CHAPTER IX.UNMASKED!
At this moment another man stepped into the parlor. He wore a long overcoat and his features were hidden by a full beard.
“Ha!” shouted the husband, triumphantly, rushing at this man and catching him by the arm, while he pointed toward Merry and the woman. “Look there! See! I want you for a witness in this matter, Mr. Davis! There is my wife with this wretch of an actor who has enticed her here! Do you see—do you see?”
The other nodded.
“Yes, I see,” he said in a muffled voice.
“Don’t forget it, Davis! I shall want your testimony in court.”
“I’ll not forget it.”
By this time Merry had succeeded in putting the woman aside again, and now he was thoroughly exasperated.
“It is plain you are determined to get me into a fine mess!” he exclaimed.
“Take me away with you! He will kill me if you don’t!”
“Madam, you have passed the limit! I think you should be in an insane asylum.”
“Oh, you are cruel!”
“Well, I feel a trifle that way!” confessed Merry.
Then he started toward the two men, but they turned toward the door, the husband crying:
“I’ll have him arrested!”
“Wait!” cried Frank.
“No! I am going for an officer!”
But Bart Hodge appeared in the door, saying, grimly:
“Don’t be in a rush, gentlemen. Mr. Merriwell wishes to talk with you a little.”
“Stand aside!” snarled the husband, with a threatening gesture.
“I wish you would try that little trick!” flared Hodge, his face flushing suddenly. “I believe I’d enjoy a good scrap. I haven’t taken a hand in one for so long that it would be a satisfaction.”
“Let us pass!” growled the man with the full beard and the muffled voice.
“That’s what they say in melodrama,” observed Hodge, with grim humor. “‘Unhand me, villain!’ and ‘Let me pass!’ are stock phrases. There is no copyright on them, so you may use them whenever you like.”
Merry was somewhat surprised by Bart’s cool manner, but he knew there was a slumbering volcano beneath all that coolness.
“Rush on him!” came hoarsely from the bearded man.
“Yes, do!” urged Hodge, putting up his hands. “I’ll manage to get a pop at you both, I fancy.”
They hesitated.
“Hold them, Hodge,” directed Frank. “I have something to say to them.”
“What’s up, Frank?”
“I believe there is a game on,” answered Merry.
“A game?”
“Yes.”
“What sort?”
“Blackmail!”
The woman uttered a scream, and something like an oath came from the man who had professed to be her husband.
“This is interesting!” exclaimed Hodge. “Then it appears that I happened on the scene just in time.”
“You did.”
“They’ll not get out.”
“We will!” growled the man called Davis. “Come on, Seely!”
“I’m ready!”
“Waal, Bart, if yeou can’t hold the ’darn critters alone, I ruther guess we kin both do it,” drawled a voice, and Ephraim Gallup appeared to reënforce Hodge.
The men uttered exclamations of disappointment, alarm and disgust.
Frank Merriwell laughed shortly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I wouldn’t hurry away. Just wait a while, and we will settle this little matter.”
He advanced on them, scanning Davis closely.
“I believe I have seen you before,” he said.
“Never,” answered the bewhiskered man, seeming anxious to get out of the room. “I do not know you.”
“Why don’t you speak in your natural tone?” asked Merry, sweetly. “You will injure your voice trying to disguise it by growling like that.”
“You go to blazes!”
“Thank you for the invitation, but I have found things quite hot enough right here to suit me. Now, if the tables should be turned, and you were to find it rather warm, it would be no more than fair.”
Both men seemed anxious, but the professed husband attempted to bluster again. His anger seemed artificial, however, and he did not impress anyone.
“Acts like a rooster with his tail feathers yanked out,” grinned Gallup. “He’s mighty mad over it, but the feathers are gone jest the same.”
Hodge had his lips pressed together, and he looked ready for anything that might happen.
A few words passed between the two men. It was plain they contemplated rushing on Bart and Ephraim in order to break from the room.
Frank strode forward quickly and grasped the bewhiskered man by the shoulder, saying:
“Let me have a fair look at you, sir.”
The fellow turned with a snarl, striking hard at Merriwell’s face.
Frank ducked, thus avoiding the blow. A second later, he caught hold of the fellow’s whiskers, gave a yank, and off they came in his hand.
They were false!
The man’s face was revealed.
“Lester Vance!” cried Frank, triumphantly.
It was a complete unmasking. The face of the rascally actor who had been “released,” on account of his crooked work in Atchison, was exposed by the sudden tearing away of the false beard.
“Great gosh!” gurgled Ephraim.
Hodge said nothing, but he glared at Vance with a look of deepest hatred.
Vance himself seemed stricken dumb.
The woman dropped down on a chair, and her “husband” stood and uttered some words which would not look well in print.
Frank Merriwell laughed chillingly.
“A very pretty little game!” he commented, sarcastically; “but it is all up now. It didn’t work.”
“It was no game!” snarled the man called Reginald by the woman. “You can’t get out of it so easy!”
“You will be lucky if you get out of it short of six years,” said Hodge. “The law is rather severe on blackmailers.”
“And on thieves,” put in Ephraim, who had learnedof Lester Vance’s crooked work. “They make a purty good pair, by gum!”
“Vance,” said Merriwell, “you were foolish not to take my advice and get as far away from us as possible.”
Vance muttered something.
“But you were doubly foolish,” Merry went on, “to come here in such a slim disguise to aid in this miserable attempt to blackmail me. I have been an actor too long not to tumble to false whiskers when I see them.”
“Take my advice, Merriwell,” cried Hodge, “land that snake in prison! You can afford the time to get such a rascal out of the way.”
Vance was very pale, and showed agitation and fear.
“That’s right, by gum!” nodded Ephraim. “He is a snake, an’ I’d shove him naow.”
Vance exchanged looks with the other rascal. It was plain both men were confounded by the turn affairs had taken. But the one who claimed to be the woman’s husband had obtained another revolver, and, of a sudden, he pointed it at Frank Merriwell, crying:
“At least, I’ll shoot the villain who has trifled with my wife!”
Not one of the young actors was near enough to prevent him from shooting if he wished, but Merry instantly faced him, looking straight into his eyes over the top of the revolver, and calmly saying:
“You are a good bluffer, sir, but you haven’t the least idea of shooting anybody.”
And then he walked straight up to the man, took hold of his hand and pushed the revolver aside.
“Give it to him!” exclaimed Gallup. “I don’t want no darn fool p’intin’ pistols at me, by thutteration!”
The fellow made a sudden attempt to spring backward with the revolver. He had been dazed by Merriwell’s calmness and audacity, but now he resorted toaction. He realized that the young actor fully fathomed him, and it stung him to madness to think that his bluff had been “called” in such a prompt manner.
Frank, however, had taken hold of the weapon, and, with a sudden twist, he jerked it from the hand of the man, disarming the fellow in a twinkling.
The eyes of Hodge glittered with satisfaction. This was Merriwell in his old form. Not a whit of his nerve had Frank lost since the more exciting days at Yale, on the diamond, the gridiron, in the cane rushes and college bouts.
Having the revolver in his hand, Frank snapped it open, and then he burst out laughing.
“Empty!”
With that word, he flung it at the man’s feet.
“Waal, I be darned!” gasped Gallup, and then he roared with laughter.
This laughing seemed to infuriate the one who claimed to be the husband.
“Curse you!” he snarled, catching up the revolver. “It won’t take long to load it!”
He plunged a hand into his pocket, as if reaching for cartridges.
“I wouldn’t advise you to load it, sir,” said Merry, placidly. “It will go harder with you if you are found with a loaded weapon when the officer comes.”
“The officer?”
“Yes. Hodge, call a boy and send out for a policeman.”
“Then you mean——”
“Business!” finished Frank, grimly. “I don’t like blackmailers, and I think they are dangerous, so I fancy I’ll have you put away for safe-keeping.”
“That’s right!” cried Hodge, with intense satisfaction.
The woman began to weep.
Lester Vance looked around, as if in search of some avenue of escape. At last he realized that he was in a very bad scrape, and he longed to be well out of it.
All at once, with a wild cry, the woman sprang up, rushed at Frank, clasped him about the neck and began to scream. Shriek after shriek came from her lips.
Merry attempted to put her away, but she clung to him in a frantic manner, continuing to scream.
Her wild cries brought bell boys, porter, clerk, guests and others rushing onto the scene, and crowding into the parlor. There were some moments of general confusion, a struggle near the door, and then the woman seemed to swoon and slip to the floor.
Of course Merry was questioned, of course he was regarded with suspicion. A pompous man demanded to know the meaning of it, looking accusingly and scornfully at Merry.
In a very few words, Frank explained that an attempt at blackmail had been made, but when he looked round to point out the two men concerned in the crooked work, he found they had slipped away in the general confusion.
“Gol-darned if I noticed when they got aout!” exclaimed Gallup, in chagrin. “I was so upset by the howlin’ of that air woman that I never saw nothin’ else.”
“Where’s Hodge?” demanded Frank.
“Here,” said Bart, coming forward, and Merriwell saw that he also looked crestfallen.
“Where are those men?”
“I tried to hold Vance,” answered Hodge, “but some men seemed to think I was trying to murder him, and they parted us, giving him a chance to get away.”
“Gentlemen,” said Merriwell, speaking to the assembled crowd, “I think you see how it is. The scoundrels have taken to their heels, leaving this unfortunate womanhere to get out of it as best she can. The way they ran must convince you that they are just what I claimed—blackmailers.”
The woman showed signs of reviving. A gallant man assisted her to rise, and she quickly dropped down on the sofa, seeming weak and faint. As she was rather handsome, the man, like men, began to say there must be some mistake, as it was not possible she had been concerned in an attempt at blackmail.
Frank listened to them with a faint smile on his face.
“They make me sick!” growled Hodge. “If she were old and plain, they wouldn’t take so much interest in her.”
Of a sudden, the woman sprang up, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed.
“Let me pass!” she exclaimed, dramatically.
“The same old melodrama line!” murmured Merry, seeming indifferent in regard to the woman.
“Are you going to let her go?” hissed Hodge.
“Yes.”
“Don’t do it, Frank!”
“Yes.”
“You are foolish! You——”
“Wait, Bart; we’ll talk of this later.”
“And she will get away.”
Hodge seemed inclined to make an attempt to stop the woman, but Merriwell restrained him, to his deep disgust.
Out of the room walked the woman, and she hurried straight from the hotel.
“The show is over, gentlemen,” laughed Frank. “I trust you have received your money’s worth.”
Then he bade Hodge and Gallup follow, and left the parlor.