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“Thank you for the compliment, but I”–––
“Well, I’ll prove it,” the thief intervened, and tossed the gun to Gladwin, who caught it as if it were something hot. “Go ahead and call them.”
“How do you know I wouldn’t call them?” the young man asked, examining the automatic and finding it empty.
“Don’t be a child,” shrugged the other. “You closed these doors, and you butted in about the ‘Blue Boy’ just as that Central Office owl produced his jewelry. Yes, and you stumbled against the chest and knew that I was in it.”
“But I say,” asked Gladwin, abruptly. “How did you come to use my name?”
“It wasn’t safe to use mine, and when I met Miss–––that girl––your name was in my mind––I borrowed it.”
“That’s the thing I can’t forgive you for,” said Gladwin, regretfully––“to deceive her as you did. That was rotten.”
“I don’t care for your opinion on that,” said the picture expert, warmly. “How can a man like you understand a man like me? It can’t be done. We’re further apart than the poles.”
“But you must see, Wilson––that’s the name, isn’t it?”
“It will do for the nonce, kind sir.”
“But you must see that the game is up. If you take my advice you won’t even try to escape.”
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“Then I won’t take your advice,” said Wilson, softly.
“But all these policemen know you’re a big prize. If they find you and you break for it, they’ll shoot––and shoot to kill if necessary.”
The thief flung round on him and his face was suddenly drawn and serious.
“Death, my dear Gladwin, is the very least of my troubles, if it will only come like that.”
“By Jove! I like you––and I hope you escape!”
“I know you do,” said Wilson, shaking his head, “but not altogether on my account. You’re thinking of her––the girl. You don’t want it to be known that she was going to marry me.”
“To be frank, yes. They’re coming now. Quick! Do something!”
The thief seized from the floor one of the portières he had torn down to wrap the canvases in, wound it about him and darted behind the curtains that screened the window. As he vanished Gladwin went to the door and heard the voice of his friend, Whitney Barnes, demanding admission.
254CHAPTER XXXVII.HANDCUFFS AND LOVE.
Helen Burton could not have found a cozier place to faint in than that ultra-luxurious den of Travers Gladwin. Every chair and divan in the place invited one to swoon within its folds.
The young man had ordered his decorator to provide him with a chamber wherein stiffness and formality would be impossible unless one stood erect. The decorator had spent money with a lavish hand upon Spanish leathers and silken stuffs from the near East and the Orient and he had laid these trappings over the softest of swan’s down. Once you sank upon them you could not help a sensation of utter peace and relaxation.
That final and irrevocable blasting of her ideal was a shock upon many shocks that the young girl had experienced within the course of a few hours and that she reached the den on her feet was due more to Bateato’s strength and agility than to any nervous or physical force within her slender body.
The little Jap had fairly flown up the stairs with her in such fashion that she had no distinct recollection255of her feet touching any stable surface. Then he had turned a sharp corner while she seemed to stream behind him like a fluttering pennant, and next she had felt herself sink into a soft, delicious embrace, when her senses left her and she seemed to drop pleasantly through fathomless space.
It was a great crimson chair embroidered with yellow poppies into which Bateato had dropped his burden, then switched on a myriad of tiny lamps suspended from the ceiling by slim chains of different lengths or gleaming from dark niches and embrasures in the tapestry-hung walls.
All these subdued and colored lights mingled to produce a wonderfully soft and reposeful effect, and when at last Helen opened her eyes––and her swoon had been of only a few minutes’ duration––she was sure that the setting was a dream and half expected some impossible creature of phantasmagoria to rise from the floor and address her.
Then she felt an intermittent draught upon her cheek and looked up to see Whitney Barnes fanning her with an elaborate contrivance of peacock feathers that was alleged to have once done duty in the harem of Abdul Hamid, one-time Sultan of Turkey.
She was not sure at first that this strange looking being who fanned her in such an amazing fashion was the young friend of the real Travers Gladwin who had appeared on the scene from time to time during that fateful afternoon, for his features were far from256being in repose. Positive torture was written on his clean-cut boyish face as he wielded that fast fan in his handcuffed hands as if it were a task imposed upon him by some evil spirit.
Certainly there was no grace in the savage gestures of his arms as his wrists twisted and writhed in their shackles, but he stuck to his task desperately, now and then hissing over his shoulder at Bateato to learn why in thunder he didn’t find smelling salts or whiskey or brandy or something with which to restore the young lady to consciousness.
And on his part, Bateato was racing about like a scared mouse, diving into mysterious chests and cabinets or under divans or climbing up the walls to explore recessed shelves. His activities were confined to that one chamber, for a big, implacable policeman stood at the entrance, with orders to keep his eye on the young woman and the Jap and see that they did not escape or attempt to assist the vanished picture expert in concealing himself or getting away.
As Helen’s dazed faculties gradually resumed their normal activities and she realized that Whitney Barnes was a reality, the humor of the situation suddenly struck her fancy and she smiled. She was smiling with eyes and lips when young Barnes turned back his head from another reproach of Bateato and looked to see how she was coming on.
“Thank heaven!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were dead. I wanted to go out for a doctor, but these257confounded policemen wouldn’t let me––yes, and they wouldn’t unlock me. Have I fanned enough? I’m pretty well tuckered out, and these feathers get in one’s nose so. Then this is an extraordinary kind of a fan––they use them in harems or something of the sort, and I’ve never fanned in harems.”
“Please stop, then,” laughed Helen, “and I’m a thousand times obliged to you. If I could only have a glass of water I think I would be myself again.”
Bateato had at last pried into a cabinet that contained a decanter of brandy and strange looking Moorish goblets, and from some curtained enclosure he obtained cold water from a faucet. A sip of the potent brandy and draught of water brought the color back to the girl’s cheeks and the light to her eyes. The change was so reassuring that Whitney Barnes actually beamed and for a few moments dropped all thought of his handcuffs.
“My, but you are beautiful!” he said impulsively. “I don’t blame Travers for going daffy in the Ritz, and do you know your eyes are exactly like your cousin’s!”
Helen laughed in spite of herself at the young man’s headlong gush of words, then became suddenly serious.
“We haven’t time to talk about eyes now,” she said soberly. “You must assist me in telling these policemen how I brought this terrible embarrassment upon Mr. Gladwin.”
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“Nothing of the sort,” retorted Barnes. “He wouldn’t hear of it. He’d cut off both his arms before he’d allow your name to be dragged into such a sensation. And I’d add mine, too, willingly, with these bracelets on them.”
“But that detective said he had a warrant for Mr. Gladwin for eloping with me,” cried Helen, blushing scarlet. “And, you know”–––
“Yes, I know you’re going to weep or faint or something else. Tell me about your cousin––she’s not m-m-married?”
“Sadie married!” ejaculated Helen. “Why, she’s deathly afraid of men. She’s the most timid little thing in the world.”
“Good!” cried Barnes, enthusiastically. “These handcuffs are not half bad, now you tell me that.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Helen, her eyes twinkling.
“Oh, nothing,” said Barnes, trying to look unconcerned. “She’s very young?” he added quickly.
“A year younger than I am,” said Helen, mischievously. There was something positively fascinating about the intense seriousness that had fallen upon the nervous features of Whitney Barnes.
“She’s not too young to marry?” was his next query.
“N-no,” Helen hesitated, “though I suppose you’d have to ask Auntie.”
“Well, you didn’t have to do that,” he said in259alarm. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” he added quickly, “please forgive me.”
“You are forgiven,” said Helen, with a catch in her breath; then resolutely, “but that is all over with. It wasn’t really real––only a bad dream.”
“Of course, it wasn’t real,” sympathized Barnes. “That fellow just hypnotized you––and my eye, but he’s a wonderful looking chap––sort of a Hercules and Adonis all thrown into one. But to get back to Sadie––I’m going to marry her.”
“You are!” Helen half started from her chair.
“Be calm; be calm,” and he waved her down with his shackled hands. “When I say I’m going to marry her I merely state a fond belief I have been cherishing since, m’m––well since a very long time ago to-day or yesterday, for to-day is to-morrow by this time, you know. Now don’t stop me––I say I am going to marry your cousin because I believe in Destiny with a big D. Do you?”
“I did,” said Helen grimly, “but now I don’t.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” Barnes breezed on. “You may not think that you believe you do, but you really do, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the destiny you thought out––as far as the name goes––Travers Gladwin, I mean––comes true after all. But to come back to Sadie and my Destiny. I have really got to marry her––orders from headquarters!”
“Orders from headquarters!” gasped Helen.
“Exactly! My governor––that is, my dad––that260is, the pater––wrung a promise from me, issued a command, a ukase, an ultimatum––said: ‘Whitney Barnes, you go right out and get married and bring home a lot of grand-children.’ No; that wasn’t it exactly––now let me think a moment. Yes, I’ve got it––he said: ‘You’ve simply got to marry and settle down or I’ll turn you out into the street.’”
“Wasn’t that enough to take the wind out of you, when you’d never given the idea of marriage a thought. Simply bowled me over. At first I refused point blank, but when I saw how cut up the poor old dad was about it I shook his hand and said: ‘Pater, done––I’ll go right out and find a wife.’ And I did.”
“What!” said Helen faintly. “You went right out and got married?”
“No, no, no, my dear cousin. I simply found Sadie.”
“And have you asked her? Not surely while we were here this afternoon.”
“Oh, I saw her later––when she came to-night with your aunt, while your aunt was searching all over the place for you. Not that I really asked her then, but we looked at each other, you know, and I think we liked each other––and that’s a big start. I just know we’ll get married––we’re soul-mates! There isn’t any doubt of it.”
“Well, it strikes me,” said Helen severely, “that you’re a trifle conceited.”
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“Indeed I am,” was his startling response. “You’ve got to be, in love. If you don’t think you’re pretty fine how are you going to convince anybody else that you are? But you’ll have to excuse me for a moment––these bracelets are cutting my wrists to pieces. I must find that man who locked me up. You must stay here till I come back––I won’t be a minute,” and the young man darted out of the room with a ludicrous diving motion of his arms as he parted the heavy crimson silk hangings at the doorway and caromed against the big policeman on guard.
262CHAPTER XXXVIII.KEARNEY MEETS HIS MATCH.
There was no turning Whitney Barnes away with a soft answer. His appeals for admission were rising to a strident pitch when his friend opened the door and yanked him in.
“Have you seen him?” demanded Barnes, looking about wildly.
“No,” Gladwin returned. “I think he escaped.”
“Oh, I don’t mean the robber Johnny,” complained Barnes, shaking out his handcuffed wrists. “I mean the damned idiot who locked these things on me.”
“He’s searching the house,” said Gladwin, smiling at his friend’s tragic earnestness.
Detective Kearney came into the room alert as a race horse.
“We’ve been through the house from cellar to roof,” he spat out while his eyes searched every corner of the room.
“I say––look here,” said Barnes, “can you unlock me?”
“No!” Kearney would not even look at him.
“Confound it, somebody ought to unlock me!” exclaimed263the frantic Barnes. “This is the most annoying position I was ever in in my life. My valet even couldn’t undress me with these things on.”
“What’s out that way?” asked Kearney, pointing to the panel door that opened upon the backstairs hallway.
“Kitchen,” said Gladwin, going to the door and opening it.
“Oh, yes,” said Kearney, “the captain’s back there?”
“But look here, detective,” cried Barnes again, “who was that inordinate ass who locked me up?”
“Ryan!” said Kearney, freezing a smile as it formed on his lips.
“Where is he?”
“On the roof.”
“What the deuce is he doing on the roof?”
“Searching it.”
“Well,” stormed Barnes, “I’ll go up there and if he don’t unlock me I’ll push him off.”
He dashed out of the room and up the stairs.
“Funny thing where that man got to, Mr. Gladwin,” mused the Central Office man, with a keen glance from under his heavy eyebrows.
“Yes, those chaps are clever, aren’t they?” returned the young man with affected unconcern. “I suppose he’s miles away by this time.”
“I don’t think he’s gone very far,” rejoined Kearney, his voice bristling with suspicion. “He couldn’t264have got away without the men outside seeing him. We’ve got the block surrounded now. He’s here in this house, Mr. Gladwin––I guess you know that.”
“I don’t know anything of the kind,” Gladwin denied, with a trifle too much emphasis. A policeman appeared in the doorway and Kearney called to him, “Ryan, I thought you were on the roof.”
“Sergeant Burke sent me down,” responded Ryan. “We’ve got the roofs covered both way.”
“Did you see the man you put the bracelets on?” asked Kearney.
“No,” replied Ryan, “but I heard a lot of noise going up one of the back stairways.”
“You better go and find him,” urged Travers Gladwin. “He’s in an awful state.”
“No,” countermanded Kearney, “never mind him now.”
“But you’re wasting time here,” persisted Gladwin. “I can look after this room.”
“Oh, no, you can’t!” Kearney flashed back.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re under arrest. I was after you when I happened to find the other fellow. I haven’t any idea you’ll try and escape, Mr. Gladwin, but a warrant is a warrant and duty’s duty.”
“But that warrant wasn’t meant for me.”
“No?”
Kearney’s eyes widened with surprise. “Was the girl running off with that crook?” he asked quickly.
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“No,” Gladwin corrected, realizing his break.
“Then you better go along with Ryan. Ryan, you take him upstairs and sit by him till I send for you.”
“See here,” the young man began to splutter as the giant Ryan seized him and walked him on air out of the room and up the stairs.
Kearney went to the folding doors and shut them.
“He’s in this room somewhere,” muttered the detective, going to the portières that curtained the window leading out to the balcony.
He was almost touching Wilson when the latter suddenly enveloped him in the portière he had wrapped around himself and hurled the big detective to the floor. As Kearney was untangling himself Wilson darted between the portières, glanced out the window and saw that a leap from the balcony would land him in the arms of three patrolmen. He shook open the window and then shrank back into the far corner of the embrasure.
Kearney was on his feet again and sprang out to the balcony.
“He came out this way,” he yelled to the men below. “Did he jump off?”
Kearney darted back into the room, looked everywhere, ran to the folding doors and flung them open. Then he looked back at the panel door, noticed that it was ajar and dived for it.
“He’s hiding somewhere in this black alley,” he said with an oath, and disappeared.
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A moment later Wilson peeked out and re-entered the room. He had scarcely left his place of concealment when Officer No. 666 burst in.
“Oh, there ye are, Mr. Gladwin!” said Phelan, with a lovely grin.
“Yes, I’m here,” nodded Wilson.
“I just come back with another bunch of cops,” said Phelan, “but I hear the crook got away. He’s a smooth snake fer ye.”
“No, I think he’s still in the house,” laughed Wilson, “and I’d like to have you get the credit of catching him, Phelan. You go outside and report to the captain, then come back here. Maybe I can help you find him.”
“Thank ye, sorr,” said Phelan, obeying the suggestion.
“Here comes another one,” breathed the thief, hearing a heavy tread and crossing the room to the big ornamental fireplace which had never known a spark or speck of soot. There was a mammoth opening in the chimney and Wilson vanished up it as Kearney plunged back into the room.
As the detective entered through the panel door, Watkins in full chauffeur regalia appeared from the hallway.
“Well, who sent you?” Kearney pounced on him.
“I don’t know,” Watkins returned. “Some man––Gladwin, I think, is the name. I was sent here for a lady.”
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“Well, you sit out in the hall and wait,” snapped Kearney, who again proceeded to explore the room, muttering and cursing.
The voice of Travers Gladwin in heated argument upstairs with Officer Ryan became audible.
“I’ll settle that fresh kid!” Kearney ejaculated, and made a break for the stairs.
His departure was Wilson’s cue to let himself down from the chimney. He signalled Watkins, who was sitting in the hall. Watkins glided in.
“By George!” exclaimed Wilson, “we are going it some in here. You certainly are taking big chances butting in. I didn’t think you had the nerve. It’s a hundred to one against me, but I’ve beaten bigger odds than that. You get up that chimney and I’ll plant myself in the chest. Quick, they’re coming down again.”
Watkins went up the chimney with the sinuous speed of a snake, and the picture expert went into the chest with the agility of a wolf spider ducking into its trap.
They were coming from all directions this time––Gladwin down the stairs, about fourteen jumps ahead of Kearney, proclaiming that he would telephone his lawyer and that he could put up $5,000,000 in bonds for bail if need be. Phelan was coming through the front door and Captain Stone through the hallway from the kitchen.
Glimpsing Gladwin, Phelan made a flying dive for him, yelling, “I got him! I got him!”
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They rolled on the floor in a heap.
“Have you got him, Phelan?” cried Captain Stone, rushing through the room and into the hallway.
“I have, sorr,” responded Phelan, proudly, getting to his feet and pulling up his captive.
“What the devil’s this,” bawled Captain Stone, recognizing Gladwin.
“The thief, sorr,” responded Phelan.
“The thief, hell! That’s Mr. Gladwin!”
“W-w-w-what?” stuttered Phelan. Once again he entered into a condition of complete mental paralysis.
“Has he hurt you, sir?” asked the captain, solicitously, noticing that Gladwin’s face was writhing.
“Nothing mortal,” winced the young man.
“What’s the matter with you, Phelan,” the captain jumped on him. “Have you been drunk to-day?”
“No, sorr,” gurgled Phelan, “I”–––
“Don’t try to stop me, officer, I’ve come for my niece,” crashed the shrill voice of Mrs. Elvira Burton. She had seized a dramatic moment for her re-entry.
269CHAPTER XXXIX.PILING ON PHELAN’S AGONY.
Mrs. Burton would have arrived much earlier into the midst of the maelstrom of events at the Gladwin mansion had not Fate in the shape of a tire-blowout intervened.
She had set out from Police Headquarters with Detective Kearney as a passenger and she had urged her red-headed chauffeur to pay not the slightest heed to speed laws or any other laws. He had obeyed with such enthusiasm that the blowout had occurred at the intersection of Fifth avenue and Forty-second street.
Late as the hour was there was a large crowd gathered to hear the society leader of Omaha deliver a lecture in strange French and caustic English.
Kearney had transshipped to a taxicab, which accounted for his earlier arrival.
“Who’s in charge here?” cried Mrs. Burton, sweeping into the room with all sails set and drawing to the storm.
“I am,” replied Captain Stone, none too pleasantly as the gold lorgnettes were waved under his nose.
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“Well, I came for my niece––produce her at once,” insisted the panting woman.
“You’ll have to wait a few minutes,” answered Captain Stone, grimly. “We’re otherwise engaged at present.”
“But I have a warrant––I’ve ordered Mr. Gladwin’s arrest!” she shrilled.
“We’ll attend to that later,” snapped the captain. “We’re looking for a thief who broke in here to-night.”
“A thief!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “Well, I saw him.”
“What?” asked the amazed officer.
“Yes, when I was here before, and there he is now, only he’s got a policeman’s uniform on.”
Mrs. Burton pointed an accusing finger at Michael Phelan, who proceeded to turn livid.
“You saw that man here before?” asked the wondering captain.
“Yes. He was in his shirt sleeves and when he saw me he ran away to hide.”
“Are you sure about this?” asked Captain Stone slowly, turning and scowling at the condemned Phelan.
“I should say I am,” declared the relentless Mrs. Burton. “How could I ever forget that face?”
“C-c-c-captain, I-I-I w-w-want to explain”––chattered Phelan.
“There’ll be time enough for that,” the captain271checked him. “For the present you camp right here in this room. Don’t you budge an inch from it. That thief is somewhere in this house and we’ve got to find him.”
“Give me my niece first,” cried Mrs. Burton.
Captain Stone ignored the request and shouted to Kearney and the three men who had followed him into the room:
“Come, we are wasting time. This house must be searched again and searched thoroughly. I don’t believe you have half done it. Lead the way, Kearney, we’ll begin on the next floor.”
As they went out Sadie Burton timidly approached Whitney Barnes, who was still making the rounds of every policeman in the house and pleading to be unlocked.
“How do you do––what is the matter?” she said timidly, looking up into Barnes’s distressed face.
“I don’t do at all,” replied Barnes, tragically, folding his arms in an effort to conceal the handcuffs.
“Why, you seem to have a chill,” Sadie sympathized, with real concern in her voice.
“I should say I have,” gasped Barnes, “a most awful chill. But it may pass off. Excuse me, here’s a new policeman I haven’t asked yet.” The young man crossed the room to Phelan.
“Have you got a key to these infernal shackles?” he asked, while Sadie looked wonderingly after him.
“I’ve got a key to nothin’,” growled Phelan. “Don’t talk to me––I’d like to kill some of yez.”
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Barnes retreated, backing into Mrs. Burton, who turned and seized him.
“Do you know where my niece is?” she demanded.
“Oh, yes, she’s here, only you’re breaking my arm.”
“Where is she and where is that fiend Gladwin?”
“Oh,the fiend Gladwinjust went upstairs to her. She’s upstairs asleep.”
“Asleep!”
“Oh, I don’t know––go up and find her, that is––I beg your pardon––I’ll lead the way––come, Miss Sadie.”
The handcuffed youth led the procession up the stairs, leaving Officer 666 as solitary sentinel in the great drawing room and picture gallery.
“Well, I guess I’m dished fer fair,” groaned Phelan as he mournfully surveyed the deserted room and allowed his eyes to rest on the portrait of a woman who looked out at him from mischievous blue eyes.
“An’ all fer a pair o’ them eyes,” he added, wistfully. “’Tis tough.”
He might have gone on at some length with this doleful soliloquy had not a hand suddenly closed over his mouth with the grip of a steel trap.
Alf Wilson had come out of the chest as noiselessly as he had originally entered it and good fortune favored him to the extent of placing Phelan with his back to him while his troubled mind was steeped in a mixture of love and despair.
273
As the thief pounced upon the ill-fated Officer 666 he uttered, “Pst! Pst! Watkins!”
That sinuous individual writhed out of the fireplace and came to his assistance.
“Get his elbows and put your knee in his back,” instructed the thief, “while I reach for my ether-gun. Thank God! Here it is in my pocket.”
Phelan struggled in a fruitless effort to tear himself free, but Wilson’s grip was the grip of unyielding withes of steel and the slim and wiry Watkins was just as muscular for his weight.
It was the task of a moment for the picture expert to bring round the little silver device he called his ether-gun. Phelan was gasping for breath through his nostrils, and Wilson had only to press the bulb once or twice before the policeman’s muscles relaxed and he fell limply into Watkins’s arms.
“That’ll hold him for ten minutes at least,” breathed Wilson. “That’s right, Watkins, prop him up while I get his belt and coat off––then into the chest.”
Phelan was completely insensible, but his weight and the squareness of his bulk made it a strenuous task to support him and at the same time remove his coat. Only a man of Wilson’s size and prodigious strength could have accomplished the feat in anything like the time required, and both he and Watkins were purple and breathless when they lowered the again unfrocked Officer 666 into the chest and piled portières and a small Persian rug on top of him.
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While Watkins held up the lid the thief tore off his claw-hammer coat and stuffed that down into the chest. In another instant he had forced his shoulders into the uniform coat, donned the cap and buckled on the belt.
“Now break for it, Watkins,” he gasped, fighting the buttons into the buttonholes. “Take it easy out the front door. I’ll go out on the balcony and call down to the men in the street that it’s all right. Start the engine in the car and keep it going till I can make my getaway. Now!”
Watkins vanished out the door at the psychological moment. Captain Stone and Kearney were coming down the stairs engaged in earnest conversation. So engrossed were they when they entered the room that they failed to notice the absence of Officer 666, whose uniform was strutting on the balcony while he himself lay anæsthetized in the chest.
“How could he have been hiding in those portières, Kearney?” Captain Stone was saying. “I looked through them before I left the room.”
“I don’t know how, Captain,” replied Kearney, “but he was and Gladwin knew it.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Positive.”
“I say, captain, do you know where Mr. Ryan is?” intervened the roving Barnes, who seemed to have bobbed up from nowhere in particular with Sadie in his train.
275
“He may be in the cellar and he may be on the roof,” snapped the captain. “Don’t bother me now!”
“But I must bother you, by Jove,” persisted the frantic Barnes. “I demand that you send that man to unlock me. I’m not a prisoner or that sort of thing.”
Captain Stone ignored him, addressing Kearney:
“Well, if he isn’t out now––he can’t get out without an airship. Still we had better search some more below stairs. Where’s that man Phelan gone? Look out on the balcony, Kearney.”
Kearney stepped to the curtains, pulled them back, dropped them, and nodded, “He’s out there.”
“Very well, let’s go down into the cellar and work up. There isn’t a room in the house now that isn’t guarded.”
“But, dammit, Captain,” exploded Barnes again, rattling his handcuffs.
“Don’t annoy me––can’t you see I’m busy,” was all the satisfaction he got as the captain and the Central Office man left the room.
Sadie came forward shyly as the policemen left.
“Did you find out where he is?” she asked anxiously.
“In the cellar or on the roof. When I get to the roof he is in the cellar, and when I reach the cellar he is on the roof. He’s more elusive than a ghost.”
“Whoever are you talking about?” cried Sadie.
“Mr. Ryan, of course.”
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“But I don’t mean Mr. Ryan––I mean the chauffeur who came for Helen. I heard Mr. Kearney speaking about him upstairs.”
“Oh, there’s a chauffeur after her, too?” said Barnes, enigmatically.
“Yes, and wasn’t it fortunate that the police arrived just in time to save her.”
“The police!” sniffed Barnes in disgust. “A lot they had to do with saving her.”
“Didn’t they really?”
“They did not. They bungled the whole thing up horribly. Why they’d have brought in a parson to marry them if it hadn’t been”––Barnes managed to blush.
“Then who did prevent the elopement?” asked Sadie, eagerly. “I can’t get a word out of Helen on account of Auntie El.”
“Can’t you guess?” said Barnes, mysteriously, looking down upon her with a sudden return of ardor.
“Oh, did you do it?” and Sadie looked up at him from under her lashes.
“Didn’t I tell you I’d do it?” swelled Barnes.
Sadie thanked him with her wonderfully expressive eyes.
“Oh, it was nothing,” shrugged Barnes.
“You’re the nicest man I ever met,” blurted Sadie, with astounding frankness.
“Do you mean that?” cried Barnes, rapturously.
“Indeed I mean it,” admitted Sadie, timidly, backing away from his burning glances.
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“Then you won’t mind my saying,” said Barnes fervently, “that you’re the nicest ma’––I mean girl––I ever met. Why, would you believe it––confound it, here’s that man Gladwin again. Please come upstairs and I’ll finish, handcuffs or no handcuffs.”
278CHAPTER XL.STRIKING WHILE THE IRON IS HOT.
As Travers Gladwin skimmed up the stairs to warn Helen of the arrival of her aunt, he was thinking on four sides of his brain at the same time and revolving together so many lightning plans, that the result was a good deal of a jumble. In consequence, he was wild-eyed, out of breath and more than a trifle incoherent when he parted the crimson curtains of the den and precipitately entered.
“Your aunt,” he began as he checked his momentum and stopped against a table beside which Miss Burton was seated, “but don’t get up––and don’t be frightened. She need never know. I’ll take the blame for everything. I am the Travers Gladwin you were going to elope with, and I’ll go to jail if necessary.”
He paused for breath, while Helen rose from her chair and protested.
“Impossible, Mr. Gladwin. I”–––
“Nothing of the sort,” the young man stopped her. “It is perfectly possible, and I only wish that I were the man you had chosen to elope with. I’d elope with you now––in a minute––aunt or no aunt.”
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“You must not talk that way,” cried the young girl, her face aflame. “You are only saying this out of politeness, a sense of chivalry, and while I appreciate all you are doing for me I could not accept any such sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice!” he retorted, with increasing ardor. “Call it blessing; call it heavenly boon; call it the pinnacle of my desire, the apogee of my hopes––call it anything in the world but sacrifice.”
“Oh, you must not talk to me this way!” exclaimed the girl, sinking back into her chair and covering her face with her hands.
“But I certainly must,” the young man reeled on. “It is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It has come upon me like a stroke of lightning––it may not seem reasonable––it may not seem sane. I can’t help that. It is here––inside of me”–––
“Stop,” Helen interposed again, her voice faint and tremulous. “You are taking advantage of my helpless situation. Why, you hardly know me!” she added, with a swift change of tone as if she had made a sudden discovery. Taking her hands from her face she looked up at him through widening eyes misty with tears.
The young man bit his lip and turned his head away.
“Pardon me,” he said bitterly, after a moment’s pause. “I had not thought of it in that light. It280does seem as if I were taking advantage of you.” He looked at her steadily a moment until she dropped her eyes.
“Can you think I am that sort of a man?” he asked abruptly and the tenseness of his voice made her glance up at him again.
Helen made another remarkable discovery––that he had fine eyes and a splendid mouth and nose.
“Can you think I am that sort of a man?” he repeated slowly, forcing her to continue to yield her eyes to his earnest regard.
“No, no,” Helen returned hastily. “I did not mean it that way––only I cannot quite understand it. You never saw me till a few hours ago, and then––and then I was engaged”–––
She paused and shuddered.
“But that was a case of hypnotism,” burst out the young man, letting himself go again. “He is a marvelous man. I wish I had half of his strength of will and––and good looks. It is past belief that he is what he is, with all his talents, his appearance and his magnificent courage. If it is in my power the police shall not reach him.
“At first my only object was to save you from the dreadful position of becoming the wife of such a man, and also from the scandal that must have followed if your elopement were discovered and he were arrested. But now I must confess that the man compels my admiration, and that I want to see him free for his own sake.”
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“And he is still in the house?” said Helen, anxiously.
“Yes, yes, and here comes your aunt. Now, I pray you, let me take the brunt of this storm. I will ask nothing more of you. I am Travers Gladwin and we were to have eloped––do you promise? For here she is.”
“Yes,” Helen whispered, and then the storm burst.
“So here you are at last, Helen Burton,” came the first roll of thunder from the doorway.
It was not as terrifying a rumble as it might have been had not the statuesque and tightly laced Mrs. Burton lost a good deal of breath in coming up the stairs. She came on into the room with tragic step, followed by Whitney Barnes and Sadie, the latter keeping very close to Barnes as if she feared that her cousin would cover her with reproaches for having revealed the secret of the projected elopement.
“Calm yourself, madam; calm yourself,” began Travers Gladwin, as he stepped between her and her niece.
“And who are you, pray?” asked the majestic woman, haughtily.
“I am to blame for it all,” he cried. “I am Travers Gladwin.”
“What! You are Travers Gladwin! You are the wretch who sought to steal off in the dead of night with my niece and ward. You! You!”
Mrs. Burton looked unutterable threats and maledictions.282Travers Gladwin could not resist a smile, which he hid by bowing low and stammering:
“I must humbly confess to being myself and plead guilty of the crime of falling passionately in love with your niece. I”–––
Helen rose quickly to her feet and confronted her aunt. There was fire in the young girl’s eye as she said:
“Aunt Ella, it is all a mistake, this”–––
“Now, Helen,” Gladwin turned and took the young girl’s hand, “please let me explain. You promised.”
“She promised what?” flared Mrs. Burton.
“She foolishly promised to elope with me,” said Gladwin sweetly, “but when she got here and thought of the shock and grief that her dear aunt might suffer she suddenly changed her mind. I had everything arranged––car waiting, parson waiting, marriage license in my pocket, everything! You see madam, I am the only guilty party. Your niece was the innocent victim of my wiles.”
Mrs. Burton looked from one to the other in complete bewilderment. Helen could only blush and look confused. The immensity of Gladwin’s lie struck her dumb. Sadie was staring at him in open-mouthed amazement. Even Whitney Barnes blinked his eyes and forgot his handcuffs.
Travers Gladwin met Mrs. Burton’s frowning and perplexed stare with a fatuous smile. At last she turned to Whitney Barnes and asked:
“Is he telling the truth?”