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CHAPTER XXV.PHELAN MEETS HIS UNIFORM AGAIN.
About the time the Gladwin mansion was ringing with the shrill staccato outbursts of Mrs. Elvira Burton, the owner of that luxurious dwelling was leaning against the Central Park wall a few blocks away engaged in earnest conversation with a small boy.
“You ought to be in bed,” the young man was saying, severely, looking down at the lad and noting how thinly he was clad and yet how little he appeared to suffer from the sting of the chill night air.
“Bed nuttin’,” responded the boy, curtly. “I’m lookin’ fer me dog. Did yez seen him go by––he’s a t’oroughbred an’ lost one ear battlin’ with a bull.”
“Oh, so you’re her brother, then,” laughed Gladwin.
“Who’s brudder?” asked the boy, suspiciously.
“May’s,” said Gladwin, “or I should say the brother of Miss May Henny.”
“Hully gee!” ejaculated the boy. “Did dat kid skin out too after me an’ the old man tellin’ her to stay in bed an’ shut up her bellerin?”
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“Yes,” said Gladwin, “and the young lady, with my aid, found the valuable animal you are searching for––a black dog with a white spot over the right eye and no tail.”
“Hully gee!” cried the boy, ecstatically. “She found him, eh? Well, who’d a-t’ought it, an’ me lookin’ fer him tree hours. Where did she find him, officer? His name’s Mike––named after me old man’s boss what bites nails.”
“We found him in the park in company with a disreputable friend,” said Gladwin.
“A yaller mut?” asked the boy, with a contemptuous emphasis on themut. “Dat’s the janitor’s dog an’ he’s nottin’ but a tramp. I wisht he’d fall in de river an’ get et by a catfish.”
“I wouldn’t wish him all that hard luck,” laughed Gladwin, “for he had a large bone he was sharing with Mike. I was watching them over the park wall when May came along. I sent them all, and the bone, home in a taxicab.”
“In a which?” ejaculated the boy, while his eyes popped.
“In a taxi,” said Gladwin, lightly.
“Aw, say,” and the little chap’s jaw fell, “now I know you’re kiddin’. Where’d May git the price of a taxi, an’”–––
“Oh, I arranged all that,” the uniformed mystery explained reassuringly, “and if you’d like I’ll call one for you. You look pretty tired. I guess161you’ve walked a good many miles on the trail of Mike.”
The youngster tried to speak, but could not. The very thought of a ride in a taxicab froze his brain. Gladwin took him by the hand and led him to the curb.
“Now, would you prefer a yellow or a red one?” he asked. “There’s all kinds going by.”
“Yaller,” cried the boy. “I likes them best.”
They had only a moment to wait, when one of the mystic yellow hue cruised round a corner and came toward them. Gladwin hailed it and the chauffeur stopped with a wondering look at the pair.
Gladwin had a bill ready in his hand and passed it up to the chauffeur.
“Take this boy over to No. 287 East Eightieth street,” commanded Gladwin, “and whatever you’ve got left out of the tenspot above what the meter registers, split the change with the boy. And as for you son, patting the urchin on the head, you keep your eye peeled on the meter.”
“Gee! Will I?” responded the boy, and as Gladwin opened the door he hopped in and took up a perch where he could best observe the fascinating operations of the register.
The chauffeur, a bullet-headed, cross-eyed individual, squinted at the bill half a dozen times before he stowed it away in his pocket and set the meter. Then he made a swift, fierce scrutiny of Travers162Gladwin’s face, shook his head, swallowed a mouthful of oaths, threw in the clutch and spurted diagonally for the cross street.
As he vanished, the uniformed similitude of Officer 666 consulted his watch, made out that it was almost 10.30 and strode rapidly in the direction of his home. He wore a smile that was fairly refulgent.
“Wouldn’t have missed this night patrol for a hundred thousand,” he said inwardly––“and they say that the life of a patrolman is a monotonous drudgery.”
Arriving at the stoop of his home he reconnoitered the avenue in both directions and then looked up at the black windows of the house. A sudden lull had come upon the neighborhood and there seemed not a soul stirring. He sped lightly up the stoop and let himself in. He was surprised to find the lights burning brilliantly in the drawing-room and no sign of Barnes. The heavy curtains, he saw, were carefully arranged to prevent the merest ray of light from showing outside. He took the further precaution, however, of turning off all but the single globe in one lamp.
He speculated on the disappearance of Barnes until he heard a stealthy step approaching through the corridor that led to the kitchen. Without noise he glided to the window and concealed himself behind the curtains.
He had scarcely hidden himself when the hinged163panel that answered for a door opened slowly and the countenance of Michael Phelan protruded itself into the room. The Phelan shoulders and embonpoint, still in negligee, followed. Taking a cautious step forward he uttered behind his hand:
“Pst! Pst! Hey, youse there!”
There was no answer, and Phelan worked his head round like a wary weazel, muttering:
“Who was that woman, I wonder? She must have took that Slim Jim away with her. Musha! Musha! If they should call the police. Bad cess to that feller an’ his five hundred dollar bill. Murther! Murther! I’m done fer!”
Travers Gladwin had stepped out of the folds of the curtain.
“Hey, there!” he blurted. “What are youse up to?”
“Howly Saint Pathrick! I’m gone now, sure!” groaned Phelan, and trembled where he stood.
“Come, come, Officer 666,” laughed Gladwin, “I’m only your ghost.”
Phelan exhaled a tremendous sigh of relief.
“The Lord be praised if it ain’t yez!” he exclaimed, delightedly. “But where did ye get that disguise?”
“At a hair store––Madam Flynn’s on Avenue A––do you like it?” laughed the young man. “I didn’t want any of my friends or neighbors to recognize me, you know.”
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“But fer the love o’ heaven where have yez been all the time?” asked Phelan, sinking into a chair and breathing hard.
“Patrolling my beat––I mean your beat,” returned the young man, “and keeping my eye out for my friend the burglar. Oh, I’ve had quite a party. When I got hungry I sent to the Plaza for lunch and sat on the park wall and ate it. And, by the way, I saw a friend of mine coming along in an automobile and I arrested him for speeding.”
“What!” Phelan exploded, jumping to his feet and turning white as his boiled shirt.
“Yes, nabbed him for breaking the speed limit,” Gladwin nodded, leaning back against a table and lighting a cigarette.
“Fer, fer, fer breakin’ the speed limit; fer, fer––yez made an arrest?”
“Exactly! He was going so slow he deserved to be arrested, and what’s more, he was making love to a pretty girl without shame. I got in and told him to drive me to the station.”
Phelan threw up his hands with a groan.
“An’ did yez take him to the station?”
“How could I?” chuckled Gladwin. “I didn’t know where it was––that is, your station––so I told him most any would do. We rode about a bit and as he didn’t seem anxious to be locked up, I compromised for fifty dollars. It was really quite simple, Phelan, and if I’d only had more time I might have got back that five hundred.”
“GIVE ME ME UNIFORM AN’ LET ME GIT OUT OF HERE.”
“GIVE ME ME UNIFORM AN’ LET ME GIT OUT OF HERE.”
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“You’ve lost me me job––that’s what you’ve done!” moaned Phelan, while his brain reeled with pictures of police headquarters, trial rooms and ruthless commissioners. “Come, give me me uniform,” he cried, with a sudden accession of passion.
“What’s that?” asked the young man, quickly, his grin vanishing.
“Me uniform!” rasped Phelan, with a rush toward the young man. “Give me me uniform an’ let me git out of here.”
Gladwin dodged around the table, protesting:
“No, no––not yet. The burglar––that is, my friend––will be here any moment.”
“Your friend?” Phelan stopped, again a prey to bewilderment.
“Yes, yes––I explained all that before. The one I’m playing the joke on. You don’t suppose I’m going to take it off now, do you?”
“Yez can bet your life, yez are,” roared Phelan, with another savage rush round the table. “I’ve had enough of this, an’ too much!”
“Now, just a minute,” pleaded Gladwin. “I assure you everything is all right, and I’m not going to leave the house again. If anything happens so you need your uniform I’ll be right here where you can get it. I’m not going to leave the house. Tell me, where’s Barnes?”
“Who?” said Phelan, more calmly, and pausing in his pursuit.
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“My friend––the one I left here.”
“I dunno––there was a ring at the bell here a while ago and in come a wild woman and”–––
“Great Scott! I hope my friend wasn’t scared off! If that fellow was to meet her here at 10.30––why, it’s after that now!”
“Here! Phelan, quick––help me put these covers on the chairs and things. Over there in the corner, back of the chest. He mustn’t know that anybody’s been here. Hurry, man; hurry! we haven’t a second to spare.”
Phelan submitted to the breathless commands as if he were hypnotized, puffing and blowing like a porpoise as he struggled to slip the linen covers over the chairs. Gladwin worked at top speed, too; and just as he was covering the great chest he gave a start and held up his hand.
“Sh!” he whispered. “There’s a motor stopping outside. You go down into the kitchen and be ready to come up if you hear me whistle.”
“But ye’ll promise yez won’t leave the house with them clothes,” gasped Phelan.
“No, no––certainly not. Be quick now––I’ll switch off this light and step out on the balcony. Close that door tight after you and be sure you switch out the lights in the back hall.”
Gladwin only waited for the disappearance of Phelan and the soft closing of the door when he plunged the room into darkness. He could hear the167click of a key in the front door lock as he groped his way to the window curtains and pressed back into the semi-circular recess that led out onto a window balcony. As he did so he unlatched the heavily grilled balcony window, drew out his penknife and slit a peephole in the curtain.
168CHAPTER XXVI.GLADWIN MEETS HIMSELF.
Standing as stiff and immovable as if he had been turned to stone, Travers Gladwin peered with one eye through the narrow aperture he had slashed in the heavy brocade portière. Still gazing into inky darkness he could hear the cautious tread of two persons. His senses told him that one of the visitors was a heavy, sure-footed man and that the other was of lighter build and nervously wary. His deductions ceased instantly as a flash of light crossed his vision.
For a moment the concealed watcher saw nothing save the incisive ray of light that cut like a knife thrust through the darkness; then as he followed the shaft of light to its source he made out the silhouette of a man in evening dress––a white shirt front, square shoulders that branched off into the nothingness of the cloaking shadows and a handsome, sharp profile that lost itself in the gloom of a silk hat.
He also made out a cane from which the flashlight beamed. It was a new device to the experience169of Travers Gladwin, and he watched it with the same fascination that a man is wont to manifest in the gleam of a revolver muzzle that suddenly protrudes itself from the mysterious depths of night.
The wielder of this smart burglar’s implement did not move as he gashed the darkness with the ray of light, and to Gladwin he seemed inordinately calm. His companion was somewhere behind him, groping, and did not come into the picture until suddenly he found the push button in the wall and switched on the full glare of the electroliers suspended from the ceiling.
Gladwin saw and recognized. He drew in a deep breath of surprise.
It was Watkins, the thieving butler he had discharged in London. His attention did not linger on this familiar soft-shuffling tool of the master thief, however, but snapped back to the big, good looking young man with the branching shoulders and erect, confident carriage.
Used as he was to immaculate exteriors, Travers Gladwin had never seen a better groomed man. He had never seen a man with a quicker eye and more unconscious grace of movement.
It was no wonder that bitter envy gnawed his heart for a little while as there rose again before him the picture of that bewilderingly pretty girl and her passionate insistence that she would elope with “Travers Gladwin” in spite of any and all obstacles.
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That underneath all these splendid sheathings the man had the mean spirit of a deceiver and a robber never entered the young man’s head.
But presently things began to happen with such avalanching rapidity of action that there was not even a second to spare for speculation upon the vast gap between their social positions.
The lights had hardly been switched on before the big fellow put the sharp query to his companion:
“Watkins, is this room just as you left it when you went away with Mr. Gladwin?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied Watkins, with characteristic deference of tone. “Bateato, the Jap, closed the house.”
“H’m,” said the other, laying his cane and hat on a table and drawing from the pocket of his light overcoat a blue print diagram of the house. Casting his eyes about the room, he unfolded the diagram and pointed to it, nodding his head behind him for Watkins to come and look.
“We’re in this room now,” he said, easily.
“Yes, sir.”
“Out that way is the corridor to the kitchen.”
He pointed to the panel-like door which a few minutes before had swallowed the very much undressed Officer 666.
“Yes, sir.”
“And there’s no other way out save through the front door or by way of this balcony behind those curtains?”
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“No, sir.”
“And,” still running his finger over the diagram, “on the floor above are Gladwin’s apartments.”
“Yes, sir, at the head of the stairs––first door to the left.”
“H’m, very good,” slipping the diagram back into his pocket and lifting his eyes to the great portrait of the ancestral Gladwin.
“Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly and with palpable relish, “that’s a Stuart! Is that the great-grandfather, Watkins?”
“Yes, sir,” responded Watkins, without any of his companion’s enthusiasm.
“H’m,” with the same grim emphasis, and off came the overcoat to be carelessly tossed across his hat and stick. His eye fell upon the great antique chest by the wall.
He lifted the lid to inspect its void interior. Glancing up above it, he motioned to Watkins and said:
“Here, help me get this out of the way.”
Watkins glided to one end of the chest and together they hauled it clear of the wall. This done, he addressed Watkins as if he were but a creature to command:
“I can manage alone in here, but I want to be ready to leave by the time Miss Burton arrives. You go outside and wait in the car––and keep a sharp lookout.”
Watkins bowed himself out with his stereotyped, “Yes, sir,” and the door clicked gently after him.
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The now lone invader returned to his interested survey of the paintings that covered the walls, turning easily on his heel until his line of vision embraced “The Blue Boy.”
From his difficult peephole Travers Gladwin could see the sharp, stern features wrinkle with smiles before the intruder laughed lightly and breathed with seeming great enjoyment:
“Ha! The Blue Boy.”
The smile went out as swiftly as it had come and was replaced by an utterly different expression as he swung about and visualized the Rembrandt on the wall above where the great empty chest had stood.
There was reverence and quick admiration in every feature as he bowed and exclaimed with a long sigh:
“Rembrandt! Rembrandt! God!––to paint like that!”
The emotions of this remarkable young man came and went with the quickness of his eye.
While still in the act of outpouring his admiration he whipped from the tail of his dress coat a flat fold of a dozen or more sheets of wrapping paper, shook them out and laid them on the lid of the chest.
With another swift gesture he produced a knife, sprang the thin gleaming blade and walked up to the Rembrandt.
He raised the knife to the canvas with the ease of a practiced hand, when he heard a movement behind him, and turned his head.
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Travers Gladwin had stepped from the sheltering screen of portières and stopped abruptly.
Whatever shock this sudden apparition of a uniformed policeman was to the man caught in the act of cutting a priceless canvas from its frame he managed to conceal by taking tight grip of every muscle in his body.
His eyes revealed nothing. There was no rush of color to or from his face. His first change of expression was to smile.
Dropping the arm that poised the knife, he let himself down easily from tiptoe and turned squarely to Gladwin.
“Good evening, Officer,” he said without a tremor, showing his teeth in as engaging a smile as Travers Gladwin had ever looked upon.
“Evenin’!” said Gladwin, shortly, with an admirable affectation of Phelan’s brogue.
“Do you find something on the balcony that interests you?” said the other slowly, still holding his smile and his amazingly confident bearing.
“You climbed up there to enjoy the moonlight, perhaps?” he added, even more softly, gaining reassurance from the wooden expression that Gladwin had forced upon his features.
“No, not the moonlight,” responded the uniformed similitude of Officer 666, “the other light. I seen ’em go on. This house has been closed for months.”
“Oh, yes, to be sure,” the other shrugged. “You’re174most alert, Officer––right on the job, as they say. I congratulate you.”
“I’ve been watching this house ever since Mr. Gladwin went away,” said Gladwin slowly, unable to make up his mind whether to call Phelan or to continue the intensely interesting dialogue.
His visitor decided the situation for him by coolly lighting a cigar, taking a few deliberate puffs and turning it over in his fingers to inspect it as if it were the only object worth attention in the room.
Gladwin read this elaborate by-play for what it was worth––an effort to decide just how best to play his part––and was pleasantly thrilled with the realization that he himself was so well disguised in the uniform of Officer 666.
So he clung to his own rôle and forgot Michael Phelan.
“H’m,” said the invader, reflectively. “That’s very good of you, Officer. Let me offer you this as a slight token of my appreciation.”
His left hand slid into his trousers pocket and brought up a roll of bills. His nonchalance was a perfect mask as he stripped off one of the bills and held it out carelessly to Gladwin.
On his part, Gladwin’s expression was superbly blank as he reached for the bill, pocketed it and said with his purring brogue:
“Thank ye, sorr! And might I ask who ye are?”
“H’m, that’s good,” chuckled the other, now thoroughly master of himself and utterly confident.
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“Now, who do you suppose, Officer, would come to the front door––unlock it––walk in and turn up the lights?––a thief?”
“They do sometimes,” said Gladwin, cocking his head to one side with an air of owlish wisdom.
The other raised his eyebrows to express surprise.
“Do they really?” he drawled. “You amaze me, Officer. I’ve always supposed they broke in somehow and used dark lanterns.”
“Not always,” said Gladwin, obstinately.
The big man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, puffed his cigar for a moment and said indulgently:
“Well, I’m sorry, Officer, to deprive you of the pleasure you would evidently derive in catching a thief and making an arrest. Now,” with a light laugh, “who might you imagine I was?”
“Well, if I wasn’t sure Mr. Gladwin was across the Atlantic I’d imagine that yez were Mr. Gladwin himself.”
This was said with such laborious canniness that the thief made haste to discover just how the land lay.
“Oh, so you’re sure Mr. Gladwin is abroad, eh?”
“Well, I see be the papers.”
A real hearty laugh escaped this time, and he added brightly:
“Well, Mr. Policeman, I’ll tell you something to help you make a good shrewd guess––Mr. Gladwin is not abroad!”
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“Then yez are Mr. Gladwin, sorr!” cried the young man eagerly, as if delighted at the discovery.
The other leaned back against the table, crossed one foot over the other and said musingly:
“You found me out, Officer––I must admit it. Permit me to thank you again for looking out for my house, and if you don’t mind I’ll double this little reward.”
Again the roll of bills came out and another $20 gold certificate was gathered in by Officer 666, who grinned as he took it.
“Thank ye, sorr!”
The gesture with which this second benefaction was bestowed was a gesture of dismissal and the bestower set off on an easy saunter about the room, humming a tune.
Officer 666 did not move, and after a moment the other casually remarked:
“You don’t seem to be in any hurry to get back to your post, officer.”
“No, sorr––I ain’t in no hurry.”
“Have a cigar, then,” and one was offered with the same assumption of good-natured indifference that had accompanied the tender of the bribes. Gladwin accepted the cigar, took off his cap, dropped it in and returned the cap to his head.
The thief was puzzled for a moment, until it occurred to him that it would suit his purpose best to have this thick-skulled copper in his company rather177than have him go outside and discuss the matter with a more shrewd superior. Therefore he said quickly:
“Oh, officer, could you be spared off your rounds for, say, an hour?”
“Why, yes, sorr; I think so.”
“Well, I want you to do me a favor. I’ll pay you well for it.”
“What is it?”
“You look to me like a chap who could keep a secret?”
“That’s part o’ me trade.”
“Good! Well, then, I’m expecting a call from a lady.”
“Oh, I see, sorr,” and Gladwin forced another fatuous grin.
“No, you don’t see,” said the other, impressively. “This lady is my fiancée.”
“Well, that’s your business, sorr.”
Gladwin was beginning to enjoy the battle hugely.
“You don’t understand,” explained the thief. “I’m about to be married.”
“Oh, yez are about to be married!” with a slight wince.
“Yes, I’m going to be married to-night––secretly.”
“Is that so? Well, I can’t help yez about that, can I?”
“Oh, yes, you can, because I want it kept quiet on the lady’s account.”
“Well, I’ll help you keep it quiet178on the lady’s account!” with an emphasis that got away from him, but was misinterpreted.
“Good!” and out came the roll of bills again and another yellow boy was slipped into the greedy palm of Officer 666.
“Thank you, sorr. But what can I do, sorr?”
“I’ll show you later on. In the mean time help me take the covers off this furniture and make the place look habitable. Hurry now, for I haven’t much time. That’s the idea––brisk. Switch on the hall lights––you can find the button. Then go upstairs and straighten my room.”
Gladwin stopped in his activities as if he had run against a wall.
“Your room, sorr?”
“Yes, at the head of the stairs, first door to the left. Then come back here and help me pack.”
179CHAPTER XXVII.MISADVENTURES OF WHITNEY BARNES.
Just as it had not occurred to Travers Gladwin to ask Michael Phelan to define the limits of his beat along Fifth avenue so it happened that Whitney Barnes went forth in search of his friend without even the vaguest notion of where he might be found.
It is doubtful if young Mr. Barnes knew what a policeman’s beat was. Certainly he did not conceive of it as a restricted territory.
He had gone about six blocks at his best stride, eagerly scanning both sides of the avenue before the thought came into his mind that he might be going in the wrong direction and that he might keep on indefinitely to the Staten Island ferry and obtain never a glimpse of the borrowed uniform of Officer 666.
“But I must warn the chap,” he thought fiercely, “or there will be the very deuce and all to pay.”
Whitney slowed down, came to a full stop and was meditatively chewing the head of his cane when an automobile halted at the curb. A head thrust itself out of a window of the limousine and a musical voice asked:
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“Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?”
Whitney Barnes guiltily jumped and barely missed swallowing his cane.
Volplaning to earth, he looked for the source of this dismaying interruption. He recognized with a start one of the past season’s débutantes whose mamma had spread a maze of traps and labyrinths for him––Miss Sybil Hawker-Sponge of New York, Newport, Tuxedo and Lenox.
Before he could even stutter a reply a motor footman had leaped down from the box and opened the door of the limousine. Miss Hawker-Sponge fluttered out, contrived her most winning smile and repeated:
“Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?”
Her big doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most aristocratically mortgaged dwellings in America.
“It is rather late for a call,” she gushed suddenly, “but I know mamma”–––
“Impossible!” cried Barnes. “That is––I beg your pardon––I should be charmed, but the fact is I was looking for a friend––I mean a policeman. Er––you haven’t seen a good looking policeman going by, have you, Miss Sybil?”
All the coquetry in Miss Hawker-Sponge’s eyes went into stony eclipse.
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“You are looking for a policeman friend, Mr. Barnes?” she said icily, gathering up her skirts and beginning to back away. “I hope you find him.”
She gave him her back with the abruptness of a slap in the face.
In another moment he was again a lone wayfarer in the bleak night wilderness of out-of-doors Fifth avenue.
Indubitably he had committed a hideous breach of good manners and could never expect forgiveness from Miss Hawker-Sponge. She had really invited him into her home and he had preferred to hunt for a “policeman friend.” Yet the tragedy of it was so grotesquely funny that Whitney Barnes laughed, and in laughing dismissed Miss Hawker-Sponge from his mind.
He must find Travers Gladwin, and off he went at another burst of speed.
He covered about three blocks without pause.
A second and far more sensational interruption came from a side street, and again of the feminine gender.
It was a tall, weird looking figure wound in a black shawl and it bumped squarely into Whitney Barnes and brought him up sharply, spinning on one foot.
Before he stopped spinning he felt himself seized by the arm.
Without warning a bundle was thrust into his arms and he had to clutch it. In another instant the weird182figure had fled up the avenue, turned a corner and vanished.
Instantly the bundle that Whitney Barnes held awkwardly and painfully, as if it were a firebrand, emitted an anguished wail.
If that wasn’t a pretty pickle for Whitney Barnes! His cane had clattered to the pavement and he did not dare stoop to pick it up. The anguish from the bundle he held increased terrifically in volume. He could feel beads of perspiration running down his face.
What in desperation was he going to do with that awful bundle? He knew intuitively that the tall, shawled figure would never return.
“My God!” he cried, “I’ll be arrested as the father of it, and what will Sadie say to that?”
It was no wonder that the son and heir of Old Grim Barnes sweated. It wasn’t perspiration. One doesn’t perspire in such awful straits––one sweats, like a navvy.
It seemed ages before he could form the impulse to move in any direction for any definite purpose. He was on the point of making up his mind to lay the bundle on the doorstep when he sensed a heavy step from behind and was paralyzed by the gruff ejaculation:
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
Barnes twisted his head and beheld a big, deep-chested policeman––a haughty domineering policeman––who183showed in every inch of him that the gods had anointed him above the mere ranks of mortal patrolmen.
“Take it! take it!” cried Barnes, extending the bundle toward the uniformed presence. “It’s not mine,” he almost shrieked. “A woman gave it to me––and I have a very important engagement and must hurry.”
Sergeant McGinnis––for ’twas none other––drew back and waved the bundle from him.
“Just a minute, my young friend,” he spoke through one side of his large mouth. “You’ll hold that infant till its mother comes or you’ll go with me to the police station and tell your story to the captain.”
“But I can’t wait,” wailed Barnes. “I’ve got to find a policeman.”
“A policeman, eh? Well, here’s one for you, and a sergeant at that.”
“I mean a friend. It’s horribly important. I’ll give you anything you ask if you’ll only take this howling bundle.”
“None o’ that, young feller,” McGinnis snapped him up. “You’ll give me nothing and you’ll come sharp and straight to the station. Now I know there’s something back o’ this.”
“But I haven’t time,” Barnes objected. “It’s most horribly important that I should find”–––
“Chop it! Chop it! You’ll come with me, and you’ll lug that infant. If you won’t come quiet I’ll slip the nippers on you.”
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Barnes realized the hopelessness of the situation and looked about him wildly.
“Stop that taxicab, officer,” he urged, as he saw one of the vehicles approaching. “I can’t walk like this. I’ll pay the fare––I’ll pay everything.”
McGinnis consented to this arrangement. The taxicab stopped. A few minutes later it bore the sergeant, his prisoner and the still howling infant to the threshold of the East Eighty-eighth street police station.
McGinnis consented to carry the infant as they got out and once inside the station lost no time in turning it over to the matron.
“Hello, McGinnis,” said Lieut. Einstein from the desk; “what’s all this?”
McGinnis explained in a few crisp sentences.
“Is the captain in, Lieutenant?” he asked. “This young fellow is after trying to bribe me.”
Barnes protested that such a thought had never entered his head.
“I simply told him,” he declared hotly, “that I had an important engagement”–––
“Looking for a policeman, he says.”
“For a friend. I may have said policeman––I may have said anything in such a beastly situation. I am sure that when the captain hears me he will understand immediately.”
“That may be true, sir,” said the lieutenant politely, “but the captain is out at present and won’t be back185till after midnight. If you want to, you can sit in the back room and wait for him.”
Further protestations were unavailing. With a sigh of despair Barnes permitted himself to be led to the back room, where he dropped down on a chair and looked savagely about him.
The room was empty and there was nothing to gaze at save four blank walls and a black cat sitting in a corner idly washing its paws. Now and then a door opened, a face peered in and the door shut again. Somewhere a clock ticked dolefully.
An hour passed while the young man sought in vain to enchain his incoherent thoughts. He could think of nothing vividly. He could recall nothing at all.
Whenever the wail of that infant the matron was caring for reached him he writhed and ground his teeth.
In this sad plight he remained until a door near him opened and a man in plain clothes came stealthily in. He walked straight to Barnes, bent down and whispered:
“If you’ve got a hundred-dollar bill about you drop it onto the floor and walk out. The lieutenant won’t see you.”
The individual turned on his heel and went out the way he had come. He did not shut the door tightly behind him. Barnes felt that an eye was watching through the slit, so he lost no time in jumping to his186feet, getting his money out of his wallet and dropping two one-hundred-dollar bills on the floor.
This done, he jammed the wallet back in his pocket, picked up his cane and gloves and opened the door through which he had entered the room. He started warily forward with his eyes straight ahead. He could feel that the lieutenant who sat behind the high-railed-off desk was the only person in the room and he could hear the scratch of his busy pen.
Gaining the street entrance, he drew an immense sigh of relief, opened it eagerly and fairly leaped outside to the steps. As the door shut behind him he thought he heard a sudden explosive laugh, but it meant nothing to him as he hurried along blindly, increasing his pace at every stride.
At the corner of Third avenue he stopped and consulted his watch. It was midnight!
187CHAPTER XXVIII.AN INSTANCE OF EPIC NERVE.
Travers Gladwin scaled the great staircase three steps at a time. Stumbling against a divan he threw himself across it and lay for a few moments stretched on his back with every muscle relaxed. He felt as if he had been buffeted by mighty tempests and overwhelmed by cataclysms. His head throbbed with fever and he felt a sickening emptiness inside.
How was he going to avert the catastrophe of an elopement and at the same time save himself and that charming young girl from a shrieking scandal? There didn’t seem any coherent solution. If Whitney Barnes had only remained with him––at least to lend him moral courage!
Where had the confounded ass gone? Why didn’t he return? A fine friend in need was he!
There was no time to unravel his perplexities and lay any definite plan. He must act, taking his cue as it was presented to him by the racing events of the moment.
He got up from the divan and rushed downstairs. He cleared the last landing, with a momentum that188slid him across the polished floor of the hallway after the manner of small boys who slide on ice. He fairly coasted into the room, but his precipitate intrusion did not in the least disturb his visitor.
During Gladwin’s brief absence that supernaturally composed individual had cut the Rembrandt from the frame and laid it on one of the sheets of wrapping paper he had spread out on the chest. He had also cut out a Manet, a Corot and a Vegas––all small canvases––and hung them over the back of a chair.
As the owner of these masterpieces skidded into the room the thief was taking down a Meissonier, frame and all, fondling it tenderly and feasting his eyes on the superb wealth of detail and the rich crimson and scarlet pigments in the tiny oblong within the heavy gilt mounting.
“Ah, Officer, you are back,” he said easily, as Gladwin staggered against a table and gripped it for support. The methodical despoiler did not so much as turn his head as he placed the Meissonier on the chest and deftly cut out the canvas. His back was still squared to the flabbergasted young man as he continued:
“Come, get busy, Officer, if you are going to help me. Take down that picture over there on the right.”
He pointed, and went on wrapping up the immensely valuable plunder.
Gladwin got up on a chair and reached for one of the least noteworthy of his collection.
189
“No, no––not that one,” said the thief, sharply,––“the one above,” an old Dutch painting that had cost a round $10,000.
The young man took it down gingerly, biting his lips and cursing inwardly.
“That’s it,” he was rewarded, “bring it here.”
Gladwin managed to cross the room with an appearance of stolid indifference and as he handed the picture to the “collector” he said haltingly:
“I take it these pictures is worth a lot of money, sorr.”
“You’re right, I take it,” said the other with a laugh, beginning at once to slash out the canvas.
“Yes, sorr, I mean,you take it!” said Gladwin viciously. The wrathful emphasis missed its mark. The “collector” was humming to himself and working with masterful deftness.
“Now that woman’s head to the left,” he commanded as soon as he had disposed of the Dutch masterpiece. “And be quick about it. You move as if you were in a trance.”
Gladwin saw that he was to take down his only Rubens, wherefore he deliberately reached for another painting, “The Blue Boy.”
“No, not that thing!” exclaimed the “collector.”
“Why, what’s the matter with this one, sorr,” snapped back Gladwin.
“It’s a fake,” said the other, contemptuously. “I paid two old frauds five hundred pounds for that190thing in London a couple of years ago––it’s absolutely worthless from the standpoint of art.”
Gladwin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement and slid from the chair to the floor.
How had this astounding person come by the secret of “The Blue Boy?”
There was a positive awe in Gladwin’s gaze as he sized up the big man––again from his shining patent leather shoes to his piercing eyes and broad, intellectual forehead. He fairly jumped when the command was repeated to take down the Rubens and hand it to him. As he handed it over he stammered:
“I don’t think much of this one, sorr.”
“You don’t?” said the other, in pitying disgust. “Well, it’s a Rubens––worth $40,000 if it’s worth a cent.”
“Yez don’t tell me,” Gladwin managed to articulate.
Indicating the full length portrait of the ancestral Gladwin, he added, “Who is that old fellow over there, sorr?”
“Kindly don’t refer to the subject of that portrait as fellow,” the other caught him up. “That is my great-grandfather, painted by Gilbert Charles Stuart more than a century ago.”
“You monumental liar,” was on Gladwin’s lips. He managed to stifle the outburst and ask:
“Are yez goin’ to take all these pictures away with yez to-night?”