CHAPTER V.

33CHAPTER V.WHITNEY BARNES TELEPHONES TO THE RITZ.

Glancing up into the solemn face of an unusually good-looking young man who wore his silk hat at a jaunty angle and whose every detail of attire suggested that he was of that singularly blessed class who toil not neither do they spin, Miss Mamie McCorkle, public telephone operator in the tallest-but-one skyscraper below the Fulton street dead line, expected to be asked to look up some number in the telephone book and be generously rewarded for the trifling exertion. It wasn’t any wonder, then, that she broke the connections of two captains of industry and one get-rich-quick millionaire when this was what she got:

“Suppose, my dear young lady, that you had a premonition––a hunch, I might say––that you were destined this current day of the calendar week to meet your Kismet in petticoats, wouldn’t it make you feel a bit hollow inside and justify you in taking your first drink before your customary hour for absorbing the same?”

Usually a live wire at repartee, Mamie McCorkle was stumped. With a captain of industry swearing34in each ear and the get-rich-quick millionaire trying to break in with his more artistic specialties in profanity, she was for a moment frozen into silence. When she did come to the surface, she set the captains of industry down where they belonged, retorted upon the get-rich-quick millionaire that he was no gentleman and she hoped he would inform the manager she said so and then raised her eyebrows at the interrogator who leaned against her desk.

“If that’s an invitation to lunch,No! I’m already dated,” she said. “If you’re trying to kid me, ring off, the line is busy.”

“All of which,” said the young man, in the same slow, sober voice, “is sage counsel for the frivolous. I am not. As you look like a very sensible young woman, I put a sensible question to you. Perhaps my language was vague. What I meant to convey was: do you think I would be justified in taking a drink at this early hour of the day to brace me for the ordeal of falling in love with an unknown affinity?”

“If your language is personal,” replied Miss McCorkle, with a sarcastic laugh, “my advice is to take six drinks. I’m in love with a chauffeur.”

“Good,” said the young man, brightly, “and may I ask if it was a sudden or a swift affair?”

“Swift,” snapped Miss McCorkle. “He ran over my stepmother, then brought her home. I let him in. We were engaged next day. Here’s the ring, one and one-half carats, white!––now, what number do you want?”

“A thousand thanks––get me the Ritz-Carlton, please, and don’t break this ten-dollar bill. I hate change, it spoils the set of one’s pockets.”

As Whitney Barnes squeezed himself into the booth, Miss McCorkle squinted one eye at the crisp bill he had laid before her and smiled.

“There’s more than one way,” she thought, “of being asked not to listen to dove talk, and I like this method best.”

The shrewd hello girl, however, had erred in the case of Whitney Barnes, for this is the way his end of the conversation in booth No. 7 ran:

––This the Ritz? Yes. Kindly connect me with Mr. Smith.

––What Smith? Newest one you got. Forget the first name. Thomas Smith, you say. Well, give me Tom.

––Hello, there, Trav––that is, Tom, or do you prefer Thomas?

––What’s that? Came in by way of Boston on a Cunarder? What’s all the row? Read you were in Egypt, doing the pyramids.

––Can’t explain over the wire, eh. Hope it isn’t a divorce case; they’re beastly.

––Ought to know you better than that. Say, what’s the matter with your little angora?

––Be serious; it’s no joking matter. Well, if it wasn’t serious how could I joke about it? You can’t joke about a joke.

––I’m a fool! I wonder where I heard that before.36Oh, yes––a few minutes ago. My paternal parent said the same thing.

––Can I meet you at your house? Where is it? I ought to know? I don’t see why, you keep building it over all the time and then go way and leave it for two years at a stretch. Then when you do come home you go and live under the–––

––Cut that out! My glory, but there is a mystery here.

––Certainly, I don’t want to spoil everything.

––Have I an engagement? I should say I have. Just you call up Joshua Barnes and ask for the dope on it––a whole flock of engagements bunched into one large contract, the biggest I ever tackled.

––No, I guess it won’t prevent me from meeting you. Not unless I happen to see her on the way uptown.

––Blessed if I know her any more than you. Wish I did, but whoever she is she’s got to be pretty awful horrible nice.

––Have I been drinking? No; but you better have one ready for me. Seen any of the chaps at the club? What’s that? You gave it a wide berth. This is beginning to sound like a detective novel or a breach of promise case.

––You don’t tell me. Really, I’d never looked at myself in that light before. Sure, I’m stuck on myself. Head over heels in love with myself. I’m a classy little party, I am, and you better make the37best of me while I’m here. Where am I going? Nowhere in particular. Just going to merge my individuality, bite a chunk out of an apple and get kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

––Now you’re sure I’m piffled. No such luck. Trav––that is, Mr. Smith––Mr. Thomas Smith! Shall I ask for Smith when I drop up at that little marble palace of yours? No. Oh, Bateato will be there if you happen to be delayed. How is the little son of Nippon? Oh, that’s good. Five sharp. Tata, Smitty, old chap. By Jove, he’s rung off with a curse–––

38CHAPTER VI.OFFICER 666 ON PATROL.

Michael Phelan had been two years on the force and considered himself a very fly young man. He had lost something of his romantic outline during the six months he pounded the Third avenue pave past two breweries and four saloons to a block, and it was at his own request, made through his mother’s second cousin, District Leader McNaught, that he had been provided with a saloonless beat on Fifth avenue.

A certain blue-eyed, raven-haired nursemaid, who fed a tiny millionaire with a solid gold spoon and trundled an imported perambulator along the east walk of Central Park, may have had something to do with Patrolman Phelan’s choice of beat, but he failed to mention the fact to his mother. He laid it all on the breweries and the temptations they offered.

Humble as was Michael Phelan’s station on the force, he was already famous from the wooded wastes of Staten Island to the wilds of the Bronx. Even the graven-featured chief inspector permitted himself to smile when the name of Michael Phelan was mentioned.

He was a fresh, rosy-cheeked, greener-than-grass probationary cop when fame came to him all in one clap and awoke a thunderous roll of laughter throughout the city.

It was his first detail on the lower east side in the precinct commanded from the Eldridge street station. The time was July and the day was a broiler. He was sitting in the reserve room playing dominoes with the doorman and mopping his forehead with a green bandana when the captain sent for him.

“Phelan,” said the captain shortly, “there’s a lady dead without a doctor at 311 Essex street, three flights up, rear. They’ve told the Coroner’s Office, but all the Coroners are busy. The corpse is a lone widow lady with no kin, so you go up and take charge and wait for the Coroner.”

Officer 666 tipped his cap with military salute and set out. Turning the corner into Essex street, he met plain-clothes man Tim Feeney, who stopped him and asked him where he was bound. Michael Phelan explained and then said:

“Tim, if you don’t mind, will you give me a tip? What do I do when I get up to that flat, and how long will I have to wait?”

“You’ll have to wait, Mike,” replied Tim Feeney, “till the Coroner gets good and ready to come. When you get to the flat don’t knock; walk right in. Then sit down by the bed and wait. Be sure you keep the door shut and let no soul in till the Coroner arrives.”

“It’ll be powerful hot and I’m perishing o’ thirst now,” said Mike.

“Take off your coat,” said Tim, “and send a kid for a can of beer. When you hear the Coroner comin’ slip the can under the bed.”

Tim Feeney went on his way with his hand over his mouth.

Patrolman Phelan had missed the twinkle in Tim Feeney’s eye and a few minutes later found him sitting beside a bed with his coat off and a foaming can on the floor by his chair. On his way up the steep, narrow staircases he had met a boy and sent him for the liquid refreshment. He had instructed the lad where to deliver the beer and had gone quietly in to his unpleasant vigil.

The door he opened led directly into the bedroom. He had glanced once at the bed and then looked away with a shudder. Perspiration fairly cascaded down his flaming cheeks as he tiptoed to a chair and placed it beside the bed. He placed his chair at a slight angle away from the bed and then fixed his eyes on the opposite wall. When he heard the tread of the boy in the hall he made a pussy-footed dash for the door, took in the growler, shut the boy out and buried his face in the froth. He was in better heart, but still mighty uneasy when he wiped his mouth on the back of his fist.

Somewhere in the flat a clock ticked dismally. Through two small open windows puffed superheated41gusts of air. The muffled clamor of many voices in strange tongues sifted through the windows and walls, but served only to increase the awful stillness in the room. Despite his efforts to the contrary, Phelan stole a glance at the bed, then looked away while his heart stopped beating. There was a naked foot where he had seen only a sheet before.

“Mebbe the wind blew it off,” he tried to tell himself, but something inside him rejected the explanation and he felt an icy finger drawn up and down his spine. Again he plunged his head into the capacious can and succeeded in reviving his heart action.

More minutes of dreadful suspense passed. A leaden silence had filled the sweltering room. Even the voices of the tenements had died away to a funereal murmur. Battle as he did with all his will, Phelan’s eyes were again drawn from their fixed gaze upon the wall, and what he saw this time induced a strangling sensation.

Three toes had distinctly wiggled.

He withdrew his eyes on the instant and his shaking hand reached down for the can. His fingers had barely touched it when an awful shriek rent the air. The shriek came from the bed, and it was followed by a second yell and then by a third.

Michael Phelan did not open the door as he passed out. It was not a very strong door and it went down like cardboard before the impact. The third shriek awoke the echoes just as Officer 666 was coasting42down the stairs on the seat of his departmental trousers. His departmental coat and his departmental hat were in no way connected with his precipitate transit. A raging Polish woman brought these details of Michael’s uniform to the Eldridge street station a little later. Likewise she prefered charges against Phelan that come under the heading of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.”

It was a tremendous trial, in the course of which the Deputy Police Commissioner who sat in judgment barely missed having a serious stroke. It was adduced in evidence that Officer 666 had entered the wrong flat, the Coroner’s case being one flight up.

But while the whole town rocked with laughter Michael Phelan failed to see the joke, and his hatred of Precinct Detective Tim Feeney never cooled. That he got off with a light sentence of one day’s fine did not in the least improve his humor. He knew he was a marked man from that day, and it was all his mother could do to urge him to stay on the force.

In the course of time, however, the sting had worn off and the young patrolman learned to smile again. His hollow cheeks had filled out amazingly during the period of the brewery beat and on that late autumn day when he stepped into the pages of this narrative he looked mighty good, not only to the raven-haired Rosalind O’Neill but to a host of other pretty nursemaids who were wheeling their aristocratic little charges up and down The Avenue.

Nor was Michael Phelan at all unconscious of this as he sauntered along the broad pavement and gracefully twirled his baton. His chest jutted out like the breast of a pouter pigeon and he wore the solemnly self-conscious expression of a peacock on parade.

When he came to the great white square mansion of Travers Gladwin, he paused and studied it shrewdly with his eye. It was one of the most important functions of his patrol to study the fronts of all unoccupied dwellings and see that every window was down and every door was closed. First he looked into the areaway of the Gladwin home and then his eye travelled up the wide balustraded stoop to the ornamental bronze doors.

“What’s this!” he gasped in astonishment. “Sure, I read in the papers on’y this morning that Travers Gladwin was in Agypt. ’Tis a bold thafe who’ll go in the front door in broad day, so here’s where Mary Phelan’s son makes the grand pinch he’s been dreamin’ on this six months back and gets his picture in the papers.”

44CHAPTER VII.THE LITTLE BROWN JAP.

Patrolman Phelan wrapped his sinewy fist about the handle of his club with a vicious grip as he proceeded cautiously up the steps. The heavy bronze door had been left ajar, and he squeezed through without opening it further, then paused in the vestibule and listened. What he heard seemed no more than the tread of a spider, and the thought rushed into his head:

“’Tis one of that felt-soled kind. ’Tis tip-toes for Phelan.”

He had noted that even the inside door was open, and he swiftly divined from this that the thief had left it open for his own convenience or for some other purpose connected with the mysteries of burglar alarms. Inch by inch the policeman moved across the vestibule and wriggled through the door into the richly carpeted hallway.

It was with a distinct sense of relief that he felt his heavy boots sink noiselessly into the deep ply of a precious Daghestan rug. One of Phelan’s boots had a bad creak in it, and he knew that the master45crook who would attempt such a robbery as this would have an acute sense of hearing.

It was dark as a pocket down the stretch of the heavily curtained foyer, save for a meagre shaft of light that came through a slightly parted pair of portières to the left and not a dozen feet from where he stood. He strained his ear toward this shaft of light until there came an unmistakable swish of sound, whereupon he moved forward in short, gliding steps.

When he reached the break in the portières and looked in he was astonished to see a short little man with shiny black hair deftly removing the linen covers from chairs and tables and statuary. The little man had his back to Phelan as the policeman stepped inside, but he turned in a flash and confronted the intruder with the peculiar glazed grimness of the Japanese.

“Well, what matter?” ripped out the little Jap, without moving a muscle.

“That’s what I come to find out,” retorted Phelan, with accusing severity of tone.

“How you get in here?” retorted the Jap in the same sharp, emotionless tones.

“I saw ye snakin’ in an’ ye didn’t latch the door after yez,” blurted Phelan, taking a step nearer the Jap and still watching him with profound suspicion.

“What you want?” asked the Jap with a slight tremor of apprehension.

“Information!” cried Phelan. “What are yez46doin’ in here?” Phelan’s eye swept the room for some evidence of an attempt to despoil. Though he saw none he did not relinquish his attitude of suspicion. The Jap seemed about to speak and then stopped. As Phelan continued to glower at him, he snapped out:

“I no can tell.”

Triumph blazed in Phelan’s eyes. Now he was sure he had a thief and he determined to handle the situation with all the majesty of his official person.

“So yez can’t tell what yez’re doin’ in this house,” he said with fine sarcasm.

The Jap shook his head emphatically and returned a positive, “No tell!”

Phelan balanced his club for a moment and strode toward the Jap.

“Yez better come with me,” he said through compressed lips.

The Jap started back with a frightened exclamation.

“You no take me to jail?” he uttered, while his yellow features twitched with fear.

“In a minute,” replied the elated officer, “if yez don’t tell me what yez’re doin’ here. I’ve been lookin’ out for this place while Mr. Gladwin was in foreign parts, and”–––

“You know Mr. Gladwin?” broke in the Jap, excitedly.

“No, I ain’t never seen him,” said Phelan, “but I47know this is his house an’ I been keepin’ my eye on it fer him.”

“Mr. Gladwin––he my boss!” and the Jap grinned from ear to ear.

This solution of the mystery never entered the policeman’s head and he resented the surprise.

“Do yez mean yez’re his valley?” he asked vindictively, refusing to relinquish his suspicion.

“Ees!” and again the Jap grinned.

Phelan read the grin as a distinct insult to his intelligence and he pounced upon the little brown man in an even more caustic tone:

“If yez’re are Mr. Gladwin’s valley, what are ye doin’ here an’ him thousands o’ miles away across the ocean in Agypt an’ Jerusalem an’ the like?”

Now it was Phelan’s turn to grin as he saw the Jap shrink and turn upon him a pair of wildly alarmed eyes.

“Come! Come! I’m waitin’ fer an answer,” The cat had his mouse backed into a corner and mentally licked his chops.

“I no can tell,” stammered the Jap, desperately.

“That’s enough!” ripped out Officer 666, grabbing the Jap by the shoulder and yanking him toward the doorway.

“No––no––wait!” gasped the struggling prisoner. “You no say if I tell you, plees?”

“Tell me first,” grunted Phelan, releasing his grip.

The Jap ducked his head in every direction as if48fearful that the walls had ears, then said in an impressive whisper:

“My boss––Mr. Gladwin––home!”

“Misther Gladwin home! Here in New York!” There was both incredulity and amazement in Phelan’s voice.

“Ees!” bleated the Jap and his grin returned.

“Well, why didn’t you say so before?” said Phelan angrily, at which the fidgety little brown son of Nippon hastened to explain:

“No one should know. He come all in much secret. He go boat to Boston. No use name. No one know he Mr. Gladwin. He say, ‘Bateato’––me Bateato––‘Bateato,’ he say, ‘no tell I come home––sure,’ he say, and Bateato he no tell.”

Officer Phelan yielded to the grip of the mystery and his attitude toward the Jap changed.

“What did he want to snake home that away fer?”

“I no know,” nodded Bateato.

“Yez no know, eh? Well, is he comin’ here?––do yez no know that?”

“He tell me––come here and wait––feex thees room––he come here or telephone.”

The straightforward manner of the little Jap had almost completely disarmed the policeman’s suspicion, but he surrendered reluctantly.

“Did he give yez a key to get in here?” Phelan fired as his last shot.

“Ees––he give me all bunch keys––look!” and49Bateato produced a gold key ring with a gold tag and a number of keys attached. Phelan examined it and read aloud the name Travers Gladwin engraved on the tag. Handing them back to the Jap, he addressed him impressively, gesturing his emphasis with his baton:

“I guess yez’re all right, but I’ll have me eye on yez from the outside, mind that––and if yez’re foolin’ me or tryin’ to get away with anythin’”–––

Phelan snapped his lips together and with a mighty lunge plucked an imaginary prisoner out of the atmosphere and shook it ferociously. Then stepping back to the doorway he shut one eye with a fierce wink and jerked out:

“Are yez wise?”

The profound pantomime was too much for Bateato, who stared after the vanishing officer in open-mouthed amazement.

50CHAPTER VIII.ART, MYSTERY AND LOVE.

The little Jap was still posed in an attitude of bewilderment as the two outside doors slammed and Officer 666 went down the front steps to resume the tread of his beat and the breaking of fragile hearts.

When he did emerge from his trance he returned to the task of getting the great room in order with the same snappy energy he had displayed when the uniformed minion of the law broke in upon him. He had removed the covers from the chairs and was dusting off a great carved chest that stood against the wall to the right of the doorway when the door bell rang. Bateato jumped and then waited for a second ring. Stepping warily out into the hallway, he looked to see if it was the grim official in blue and buttons.

“Ha!” he exclaimed. “No more police,” and he shot to the door and opened it for that debonnair young gentleman who was one day to inherit the mustard millions of Old Grim Barnes.

“Hello there, Bateato,” Whitney Barnes greeted the little Jap cordially. “Did your master show up yet?”

“He no come,” grinned Bateato, shutting the door and leading the way into the room he had been preparing for his master’s arrival. As Whitney Barnes stepped into the room the Jap asked:

“’Scuse me, Mr. Barnes––you see Mr. Gladwin?”

“No, nor his double, Thomas Smith of the Ritz; but he asked me to meet him here at 5 o’clock, Bateato.”

“Ees sair!” lisped the Jap, with a bob of the head; then dived back to his occupation of making the long deserted room look presentable.

As Bateato followed his master’s friend into the room he switched on the full glare of electric lights that depended from the ceiling or blazed through the shades of many lamps. Whitney Barnes blinked for a moment, and then started as his gaze was directed to the walls hung with masterpieces.

The work of Rubens, Rembrandt, Coret, Meissonier, Lely, Cazzin, Vegas, Fragonard, Reynolds and a score others of the world’s greatest masters leaped across his vision as he turned from wall to wall, revolving on his heel.

“Whew!” he ejaculated. “I didn’t know that Travers went in for this sort of thing. He certainly is the secretive little oyster when he wants to be.”

Still studying the portraits and landscapes and allegorical groups, he voiced to Bateato a sudden thought.

“By the way, Bateato, do you know what it was that brought your master back in this strange fashion and the reason for all this secrecy?”

“No, sair,” responded the Jap.

“Well, it’s damned peculiar!” muttered the young man to himself, and proceeded on a tour about the room to examine more closely its wealth of art treasure. He had been engaged in this way about five minutes when the door bell rang and Bateato cried:

“Here Mr. Gladwin now.”

“How do you know that Bateato?” quizzed the young man absently, his attention being gripped by a stunning aphrodite rising from the sea in a glory of nudity and rainbows.

The Jap paused a second on his way to the door, and replied:

“’Cause no one know he home but Mr. Barnes. Thees house close up much long time and Mr. Gladwin make papers say he in Egypt.”

In the same breath in which he maximed this volley of words the little Jap projectiled himself from the room.

“His deductions are marvellous,” said Whitney Barnes, solemnly addressing a bronze bust of Philip of Macedon. He turned in time to meet the brisk entrance of Travers Gladwin, alias Thomas Smith of the Ritz.

The two shook hands warmly and looked into each other’s faces with quizzical smiles. They were about of an age, both unusually good looking and bearing themselves with that breezy, confident manner that is characteristic of young men who have been coddled in swan’s-down all their lives.

“Well, well, well, Travers!”

“Hello, Whitney, old boy!”

The greeting sprang from their lips simultaneously, and after he had tossed his hat and cane to his valet Travers Gladwin continued:

“Didn’t expect to see me so soon, did you, old scout?”

“I should say I didn’t. Why, when I got that telegram of yours to call up Thomas Smith at the Ritz it certainly was some jar to my delicate nervous system.”

Travers Gladwin laughed and rubbed his hands.

“Did it, though?” he cried. “Gave you a real thrill, eh?”

“Exact and specific––a real thrill.”

“Well, you’re lucky––a surprise and a thrill. I’d give anything for a real surprise––I’ve hunted this little planet’s four corners for one and failed to connect.”

“If you can’t achieve ’em you seem to be in the business of manufacturing ’em. Come along now, what’s all this thundering mystery. I’m shot to pieces with curiosity. What’s happened to make you come home like this?”

“Watkins!” replied Travers Gladwin curtly.

“Watkins! What Watkins? Who’s Watkins?”

“Watkins is my man––I mean, Watkins was my man before I found out that he was systematically robbing me.”

“Oh, I remember now. A jolly good servant, though. So he robbed you, did he? But they all do.”

“Yes, but they don’t always get found out––caught with the goods, as the police say. I caught Watkins with the goods and sacked him.”

“But you don’t mean to tell me that you came kiting home from the pyramids and the lovely Sahara desert just because this chap Watkins was dishonest?” said Whitney Barnes, in tones of incredulity.

“No, Whitney,” replied Gladwin, dropping into a chair and puckering his forehead with a frown. “Watkins was only the start of it. I got rid of him six months ago. But while I was on my way to Egypt I learned that Watkins and my lawyer had been in some sort of a secret correspondence before I gave Watkins the bounce.”

“What lawyer? Not ‘Old Reliable’ Forbes? Why, I thought he wore a certified halo.”

“So did I, but I’ve got news to the contrary, and you know he has charge of everything for me––keeps all my securities––has a power of attorney––signs checks and all that.”

“That sounds bad,” said Whitney Barnes, sympathetically. “The old saint could come pretty close to ruining you.”

“Now you’ve hit it,” assented Gladwin. “So I’ve come home to investigate––sleuthing expedition, you might say. Didn’t want him to hear I was coming55and climb out. Now you’ve got the answer to the gumshoe riddle. My plan is to lie low and have you look him up. Nothing else on foot, Whitney? Haven’t gone into mustard or Wall street, have you?”

It was Whitney Barnes’s turn to construct a frown and take on an air of intense seriousness, while his friend smiled at him, thinking it was one of his humorous moods.

“Can’t say I have anything definite on foot,” said Barnes slowly, “but the pater has given me a rather important commission to fulfil, though not exactly in mustard.”

“Well, then,” said Travers Gladwin with a trace of annoyance, “I’d better call on somebody else. I”––

“Nothing of the sort,” broke in Whitney Barnes. “It may fit right in with my plans. It’ll keep me circulating round a lot and that’s just what I want––that and what Bateato is bringing,” as the little brown man entered the room on the run, bearing a silver tray, decanter and glasses.

56CHAPTER IX.THE CURSE OF MILLIONS.

As Travers Gladwin’s valet filled the tall, slim glasses with the fizzing amber-colored fluid which constitutes the great American highball, the two friends stretched their legs and lost themselves for a few moments in aimless reverie. Bateato looked from one to the other, puzzled by their seriousness. He clinked the glasses to rouse them and glided from the room. Whitney Barnes was the first to look up and shake himself free of the sober spell that gripped him.

“What the deuce made you skip abroad in such a hurry, Travers?” he asked, reaching for his glass.

Travers Gladwin sat up with a start, pulled a lugubrious smile and replied:

“Bored to death––nothing interested me––living the most commonplace, humdrum, unromantic existence imaginable. Teas and dances, dances and teas, clubs and theatres, theatres and clubs, motors and yachts, yachts and motors. It was horrible, and I can’t help thinking it was all my dear old governor’s fault. He had no consideration for me.”

“He left you a tidy lot of millions,” drawled Whitney Barnes.

Young Gladwin drained his glass, jumped to his feet and began to pace the room, hands deep in his trousers pockets.

“That was just it!” he flung out. “If he’d left me nothing but a shilling or two there’d be some joy in living. I’d have had to buckle down. There’s variety, interest, pleasure in having to make your own way in the world.”

Whitney Barnes laughed mockingly.

“Go out and tell that to the toiling masses,” he chuckled, “and listen to them give you the ha-ha. You’re in a bad way, old chap––better see a brain specialist.”

“I know I’m in a bad way,” Gladwin ran on fiercely, “but doctors can’t do me any good. It was all right while I was a frolicking lamb, but after I got over the age of thinking myself a devil of a fellow things began to grow tame. I was romantic, sentimental––wanted to fall in love.”

“Now you interest me,” Whitney Barnes interjected, stiffening to attention.

“Yes, I wanted to fall in love, Whitney, but I couldn’t get it out of my head that every girl I met had her eye on my fortune and not on me. And if it wasn’t the girl it was her mother, and mothers, that is mothers-in-law-to-be or mothers-that-want-to-be-in-law or––what the deuce do I mean?”

“I get you, Steve––they’re awful. Go on.”

“Well, I gave it up––the hunt for the right girl.”

“The dickens you say! I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

“And I went in for art,” Gladwin raced on, carried breathlessly on the tide of his emotions and ignoring his friend’s observations. “I went in for these things on the walls, statuary, ceramics, rugs, and tapestries.”

“You’ve got a mighty fine collection,” struck in Barnes.

“Yes, but I soon got tired of art––I still hungered for romance. I went abroad to find it. I said to myself, ‘If there’s a real thrill anywhere on this earth for a poor millionaire, I’ll try and find it––make a thorough search. It wasn’t any use. Every country I went to was the same. All I could find were things my money could buy and all those things have long ceased to interest me. There was only once in all the years I’ve been craving a romance”–––

“Hold up there, Travers Gladwin, you’re talking like Methusaleh. You’ve been of age only a few years.”

“Seems centuries, but as I started to say––there was only once. Two years ago in a trolley car, right here in the midst of this heartless city. Seated opposite me was a girl––a blonde––most beautiful hair you ever saw. No use my trying to describe her eyes, clearest, bluest and keep right on piling up the superlatives––peaches and cream complexion with a59transparent down on it, dimples and all that sort of thing. You know the kind––a goddess every inch of her. Her clothes were poor and I knew by that she was honest.”

The young man paused and gazed rapturously into space.

“Go on; go on,” urged Barnes. “Poor but honest.”

“I caught her eye once and my heart thumped––could feel it beating against my cigarette case.”

“That’s the real soul-mate stuff; go on!” cried Barnes.

“Well, she got off at one of the big shops. I followed. She went in one of the employees’ entrances. She worked there––I could see that.”

“And did you wait for her to go out to lunch?”

“No, I had an engagement. Next day I caught that same car, but she was not on it. I kept on trying and the fourth day she was on the car, looking lovelier than ever. When she got off the car I got off. I stepped up and raised my hat.

“‘Forgive me for approaching you in this impertinent manner,’ I said, ‘but I would like to introduce myself,’ and I handed her my card.”

The youthful head of the house of Gladwin stopped abruptly and slid listlessly into a chair.

“I demand to hear what she replied,” insisted Barnes.

“It wasn’t just what she said,” mused Gladwin,60“though that was bad enough, but it was the way she said it. These were her exact words, ‘Go on, yer fresh slob, an’ sneak yer biscuits!’ How does that suit you for exploding a romance?”

“Blown to powder and bits,” murmured Whitney Barnes, sombrely. “Sorry you told me this––never mind why––but there’s one thing I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time: How about that girl you rescued from drowning four years ago? I remember it made you quite famous at the time. According to all standards of romance, you should have married her.”

Travers Gladwin looked up with a wry smile.

“Did you ever see the lady?” he asked sharply.

“No. Wasn’t she pretty?”

“She was a brunette.”

“You don’t fancy brunettes?”

“She was a dark brunette.”

“Dark?”

“Yes, from Africa.”

“That was tough luck!” exclaimed Barnes without cracking a smile.

61CHAPTER X.THE HEARTBEATS OF MR. HOGG.

In a magnificently furnished apartment on Madison avenue, which Mrs. Elvira Burton had rented for New York’s winter season, that augustly beautiful or beautifully august lady sat writing. I may say that she was writing grimly and that there was Jovian determination stamped upon her high, broad forehead and indented at the corners of her tense lips.

She had just returned from a consultation with two matrons of the same stern fibre as herself. No group of gray-bearded physicians had ever weighed the fate of a patient with more attention to pathological detail than had Mrs. Burton and her two friends weighed the fate of Helen Burton, but whereas it rarely happens that pork is prescribed in a delicate case, the result of that petticoated conclave was that Hogg was prescribed for the flower-like ward of the leader of Omaha’s socially elect.

While Mrs. Burton had done most of the talking, her two friends who had broken into New York’s next-to-the-top layer of society by means of the hyphens with which they coupled the names of their62first and second husbands; her two friends, I say, had managed to wedge in a word or two––all in favor of Jabez Hogg.

The guardian of the two prettiest girls who had ever debutanted in the Nebraska metropolis emerged from that conference on fire with resolve. She would marry Helen to Mr. Hogg, thus link together the Hogg and Burton millions and thereby create an alliance that would take its place beside any in the country in the matter of bank account.

So confident was she of the power of her will that she did not even remove her wraps before she sat down to answer Jabez Hogg’s letter. Nor did she bother to ask her maid if Helen and Sadie had returned from their ride. She did not care to discuss the matter with them. She had decided. It remained only for weaker wills to yield.

Beginning with a regal flourish of the pen, she wrote:

“My Dear Mr. Hogg: I received this morning your courteous note, begging me to persuade Helen to give you a final answer. It pains me deeply that you should suffer so from her neglect––after all your kindness. I trust that you will forgive it on the score of her youth. She is very young and her head has been turned with too much flattery. She shall be yours––that I can promise you. When you come on for your annual slaughter-house directors’ meeting you may bring the ring. I have already given the63order for the engraving of the engagement announcements, and I will arrange to give a reception and dance for Helen at the Plaza. I do not know how to thank you for putting your French car at our disposal. It has saved us a great deal of annoyance and bother. Helen has spoken often of your thoughtfulness”–––

Mrs. Burton stayed her flying pen and grimly read the last sentence aloud. It was not the strict truth, as she was writing it. Helen had spoken frequently of the convenience of the car, but she had added that she could never ride in it without feeling that she was going to run over a pig and hear it squeal.

Mrs. Burton did not waver for more than an instant, however. In a way of speaking she gripped her conscience by the neck, strangled it, and threw it into the discard. Then she continued with her letter:

“I have been looking at houses on the avenue and would suggest that you try and negotiate for the Gladwin mansion. The owner lives abroad, and while it is not in the market I am advised that the young man would be glad to get rid of it. He is said to be living a fast life in Paris, and while he was left a great fortune he would probably be glad to get the ready money. I know of no finer home in New York for you to settle down in after your honeymoon.“Thanking you again for your constant thoughtfulness64and hoping that you will now banish every doubt from your mind, I remain,“Faithfully yours,“Elvira Burton.”

“Thanking you again for your constant thoughtfulness64and hoping that you will now banish every doubt from your mind, I remain,

“Faithfully yours,“Elvira Burton.”

The smile with which Mrs. Burton sealed this letter and delivered it to her maid was more than a smile of triumph. It was a positively fiendish smile of victory.

65CHAPTER XI.GAINSBOROUGH “BLUE BOY.”

Having discounted the romantic element of his thrilling rescue at Narragansett Pier, Travers Gladwin fell into a moody silence. The more volatile Barnes felt the influence and strove to fight it off. While he, too, had been set upon the trail of romance at the behest of his father, he felt it was too early to indulge in pessimistic reveries, so he groped for another subject with which to revive the interest of his friend.

“I say, Travers,” he led off, rising from his chair and indicating the walls with a sweep of his hand, “as I remarked before, you’ve got a wonderful collection here.”

“Yes,” assented the young millionaire without animation, “but, asIsaid before, I soon got tired of it. The pastime of collecting pictures became a burden, and I was glad to get abroad and forget it.”

“Well,” said Barnes, “I guess the only thing for you to do is to go to work at something.”

“I know it,” grumbled Gladwin, “but what’s the incentive? I don’t want any more money––what I66have now is the biggest sort of a nuisance. Just see the trouble I’m in for with my lawyer and that man Watkins, though to tell you the truth I am beginning to enjoy the novelty of that.”

The young man got up and assumed a more lively expression.

“Do you know, Whitney,” he ran on, “this travelling incognito isn’t half bad. They are really getting suspicious of me at the Ritz.”

“But surely some one there ought to know you.”

“Not a soul! It was opened while I was abroad. You know I registered as Thomas Smith and I even took a chance and went down into the grill room for lunch. And there, Whitney,” cried Gladwin with an explosive burst of enthusiasm, “I nearly got a thrill––another one like that on the trolley car. The last place you’d expect it, too, in the midst of stiff formality and waiters so cold and haughty they might have risen from the dead.”

“I suppose this was the ravishing girl at the cigar counter?” said Barnes, ironically.

“Nothing of the sort––never smoked a cigar in her life––I mean, that is, well, something entirely different. But she was a beauty! Golden bronze hair––Titian never painted anything like it; the bluest eyes behind the most wonderful dark lashes, creamy white skin”–––

“And you followed her to a cloak factory, where you found”–––

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