No less a place than Fifth avenue.”
“Ah, at some social function? One meets so many that one has no time for recalling names or even faces.”
“Later I saw you at a police court. You were an indignant young English-woman accused of robbing Mr. Guestwick or trying to. You may recall a man who opened the Guestwick safe for you, a man upon whose good nature you imposed.” He looked very somber and stern. She shrank back, and covered her face with her white hands.
“I knew happiness was not for me,” she said brokenly. “I said, when I found the man I loved was the man who loved me. ‘It is too wonderful, too beautiful. It is not for me. I am born under an unlucky star.’ And you see I was right.”
Trent considered her for a moment. Here was no acting. Here was a woman whose soul was in agony.
“You forget,” he said, “that I don’t know what you mean.”
“I had better tell you,” she said with a gesture of despair. “Captain Monmouth and I love each other. It has awakened the good in us that we both thought was buried or had never existed. While my husband, Captain de Beaulieu, lived there was no chance of a divorce. He is Catholic. To-night after dinner one of Mr. Warren’s guests brought a late paper from New York and I saw that my husband was killed. I could stay there no longer. Coming home in the motor I asked myself whether it would be my fate to win happiness. I doubted it even though I repented in ashes. Then it was I began to think of you, the stranger whose money we needed, the stranger who reminded me vaguely of some day when there was danger in the air. Under the light as I came in I saw your hair. Then I knew that in the hour of my greatest hope I was to experience the most bitter despair.”
“You forget, Madame,” he said harshly, “that I have had the benefit of your consummate acting before.”
“And you think I am acting now?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he retorted, “you have everything to gain by it. I can collect the Guestwick reward, and send you back to prison.”
“I can pay you more than the ten thousand dollars he offered,” she cried quickly.
“With the sale of the Rosewarne jewels?”
She shrank back. “Ciel! How could you know?”
“I do,” he said brusquely, “and that’s enough. Yousee you are trying to fool me again. You say your love has brought out the good in you that you didn’t know you possessed and yet a few weeks back you are at your old tricks again. Is that reasonable?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” she cried wildly. “You must understand. It was I who took the Rosewarne jewels. Why? Because I am fighting for my happiness. Captain Monmouth knows nothing of what my life has been. I have told him that after the war I shall go back to France and sell my property and with it help him to buy a place that was once a seat of his family. There, away from the world, we shall live and die. I want only him and he wants only me. We have known life and its vanities. We want happiness. You hold it in your hands. If you take your revenge by telling him, you break my heart. Is that a vengeance which satisfies you, Monsieur l’Inconnu? If so, it is very easy. He is in the next room. Call him. You have only to say, ‘Captain Monmouth, this woman whom you love is a notorious criminal. All Europe knows her as the Countess. The money that she wants to build her house of love with is stolen money. She will assuredly disgrace your name as she has that of the great family from which she sprang.’”
She looked supplicatingly at Anthony Trent. “You have only to tell him that and there is no happiness left for me in all the world.”
“Do you think I would do that?” he demanded.
“How can I tell? Why should you not? I am in your power.”
There was no doubting the genuineness of her emotion. Formerly she had tricked him but here was her bared soul to see.