When Pete Stearns went in quest of a limousine he had, of course, merely employed a figure of speech that seemed to befit the raiment of his fair charge. In his practical mind he knew that it did not matter whether it was a limousine or a lizzie, so long as it was capable of locomotion and was not locked. The grounds through which he now walked were less familiar to him than those which contained the orchard on the other side of the hedge, yet he sensed the general direction of the house that he knew they must contain.
Through the darkening shadows he wended his way confidently; he felt sure that if there was danger ahead he would detect it before falling a victim. At last he emerged from the grove and stepped upon a lawn, where he paused for reconnaissance. Fifty yards from him stood a house. It was large and dark and quiet. For two or three minutes he observed it carefully, but detected no sign of life. There was no other building to be seen; if there was a garage it was probably on the farther side of the house. He was more interested in discovering a garage than anything else.
He walked rapidly across the lawn, intending to pass in what seemed to be the rear of the dwelling. The path he chose carried him near to the end of a broad porch, from which half a dozen steps descended to thelawn. Close to the edge of the top step his watchful eyes observed an object that caused him to slacken pace, then stop. It was a hat.
"I need a hat," thought Pete.
His bare feet were soundless on the steps as he ascended lightly and captured the object of his desire. It was a straw hat with a striped ribbon and by good chance it was an excellent fit.
"I ought to get her a hat," he murmured. "She'll expect it."
It seemed quite safe to explore the porch a bit further, so he moved softly along, avoiding a hammock, a table and several chairs. He was midway the length of the house when he became aware that there was a light within. Its mellow glow reached him through a curtained window. Pete held his breath as he came to a halt, and decided that his next move would be a retreat.
And then he found himself bathed in a flood of illumination that came from directly overhead. Some one within the house had switched on the porch-light!
"Run!" he whispered to himself.
Too late! In front of him a French window was slowly opening. Pete stared at it hypnotically. Wider and wider it swung as he stood there inert, as incapable of flight as though his bare feet were nailed to the porch floor.
And then from out the window stepped a stout gentleman of middle age whose face wore an innocuous and cordial smile. He did not seem to be smiling at anything in particular, but rather at the whole world. Evidently it had been warm in the house, for he was coatless and collarless and his shirt was unbuttonedat the throat. Hugged against his bosom with one hand was a bottle in which there was no cork. Swinging loosely in the other hand was a carbonated water siphon.
The stout gentleman's glance rested upon Pete with the utmost friendliness. His smile ceased to be a generalization and became a greeting. He bowed. He winked slowly and ponderously. The winking achievement pleased him so well that he repeated it, and afterward tried it with the other eye, where he again succeeded to his still greater satisfaction.
"Prince," said the stout gentleman, "have a drink."
Pete indulged in a deep sigh of relief.
"Sir," he said, returning the bow, "your hospitality charms me. I don't mind if I do."
"Hold 'em," said the gentleman, proffering the bottle and the siphon. "Have a chair, prince. Back in a minute."
He turned and disappeared through the French window. There was a barely perceptible unsteadiness in his gait, but it did not interfere with his efficiency, for he returned within a few seconds, bearing two glasses. Pete and the gentleman drank to each other punctiliously, the latter waving his glass with a grandiose flourish before he put it to his lips.
"Lil private stock, prince," and the gentleman winked again, this time with the original eye.
"Nectar, sir, if you will permit me to say so," affirmed Pete, with another bow. "But I regret to say that you have made a slight mistake. I am not a prince."
The gentleman smiled knowingly and made a gesture of deprecation.
"'Sall right, old man. My mistake. Liable to runinto princes any time round here. Had prince callin' on my daughter 'safternoon. Just as soon have prince round as anybody. I'm liberal. Have li'l drink?"
Pete declined regretfully. His host placed bottle and siphon on a table with meticulous care.
"Listen, prince."
Pete checked him with an upraised hand.
"Merely a viscount, sir."
"Listen, viscount. Play a li'l cowboy pool?"
Pete considered. Clearly it would be inconsiderate to treat so benevolent a host in a churlish manner; yet there was a lady all in lace, sitting in a gloomy summer-house among the trees, who doubtless awaited his return with impatience and perhaps alarm.
"I fear, sir," he said, "it would be an intrusion upon your family."
The stout gentleman shook his head earnestly.
"Nobody home, viscount. No family; no servants. Everybody gone away somewhere. Everybody on a party. I'm on party; you're on party. You and me play li'l cowboy pool."
So saying, he linked his arm affectionately into one of Pete's and led him firmly into the house. He led him through several rooms, pausing in each to press buttons, so that the apartments through which they strolled became ablaze with lights. No ordinary summer cottage was this, Pete learned, as his eyes appraised each successive revelation; it was a mansion.
"Family all in society, viscount," confided the stout gentleman, as he clung to Pete's arm. "All hittin' high spots. Wife, society; daughter, society; son, society. Old man, cowboy pool. C'mon."
While Pete Stearns was conscious of his own informalities of costume, it seemed that his host had not given the matter a thought. The purple and green coat of silk did not appear to have attracted his attention, nor the other garment, that was striped in salmon pink. If the stout gentleman owned the straw hat that Pete had discovered on the porch, he displayed no sign of recognition. He was, in fact, surprised at nothing whatever.
In the billiard room the shaded lights that were suspended over the table did not satisfy him, for he made a complete circuit of the apartment, turning on all the lights in the wall sockets.
"'Smore cheerful," he explained. "Find a cue, prince."
"Viscount, sir."
"My mistake, viscount. Find a cue."
Pete found a cue that suited as to weight. His host bowed until he rocked on his heels and assigned him the honor of opening the game.
For some fifteen minutes they played in silence, the stout gentleman revealing a measure of skill and technique that quite astonished his antagonist. His difficulties seemed to be wholly in measuring angles with the eye; otherwise his game was well nigh faultless and his control of the cue masterly. It was the eye difficulty that eventually compassed his defeat, although Pete was hard put, even with the employment of all his own skill, to nose out a winner.
With the shot that settled the game the stout gentleman flung his cue on the table and embraced his conqueror.
"Viscount," he said, "you're a prince. Firs' man beat me cowboy pool all summer."
"It was but an accident, sir," said Pete modestly.
"Nope. No accident. Strictly on merits. 'Sall right; pleasure all mine. Firs' time ever stacked up against gentleman from Arabian Nights."
From which remark Pete perceived that his host had not been wholly insensible of his costume, although it was evident that he was in no whit surprised by it, nor did he regard it as in any way incongruous.
"I think, sir, if you will pardon me, that I should be taking my leave," observed Pete, as his eye chanced upon a tall clock that stood in a corner.
"What's hurry, prince? Have li'l drink."
But Pete, even under the warm pressure of hospitality, had not forgotten the lady in the summer-house. He felt certain that she was becoming alarmed; he feared that she might even attempt an exploration on her own account.
"Viscount," observed the lord of the manor, once more linking arms, "you're greates' cowboy pool player in world. Extraord'nary! I'm next greates'. Any gentleman beats me welcome anything I got."
They had progressed as far as the library, where his host halted.
"Anything I got," he repeated, with a wave of his arm. "'Sall yours. Anything you see—'s yours. What'll it be?"
It occurred to Pete that so generous an invitation to trespass further upon hospitality should not be ignored.
"If you could loan me a pair of shoes," he suggested, "I would be greatly indebted to you."
"Dozen pair shoes!" said the stout gentleman earnestly.
"And a hat—a lady's hat."
"Lady's hat? Lady's——"
His host looked him in the eye, placed a finger alongside his nose and winked roguishly.
"Lady's hat—for princess?"
"For the viscountess, sir."
"Dozen hats!" exclaimed his host warmly. "Dozen hats for viscountess. Back in a minute."
He rushed up-stairs at an alarming speed and Pete heard him charging around on the floor above. The gentleman had an unaccountable way of keeping his word almost to the letter. It was little more than a minute before he was back again, his arms full of hats and shoes. He dumped them all on the floor and bowed.
"All yours, prince."
Pete was not long in finding a pair of shoes that would stay on his feet, but the selection of a hat from among the fragile heap was a task that perplexed him. His difficulty was not ignored by his host, for the stout gentleman suddenly reached into the pile, yanked forth something that was broad brimmed and lacy and thrust it into his hands.
"There's hat for princess!" he exclaimed. "My compliments. Have a li'l drink?"
He hugged Pete's arm delightedly as he led the way back to the porch. The bottle and the siphon inspired him to confidences.
"Viscount, observe bottle, please. Listen. Last bottle Scotch in Larchmont."
He lifted the bottle and stroked it gently.
"Last bottle anything in Larchmont," he added.
Pete viewed the bottle with a new and reverent light in his eyes.
"Sir," he said, "knowledge of that fact overwhelms me with the true measure of your hospitality."
"'Sall right, prince, old man. 'Sall yours. Take bottle."
But there were some things that even Pete Stearns could not bring himself to do. He sighed and shook his head. To what unknown heights of generosity might this genial gentleman arise—this gentleman who would even renounce the last bottle in Larchmont?
"Have li'l drink, anyhow."
And it was a very small drink that Pete poured for himself, for he had discovered that within him lay a conscience.
"Where's princess?" demanded his host abruptly.
Pete answered with an indefinite wave of the hand.
"She awaits me," he said.
The stout gentleman winked again, knowingly, and thrust an elbow into the ribs of his guest. He was clinging to Pete's arm. Pete hesitated. He wanted something more; in fact, he had not yet obtained that for which he had gone in search. Yet why hesitate? Surely a gentleman who offered his last bottle would not quibble over an automobile.
"Do you happen, sir, to have a car that I could borrow for a short time?"
"Car? Le's see." His host thought for several seconds. "Nope, all cars out with family. All cars out in society. All cars——"
He paused, then smiled broadly yet mysteriously.
"Sh! This way, prince."
Although there was nobody in the house, the owner thereof tiptoed his way carefully along the porch toward the rear, with a constant beckoning and a warning for caution. He created in Pete the impression that they were now upon an errand of distinctly clandestine character and must manage the affair accordingly.
Down the steps to the lawn and around the corner of the house they went, in single file. The stout gentleman paused near a small porch that evidently constituted an entrance to the kitchen. He looked around cautiously in the semidarkness. Bidding Pete to remain exactly where he stood, he stole across to the side of the porch with catlike steps, fumbled there for a moment, and returned, trundling a vehicle.
It was a motor-cycle, and attached to it was one of those peregrinating bath-tubs known as a side car.
"Sh! Last car in Larchmont, viscount. Belongs to gardener. 'Sall yours."
In the dim light Pete examined it hastily. He mounted the saddle and threw the switch. He pumped the starting pedal. At the third thrust there was a sharp explosion, and then a rapid fire that cut the night. He let the engine race for half a minute, then throttled down and leaned over toward his benefactor.
"Sir," he said, "you are the noblest of men. You do not know just what you have done, but it is a service far beyond price."
"Viscount," answered his host, with a deep bow, "pleasure's all mine. Any gentleman beats me cowboy pool—any gentleman honors me cowboy pool—any gentleman from Arabian Nights——" A thought occurred to him. "Want you to meet family.Stay and meet family. Stay and meet society. Stay——"
Pete interrupted him hastily.
"At any other time, sir, I should be charmed. But, as I told you, there is a lady awaiting me."
"Forgot lady. My apologies. Forgot all about lady. My apologies to lady."
"And so I bid you good night, sir. And may Heaven reward you," said Pete fervently.
The stout gentleman clung to his hand.
"Want to see princess," he observed. "Want to salute princess. Want to extend hospitality——"
"If you will go up on your porch," said Pete, "I will drive the princess by. She will be charmed to see you, sir, and in her behalf I now thank you for all your goodness."
He threw in the clutch and the motor-cycle started forward with a leap. Straight across the lawn Pete headed it, bringing it to a halt at the edge of the grove. Leaving the engine running, he leaped from the saddle and ran in among the trees, in the direction of the summer-house.
Mary Wayne was standing in the doorway as he approached.
"Where—where have you been?" she demanded.
"I'll explain later," he answered briefly. "Hurry. I've got a car."
"You stole——"
"It was presented to me. Come on."
He seized her hand and urged her forward at a run.
As they reached the panting machine, Mary uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"That thing!"
"What do you want for nothing. Get in. It's all right."
"But it's so conspic——"
He lifted her and dumped her into the bathtub.
"That thing down at your feet is a hat," he said. "Put it on. Now, there's a gentleman waiting to wave good-by at us. He's the most important man in the world. He thinks you're a princess. As we go past, I want you to kiss your hand to him. It's highly necessary. He expects it."
The motor-cycle was under way again. Pete guided it in a wide curve until he was headed toward the house. Then he dashed with full speed, straight for the illuminated veranda.
Standing at the edge of the porch was the stout gentleman, his body gently swaying. His arms seemed to be engaged in an incantation, for they waved rhythmically. In one hand was the bottle.
Pete swerved the machine within a few feet of the porch and waved elaborately. The gentleman was saying something, but they could not hear him. Mary waved her hand as they swept by.
"Throw him a kiss!" ordered Pete sharply. "Confound it, you're a princess! Wait, now; I'll make a circle and go by again."
The machine curved out across the lawn and Pete laid a course that would once more enable them to pass in review. The gentleman on the porch continued his incantation. He was chanting, too.
As they slowed down opposite him, Mary half rose from her seat and threw him a kiss. The waving arms halted abruptly. The stout gentleman's eyes became round with pleasure. He gripped the rail and leaned forward.
"Princess——"
He made a courtly gesture and a treasured object flew from the gesturing hand. There was a crash of glass on the gravel walk below. The gentleman blinked, lurched forward, swung back and sat heavily on the floor of the porch. He leaned his forehead against the rail and burst into manly tears.
Pete gave his chariot a full charge of gas.
"The last bottle in Larchmont!" he gasped chokingly.
The motor-cycle was behaving excellently. As Pete began to get the feel of his steed he experimented a bit with the throttle, twisting the hand grip that controlled it farther and farther, until the machine responded with a burst of speed that alarmed the lady in the bathtub. She clung to the edges of the car and shut her eyes against the wind, bracing her feet with the instinctive effort of trying to apply brakes.
Pete knew only in a general way the direction of the main road, which he was seeking. When they emerged from the private grounds of the gentleman who owned the last bottle, he turned the car in what seemed to be the proper course and raced along a road that was bordered with villas. It ended at a cross-road, where he was forced to make a change of direction. Then, for the next five minutes, he was alternately covering short stretches of straightaway and turning corners. The residential section devoted to summer dwellers seemed to Pete to have been provided with streets that were designed on the plan of a labyrinth. It baffled escape.
They passed people on walks and cars in the roadways, passed them at a nervous speed. Mary Wayne was huddled as low in the bathtub as she could squeeze herself, but Pete was astride a saddle in the open, andhe had an annoying sense of conspicuity. He doubted if the ordinary citizen of Larchmont would accept his pink-striped pajamas with the complete equanimity that had characterized his late host. The silk garments wrapped themselves tightly around his shins, but streamed out in the rear like pennants in a gale. The rush of air sculptured his high-priced haberdashery until he resembled the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Mary reached both hands to her head with a little cry, but too late. The picture hat had been snatched by a gust and went sailing into a hedge.
"Can't stop!" he yelled. "Mine went long ago."
She shook her head to signify that she did not want him to stop.
Still the labyrinth held them. One of its trick passages brought them into a cul de sac, where he was forced to slow down and turn in his tracks. A man on the sidewalk shouted at him, but Pete did not answer. Mary huddled closer in her refuge.
They turned another corner and came to a dead stop, with a screeching of brakes, in order to avoid collision with a touring-car approaching in the opposite direction. The touring-car also stopped. Its driver uttered an exclamation, and an instant afterward switched on a spotlight. Mary shrieked as the merciless beam fell upon her. Somebody in the car tittered.
"When did they turn the club dance into a masquerade?" asked a voice.
"Ages ago," answered Pete promptly. "Swing your car; you're on the wrong side of the road."
There was more laughter; the spotlight still held its victims.
"He looks like the Sultan of Sulu," commented the voice behind the spotlight.
"Running away with Marie Antoinette," said a second voice.
And then, in a sharp, feminine treble:
"Jack, look at that thing on her shoulders! Why, it's just exactly like my——"
Mary hid her face and shuddered. Pete slipped in the clutch and made a reckless detour that came within an ace of landing the side-car in a ditch. They shot away again with an echo of excited voices in their ears.
"We've got to get out of here quick!" shouted Pete. "I think they've got our number."
Mary knew it to a certainty. No woman who owned the piece of lingerie that graced her shoulders would ever fail to recognize it.
"Try the road to the left," she urged, as she looked back. "I think they're turning the car around."
He acted on the suggestion, for want of anything better, and shot into a new road that possessed the grateful advantage of poorer illumination. Fear of pursuit caused him to forsake it after a few hundred yards, and after that he spent several minutes dodging into one street after another, until he felt that the touring car must have abandoned pursuit. Every time they passed a street light he accelerated speed, regardless of all considerations save a resolve not to linger in the illuminated places.
Mary was grim. She had abandoned hope of ever escaping from the hated town; she felt that she was the helpless prisoner of a nightmare, unable to loose the invisible shackles. They would either be dashed to pieces or fall afoul of the law, and between these alternatives she attempted to make no choice; one was asunhappy as the other. Yet during all this maddening and futile whirl she found a corner of her mind sufficiently detached from imminent perils to give its entire attention to the hating of Bill Marshall. He, and he alone, had done this thing, she told herself over and over again. Oh, how she hated him!
And then came sudden liberation from the labyrinth. They shot out of a narrow lane upon what was unmistakably the main road, missed a juggernaut limousine by inches, careened sickeningly as their machine straightened out in the direction of the city, and then gathered speed to put behind them forever the place of their undoing.
"We're all clear, now," he called, bending his head toward her. "Making out all right?"
"Go on," was her only answer.
There was but one goal in the mind of Pete Stearns—the Marshall mansion in lower Fifth Avenue. It was of no avail to stop short of that; they had no money, no friends, no spare wardrobe elsewhere. A return to Larchmont was not for an instant to be considered. Probably theSunshinewas back in the harbor, looking for them. Well, let Bill Marshall look—and then worry when he did not find them. The same thought was in the mind of Mary Wayne; she prayed that Bill might now be in a frenzy of fright and anxiety.
In a general way, Pete knew the main road; if he had not, the volume of traffic easily served as a guide. They passed anywhere from a dozen to twenty cars every mile, and inasmuch as speed was their one available refuge from curious eyes, Pete employed it. It would have been better for peace of mind to make their way to the city by sequestered roads, but he did notknow all the byways and turnings of the Westchester highway system, and there was the risk of getting lost in unfamiliar paths. The labyrinth of Larchmont had been a sufficient lesson in that.
The evening was warm, yet Pete found that two sets of silken pajamas were none too much for comfort, for the motor-cycle created its own little gale. Mary sat crouched in her lingerie, trying desperately to keep everything in place, yet discovering every little while that a homeward-bound pennant of filmy stuff was whipping the air half a dozen feet behind her.
New Rochelle flew past them in a blur of light. Pelham Manor came and went in a flash. Mount Vernon was little more than a brief burst of illumination.
"Safety first," whispered Pete to himself. "That means speed."
They were crossing the Harlem, still at a pace that was barred by all law save the primitive one to which alone they held allegiance—self-preservation. Riverside Drive! Should they risk it or seek less traveled paths?
"Stick to the Drive," urged the guiding spirit.
Pete stuck to it. Better to come to grief boldly on the highway of pleasure and fashion than to meet disaster ignominiously along some furtive route. But even the desperate urge of speed could not be completely satisfied now. There was the summer evening's traffic to be considered, and often it slowed them to a maddeningly moderate pace.
Mary was aware of the fact that they were not without observers. With another driver she felt that her own costume would have escaped notice; she was making herself as small as possible, wrapped tightly inher raiment. But Pete Stearns, astride the saddle, flaunted himself. He could not help it. The coat of purple and green shone in the city's glare like the plumage of a peacock. As for the trousers striped in salmon pink, they shrieked like a siren.
People in cars stared and turned to stare again. People atop the buses gesticulated and waved. People on the sidewalks halted in their tracks and blinked. A million eyes, it seemed to Mary, were boring into her from all sides. Oh, wait till she laid hands on Bill Marshall!
Fifth Avenue! The traffic increased; the pace slackened perforce. Mary gripped the edges of the car and closed her eyes. Why had they risked it? Why hadn't she urged him to seek a hiding place until long past midnight? Too late now. The machine came to a stop. She opened her eyes long enough to photograph the awful picture on her mind.
Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street—with the east and west traffic holding the right of way! A bus towered above them on the curb side. A millionaire touring-car flanked them on the left. Ahead were most of the automobiles in the world; of that she was certain. She did not dare to look behind. Her eyes were shut again, but her ears were open. She could hear voices, laughter, a screeching of horns. Somebody flung a question; a dozen followed. And Pete Stearns was flinging answers! Oh, why didn't he keep still?
The traffic moved again, and with it the little chariot that had become their ark of preservation. Mary felt it bumping across the tracks on Forty-Second Street. Somebody shouted; she knew without looking that itwas a policeman. There was a shrill whistle. The motor-cycle plunged forward.
"Hold fast!" yelled Pete, bending over. "That guy wants us, but he'll have to step some. No more traffic stops for mine!"
Just what they did after that Mary never knew. Nor was Pete himself particularly clear. They lurched, swayed, dodged; they scraped mudguards right and left; they shot behind, in front of, and around automobiles that were stupidly content to keep within the law; they scattered pedestrians; they ran past traffic semaphores that were set against them; they mocked cross-town trolleys by dashing across their paths; and all this to a constant din of shouting people and piercing police whistles.
The home of Miss Caroline Marshall stood on a corner, and the entrance to the garden and stable yard in the rear was on the side street. As Pete swerved from the avenue, Mary opened her eyes again and gasped incredulously. They were home!
He had leaped from the saddle, crossed the sidewalk, tried the tall, iron gate that barred the driveway and was back again before she could move her cramped body from the position into which she had twisted it.
"Gate's locked!" he cried. "We haven't any keys. Got to climb the wall. Hurry!"
Saying which, he seized her by an arm and dragged her out of the little bathtub. The brick wall that flanked the Marshall garden on the street side stood about seven feet in height. Pete reached for the top, chinned himself, and squirmed astride it.
"Gimme your hands!"
Mary lifted them, felt them seized, and found herselfslowly rising from the sidewalk. For Bill Marshall she would have been a feather; for Pete Stearns she was a burden. He gritted his teeth and lifted until his muscles cracked. Inch by inch he raised her. Mary tried to dig her toes into the bricks, but they offered no foothold; all she accomplished was to tangle her feet in the lingerie. Two people across the street stopped to stare. Pete sighted them and gave another grim hoist.
Then victory. She was sitting on top of the wall, swinging her feet on the garden side, as he leaped down into a flower-bed and reached for her.
"Oh! The rose-bushes!" she cried, as he caught her and deposited her in the flower-bed.
"Damn the roses!"
"But it's me! The thorns!"
"Forget it."
Some of her raiment was clinging to Aunt Caroline's treasured plants as she stepped painfully out on the grass.
"Now to get into the house," he said briskly. "We'll have to break in. There isn't a soul home."
"Thank goodness," murmured Mary.
The house was dark, but never had Mary seen it when it looked so friendly and sheltering. The nightmare was over. They were really home!
Pete ran to the kitchen entrance. Locked, and undoubtedly the stout bar on the inside was also in place. It was not worth while to try the window-catches, for even if he were able to raise a sash there were stout steel bars through which they could not pass. He went to the cellar entrance, turned the knob in the door, and threw his weight against it. Nothing budged.
He stepped back on the lawn and made a surveyof the rear elevation of the house. All of the windows that lacked bars were beyond his reach or that of any ordinary climber. If he could find a ladder—— He ran back to the stable, but discovered it to be as stoutly resistant to intrusion as the house itself.
Mary beckoned to him.
"I should think you could climb up on the wall," she said, pointing, "right where it joins the house, and then make a jump for that nearest window."
Pete looked at her severely.
"Do you think I'm a trapeze performer? Do you want me to break a leg?"
Mary measured the jump with her eye.
"Mr. Marshall could do it," she said.
"Rot!"
"But he could. And he'd be willing to try, too."
Pete's glance had turned into a glare.
"There's gratitude for you! That's a fine thing to throw up in my face. Just because I'm not an overgrown brute you think it's a lot of fun to stand there making dares."
"If you think I'm having any fun," she said sharply, "you're tremendously wrong. I'm all stiff and scratched up from those rose-thorns—and I'm hungry. And thirsty! And Mr. Marshall may be large—but he is not an overgrown brute."
"Oh, that's it, is it? You're singing another tune. The last time you mentioned him it was in connection with murder, I think."
"Never mind. He could get in that window, just the same."
Pete eyed her for an instant, then walked toward the garden wall.
"Wait till I'm lying crushed at your feet," he said bitterly. "You're driving me to suicide."
"Pooh!" said Mary.
He climbed the wall and tested his reach in the direction of the window. The sill was at least a foot beyond the tips of his fingers.
"Jump for it," she said from below. "It looks easy."
"Does it?" he said scornfully. "You ought to see it from here."
"I can see it perfectly well. I could do it myself."
Pete Stearns marveled. Why had she turned on him thus? Had he not been playing the hero since mid-afternoon? Had he not brought her out of the jaws of Larchmont and into the sanctuary of Aunt Caroline's back yard? And now she taunted him, mocked him, dared him to take a senseless hazard.
"Are you going to stand on that wall all night?" she demanded. "Everybody in the street can see you."
He turned and faced the window desperately. He stepped back a pace and viewed it again. He considered the relative advantages of a standing or a running jump and decided upon the former. He crouched. He straightened and again measured the distance with his eye.
"Well?" asked the pitiless voice from below.
"Oh, give me a chance to figure it out," he retorted. "Stop staring at me. You make me nervous."
So Mary looked away. She even walked away. Her steps carried her to an asphalt driveway, where she paused, staring down at a metal disk that lay directly in front of her. It was about two feet in diameter, and fitted closely into an iron rim that was embedded in the pavement. She recognized the thing instantly.It was the cover of the coal hole. Aunt Caroline had objected to coal wagons unloading at her curb; and being the possessor of a back yard, into which wagons could be driven, she had built a chute from that point directly into the bins. Mary remembered that she had seen ton after ton of coal poured down that very hole.
She turned and glanced toward the adventurer on the wall. He was still staring up at the window, now crouching, now standing erect, now advancing, now retreating, but never leaping. With an exclamation of disdain, she stooped and laid hold of the cover of the coal chute.
As she tugged at the handle it moved. She applied both hands to the task. The disk came out of its rim and she dragged it clear of the aperture. She glanced downward into the depths. She might as well have closed her eyes, for the darkness within that coal chute was total. It was spooky. Yet her common sense told her that there was nothing spooky about it; it was merely a coal chute that sloped at an easy angle into a cellar bin.
She looked again to see what progress Pete had made; she could not observe that he had made any. He was still standing on top of the wall, making calculations and having visions of a little white cot in an emergency ward.
"He's afraid," she said. "I'm not!"
But she was, despite the brave boast—she was dreadfully afraid. Yet fear did not prevent her from sitting down and letting her feet dangle into the hole. Of course, she could summon Pete Stearns and bid him plunge into the Stygian shaft. But she scorned that; she was minded to show him what a little woman could do.
He was still fiddling on top of the wall when she glanced up.
"Oh, don't bother," she called. "If you're so afraid——"
"I'm not. I'm just taking precautions. If you'll leave me alone a minute——"
"I'm tired of waiting. You don't seem to be able to make up what you call your mind."
"If you'd stop talking to me——"
He turned to glare down at her.
Zip!
She was gone. He blinked rapidly and stared again. What—— How—— He rubbed his eyes. Only an instant before she was there; she was sitting in the middle of the driveway. Her white figure had been perfectly distinct; there could not be a possible doubt about it. And then the earth swallowed her!
Hastily he scrambled down from the top of the wall and ran across the yard. The open coal chute yawned at his feet. He stooped and listened. There was no sound. He called into the depths. There was no answer.
"The son of a gun!" he muttered in an awed whisper.
He was still standing there, dully contemplating the hole in the earth, when a flicker of light caused him to lift his head. She was in the kitchen. He heard the lifting of the bar and the turning of the key in the lock, followed by a rattle of bolts. As he approached the door it opened.
Mary Wayne looked as weird as the witch of Endor. Her white robes were streaked with black. Her face was smeared with coal dust; her hands, her hair. Outof a sooty countenance gleamed two dangerous gray eyes.
"You coward!" she said. "See what you've done!"
"But if you'd waited——"
"You've just made me ruin the loveliest things I ever wore in all my life. Look at this peignoir. It's ripped, it's torn, it's—— Oh, don't stand there! I'll slam the door in a second, and then you can stay out or else come in by way of the coal bin."
Pete entered meekly and closed the door behind him. Single file they mounted the back stairs that led to the servants' quarters.
Pete Stearns, dressed once more like a citizen of the United States, descended again to the lower floor by the back stairs and began a search of the pantry. He foraged some crackers, a jar of cheese, and some potted tongue, and with these he returned to the second floor, where he found the social secretary awaiting him in the sun parlor. Mary Wayne was a normal person again. The soot of the coal chute had disappeared, as well as the fragile vestments; she had not taken her entire wardrobe aboard the yacht.
Pete was still grumbling over her treatment of him. It was ungenerous, unfair, he contended; she was coldly ignoring all his prowess of the afternoon and evening and dwelling only upon a single incident in which he felt entirely justified in exercising reasonable precaution.
"I'd have gone down the coal chute myself if you'd only waited a minute," he said. "You didn't give me a fair chance."
"I notice you didn't follow me," she answered contemptuously. "You waited for me to find my way out of the cellar and open the kitchen door."
"Well, what was the use——"
"Please open that can of tongue. Do you want me to die of hunger?"
He shrugged gloomily and attacked the can. Mary picked up the telephone instrument and called for a number. Presently she was talking.
"Send Miss Norcross to the telephone."
Pete repressed a start and worked steadily with the can-opener. But his ears were alert. As for Mary, she appeared to have forgotten his presence.
"Oh, Nell; is that you? This is Mary talking. No; I'm not in Larchmont. I'mhome. Oh, yes; we were there. But something awful happened. I want you to come around here right away. I've just got to talk to you; I need your advice. What? No; I can't tell you about it over the 'phone; it would take too long. Please hurry; it's important. I—I want your moral support. I'm afraid the beginning of the end is here, and you just can't desert me now. You'vegotto come. All right. Take a taxi, if you can find one. But hurry, anyhow."
As she replaced the receiver Pete Stearns was facing her. And then she remembered. A slow flush came into her cheeks.
"I've been guessing for a long time that there was something queer about you," he observed, with a cynical smile. "So it's 'Miss Norcross' at the other end of the wire, is it? And who are you?"
"You had no business to listen to a conversation," she said angrily.
"Strikes me it was stupid of you to forget I was here, Miss Norcross—Wayne—or whoever you are."
He eyed her maliciously.
"So it's the beginning of the end, is it? Well, let me in on it."
Mary returned her glance defiantly.
"I have nothing to say toyou," she said. "It isn't any of your business."
"But, of course, you don't deny you're an impostor?"
"Well, if it comes to being an impostor, Mr. Valet, I don't believe you'll stand very much investigating."
Pete regarded her calmly.
"Let's form an alliance," he suggested.
"An alliance of what? Fraud?"
"Something like that. I see you confess it."
"I confess nothing," she retorted hotly. "And I don't care for an alliance."
"It might pay," he said, thoughtfully. "If we keep up the teamwork I believe we can get by yet. Between my ingenuity and your references——"
"Stop!"
Mary was shuddering at the allusion to references. Not only the thing itself, but the very word, had become hateful.
"Don't talk to me," she ordered. "I won't discuss anything with you."
Pete shrugged and pushed a plate of crackers and cheese toward her.
"Let's talk about your friend, anyhow," he suggested.
Mary rose to her feet abruptly and ran toward the door that opened into the hall. She opened it half-way and stood there, listening. Then she turned and beckoned mysteriously. When he had joined her she whispered:
"I thought I heard something—down-stairs. Listen."
For half a minute neither spoke.
"Sounds like somebody talking," he said, in a lowvoice. "But it seems far away. Maybe it's out in the street."
She shook her head.
"I'm positive it's in this house. It's down-stairs. There! Hear it?"
He nodded.
"Maybe Aunt Caroline and the rest of 'em have come home again," he suggested.
"No; it's a man's voice, but it's a strange one. It's—burglars!"
"It might be, of course," he assented.
"Let's telephone for the police. Hurry!"
"No. Let's investigate first. We can telephone afterward."
He stepped softly out into the hall and started toward the front of the house. Mary seized his arm.
"Isn't there a pistol—or something—that we could take?" she whispered, nervously.
"Don't believe there's a gun in the house. Bill doesn't own one—except a shotgun."
"Get it."
He tiptoed toward Bill's room and reappeared with a double-barreled weapon, the mere sight of which gave Mary a thrill of reassurance. It was unloaded, but Pete did not disclose that fact.
In single file, with Pete leading, they moved cautiously along the hall in the direction of the main staircase. At the top of the flight they paused. There was a light burning in the lower hall. Mary pinched him and pointed at it.
"I'm going back to telephone the police," she said.
"Not yet. Wait!"
He started gingerly down the staircase, the shotgun thrust boldly forward in order not to betray its utterunpreparedness. Mary hesitated, but when he had descended half a dozen steps she followed, curiosity overwhelming her.
They heard the voice again, more clearly now:
"Understand, now; no noise. If we make a racket we'll have the bulls here. The first man makes a noise gets what's comin' to him."
Pete and the girl exchanged glances.
"A whole gang of them!" she said, in a frightened whisper.
Pete placed his finger against his lips and descended half a dozen steps more. She crept along behind him, clinging to the banisters.
The Marshall mansion was of old-fashioned construction. Over many of the doors there were transoms. This was true of the door that separated the library from the lower hall. As the pair of adventurers halted again and leaned stealthily over the railing they could see that there was a light in the library. The door was closed, but the transom stood open nearly to its full width.
Through the transom they could view a rectangular section of the library floor. Ordinarily, from where they stood, a table would have been visible, a chair or two, and a rug. But now table, chairs and rug had vanished and there was nothing but smooth parquetry.
"They're packing up the things!" gasped Mary.
Pete answered with a gesture imposing caution.
As they watched the open space in the library a man stepped into view. He came to a halt and, from where he stood, was visible to them from the waist up. He did not look exactly like a burglar; he was too well dressed to fit Mary's notion of the fraternity.He was too stout, also, for Mary's idea of a burglar called for a lean and hungry Cassius. As he paused in the center of the library, he made a commanding motion with his arms. It was a sign for silence on the part of persons who were invisible to the watchers on the staircase.
Then he began to speak again.
"Now, what I said about keepin' your lips buttoned goes. Get me? I'm runnin' this and I don't want to have any trouble. There ain't goin' to be any yellin' or stampin' or any other kind of noise, except what can't be helped. Everybody understand that, now?"
There was a murmur from an unseen throng, and evidently an assent, for the speaker nodded.
"And I want everybody to be careful not to break nothin'," he continued. "You don't want to break no chairs or tables or nothin' like that. And be careful of them pictures on the walls."
"Why, they're going to take every single thing!" murmured Mary, in a shocked voice.
"S-sh. Wait!" answered Pete, staring wide-eyed at the man whose body was framed in the transom.
"All right, then," the man was saying. "Only don't forget. The gentleman who give us the use of this house is a friend of ours and we don't want to get him into no trouble."
"Aw, we're wise; we're wise," remarked a voice whose owner they could not see. "Start somethin'."
Mary was clutching Pete's arm and staring at him with widely questioning eyes. The gentleman who gave the use of the house! Why——
"Now, the winner of this bout, gents——" The beefy man was talking again. "The winner of thisbout is goin' to be matched against the champion. Everything here is strictly on its merits. The men will wear six-ounce gloves, accordin' to regulations. Both of 'em was weighed in this afternoon at three o'clock, with the scale set at one hundred and thirty-five, and neither of 'em tipped the beam. And the bout goes to a finish."
There was a rumbling chorus of satisfaction from the invisible audience, and the speaker checked it sharply.
"Lay off the noise, now. That's just what we ain't goin' to have. You guys paid your good money to get in here and I guess you don't want trouble any more'n I do. Now, in this corner is Charley Collins, the Trenton Bearcat, lightweight champion of New Jersey."
As he spoke another person stepped into the field of vision. It was unquestionably the Bearcat. He was a blond-haired youth of sturdy proportions, clad in a breech clout, a pair of shoes and two six-ounce gloves. He nodded carelessly in response to the introduction and began testing the floor with his feet.
"In this corner," continued the stout man, "is Kid Whaley, pride of the East Side."
Whereat came briskly into view Signor Antonio Valentino. He was grinning cheerfully and bowing right and left. There was a suppressed murmur of admiration. Whatever his omissions as a sculptor of Carrara marble, the Kid had neglected nothing that would make his own body a living statue of grace and brawn. Save for the twisted nose and the tin ear, he was an undeniably fine specimen. His attire matched that of the Bearcat.
"Now, when I say 'Break,'" remarked the master of ceremonies, addressing himself to the Kid and the Bearcat, "I want you to break. Understand! Hittin' with one arm free goes, but no rough stuff in the clinches. And when you break, break clean and step back. No hittin' in the breakaways. All set?"
The two young gentlemen in breech clouts nodded nonchalantly.
"Go to your corners."
The Kid and the Bearcat stepped out of sight, and likewise the beefy man.
"It's—it's awful!" stammered Mary Wayne to her companion on the staircase. "Make them stop it!"
Pete viewed her with a look of amazement.
"Stop it?" he echoed, incredulously. "What for? Why, this is a bout they've been trying to pull off for the last two months. Stop it? Why, we're lucky to be in on it!"
There was nothing but horror in Mary's eyes.
"Then I'll get the police to stop it!" she hissed. "I'm going to telephone now."
"And get Bill Marshall into all kinds of trouble?"
She hesitated. Doubtless it would make a great deal of trouble for Bill Marshall, not only with the authorities of the law, but with Aunt Caroline. He deserved the worst, of course, and yet—— Ever since the middle of that afternoon she had felt that the administering of justice to Bill was something that lay properly in her own hands. If she had cared to analyze the matter closely she would have found that it was not justice she sought so much as vengeance.
And while she still hesitated at Pete's reminder, a bell sounded in the library.
She looked again toward the open transom. TheKid and the Bearcat were in view again, no longer nonchalantly inert, but in animated action. Their bodies were tense and swaying, their arms moving in a bewildering series of feints, their feet weaving in and out in a strange series of steps that seemed to have an important relation to their task. The Bearcat was grim, the Kid smiling contentedly.
Suddenly the blond one shot an arm forward and behind it lunged his body. Mary clutched the banister. But Signor Antonio Valentino, still smiling, merely flirted his head a few inches and the gloved fist went into space across his shoulder. At the same time, he seemed to be doing something himself. Mary could not, with all her inexperience, discern exactly what it was, but she saw the Bearcat's head snap backward and she heard him grunt audibly as he clinched.
"The Kid'll eat him," whispered Pete. "Gee, I wish I had a bet down!"
Mary shuddered. She decided to go up-stairs, but somehow she could not release her grip on the banisters. She felt that she ought to go away and hide from this horror in Aunt Caroline's library. Even if she could not move, at least, she thought, she could close her eyes. But when she tried to close them, somehow they persisted in staying open.
The two young sculptors on the other side of the transom were now entering upon their artistic task with amazing speed and zest. Sometimes it took them entirely beyond the vision of the watchers on the staircase. Then they would come zigzagging back into view again; first their legs, then their bodies, then their flying arms and low-bent heads. There was a constant smacking and thudding of gloves, a heavy padding of feet on the parquet floor. Now and then Maryheard the sharp voice of the beefy man: "Break! Break clean!" Once she saw him stride roughly between the panting pair reckless of his own safety, fling them apart with a sweep of his arms and say something in a savage tone to the Bearcat. But no sooner had he passed between them than they met again behind his back; the Bearcat swinging a glove that landed flush on the celebrated tin ear.
The bell rang again. Kid Whaley stopped an arm that was moving in mid air, dropped it to his side and walked quickly away. The Bearcat also walked out of sight.
Mary felt as if she could breathe again.
"Thank Heaven, it's over!" she said.
Pete looked at her pityingly.
"It's just begun," he explained patiently. "That was only the first round. There may be a dozen or fifteen, or twenty, or Lord knows how many yet before they finish it. It won't end till one of 'em goes to sleep."
"To sleep? How can any man fall asleep when somebody is pounding him all over the head and body?"
"Wait and see," answered Pete with a grin.
But Mary was not minded to wait and see. All that filled her mind was resentment and horror that Aunt Caroline's library should have been loaned by her unredeemed nephew for such an awful purpose. She had a new account to square with William Marshall. She did not intend to tell Aunt Caroline; she would spare that shock to her benefactress. She phrased a little silent prayer of thanks because Aunt Caroline was safely removed from the scene of bloodand violence. But there would be no softening of the blow when she came to deal with Bill.
"I'm going down to stop it," she said suddenly.
Pete seized her arm and held it.
"You can't think of it!" he said, in a shocked whisper. "You'd only be insulted and laughed at. And besides——"
He was about to remark that it was too excellent to stop when the bell rang for the second round.
To Mary it seemed no different from the first round. The two young men in breech clouts alternately flailed and hugged each other, the referee constantly danced between them crying, "Break!" and the stamping of swiftly shifting feet echoed again through the darkened recesses of the big house. Then another bell and another period of waiting.
"This Bearcat is good," explained Pete, carefully. "He's better than I figured him. The Kid'll get him, but it may take him some time. Do you notice the way the Kid handles that left? Isn't it beautiful?"
"It's—it's horrible."
"Oh, not at all; it's clever. This other boy has a pretty neat left himself. But it's his right that the Kid's watching, and he'd better, for it's wicked. Only trouble with the Bearcat is he telegraphs every punch. Now, when they come up again I want you to notice—— S-sh! There's the bell."
Mary, still gripping the banister, gazed with horrid fascination at the further desecration of Aunt Caroline's black walnut library. And yet, while the spectacle outraged her eyes and violated all the standards by which she measured domestic life in the American home, a subconscious partisanship was breeding within her. She hated this Whaley, almost as much as shehated Bill Marshall. Why didn't the blond bruiser annihilate him forthwith? Why didn't he make an end of the thing at once? Why wasn't Kid Whaley beaten ruthlessly to the floor and stamped under foot, as became his deserts?
She lifted her hand from the banister and clenched her fists. She was not aware that the cave woman was awakening within her, but it was. She thought she was still horrified; and so she was—in the civilized part of her. But Mary Wayne did not possess a hundred per cent of civilization, nor do any of her sisters, although she and they may be ignorant of the lesser fraction of savagery that hides within.
The third round was followed by a fourth, a fifth and a sixth, and still she stood on the stairway, with a conscience that cried aloud in behalf of Aunt Caroline and a surge of primitive rage that demanded victory for the Trenton Bearcat. Pete Stearns was wholly given over to the spell of the battle.
Came the seventh round, more furious than any that went before. The invisible crowd in the library was becoming vocal. Throaty voices were demanding blood. And blood there was, for the Bearcat's crimson nose paid tribute to the efficiency of the Kid, while over one of the Kid's eyes was a cut that witnessed the counter prowess of the Bearcat. Some of the blood was dripping on Aunt Caroline's parquet floor, but not enough for the crowd.
Round eight. The Kid sent two lefts to the face without return. They clinched. The Kid uppercut to the jaw in the breakaway. The Bearcat swung right and left to the head. The Kid landed a right to the body, and followed it with a hook to the jaw. The Bearcat came back with a volley of short-arm jabs,rocking the Kid's head. The Kid rushed, sending right and left to the face. They clinched. The Kid swung a left to the jaw. It shook the Bearcat. The Kid——
Mary Wayne, following all this with blazing eyes and panting bosom, wholly free to sense the combat in its larger aspects because she knew nothing of its superb technique, was leaning half-way across the banisters, a battle-cry hovering on her lips, when her quick ear caught the sound of a key turning in a lock. It had the effect of a cold shock. She was the civilized woman again.
Fear and apprehension turned her eyes in the direction of the front door. Yes, it was opening. Police?No!
Aunt Caroline Marshall, Bill Marshall, the butler, and a file of the Marshall servants!