99
“I’ll give you an answer, Michael,” she said in parting, “when ye may set up your own home for your own”–––
That was all Phelan heard and possibly all that the young woman uttered, for just then Master Croesus set up a bawl that was most common and vulgar in its utter lack of restraint. There could be no more to the interview that day with young Master Croesus in such vociferous mood, so Officer 666 turned away with a heaving sigh and plodded dolefully along on his beat.
100CHAPTER XVII.TRAVERS GLADWIN IS CONSIDERABLY JARRED.
Taking time out to sense the bruised condition of your heart isn’t a whole lot different from taking time out to recover from a jolt received in the prize ring. Having released that impassioned sentence, “I hope you are going to like his best friend just a little!” young Mr. Gladwin felt a trifle groggy.
Until he had spoken he hadn’t realized just how badly his cardiac equipment was being shot to pieces by the naked god’s ruthless archery.
The fact that the case should have appeared hopeless only fanned the flame of his ardor. He had looked into the depths of two vividly blue eyes and there read his destiny. So he told himself fiercely; whereupon, in the Rooseveltian phrase, he cast his hat into the ring.
He cared no more for obstacles than a runaway horse. His very boredom of the past few years had stored up vast reserves of energy within him, waiting only for that psychological thrill to light the fuse.
As Helen Burton turned from him with the uncomfortable feeling of one who has received a vague101danger signal he paused only a moment before he again strode to her side. He was about to speak when she took the lead from him and, looking up at one of the masterpieces on the wall, said:
“Oh, this is his wonderful collection of paintings! He told me all about them.”
It was what the gentlemen pugilists would call a cross-counter impinging upon the supersensitive maxillary muscles. It certainly jarred the owner of that wonderful collection and caused him to turn with an expression of astonishment to Whitney Barnes.
But that young man was intensely occupied in a vain endeavor to draw more than a monosyllable from the shrinking Sadie Burton. He missed the look and went doggedly ahead with his own task. Helen Burton repeated her remark that he had told her all about his paintings.
“Oh, has he?” responded Gladwin, dully.
“Yes, and they are worth a fortune!” cried the girl. “He simply adores pictures.”
“Yes, doesn’t he, though?” assented the young man in the same vacuous tones.
“And we are going to take the most valuable away with us to-night!”
Here was information to jar Jove on high Olympus. Travers Gladwin came stark awake with a new and vital interest. There was glowing life in his voice as he said:
“So you are going to take the pictures with you on your honeymoon?”
102
“Yes, indeed, we are.”
“Won’t that be nice?” was the best Gladwin could do, for he was trying to think along a dozen different lines at the same time.
“We will be gone for ever so long, you know,” volunteered Helen.
“Are you going to take his collection of miniatures?” the young man asked in unconscious admiration of the colossal nerve of the gentleman who had so nonchalantly appropriated his name.
“Miniatures?” asked Helen, wonderingly.
“Yes, of course,” ran on Gladwin; “and the china and the family plate––nearly two hundred years old.”
“Why, I don’t think he ever mentioned the miniatures, or, or”–––
“That is singular,” broke in Gladwin, striving to conceal the sarcasm that crept into his voice. “Strange he overlooked the china, plate and miniatures. I don’t understand it, do you?” and he turned to Barnes, who had caught the last of the dialogue and shifted his immediate mental interest from the shy Sadie.
“No, I really don’t, old man,” said Barnes.
“Do let me show you the miniatures,” Gladwin addressed Helen upon a sudden inspiration.
“That will be splendid,” cried Helen. “I adore miniatures.”
“They are just in the next room,” said Gladwin, leading the way to a door to the left of the great onyx fireplace.
103
As she followed, Helen called to her cousin:
“Come along, Sadie, this will be a treat!”
But the next moment she was alone with Travers Gladwin in the long, narrow room, two windows of which, protected by steel lattice work on the inside, looked out on a side street.
The girl did not notice that as the young man preceded her he reached his hand under the screening portière and touched a spring that noiselessly swung open the heavy mahogany door and switched on half a dozen clusters of lights. Neither did she notice that Sadie had failed to follow her as her eyes fairly popped with wonder at the treasures presented to her gaze.
On one side of the room there was a long row of tables and cabinets, and almost at every step there was an antique chest. On the tables there were huddled in artistic disorder scores upon scores of gold and silver vessels and utensils of every conceivable design and workmanship. Each cabinet contained a collection of exquisite china or rare ceramics. On the walls above was the most notable collection of miniatures in America.
Travers Gladwin waited for the young girl to have finished her first outburst of admiration. Then he said softly:
“I suppose you know that five generations of Gladwins have been collecting these few trinkets?”
“He never even mentioned them!” gasped the girl. “Why the paintings are nothing to these!”
104
“I wouldn’t say that,” chuckled Gladwin. “It would take a deal of this gold and silver junk to buy a Rembrandt or a Corot. There are a couple of Cellini medallions, though, just below that miniature of Madame de Pompadour that a good many collectors would sell their souls to possess.”
“Perhaps he was preserving all this as a surprise for me,” whispered the awed Miss Burton. “It is just like him. I am afraid he will be awfully disappointed now that you have shown them to me.”
“Or mayhap he has forgotten all about them,” said Gladwin, in a tone that caused his companion to start and color with quick anger.
“You know that is not true,” she said warmly. “You know that Travers Gladwin is just mad about art. How can you say such a thing, and in such a sarcastic tone of voice?”
“Well,” the young man defended himself, inwardly chuckling, “you know how his memory lapsed in regard to that heroic affair at Narragansett.”
Helen Burton turned and faced him with flashing eyes.
“That was entirely different. It simply showed that he was not a braggart; that he was different from other men!”
The words were meant to lash and sting, but the passion with which they were said served so to vivify the loveliness of the young girl that Travers Gladwin could only gaze at her in speechless admiration.
105
When her glance fell before the homage of his regard he took hold of himself and apologized on the ground that he had been joking.
Then he made the rounds of the treasure room, pointing out and giving the history of each precious family heirloom or art object with an encyclopedic knowledge that should have caused his companion to wonder how he knew so much. Several times he slipped in the pronoun I, hoping that this might have some effect in waking Helen from the obsession that any other than he could be the real Travers Gladwin.
But alas! for his subtle efforts, the hints and innuendoes fell on deaf ears. She accepted his fund of information as a second-hand version, exclaiming once:
“What a splendid memory you have!”
Then he gave it up as a hopeless case and led the way back into the other room.
106CHAPTER XVIII.SADIE BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR.
“Ah! Be careful! Don’t go out there!” was the warning that had stopped Sadie Burton in full flight for the treasure room into which her cousin and Travers Gladwin had vanished.
She was more than half way to the door in obedience to Helen’s command when Whitney Barnes spoke. He was sitting on the arm of one of the great upholstered chairs in a gracefully negligent attitude twirling his gold key chain about his finger. He spoke softly but with a mysterious emphasis that took hold and held the retreating miss fast in her tracks. She turned with a frightened:
“Why?”
“Because I would be all alone,” he said solemnly. Then as Sadie took another hurried step forward: “Oh, no, you wouldn’t desert me––you wouldn’t be so cruel! How would you like to have some one desert you?”
This mystic remark caused Sadie to turn around and take a step toward him. She said timidly:
“I don’t understand.”
107
“Then I’ll tell you,” he said, getting on his feet and going toward her.
“No, no!” objected Sadie, and began to back away.
The young man stopped and said in his most reassuring tones:
“Fear not––I am quite harmless, I assure you. Now, I can see that you are in trouble––is that not so?”
“Oh, yes!” Sadie admitted, delighted at this new turn in his attitude. Her first disturbing suspicion had been that he wanted to flirt.
“You see, I’m right,” he pursued. “I would like to help you.”
“Would you?” she breathed, with increasing confidence.
“Of course I would,” he said, earnestly, whereat Sadie lost all fear.
“Then we must hurry if we are to stop it,” she said in a dramatic whisper.
“Stop it––stop what?” The heir of Old Grim Barnes had launched the belief that he was about to start something. There wasn’t any stop in the vocabulary of his thoughts at that minute.
“Why, the elopement!” ejaculated Sadie, exploding a little bomb that brought Whitney Barnes down out of the clouds.
“Yes, of course––to be sure––the elopement––I’d forgotten,” he raced on. “Let me look at you. No, you must not turn away. I must look at you––that’s the only way I can help you.”
108
If he had to take a hand in the business of preventing an elopement he was going to combine that business with pleasure.
“You are sure you want me to help you?” he asked.
“Yes, so awfully much!” she cried.
“Then I must look at you––look at you very closely,” he said, with the utmost seriousness.
“I don’t understand,” murmured Sadie, both pleased and frightened by his intense scrutiny.
“I’ll show you,” said Barnes. “Stand very still, with your arms at your side––there! (my, but she’s a picture!) I’ve found out the first thing––I read it in your eyes.”
“What!” in a stifled whisper.
“You don’t approve of this elopement.”
“Oh, no!” Sadie had yielded her eyes as if hypnotized.
“There, I told you so!” exulted Barnes. “You want to stop the elopement, but you don’t know how to do it.”
“Yes, that’s perfectly true,” confessed the spellbound Sadie.
“Shall I tell you how to stop it?”
“Yes, please do.”
“Then sit down.”
He motioned to a chair three feet from where he stood. The victim of this, his first excursion into the fields of mesmerism, tripped with bird-like steps to the chair and sat down. Barnes went easily toward109her and sat down on the arm. He was as solemn about it as if his every move were part of a ritual.
“Now, please take off your glove––the left one,” he commanded softly. Sadie obeyed mechanically. Barnes went on:
“Before deciding upon what you should do, I’d like to know definitely about you––if you don’t mind.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” asked Sadie, with a brave effort to keep her voice from running off into little tremors.
“Nothing!” replied the seer-faced Barnes. “What I want to discover you may not even know yourself. Allow me to look at your hand, please.”
Sadie yielded her hand with shy reluctance, allowing the young man to hold only the tips of her fingers. Whitney Barnes bent his frowning eyes over the fluttering little hand, studied the palm for a long second, then exclaimed suddenly:
“By Jove! This is extraordinary!”
Sadie started, but her curiosity was greater than her fear.
“What?” she asked, excitedly.
“Really wonderful!” Barnes kept it up.
“What?” Sadie repeated, in the same little gasp.
“See that line?”
He had taken possession of the whole hand now and pointed with a long, ominous forefinger to the centre of the palm.
“Which line?” inquired Sadie, eagerly, getting her110head very close to his as she pried into the plump, practically lineless palm.
“That one,” said Barnes, impressively.
“No.”
“Don’t you see that it starts almost at your wrist?”
“Now I see. Yes. What of it?”
“Why it runs ’way round the bump, or, that is––the bump of Venus.”
“What does that mean?” asked Sadie innocently.
“Oh, a lot. You are very affectionate––and extremely shy.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Sadie, amazed at the young man’s stupendous skill.
“Now here’s a cunning little line,” he pursued. “That shows something too.”
“Does it show how to stop the elopement?” asked Sadie, ingenuously, but making no effort to withdraw her hand.
“Yes, and it shows that you and your friend are”––– He paused to allow Sadie to fill the gap, and she did.
“Cousins––and we live with Auntie––and we’ve been in New York a month.”
“And your cousin hasn’t known Gladwin long?”
“Only two weeks.” Sadie was really awed.
“That’s right––two weeks; and she met him at the”–––
He said to himself that here was a little game that beat any other known sport to flinders.
“NOW HERE’S A CUNNING LITTLE LINE”, HE PURSUED. “THAT SHOWS SOMETHING TOO.”
“NOW HERE’S A CUNNING LITTLE LINE”, HE PURSUED. “THAT SHOWS SOMETHING TOO.”
111
“At a sale of old pictures and art objects,” said Sadie, supremely confident that he was reading her mind.
“A sale of pictures, of course,” Barnes led her on.
“Yes, she was bidding on a picture and he whispered to her that it was a copy––a fraud, and not to buy it. That was the way they got acquainted. But he wouldn’t let her tell auntie anything about him.”
“Just a moment,” cried Barnes. “Here’s a bit of good luck. I’d almost overlooked that line.”
Sadie was on fire with curiosity and looked eagerly into his eyes.
“You meet a dark man––and he prevents the elopement.”
“Perhaps that’s you!” exclaimed the delighted girl, withdrawing her hand and jumping to her feet.
“I’m sure it is,” said Barnes, nodding his head.
“Oh, I’m so glad.”
“But wait,” said Barnes, going very close to her. “Please pay attention to every word I say.Do all you can to get your cousin to change her mind; then, if she won’t, tell your aunt. But don’t tell her until the last minute, and––but here’s your cousin.”
112CHAPTER XIX.HELEN LEAVES AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE.
Helen Burton and Travers Gladwin were almost at the door leading from the treasure room when the young man stopped and confronted the girl, whose eyes were still bright with the anger he had kindled in them. He smiled rather sheepishly as he said:
“Suppose I were to tell you that I am Travers Gladwin and that the other Travers Gladwin with whom you think you are in love is not Travers Gladwin at all?”
Her lip curled and she regarded him scornfully. But she said nothing.
He went on into the other room, holding back the portière for her to follow.
“Why don’t you answer my question?” he insisted as she passed him.
“It is much too silly,” she said sharply. Then in a different tone to her cousin, who still stood by Whitney Barnes, with her color coming and going by turns:
“Oh, Sadie, why didn’t you come with us? Travers has the most wonderful things.”
113
“Then you are not going to answer my question?” Travers Gladwin asked again.
“I said it was much too silly,” the girl returned with increasing vehemence. Gladwin came forward and explained to Barnes and Sadie:
“I have been asking Miss––er––I’ve been asking how she’d take to the idea of my being Travers Gladwin.”
Helen was now thoroughly aroused as she turned:
“Why do you persist in asking such a question?”
“I was wondering,” he said quickly, “whether you were in love with the man or the name.”
“Have I given you the impression”–––she began, haughtily, scarcely able to control her anger.
“Yes, you have,” he said warmly, and with all the dramatic emphasis he could command. “I am afraid you were thinking more of that rescue at Narragansett and your desire to be free of poor Mr. Hogg than you were of––of my poor friend.”
This insult was more than she could endure. She turned her back to address Whitney Barnes.
“Shall you be here when Travers returns?” she said imperiously.
“I am sure to see him before I leave,” responded the young man.
“And would you be kind enough to give him a message for me?”
She had gathered up her fur piece and muff and was moving toward the door.
114
“Delighted,” said Barnes, with a deferential bow.
“Thank you so much. I want you to tell him that I cannot avoid the opera to-night––that I have simply got to go, but that I’ll get away as soon as I can and come to him directly from there.”
“But you can’t do that,” interposed Sadie in a voice that thrilled with alarm.
“But I am going to do that,” cried Helen, her face aflame and her head held high. “And now we must go––I’d no idea we’d stayed so long. Good-by and thank you.”
She had taken a step toward the entrance to the hallway when Gladwin strode forward.
“You didn’t say good-by to me,” he said in an injured tone. Then with a sudden vehemence: “But I am glad you didn’t, for we are going to meet again.”
“I suppose we shall if you are here when I return,” she said coldly and without looking at him.
“When you return?” he said, in quick surprise.
“Yes, when I come back here to-night,” in the same disdainful, snubbing tones.
“You’re going to meet Travers here to-night?” he queried, in palpable unbelief.
“Yes, I am. He wanted me to meet him at the station, but I insisted on coming here.”
“And what time was it Travers wanted you to meet him here? I’d almost forgotten.”
“At half-past ten,” answered Helen, taken off her115guard and submitting unconsciously to his cross-examination.
“Oh, yes, at half-past ten,” he repeated. “That’s right.”
“But you,” pointedly addressing Barnes, “must tell him I may be late.”
“I will,” acquiesced Barnes, a trifle bewildered.
“I hope you will be very late,” cut in Gladwin.
“What do you mean?” she caught him up.
“I mean you have no idea what a mad thing you are going to do.”
“Please”–––she began icily.
“Don’t be angry,” he pleaded. “I’m saying this for your good.”
“I don’t care to hear it.”
“But you’ve got to hear it,” he cried. “To leave your aunt and run off with a man you hardly know––why you must be mad even to think of it.”
“How dare you speak to me in this way?”
If ever a young lady’s fur was up, as the saying is, such was the case with the enraged Helen Burton. If her eyes had been weapons to slay, Travers Gladwin would have been annihilated at a glance. But he stuck doggedly to his guns.
“Well, somebody ought to speak to you,” he ran on. “Can’t you understand that this man is no good––that he must be a scoundrel to ask you to do such a thing, that”–––
“Stop! I forbid you to say any more––to say such116horrible, cowardly things about him behind his back. You, who claimed to be his dearest friend.”
Her anger was suddenly checked by a thought that flashed in her mind.
“Only a few minutes ago you said you were glad I was going to marry Mr. Gladwin, and that you would do everything in your power to help.”
“And I jolly well meant it,” he acquiesced, with a low bow.
“You meant it! Then how could you––oh,” and she started suddenly from him, “why didn’t I see it before?You’ve been drinking.Come, Sadie.”
Barnes turned away with an uncontrollable snicker. Gladwin was stunned. As he saw her leaving him he made a last desperate effort:
“But just a moment. Please allow me to explain. I said I wanted you to marry Travers Gladwin, because I am”–––
“I don’t care why you said it,” she flung at him, “because I don’t think you know what you are saying.”
She fairly sailed through the portières, leaving the young man staring after her in a state of utter mental collapse.
The little cousin had listened to this impassioned dialogue in the attitude of a frightened bird, standing first on one foot and then on the other, struggling with all her small nervous force to hold back the tears. As Helen disappeared, a sob escaped her and she ran forward. Barnes started after her.
117
“Oh, Miss Sadie––just one word!”
“Oh, don’t––please don’t!” she wailed over her shoulder.
“But won’t you let me call on you––just once?” he pleaded, in real distress.
Sadie stopped, gave him one frightened glance, smiled through her tears and burst out:
“I shall be delighted.”
Then she was gone and a moment later the door slammed.
118CHAPTER XX.MICHAEL PHELAN TO THE RESCUE.
The slamming of the front door of the Gladwin mansion struck upon the two young men as a numbing shock. They stood looking at each other with eyes that saw not and with expressions of idiotic vacancy.
Within the span of a brief half hour they had been swept along on a rushing tide of emotions. They had been thrilled and mystified, mystified and thrilled. Nor was there any relief in the reaction. There was more mystery and more thrill ahead that demanded immediate action.
Naturally the bulk of the thrill was heaped upon Travers Gladwin. He was not only fiercely convinced that he had fallen desperately in love, but the unknown beauty who had kindled this passion had revealed that she was coming that night to his home to meet and elope with a villain and an impostor.
Here was a situation to scatter the wits of a Napoleon! It was no wonder that for a few moments his thoughts flattened themselves against an impassable barrier. Whitney Barnes was the first to revive and speak.
119
“Now what do you think of that?” he drew out with a long breath.
“I haven’t begun to think yet,” Gladwin managed to stammer. “I’m in no condition to think. I’m stunned.”
“And you’ve travelled all over the universe in search of a thrill, eh? Now you’ve got one you don’t know what to do with it.”
While Gladwin was groping for a reply to this thrust Bateato breezed in with a swift sidelong rush, carrying a bulging portmanteau.
“Bag all packed, sair,” announced the little Jap, standing at attention.
“Take it back. I’m not going now,” said Gladwin, gruffly. Bateato’s entrance had nipped another idea in the bud.
“You no go?” said the Jap, in surprise.
“No go––take back––unpack.”
“Ees, sair; ’scuse me,” and Bateato started off with his usual noiseless rush.
“Hold on,” Gladwin checked him. “Wait a minute. Don’t unpack it. Leave it in the hall. I may want it at a minute’s notice.”
“Ees, sair,” and the wondering valet steamed out into the hallway and vanished.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Barnes, lighting a cigarette and offering one to his friend.
Gladwin took a turn about the room, puffing nervously at the cigarette. Coming to a sudden stop he faced Barnes and reeled off in a quick volley:
120
“I’m going to marry that girl! I’ve been all over the world, seen all kinds of ’em, and right here in my own house I find the one––the only one, on the verge of eloping with a bogus me. But I’m going to expose that man whoever he is––I’m going to rescue her from him.”
“For yourself?”
“Yes, for myself, and I’m going to put him where he can never annoy her any more.”
“How the deuce are you going to do all this?” asked Barnes, planking himself down into a chair.
“I don’t know,” said the other, “but I’m going to move the whole Western Hemisphere to do it, if necessary.”
“Rather a large contract,” drawled Barnes. “But I say, Travers, if that fellow is going to steal your pictures it sort of sizes up as a case for the police.”
“Of course,” agreed Gladwin. “I was just thinking of that. Where’s that man of mine? Bateato! Bateato!”
Bateato responded with the swift obedience of a jinn rising from a miraculous bottle.
“Ees, sair,” and the little son of Nippon stood stiffly at attention. “Ladies run off in autbile,” he volunteered as his master hesitated.
“Never mind that––I want you to find a policeman,” commanded Gladwin.
“Pleesman––where I find him?” asked Bateato in alarm, recalling his uncomfortable experience with Officer 666.
121
“Try a saloon,” said Gladwin. “And when you’ve found him, bring him here quick!”
“Ladies steal something?” ventured the Jap, starting for the door. “Autbile go fast like winds.”
“Some one is going to try and steal something,” replied the young man. “We must see that they don’t. Hurry, now!”
“Ees, sair. ’Scuse me,” and Bateato vanished.
“That’s the way to do it,” Barnes enthused, rubbing his hands. “Get a policeman in here, and when the other Mr. Gladwin shows up nab him. Then this marriage can’t come off without the aid of a prison chaplain.”
The excitement that for an instant had transfigured Travers Gladwin suddenly left him. A look of dismay spread over his features.
“By Jove, Barnes!” he cried. “We can’t do this!”
“Why not?” asked Barnes.
“Why? Because it would make a tremendous scandal. I’m not going to have my future wife mixed up in any public hoorah for the newspapers. Think of it––her name in the papers coupled with the name of a crook! Her picture on one side and a Rogues’ Gallery photograph on the other. Impossible! The police must know nothing about it.”
“I don’t follow you,” said Barnes. “What are you going to do––kill him and stuff him in that chest? He probably deserves it, but it would he an awfully unpleasant thing to have around the house.”
122
“Shut up! Let me think,” cut in Gladwin.
Then he added with swift inspiration: “Now I’ve got it. I’ll wait outside for her to come and warn her of her danger. You stay in here and be on the lookout for the man.”
Whitney Barnes threw up his hands and ejaculated:
“Good night!” He made as if to start for the door.
“No, no, Whitney,” cried Gladwin, “we must see this thing through together. You wouldn’t want this sweet, young, innocent girl connected with a sensational robbery, would you?”
“No,” Barnes agreed soberly; “neither would I want any robber’s bullets connected with me.”
“You’re a coward!” blurted Gladwin, hotly.
“You bet I am,” acquiesced Barnes, “and I’m alive to tell it. Likewise I may have some marriage plans of my own. But keep your hair on, Travers. Let us do some real thinking, unaccustomed as we are to it, and see if we cannot devise some safer plan.”
“What plan is there?” groaned Gladwin.
“Let us think––concentrate,” suggested Barnes, posing himself with his elbow on one hand and his forehead supported on the fingers of the other. Gladwin unconsciously fell into the same pose, and so they stood, side by side, with their backs to the hallway.
“Thought of anything?” Barnes broke the silence.
“Not a ––– thing,” retorted Gladwin, peevishly.123A broken-legged minute had crawled by when Barnes spoke again:
“I’ve got it.”
“What?” Gladwin asked, uninspired.
“Simplest thing in the world. Why didn’t I think of it before?”
“Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be any good,” muttered Gladwin, without relinquishing his thoughtful pose.
“Listen,” said Barnes, impressively. “Go straight to the aunt and tell her the whole thing.”
Gladwin whirled around and gripped his friend’s hand.
“By Jove, you’re right, Whitney! We can make a lot of excuses for her, youth and innocence, and all that. I didn’t think you had it in you. Come on, we’ll go together!”
Barnes’s face fell and he stammered:
“But where does she live?”
“Where does she live? Don’t you know?”
“No.”
It was Gladwin’s turn to throw up his hands.
“And don’t you even know her name?”
“No.”
“Then how in blazes were you going to call on that girl?”
“By thunder! I forgot all about getting her address,” admitted the crestfallen Barnes.
Gladwin uttered a mirthless laugh and said with sarcastic scorn:
124
“Oh, yes, you had a fine plan! I might have suspected as much.”
“Pile it on; pile it on,” growled Barnes. “I guess the pater has me sized up about right.”
“But we must do something the police will know nothing about,” urged Gladwin. “Let’s concentrate again. Maybe a real idea will break out.”
Again the two young men wrinkled their brows in profound absorption.
They succeeded so well in their effort at concentration that neither was aware of the precipitate entry of Bateato and Michael Phelan, both of whom had sprinted a distance of two blocks. Phelan was puffing like a tugboat and stopped at the threshold of the room to catch his breath. He had prepared his mind for all manner of excitement and had burst in upon a tomb-like silence to be greeted by two inscrutable backs.
“What’s this,” he panted. “Eden Musee or a prayer-meetin’?”
Barnes glanced over his shoulder and frowned.
“Keep quiet,” he said. “We’re thinking.”
Gladwin strove to invent an excuse for getting rid of the policeman.
“What do you want?” he bluffed, as if amazed at the sudden invasion.
“What do I want?” shrilled Officer 666. “I come to find out whatyousewant.”
“I don’t want anything,” said the young man with125exaggerated politeness. “Thank you very much, but I don’t want anything. Good evening!”
“Good evening!” echoed Barnes, with another glance over his shoulder.
Michael Phelan turned purple. He hadn’t indulged in the most exhausting sprint in six months to be made sport of.
“Which one of youse sent for me?” he rasped out.
The two young men pointed to each other, which only served to fan the flame of Phelan’s wrath.
“Is one of youse Mr. Gladwin?” he gurgled.
They repeated the pantomime until Gladwin caught the fire in Phelan’s eye and decided that it would be better to temporize.
“I am Mr. Gladwin,” he bowed.
Phelan measured him from the ground up as he filled his lungs for another outburst.
“Why did yez send for me?” he demanded savagely. “This here little Japanaze come runnin’ wild-eyed down me beat an’ says there’s two women been robbin’ the house. What’s all this monkey business?”
“Bateato is mistaken,” said Gladwin, forcing a laugh.
“No, sir!” cried the Jap excitedly. “Ladies run off quick in big autbile”–––
“Now wait––that’s enough,” Gladwin stopped him.
“You tell me find plece,” persisted the Jap, who saw the terrible wrath of Michael Phelan about to flash upon him.
126
“That’s enough,” Gladwin sought to shut him up.
“You say they steal––I go saloon”–––
“Don’t talk any more! Don’t speak again! Go back to the hotel and wait for me. I’ll send for you when I want you. Stop! Not another word.”
Bateato gripped his mouth with his fingers and stumbled out of the room.
Avoiding the still glowering eye of Officer 666, Travers Gladwin turned to Barnes and attempted to say casually:
“When Bateato gets an idea into his head there is no use arguing with him. There is only one thing to do––don’t let him speak.”
The young man started to hum a tune and strolled toward the heavily curtained window that looked out on Fifth avenue.
127CHAPTER XXI.TRAVERS GLADWIN GOES IN SEARCH OF HIMSELF.
Policeman Michael Phelan was at first undecided whether to pursue the departing Bateato and arrest him as a suspicious person or to remain on the scene of mystery and get to the bottom of what was going forward.
He chose the latter plan upon the inspiration that if he arrested a millionaire he would get his name in the paper and Rose might read of it and come to some realization of the immensity of his official dignity.
He was further urged to this course by the insolent nonchalance of the two young men. They weren’t paying any more attention to him than they were to the inanimate sticks of furniture in the room.
“Well, what did yez send fer me fer?” he broke out again, hurling the words at Travers Gladwin’s back.
“I thought you might like a drink,” replied that young man, turning slowly and smiling upon the enraged bluecoat.
“I never touch it,” shot back Phelan, “an’ that’s no answer to me question.”
128
Gladwin stared at Phelan steadily a moment, his smile vanishing. As he measured the officer’s height and build an idea came to him. His face lighted as he exclaimed:
“I’ve got a great idea! Officer, I want you to do me a little favor. How would you like to make five hundred dollars?”
If he had said four hundred dollars, or even four hundred and fifty, the effect would not have been half so great upon Michael Phelan. The mention of an even five hundred dollars, though, was the open sesame to the very depths of his emotions. Five hundred dollars represented the talisman that would lead him safe through Purgatory into the land of sweet enchantments. The fires of his wrath were instantly cooled and he said feebly:
“Are yez tryin’ to bribe me?”
“Not at all, sergeant,” said the young man gravely.
“I ain’t no sergeant,” Phelan retorted.
“All right, lieutenant,” laughed Gladwin, his good humor increasing as his sudden idea took shape in his mind.
“Don’t call me lieutenant,” said Phelan, with a return of temper.
“Well, it’s this way, captain.”
“Nix on the promotion stuff,” shot back Phelan, the consciousness returning that he was being kidded. “I’m patrolman and me name is Michael Phelan, and I’m onto me job––mind that!”