191
“Oh, no, not all of them,” was the careless reply. “Only the best ones.”
“How unspeakably kind of him!” thought the unregarded victim.
“If yez wanted the others,” he said with fine sarcasm, “I could pack ’em up afther ye’re gone an’ sind thim to yez.”
“That might be a good idea, Officer––I’ll think it over,” the pilferer thanked him.
Then he went on with his task of taking the back out of the mounting of the Rubens, showing that he did not trust his knife with such an ancient and priceless canvas.
Gladwin was thinking up another ironic opening when the door bell rang. He jumped and cried:
“If that’s the lady, sorr, I’ll go and let her in.”
“No, you wait here,” the other objected. “She might be frightened at the sight of a policeman––you stay here. I’ll let her in myself,” and he strode swiftly out into the hallway.
192CHAPTER XXIX.IN WHICH THE HERO IS KEPT ON THE HOP.
Travers Gladwin watched the big handsome mis-presentiment of himself disappear into the hallway with every nerve at full strain.
As he heard the door open, then a delighted feminine cry and the unmistakable subtle sound of an embrace, he ground his finger nails into his palms and bit his lips. Every fibre of him burned with jealous hatred of this impostor.
If there had been only more of the brute left in the Gladwin strain undoubtedly there would have been a sensational clash between the two men for the benefit of the beautiful young girl who, Gladwin strove to acknowledge, was the helpless pawn of circumstances. But the refinements of blood rob the physical man of his savage resources and impose a serious hamper upon his primordial impulses.
Helen came into the room with the thief’s arm about her waist while Gladwin stood dumbly at attention, his features hardened and inscrutable.
At sight of his uniform and failing to recognize him in his disguise the girl turned pale and uttered a frightened exclamation.
193
“Don’t be alarmed, dear,” the man at her side reassured her, smiling down upon her, “this is only officer––” He looked up with a laughing expression of inquiry.
“Murphy, sorr,” responded Gladwin, through tightly compressed lips.
“Yes,” the pretender nodded quickly. “Murphy, Officer Murphy, my dear––looks after my house when I’m away. He is one of the city’s best little watchmen and he is going to see that everything is made safe and secure after we have gone.”
Helen breathed an exclamation of relief, but the fright in her eyes lingered as the unconscious feeling struck in that the attitude of the policeman seemed more than a trifle strained.
She carried a little grip in one hand, which the bogus Gladwin took from her and handed to the real Gladwin, nodding significantly for him to leave the room. Turning to Helen, he said:
“But why did you bring the bag, dear? My man told me he found your trunk at the Grand Central Station.”
“Yes,” Helen answered, “but auntie insisted that I go to the opera, so I had to pack my travelling dress. I slipped out of the opera during the entre act, and went home to change my gown. I was so frightened and in such a dreadful state of nerves that I couldn’t.”
A shudder ran through her and she seemed on194the point of breaking down when the man with whom she had chosen to elope drew her to him and said with what had every expression of genuine tenderness:
“There, there, dear! Calm yourself. Why, you’re trembling like a leaf. There is nothing to be frightened about now.”
She yielded to his embrace and he bent down his head to kiss her on the lips.
Whatever he projected in the nature of an enduring osculation was spoiled as Gladwin dropped the bag to the floor with a crash.
The man looked up angrily and the girl gave a frightened cry.
“What’s the matter with you, officer?” the thief shot at him.
“Excuse me, sorr,” said Gladwin, with mock humility, turning away his head to hide his emotions.
As the girl shrank from his arms the thief switched his attention from Officer 666 and led her to a chair, resuming his gentle tones. He pressed her to sit down, saying:
“I am just packing up some pictures. I shan’t keep you waiting long. Now, that’s good; you’re getting calmer. You’re all right now, aren’t you?”
“Ye-es, Travers dear,” she responded with an effort, looking into his face. “I shan’t break down,” she went on, with a nervous laugh. “I’m stronger than I look. I’ve made my mind up to it. The trouble is that my heart won’t behave. It’s beating terribly––just feel it.”
195
He was about to place his hand on her heart when Gladwin was seized with a paroxysm of coughing. The thief straightened up and turned scowlingly upon the young man.
“Say, what’s the matter with you, McCarthy?”
“Murphy, sorr,” Gladwin retorted. “Me throat tickled me.”
“Well,” returned the other sharply, “if you would move around as I told you, your throat wouldn’t tickle you. Get something to pack these paintings in. There isn’t anything in this room––go upstairs and get a trunk.”
“I don’t know where there is none, sorr,” Gladwin objected.
“Well, look around for one––a small empty trunk, and be quick about it.” He spoke with crackling emphasis.
Stung to the quick by the overbearing insolence of this command, it required a prodigious effort for the young man to control his voice. He said with difficulty:
“I was thinking, sorr––suppose––the––trunk––is––full?”
The thief squared his broad shoulders and walked threateningly toward Gladwin. He stopped directly in front of the young man and said through his teeth, slowly and deliberately and without raising his voice:
“If the trunks are full––now listen carefully, because I want you to understand this––if the trunks196are full, then empty one. Do you get my meaning? Take the fullness out of it, and after you have done that and there is nothing more left in it, then bring it down here. Now do you think you get my idea clearly?”
“Yes, sorr,” said Gladwin, dully, feeling that there was no way out of the situation for the moment save to obey. Strive as he might he could not wholly shake off the influence of this splendid big animal’s dominating will power.
And if it affected him that way he didn’t wonder at the spell the man had cast upon the impressionable and sentimental Helen.
He left the room with a sudden spurt and swiftly mounted the stairs, the chief object of his haste being to prevent an extended interview in his absence and a resumption of tender dialogue.
He had scarcely gone when the spurious Gladwin turned again to the girl with his most engaging smile and softest tones:
“You see, dear,” with a sweeping gesture that included his work of spoilation, “I am taking your advice––packing only the most valuable ones.”
“I am afraid, Travers,” said Helen, rising from her chair and coming toward him with all her impulsive love and confidence restored, “that I am giving you a lot of trouble.”
“Trouble!” he cried, with the gushing effusiveness of a matinée idol. “You’re bringing a great joy into my life.”
197
He took her hand and caressed it, adding with the true lover’s frown of perplexity, “But are you going to be happy, dear? That’s what you must think of now––before it is too late.”
It was a magnificent bluff and carried with deadly aim. The girl stopped him passionately:
“We must not stop to talk about that now––there isn’t time. We must hurry, dear, and get away before auntie finds out and comes after me.”
“Do you think she’ll come here?” he asked slowly, while his forehead wrinkled.
“I am afraid Sadie will tell her!”
“Sadie––your cousin? H’m.”
He made no effort to conceal that he was thinking rapidly.
“Perhaps you’d rather postpone it after all, Travers?” she said quickly, while the color rushed to her cheeks and her lips trembled. “If you only thought it best I’d like to tell auntie what I’m going to do.”
“No”; he retorted. “We can’t do that––we’ve gone over all this before. It must be this way, or not at all. Which is it to be?”
“I’ve given you my word, you know,” she said under her breath.
“That’s my brave little girl!” he cried with a burst of feeling, reaching out his arm to embrace her.
Crash! Bang! Biff! Slam! Bam!
There burst into the room Officer 666, entangled in the lid and straps of an empty trunk. It was a198steamer trunk and not very heavy, but Travers Gladwin was far from adept in baggage smashing.
He had wasted so much time in hunting for the trunk that he had sought to make up for the delay by executing what resembled an aëroplane descent.
At the final twist of the staircase the trunk had mastered him and charged with him into the room. As he lay sprawled on the floor with a foolish grin on his face, the discomfited lover turned on him with a voice of fury.
“Officer, what the deuce is the matter with you?”
The intense savagery of his tone made the girl shrink away from him and turn pale. He managed to cover his break so quickly with a forced laugh and an effort to assist Gladwin to his feet that her fear was only momentary.
In the last stage of his downward flight Gladwin glimpsed that he had dropped in barely in time to spoil another touching scene. With a grin of sheer delight, he asked:
“Where’ll I put the trunk, sorr?”
“Put it there.”
The self-styled Gladwin pointed to the right of the chest and set to work to gather up his few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of pelf. He was about to place the flat packages in the trunk when he turned to Helen and asked:
“Do you see any others that you’d like me to take, dear?”
199
“Oh, you know best,” she replied. “Only I should think that you would take some of the miniatures.”
“The miniatures?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes,” said the girl. “They are the loveliest I’ve ever seen and they’ll hardly take up any room at all. If we are going to be away such a long time I think it would be safer to take them.”
It was palpable to Travers Gladwin that the big chap had received a psychic jolt, for his hand trembled a little as he laid down the canvases on the top of the chest and addressed the girl:
“I didn’t know you’d seen the miniatures.”
“Oh, yes, when I was here this afternoon.”
He took this between the eyes without flinching. His voice was marvellously steady as he said:
“I didn’t know you were here this afternoon.”
“You didn’t?” she asked in a puzzled tone. “How funny! You’d just gone out when I called, but two of your friends were here and one of them showed me the miniatures, and china, and plate and lots of things. Why, I left a message for you about the opera––didn’t they tell you?”
The girl stood with her back to Gladwin and the man she addressed slowly turned his head and glanced over her head with a keen, flashing look of inquiry. Gladwin lifted his chin a little and met the look without change of expression.
“Didn’t they tell you, Travers?” the girl repeated.
“Yes, yes; they told me,” he said hastily, still maintaining200his fixed gaze upon Gladwin. There was barely an instant’s pause before he spoke:
“Officer, kindly go up to my room and see if you can find a bag and pack enough things to last a week or two.”
“Yes, sorr.” Gladwin flung out of the room.
He started noisily up the stairs until he saw that the thief had turned his back to him, whereat he vaulted the banister and dropped lightly upon a divan in a recessed niche that could not be seen from the room he left.
The moment Gladwin vanished the thief turned to Helen and asked sharply:
“What time did you see my friends here?”
“A little after five,” replied the girl, recoiling slightly with a look of dismay, for there was a new raw edge to the sharpness of his tone.
“Did you tell them about the elopement?” he said less harshly, but with a scarcely veiled eagerness.
“Why, they knew all about it,” Helen hastened to reply, searching his face apprehensively.
“Knew about it?” he mused, fairly grinding his brows together under the pressure of his agitated thoughts.
“What did you tell them?” he queried steadily, measuring her fresh, young beauty and vowing to himself that whatever struggle impended he was going through with it to the limit of his resources.
“That we were to meet here,” she answered with increasing fear.
201
“That we were to meethere?” he repeated.
“Yes, at half-past ten––oh, was it something I shouldn’t have told them?” she cried, coming toward him.
Once more Officer 666 snapped the tension. He had wriggled around the staircase and found the suitcase Bateato had packed and left for him. Hating to play the rôle of an eavesdropper any longer than necessary he made a flying start and burst into the room.
202CHAPTER XXX.GLADWIN COMES OUT OF HIS SHELL.
“What the”–––
The spurious aristocrat and art collector suppressed his torrid exclamation. The impulse moved him to seize the uniformed butter-in and pitch him through the nearest window. He was big and powerful enough to do it, too.
In the furious glance he got, Travers Gladwin read a warning that in an earlier stage of his career would have made him feel mighty uncomfortable. Now he liked the smell of danger and met the message of wrath without a flicker.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” the thief, having mastered himself, asked, pointing to the grip.
“’Tis the bag you asked for, sorr,” drawled Gladwin.
“I told you to pack it,” said the other, sharply.
“All packed, sorr. Hunting clothes, shirts, ties, socks”–––
He looked up with a boyish grin and the big chap was stumped for a moment. The thief said slowly:
“Now take it up to my room and unpack it.” It was his turn to grin.
203
“What, sorr?” asked the dismayed Gladwin.
“I shan’t want these things after all,” came the velvety rejoinder. “Unpack it carefully and bring it back here. And kindly be more careful of the stairs when you come down––one step at a time,please! Now, what are you waiting for?”
Gladwin withdrew reluctantly, stealing a glance at Helen as he sidled through the curtained doorway. Her eyes never left the face of the man she thought she loved, but whose character was being swiftly revealed to her in a new light.
That resourceful individual waited only for the blue uniform to pass through the portières, when he sprang forward and reached out on both sides for the heavy mahogany folding doors. He brought them together swiftly and softly, then ripped down the portières from the pole, flinging one to the left of the door and the other across the chest.
“Now listen, Helen,” he cried, seizing her roughly by the shoulder. “It may be that we will have to get out of here in a hurry.”
“W-w-w-hy, what’s the matter?” she stammered, wincing at the crushing grip of his hand.
He replied with a swift rush of words that fairly stunned her:
“Your aunt may find it out and try to stop us. Now I shall be on the lookout, but I want you to do everything I tell you––I’ll see if the coast is clear in case we have to go out the back way. In the meantime204I want you to wrap these pictures for me. I wouldn’t ask you, dear, only we haven’t a minute to wait.”
He darted across the room and opened the narrow door that led into the backstairs corridor. Helen stared stupidly after him until he disappeared and then turned toward the chest and went to work wrapping up the precious canvases like one in a trance. She had scarcely started when the folding doors opened noiselessly and Bateato stuck in his head.
Fearing that some harm had come to his master the little Jap had left the Ritz and sprinted all the way to the Gladwin mansion. He was breathless and wild-eyed, yet he had entered the house as silently as a breath of air.
Peeking into the room Bateato noted the ripped-down portières and devastated picture frames. His Oriental mind told him but one thing––robbery. Seized with a violent spasm of loyalty to his master he brushed into the room and exclaimed:
“Whatz thees? Oh, hell––damn!”
Helen was in too good training by this time to swoon, though she wanted to. She started back in alarm and exclaimed:
“Oh, how you startled me!”
Bateato circled round her like an enraged rat.
“You no fool me––I know you tief––you steal picture––I get pleece––much pleece––whole big lot pleece, quick.”
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He headed for the door.
Helen pursued him, crying: “See here! Wait a minute! You don’t understand! Mr. Gladwin!”
The Jap was gone and the hall door slammed after him before she had reached the folding doors. In another instant Travers Gladwin, who had been making a vain hunt for a revolver in the upper part of the house came flying down the stairs and assailed the frightened girl with another overwhelming shock.
Seeing she was alone he threw himself into the breach headlong:
“Miss Helen, just a moment. I’ve been waiting for a chance to speak to you. You must get away from here at once. Do you understand––at once! Don’t waste time talking––go quick while you have a chance. You mustn’t be mixed up in what’s coming.”
The girl felt that her heart would burst with its palpitations of fear, but she was incapable of flight. Her limbs seemed like leaden weights. Some force working without the zone of her mental control made her stammer:
“W-w-ho are you?”
“Listen,” the young man raced on, “and you must believe what I say––this man you came here to meet and elope with is not Travers Gladwin at all.”
She expressed her horrified disbelief in a frozen stare.
“It’s true,” he pursued passionately. “He’s an206imposter! The real Travers Gladwin you met here this afternoon. He was I; that is, I was he. I mean I am Travers Gladwin––only I’ve got this uniform on now. It is only on your account that I have not caused his arrest and a sensation. I can’t have you mixed up in a nasty scandal. I want to save you––don’t you see I do?––but I can’t wait much longer.”
“I don’t believe what you are saying! I can’t believe it! Oh, it’s too horrible!” sobbed Helen, clinging to a fragment of her shattered idol as a drowning man clings to a straw.
Gladwin was on the point of resuming his appeal when he sensed a heavy tread. He had divined that the picture thief had left the room to reconnoitre emergency exits or to learn whether or not the house was surrounded. He had hoped that he might run into Michael Phelan, but did not stop to puzzle out why this had not happened. Backing to the door, he whispered:
“He’s coming––question him. That’s all I ask. I’ll be waiting to see that you get out in safety––trust me!”
He wriggled backward and disappeared through the folding doors.
207CHAPTER XXXI.A VISIT TO THE EXILED PHELAN.
But where, oh, where was the exiled Phelan when the bogus Gladwin went on his backstairs investigation? Puzzled as he was by the fast moving events of the night, stripped of the uniform of his authority, still his police instincts should have warned him of this new character in his dream.
Michael Phelan, however, was busy––busy in a way one little would suppose.
As the gentlemanly outlaw entered the kitchen, Phelan was standing on the tubs of the adjoining laundry, his face almost glued to the window-pane and his eyes uplifted to the fourth story rear window of a house diagonally opposite, through which he could observe a pantomime that thrilled him.
It was late, well past bedtime even for the aristocratic precincts of New York. Yet there was going on behind that brilliantly lighted window a one-man drama strangely and grotesquely wide-awake.
A first casual glance had conveyed the impression to Phelan that a tragedy was being enacted before his eyes––that murder was being done with fiendish208brutality, and he––Phelan––powerless to intervene.
The seeming murderer was a man of amazing obesity, a red-faced man with a bull neck and enormous shoulders, clad in pink striped pajamas and a tasselled nightcap of flaming red.
Back and forth the rotund giant swayed with something in his arms, something which he crushed in his fists and brutally shook, something which he held off at arm’s length and hammered with ruthless blows.
“The murtherin’ baste!” ejaculated Phelan as he switched off the one light he had been reading by and darted into the next room to get a better view from the summit of the kitchen tubs.
Suddenly the mountain of flesh and the debile victim that he was ruthlessly manhandling disappeared from view. For several long thundering seconds the petrified Phelan could see nothing save a dancing crimson tassel, the tassel attached to the nightcap. Surely a mighty struggle was going on on the floor!
Phelan did not hear the light step upon the kitchen stair or the stealthy tread of the big man in evening dress as he pussy-footed his way to the kitchen door leading out into the back yard and found that it was easily opened.
Every sentient nerve in Michael Phelan’s being was concentrated in his eyes at that moment and it is highly doubtful if he would have heard a fife and drum corps in full blare enter the kitchen. He heard209nothing and saw nothing below that upward focal angle.
The man Phelan should have heard flashed the light in his cane only at infrequent intervals. He did not aim its bright revealing beam into the half open door of the adjoining laundry and he was as unconscious of the proximity of Phelan as that unfrocked or de-uniformed officer was of the invader. He returned to Miss Helen Burton in complete ignorance of the fact that the lower regions of the dwelling were otherwise than empty.
But the second he re-entered the room he saw the girl was strangely agitated and that she feared to look at him. Laying down his cane he crossed the room to her side and said in his softest tones:
“Well, you haven’t got on very fast in your packing, have you, dear?”
Helen was leaning against the back of a chair, feeling she was surely going to topple over in a swoon. Summoning all her reserve of nerve power, she strove to reply naturally:
“No. I––I didn’t quite understand how to pack.”
He was at her side now and seized both her hands.
“Why, Helen, what’s the matter? Your hands are cold as ice.”
He spoke warmly and tenderly, while at the same time his eyes were everywhere about the room and he was listening with the wary alertness of a rodent.
210
There was more than a little of the rat in the soul inclosed in this splendid envelope.
“It’s nothing––only I’m faint,” she said tremulously.
“That policeman has been talking to you––hasn’t he?” he said quietly.
“Yes, he has,” she blurted, with a catch in her throat.
“Did he tell you who he was?”
He measured out each word and conveyed the sense. “Did he tell you who he pretended to be?”
“Yes,” the girl responded, scarcely above a whisper.
He took her by the shoulders and turned her squarely toward him, looking down into her face with frowning eyes.
“Now, Helen, I want you to tell me the truth––the truth, you understand? I shall know it even if you don’t. Who did he say he was?”
A feeling of repugnance took possession of the girl and she shook herself free and stood back. Her body had warmed into life again and she looked steadily into his eyes as she answered:
“Travers Gladwin!”
He needed all his great bulk of flesh and steel-fibred nerve to fend off this shock. Not the remotest fancy had crossed his mind that Travers Gladwin might be in New York. It was with a palpably forced laugh that he ejaculated:
211
“Travers Gladwin! Oh, he did, eh?”
The girl had read more than he imagined the sudden contraction of his features and dilation of his eyes had revealed.
“I want you to tell me the truth––you must!” she said passionately. “Who are you?”
“A man who loves you,” he let go impulsively. The desire to possess her had sprung uppermost in his mind again.
“But are you the man you pretended to be––are you Travers Gladwin?” she insisted, compelled against her convictions to grope for a forlorn hope.
“And if I were not?” he cried, with all the dramatic intensity he could bring to voice. “If instead of being the son of a millionaire, a pampered molly-coddle who never earned a dollar in his life––suppose I were a man who had to fight every inch of the way”–––
He stopped. His alert ear had caught a sound in the hallway. He sped noiselessly to the folding door and forced one back, revealing Officer Murphy.
“Come in,” he said threateningly, and Gladwin came in a little way.
“Where’s that bag?” said the thief, with a glare and a suggestive movement with his hands.
“What bag, sorr?” said Gladwin, feeling that for the moment discretion was the better part of valor.
“The one you brought in here.”
“You told me to unpack it, sorr. It’s upstairs, sorr.”
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“Go and get it. Go now––and don’t waste time.”
Gladwin went, determined this time that he must arm himself with some weapon, even if it were one of the rusted old bowie knives of his grandfather that ornamented the wall of his den. He estimated accurately that he would prove a poor weak reed in the hands of that Hercules in evening dress, and while the thought of a knife sickened him, he was impelled to seek one.
As he mounted the stairs the thief strode to the table near the window and gathered up Helen’s opera cloak and handed it to her.
“Now, go quickly,” he urged; “my car is just across the street. There is no time to argue your absurd suspicions.”
“No, I shan’t go,” retorted Helen, accepting the cloak and backing away.
“So you believe that man?” he asked reproachfully.
“I am afraid I do,” she said firmly.
“Then I’ll show you mighty quick you’re wrong,” he cried, as a crowning bluff. “He’s probably some spy sent by your aunt. I’ll get my man in here and will have him arrested after you and I have gone. Wait here––I shan’t be a moment.”
As the door slammed after him Helen ran to the window and then back to the door. She was now terribly alarmed on another score. She feared to go out and she feared to remain in the house. She feared physically––feared violence.
213
Travers Gladwin had found the bowie knife and slipped it into his trousers pocket. Then he had gone down the stairs on the run. As he entered the room and saw that the man had gone he said:
“Is he running away––and without his pictures or his hat and coat. What’s his game, I wonder.”
“He’s coming back––he says my aunt sent you here,” said Helen, but less afraid at his return to the room.
“Never mind what he says,” Gladwin returned, gesturing excitedly. “You must go home––now. To-morrow you can learn the truth.”
“But if I go out he’ll be sure to see me,” she protested.
Gladwin looked about him and thought a moment.
“Do you see that little alcove back of the stairs,” he said quickly, pointing. Helen crossed the room and nodded.
“Well, hide in there,” he commanded. “The curtains will conceal you. If he and his man come back I’ll get them in this room––then I’ll press this button, see?”
He indicated a button and added: “That rings a buzzer; you can hear it from the alcove, and then slip out the front door.”
The girl paused but an instant, then fled to the place of shelter.
214CHAPTER XXXII.IN WHICH BLUFF IS TRUMPS.
Having disposed of the girl for the moment, Travers Gladwin decided it was time to call Michael Phelan to his assistance. There was no telling what this amazing crook might do now. He was too much for him. That a thief and impostor could possess such superhuman nerve had never occurred to his untutored mind. He was a perfect dub to have let the situation reach such a stage of complexity, though the one thought uppermost in his mind was to save Helen from public ridicule and contempt.
He had reasoned it out that just the uniform of Officer 666 would serve him almost as a magician’s wand. He had almost counted on the thief taking one craven look at his constabulary disguise and then leaping through the window––fleeing like a wolf in the night––he, Travers Gladwin, remaining a veritable hero of romance to sooth and console Helen and gently break the news to her that she had been the dupe of an unscrupulous criminal. Instead of which––he ground his teeth, went to the little panel door and shouted Phelan’s name.
215
Mrs. Phelan’s son came a-running.
He had been on his way. The vast girthed individual in the pink striped pajamas and tasselled nightcap had accomplished his awful purpose, but the climax had been anti-climax and Phelan had ground his teeth in rage.
He had been on the point of bursting through the window and somehow scrambling aloft to the rescue of that helpless being who was being ground and wrenched and pounded by that porcine monster, when the monster suddenly rose to view again with a dumb-bell in each hand.
The jaw of Officer 666 slowly dropped as he watched the manipulation of the dumb-bells. There was no passion in the stodgy movements of the great paddy arms. Even so far away as he was Phelan could see that the man puffed and blew and that his vigor was slowly waning. Then suddenly the huge man stooped and held up in plain view a dangling wrestling dummy.
The lone watcher swallowed a savage oath.
“Sure ’twas exercisin’ an’ not murther he was doin’,” Phelan hissed through his teeth.
His anger was white hot. Again he had been the victim of delusion and had wasted heroic emotions on a stuffed dummy that served merely as an inanimate instrument in a course of anti-fat calisthenics.
Every nerve in Phelan’s body was fairly a-bristle216as he made his way upstairs and burst into the great drawing-room and picture gallery.
“Fer the love o’ hivin,” he cried, “give me me uniform and let me out o’ here.”
“Here’s your uniform; I’ve had enough of it,” replied Gladwin, throwing him the coat and cap, “and get into it quick. There’s work for you right in this house.”
“There is not, nor play neither,” snapped Phelan. “I’ve got to go out and chase up a drunk or throw a faint or git run over or somethin’ desperate to square mesilf with the captain. I’m an hour overdue at the station.”
“You’ll square yourself with the captain all right if you just do what I tell you,” said Gladwin eagerly, helping him on with his coat and pushing him toward the window recess. “You go right in there behind those curtains and wait till I call you.”
Phelan took one look at the young man’s face and muttered as he obeyed. “This must be a hell of a joke.”
And just then the thief breezed in again, jerking back on his heels as he caught sight of Gladwinsansuniform,sansmoustache andsanseyebrows. But a glance at that young man meant volumes and there was no limit to his spontaneous resources. He summoned a laugh and jerked out:
“Oh, so you’ve resigned from the force?”
“Yes,” retorted Gladwin, “and let me tell you217that this little excursion of yours has gone far enough. I’ll give you one chance––get away from here as quickly as you can.”
The big fellow curled one corner of his lip in a contemptuous smile, then glanced about him quickly and asked:
“Where’s the young lady?”
“Never mind the young lady,” Gladwin flung back at him. “It was only on her account that I let you go as far as this. Now get out and keep away from that young lady––and drop my name.”
The sneering smile returned and balancing himself easily as he looked down on Gladwin, he said:
“Easy, son––easy. I don’t like to have little boys talk to me like that,” and turning to the doorway behind him he beckoned. The obedient Watkins sidled in and stopped with head averted from Gladwin, who started with surprise at seeing him.
Stepping forward and making sure there could be no mistake, Gladwin turned to the thief and exclaimed:
“Oh, now I understand how you knew all about my house. This is what I get for not sending this man to jail where he belonged.”
“Don’t bother with him, Watkins,” snarled the big fellow, as he noted his companion’s complexion run through three shades of yellow.
“There’s no time to bother with him,” he went on, and reaching out he caught Travers Gladwin by218the shoulder and whirled him half way across the room.
The young man spun half a dozen times as he reeled across the carpet and he had to use both hands to stop himself against a big onyx table. As he pulled himself up standing he saw that Watkins had lifted the trunk on his shoulders and was headed for the hallway.
“Phelan!” he gasped out. “Here, quick!”
Officer 666 came out with the snort and rush of a bull.
“Stop that man,” cried the thief, pointing to Watkins, “he’s trying to get out of here with a trunkful of pictures.”
The man’s hair-trigger mind had thought this out before Phelan was half way round the table. One lightning glance at the thickness of the patrolman’s neck and the general contour of his rubicund countenance had translated to him the sort of man he had to deal with.
“Here––here––put down that trunk,” spluttered Phelan, brandishing his club at Watkins. Watkins dropped the trunk and at a signal from his companion was gone. Swiftly and silently as he vanished, he could not have been half way to the door before the thief urged Phelan:
“Quick––go after that man––he’s a thief!”
“Stop Phelan!” cried Gladwin, who had begun to see through the pantomime. “They’re both thieves!”
Phelan tried to run four ways at once.
219
“W-w-what?” he gurgled.
“It’s a trick to get you out of the house,” said Gladwin with his eyes on the big man, who was calmly smiling and who had fully made up his mind on a magnificent game of bluff.
“What the blazes kind of a joke is this?” blurted Phelan, looking from one to the other in utter bewilderment.
“You’ll find it’s no joke, officer,” said the bogus Gladwin sharply––“not if he gets away.”
“You’ll find it’s not so funny yourself,” cut in the real Gladwin. Then to Phelan, “Arrest this man, Phelan.”
“Do you mean it?” asked the astonished Phelan, sizing up the thief as the highest example of aristocratic elegance he had ever seen in the flesh.
“Of course I mean it,” Gladwin shot back. “Look out for him––there he goes for the window.”
The thief had started in that direction, but his purpose was not escape. The idea had flashed upon him that Helen might be concealed there. Phelan headed him off, whereupon the thief said severely, in a tone that was far more convincing that Gladwin’s most passionate sincerity:
“Now be careful, officer, or you’ll get yourself into a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t let him bluff you, Phelan,” cautioned Gladwin.
“You bet your life I won’t,” Phelan answered,220though he was already bluffed. “I’ll stick close to yez,” he faltered, inching uncertainly toward the thief.
He had come close enough for that astute individual to make out that he wore the same uniform young Gladwin had been masquerading in and he made capital of this on the instant.
“How do you think it is going to look,” he said, impressively, “if I prove that you’ve tried to help a band of thieves rob this house?”
“A band of thieves?” Phelan’s jaw dropped wide open.
“He’s lying to you,” cried Gladwin.
“I said a band of thieves,” insisted the thief. “Why he’s got his pals hidden all over the house.”
“I tell you he’s lying to you,” Gladwin cut in frantically, seeing that Phelan was falling under the spell of the big man’s superb bluff, and at the same time remembering Helen and pressing the button in the wall to warn her that the time had come for her to flee.
“We’re the only ones in this house,” Gladwin pursued, as Phelan gave him the benefit of his pop-eyes before he yielded them again to the stronger will.
“Then they’ve all escaped,” said the thief, easily, thrusting his hands in his pockets to help out his appearance of imperturbability.
“You let one go out, Phelan, and there were two others beside this one.”
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The buttons on Phelan’s coat were fairly undulating with the emotions that stirred within him. In his seething gray matter there stirred the remembrance that Bateato had told him that women were robbing the house.
“You mean the women,” he said, ignoring Gladwin and addressing the thief. “I remember––when the little Japanaze called me oft me beat, he said there was women crooks here, too.”
“He’s lying to you, Phelan,” persisted Gladwin, though with less vehemence, a great feeling of relief having visited him in the belief that Helen had made her escape. “You can have the whole place searched just as soon as you’ve got this man where he can’t get away. There are no women here.”
This last declaration had scarcely passed his lips when a woman’s voice raised in hysterical protest was audible in the hallway.